Wednesday 29 June 2011

Rust-resistant wheat could ease climate threat to food supply

29 Jun 2011 15:09
Source: alertnet // Soumya Karlamangla
DZwheat510
A farmer inspects a wheat field at a farm near Mila, Algeria, on May 24, 2009. REUTERS/Louafi Larbi
By Soumya Karlamangla
Scientists are close to producing new wheat varieties resistant to a deadly wind-borne disease that threatens to destroy crops around the world, fuel food price hikes and potentially lead to worsening hunger, they said.
Ug99, a virulent strain of wheat stem rust discovered over a decade ago, could potentially damage up to 90 percent of the world’s wheat crop, particularly as changing climatic patterns carry it to new regions, the scientists warned. That is a serious problem as world demand for food is surging, particularly as incomes and appetites grow in emerging giants like China and India.
But new varieties should help defuse the threat, say the scientists, who have been working to stay one step ahead of the pest.
“Stem rust is devastating - it’s the source of the great biblical plagues,” said Ronnie Coffman, principal investigator of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat Project, an effort aiming to combat wheat crop diseases, and director of International Programs of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University.
POTENTIAL LOSSES
Since it was discovered in East Africa in 1998, Ug99 has been detected in nearly a dozen nations in Africa and the Middle East. It is a dangerous epidemic; in the early 1950s, a major outbreak of stem rust destroyed 40 percent of North America’s spring wheat crop.
Now, scientists aim to create and distribute resistant strains before the disease makes its way to the world’s breadbaskets located throughout Africa, North and South America, the Indian subcontinent and Australia.
With progress on new varieties well advanced, Coffman said, the main challenge will be getting farmers in areas yet to be affected by stem rust to plant the resistant varieties.
The new varieties offer some side benefits: an increase in crop yields of 15 percent and resistance to yellow rust, a less damaging pest that is currently hurting crop yields in Africa and the Middle East.
Coffman hopes these added factors will help  win over governments and farmers. If not, a reduction in the production of wheat - the world’s most widely grown crop and the number one staple for a third of the world’s population - could wreak havoc on the already tight global food supply.

The threat from Ug99 comes at a time when food security issues already loom large. With the world’s population expected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050, food production must increase by 70 percent to sustain it, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. And with changes in the climate affecting levels of rain fall and temperature, growing crops has become unpredictable or simply difficult for a growing number of farmers.
“Climate change up till now has been fairly moderate, but it’s already changing and impacting quite heavily (on farmers),” said Andrew Jarvis, a leader on climate change, agriculture and food security for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research Program (CGIAR), which conducts research on global warming and food security.

As climate impacts become stronger, Jarvis’ research models suggest world wheat production could drop by a minimum of 15 percent.
CLIMATE RISK
While some crops, such as rice and maize, are likely to see initial increases in productivity as climatic conditions change, more crops come out losers than winners, with wheat – a heat sensitive crop - suffering the most.
Besides altering temperature and rainfall levels, climate change can directly impact the severity and spread of crop pests and diseases like Ug99, according to Karen Garrett, a professor of plant pathology at Kansas State University.

“People have known for a long time that plant pathogens and the probability that they’ll effect disease is really strongly influenced by weather,” Garrett said.

For instance, if a pathogen needs a certain temperature or moisture level to attack, changes in climate could allow pests to become established in areas where they previously could not survive.
Coffman said that although there is not enough information to discern a clear connection between climate change and the spread of Ug99, unpredictable environmental conditions linked to large-scale weather shifts make dealing with Ug99 more challenging.

Stem rust, for instance, has never been recorded in northern India. Scientists speculate that the region’s extreme heat kept it at bay. But with greater wheat cultivation in the region and changing climate conditions – including alterations to India’s monsoon – it is now unclear whether the area will remain immune to the disease.
“The kind of unsettling thing is that we can’t rely on history to tell us where the devastation from stem rust will occur,” Coffman said.

Saturday 25 June 2011

start a business

So you want to start a business? Why not a hot dog stand?

Start your own hot dog stand"How do you make a hot dog stand? Take away its chair." My 9 year old neighbor
If you're entrepreneurial, a hot dog pushcart is a pretty inexpensive way to start your own business. For $20 you can buy plans on the internet to build your own cart from about $500 worth of parts. For less than $2,000 you can get a pretty nice professionally built cart, and for $10,000 you can get a fancy trailer in which two people can stand and work. There are even large trucks with commercial kitchens available in the $100,000 range.
The wholesale cost of a quality hot dog is about 20¢, a bun costs about 10¢, and the condiments cost about 10¢ per sandwich. That makes your cost about 40¢ each. If you can move volume, you can buy for less. Typical resale price in Chicago is about $1.95, so your gross is about $1.45 per sale.
If you sell 200 hot dogs per day, 360 days per year (hey, take some holidays off), you would sell 72,000 dogs per year and could gross over $100,000 (not including soft drinks, chips, etc.). That's cash money. No credit cards or checks. To stay open this much you'll need a high traffic spot, indoors, and employees.
Subtract your overhead: Payroll, napkins, propane, rent, license fees, freebies for the cops, and other supplies, and there's still a decent profit for a pretty small upfront investment and a lotta work. Oh yes, don't forget to subtract from the profit the dogs you eat yourself.
Here's a video from Crain's Chicago Business about Vienna Beef's Hot Dog University:

Here are some suppliers who sell pushcarts and vending trucks:

