Month: December 2014 (Page 3 of 3)

After giving my presentation in class on Monday, I thought you all might be interested in what the Hershey company has to say about the PGPR additive in their chocolate. They claim that the scientific research that has been done by the FDA has concluded that PGPR is safe, however, other scientific studies have concluded otherwise. This may be due to Hershey conducting their own research through the FDA. In addition to the information on PGPR, Hershey has a sidebar (on the left side) stating all of the ingredients they use in their chocolate. With all of those added ingredients, any nutritional value that the original, unprocessed cocoa had is now overridden by the many unnatural and excessive additives that Hershey adds to their chocolate.

http://www.thehersheycompany.com/nutrition-and-wellbeing/what-we-believe/our-ingredients/ingredient-topics/pgpr.aspx

A recent study published in the Global Change Biology journal found that arthropods (insects, millipedes, and spiders) can act as tiny trash disposals in NYC’s public spaces. Littered food waste can have huge human health implications, and if rats, squirrels, raccoons, and pigeons pick up our littered food, we are basically feeding a population that can transmit diseases to humans. Arthropods, on the other hand, don’t make us sick, and are extremely effective at removing littered food waste. So think twice before stepping on the next insect you see on the streets!

Read more here: http://time.com/3611552/insects-eat-food-waste/

“Food Chains” is the most recent food documentary to be released (November 21, 2014), and I highly recommend it. It dives into the history of farm labor in the United States, which goes back to slavery, and shows how unfair labor conditions still are. It focuses on the CIW and how they are revolutionizing farm labor in the United States. Farmworkers live well below the poverty line, only making an average of $12,000 per year. Sexual harassment of female farmworkers is a huge issue and the documentary states that about 80% of these women experience sexual harassment in the fields. The CIW developed the Fair Food program, which asks large retailers like supermarkets and fast food restaurants to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes and to refuse to buy tomatoes from farms with human rights violations. Even though this only represents a portion of farmworkers in the U.S., I think that this program, as well as documentaries like Food Chains that depict the problems associated with farm labor, can go far in educating Americans on the issues and solutions that exist in agriculture.