Food Trends

1. Food Trends GMOs, Selective Breeding, Organic Food, Agri-Businesses

2. What is Organic Farming? • It promotes the sustainable health and productivity of the ecosystem – soil, plants, animals and people. • Organic foods are farmed in an environmentally sustainable and socially responsible way, focusing on soil regeneration, water conservation and animal welfare.

3. What Is Not Used in Organic Farming Excludes or strictly limits: • Synthetic fertilizers/pesticides • Herbicides • Livestock feed additives (hormones) • GMOs

4. Advantages to Organic Farming • Soil is “healthier” • Less pesticide residue • Happier animals • Better for the environment • Reduces pollutants in groundwater • Some say the flavour is better

5. Pesticides used in Non-Organic Farming • The amount of man-made pesticide residues found in non-organic foods is still well below the unsafe level • The real issue is whether these small doses, over years and decades, might add up to an increased health risk down the line. • They can be carcinogenic and also hormone disrupters

6. Disadvantages of Organic Farming • Smaller yields • More labour intensive • More expensive to buy • Some of the “natural” pesticides allowed are just as harmful • Studies are inconclusive on whether it’s more nutritious

7. What does free-range mean? • It’s supposed to mean that poultry has been allowed access to the outside. • But there are no guarantees for the length of time outside, and the size of the outdoor space, which might be just gravel, pavement or dirt • The birds don’t need to be actually outside, just given access to it • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8vzV8dPyC0 What do all those labels in the grocery store mean

8. Growth Hormones • In Canada, they are not used in poultry and pork production. • Some marketers still classify their chicken as “hormone-free.” • This is used as a marketing tactic, since all chickens raised in Canada have been raised for decades without added hormones. • In Canada, growth hormones are only approved for use in beef cows • They help to produce leaner beef at a lower cost to consumers by helping cows convert the food they eat into muscle more quickly and easily. • Growth hormones are not used in cows that produce milk.

9. Canadian Milk: no steroids or antibiotics • Canadian milk, regardless of whether it is organic or normal milk, has no steroids, growth hormones or antibiotics • If a dairy cow is being given antibiotics for an illness, she is temporarily removed from the milk producing herd and her milk is discarded. • Once she has recovered and the antibiotics have cleared her system, her milk is again suitable for human consumption.

11. Modern Agri-Businesses • These are replacing family farms • They focus on profits, and so many issues get pushed to the background • Soil degradation, pesticide run-off, land exhaustion, cruelty to animals, food quality, food distribution, etc

13. Monoculture : Growing a single crop, very efficient way of farming • Diseases can easily wipe out whole crops • Since all plants in a monoculture are genetically similar, if a disease strikes to which they have no resistance, it can destroy entire populations of crops. • Monoculture also depletes the soil of nutrients – that can lead to soil erosion which can lead to contaminated water sources

14. Food Waste • A World of Waste Why are we wasting so much food? Award-winning author Tristram Stuart argues that #foodwaste is a global scandal. Oct. 13, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbo1ZpJBcVE 4:46 • France says "NON!" to wasting food. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn5OroV4vlY 1:01 • https://vimeo.com/ondemand/justeatit trailer

15. Fair Trade • : a social movement whose goal is to help producers in developing countries achieve better trading conditions. • Members of the movement advocate the payment of higher prices to farmers, as well as improved social and environmental standards. • Producers are certified by the fair trade organization • Made with good labour practices (sweatshop –free) • Fair prices paid to the farmers • Environmental sustainability • Democratic participation • Less money goes to middlemen and more to the producer • Money to go to the community: building schools, infrastructure

16. GMOs • (genetically modified organisms) are the result of a laboratory process where genes from the DNA of one species are extracted and artificially forced into the genes of an unrelated plant or animal. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TmcXYp8xu4Kurzesagt explains GMOs, 9:02

17. GMO Crops in Canada • Only four main GM crops are currently grown in Canada including canola, soybean, corn and sugar beet. • Most of the processed food you eat has a GMO ingredient (corn syrup, sweetener, etc) • GMOs do not have to be labelled in Canada • Much of Europe has banned GMOs

18. Why Make GMOs? GMOs can be designed to: • Resist damage due to weather, like frost or draught • Grow more easily in some environments (like dry soil conditions) • Produce more crop, helping to keep food prices lower • Ripen slower and last longer during shipping • Bruise less easily • Need less pesticides (like herbicides and insecticides) • Have less disease caused by insects or viruses • Have more of a certain nutrient like vitamin A found in Golden Rice, a GM rice crop used to fight malnutrition in developing countries

19. Glow in the dark cat • It was developed as a way to fight feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), which is related to HIV • American and Japanese scientists in 2011 inserted genes in cats to help resist FIV. In order to mark the cells more easily, they also inserted a green fluorescent protein • The cats are always normal during the day, but sometimes glow at night.

20. Silk-Spinning Goats • In 2012, scientists at the University of Wyoming engineered goats to produce a protein in spider silk in their milk. • Silk is useful for a variety of applications in materials science and medicine, and it's hard to get spiders to make enough of it.

21. EnviroPig • EnviroPig: Also known as Frankenswine, is a type of GM pig that can digest phosphorus better so then when its manure is used as fertilizer, there won’t be lots of phosphorus possibly getting into the groundwater

22. Allergy Free Milk • In 2012 AgResearch, a company owned by the New Zealand government, engineered a cow to produce milk without one of the proteins that many people are allergic too, known as β-lactoglobulin. • The milk also contained more casein, a nutritious protein found in milk

23. Featherless Chicken • Scientists in Israel are responsible for this prototype. • They are significantly cheaper to raise, and don't require plucking, which saves time. • There are, however, some drawbacks. The feathers on chickens help protect them from harsh weather, parasites, and even overzealous cocks during mating.

24. Super Cows • While they are not GMOS, they ARE created through selective breeding • “Belgian Blues” are a breed with increased amount of muscle fibres

25. Selective Breeding • Selective breeding is a form of genetic modification (some would argue that is not) which doesn’t involve the addition of any foreign genetic material (DNA) into the organism. Rather, it is the conscious selection for desirable traits.

26. What did our food used to look like? • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkJnOWGCejQ 1:52

27. Look what we have done to dogs • The dogs on the left are from  the 1915 book, ‘Breeds of All Nations‘ by W.E. Mason. The examples on the right are modern examples from multiple sources

28. Bull Terrier • Somewhere along its journey to a mutated skull and thick abdomen the bull terrier also picked up a number of other maladies like supernumerary teeth

29. Basset Hound • It has gotten lower, has suffered changes to its rear leg structure, has excessive skin, vertebra problems, droopy eyes prone to entropion and ectropion and excessively large ears.

30. Boxer • not only has a shorter face but the muzzle is slightly upturned. The boxer has difficulty controlling its temperature in hot weather • It also has one of the highest cancer rates.

31. Bulldog • They suffer from almost every possible disease. They die at the median age of 6.25 years. There really is no such thing as a healthy bulldog. They usually even need assistance mating.

32. Dachshund • They used to have functional legs and necks that made sense for their size. Backs and necks have gotten longer, chest jutted forward and legs have shrunk to such proportions that there is barely any clearance between the chest and floor. The dachschund has a high risk of paralysis

33. St Bernard • has been oversized, had its faced squished in, and bred for abundant skin. You will not see this type of dog working anymore, they can’t handle it as they quickly overheat. The diseases include entropion, ectropion, Stockard’s paralysis, hemophilia, osteosarcoma, aphakia, fibrinogen deficiency.