Saturday 18 June 2011

Like India in UK Van-tastic! Why street food is this year’s hottest trend in uk

Van-tastic! Why street food is this year’s hottest trend

Richard Johnson has been travelling round Britain, meeting the people turning street food into a gourmet experience – and asking them their favourite recipes "kunj kashyap"
Sunday, 19 June 2011
Served with relish: Yianni Papoutsis's Meatwagon serves some of the best burgers in Britain from a converted American ambulance
DAN BURN-FORTI
Served with relish: Yianni Papoutsis's Meatwagon serves some of the best burgers in Britain from a converted American ambulance

In my time as a food writer and broadcaster I've travelled the world. And some of the best food I've eaten has been on the streets – whether that was in Bethlehem, with its hole-in-the-wall falafel shacks, or the streets of Mandalay, with bowls of fishy noodles still salty from the sea. Coming back to Britain, though, was always disappointing. It was a bag of chips, a Mr Whippy, or a sausage from a rusty handcart.
But that's all changing. Last year, to reward the good and punish the bad, I set up the British Street Food Awards. At the finals, in Ludlow, the judges were amazed by what they saw: a new generation of street-food heroes – men and women who wanted to be part of the food revolution that's happening in this country, but didn't necessarily have the capital they needed to open a restaurant.
Street food, in many ways, is better than restaurant food. For a start, it's cheap and fresh – rather than left standing on a hot plate till a sniffy waiter deigns to pick it up– but it's also all about offering the kind of food we want to eat, not some received notion of "good food". And its sellers buy local and seasonal as a matter of course because that's what's cheapest – margins are so tight that there's often no choice.
We have a noble tradition of street food in Britain – as far back as the 12th century shopkeepers sold hot sheep's feet. By the 18th century they were hawking pies and pasties, and by the 19th it was warm eels, pickled whelks, oysters, fried fish and hot peas, with a slice of rhubarb tart for dessert. By the end of the Victorian era, however, eating in public was considered suitable only for the working classes. It took the farmers' market movement to make it acceptable (and acceptably middle class) again to eat a sausage in a bun – if the sausage was rare-breed and the bun sourdough.
Gordon Ramsay claimed we had a long way to go before we became a great culinary nation, because food wasn't enjoyed from "the bottom up" – well, street food is making that happen by reclaiming our public spaces. And it is showing us that good food doesn't need to be eaten in a Michelin-starred restaurant with a menu no one understands.
This is an edited extract of 'Street Food Revolution' by Richard Johnson, published by Kyle Cathie, priced £14.99. This year's British Street Food Awards take place at Harvest at Jimmy's festival, 9-12 September (britishstreetfood.co.uk)
The Meatwagon, south London
When Yianni Papoutsis first set up The Meatwagon – which serves the best burgers in Britain – he used to wear chef's whites. Then he went to the Burning Man festival – a celebration of self-expression in the American desert – and "found himself". "All of a sudden it felt like I was doing it under false pretences," he says. So Papoutsis took the whole thing back to basics. "It's not trying to pretend to be a three-star dining experience," he says. "We make burgers – we just happen to make them very well indeed."
Running The Meatwagon at pubs, parties and festivals is a full-on life. But Papoutsis is used to hard graft: as a technician for touring ballet companies, he was always the "go-to guy". While pondering a career change ("I liked dragging bits of steel around, but everything was being computerised"), he went away to America. Over the course of the trip, he fell in love with the country's street food – from lobster-roll vans in Maine to Mexican food trucks in LA.
He returned to the UK with an idea. "I thought, 'I don't have the necessary experience to open a restaurant, so I'll buy a trailer instead.'" And a cast-iron griddle. "I had to go to America to find one heavy enough to get that lovely caramelised crust on the meat. It was 40 years old." But it was worth it. After The Meatwagon opened in 2009, people were soon making the pilgrimage from all over Britain.
The original van was stolen last year. But Papoutsis turned misfortune into opportunity: to raise money for its replacement, he set up a pop-up burger joint, The Meateasy, above a pub in New Cross. For three months, it was the talk of the capital. And, as well as the glowing reviews, he now has a new vehicle, in the striking shape of a converted US ambulance, for his troubles.
Papoutsis knows a burger isn't a trend, it's a classic. So he doesn't monkey about with it. But he's put a lot of research into creating the perfect burger. There are no offcuts, just whole joints of chuck steak, minced into a patty. The patty is 5 per cent less fatty than a standard burger. If it were the standard 20 per cent fat, there would be lumps of hard fat inside which, because it's cooked quickly and served pink, wouldn't have reached a high enough temperature to melt.
Papoutsis had a taste for processed American burger buns – but couldn't get them here. So he decided to work with a bakery that has been in business since the 17th century to make his own.
Food purists still frown on the fact that his cheese is processed. But, he counters, "Cheddar, if you heat it, will separate – oil on top, melted cheese solids underneath. American cheese is so homogenised that it can take extremes of temperature without splitting. I wouldn't have it in a sandwich, but on burgers, it's perfect."
The Meatwagon (themeatwagon.co.uk) is often to be found at The Rye in Peckham, London SE15, but will be at festivals including Glastonbury this summer
BBQ'd burger
Serves 1 drunken guest
A fistful of freshly minced chuck steak
Generous amounts of salt and pepper
1cm-thick slice of a large white onion
1 burger bun
2 American-style processed cheese slices
Heinz tomato ketchup
French's mustard
A few slices of dill pickle (not the sweet ones)
Lots of cold beer
Light your charcoal. It's hot work, so grab yourself a beer to cool down.
The coals will need to burn down to cooking temperature and this will take a while. Use this opportunity to enjoy a couple more icy beers.
