Tilapia farms in China using pig feces as fish food

This is one of those stories that’s almost too ridiculous to believe until you remember that China has shown a great lack of concern for health in food products (remember the dog food scare, melamine in baby formula, pesticides in tea, and so on). Now, in an effort to boost profits, some fish farms in China are using pig and goose feces as fish food. Nutritious? Perhaps, but this does increase the risk of bacterial infections like salmonella…and is just plain gross.

The article in Bloomberg also describes shrimp processing facilities in Vietnam, where the shrimp are packed in dirty tubs, covered with ice made from local tap water.

The FDA does inspect imported food, and has rejected a lot of shipments, but the thing is, the FDA only rejects about 2.7% of imported food.

“Made in China” – ok for cheap plastic junk, but not for food! Not until they start taking health and quality seriously.

(via Bloomberg)

October 12, 2012

Review: Earthbox self-watering planter

Read the marketing literature, and the EarthBox sounds like a revolutionary approach to growing plants. I was skeptical. The truth is, it’s a self-watering planter with a very nice amount of attention to detail. For example, they provide the right amount of fertilizer to use. A plastic cover to reduce evaporation. A nice fill tube and overflow hole. Little stuff like that, but you know what?

It adds up to something great.

I’ve owned two of these. The first, while I was living in California, produced a tomato plant over six feet high. The second, in Colorado, has done a fantastic job of growing peas, beans, and cucumbers in a water-scarce climate. I love it and can always count on the EarthBox to take care of the plants, giving them the right amount of fertilizer and water while I sit back and do nothing. It’s available for about $50 at Amazon, in both organic and non-organic versions. It’s large and heavy once you fill it with dirt and water, but still fits in nicely on a deck or patio, where hopefully you can keep the local wildlife away from it.

Which brings me to the one drawback…animals. A raised bed is easily covered with deer netting to protect your crops, but this standalone planter doesn’t lend itself nearly as well to that. That six foot tomato plant I mentioned? It produced countless tomatoes. I ate ONE, just one measly tomatoe from that whole plant. The rest were enjoyed by squirrels, who were rude enough to eat the tomatoes before they were ripe enough for us to harvest for human consumption. So, when planning a garden, be sure to look around your backyard…the EarthBox will help your plants grow fantastically well, but who’s going to enjoy the fruits of that?

September 20, 2012

Rats fed GM corn die young (with tumors and organ damage)

Researchers in France fed rats a lifetime diet of Monsanto’s GM corn (NK603, to be specific), and found that 50% of the males and 70% of the females died prematurely (compared with 30% of the males and 20% of the females in the control group). They suffered from mammary tumors, also severe liver and kidney damage (this is in stark contrast to the carefree life portrayed by French rats in Ratatouille).

What’s most interesting here, to me at least, is the implications. Specifically…NK603 is a type of corn that’s tolerant to the pesticide Roundup…it wasn’t stated specifically, but I’m assuming that when growing NK603, they did so by using Roundup as intended. Thus these deaths are not necessarily due to the genetic modification of the corn plant, but rather the pesticides that that modification allowed the use of. In the end, perhaps it doesn’t matter, the result is dead rats…but I worry that a GM crop could be shown to be perfectly safe by itself, but use of that will result in secondary factors that lead to problems down the line.

I’m also disturbed by the article’s statement that GM crops are approved based upon a 90 day feeding trial. As this study showed, there are lifetime impacts that need to be properly quantified…a mere 90 day test may be insufficient to expose long-term health impacts.

NK603 was approved for food use in the US in 2000.

You can read the full article at Reuters.

September 19, 2012

This is why we need to be cautious about GM crops

If you want to know why I’m worried about genetically modified foods, read this article from New Zealand. Scientists are concerned about GM wheat being tested in NZ and Australian, and more specifically, they claim:

SiRNA, a form of ribonucleic acid, like DNA, could transfer to humans through food when produced in GM wheat.
When eaten, the siRNA engineered to suppress the wheat-branching enzyme would also silence the human-branching enzyme which produces energy-storing glycogen.
This “unbranched” glycogen would have low solubility in human cells and could create build-up in the tissues of the body, especially in the heart and liver.
This could lead to the disease Glycogen Storage Disease IV, resulting in an enlarged liver, cirrhosis of the liver, and failure to thrive.

So, do we need to be worried? I think the bottom line is that we don’t know. I think this DOES show, though, that we need to be cautious and thorough in testing GM crops for possible side-effects on people…we must not rush this technology to market, but rather, each and every modification to the genetic code of our food supply needs to be tested. Right now, that’s just not happening, and that’s the scary thing.

September 12, 2012

Imminent Food Crisis due to Climate Change

We already face growing food demands from a growing population, but researchers looking at the effect that climate change has on severe weather (specifically, severe droughts) are painting an alarming picture. Instead of this being a ‘far off’ problem that we’re dumping on future generations, they found that the increased risk of severe drought to become a reality within only ten years in Asia (China and India especially). We are running out of time to solve these problems! In the US, people can’t even agree that climate change is happening and that humans are the main cause. How can we hope to solve the problems it’s bringing if we deny reality? This makes me frustrated, as I feel we’re a creative, inventive society that can solve great problems when we unite behind it.

(read more here).

September 12, 2012