UNDEMOCRATIC FOOD POLICIES IN DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES!

Centralized and gigantic manufacturing industry is a classical American mindset and this is true with many industrial countries where scale of economy is perceived to be the stepping stone to achieve lower cost of production and improve profitability. Historically tremendous engineering innovations in designing and fabricating high production capacity machinery , dearth of labor and the huge cost of human involvement in production floor operations naturally led to many industrial activity being automated across the spectrum. It is only recently the world has woken up to the dangers inherent in such mindless agglomeration leading to a rethink on the relevance of the present production culture. In the food sector increasing episodes of food poisoning and difficulties in tracing the source of contamination spawned the locavore movement which advocates producing and consuming the food locally in stead of ferrying them from far away places that can cause logistical, quality and large carbon foot print problems. With America's supremacy in the global arena, WTO also seems to be influenced in evolving trade policies that imitate the system that is prevalent in that country while locavore type system is more preferable for all countries. Democracy does not mean any thing if large food conglomerates hold the elected governments in their vice like grip sabotaging every good intentioned policies favorable to the well being of the citizens. Here is a critical commentary on this trade issue that is dividing the world vertically.         

"There has been a quiet revolution going around the world, as communities and nations retake control of their food systems. In the U.S., more people are taking a look at processed foods at the supermarket and opting instead for healthier choices, grown locally with fewer pesticides. People in Cambodia have taken a hard look at what's happening to their climate, soil and seeds, and figured out a new, low-cost way to produce rice, increasing production and putting farmers in charge. Brazilians are favoring local farmers growing sustainable foods for school lunch programs, lowering hunger rates dramatically as a result. This trend is larger than individual choice: people are using their rights as citizens to make sure governments, from local to national, support these innovations. Unfortunately, U.S. trade policy seems wedded to a discredited notion of how we should get our food and who should benefit. These local shifts involve choices, and in many cases choices that favor local producers over transnational corporations, local markets over imports; it seems that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has a problem with that. In its latest report, the agency highlights what it calls the growing problems of "localization barriers to trade," and vows renewed vigilance against these barriers to the free flow of goods and services. A free flow to where? And for whose benefit? In the U.S., local food is sometimes dismissed as an elite niche market, but in the rest of the world it has another meaning entirely. For decades, Western aid and trade officials have told poor countries to rely on international markets to feed their people; governments were forced to cut support for "inefficient" things like local food production and emergency grain reserves; domestic farming was undermined as cheap imports flooded in. When the price of internationally traded food spiked in 2007-08, and again in 2011, the poorest couldn't afford staples like wheat and rice, and global hunger soared. The developing countries that fared best were those that built domestic production and insulated themselves from volatile global markets. So while the USTR attack on all things local may be great for the U.S. food giants, it pushes an economic model that has been discredited by actual events".

Even in the US people seem to be concerned with the direction in which food industry is moving recklessly with no concern or remorse for their past sins. Every child in the US knows that the food industry in that country could not be trusted and it does not have good intentions vis-a-vis its attitude and action. Whether it is allowing unsafe chemicals in foods or not forcing the industry to label GM foods or diluting the standards for organic foods, the government invariably seems to be on the side of the industry ignoring the well being of the citizen. No wonder experts are increasingly holding the industry and the government responsible for the obesity epidemic so rampant in the United States of America!

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

VITAMIN D-YESTERDAY'S HERO TO DAY'S VILLAIN?

Vitamin D deficiency in human beings was cited since long as the causative factor for the widely prevalent disease Rickets in early days of human nutrition studies and ever since then vitamin D therapy was a standard norm for one and all. As this vitamin is closely associated with bone development along with Calcium and Phosphorus every pregnant woman was put on Vitamin D administration believing that the new born babies will have strong bones. After all Rickets is a bone related disease with the affected population having weak and soft bones, often malformed resulting in a sub-quality life during adulthood. Now comes the news that it is better to be low in Vitamin D during pregnancy rather than gorging the "wonder pill" at least during pregnancy if the babies are to be spared the much dreaded food allergies during their early childhood. According to new studies too much Vitamin D during pregnancy can lead to such allergies later and more care is needed to avoid such a situation by every responsible mother wanting to avoid food allergy among their children in future. Here is a take on this new development.

