I don’t like to mention that rich guy over at #Twitter, but he’s rambling on about #ClimateChange & agriculture, which is in my wheelhouse. And he is also unabashedly & absurdly wrong.
Misinformation on climate change is irresponsible & dangerous, so let’s be clear:
25% to 30% of global emissions come from our #food system.
As UT Austin’s Michael Webber describes, agriculture is a major cause, victim and - importantly - meaningful solution to #climate change.
For those who might not know, following a week after the Russia-Ukraine wheat embargo, there are even bigger and ominous signs hinting at global food insecurity and the catastrophic agricultural crises coming our way.
India last week banned export on all non-basmati rice varieties.
I repeat: EXPORT BAN ON ALL non-basmati RICE varieties.
[Aside: export of basmati variety will continue, the demand for which is relatively small in India when compared to the nearly 15 major varieties of rice (it's home to at least a 1000 varieties) consumed by very large populations everyday(these are the ones which are now banned). Basmati is a "festive" and only occasionally consumed variety in India. It is largely exported to the richer nations, many of whom think it is the only variety of rice from India.]
Why is India banning rice now?
Answer: global warming.
What’s happening in India (and South Asia at large) should both terrify you and wake you up
Here’s more (facts? trivia? bothersome news? how the world actually works?).
Do You Need To Wash Rice Before Cooking? Here’s The Science
The washing process has been shown to rinse up to 20% of the plastics from uncooked rice and by 40% for instant rice.
Washing rice has been shown to remove about 90% of bio-accessible arsenic.
Washing doesn't impact stickiness: glutinous rice was the stickiest, while medium grain rice and jasmine rice were less sticky, and also harder as tested in the laboratory.
This photo was sent my way by someone who knows I work in #food security. I don’t know where it was taken or who deserves credit. (The tickets appear to name a pub).
But I’d sure love to see this kindness replicated. Widely. It’s critically needed & warms my heart. ❤️
Bank of Canada doing its best to act surprised that what Canadians have been saying since this inflation era started might be true. "Profit Led Inflation" aka PRICE GOUGING
"He cites data from Statistics Canada showing that at one point last year, the cost of a unit of labour had increased by a little more than 10 per cent since the start of the pandemic. The per-unit profit, meanwhile, was up by more than 70 per cent over that same time frame."
I'm #ActuallyAutistic and I know food preparation is difficult for many folks in the community.
But learning to feed yourself is a skill that has cascading effects (I get severely depressed if I don't feed myself food I like). Not to mention, not everyone has the $$ for takeout
Local officials and researchers say hunger has killed at least 700 people in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region in recent weeks after the United States and United Nations suspended food aid.
Hard to feel sympathetic for the supermarket chains when they do this:
"... they – along with other supermarket chains – continue to throw out vast volumes of stock. As Banducci told media last week, theft was just 'one of the components [of] stock loss'.
On a recent trip to the loading zone at my local Woolies in Sydney, the bins were so heavy I struggled to move them. One was completely full of sourdough loaves and other baked goods – all of them still soft and fresh. Dumped into the other bins were bananas, oranges, mandarins, avocados, tomatoes, punnets of apples, eggplants, organic green beans, bundles of asparagus, green capsicums, 2kg bags of washed potatoes, mushrooms, various fancy cheeses, 5kg packets of basmati rice, muesli bars, cartons of a dozen eggs, tubs of yoghurt and long-life milk – all in edible condition."
Love this story about a Toronto man who created an app that makes it easier for restaurants and catering companies to reduce food waste by donating it to shelters and charities.
According to the article, so far his company has diverted approximately 15,000 kilograms of food waste — enough to feed 25,000 people.
I hope this company or something similar starts operating in more cities across North America!
Starting a thread on the different types of tofu and how to cook them. (Some of these are vegan, some are not. In Chinese cooking, tofu is not a vegan protein):
Egg tofu
This is one of my fave tofus. It isn't vegan. It's made with soy beans AND eggs. It has a eggy taste that egg lovers will love; but that goes way entirely when it's panfried lightly.
Decided to be more active here, so let me reintroduce myself! I'm a zooarchaeologist researching #Farming and #Food of the past. I study animal and plant remains 🐐🌾, apply biochemical analyses 🧪, and want to use this knowledge of the past to contribute to #Sustainability today 🚜 #Archaeology#SciComm#WomenInScience#Animals
Washington Post: Using AI to spot edible mushrooms could kill you
"Now, a new assortment of AI-powered mushroom identifiers are popping up in the Apple, Google and OpenAI app stores. These tools use artificial intelligence to analyze photos or descriptions of mushrooms and compare them to known varieties....With its high stakes and frequent mess-ups, mushroom identification is a bad candidate for automation, but companies are doing it anyway..."
(maybe paywall)
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says they have received 64 reports from over 20 states of children potentially falling ill from high levels of lead in now-recalled food pouches since October. Preliminary investigations are pointing to cinnamon from Ecuador as the likely source of the contamination found in WanaBana and Schnucks brands. Read more from USA Today.
Russians destroy 60,000 tonnes of grain in Chornomorsk port (www.pravda.com.ua)
As a result of recent Russian attacks on infrastructure in Odesa Oblast, 60,000 tonnes of grain were destroyed in the port of Chornomorsk.
Hunger kills hundreds after US and UN pause food aid to Ethiopia's Tigray region, officials say (apnews.com)
Local officials and researchers say hunger has killed at least 700 people in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region in recent weeks after the United States and United Nations suspended food aid.