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Current Newsletter Newsletter Archives 2010 Issue 100: 17 September 2010
Current Newsletter Newsletter Archives 2010 Issue 100: 17 September 2010
| Issue 100: 17 September 2010 |
| Thursday, 16 September 2010 |
|
Joseph Joubert, French essayist
Food bites... Let's get real about food additives!
"Let's analyse the cancer claim, since that is the most common reason
for our distrust of "chemicals" in food or agriculture. Are we
really dying more often of cancer than we used to? If so, our more
sophisticated, tastier, safer, more plentiful and more attractive food
may account for it. As it turns out, cancer rates did rise for some time
until around 1990. In 1900, the three most common causes of death were
influenza, tuberculosis and intestinal diseases. Two of these today
rarely cause death, while influenza has become far less deadly. So
instead of dying as a child of gastro-enteritis, or a 40-year-old of
influenza, we carry on living. Of course, that exposes us to age-related
conditions such as heart disease, stroke and cancer." Ivo Vegter, columnist with The Daily Maverick, SA's spunkiest news website. Read more Editor's Stuff - Choose your trend carefully! |
"When trying to identify which trends your company should connect to its essential to distinguish between those that are big and have no growth potential and those which are small and have high growth potential.
Fair Cape launches first one percent milk in SA 
Two Cape food companies do themselves proud
Why is Woolworths buying out its franchises? 
The new labelling regulations (R146) which become law on
1 March 2011 are lengthy and complex. At a recent breakfast organised
by F&B Reporter/Packaging Reporter at Africa's Big Seven Expo,
nutrition and labelling consultant Jane Badham set out 10 key label
and advertising changes which the SA foodbev industry needs to
understand.
WWFs Southern
African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI) launched its new species list, aimed at helping consumers make
informed seafood choices and in doing so promote the sustainable use
of marine resources. The new list is the
result of months of rigorous assessments using an internationally
accepted best practice methodology, developed by around 50
international
organisations. AfricaGeographic. 
A picture is worth...South African campaign for sustainable fisheries 
Orange maize, a variety
of the staple food that has been biofortified with vitamin A to curb
the incidence of child blindness and other diseases, is to be
released in Zambia in 2012. Richard Kamona, director of the Zambian
Agricultural Research Institute, said the organisation used
conventional plant- breeding techniques to produce the more
nutritious maize.
Cadbury takes Lunch Bar
to the MAX
Americans increasingly are blaming high fructose corn syrup and
avoiding it. And now the makers of high fructose corn syrup want to
sweeten up its image with a new name: corn sugar. The bid to rename the
sweetener by the Corn Refiners Association comes as Americans' concerns
about health and obesity have sent consumption of high fructose corn
syrup, used in soft drinks but also in bread, cereal and other foods, to
a 20-year low. 
Coca-Cola named
world's best brand for 11th year in a row
As food and consumer-goods companies face problems
obtaining the key ingredient palm oil without damaging the environment,
Unilever is betting on a promising low-life alternative: algae. The FMCG
giant, which relies on palm oil to make Dove soap, Vaseline lotion and
Magnum ice cream, is has announced that it has made a
multimillion-dollar investment in Solazyme Inc, a South San Francisco
company that harvests algal oil, a liquid that can replace palm oil in
foods, soaps and lotions and serve as biodiesel fuel to power airplanes.
And hot on the heels of Unilever, is Sir Richard Branson with a
personal investment in the company. Biofuelsdigest.com. 
Kraft Foods has presented its new global growth strategy at a meeting of analysts and
investors in New York. The comprehensive review of the company's
power brands, global categories and regional business units detailed
the plan by which Kraft Foods will deliver organic revenue growth of
5% or more, margins in the mid- to high-teens and earnings per
share (EPS) growth of 9 to 11%, making it a top-tier performer
in the global food industry.
FoodIngredientsFirst.com. 
925 million in chronic hunger worldwide FAO
The food industry is jeopardising US public health by withholding
information from food safety investigators or pressuring regulators to
withdraw or alter policy designed to protect consumers, said a survey of
government scientists and inspectors. A study released on Monday by the
Union of Concerned Scientists found one-in-four of those surveyed have
seen corporate interests forcing their agency to withdraw or modify a
policy or action designed to protect consumers during the past year. Reuters. 
UK retail chain Waitrose has decided to reduce meat packaging across
its meat lines by using plastic pouches rather than polystyrene trays.
Waitrose claims the 'snip and slide' packaging will save 9 000t of
packaging each year. The company said the light-weight flow-wrap packs will initially
be used for mince and diced meat packaging. The retail giant is also
planning to roll out the new packaging across its entire product line
including chops, loins and other cuts if the initial lines are a
success. The Telegraph. 
It is one of natures
cruel little jokes on us the foods that are the most tempting are
almost always the worst ones for our health. Sure, there are those
who claim to LOVE celery, but really we all know that they are lying.
Do you really think that if those people could have crispy French
fries instead of vegetables and have no ill effects that they would
still choose the watery, stringy stalks?
