Wastage of any natural resource is obviously bad, but when it comes to “food” things are even worse.

Leftovers or dinner of the month?

With UN predicting an imminent food crisis in many parts of the world because of the current global financial crunch, it seems only wise that we waste as little as possible. And though at home we try not to do it, when it comes to big hotels, organizations and schools, it could be the difference between hunger and satisfied meals for many.

Small string volunteer organizations across the US are starting an innovative new venture in which restaurants and large corporate houses are being encouraged to donate food that would otherwise go into the bin. Apart from the very obvious ‘green’ reasons that encourage such ventures, this is also a wonderful humanitarian gesture.

While you may not find such organizations flashing ads across the internet or on national television, you sure can go check with your local community, to find out about where you can donate. It’s up to you!

Image courtesy of Rasimu

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This is a real good treat to all those who have gone ‘all-vegetarian’ or wish to adopt a vegan lifestyle by filtering away everything that is both unnatural and is not a vegan product.

The Kookie Karma brand of cookies allows you to enjoy fresh cookies that are baked once each day and are free of everything both artificial and dairy.

They are all free of gluten, soy and dairy – including butter, eggs, flour, preservatives, baking soda, baking powder, sulfites, sugar, wheat and casein. And yes, if you were asking, you can make a cookie without all those stuff but it just won’t stay fresh for long.

The cookies offered by Kookie Karma come in 9 different flavors (cherry cashew, granola bar, banana bread, lemon fig and carob truffle for those who love raw natural flavors and that tinge or raw ecstasy) and are all made of completely natural ingredients, ideal for vegans. Then there are Holistic Chocolate Chip and the Holistic Choco for chocolate fanatics in most of us.

Both good for health and to avoid any allergies with pure natural ingredients, these are a great choice to make for you, your family and the planet as they dispense with the energy wastage involved with long storage and manufacture of artificial contents. – via GreenDaily

I know you guys can read, but I just feel like saying it out loud, again.

“Only when the last tree has died, and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught, will we realise that we can not eat money“

There’s so much truth in that … – via AmericansAreBrainwashed

You say potato, I say poh-tah-toe. You say tomato, I say purple cancer-fighting tomatoes. Seriously, I can’t imagine how people can have the gall to think they can improve on the Creator’s original product, but British researchers have announced that they have a genetically engineered tomato that is part pizza topping and part berry.

What’s more, the finished product has helped prevent cancer in mice and the finding was published in the journal Nature Biotechnology. The researchers learned that cancer-proned (they get that way from eating genetically altered food) lived significantly longer than animals who didn’t eat the purple tomatoes.

The mice were genetically altered to develop cancer and die within 142 days. Given the tomato, they lived 182 days. Um, how about we don’t give the mice anything that will cause them to get cancer and see how much longer they live, huh?

“The next step will be to take the pre-clinical data forward to human studies with volunteers to see if we can promote health through dietary preventive medicine strategies” said research leader Prof Cathie Martin from the John Innes Centre in Norwich.

The main finding – people can significantly improve their health by making simple changes to the daily diet. Gosh, eat right and exercise and you will live longer. – via DailyMail

It seems there is an intelligent greenhouse (as opposed to a stupid one, I reckon) in Tianjin, China. The greenhouse is built to show off new agricultural technologies like soilless culture and drip irrigation.

Huge pumpkin growing in an intelligent greenhouse in Tianjin

The greenhouse is meant to be a model of modern sightseeing agriculture. It grows huge sweet potatoes, enough lettuce to clothe hundreds of PETA girls and the world’s largest potential Halloween Pumpkin. So, if a pumpkin is raised in an intelligent greenhouse, does that make it an intelligent pumpkin? And a pumpkin grown in a patch, what kind of pumpkin would that be? – via Sina

Some key tuna species, are under threat from overfishing in SE Asia’s diverse Coral Triange region. The World Wildlife Fund is calling for a drastic rethink to stave off collapse. Indeed, we’d better save the coral, feeding the people be dam ….! The bluefin and bigeye tuna are overfished says the WWF.

The Coral Triangle is bounded by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and East Timor containing migratory routes for up to 89% of the world’s tuna catch.

