The new food pyramid in Ireland: why has fish been ignored?

this is the title of my Op-Ed piece at January issue of
International Aquafeed.

You can read the full article here.

to toast or not to toast?

The UK Food Standards Agency has launched the Go for Gold campaign to urge the public to avoid singeing their toast or leaving roast potatoes to char in the oven. Photograph: Tim Macpherson/Getty Images

from the Guardian:
In October 1997, something troubling was happened around the Hallandsås ridge in southwestern Sweden. Farmers had found cows paralysed or dead in their fields, lifeless fish were spotted floating in a local river and workers at a construction site began suffering from nausea and prickling sensations in their fingers.
source: How burnt toast and roast potatoes became linked to cancer

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The point here is NOT whether acrylamide is directly linked to cancer or not.
The point here should be what the industry and ourselves in our every day practice, we can do to minimise our exposure to cancer risk factors...

This acrylamide story reminded me our project on heavy metals in food tubers, where we had analysed the levels of Ni and Cr in food tubers grown using polluted irrigation water. One can claim that our research has not changed anything major...

Is this true though?

It has definitely changed our views towards Ni and Cr and
our work has been communicated, via greek FSA, EFET, to EFSA. EFSA has worked on this matter and has issued these two scientific opinions

1.Scientific Opinion on the risks to public health related to the presence of nickel in food and drinking water


Overall, the CONTAM Panel concluded that, at the current levels of acute dietary exposure to Ni, there is a concern that Ni-sensitized individuals may develop eczematous flare-up skin reactions. The CONTAM Panel noted the need for mechanistic studies to assess the human relevance of the effects on reproduction and development observed in experimental animals and for additional studies on human absorption of nickel from food, for example in combination with duplicate diet studies.

2.Scientific Opinion on Dietary Reference Values for chromium

The Panel concludes that no Average Requirement and no Population Reference Intake for chromium can be defined. Several studies assessed the effect of chromium supplementation on glucose and/or lipid metabolism. In the only study for which information on total chromium intake was available, there was no difference in parameters of glucose metabolism of normoglycaemic subjects between the placebo and chromium-supplemented periods. The Panel considered that there is no evidence of beneficial effects associated with chromium intake in healthy subjects. The Panel concluded that the setting of an Adequate Intake for chromium is also not appropriate.

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Food Toxicity is a massive topic, often underestimated...Articles such as this one of Hannah Devlin though are very useful in multiple ways.
 

Marine Agriculture

Photographed off the coast of Okayama, Japan, The Weeping Stones is a photo series by the creative duo Trevor Williams and Jonathan Galione of Tdub Photo that captures the eerie blue light emitted by a native species of bioluminescent shrimp. http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/08/glowy-shrimp-japan/

 

This is a very interesting article on Marine Agriculture (which is different to Aquaculture).

Online Education Resources on nutritional benefits of seafood

The nonprofit Seafood Nutrition Partnership (SNP) has launched online education programs and resources at seafoodnutrition.org/programs and seafoodnutrition.org/resources to assist in teaching communities and individuals about the health and nutritional benefits of a seafood-rich diet. These resources have been developed for use by nutrition educators and influencers within the public health sector, healthcare organizations, schools, workplace wellness programs, and the general public.

“Through our work with health and nutrition influencers, we’ve seen an ongoing need for seafood education resources that supplement current nutrition education initiatives,” says Traci Causey, Director of Programs and Education for SNP. “The online resources we’ve created for them are both accessible and practical.”


“Nutrition educators are frequently asked about the role of seafood in a healthy diet,” says Dr. Judith Rodriguez, Chairperson and Professor at the University of North Florida’s Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, and an SNP Board Member. “This new online resource from Seafood Nutrition Partnership is a major step towards meeting this informational and educational need.”


Seafood Nutrition Partnership (SNP) is the leading non-profit organization in the U.S. building awareness of the health and nutritional benefits of seafood.
SNP is addressing the country’s public health crisis through education programs that inspire Americans to incorporate more seafood and omega-3s into their diets for improved health as per USDA Dietary Guidelines. In October 2015, SNP launched a national public health education campaign. For more information, visit SeafoodNutrition.org.

Source

Seafood: sustainable supply is essential

The majority of Europeans say they eat fish because its healthy. Fish consumption is increasing, with 42% Europeans eating fish/aquaculture products at least once a week at home. This underlines the need to ensure sustainable supply of fish to the EU market.

A new Eurobarometer survey on EU consumer choices regarding fishery and aquaculture products reveals that people in the EU eat seafood quite regularly, although how far people live from the sea plays a role in how often they eat fish.

