Routinely feeding fish oil to farmed animals and poultry could benefit human health, research shows.

Including the oil in animals’ diets would increase levels of healthy omega 3 fats in their meat, a report in the British Nutrition Foundation’s nutrition bulletin says.

This in turn could help tackle low-levels of omega 3 consumption among people in the UK.

The “very long chain” fatty acids known as n-3 polyunsaturates are commonly found in oily fish and can help protect against heart disease in humans.

But consumption of the important fatty acids among UK adults is well below the recommended amount, according to the report by University of Reading researchers.

Only 27% of UK adults eat any oil-rich fish apart from canned tuna, the report says.

Its co-author Ian Givens, Professor of Animal Science at the University of Reading, said omega-3 enriched milk and eggs were already on shop shelves.

That concept could be extended to meat and poultry products in order to benefit human health, he said.

Prof Givens added: “The potential of enriched animal-derived foods, especially poultry meat, could be crucial in achieving increased intake of fatty acids. If successful and accepted by the consumer, this could prove to be a major advance in the health of the nation.”

In the long term, other plant-based sources of the fatty acids could be developed in order to meet demand, the report concludes.

From guardian.co.uk

In a strange turn of events, a Des Moines, Iowa, radio personality reportedly has invented no-dough pizzas, an idea spawned from a lawn-mowing accident.

The Des Moines Register said WHO’s Van Harden came up with the idea of making his pizza crusts from a cheese base after losing his desire for bread.

Two years ago, Harden got one of his feet stuck in a lawn mower and after his hospital stay he found himself without an appetite for bread, the newspaper said.

The Register said Harden’s change in appetite may somehow have been due to difficulties doctors ran into when attempting to wake him from anesthesia after his surgery.

“The doctors can’t explain it,” Harden told the Register.

Two Hy-Vee stores in Des Moines sold 221 of his new pizzas with their cheese-based crust over the weekend, with the product soon making its way into a dozen other Iowa stores.

The 12-inch pies cost $8 apiece and have been described as perfect for individuals who are gluten intolerant or on Atkins diets, the Register said.

From politicalgateway.com

San Juan Bautista — Earthbound Farm’s fields of organic baby spinach and romaine lettuce are a living symbol of the organic food movement’s explosive growth in recent years.

What started two decades ago as a three-acre roadside farm in this valley 90 miles south of San Francisco has grown into the country’s largest grower of organic produce, with more than 100types of fruits and vegetables on 28,000 acres in the United States and abroad.

Earthbound’s extraordinary growth is an example of how organic farming is changing. Small family farms created as an alternative to conventional agriculture are giving way to large-scale operations that harvest thousands of acres and market their produce nationwide.

And with Wal-Mart, Safeway, Albertsons and other big supermarket chains expanding their organic offerings, the transformation may be in its early stages.

Pollan and others worry that the expansion of “Big Organic” will lower food quality, weaken standards and hurt small family farms.

U.S. Department of Agriculture rules say organic produce must be grown without synthetic fertilizers or bioengineering and animals raised without antibiotics or growth hormones. A separate industry of government-approved organic certifiers has emerged to inspect farms and food handlers to ensure they conform. Some advocates don’t think the rules go far enough and are asking for a requirement that dairy cows be pasture-fed, not raised on feedlots.

From modbee.com

The Fisheries College and Research Institute (FCRI) here has commenced commercial production of shrimps using an eco-friendly `Raceway Technology’ developed by it recently, at the newly-established Raceway Farm Complex (RFC) on its premises.

S Felix, Associate Professor, Fisheries Biotechnology Centre of the institute, said the new technology, which was not in practice anywhere else in the country at the moment, helped produce `disease-free’ shrimps and overcame problems such as huge consumption of water, unlike in the traditional `water exchange system’ used for shrimp production.

“While 40,000 litres of water is needed for the production of one kilogram of shrimps in the traditional method, only 2,500 litres of water is used in the new system for production of identical quantity of shrimps,” he added.

Moreover, stocking density was high in this method vis-а-vis the traditional method. Dr. Felix said stocking density using raceway technique stood at 2,000 shrimps per sq. m. against 10 shrimps per sq. m. using the old method.

The green house structure, blowers and the state-of-the-art raceway tanks constructed at the RFC were helpful in maintaining the water circulation in the tanks that prevented accumulation of dirt at the bottom of the tank. “Dirt accumulation could lead to the production of hydrogen sulphide, which increases mortality rate,” he said.

From thehindu.com

Procter & Gamble announced that it is launching a new product — “stomach-friendly” coffee that could help ease discomfort for some drinkers.

Simply Smooth, in regular and decaffeinated versions, is being rolled out nationwide during May, the company said in a news release. It’s part of Procter’s Folgers line of coffees.

The product relies on bean selection and a roasting process to limit the formation of compounds that cause stomach discomfort, the company said.

Procter said it is estimated that 35-40 million Americans give up or limit their intake of coffee because of its adverse gastrointestinal effects.

From Cincinnati Business Courier