Last week, Spain and Japan decided to close down bluefin tuna fishing in the Mediterranean meaning they will be heading for the Coral Triangle thinks the WWF. “Representatives from the six Coral Triangle nations, fishing companies and WWF are meeting in the Indonesian capital until Thursday to discuss ways of curbing overfishing in the area.”

The bluefin tuna is prized for sushi and sashimi. Yum! Either we don’t have enough food or we have too many people. What’s a triangle to do? – via Sina

Well, here’s a conundrum. There’s not enough food to feed all the people in the world (so some say) but there’s a very easy way to make people live longer, thus increasing the number of people that can’t be fed.

Some 30% of the world’s heart attacks are caused by a Western diet. Of course, 30% of the world lives in the West, but not ALL of them have heart attacks and leave the rest of the world alone.

A study shows, “if you eat a healthy diet you can actually reduce the risk of heart attack by about 30 to 40 percent. That is bigger than most drugs we have for protecting against heart disease.”

It is bigger than angioplasty or bypass, too. Tofu and soy have no effect on heart attack risk says the study. It doesn’t matter where people live, it matters how they eat. Eat like the west, grow fat like the west, die like the west.

But, what would the world do if everyone listened and started eating right?

Images source Micah Sittig

The UN food agency – the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is warning of a looming food crisis in Africa. The reason – global increase in food and fuel prices. The reason – increase production in bio-fuel at the expense of food production. The reason – climate change.

Kenyan agriculture assistant minister said, “that in as much as bio-fuel continues to draw attention due to the increasing prices of fossil fuels, there is need to focus on providing access to sustainable sources of energy.”

The assistant minister also said “thousands of bags of food are lying at the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) stores and blamed the ministry of special programs for delaying its distribution to the hungry.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people are reported to be starving in a number of districts especially those in arid and semi arid regions.”

So, what should we do when we try to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels by increasing the use of bio-fuels so that we can save our environment but in the process people die for lack of food? Does anybody have an answer? – via Cri.cn

Image courtesy of martapigs

A calabash is an annual vine with white flowers and a smooth, large, hard-shelled gourd. It is also called bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd. What’s more, the little fellow can be molded and shaped into volleyballs, Buddhas and gargoyle heads…among other things.

I am not sure I get this. But, a grower in Lanzhou, the capital of China’s Gansu province used a biotechnology technique to cultivate various shapes from the calabash, turning the gourd into an artwork. Yeah, but what does it taste like?

“Hey can I have an ear?”

“No you get to eat the belly of the Buddha.”

GP is for using biotechnology to make the most of the plants and food supplies that the Earth can generate, but turning food into art. Perhaps some people just have too much time on their hands.

What do you think?

For a sushi fan like me, that would do anything for a bite of tuna, be it rolls (sashimi or whatever comes out from the chefs’ knives) these days, the fact that the Atlantic giant bluefin tuna is an endangered species kind of shocked me. And it does, because I never even considered that the fish I’m serving could go extinct in the next few years.

But let’s make sure we’re clear on that one, because you shouldn’t stop eating tuna. You should stop eating the Western Atlantic giant bluefin tuna because stocks on a global basis are severely over-fished. Usually the bluefin tuna is a very large fish, with a big mouth and a robust cigar-shaped body that can live for 30 years and reach incredible weighs and lengths. The record is 680kg and 4.3 meters long.

Obviously, due to overfishing (usually commercial fishermen using purse seine gear) the bluefin tuna only grows one meter long and only weighs 35 kg. It’s money that drives all these people because I’ve heard that a single giant tuna can exceed $100,000 at the Tokyo fish market …

So what can be done, knowing that the giant bluefin tuna provides most of the tuna used in sushi, because if we don’t change something there won’t be any fish to put on rice?

1. Ask your sushi chef if what they serve is bluefin tuna, and if yes don’t order it. Tell the chef that it’s a critically endangered species.

2. Go to SaveTheBluefin.com which is a social network started by John LoGioco. Their putting everything in to help save the Atlantic Bluefin tuna. I’m am a member already. They are supporting a science group called Tag-A-Giant with donations and everything else that will help satellite tagging of the blue fin tuna so that nations can manage on a eco system basis and not a national basis.

What do you say?

Images courtesy of 1, 2