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Food and "Apps"

More and more we are buying, getting or hearing about Apps. These are applications (or little computer type programs) that can be used on some type of mobile phones to check things, do things or see things.

There are now millions of them and they are increasing daily. There are free ones and others that you pay for.

There was a terrific free one invented in Australia in 2011 that you can use to scan a barcode in a supermarket to give you a comparison of what food may have better nutrtitional quality.

A recent App was developed in the USA to help consumers work out the process that a product has gone through to get to the supermarket. The food industry has this as a basic food safety requirement and now for the first time consumers are also able to trace a product from beginning to end, whilst they are standing in their local supermarket.

You can find out more about this really clever App at http://blog-softwareadvice.com/articles/distribution/are-mobile-apps-the-future-of-food-traceability/

Pee powered restaurant

My local theatre group is performing a play called "Urine Town" later this year and as usual they will do a superb job. It is a very funny play set in the future when water is very difficult to find, it is also a statement about the value of water and our use of it.

I have a client in Queensland, who is currently wrestling with the filling in of their first Water Efficiency Management Plan (WEMP) as they have now gone over 10 mega litres of water used annually. They have a laundry and could outsource that part of their operation to avoid having to go through this WEMP process but they want to maintain local employment as part of their sustainability program.

Water is one of the planet's most valuable resources, and businesses of all sizes must play their part in reducing the water used, whilst still ensuring food and workplace health and safety.

Joost Bakker is a sustainability guru and owns a remarkable pop up restaurant powered by oil produced from mustard seeds, that have been grown at a farm using pee collected from the restaurant to fertilise the soil.

It is being featured at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival as a real life example of how we can save water whilst still running a successful and sustainable business.

It is a five year project with the pee from this year fertilising the crop of mustard seed that will produce the oil to be used to power the restaurant next year.

Dry urinals are to be used for collection and the pee will then be transferred to a farm and then injected into the soil.

"It's mainly to show people that there's no such thing as waste. Everything has a value," said Joost Bakker.

The future shown in "Urine Town" may not be that far ahead, and concepts like the Pee Powered restaurant will probably (and should) be the norm.

Fat receptor found

A recent study has shown that some people may be more sensitive to fat in foods than others. The research has found a fat receptor in humans that is not influenced by taste.

The study was done by the Washington University School of Medicine and has been published on line in the Journal of Lipid Research.

The study was only on 21 people, but all had a Boy Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or more and were therefore considered obese. It was found that some of these had more of a particular variation of the CD36 gene and these were found to be more sensitive to the presence of fat in foods.

Each person was asked to taste oily solutions in three cups, one had fat added to it and the other two didn't, and were asked to choose the one that was different.

People who made more of the CD36 protein were found to be eight times more sensitive to the fat that those who made less.

Based on the study, it is estimated that about 20 percent of the population may have the ability to produce less of the CD36 protein and this would mean that they are less likely to recognise fat in foods. This could be a factor contributing to our increasing obesity rate around the world.

What is of particular interest with this study is that it has traditionally been believed that humans usually perceive fat through texture not taste, but this may change that belief.

Washington University’s Professor Robert A. Atkins said,“What we will need to determine in the future is whether our ability to detect fat in foods influences our fat intake, which clearly would have an impact on obesity.”

Obviously with such a small sample size, more work needs to be done on this issue but it potentially has some wide ranging implications.

And so it is Christmas.....

So it is Christmas and all through the house... there were bacteria around that could make us sick!!!!

Christmas in Australia means warm days and family meals. It is also a time when the likelihood of food poisoning increases because people are just not practicing good food safety.

There are an estimated 5.4million cases of food poisoning every year in Australia and this time of the year is when we regularly see a peak in the number of cases.

There are simple ways to reduce the likelihood of you or your family becoming one of these cases;

Keep hot food hot - above 60C

Keep all cold foods cold - less than 5C

Put the food in the fridge instead of the drinks - use an esky for the drinks

Don't overfill the fridge - there needs to be enough space for air movement

Keep all food contact surfaces clean

Don't put cooked food onto a plate that has held raw food - unless it is well washed first

Wash your hands when handling food

Only put out small serves of dips, cut fruit / vegetables, salads, meats, seafood and after two hours dump it and replace with fresh from the fridge.

Always use an esky or similar container with ice for transporting cold foods

Remember you can use an esky for transporting hot food too

The Food Safety Information Council has a lot of great information about these and other ways of reducing food poisoning at www.foodsafety.asn.au

Cane Flour - coeliac alternative

A company in Ayr in Nth Queensland has spent several years turning a waste product that may only have gone into gardens as compost or even to animals into a high value and potentially very popular food ingredient.

Bagasse is the name given to cane sugar stalks after the sugar has been extracted and it is often sold as a composting material. The Ayr company have devised a way of turning this product into a extremely high fibre product that can be used as a gluten free alternative to wheat flour.

This is a brilliant example of sustainability and is a great example for others to follow.

The product, called Fibacel, is now being produced in small quantities through a special process and is already being sold for use in processed meats, baked goods and low sugar snackfoods.

It is all fibre and is completely natural, so allows fo not only gluten free labelling but also a clear declaration of being "clean". The product also has better water retention ability than traditional starch.

It is a product to look out for.

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