Blokes, as we know, are
stupid. Just how stupid will be illustrated by the success (or not)
of a new drink: Iron Press, "the soft drink for real men". Seemingly aimed at the
same sexually insecure young men who drove Coca-Cola to launch Coke
Zero, because Diet Coke is perceived as too effeminate, Iron Press is
a soft drink designed to look and feel like beer. It comes packaged
in chunky 500ml brown beer bottles, is amber- coloured, so when
poured it resembles a pint, and is brewed to maintain a beer-like
head (which, in fairness, it does). That it doesn't taste remotely
like beer is by the by. The Guardian. 
The proverbial
Champagne bottle designed by the Benedictine monk Dom Pierre Pérignon
in the 17th century to contain the "devil's wine" has
become synonymous with lavishness and commemoration. However, the
bottle,
which was created in an attempt to prevent secondary fermentation and
'explosions', is undergoing a redesign in an attempt to cut
carbon emissions. Its latest
manifestation will exhibit the bottle losing its stocky shoulders and
in the process of shedding weight, making it more environmentally
friendly.
Foodanddrinkdigital.com. 
The cultural connection to Colonel Sanders seems
to have been lost in the deep-fryer of time. Colonel Harland Sanders,
the goateed founder of KFC known for his white suits, string ties and
"finger-lickin' good" punch line, would have turned 120 years old today.
But young adults don't know him from beans. 
Danone withdraws
high-dose bone yoghurt in France
US company, Medora Snacks, has launched
PopCorners, "The New Shape of Popcorn". PopCorners are made from
all-natural ingredients and were created to "satisfy the cravings of
popcorn lovers' desire for popcorn at an affordable price, all while
maintaining that authentic chip-like experience".
Packaging Digest. 
Nutri-Facts is a web-based initiative dedicated to providing customers,
consumers, healthcare professionals and media representatives with
generic, balanced scientific information on essential micronutrients
such as vitamins and carotenoids. The website provides latest scientific news and established
facts about health impacts, requirements and safety of
micronutrients. The non-commercial initiative is supported by an
external Scientific Advisory Board of international nutrition
experts. 
Overweight people who
believe exercise alone can make them thin are living under an
illusion because only serious, long-term dieting can lead to
significant weight loss, a study has found. The belief that
exercise can be used to fight the obesity epidemic is wrong because
it would require inordinate amounts of heavy physical training over
long periods of time to have any significant impact on a person's
weight, scientists said.
The Independent. 
For a dieter, the ultimate terror is hearing that
the supposedly innocuous food or drink youve been consuming daily for
God knows how long is actually a fat-filled Trojan horse. Which might be
why the scare over diet soda triggered every few years by some study
that suggests that Diet Pepsi, Coke Zero, and their kin might actually
make you gain weight understandably creates some hysteria. 
One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about
alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don't
drink tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics
Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up
as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who
had already incurred health problems associated with drinking. 
An increased intake of 'good' potassium salts could contribute
significantly to improving blood pressure at the population level,
according to new research. The favourable effect brought about by
potassium is even estimated to be comparable with the blood pressure
reduction achievable by halving the intake of 'bad' sodium salts (mostly
from table salt). ScienceDaily. 
Scientists have sequenced the genetic code of the cocoa tree, which they say could triple the yield of the disease-prone crop and transform the lives of millions of poor farmers in Africa and around the developing world who rely on it for their livelihood. The US chocolate firm Mars, working with the computer firm IBM and the US Department of Agriculture, took two years and two months to unlock the genetic code of the tree, Theobroma cacao ("food of the gods"). Instead of patenting the genome, they have placed it online for anyone to use for free. The Independent. 
A side portion of jazz
with your lasagne? Food manufacturers often make serving
suggestions on product packaging or wine pairing ideas, but in the
future they may suggest what music to listen to while you eat too,
new research suggests.
Ending the oceans' 'tragedy of the commons' 
From termites to blue
whales, virtually all life on Earth depends on plants' ability to
turn sunlight and carbon dioxide into food - and without the waste
product, oxygen, you would be dead in minutes. You would think, then,
that evolution would have honed the process to perfection over the
past two billion years or so. Yet photosynthesis remains astonishingly
inefficient in some ways.
A
borrowed trick or two could make them far more productive. New Scientist. 
That finger-licking, lip-smacking taste 
Kids are not going to
stop liking chocolate, pizza, ice cream, or fries. Heck, neither am
I. So why is industry so afraid of mandatory restrictions on
marketing to children? The obvious reason is
money. 
FDA warns against
Viagra coffee
Healthy, sane humans do not stab themselves in the thighs, or bathe
their eyes in lemon juice. So why do we so love to assault one of the
most sensitive organs in the human body, the tongue.... Humans,
apparently, enjoy torturing themselves. Spiciness, after all, is not a
flavour, not like sweet or salty or sour. Spicy means pain. The
sensation of spiciness is the result of the activation of pain receptors
in the tongue. According to psychologist Paul Rozin of the University
of Pennsylvania, about a third of the people around the world eat hot
peppers every single day. Why? Because they "love the burn". The Guardian. 
A hard-hitting US
television commercial bankrolled by a Washington-based medical group
has infuriated McDonald's by taking an unusually direct shot at the
world's biggest fast-food chain this week, using a scene filmed in a
mortuary followed by a shot of the brand's golden arches logo and a
strapline declaring: "I was lovin' it."
Forbidden foods in the
US
Lady Gaga shows off her raw meat dress, again