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Food shortages could turn most of the world vegetarian by 2050, warn leading scientists

Sunday, 16 September 2012 13:50
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The world may have to become almost entirely vegetarian, leading scientists have warned.
 
They claim that spiralling populations mean the will simply not be enough meat for people within decades.
They believe animal based will have drop to just 5 per centof our total calories.
 
'There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations,' the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.
 
It is believed that if current population growth continues, there could be an additional 2 billion people alive by 2050.
 
The report, called Feeding a thirsty world: Challenges and opportunities for a water and food secure world, is being released at the start of the annual world water conference in Stockholm.
 
There, 2,500 politicians, UN bodies, non-governmental groups and researchers from 120 countries are meeting to address global water supply problems. 
The report says dramatic cuts in our meat consumption are the only answer.
 
'There will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories and considerable regional water deficits can be met by a reliable system of food trade,' it states.
 
Humans currently get about 20 per cent of their protein from animal-based products.
'We will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future,' said the report's editor, Anders Jägerskog
 
A UN report released in June likewise emphasized that meat production consumes the lion-share of the world’s fresh water supply, 38 per cent of the world’s habitable land and contributes to 19 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. 
 
The United Nations found vegan and vegetarian diets to be the least taxing on the world’s shrinking resources.
 
 
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McDonald's to open first ever vegetarian-only restaurant next to Golden Temple in Indian holy city of Amritsar

Saturday, 15 September 2012 00:34
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McDonald's will open its first ever vegetarian-only restaurant in the northern Indian city of Amritsar, the fast food chain said today.
 
The world's second-biggest restaurant chain after Subway tailors its menus to suit local tastes, which in India means no beef to avoid offending Hindus and no pork to cater for Muslim requirements.
 
The first vegetarian outlet will open its doors mid-next year near the Golden Temple in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar in northern India, where religious authorities forbid consumption of meat at the shrine.
 
Rajesh Kumar Maini, a spokesman for McDonald's in northern India, said: 'It will be the first time we have opened a vegetarian restaurant.
There is a big opportunity for vegetarian restaurants (in India) as many Indians are vegetarian.'
 
After the opening in Amritsar, the US chain has plans to open another vegetarian outlet near the Vaishno Devi cave shrine in northwestern Indian Kashmir - a revered Hindu pilgrimage site that draws hundreds of thousands of worshippers year.
 
McDonald's in India has a menu that is 50-percent vegetarian. Its McAloo Tikki burger - which uses a spiced potato-based patty - is the top seller, accounting for a quarter of total sales.
Among the chicken-only meat offerings, the Maharaja Mac is also a favourite.
 
'At the moment, India is still a very small market -- we just have 271 restaurants in India and across the world we have nearly 33,000,' Maini said.
'But when you look at the potential of the country, it is one of the top priority countries and we are laying the groundwork for capturing the market.'
 
Hindus, who account for 80% of India's 1.2 billion population, regard cows as sacred. For Muslims, the consumption of pork is prohibited in the Koran.
 
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Benefits of infant circumcision reconfirmed as rates decline

Tuesday, 21 August 2012 03:04
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Evidence that male circumcision has health benefits is growing, even as the quick but often-controversial surgery becomes less common in the United States, say medical experts making new efforts to publicize the benefits.
 
In a study out Monday, researchers say falling infant circumcision rates could end up costing billions of U.S. health care dollars when men and their female partners develop AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections and cancers that could have been prevented.
 
Separately, the American Academy of Pediatrics is about to issue a new policy statement that says infant circumcision has "significant" health benefits, replacing a statement that takes a more neutral stance.
 
"We have a tremendous amount of information coming out about the benefits of male circumcision," says Aaron Tobian, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who is among the authors of the cost study.
 
But rates among U.S. infants have dropped since the 1970s and are likely to keep dropping if more insurers follow 18 state Medicaid programs that have stopped covering the procedure, says the report from Tobian and his colleagues, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
 
The researchers say that if U.S. rates dropped to 10%, the level seen in European countries where insurers don't cover circumcision, the results would include:
 
  • 211% more urinary tract infections in baby boys.
  • 12% more HIV cases in men.
  • 29% more human papillomavirus (HPV) cases in men.
  • 18% more high-risk HPV infections in women.
 
