The Human Imprint

Five a day target costing more

I wrote a few weeks ago about the "five-a-day" target being missed. The Telegraph has reported on the latest survey in The Grocer which states that their shopping basket survey showed that potatoes had risen in price by 28.7 per cent; carrots by 24.6 per cent; tomatoes and onions by 20.3 per cent; white seedless grapes by 17 per cent and apples and oranges by 16 per cent. Broccoli is the only produce that they identify as having gone down in price by 25.9 per cent.

Meat should be rationed

The Guardian carries a well written article on a recent report by the Food Climate Research Network. The report recommends that total food consumption should be reduced especially foods of low nutritional value. These include alcohol, sweets and chocolates. The report suggests that families should buy local in-season products. A large amount of the carbon footprint is in the method of cooking. Cooking in bulk and making sure that saucepans have lids when they are boiling (so you use less energy), pressure cookers and microwaves are important ways to address this.

There is much debate to on the fuel used when going food shopping - walking to the shops (hard for me as I live seven miles from the nearest supermarket and three miles from the nearest shop) or home delivery via internet food shopping will reduce fuel usage. Another key aspect is reducing waste food.

One of the key aspects is livestock production. Animals do not convert all the food that they eat into meat.  This means that eating large amounts of meat in your diet has an impact on the environment compared to eating the same amount of calories from cereals, fruit or vegetables

The recommends cutting meat consumption by at least half and making sure animals were fed as much as possible on grass and food waste which could not be eaten by humans. The Guardian suggests the difference between the current and proposed diet. The current diet (per person, per week in the UK) = 1.6kg meat and 4.2 litres of milk. This is equivalent to:

6 sausages (450g); 2 chicken breasts (350g); 4 ham sandwiches (100g); 8 slices of bacon (250g); 3 burgers (450g); 3 litres of milk; 100g of cheese and a helping of cream

The proposed diet is equivalent to: 2 sausages; 3 rashers of bacon; 1 chicken breast; 1 litre of milk or 100g of cheese.

My first question is how would we source the calcium that we currently consume in dairy products - I guess we could take a supplement. Where will we source our protein? I guess there are other sources - but as many people throughout the world are changing their diet to include more meat and dairy based products this will be a difficult dialogue on choice versus prohibition.

Deliberate contamination of food

In 2005, the British Food Journal published a paper that I co-wrote on deliberate contamination of the food supply chain. The fall-out from the melamine incident in China demonstartes the potential human and financial impact of an instance of agro-terrorism or food terrorism. I was therefore interested to read the blog post on the Shigella Blog about a recent incident in Sweden. The blog comments that the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise may be a victim of food terrorism because at least 140 people were sickened with dysentery. This has been caused by the Shigella dysenteriae bacteria and those affected include employees and members of the confederation and guests. A left-leaning internet-based forum has claimed responsibility for the outbreak on a website.

Cases rise in Salmonella outbreak in Denmark

In August I wrote about the  food safety outbreak in Denmark associated with Salmonella Typhimurium U292 where at least 400 people have been linked to the bacterial infection.According to the article in PolitikenWeekly there have tragically been five deaths and 822 cases of Salmonella Typharium U292 recorded up to 15th September. In a population of five million people this is a large number of cases.

Cadbury recall products because of melamine

The Guardian reports that Cadbury has stated that it was recalling 11 products from sale in China because of concern that the products could contain the chemical melamine. Follow the link for more details.

FDA and cloned meat

Back in July I wrote about the European Food Safety Authority conclusions on cloned meat. What to Eat has continued the conversation with an article on the US FDA and that they have issued guideline documents on meat from cloned animals. It is not proposed to label the meat at this time as being from cloned animals as it has been concluded that the meat is safe to eat. Follow the link to the FDA factsheet which provides an overview.

Melamine recall reaches the UK

After the post yesterday on the melamine incident. Today the Guardian reports that Tesco has announced that it is removing milk sweets from its shelves as a precautionary measure due to concern over melamine contamination. The Independent reports that the New Zealand's Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) issued a warning about the same brand of sweets today, saying they contained unacceptably high levels of melamine and people should not eat them. Tests of the sweets showed they contained 180 parts per million of melamine, the organisation said.

The human impact of the melamine incident increases

Just over a week ago I posted that 6000 children had been affected by the melamine contamination of dry milk powder. Then the BBC News reported that the number of cases had risen to 53,000. There is concern that liquid milk has also been affected. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has apologised for the incident. The impact has widened across the globe. Four children in Hong Kong have now been diagnosed with kidney stones after drinking milk from the mainland. The BBC further reports that Malaysia has expanded its ban on dairy products to include candies, chocolates and all other foods containing milk.

Google News reports that  "Burundi, Gabon and Tanzania have joined governments closer to China -- including Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia -- in banning Chinese dairy products. At least 11 countries have banned imports".

In Canada the Canadian Food Inspection Authority has announced two product recalls due to melamine contamination.

This is proving a major incident.

Five-a-day target being missed

The Telegraph reports that only 12 per cent of the UK population is eating five or more fruit and vegetables a day. At the other end of the scale around 12 per cent of the UK population do not eat any fruit and vegetables at all.  The credit-crunch can only impact on this further - calorie dense products are cheap compared to fruit and vegetables.

Chinese milk powder update

The toll of this food incident has increased significantly since my first blog post on melamine contamination five days ago. The BBC News reports that New Zealand-based dairy giant Fonterra said it had urged China's Sanlu Group to recall the tainted powder six weeks before Sanlu took adequate action. The NZ Fonterra farmers' co-operative owns a 43% stake in Sanlu. This is not the first incident of this nature because a similar incident in 2004 killed at least 13 babies in China's eastern province of Anhui.

This morning  BBC News reports that  more than 6,200 babies have fallen ill and a third baby has now died. Those children with acute kidney failure has risen to 158.  Chinese state television confirmed that following tests melamine had been found in 22 brands of milk powder. 

Further data has suggested that this problem is not centred on Sanlu because the Independent reports that a Chinese government health probe showed 20 per cent of dairy companies had produced   batches of milk containing melamine. 22 of the 109 dairy   producers assessed were affected. They further report that Hong Kong's biggest supermarket chain Wellcome yesterday withdrew a yoghurt   ice-cream bar produced by China's biggest dairy product maker, Yili, after   it was found to contain melamine. 

Every country has had its major food safety problems and the UK has been no exception from this statement. I will always remember though the conversation I had with a person developing a farmhouse yogurt business. She said to me that it was when she was out in a cafe and she watched someone feed their young child her yogurt she knew then the trust that had been placed in her. It was a trust that she would do her best to make sure she deserved - so no compromises, no short cuts - ever. She upheld that commitment too.