The result was clear: in cases where expectant mothers were found to have a low vitamin D level in the blood, the occurrence of food allergies among their two-year old children was rarer than in cases where expectant mothers had a high vitamin D blood level. In reverse, this means that a high vitamin D level in pregnant women is associated with a higher risk of their children to develop a food allergy during infancy. Furthermore, those children were found to have a high level of the specific immunoglobulin E to food allergens such as egg white, milk protein, wheat flour, peanuts or soya beans. The UFZ scientists also got evidence fot the mechanism that could link vitamin D and food allergies. Dr. Gunda Herberth -- also from the Department of Environmental Immunology at the UFZ -- took a closer look at the immune response of the affected children and analysed regulatory T-cells in cord blood in particular. The cells are capable of preventing the immune system from overreacting to allergens, with the result that they protect against allergies. The UFZ researchers know from earlier analyses that the allergy risk increases in cases where too few regulatory T-cells are present in cord blood. The interesting result of the current research project: the higher the level of vitamin D found in the blood of mothers and children, the fewer regulatory T-cells could be detected. The correlation could mean that vitamin D suppresses the development of regulatory T-cells and thus increases the risk of allergy.

A cautionary note is called for while considering the findings of the above group because the conclusions are essentially based on monitoring of Vitamin D levels in pregnant women where those with high levels of this vitamin were found to have children with allergies more frequently. Vitamin D poses a severe challenge to nutritionists and physicians because it is formed in the human body only when there is adequate exposure to Sun and as the life style of people differ very significantly from region to region it is a difficult task to assess the adequacy or otherwise of Vitamin D in different people with different exposure profile. Probably the findings from the above studies would make Gynecologists  and nutritionists more cautious in dealing with pregnant women when it comes to Vitamin D content in their blood. A low level Vitamin D in pregnant women is preferable because children can always be administered this vitamin after birth to bring up to the desired level for strong bone development and other metabolic functions.    

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

TEMPLE PRASADAM TURNS DEADLY-A PREVENTABLE TRAGEDY

The recent food poisoning episode in Bangalore must open the eyes of every concerned citizen of this country regarding the toxic environment in the country posed by the conditions prevailing here. Each and every day the citizen faces hazards of different nature, some minor and others more serious, which are neglected by a benign state with least concern for its subjects whose protection they have sworn to be responsible under the Indian constitution. The latest food poisoning episode in a temple in Bangalore claimed two precious lives and injured more than 4 dozens of people after partaking the prasadam served by the Temple authorities to devotees visiting the worshipping place on the occasion of Ramanavami. Many disturbing questions arise out of this episode for which there is no satisfactory answer yet. The situation is alarming in this country in that there are hundreds and thousands of temples spread all over the country and each one serves prasadam in some form or the other and these eatables are prepared in places/kitchens not too satisfactory with respect to hygiene and sanitation. Added to this the personnel preparing them are mostly illiterate people with doubtful health conditions and personal hygiene, having no rudimentary knowledge regarding food safety. Here is a take on this sad situation prevalent in the country. 

"A five-year-old girl and a priest at a temple died and more than 50 people reported sick on Friday after consuming 'Panaka', a lemonade made with jaggery, distributed at a temple of Valmiki Nagar in Chamarajpet, the previous day, on the occasion of Rama Navami. Ganga, daughter of Balamurugan, a painter of Bande Gudisalu, Valmiki Nagar and Krishna Murthy, 45, were the dead. Murthy, the priest at the temple, who too partook the lemonade, was admitted to Jayadeva hospital and died on Saturday evening. The police are find out if Murthy died because of consuming the lemonade or because of cardiac arrest, as he had a history of heart-related ailments.Local residents claimed that 'Panaka', a popular summer drink, distributed at Muttu Maramma temple in Valmiki Nagar on Friday was not hygienic and they suffered symptoms of food poisoning".

Major temples like Tirupati, Sabarimal and others periodically come under the scanner due to reports of devotees affected by unsafe prasadam served but in the absence of any verifiable documentation system, every episode is swept under the carpet with the authorities not learning any lesson for future. in the present case itself though the reports claim two as dead and 50 people as sick from consuming the prasadam, no one knows what is the real situation and the actual casualty figures as many well to do people do not go to government hospitals seeking treatment in private hospitals. It is a paradox that in the absence of reliable documentation Government feels that food poisoning is not a major issue unlike in countries like the US where every thing is documented systematically.  

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

DOES THE COLOR OF LABEL INFLUENCE CONSUMER CHOICE?

Industry seems to have struck a goldmine in green color which seems to be misleading the consumer that products  printed with nutrition information against a green background are healthier than others. Internationally green color is associated with cleanliness and consumers do show a tendency to believe all that has a green certification which symbolizes positive things, This a very disturbing finding and regulators need to have a closer look at this phenomenon to modify labeling rules in future. Here is a take on this new revelation.