The fallout also would include more cases of cervical and penile cancer linked to HPV, but the highest costs would be associated with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the researchers say. Each skipped male circumcision would end up costing $313 in direct medical bills, and the total cost over a decade could exceed $4 billion, they say.
 
The estimates are based largely on a recent study in Uganda in which men underwent circumcision — a surgery that removes the foreskin on the penis — or remained uncircumcised and then were followed, along with their female partners. Three such "gold-standard" randomized trials in Africa now back up observational studies around the world, including in the United States, Tobian says.
 
The same evidence is behind the new statement by the pediatrics group, says Michael Brady, an expert in infectious disease at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He is on the committee writing the new statement and says the revision is likely to be published online in September.
 
"We are going to say there is now reasonable evidence of benefit. And there are certainly some risks," including bleeding, infection and pain, which the group will make clear should be well controlled, Brady says.
 
"We are going to try to make sure people are educated on the risks and benefits and say that the decision should be based on what the family feels is the best interest of the child." Insurers should cover the surgeries, he says. Religious and cultural differences must also be respected, he adds.
 
But some activist groups oppose infant circumcision, even for children from families who practice it as a religious rite, because they say it is an unneeded surgery that violates babies' rights. "We believe in protecting all babies," says Georganne Chapin, executive director of one such group, Intact America.
 
Chapin questions the studies finding health benefits and cites other studies that do not, but she says parents should let boys grow up and make their own choices. "We don't let parents chop off other healthy body parts."
 
The World Health Organization says that while circumcision is safe for adults, they heal more slowly and have more complications than babies do.
 
Facts:
 
Worldwide: 15-20% circumcised; 80-85% uncircumcised
United States- 60-65% circumcised; 35-40% uncircumcised
United Kingdom- 10-15% circumcised; 85-90% uncircumcised
Canada- 50% circumcised; 50% uncircumcised
Australia- 30% circumcised; 70% uncircumcised
 
Circumcision is widley practiced in South Korea, The Phillipines, the Middle East, South Asian countries and in West African countries.
 
 
 
Source: USA Today
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Good news for chocaholics: Scientists replace fat with FRUIT JUICE to create healthy chocolate bars

Wednesday, 15 August 2012 21:29
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It is great news for anyone with a sweet tooth - chocolate with fruit juice instead of fat has been developed.

The healthy alternative replaces up to 50 per cent of chocolate's fat content with fruit juice.
University of Warwick chemists say the new bar claim will still appeal to chocaholics, after spending months perfecting its 'mouthfeel' - and say it even feels like chocolate.
 
Dr Stefan Bon from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick was lead author on the study published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry
 
Dr Bon said: 'Everyone loves chocolate – but unfortunately we all know that many chocolate bars are high in fat.
 
'However it’s the fat that gives chocolate all the indulgent sensations that people crave – the silky smooth texture and the way it melts in the mouth but still has a ‘snap’ to it when you break it with your hand.
'We’ve found a way to maintain all of those things that make chocolate ‘chocolatey’ but with fruit juice instead of fat.
 
'Our study is just the starting point to healthier chocolate – we’ve established the chemistry behind this new technique but now we’re hoping the food industry will take our method to make tasty, lower-fat chocolate bars.'
 
The researchers took out much of the cocoa butter and milk fats that go into chocolate bars, substituting them with tiny droplets of juice measuring under 30 microns in diameter.
 
They infused orange and cranberry juice into milk, dark and white chocolate using what is known as a Pickering emulsion.
 
However, they admit there is a tradeoff.
The final product will taste fruity, the team admitted - but there is the option to use water and a small amount of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) instead of juice to maintain a chocolatey taste.
The team now plan to let the food industry use the technique to create the healthy bars.
 
 
Source: Dailymail
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Texas college bans pork from campus dining

Tuesday, 14 August 2012 21:39
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That's the message of Michael J. Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College in Dallas. Sorrell didn't ban pork from his campus dining facilities arbitrarily. The decision to stop offering any pork products was based in a much broader institutional philosophy, the president says.

 
"When you come to college, you come to be educated," Sorrell said. "We thought we could do more in the area of promoting healthy lifestyle choices and healthy eating habits."
 
