DailyDirt: Stop! Don't Eat That...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Eating healthier is a common new year's resolution, and it might be good to start simple and stop consuming one unhealthy snack item. However, a completely healthy diet is a totally different task. There are countless fad diets that don't really work or aren't as healthy as they're supposed to be. On top of all that, we should also keep an eye out for the outbreaks of foodborne illnesses and food safety recommendations. Maybe people who drink all their calories aren't totally crazy....

• Fish and other aquatic animals caught from the Passaic River in New Jersey should NOT be eaten -- because toxic waste has been dumped into that waterway for decades and proposed cleanup projects would cost well over a billion dollars (and have not yet started). The Lower Passaic River Study Area Cooperating Parties Group (aka the Lower Passaic CPG is offering a "fish exchange" to swap frozen tilapia for any fish caught from the Passaic. Yum. Three-eyed fish [url]
• California, Oregon and Washington produce the most Dungeness crab in the US, but right now, the ~$60 million industry isn't doing so well. Domoic acid is being measured in marine wildlife along the West coast, caused by a bloom of algae in the Pacific, and levels are decreasing. With justified caution, though, crab catchers are staying away from their usual crop until levels are deemed safe, saying "We are not like the beef industry. We don't do recalls." [url]
• The Interagency Food Safety Analytics Collaboration (a joint effort for the CDC, USDA and Food Safety Inspection Service) published a report on foodborne illness, covering hundreds of outbreaks between 1998 and 2012. If you don't eat beef or any vegetables grown in rows, what's left to eat? [url]

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Filed Under: cdc, diet, domoic acid, dungeness crab, food, food safety, foodborne illness, fsis, health, ifsac, lower passaic river study area cooperating parties group, poison, pollution, seafood, soylent, superfund site, toxic, usda

DailyDirt: Chickens Of The Sea..?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Americans eat about 4.5 billion pounds of seafood annually -- placing third behind China and Japan. The US ranks 15th in farmed seafood production, and America exports about a billion pounds of caught fish every year. The oceans might seem like an endless supply of fish, but we're actually starting to over-fish several species. Here are a few suggestions for what seafood to order and some technological alternatives to traditional fishing.

• The top three seafoods for Americans are shrimp, tuna and salmon -- making up more than half of all the food Americans eat that comes from the sea. Maybe there's an argument for eating more oysters and mussels... or maybe we should try to eat some lesser known species such as Atlantic porgy, Acadian redfish and Pacific sablefish? [url]
• Scientists and fishermen are looking for mating Atlantic codfish by listening for 'cod grunting' sounds. Cod populations are low, and fishermen want to avoid catching cod to allow them to bounce back (and to avoid fishing limits). [url]
• The Oceansphere is a proposed automated fish farm that could grow 1,000 pounds of tuna from eggs to harvest size off the coast of Hawaii. Not everyone seems to be a fan of automated aquaculture technology, but if these fish farms actually work, they could be a more sustainable way to get tuna onto dinner plates. [url]
• Lockheed Martin and Kampachi Farms have actually started testing a mobile fish farm at a depth of 2-3 miles, anchored to the sea floor, but able to drift within a 5 mile radius with ocean currents. Kampachi Farms says they've successfully harvested fish from their aquapods, but some critics are still concerned about the impact these fish farms might have on the environment. [url]

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Filed Under: aquaculture, aquapods, codfish, endangered species, fish, fish farming, food, kampachi, oceansphere, seafood, tuna
Companies: kampachi farms, lockheed martin

DailyDirt: Feeding More People Sustainably

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The modern food supply isn't as efficient as it probably should be. People are over-fishing the oceans and relying too much on monoculture crops and artificial pesticides/fertilizers to keep up with the market demand for various kinds of food. But it's hard to convince a massive number of people to limit their intake of things like meat (and politically deadly as well). Technology will help boost food production for a while, and here are just a few links on some methods that farmers could adopt.

• Plant scientist Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram has been awarded the 2014 World Food Prize for his role in increasing world wheat production. Rajaram cross-bred wheat varieties to obtain hundreds of strains of wheat with significantly higher yields. His research is credited for increasing production by 200 million more tons of wheat each year, globally. [url]
• Agriculture might get a lot more automation with drones and crawling robots to monitor and tend to crops. Farming robots could help control pests and pathogens, operating round the clock to bolster crop yields. [url]
• Sustainable fisheries are developing, but aquaculture isn't easy, and domesticating various kinds of wild fish (eg. tuna) can take up a lot of space and water and attention. However, if we're going to try to keep up with our demand for seafood, catching wild fish isn't going to work for much longer. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: agriculture, aquaculture, automation, drones, farming, food, gmo, sanjaya rajaram, seafood, wheat, world food prize

DailyDirt: The Next Big Food Is... Weird

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Food fads are fascinating, especially when they turn previously disgusting biological curiosities into expensive delicacies. Lobsters were once only served to prisoners and lowly servants, but now these crustaceans are highly-priced entrees. Casu marzu is a traditional Italian cheese that contains live insect larvae (with an aftertaste that can reportedly last several hours). The maggots can jump about 6 inches, so diners should be careful to block these bugs from jumping into their mouths if they don't want to eat them. Casu marzu has a questionable legal status (for health and safety reasons), but it's sometimes available on the black market for a hefty markup in price. Here are just a few other menu items that might (or might not) be appetizing to you.

• Civet poop coffee is a delicacy, and you really need to know that your coffee beans have been partially digested by a civet cat from Indonesia. So if you're wondering if your coffee is fake, there's a test that can verify the flavor components of real Kopi Luwak. [url]
• Whelks can refer to any number of unrelated shellfish, but the commonly eaten ones are a particular kind of sea snail of the species Buccinum undatum. Whelks could become the next oyster in the seafood industry, or they could just remain unappetizing snotwinkles, as they're called in Canada. [url]
• In the early 1900s, the US faced "the meat question" -- a crisis over whether or not meat production could match the growing demand for meat products in the US. A seriously debated solution involved importing African hippos to the US -- in the same way that cows, pigs, sheep and poultry were introduced to the Americas -- and trying to convince Americans to eat hippopotamus meat. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: coffee, delicacies, edible, fads, food, hippopotamus, kopi luwak, meat, seafood, shellfish, whelks