"The color of the label is obviously irrelevant. But  green nutritional panels — which now adorn Snickers, M&M's, and other candies made by Mars – appear to fool shoppers into thinking they're buying something that's more healthful, according to a research paper published last month in the journal Health Communication". "Cornell University professor Jonathon Schuldt conducted experiments that found not only that green labels increase the perceived healthfulness of foods, but that such misunderstandings were particularly prevalent among those who place high importance on healthy eating. "The green calorie labels buffer relatively poor nutrition foods from appearing less healthful among those especially concerned with healthy eating," said Schuldt, who thinks it's high time that the government stepped in to bar such trickery. "As government organizations including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration consider developing a uniform front-of-package labeling system for the U.S. marketplace, these findings suggest that the design and color of the labels may deserve as much attention as the nutritional information they convey."

Probably more restrictions are needed regarding the color background the industry can use while printing nutrition information on the label. At present even a poison can be packed in green colored container with its attendant implications. If necessary use of green labels can be reserved for good products which are healthy and balanced based on scientific data. Already in countries like India green dots allowed to be printed on one corner of the label to denote that the contents do not contain any ingredients derived from animals. Similarly gren traffic signal type presentation is proposed in some countries to discriminate between healthy and not so healthy products. 

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

DESPERATE DISEASE AND DESPERATE OPTIONS-THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC

Over weight, obesity and morbid obesity are all considered progressive stages of transformation of normal living through normal eating into a frenetic eating regime with excess calories and fat consumed, more than the human body really needs. While many such affected persons have genuine intention in controlling food consumption, most of them find it difficult with their mind playing truant automatically leading to reaching for more and more foods! There are many disciplined consumers with an iron will to consciously control what they eat and how much they eat but a significant segment of the population cannot do this, swelling the ranks of bloated body owners day by day. In cases where body weight control is a necessity because of the adverse consequences of obesity on the health with its potential to cause diseases like diabetes, CVD, high blood pressure and kidney disorders, surgical intervention is increasingly becoming an option to many people vulnerable to health related set backs. While techniques like stomach bypass operation, stomach banding etc are used very commonly these days, a relatively new procedure has recently been developed which is considered less intrusive compared to others.  Called AspireAssist, the new technique for dealing with obesity is reported to be becoming popular. Here is a commentary on this development.  

In operation, a patient eats normally, with no restrictions. After eating, the food is temporarily (1-2 hours) stored in the stomach. Twenty minutes after eating, the patient attaches a handheld flow system to the valve, and empties their stomach contents directly into the toilet. Provision for rinsing the stomach and diluting the remaining stomach contents is provided. Essentially, the AspireAssist is a self-operated stomach pump. While this may seem a bit disgusting, the stomach tube and the access port can be implanted or removed in a short outpatient procedure far less invasive than either bypass or restriction surgery. The very similar stomach feeding tubes are routinely used in patients for decades with very few complications, and experience with the AspireAssist reportedly confirms the low complication rate. The real question, however, is how well does AspireAssist work? In several clinical trials, obese patients eating (and pumping) normal diets three times a day lost half of their excess weight (typically 20 kg (44 lb)) after a year of treatment. This is an effectiveness level similar to gastric restriction operations – gastric bypass typically produces more rapid weight loss, but involves a very serious operation.

Though it is a simple technique, how far it can be recommended to overweight people is a matter of speculation. The prerequisite for creating a port for aspirating the food after 20 minutes of ingestion and repeating the procedure 3 times a day can be very cumbersome! Is it not weird that people gorge food uninhibited and without any self control sans thinking about the consequences and then suffer the indignity of taking out the very food before it has a chance to be digested for generating calories? What about its impact on the life style of those who have to undergo this procedure which compels them to wear the port day in and day out? Can there be infection of the port and subsequent trauma associated with it? Probably this procedure may end up as an extreme remedy for those whose life is threatened by morbid obesity as extreme steps are needed to save the "patient"!

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

UNDEMOCRATIC FOOD POLICIES IN DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES!

Centralized and gigantic manufacturing industry is a classical American mindset and this is true with many industrial countries where scale of economy is perceived to be the stepping stone to achieve lower cost of production and improve profitability. Historically tremendous engineering innovations in designing and fabricating high production capacity machinery , dearth of labor and the huge cost of human involvement in production floor operations naturally led to many industrial activity being automated across the spectrum. It is only recently the world has woken up to the dangers inherent in such mindless agglomeration leading to a rethink on the relevance of the present production culture. In the food sector increasing episodes of food poisoning and difficulties in tracing the source of contamination spawned the locavore movement which advocates producing and consuming the food locally in stead of ferrying them from far away places that can cause logistical, quality and large carbon foot print problems. With America's supremacy in the global arena, WTO also seems to be influenced in evolving trade policies that imitate the system that is prevalent in that country while locavore type system is more preferable to all countries. Democracy does not mean any thing if large food conglomerates hold the elected governments in their vice like grip sabotaging every good intentioned policies favorable to the well being of the citizens. Here is a critical commentary on this trade issue that is dividing the world vertically.         