[here is the full article]

The Fish-Free Feed (F3) challenge

A contest with grand ambitions of improving the sustainability of fish feed used in aquaculture is driving innovation amongst feed manufacturers.
The Fish-Free Feed (F3) challenge was created in 2016 to accelerate the development of aquaculture diets made without fish or fish oil. Eight teams have entered the challenge, competing against each other to be the first to sell 100,000 metric tons of their feed by 15 September, 2017. If none has reached that threshold within the allotted time, the group that has sold the most feed by the end-date wins the grand prize, which is USD 200,000 (EUR ), according to the competition’s organizers.

(read more here)

Virtues

if good or bad virtues run in our DNA and how our grandparents and parents raised us, reading about the past of Trump's father and grandfather

...then I think that we should worry...

Survey: What do you think about Brexit and the opportunity for natural health?

the survey is here.
questions 8-10 very interesting...

"Sustainability" sells well

A new report by industry giant Unilever shows that consumers' belief in the social or environmental welfare of brands hugely affects their purchasing decisions.

So, let's think... about sustainability
 and
Food Security...

lunch time...which option suits you better?

we all know that lunch is the second most important meal of the day (breakfast is the most important! not evening tea!)... So, from the two following options, which one suits you better?

 1. Dabbawalas
 

On the crowded streets of Mumbai, trains and bicycles are quicker than cars and motorbikes (Credit: Getty Images)

The dabbawalas belong almost exclusively to the Vakari community, which worships the Hindu god Vithala. Vithala teaches that giving food is one of the greatest donations you can make. "The dabbawalas say we are getting a golden chance to walk the path of spirituality while earning our bread," says Sangle.

2. Food Trucks 

food trucks

 Food trucks have increased in popularity in cities across the globe, but are there any ways to make these grub-slinging vehicles friendlier on the environment? A few companies are looking into it, and they're looking beyond exhaust-spewing vans. First, there’s Wheelys, an electric and solar-powered tricycle that’s a mobile café in Sweden, that turns cyclists into baristas. Since launching in 2014, the company’s rolled out the service in over 70 countries worldwide, and is positioning itself to be a competitor to brick-and-mortar options like Starbucks. Meanwhile, Move Systems, a US-based company that aims to “bring the mobile food industry into the 21st Century,” makes food carts that are electric and come with modular kitchens, forgoing petrol-fuelled generators for solar panels.


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their approach and logistics could not be any more different...

Carotenoids and antioxidant enzymes as biomarkers of the impact of heavy metals in food Chain

Current Research in Nutrition and Food Science

 

Volume 4, 2016, Pages 15-24

 Abstract

Antioxidant enzymes (catalase and peroxidase) and carotenoids (lutein and â-carotene) are often used as biomarkers of metal contamination of water and agricultural soils. In this study, the effects of heavy metals present in irrigation water on the aforementioned carotenoids of potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.) and carrots (Daucus carota L.), cultivated in a greenhouse and irrigated with a water solution including different levels of Cr(VI) and Ni(II) were investigated. These results were compared to the levels of the same metabolites that had been assessed in market-available potato and carrot samples. The findings indicated that the levels of the examined metabolites on the treated with Cr and Ni samples, resemble the levels of the same parameters in the market samples, originating from polluted areas. Therefore, the antioxidant enzymes, catalase and peroxidase, and the carotenoids, lutein and â-carotene, could be handled as indicators of heavy metal pollution. © 2016, Enviro Research Publishers. All rights reserved.

Ethos and Philosophy ( Ήθος και Φιλοσοφία)

Aristotle (from biography.com)

excellent read on Philosophy and Ethos!
Enjoy!

part 1. What Is Philosophy's Point?, Part 1 (Hint: It's Not Discovering Truth)

part 2. What is Philosophy's Point? Part II. Maybe It's a Martial Art

P.S. worth remembering...

If philosophy cannot yield permanent truth, what is or should be its end? In what way does philosophy still matter? Sports suggest a possible answer. Most athletes, even in highly competitive sports, have goals beyond winning.

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that aims to make us all better people. The goal is not the True, what is, but the Good, what should be.

Everything you wanted to know about cancer diets

the title of this article is wrong! cancer diets...scientific non-sense!
We need to educate and inform people about the real issues, e.g. new diet pyramid in Ireland and how many mistakes it has http://funfood16.blogspot.ie/2016/12/some-thoughts-on-new-food-pyramid-for.html
Informing people about the real issues is the challenge! not talking about ghost issues (as cancer diets)

is curcumin overrated?

Extraction is NOT as simple as at this picture...

this is an interesting article on curcumin

Deceptive curcumin offers cautionary tale for chemists

Some questions though that could arise are these: 

Why do we need to focus the discussion to ONE specific compound? 

What about if it is a mixture of similar structure compounds that have a combined bio-activity?

Nature dislikes pure compounds...Food is healing or not ...not because of ONE compound but because of the relative balance of hundreds of compounds. 