When the coals are coated with a white ash (they will glow red in the dark) and all the flames have died down, you're ready to cook. And quite likely drunk.
Pull out a wad of minced chuck steak and form it into a ball in your hands. It should fill both hands when you cup them together. Squash this down on to a sheet of greaseproof paper so that it forms a burger-sized disc. It does not need to be a perfect circle.
Put it on the barbecue grill and season the top side with a healthy dose of salt and pepper. Wash your hands after handling the meat: you don't want to get your beer bottle dirty. Put the thick slice of onion on the barbecue, too.
Cut the bun in half and toast the cut sides over the barbecue. This will take only a few seconds.
When the bottom of the burger has formed a good brown crust, it will easily lift off the barbecue without sticking. Flip it and cook the other side. It won't take nearly as long. Flip the onion while you're at it. Lay a couple of slices of cheese over the burger while it's on the barbecue.
Layer the bottom of your bun with a squirt each of Heinz ketchup and French's mustard. Stick a couple of slices of dill pickle on there too.
Lay the burger on your bun base and slap the cooked onion on top. The melted cheese will hold it in place. Put the bun lid on top and serve immediately with the rest of the beer.
Bánh Mì 11, east London
The street food in Vietnam is the best in the world. Whether it's from the woman who carries her soup kitchen in a don ganh (a yoke, with baskets at each end of a wooden pole) or the man who pushes a bicycle cart and rings a little bell to announce the arrival of his fish stew, you won't be disappointed.
But the people of Vietnam are most proud of their bánh mì – crusty baguettes filled with pork, home-made mayonnaise and a heavenly pâté, layered with crisp pickles and fresh herbs – sold on every street corner at every hour, as long as the baguettes are still warm.
In the days of colonialism, the French would go to the deli for their filled baguettes. But when the French left Vietnam, the "French sandwiches" (bánh mì Tay) went native. Because wheat had to be imported, the Vietnamese made their baguettes with half rice flour. They replaced the duck-liver pâté with a pig-and-chicken-liver pâté, the butter with a mayonnaise made from egg yolks and oil, and cornichons with a radish and carrot pickle. What started off as a pale imitation ended up as a huge improvement on the original.
Bánh Mì 11 began as a culinary venture of Anh and Van, two school friends from Hanoi who couldn't satisfy their cravings for bánh mì in London. But now it's bigger than that – three generations are working together to bring bánh mì to the people. Anh and Van came up with the name because, in their mind, the perfect bánh mì is 11 bites big.
"It's not a simple food," says Van. "It's complex. And it's not just pulled off the shelf. It's cooked right in front of you."
"It's all cooked to order," adds Anh, "and the barbecued pork is so aromatic that you can follow the smell right up to the stall."
Then there's the baguette. The bread has to be light so it doesn't overpower what's inside. Which means that it has to be proved that little bit longer. In the heat of Hanoi, that's not hard. In London? It's just that little bit harder. And freshness is all. For a baguette, one hour is considered old. Three hours, it's dead. When Anh and Van found a baker who could make them fresh, warm baguettes with a thin, golden crust, and a soft, pillowy texture, they were ready. Bánh Mì 11 was born.
They made everything from scratch – even the hot chilli sauce, which is the flourish on top of a classic bánh mì. They roasted and shredded the pork themselves. They even pickled their own daikon, in brine, and squeezed it dry – five times. Then they set up shop in east London's Broadway Market. In the beginning, they put up the Bánh Mì 11 sign by climbing on to a bike seat. They "borrowed" electricity from the laundrette next door. And they carried water from the cellar of the grocer to make their coffee. But it was worth it. The queues just get longer and longer.
Bánh Mì 11 (banhmi11.com) is at London's Broadway Market, E8, from 10am to 5pm, and then Shoreditch's late-night Red Market from 7pm to 3am, every Saturday
Imperial BBQ Pork Bánh Mì
Serves 1
4 tbsp granulated white sugar
100ml/3 fl oz hot water
600g/1¼lb pork shoulder, thinly sliced
2 shallots, finely chopped
3 spring onions, finely chopped
1 lemongrass stalk, minced (optional)
2 large garlic cloves, minced
4 tbsp fish sauce
tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper
Fresh French baguette
Mayonnaise
Pâté de campagne
Half a cucumber, sliced into thin slivers
A few sprigs of coriander
Chopped hot chilli, to taste
Heat a heavy-bottomed saucepan and ensure there's no water residue in it before you pour in the sugar. Stir the sugar in a circular motion using a wooden spoon. When the sugar has turned light brown, carefully pour in the hot water and cook on the stove for just 20 seconds. The key is to be swift here and err on the lightly brown side, as the sugar burns quickly and could build up enough smoke in minutes to set off your fire alarm.
In a bowl, combine the pork, shallots, spring onions, lemongrass, garlic, fish sauce, salt and pepper; finally, pour in the caramel sauce. Mix well and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes to marinate.
When you are almost ready to cook, thread the pork on bamboo skewers and put on the barbecue, ideally a charcoal one to give the meat a smoky aroma.
Lightly toast the baguette on the barbecue and then halve lengthways and spread the lower half with a thin layer of mayonnaise and pâté. Remove the grilled pork from the bamboo skewers on to the baguettes and add cucumber, coriander and some fresh chilli (if you dare).
Cover with the top baguette half and you are ready to enjoy your bánh mì.
The Fish Hut, Southwold, Suffolk
Southwold is an old-fashioned seaside town with elegant, Victorian shop-fronts. It's ridiculously picturesque. Which is why the DfLs (or Down from Londons) have moved in. And why, during the week, Southwold is so quiet. But there is life in Southwold. You just have to know where to look. Blackshore, for instance – the busy, working wharf on an unmade track that runs between Southwold and Walberswick. The dock was built in 1783, when it was home to Suffolk's white-herring fleet. It's more genteel now. But at the end of the track is a little fish-and-chip van called The Fish Hut. And there's nothing genteel about The Fish Hut.
