Category Archives: Food

Animal’s Daily Golden Rice News

Check this out:  We Pioneered a Technology to Save Millions of Poor Children, But a Worldwide Smear Campaign Has Blocked It.  Read that as:  “A bunch of well-meaning but ill-informed knuckleheads are responsible for the deaths of thousands of children.”  Excerpt:

Food: everybody needs it, and many are fortunate enough to have enough, even too much of it. Food is a highly emotional subject on every continent and in every culture. For a healthy life our food has to provide energy, as well as, in very small amounts, minerals and vitamins. A varied diet, easily achieved and common in industrialised countries, provides everything. 

But poor people in countries where rice is grown often eat little else. White rice only provides energy: no minerals or vitamins. And the lack of one of the vitamins, vitamin A, is responsible for killing around 4,500 poor children every day. Lack of vitamin A is the biggest killer of children, and also the main cause of irreversible childhood blindness. 

Our project is about fixing this one dietary deficiency – vitamin A – in this one crop – rice – for this one group of people.  It is a huge group though: half of the world’s population live by eating a lot of rice every day. Two of us (PB & IP) figured out how to make rice produce a source of vitamin A, and the rice becomes a golden color instead of white. The source is beta-carotene, which the human body converts to vitamin A. Beta-carotene is what makes carrots orange. Our rice is called “Golden Rice.”

Here’s the frustrating bit:

The anti-GMO crop campaigns, and especially anti-Golden Rice campaigns, have been extraordinarily effective. If so much regulation by governments is required, surely there must be something to be suspicious about: ‘There is no smoke without fire’. The suspicion pervades research institutions and universities, the publishers of scientific journals and The World Health Organisation, and UNICEF: even the most scientifically literate are fearful of entanglement in activist-stoked public controversy.

The equivalent of 13 jumbo jets full of children crashes into the ground every day and kills them all, because of VAD. Yet the solution of Golden Rice, developed by national scientists in the counties where (Vitamin A deficiency) VAD is endemic, is ignored because of fear of controversy, and because poor children’s deaths can be ignored without controversy.

The entire anti-GMO hysteria is as one with anti-vaxxers and chemtrails kooks – it has no basis in fact.

The fact is, humans have been genetically modifying food crops for thousands of years; only the techniques have changed, from selective breeding and hybridization to direct genetic editing.  The fact is, golden rice has been proven safe.  The fact is, thousands would lead better-fed, healthier and happier lives if the idiot anti-GMO nuts in the WHO and UNICEF would just back the hell off.

But hey.  These are just poor brown people, right?  Isn’t that the argument the left uses to make proponents of free markets look heartless?  You know, the kind of free market economies that develop innovative products like golden rice?

Animal’s Daily Former Vegan News

Make sure to check out Part Five of my History of Bolt Guns series over at Glibertarians!

A nut from Finland has become marginally less nutty.  She still has a long ways to go.  Excerpt:

Early last year, Virpi Mikkonen was alarmed by the appearance of a rash on her face.

There were other problems: a bout of flu that was hard to shift; crumbling nails; feeling low; and, most worrying, her periods stopped. A blood test revealed her follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels had sky-rocketed to the level at which women hit the menopause. Virpi was 37 and having hot flushes.

‘I thought, what’s wrong with me? I am healthy, I exercise,’ Virpi says. ‘I was really scared.’

At the time, Virpi believed herself to be eating the healthiest of all diets: gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, meat-free, refined sugar-free. And what’s more, she’d built a career inspiring others to eat it, too.

But then this happened:

‘I felt I had run out of fuel, totally,’ she says. ‘I was empty.’ She is now particularly fond of bone broth, a bone stock she has as a hot drink or adds to stews and soups. She’s also eating eggs, which is a major departure because she used to refer to them as ‘miscarriages of chickens’.

The effects have been dramatic. ‘It’s amazing. I feel energetic, motivated. I’m sleeping better, the hot flushes and aching in my body have stopped.’ Best of all, her periods have returned. She was so relieved she danced round her flat. ‘I thought, OK, now I am back on track.’

Here’s the funny bit:

Virpi has yet to tell her followers the whole story, though recently posted about yin deficiency and ‘burn-out’. Her reluctance is more out of wanting to find the right time to bare her heart than fear of receiving irate messages, but she admits: ‘Vegans can be really judgmental.’

First up:  There’s no such thing as “yin deficiency.”  That’s utter horseshit, and if you read the entire article – do NOT read the comments if you value your blood pressure – you’ll see she believes in all manner of New Age-y horseshit.

But she’s dead right about “vegans” being judgemental.  If she hasn’t received outright threats on her life or well-being, I’d be pretty damn surprised.  The “ethical vegan” community contains plenty of folks who are not just judgemental, they’re outright fanatics.  Their worst examples are the nuts of the so-called Animal Liberation Front, who have been classed as a domestic terror group.  Fortunately there aren’t very many of them.

Were I to give Ms. Mikkonen any advice, it would be “eat whatever you see fit and shut up about it.”  But apparently she’s making a good living peddling New Age-y horseshit.  And, presumably, it’s worth whatever heat she’s taking for being a “vegan” apostate.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Güten Buckel-Tag!

Like a good cheeseburger?  Lasagna?  Wine and cheese?  Any of the various foods that include or use cheese in any of its many and varied forms?

Well, here’s one you may not have heard of:  Moose cheese.  Yes, really.  Excerpt:

Moose-milking can’t be easy. Perhaps that’s why moose milk cheese can set a buyer back as much as $500 per pound, making it one of the most expensive cheeses in the world (it’s still not nearly as expensive as pule, a donkey milk cheese from Serbia). But for those with a druthers for dairy, The Elk House (Europeans call their moose “elk”) in Bjurholm, Sweden, makes four varieties of the pricey product, all thanks to three moose sisters.

The House farm’s three milk-producing mavens—Gullan, Haelga, and Juno—lactate only from May through the end of September. Coaxing the five liters of milk from each moose per day takes a delicate hand and calm demeanor, which leads to the product’s prestige and price. The Johanssons, who own the farm, make four varieties from the high-protein milk: soft, white mold cheese (similar to Camembert), creamy blue cheese, dried blue cheese, and feta. The latter, which gets preserved in a neutral vegetable oil, is the Elk House’s bestseller.

Wow.  Just… wow.

Actually, being open to most culinary adventures (and having the beltline to prove it) I’d be open to trying moose cheese.  I’ve had goat cheese and found it unappealing.  But moose cheese is enough different that I’d be willing to have a go, especially since the price it commands seems to indicate that demand well outstrips supply; that’s usually a sign that consumers find that product appealing.

Unavailable for comment.

Still.  Moose (or, as they are known in Europe, elk) are big, powerful and frequently fractious animals.  With their long legs and heavy splayed hooves, they can deliver a powerful kick.  And milking a big quadruped puts the milker in the ideal position to get kicked.  One wonders where the Johanssons found three moose (elk) cows tame enough for the job.

Whatever the story, I’m glad that the price of the product evidently makes their labors worthwhile.