2. the whole approach of the authors of this paper reminds me the overrated omega-3 fatty acids and their link to Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs). Everybody thought that omega-3 are active against CVDs till this paper appeared. 

Now, we know that omega-3 on their own can not reduce CVDs.

Curcumin is not overrated. But the anti-inflammatory properties of turmeric may not linked to one compound only but to a group of compounds. Having this approach in mind, it would allow us to design more carefully extraction procedures...The underlying problem here is the purity of the extraction, not the masked activity of the extract.

Ioannis Zabetakis

New paper: Evaluation of sensory and in vitro anti-thrombotic properties of traditional Greek yogurts derived from different types of milk

In vitro biological activities of total lipids (TL) and total polar lipids (TPL) of cow, ewe and goat yogurts towards washed rabbit platelet aggregation, expressed in micrograms of TL and TPL. Washed rabbit platelet concentration was approximately 500,000 platelets μL ⁻¹. The final concentration of PAF in the cuvette was 2.5 × 10⁻¹¹ M. The experimental analyses were carried out in triplicate (n = 3).

 

Our latest paper on yogurts has just been published in Heliyon.

Evaluation of sensory and in vitro anti-thrombotic properties of traditional Greek yogurts derived from different types of milk

Abstract

Given that fermented dairy products exhibit high bioactivities against cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), the anti-thrombotic properties, fatty acid profiles and sensory properties of cow, goat and ewe derived Greek yogurts have been assessed and compared. The total lipids (TL), total polar lipids (TPL), total neutral lipids (TNL) were obtained and the polar lipid fractions were further separated by thin layer chromatography (TLC). These lipid samples (TL, TPL and TLC fractions) were subsequently assessed for their biological activity against atherosclerosis based on the in vitro inhibition of Platelet Activating Factor (PAF)-induced platelet aggregation. The fatty acid compositions of all yogurts were analyzed by Gas Chromatography with flame ionization detector (GC-FID). Goat yogurt lipids have been found to exert more potent inhibitory activity (i.e. lower IC₅₀ values in both TL and TPL samples) in contrast to the corresponding fractions of cow and ewe yogurts. The observed sensory data indicates that ewe yogurt was the most palatable of all three Greek yogurts.

 

You can download it here.

UL Open Day

On Saturday 14th January, at UL, we will have presentations on our degree programmes, information stands to find out what you need to know and campus tours to give you a sense of the facilities and services that we can offer you. Make sure you chat with our guides in their yellow t-shirts - as current UL students, they will be happy to help with any questions you may have.

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At 11.00 and 13.00 there are scheduled talks on
Food Science and Health
Equine Science.

You can find here a brochure about UL open day.

Looking forward to meeting you on Saturday.

Ioannis

sweeteners, misinformation and false advertising

This lawsuit is of tremendous interest!
Also, we need to remember that using two artificial sweeteners (i.e. aspartame and acesulfame K) in juices and soft drinks is NOT a good practice as the synergistic toxicity of these two chemicals has NOT been evaluated.
It is poor industrial practice, a matter of public concern and the food media should point this out...

by sharing your story, you can give a book to a child in need!

Your research has the ability to impact the world and those around you. But behind change there is drive. Tell us your story about what inspires you and contribute to a cause worth fighting for. Wiley is partnering with Build Africa so that for every story submitted, a child in Uganda will receive a textbook. Find more information about how you could help change young lives.
Share your story using #iwasinspired or submit here. Check back to view other inspiring stories, and follow @WileyResearcher for updates.


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http://iwasinspired.hscampaigns.com/#entry-433


My every day inspiration comes from the eyes of my children and my students who want a bright and fair future. To provide opportunities for life and also a quality of life, Education and Research are key tools. Education should inspire questions and Research should provide answers. I teach Food Science and I research on how to make food sustainable and functional against cardiovascular diseases with the dream that we can change this world to a more fair place. Imagine...Sky is the only limit!

Ioannis Zabetakis

2017: thoughts about food...and food for thought

Food is a powerful tool!
A tool that allows us to Live but also to Live well!
However, we do forget this...In our continuous rush (I wonder for what...), we have no time to cook, no time to share a meal with our beloved ones and no time to cherish the flavour of food...

Common sense retreats and it gives space to processed food and processed thoughts.

Coupled to that, nutritional guidelines are getting also obscure (see here what I mean).

Last term at UL, I asked my 4th year students to write an essay on statins vs food and some excellent texts were created. In one of them, a student talks about the invested interests on medicine...and about the concerted efforts to promote drugs (i.e. statins) and not healthy eating.

However, we do have the power to change our lives, to start cooking and eating more healthy and ultimately enjoying Life!

Food is about Life...
Happy 2017!

What about this for a new Year resolution: try a new recipe every month...? Why not?
New recipes, new tastes, new visions...