The beach-hut-style van is bold, brassy and comes with its own (wooden) seagulls and sandpit. The owner, Nick Attfield, has even installed a fish tank. With plastic fish. "It's at kid height," he says, "so they can point, and go, 'I want that one.' The area around Southwold is famous for seagulls swooping down and eating your fish and chips as you sit on the beach. Ours are on sticks. Much safer. People like our seaside tat."
The Fish Hut is Attfield's business card. It's there to advertise his next-door pub, The Harbour Inn. Because it's not the mainstay of his business, he can be choosy about where he takes The Fish Hut. "I'm not going to drive to Scotland to do a christening, for instance." He will travel, however, for A-list parties. Attfield catered The Independent's restaurant critic Tracey MacLeod's 50th birthday, in fact, as well as Piers Morgan's wedding. "There was a stunning marquee with a lady making sushi, and a whole lamb and pig on a rotisserie. Then there was my silly little Fish Hut. But they loved it."
Given its location, it makes sense that The Fish Hut specialises in fish and chips. But which fish? Despite scares about overfishing, Attfield is happiest using cod. "I use the local dayboats, which work within very strict quotas. If they are catching cod through long lining, I think it's perfectly all right for me to use it." And the clean white curds of fish work perfectly with Attfield's mushy peas.
"I have tried other fish," he says, "pollock, coley and whiting, for instance. They're all right on day one or two. But they deteriorate very quickly. And I won't use anything from the trawlers that come down from Lowestoft, or up from Essex. I want to support the guys in Blackshore as best I can. I grew up round here."
He now has a taste for working on the street, and has set his heart on a wood-fired pizza oven – bolted on to a Vespa Ape. The three-wheeler won't be able to move once it's weighed down with the oven, but Attfield has thought of that: he'll put it on a low-loader. He already has the oven. "Now we just need the Ape. But because we're going to chop it up [to fit on the oven], it would make sense to find one that's been in an accident..."
When not outside the pub, The Fish Hut will be travelling to the Heveningham Hall Country Fair (10 July), Harvest at Jimmy's (9-12 September) and the Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival (24-25 September)
Perfect Fish & Chips
Serves 6
1.2 litres/2 pints of lager
500g/1lb plain flour
1 tsp Bird's custard powder
12 potatoes (not new potatoes), cut into chips of equal thickness
Sea salt and pepper
Oil, for deep-frying (anything but olive oil)
6 x 150g/5oz cod or haddock fillets
For the mushy peas:
1kg/2lb bag of frozen peas
300ml/ pint double cream
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 vegetable stock cubes
1 large bunch of mint leaves, stalks removed
To make the batter, pour the lager into a bowl and slowly whisk in the flour until you can draw a figure of 8 in the mixture with the top of the 8 disappearing by the time you have reached the top again. Whisk in the custard powder, and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
For the chips, blanch them in water, which reduces the saturated fat and makes them fluffier in the middle. Have a bucket of iced water ready and a pan of sea-salted water, which has been brought to the boil. Cook your chips, two handfuls at a time, in the pan of water until they are just cooked and immediately scoop them out with a slotted spoon into the iced water. Drain your potatoes in a colander until the water has gone (never put them into a fryer immediately after boiling them). Heat your fryer to 180C and cook the chips until crisp and golden. Remove from the oil and drain on kitchen paper. Keep them warm while you fry the fish.
Pat the fish fillets dry with kitchen paper, then dip into the batter. Carefully lower into the deep-fat fryer, one or two at a time, and fry for 3-4 minutes, until golden-brown. Drain on kitchen paper.
For the mushy peas, bring a pan of salted water to the boil. Add the peas, cook for 3 minutes, and refresh immediately in cold or iced water. Meanwhile, put the cream, garlic and stock cubes in a pan, bring to a simmer and leave to infuse for 10 minutes.
Drain the peas and place in a food processor with the cream mixture and mint. Blitz until it resembles a coarse paste. Season to taste and serve with the fish and chips.
Choc Star, central London
Petra Barran's business is flourishing. Her Choc Star brownies are on sale in delicatessens in and around London – but she doesn't want to expand. "I don't want to be in the kitchen – I want to be on the road." That's where she can sell her chocolate loveliness from the window of a converted ice-cream truck, be that frozen (as ice-cream), baked (brownies, cupcakes and flourless sponge), warmed (real hot chocolate) or iced (milkshake).
Barran grew up around food: her father was a herbalist, with a rambling farmhouse in Tuscany. Her family reared pigs, made olive oil and drank rough red wine. Dinner was more likely to be tripe than truffles, and there always seemed to be a calf's head boiling in the cauldron.
The family moved to Africa, then to England. The only thing expected of Barran was that she would travel and, indeed, she became a stewardess on Mediterranean superyachts. In the Italian port of Ancona, though, she had an epiphany. "I was 27, and I thought, 'I can't be 30 and still sleeping in a bunk bed. I've got to get off boats.' I needed a sign, so I switched on the telly. It was a Catholic church service. I thought, 'OK – it's got to be something I really have faith in. The next channel will be a sign.' It was The Food Channel." She returned to England and got a job working for the Black Farmer, selling his high-end sausages, but soon thought again. And, this time, she thought chocolate.
In Paris, she discovered Christian Constant's five varieties of hot chocolate. In Barcelona, she found Cacao Sampaka, the avant-garde shop owned by Ferran Adria's brother, Albert. "By comparison, chocolate in Britain seemed a bit non-contemporary, a bit twee. So I decided to try to change people's perceptions."
While Barran looked for a vehicle, she trained at Kensington chocolatier Pierre Marcolini. She loved Marcolini but found the staff in other high-end chocolate shops stand-offish. "Their glass cabinets were a barrier. It made me realise that my van idea was right. If you inhabit the space everyone inhabits – the street, the park – it will make your idea accessible."