In a brief statement announcing the decision Tuesday, Sorrell put it like this: "Eating pork can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer, sodium retention and heart problems, not to mention weight gain and obesity. Therefore, as a part of our continued effort to improve the lives and health of our students, Paul Quinn College and its food service partner Perkins Management have collaborated to create a pork-free cafeteria."
 
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In a subsequent interview with Inside Higher Ed, Sorrell framed the move as just another step in Paul Quinn's crusade for healthier students, staff and community members. The college had already started reducing the availability of fast food, pork and other fatty and sweet foods, adding salad options instead.
 
After the football team got cut a few years ago, the president turned the field into an organic garden (which has since produced 6,000 pounds of food, much of which is donated or goes to the campus cafeterias). The college has also taken up a number of other projects, like the American Heart Association's Heart Walk and AIDS testing.
 
The health problems Sorrell wants to head off are more common among the demographic the historically black college serves: low-income, minority students. When Sorrell got there five years ago, he couldn't believe the menu.
 
"There was a proliferation of ranch dressing on everything. I mean, it just was typical choices that you would see made by folks who weren't creative enough to manage the economic constraints with the need to create healthy options. I mean, we were no different than many other small colleges that service students from underrepresented communities,"
 
Sorrell said. But campus food is on a continuum. "If I'm a betting person, I bet the future holds a 100-percent healthy dining campus. We're not there yet, but we're gradually working our way there."
 
But the no-pork idea is unlikely to catch on at other colleges, said Rachel A. Warner, director of communications and marketing at the National Association of College and University Food Services.
 
"Colleges and universities will cater to whatever their student population wants," Warner said. "So if there was a large demand, for example, for a specific type of protein or menu item, they'll usually provide that. But normally our schools try to increase the diversity of their menu, as opposed to decrease it."
 
Paul Quinn offered pork in the dining halls at least once daily: bacon at breakfast. But pork could also be an ingredient in any number of dishes: loaded mashed potatoes and pulled pork sandwiches, for instance. Annual per capita consumption of pork in the United States was 50.5 pounds in 2007 and represented 36.7% of meat consumption, according to the American Meat Institute. (Red meat products made up a little more than half of meat consumed that year.)
 
The Texas Pork Producers Association awards scholarships to college students involved in pork production or study meat or animal science. The association also puts on a "Pork Leadership Camp" and "Pork Youth Symposium" for youth in the state.
"It's certainly a popular item," Warner said.
 
But eliminating meat - even just once a week - has caused anxiety on some campuses. Last year when Bowdoin College observed Meatless Mondays, the national nutrition and environmental awareness campaign in which a few dozen colleges officially participate, students protested with a barbecue outside the dining hall.
 
"The assumption that is implied by saying we need to raise awareness by having Meatless Monday is that people aren't aware," a Bowdoin student protester said. "I think taking away the option to moderately eat meat from those who are aware of the issues - it upset me, that they decided I shouldn't have access to meat on Monday, denying the option to eat meat even moderately."
 
The same argument could certainly be made at Paul Quinn - and almost certainly will be. But Sorrell has his retort ready.
 
"We told our students that we're going to promote healthy living. We told them that we wanted them to have long, productive and healthy lives," Sorrell said. "Now, if one or two people don't like that…. then they aren't being true to the institutional ethos."
 
However, Ceci Snyder, a registered dietician and spokeswoman for the National Pork Board, disputed Sorrell's claims regarding the health risks of consuming pork. "It's just not based in fact at all," she said, noting that pork tenderloin has the same amount of fat as a skinless chicken breast, and chops, which come from the loin, contain six grams or fewer of fat.
 
Brandeis University unsettled some of its Jewish supporters in 1987, when the administration added pork and shellfish to campus dining halls to appeal to international students. The university already served many non-Kosher options, but pork and shellfish are of particular symbolic significance to many Jews.
 
At Paul Quinn, meanwhile, students are about to see their poultry consumption go up.
"We'll still cook green beans, we'll just cook them with turkey instead of ham," Sorrell said. "The reality of it is, it's not as big of a deal as people make it out to be. You can be O.K. without pork. I think they'll survive."
 
 
Source: USA Today
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