Category — FOOD

A Kenyan slaughterhouse is now more than a source of meat — its a source of energy.

A biogas plant has been opened near Nairobi to turn the animal waste from the slaughterhouse into 30 kilowatts of power, enough to light up the abattoir.

United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) Director-General Kandeh Yumkella said, while opening the biogas plant at Dagoretti recently, that Kenya needed to invest more in community off-grid power to become globally competitive. (more…)

How long before food price riots spread from Tunisia and Egypt to Louisiana and East LA?

Last week, the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation said global food price rises were running at a record high. The commodity price of corn is up 92 percent in a year, while wheat is 80 percent more expensive.

A great segment on MSNBC describes exactly how riots around the world have been caused by food price inflation.

“Shenanigans at the highest level of our government and financial institutions” led to the removal of position limits from trading on commodities such as grain, wheat and soya, says the report, allowing traders such as Goldman Sachs to hold “more grain than actually exists on the entire planet, because now you are just speculating on the price.” (more…)

Steve Miller in Georgia was fined $5000 for growing too many organic veggies on his patch.

It was a zoning violations, and I bet it was not the only one of its kind – please write a comment if you know of other examples of local bureaucrats going wild. (more…)

People, it’s time to stock up on what you can now, things aren’t getting any better, and our money is losing value every day. The best way to maintain the value of the money you have now is to go ahead and buy the things you need now, you can just about guarantee that what you buy now will be going up in price in the near future. (more…)

This was an incredibly hard, yet interesting topic to research. Because milk (in it’s many forms) is so important to us, there is a LOT of info on the internet about it. History fact: the first person to use powdered milk (that we know of) was Marco Polo for his trips around the world. Amazing to think how far we have come since his first trials of a home dried paste like substance. Imagine how that must have tasted after a year at sea! (more…)

I found this today on YouTube, these guys are dehydrating chicken, it looks very simple and I suspect you could do this with other meats as well. This will save you major $$$s over buying dehydrated meat from a commercial source. Watch and enjoy! (more…)

With a distinct smell of fermentation in the air, and large twisted tubes sending processed grain into big silos all over the plant, it could pass as an ordinary brewery. In fact, the Inbicon biomass refinery in Kalundborg, Denmark, produces fuel for cars instead of anything for human consumption.

Campaigners like Daryl Hannah called for years for more biofuel.  Now their wish has been granted, but the advocates may be regretting their posturing.

The Inbicon plant uses wheat straw to produce bioethanol which is a replacement for traditional gasoline, and lignin pellets which could replace coal.  The wheat straw used could have been in the food cycle, for animal feed.  The fact that it is in such high demand for fuel has a direct impact on the cost of a loaf of bread. (more…)

Who says that fridges have to be the size of a coffin, and fit inside every kitchen? It does seem to be some divine edict (or was it GE’s edict) and they all come in set dimensions, in a tiny range of colors, and for indoor use.
Sure, its convenient, but its expensive as well. Elizabeth Tailer and some friends in Vermont are changing all that. They are handbuilding the ultimate fridge – a community sized freezer in Essex Center, Vermont, where each house in the village get its own shelf. So all you need is a cold-box in the house, and you’re all set.
To make the fridge, they’re using thousands of soda bottles filled with a salt-water mixture and ground up Styrofoam to insulate the structure which optimizes heat loss and updating an ancient idea. “We put 200 grams of salt in it which in a 2 liter bottle will produce a 10 percent by weight salt solution,” Tailer said. (more…)

Some recent headlines from the Financial Times:
Corn price surges Oct-12
Soaring prices threaten new food crisis – Oct-08
Raw materials index soars to two-year high – Oct-08
Wheat and corn rise as Ukraine limits exports – Oct-07
Shortfall drives tin to record high – Oct-05

Food inflation is real, and it is here. A comment from a recent reader’s post: “Just yesterday I compared my receipt from a grocery run to prices I have from the same exact store from September 15, 2009. Bacon? Up 52% to $13.69 from $8.99 for 4 lbs. Butter? Up 73% to $9.99 from $5.79 for 4 lbs. Pure vanilla extract up 14% to $6.79 from $5.95. Chopped dried onions up a mere 2% but minced garlic (wet) was up 32%.”

Defensive buying by investors worried about the inflationary effects of quantitative easing (QE) is behind the latest rise in gold, metals and food commodities to near record levels this week. (more…)