Podcasts

What is Wrong with Biofortification Just about everything

 , , 3

A woman in Western Bangladesh offers a range of fruits and gegetables for sale

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:46 — 21.9MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More

cover artworkAbout two billion people around the world do not get enough micronutrients in their diet. This lack of vitamins and minerals — often called hidden hunger — has severe and lasting effects on individuals and their societies. One very popular approach to tackling hidden hunger is known as biofortification, engineering or selecting varieties of staple crops so that they produce higher levels of one micronutrient or another. On the surface, this makes perfect sense. Hidden hunger is strongly correlated with the amount of energy people get from staples, so putting more micronutrients in those staples ought to be a good thing, except that there’s little evidence that it works and yields of biofortified staples are generally lower than those of unfortified varieties. That’s a waste of land that could be used to grow the fruits and vegetables that contribute to a more diverse diet, which offers a far better approach to micronutrient deficiencies.

All this and more is brought out in a recent paper in the journal Global Food Security. I interviewed one of the authors.

Notes

  1. What is Wrong with Biofortification, by Maarten van Ginkel and Jeremy Cherfas, can be read in Global Food Security.
  2. A previous episode examined orange-fleshed sweet potato to feed hidden hunger, and there was evidence that OFSP can increase vitamin A status in children. I didn’t ask about yield.
  3. Here is the transcript.
  4. Banner photograph from Western Bengal, by Krishnasis Ghosh for The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.

huffduffer icon   Huffduff it

Podcasts

Making Mr Song’s Cheese China appreciated cheese and dairy long before it was decided they couldn’t

 , , 1

Two water buffalo ink on silk scroll by Gao Qifeng

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:42 — 23.6MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More

Miranda Brown successfully stretches Mr Song's string cheese
Miranda Brown successfully stretches Mr Song’s string cheese
I’ve long believed that the reason there is no milk or cheese in Chinese food culture today is because ethnic Chinese people are likely to be lactose intolerant. But that may well be an oversimplification. In looking at old texts, Professor Miranda Brown of Michigan University discovered recipes and advice on butter, milk and cheeses. So she set about trying to make the cheeses, with some success. As for intolerance, yes, a study in 1984 concluded that 92% of Han Chinese exhibit “primary adult lactose malabsorption”. Nevertheless, milk consumption is growing rapidly in China and the genetic basis of intolerance may be more complicated than a simple, single gene.

Notes

  1. Miranda Brown is @Dong_Muda on Twitter. She wrote about Making Mr. Song’s Cheeses and in more detail about the cheeses and dairy in an article in Gastronomica which may be behind a paywall. She also has a recipe for cheese wontons.
  2. Her colleague, Alice Yao, recorded an interview on The problematic history of lactase persistence research but her host, the Human Biology Association, doesn’t really get podcasting.
  3. Here is the transcript.
  4. Banner image from Two Water Buffaloes by Gao Qifeng (1889–1933), from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

huffduffer icon   Huffduff it

Podcasts

What Price Chicken Wings? The economics of production in fixed proportions

 , 1

Sesame coated chicken wing held in chopsticks above a plate of similar wings

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:27 — 20.6MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More

Professor Wally Thurman
Wally Thurman

Time was when chicken wings were barely a thing, appendages that nobody much wanted to eat. Chickens were bred to deliver big breasts and wings were an afterthought until the advent of Buffalo wings in the 1960s. Now, and especially in the run-up to the Superbowl and March Madness, wings are in much greater demand than breasts, which is reflected in much higher prices for wings.

I wanted to understand how the market copes with changing demand for the different parts of the whole bird, so I turned to Professor Wally Thurman, of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at North Carolina State University.

Notes

  1. Purdue University (no relation to Perdue chicken) published a nice piece back in June 2001 explaining the complications that arise because Chicken Wings Come From Actual Chickens.
  2. Of course I skated over the true history of Buffalo wings. If Calvin Trillin can’t get to the bottom of the story, who am I even to try?
  3. In our conversation, we touched briefly on “wing-like things,” made from lower-cost breast meat. Just last week, I read about a class action lawsuit brought against a restaurant chain by a man who suffered “a financial injury” because he truly believed he had bought wings that had been deboned, rather than pieces of breast meat cunningly cut to resemble a wing. Nice try.
  4. Here is the transcript.
  5. Cover image adapted from Wikimedia Commons. Banner image from Ang Sarap.

huffduffer icon   Huffduff it

Podcasts

Patrik Johansson, the Butter Viking Not quite his grandmother’s butter

  0

Decorated butter handmade by the Butter Viking

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:05 — 21.2MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More

Dall-E's rendering of "A viking made of butter"

Ten years ago, the first episode of Eat This Podcast featured Ben Reade talking about some butter that he had buried in a Swedish bog, the better to understand the bog butter occasionally unearthed in Ireland (and elsewhere). The butter for that experiment was made by Patrik Johansson, using methods taught him by his grandmother, lightly churned with some modern food science. The result is a product that can be found only at a few fine restaurants. That is unlikely ever to change, as Patrik says he couldn’t possibly scale up production.

We talked about that, and much else besides.

Notes

  1. You can follow Patrik Johansson on Instagram.
  2. Here’s the episode on bog butter
  3. And here is the transcript.
  4. Drum roll by MissloonerVoiceOver255

huffduffer icon   Huffduff it

Podcasts

Food Security in Egypt “Twenty loaves of bread for the cost of a cigarette”

 , , 0

A boy holds up a loaf of bread while making a peace symbol at Tahrir Square in 2011

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:02 — 26.9MB)

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More

Portrait of Jessica Barnes
Jessica Barnes
Egypt spends about 3% of its budget subsidising bread for about three-quarters of its population. Threats to that subsidy provoke massive civil unrest, helping to topple the regime in 2011. As a result, bread and wheat are fundamental to the government’s security and that of the people of Egypt. Wheat yields in Egypt are among the highest in Africa, but they are no match for the population, which is why Egypt is the biggest buyer of wheat on the global market. Even when government raises the price it will pay for local wheat, the farmers who grow it prefer to keep their harvest — for their own family food security — rather than sell it to promote the government’s security.

These are just some of the challenges Jessica Barnes brings to light in her new book, Staple Security: Bread and Wheat in Egypt.

Sheaves of harvested wheat in the foreground with a row of date palms behind

Notes

  1. Staple Security: Bread and Wheat in Egypt is published by Duke University Press.
  2. Music by Ramy Essam.
  3. You may be interested in an episode I did back in 2014: Food prices and social unrest
  4. Transcript available here.
  5. Cover photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy. Banner photo “courtesy Middle East Confidential”.

huffduffer icon   Huffduff it