So she bought the L-reg van for £3,000 on eBay. She called it Jimmy and had it sprayed by the international graffiti don Insa, then wallpapered and fairy-lit. "Inside, it never changes. But outside it's a conveyor belt of people from all walks of life, from American yummy mummies in Chelsea to kids in Middlesbrough. Nine out of 10 people smile when you say 'chocolate'. It's universally loved."
It was Barran's idea to form a mobilers' union: Eat Street is a collective that gives traders bargaining power with event organisers. But it's more about a spirit of togetherness. "Even those who seem a bit grumpy at first are soon lending you their leads/mallets/drills/milk. It's hard work, but it's a wonderful life."
Choc Star (chocstar.co.uk) is at the Real Food Market on London's South Bank most weekends, and will also be at festivals including Port Eliot (21-24 July) and Alex James's Harvest (9-12 September)
Ultra Fudge Brownies
Makes 24
375g/12oz dark chocolate (70 per cent)
250g/8oz salted butter
2 tsp instant espresso coffee powder
1 tbsp cocoa powder
500g/1lb caster sugar
6 large free-range eggs
110g/3 oz self-raising flour
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4. Line a 24cm x 30cm baking tin or roasting dish with baking parchment. Melt the chocolate with the butter in a heatproof bowl positioned over a pan of simmering water. When it's a good way to being melted, add the espresso powder and cocoa powder and stir until smooth.
Meanwhile, mix the sugar with the eggs in a large bowl. Give it a nice beating, preferably by hand. Add the melted chocolate mixture and give another good stir, then sift in the flour.
Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for around 35-40 minutes, until done – not too firm, not too liquid. Set aside to cool. These are amazing eaten warm, but brownies can taste better, and more intense, a day or so after baking.
Stoats, Edinburgh
Porridge is as Scottish as it gets. But at the Stoats porridge trailer, they don't bang on about it. "We thought about naming our flavours after the clans," says the trailer's owner, Tony Stone. "But we decided against it. Our key message is, 'We're quirky and cool,' not 'We're from Scotland and we've got kilts on.'"
Oats grow well in these parts: they have a greater tolerance of rain than wheat, rye or barley. They are a superfood that lowers the cholesterol and reduces blood pressure. Their complex carbs help balance blood-sugar levels and leave you feeling full up for longer. But let's be honest, porridge has a PR problem. It's not quirky or fashionable. Never has been. But Stone is giving it a go.
He serves his porridge with thick, fruity jam from the Borders. Or honey and Balvenie whisky. The bestseller is his porridge topped with tablet – a sweet Scottish fudge. Even the Stoats "classic" comes in three varieties: one with brown sugar and cream, one with milk, and one with water and salt. The latter is not a big seller in Edinburgh. "But in Glasgow, it's 20 per cent of turnover and in Inverness, it's 30 per cent. The further north you get, the more extreme the porridge. It's like, 'We're proper Scots – we're hard.'''
Stone came up with the idea for Stoats while a hotel operations manager in Wales. "I was reading the papers one day and saw the headlines: '10 Reasons to Eat Porridge', 'Madonna Eats Porridge' and 'Porridge Sales Up 81 Per Cent'. It's not that I wanted to bring porridge to the people – I just saw a gap in the market."
He and Bob, a friend from school, first conceived Stoats as a chain of porridge bars, where cool people would go for a bowl of something warming. "But I only had a bit of money from a property sale in Wales, and a £4,000 loan from the Prince's Trust," says Stone. "So we had to scale the idea back a bit."
The pair decided to buy a trailer and went looking for something unusual – and found it on a mobile-catering website. It was the sort of hot-dog trailer you would expect to see parked at a baseball game in the US in the 1970s. Only Stone had no idea how to tow a trailer: for the first month of business, it took him half an hour to reverse it into the lock-up. But that hasn't harmed the business: "We've gone from £60,000 to £600,000 turnover in five years."
Stone won't stop trading at festivals and farmers' markets, but he's always wanted to create a year-round business. Festivals, after all, have only a three- or four-month season and it's not worth keeping on staff to work a few farmers' markets over the winter. So he decided to create a range of cereals, cookies and oatcakes. "All I know for sure is that I don't want to be driving for four hours to sell porridge at a music festival when I'm 50," he says. "If I'm being brutally honest, I want to get rich and retire."
Stoats (stoatsporridgebars.co.uk) is at Edinburgh Farmers' Market on Saturdays and at a range of festivals this summer, including T in the Park, V and Womad
Stoats cranachan porridge
Serves as many as you like
Stoats porridge oat blend (50g per person)
Demerara sugar (20g/¾oz per person)
Water (200ml/7fl oz per person)
Semi-skimmed milk (50ml/2fl oz per person)
Sea salt
Clear runny honey (2-3 tsp per person)
Fresh raspberries (50g/2oz per person)
Raspberry coulis (whole raspberries blitzed in a food processor)
A dollop of single cream
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4. Prepare the sweet, toasted oats: scatter a thin layer of oats on a baking tray and sprinkle with the sugar. Place in middle of the oven for 15 minutes, folding the oats and sugar together regularly until they have turned golden-brown. Allow to cool.
For the porridge, pour the water and milk into a non-stick saucepan and add a small pinch of sea salt. Sprinkle in most of the toasted oats (save some for decoration) and heat over a medium temperature. Bring to a boil, allowing the thickening porridge to bubble gently. Keep stirring, and simmer on a low heat for 5-10 minutes.
Once the liquid has been absorbed, remove from the heat and place a lid on top. Leave for a few minutes. Remove the lid from the porridge and lightly mix in a squeeze of honey, fresh raspberries, raspberry coulis and single cream to give a marbled effect. Scoop the porridge into bowls. To finish, sprinkle the reserved toasted oats over the porridge and top with a raspberry in the centre.

