Food Science
grrlscientist | December 31, 2009tags: Corn: The Dynamic Genome, corn, agriculture, genomics, food science, technology, streaming video
This is a beautifully written and produced science video about corn: where it came from, what it originally looked like, the technology we are using to learn the functions of individual corn genes, and future directions for research into corn genetics.
Plant genome research is already revolutionizing the field of biology. Currently, scientists are unlocking the secrets of some of the most important plants in our lives, including corn, cotton and potatoes. Secrets of Plant Genomes: Revealed…
grrlscientist | December 30, 2009tags: How It's Made: Bread, baking, agriculture, chemistry, food science, technology, streaming video
This interesting video shows how bread is made in large, mechanized factories: from mixing the ingredients to shipping it out for consumption.
sciencetolife | June 16, 2008The question was asked by a Science To Life reader using the "Make a Request" icon. He asked:
I am interested in how bacon impacts the body. Is it filling because it has fat that is useful for delaying hunger and quelling the appetite? Is it not damaging because of nitrates or nitrates used in production/preparation? Is it not to be avoided as a fatty heavy protein the body finds hard to metabolize?
To answer this question, I turned to fitness expert and author Louiza Patsis MS. Here is her response:
High levels of nitrates have been linked to adverse health effects in humans, such as…
sciencetolife | June 10, 2008
Clifford S. Mintz Ph.D., author of Bio Job Blog, writes about a study suggesting that artificial sweeteners may cause people to gain rather than lose weight. Like Cliff, I had heard reports of this but never paid much attention. Although the study was published several months ago, I recently became interested in it because I am trying to kick a bad dependence on diet sodas.
He writes:
Over the past few years, I have heard rumors that artificial sweeteners like saccharine, aspartame and sucralose actually cause people to gain rather than lose weight. I summarily dismissed these stories…
sciencetolife | March 6, 2008
Parts of the Southeastern U.S (where I live) have been experiencing severe drought conditions for months. Droughts can have significant environmental and economic impacts on a community.
According to this press release, aridity is on the increase across the globe, as is the world population, and it is important that increasingly dry areas should be taken into cultivation to ensure food production.
Researchers from the University of Helsinki and the University of California in San Diego have discovered a plant gene that could help in the development of drought-tolerant crops.
Here's a…
sciencetolife | February 21, 2008
After four years of deliberation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today that meat from cloned animals and their offspring is safe to eat.
Read more in this Wired article.
Image: Matt Batchelder
sciencetolife | January 4, 2008A poll by BBC World and market research firm Synovate aimed at assessing global attitudes towards food found that the UK is ahead of the US as the world's leading fast food nation.
How will an increase in consumption of unhealthy fast food (along with other unhealthy lifestyle choices) affect future obesity rates, health risks and burden of disease in the UK?
Read more here.
sciencetolife | July 29, 2007
A scientist from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has developed a way to make allergen-free peanuts.
The scientist, Dr. Mohamed Ahmedna, found a way to essentially inactivate peanut allergens while maintaining the taste and quality of the nuts.
Peanut and tree nut allergies are the most severe of all food allergies, affecting approximately 3 million Americans, and causing 100 -- 150 deaths from anaphylactic shock annually and many more hospitalizations. In industrialized nations, the allergy has been rapidly increasing in children, for causes that are not…
sciencetolife | June 6, 2007There has been a lot of media attention on drug-resistant bacteria lately. According to the Food and Drug Administration overuse of antibiotics is the primary cause of drug resistance in disease-causing bacteria.
Researchers from Ohio State University have now uncovered another way harmful bacteria can acquire antibiotic resistance-close proximity with harmless bacteria found in foods people eat every day.
The research team led by food microbiologist Hua Wang Ph.D, an assistant professor of food science and technology in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, found…
sciencetolife | April 19, 2007Researchers from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England are using the nitrogen content of fruits and vegetables to detect falsely labeled organic produce.
The demand for organic produce has been increasing. This Discovery News article explains that "the higher prices obtained by [organic food] producers provides an economic incentive for a few unscrupulous traders to pass off conventionally grown produce as organic."
Several industry-accepted organic food tests exist (organic certification and inspection) but this new test is the first to assess whether produce has been grown…