"There has been a quiet revolution going around the world, as communities and nations retake control of their food systems. In the U.S., more people are taking a look at processed foods at the supermarket and opting instead for healthier choices, grown locally with fewer pesticides. People in Cambodia have taken a hard look at what's happening to their climate, soil and seeds, and figured out a new, low-cost way to produce rice, increasing production and putting farmers in charge. Brazilians are favoring local farmers growing sustainable foods for school lunch programs, lowering hunger rates dramatically as a result. This trend is larger than individual choice: people are using their rights as citizens to make sure governments, from local to national, support these innovations. Unfortunately, U.S. trade policy seems wedded to a discredited notion of how we should get our food and who should benefit. These local shifts involve choices, and in many cases choices that favor local producers over transnational corporations, local markets over imports; it seems that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has a problem with that. In its latest report, the agency highlights what it calls the growing problems of "localization barriers to trade," and vows renewed vigilance against these barriers to the free flow of goods and services. A free flow to where? And for whose benefit? In the U.S., local food is sometimes dismissed as an elite niche market, but in the rest of the world it has another meaning entirely. For decades, Western aid and trade officials have told poor countries to rely on international markets to feed their people; governments were forced to cut support for "inefficient" things like local food production and emergency grain reserves; domestic farming was undermined as cheap imports flooded in. When the price of internationally traded food spiked in 2007-08, and again in 2011, the poorest couldn't afford staples like wheat and rice, and global hunger soared. The developing countries that fared best were those that built domestic production and insulated themselves from volatile global markets. So while the USTR attack on all things local may be great for the U.S. food giants, it pushes an economic model that has been discredited by actual events".

Even in the US people seem to be concerned with the direction in which food industry is moving recklessly with no concern or remorse for their past sins. Every child in the US knows that the food industry in that country could not be trusted and it does not have good intentions vis-a-vis its attitude and action. Whether it is allowing unsafe chemicals in foods or or forcing the industry to label GM foods or diluting the standards for organic foods, the government invariably seems to be on the side of the industry ignoring the well being of the citizen.  

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

AN ALTERNATIVE TO BMI-IS IT RELIABLE?

Body Mass Index or more commonly known by its acronym BMI is considered a sacred cow which no one wants to question. It is supposed to make a value judgment regarding the status of health one enjoys and what dietary modifications are called for in rectifying any abnormalities reflected by the BMI value. Though it was evolved 150 years ago, many suggestions made from time to time were not acceptable to a vast majority of health pundits and medical community. One of the uncertainties about the reliability of BMI is that it does not differentiate between weight caused by fat and muscle with the possibility some normal persons may be bracketed as over weight while some unhealthy persons may be categorized as normal. Also questionable is the arbitrary figures adopted in different countries for classifying people a over weight and obese. Latest suggestion to modify calculation of BMI uses a different equation to factor the height more realistically into the calculation. How far the new formula will yield better and more accurate result remains to be seen. Here is a take on this new development.      

"Any system that tells people whether they are "normal", "underweight", "overweight" or "obese" is bound to be controversial, but one obvious weakness of the BMI is that it doesn't distinguish between fat and muscle.First devised by Adolphe Quetelet more than 150 years ago, BMI is calculated by taking your weight (in kilograms) and dividing it by your height squared (in metres). The body-mass index that you (and the National Health Service) count on to assess obesity is a bizarre measure... As a consequence of this ill-founded definition, millions of short people think they are thinner than they are, and millions of tall people think they are fatter.
    * Prof Trefethen's letter in full (third in list)
    * His explanation of his formula
But mathematician Nick Trefethen, Professor of Numerical Analysis at Oxford University, thinks that the old formula is wrong, as he explained in a letter to the Economist newspaper published earlier this month. He thinks that people have put too much trust in it in part because it looks so precise - like, say, Einstein's famous equation E=MC². "That's an equation of physics and it's really right. The BMI formula looks similar. It seems to have the same character but it doesn't reflect a precise truth about our world, it's an approximation to a very complicated reality," he told the BBC.
With that in mind he has proposed a new formula: 1.3 x weight, divided by height to the power 2.5".

No matter which equation is used human body is so diverse that it will be difficult to classify them based on any single formula. The extent of muscle and fat present in the body is difficult to be assessed and therefore BMI can at best be an approximation of the state of health of a person at any given time. In the case of fat too, quality and the location of this component will decide whether weight contributed by fat is good or bad. Under such an uncertain situation BMI is still a good reckoner or indicator regarding the health status of most people. Those with high BMI can always go for further diagnostic tests to decide whether they are healthy or not.    

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