Friday, June 28, 2013

Compost: A weekly roundup of stories spotted



1Ta-da! A title for this weekly update blog at last. Kinda combines the notion that it is made up of scraps but that they provide a useful medium for growing your ideas.

            1, Good earth: Green lentils and the Wimmera self-munching Grey Vertosol.
 “Notwithstanding full respect and homage to the artisan cultivators of Le Puy, one cannot ignore the Wimmera, where the self-mulching Grey Vertosol soil steps up to the plate to produce Australia’s version of these premium green lentils.” Another in this terrific series of articles about Australian soils and what they contribute in flavour to food staples.


           2. Palestinians forced to rely on food aid.
“These villagers make up some of the 1.6 million people classed as "food insecure" throughout the West Bank and Gaza, representing 34 per cent of households in Palestine, according to new research by the UN World Food Program. Ertharin Cousin, the executive director of the World Food Program, says the rise in households going hungry, up 7 per cent from a year ago, is driven by Israel's occupation of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority's financial crisis, and the high unemployment rates... Ms Cousin described another Bedouin village, Khan al-Ahmar, surrounded by a fence from the nearby settlement and a highway that its residents do not always have permission to use, to highlight the food insecurity issue. hat keeps what is historically a nomadic population trapped in one area and makes them ever more dependent on food assistance . . . because [they cannot practise] their normal lifestyle and livelihood because of the occupation," Ms Cousin said.”
There are more ways to repress a people than by building a bloody big wall.

3.                  3. Liquid breakfasts’ shonky truth.
"Liquid breakfasts have on average 1.5% fibre, which is well below the 10 per cent benchmark for high fibre. It is grains away from the 39.5 per cent fibre offered by some bran cereals."
Oh no; my up and go just got up and went :)


4.Food Wastage: The Irony of Global Gluttony
 “Current methods of agricultural production and distribution account for almost a third of global food waste, and are unsustainable.
In both developing and developed countries the bulk of foods wasted are the more nutritionally dense fresh fruits and vegetables, with heavily processed foods stored for increasingly longer periods.
Equal responsibility lies with practitioners of unsustainable farming practices in developing countries as with irresponsible consumers in the developed world.”

Cold comfort that it isn’t just me not eating my left overs that’s the problem.



5.      5. Romancing the north: The food bowl furphy
 “The argument that we should develop northern Australia is based on rent seeking, opportunism, romanticism and an ability to ignore countless studies stating the national economic, social and environmental folly of such an exercise.”

Nearly fifty years since Bruce Davidson released the The Northern Myth and comprehensively duded the idea it’s getting a run again. What was that about those who forget the past...?


6.       6. Big Soda do you think we’re all stupid?
Science suggests that one can of soft drink per day increases your chances of diabetes by 22%. Digest that one for a moment! Less than one can per day and your chances of diabetes goes up by one-fifth.”
If I’ve done nothing else to keep just this side of my inherited diabetes giving up fizzy drinks makes me feel slightly more able to front up to my dear GP every six months for the usual self-flagellation session.

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