Monday 13 June 2011

Growing health concerns after latest food scare

 food scare


English.news.cn   2011-06-13 10:13:48 FeedbackPrintRSS
 
Food inspectors in Taipei dispose of beverages contaminated with a plasticizer at a waste treatment plant on Saturday. A total of 2.34 tons of contaminated products were destroyed at the plant that day. (Xinhua Photo)
BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Would you care for bubble tea or a sports drink? Some papaya jam? These days, the answer is likely: No, thank you. No way.
Tempting as they appear, those foods might contain DEHP, an organic compound usually used to make plastic soft and pliable. Taiwan's health authorities announced the use of DEHP in some products on May 23 and demanded that 168 food processors recall more than 1 million tainted items.
On the Chinese mainland, the State Food and Drug Administration announced on Saturday that eight products, food flavors, butter substitute and baked goods, made in Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces were found to contain DEHP.
The plasticizer was illegally added to food and drinks as a substitute for a traditional and more expensive emulsifier, such as palm oil. For 100-yuan ($15) worth of palm oil, the same amount of DEHP costs only about 20 yuan, said Li Shuguang, a food science professor at Fudan University, during an interview with CCTV.
Consumers may not be familiar with DEHP by either of its chemical names, bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate or di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, but they have quickly recognized its initials.
Few people knew about melamine, either, until it was discovered in 2008 to have been added to dairy products, including milk powder for babies. At least six infants died and almost 300,000 people were sickened in China.
According to Li's research, DEHP in food and drinks can cause cancer. It also can lead to kidney or testicular damage and fertility problems if it is consumed regularly and accumulates in the body. Children are the most vulnerable group, his research shows.
Governments on mainland and elsewhere have responded.
In Taiwan, 286 tons of tainted food products were either incinerated at 850 degrees or poured into sewage treatment works on Saturday. On China's mainland by Friday, the food safety watchdog had suspended imports of 950 kinds of products made by 280 companies in Taiwan.
However, Chen Junshi, director of the Fortified Food Office under the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, asked consumers to calm down and not be frightened by the figures. "The listed products only account for a small portion of all the products in the market. There are far more we can eat."
Chen also said only one company has been identified as producing the DEHP-tainted emulsifier and selling it to food and beverage manufacturers. He said there was no evidence the "downstream manufacturers" were aware of the illegal additive.
The Taiwan government identified the company as Yushen Food Co Ltd, the biggest emulsifier supplier in Taiwan. It has a relationship with Yuyan Food Co Ltd, in Dongguan, Guangdong province, although the exact nature of the connection couldn't be determined.
On June 1, police in Guangdong arrested the owner of Yuyan Food and confiscated 6 tons of food additives and 0.6 ton of raw materials. The initial probe showed that raw materials Yuyan Food imported from Yushen Food might have been contaminated by DEHP.
Yuyan Food started operations in April 2009 and produced about 3,000 kilograms of food additives every month, on average. The products were mostly sold in the province, food safety officials said.
The latest test results show that eight of the 6,100 samples tested in 28 provinces in China were found to contain DEHP. The products came from four manufacturers from Guangdong and Zhejiang.
1,000-plus additives
The guarantee of food safety lies in production rather than supervision, said Chen from the CDC's Fortified Food Office.
"The allowed food additives in the country total more than 1,000 items, which can be tested, but many companies do not announce what they add to their products," as required, Chen said. "It's impossible for the supervisory department to conduct a thorough inspection of all the hundreds of thousands of chemical components. It's impractical because all the cost would finally go to the consumers in the end."
It is unlikely that DEHP has been added to many foods and drinks on China's mainland, but only "because mainland enterprises have not mastered the technique yet," said Dong Jinshi, executive vice-president of the International Food Packaging Association.
Still, he expressed concern over the abuse of plasticizers. For example, he said, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) wrappers might leach out the DEHP they contain when they are used to wrap high-fat foods or food that is being heated.
And there is always a risk when materials are added illegally, he said. "When making plastic containers, some manufacturers might add in poisonous chemicals or add in an overdose amount to make their products softer and brighter."
About 20 kinds of plasticizers have been widely used in commodities such as packing materials, plastic containers for cooking oil and toys, he said.
Tests in Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, the Center for Food Safety and the Department of Health have stepped up quality inspections of imported food from Taiwan, including beverage, tea, jam, capsules, powder, calcium tablets, fruit syrup and juice.
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has formed a special team and put it in charge of Taiwan-imported food inspection.
The Center for Food Safety released the results of its first DEHP test on May 30, showing two of the nine tested beverages imported from Taiwan contained DEHP, 1 to 17 times more than the safety standard. The next day, Hong Kong banned imports of the two drinks, Dongneng Sports Drinks and Dongneng Sports Drinks Lemon Flavor.
On Tuesday, the center added 23 kinds of fruit syrup and juice to its blacklist after Taiwan notified it that the products had been distributed to Hong Kong.
More than 500 shops and restaurants sell Taiwanese bubble tea, according to the Hong Kong Food Council, but now many residents are opting instead for tea or fruit juice.
"I dare not drink the Taiwanese bubble tea any more," Christy Lau, 29, told China Daily.
A study last year by the biology department at Hong Kong Baptist University found the presence of DEHP in blood samples of more than 90 percent of 200 local residents. "However, the result is not too serious," Huang Gangzhu, a biology professor, said in an interview with Sing Tao Daily. "Related indicators of the blood samples are comparatively low."
Huang said the tests show that DEHP has been in food for a long time. "This kind of chemical is easily absorbed yet hard to discover."
Each year, Hong Kong tests 60,000 to 70,000 samples of food and beverages, according to its Food and Health Bureau. On June 3, the Center for Food Safety added DEHP to its list of items it tests for, and suggested an allowable limit of 1.5 milligrams a kilogram. Any item exceeding the standard should be reclaimed and destroyed, the center said.
Vigilance elsewhere
In Vietnam, the Food Sanitary Safety Administration, under the Vietnamese Ministry of Health, has been cooperating with Taiwan to test samples of goods in the market and to determine which companies would likely trade DEHP-tainted products.
Special teams have been established nationwide to inspect companies importing, producing and distributing products that might contain DEHP.
Vietnamese officials raided a company that imported Taiwanese food items contaminated with DEHP on June 2, according to VOH, the official radio of Ho Chi Minh City.
The company, New Choice Foods Co., was an overseas distributor of jellies and other foods produced by Taiwan's Triko Foods Co Ltd, which was found to have used DEHP in its products.
The food safety administration will expand its inspection of products that have used chemical substances from Taiwan, the Ministry of Health said.
In the Philippines, the Food and Drug Administration has been checking whether some Taiwanese products that might contain DEHP have been imported.
In addition, a team named AlerToxic Patrollers has been working in Manila's Chinatown since May 31, urging shop owners to stop selling Taiwanese products that have not been declared safe.
"We have come here today with an urgent plea to all importers, distributors and vendors of high-risk beverage, food and medicinal goods from Taiwan to temporarily stop from selling such products until consumer safety from DEHP is totally guaranteed," Aileen Lucero, chemical safety campaigner for the patrollers, told ABS-CBN News.com.
In the United States, some Taiwanese beverage chain stores in California immediately stopped selling items considered likely to be contaminated with DEHP.
Dahua Supermarket, a Taiwan-based Chinese supermarket chain, said it thoroughly inspected all its food and beverages from Taiwan and allowed customers to return the items.
"We have only found two DEHP-tainted beverages so far, and they are not hot products at all," Cao Qizheng, the spokeswoman in Southern California, told CCTV. "The United States is very strict about imports, and most of the products listed could not be found here in the States."

