EVOLUTION OF LOW NUTRIENT FOODS-A HISTORICAL PERSEPECTIVE

When one looks at the phenomenal growth of organic food industry, there is an inescapable yearn among the people to day for things of the past, their ancestors were used to centuries ago! Why this change in attitude towards food that is consumed every day? Because the rampant spread of modern day diseases like CVD, Obesity, Diabetes, Blood Pressure, Cancer, Kidney disorders etc is awakening people regarding the link between the food and diseases. To day awareness about health is rising rapidly as educational levels are increasing due to economic development. This is precisely the reason why organic foods are finding increasing shelf space in supermarkets all over the world. To what extent the modern civilization must take responsibility for destroying the old culture that ensured production of nutritionally healthy agricultural crops, replacing it with "nice" looking food crops through mechanized cultivation techniques and hybridized crops that contain progressively less and less nutrients. Whether it is modern tomato or the good looking white maize the story is same. Man seems to have dug a hole for himself by these reckless short sighted evolutionary activities from where it is difficult to climb! Here is a critique on the transformation of old age agriculture into the modern industrial agriculture which is indeed very revealing! 

"Is the quality of our food decreasing as quantities increase? There is no doubt that industrial agriculture is extremely successful in producing food abundantly, but does the plant breeding that delivers big yields - along with the pesticides and fertilizers that compromise environmental safety - also result in lower-quality food? In a recent column I reported that tomatoes are now a pale facsimile of their formerly delicious selves, containing fewer nutrients and more sodium than they did when they tasted good. It seems that tomato breeders looking for qualities like transportability neglected nutrition. Now scientists are reporting that many of our foods have also become low in certain nutrients, including phytonutrients, the compounds that help reduce the incidence of four major modern health threats: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia. Declining food quality is not a new thing, but industrial agriculture's emphasis on volume over quality has accelerated the pace of nutrient loss. "Each fruit and vegetable in our stores has a unique history of nutrient loss," journalist Jo Robinson reports in the New York Times, "but there are two common themes. Throughout the ages, our farming ancestors have chosen the least bitter plants to grow in their gardens. It is now known that many of the most beneficial phytonutrients have a bitter, sour or astringent taste. Second, early farmers favoured plants that were relatively low in fibre and high in sugar, starch and oil. These energy-dense plants were pleasurable to eat and provided the calories needed to fuel a strenuous lifestyle. The more palatable our fruits and vegetables became, however, the less advantageous they were for our health."

Nutrition and health paradigm has significantly changed during the last 6-7 decades and human beings are discovering what they have lost by their reckless pursuit of high productivity, increased profitability and palate comfort. Foods devoid of fiber, phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals etc are wreaking havoc with the health of humans and if diseases like CVD, Diabetes, Cancer, Blood Pressure, Kidney disorder etc are becoming the norm rather than exception, only the modern agriculture system needs to be blamed. Added to these woes comes the much hyped GMO foods which has divided the world vertically into opposing camps vis-a-vis their relevance and safety. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the thinking of the industry, scientists, consumers, policy makers and farmers regarding the best way to make the food more healthy and nutritious, forgetting the past baggage! 

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

BROWN FATS VS WHITE FATS-NEW POTENTIAL APPROACH FOR BODY WEIGHT CONTROL

Fat is no doubt a bad word for most people concerned about maintaining body weight and in to day's market low fat or fat free food products outnumber normal ones to meet the increasing demand from such worried consumers. Whether it is fat or carbohydrate, diets containing these two constituents provide energy needed for basal metabolism and day to day work regimen. It is only when the intake of food provides more energy than needed, the body starts storing the excess ones in the form of fat deposits which in turn contribute to over weight, obesity, metabolic syndrome, CVD, blood pressure, kidney disorders etc. The logic of cutting down on calories by reducing fat and sugar/carbohydrates is fairly well accepted and there are many slimming diets offered by the health food industry with low caloric density. As against this a new approach is being tried to tinker with the existing body fat so that it is burned fast in stead of storing in different parts of the body. This involves transforming the white fats to brown fats through therapeutic or nutritional intervention as the latter has the major role in burning for calories, just like carbohydrate. Though no conclusive therapy has yet been developed the attempts by scientists are showing encouraging signs and here is a report that highlights the efforts in the laboratory. 

"Scientists from ETH Zurich in Switzerland have shown for the first time that brown and white fat cells in a living organism can be converted from one cell type to the other. Their work, using mice as a model organism, provides important new insights into the origin of brown fat cells, which is a prerequisite for the development of successful anti-obesity therapies. Two types of fat cells can be found in mammals and hence in humans: White fat cells function mainly as highly flexible energy stores which are filled in times of calorie abundance. The fat is stored in the form of lipid droplets, which are mobilized when energy is needed. Diametrically opposed in function are the so-called brown adipocytes: These cells specialize in burning energy in the form of fat and sugar to produce heat. New-born babies possess substantial amounts of brown fat and utilize it to maintain body temperature. Since it was recently shown that brown adipocytes also exist in adult humans, research has focused on understanding how brown adipocytes are formed. The ultimate goal of these efforts is to increase brown adipocyte number and activity in obese humans, allowing them to burn excess calories and thus reduce weight".

The findings cannot be taken seriously yet as the experiments are confined to laboratory mice and till this is proven beyond doubt it may still be a possibility for future. More over the empirical observations must be validated in human beings through clinical studies. While it is a fact that interconversion  between white and brown fat has been demonstrated, man is still in the dark regarding the means to achieve this so that it can be applied under real life situation. There is a possibility that suitable drugs might be evolved for such an intervention at the cellular level or achieving it through nutritional route by appropriate design of special foods with such functions. It may take quite some time to arrive at this point and humanity will have to wait in baited breath for such a development!  

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com