Saturday 4 June 2011

Shoppers reject fresh produce as E. coli outbreak continues


British farmers have been forced to discard tonnes of salad crops as demand from shoppers has slumped following the deadly Escherichia coli outbreak.


Roger Sayer, Director of Humber Growers Ltd, East Yorkshire, with the discarded cucumbers.  Photo: Les Gibbon
British farmers have been forced to discard tonnes of salad crops as demand from shoppers has slumped following the deadly Escherichia coli outbreak.
Growers warned that the crisis could drive them out of business, even though no case of poisoning has been linked to vegetables produced in the UK.
Cucumber farms have been badly hit after German officials initially – and wrongly – blamed the outbreak on cucumbers from Spain. There has also been a drop in demand for tomatoes, peppers and lettuce.
It came as German officials continued to investigate the source of the E. coli outbreak in the north of the country, which has killed 18 people and left more 1,800 seriously ill.
Suspicion has now fallen on a festival held in the northern port of Hamburg, which was attended by 1.5 million people, to celebrate the anniversary of the harbour.
The annual Hafengeburtstag, at the beginning of May, attracts huge crowds and is filled with vendors selling street food.
Researchers at the Robert Koch Institute say cases of illness began to spike after May 9, the day after the six-day festival closed.
Police in the city are also investigating two food wholesalers and a restaurant on suspicion of selling contaminated vegetables.
Officials were also probing a restaurant in Lübeck, 40 miles north-east of Hamburg.
The owner of the restaurant Joachim Berger said he was devastated to hear some of his customers after one person died and 17 others fell sick, including a party of tax officials, after apparently eating at his Kartoffel Keller (Potato Cellar).
The restaurant is not thought to be the source but could have been supplied with contaminated produce.
Mr Berger said: "It was like a blow to the head when I heard the news. We had everyone here tested and everything was disinfected. I paid for the tests myself because safety is important for our guests and employees."
Berger said health inspectors came to his restaurant last week but found nothing. More test results are due on Monday.
"We had a group of women here from the tax authorities and they ate à la carte," he said. "They enjoyed their meal. But the group was in town for quite a few days and also ate elsewhere.
"None of our employees is sick and they all eat salad and everything we have here."
The outbreak is being caused by a new strain of E. coli, among the deadliest in modern history.
Since the beginning of May, more than 1,800 cases have appeared across 12 European countries, while there have been 90 in the US. All seven cases in the UK have been in individuals who were recently in Germany.
Public health officials say the risk to people buying vegetables in the UK is very low, but have advised that all fresh produce is washed thoroughly.
Wholesalers traders in the UK said prices were half their normal level, while market stall holders said they were throwing away boxes of unsold vegetables. Morrisons supermarkets also reported a drop in sales.
Roger Sayer, managing director of Humber Growers, in East Yorkshire, said he had emptied a 20-tonne skip of discarded cucumbers on Friday and thrown away about 5,000 boxes, worth around £15,000, over several days. Some were composted, others sent to landfill because they were already packaged.
The company produces 50,000 boxes a week and faces massive financial losses if consumer confidence is not restored.
Mr Sayer said: "The impact for us could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
"Until Thursday there hadn't really been much of an effect on supermarket sales. But since then the problem has really built up."
Another farmer, Joe Cappalonga, who grows three acres of cucumbers outside Slough and has also had to throw out a skip full of healthy vegetables, said: “I’m hearing demand from supermarkets for the coming week could be up to 30 per cent down, which is worrying. We’d have to throw out a lot more if that’s the case.”
Frank Pullara, who grows six acres of cucumbers and peppers in Essex, added: “A protracted downturn like this really could put us out of business.”
The British Cucumber Growers’ Association said that about one in six of the country’s 90 major producers were already likely to be discarding stock following the collapse in the wholesale market.
Wholesale traders at New Covent Garden Market, in London, said the price of 12 British cucumbers had fallen from around £4.50 a week ago to £2.50. on Friday. Tomatoes and peppers were down in price by around a third.
The slump has partly been caused by European suppliers flooding Britain with cheap unwanted cucumbers from the Netherlands, driving UK wholesale prices downwards.
Greengrocers said they were unable to sell salad vegetables despite slashing prices.
“Normally I would sell ten boxes of cucumbers a day but this week I’ve only sold one,” said Mula Teklay, 28, who runs Brixton Food, at Brixton Market, south London.
“I’ve been working here for ten years and I’ve never seen anything like it. The drop in trade has been incredible.
One woman who has survived the infection spoke on Saturday of her fight for life. Nicoletta Pabst, 31, a mother of three from Blankenese in Hamburg, spent a week in hospital.
"I suffered a terrible night of pain," she said. "There was blood in my waste again and I couldn`t eat anything. The next day an ambulance took me to a clinic in Altona.
"I had infusions. The stomach cramps were terrible for two more days. I lost my sense of time and space. I cried and I wailed. After three days I was given a course of antibiotics. Last weekend I finally began to feel better.
"It wasn`t until Wednesday this week that I was allowed home but I am not 100 per cent yet. But at least I am alive."
Thanks
kunj kashyap

Thursday 2 June 2011

E coli strain previously unseen and 'resistant to antibiotics'

E coli strain previously unseen and 'resistant to antibiotics'

Bacterial outbreak had spread beyond Germany to 10 countries with people infected through eating contaminated vegetables
  • guardian.co.uk,
  • Article history
  • E coli bacteria
    Magnified E coli bacteria. Photograph: Rex Features
    A strain of E coli spreading across Europe is a previously unseen and more virulent variant of the bacterium, health officials have said. So far 18 people have died and more than 2,000 havehad become infected from eating contaminated vegetables. The bacterial outbreak had spread beyond Germany to 10 countries. After scientists sequenced the genetic code of the E coli, Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the World Health Organisation told Associated Press: "This is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before … [there are] various characteristics that make it more virulent and toxin producing." Scientists also said that the new strain appeared likely to be resistant to common antibiotics. A spokesperson for the UK's Health Protection Agency said the organisation had not sequenced the bacterium but had agreed with the WHO finding that the E coli O104 strain associated with the outbreak "which we know to have a highly unusual combination of virulent properties, could be one that has never been seen before". There is no evidence yet that the bacteria have appeared on British vegetables. Stephen Smith, a clinical microbiologist at Trinity College, Dublin, said the new E  coli strain was a "mongrel" combining two "nasty" types of the bacterium. He said: "It is very similar to enteroaggregative E coli which has been associated with outbreaks of watery diarrhoea, in developing nations since 1970. However, this bacterium has been recognised as a cause of diarrhoea in industrialised nations and has caused outbreaks in the US, Sweden, Britain and Germany." The toxin produced by the bacterium binds to, and damages, kidney cells and leads to haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a rare and severe complication that destroys red blood cells and can affect the central nervous system. More than 500 cases of HUS have been reported in Germany and three cases were found in the UK in people who had recently been to Germany. An HPA spokesperson said: "Bacteria and viruses are evolving all the time. We expect to see new strains, sometimes more virulent or resistant to antibiotics than others, and plan on that basis."

Tuesday 31 May 2011

Death in cucumber to 10 people

 
By cnkeyworld info

German consumption of suspected cases of toxic death in cucumber to 10 people


BEIJING, May 29, 28, Germany announced that health officials has added four suspected deaths from eating poisonous case of cucumber makes cucumber in Germany after the consumption of toxic, infectious Escherichia coli deaths from the previous 6 to 10 people, including two confirmed cases are.



Addition to Germany and Europe, including Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom also found suspected cases, and in the past week, about 300 suspected cases.



Additional 4 deaths, mainly by Su Yi grid – Holstein (Schleswig-Holstein) and the Hamburg Clinic Health Bulletin, 4 women dead, 3 of whom about 80 years old , another is 30 years old.



28 local governments in southern Spain that has banned Andalusia (Andalucia) region Mui Calabria province (Almeria) and Malaga Province (Malaga) 2 家 wholesale export export cucumber, and conduct strict inspection measures to identify sources of pollution.



The south of the country from the West toxic cucumber, allegedly Escherichia coli (E. coli bacteria) infection can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome (haemolytic uraemic syndrome, HUS) and death.



EU executive member in charge of health matters stand (John Dalli) had previously said that apart from Germany, the current confirmed cases not found in other countries, and Sweden, the UK and the Netherlands, suspected cases, prior to the onset have to stay in Germany, closely monitoring the current condition.