Free Republic

The so-called “deadlock” over resolving the global food crisis is just as artificially manufactured as its origins since Kiev has now officially declared that it won’t resume wheat exports by sea to the Global South unless it receives anti-ship missiles first. Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Vasily Bodnar officially demanded weapons in exchange for resuming wheat exports by sea in what amounts to the blatant blackmailing of the Global South in the midst of the artificially manufactured food crisis. He said that “Effective security guarantees are required for maritime shipments to resume. These guarantees must be provided through the supply of...

Turkey is in negotiations with Russia and Ukraine to open a corridor via the Bosphorus for grain exports from Ukraine, a senior Turkish official told Reuters on Thursday. Ukraine's Black Sea ports have been blocked since Russia invaded in February and more than 20 million tonnes of grain are stuck in silos there. Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat supplies and the lack of exports from Ukraine is contributing to a growing global food crisis.

Grain production in Ukraine is likely to fall by around 20 per cent this year, prompting inflation and global food security warnings from the UK Ministry of Defence. Britain’s Ministry of Defence has warned that Ukraine’s grain harvest looks set to see around a 20 per cent decrease in yield as a result of the ongoing Russian invasion of the country. With Ukraine being responsible for a significant share of the world’s supply of wheat and other essential crops, this fall is reportedly likely to have devastating effects on the global supply of food, causing price hikes which will put...

Ukraine, known as the “breadbasket of Europe” given it’s long been among the world’s top ten wheat exporters and supplied over $6 billion in agricultural products to the European Union in 2020, has issued an emergency order Wednesday banning the export of grains and other products.The ban includes the export of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat, sugar, live cattle, meat, and other products considered vital to the global economy. But amid wartime, and with Ukraine’s government saying many of its citizens are now starving under Russian siege, Ukraine’s minister of agrarian and food policy Roman Leshchenko said the drastic action was...

Type 2 diabetes is a condition that around one in 10 Americans deal with on a daily basis. When you factor in the costs of changing diets and lifestyles, doctor visits, and drugs for managing blood sugar, diabetes is not just a health burden — but a financial burden as well. Now, researchers in Finland say eating more whole grains significantly reduces the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Moreover, their review finds adding more whole grains to the public’s diet will substantially cut down the economic costs that come with treating diabetes. Study authors say the target should be...

It is amazing what has happened to our wheat products in a few short decades. In efforts to increase yield, improve shelf life, and enhance our appetites, modern food producers have taken a staple of our diet (breads and grains) that humans have consumed for millennia with little or no health issues, and turned it into a "Frankenfood". Bread, which was a cheap, nutritious way to fill our stomachs for thousands of years, is now potentially the cause of obesity and a variety of inflammatory diseases. A look at the processes we use to grow, harvest, mill, refine, enrich, and...

There is perhaps nothing quite like the struggle of unexplained infertility. It is baffling, it is exhausting, it is all-encompassing, and above all it is so, so hard. It is also confusing. For couples struggling with unexplained infertility, anything and everything can seem like the culprit behind the thwarted desire to have a baby. You wonder, maybe you’re not exercising or sleeping enough—then again, maybe you’re exercising and sleeping too much? Maybe it’s your diet—maybe you’re eating too much of something, or not enough of another? And while you run through the laundry list of possibilities, and long desperately for...

Are There As Many Stars as Sand Grains? September 22, 2019 | David F. Coppedge A video clip from Illustra Media attempts to answer a common question: How many stars are there? Lord willing, the Editor will soon be back from travel and speaking. Till then, enjoy this amazing video from Illustra Media! HOW MANY STARS? The question is timeless. Pondered, throughout history, by human beings of every culture, age, and nationality: how many stars are there in the universe? This fascinating film explores worlds gigantic and microscopic to reveal answers that challenge our perceptions of creation. Travel with us...

People who follow the Paleo diet often do so for health reasons, eschewing many carbs, especially grains, in favor of lean meats and vegetables. Now, research indicates that this “caveman” style of eating may have hidden dangers to your heart health. The Paleo diet, which draws nutritional guidelines from the diets of our human ancestors, advocates eating like a hunter and gatherer—consuming lots of meat, vegetables, nuts, and some fruits—while excluding agriculturally-based foods such as grains, legumes, and dairy, along with refined sugar and processed oils. Though no one would argue the nutritional merits of vegetables and lean protein, pulling...

In a land flowing with milk and honey, what kinds of food made up the ancient Jewish diet? What did people eat and drink in Roman Palestine? Susan Weingarten guides readers through a menu of the first millennium C.E. in her article "Biblical Archaeology 101: The Ancient Diet of Roman Palestine," published in the March/April 2019 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Although it is difficult to reconstruct the diet of the average person in Palestine during the Roman and Late Antique periods, Weingarten, as both a food historian and an archaeologist, is well equipped for the task. Using archaeological remains...

Studies of ancient preserved plant remains from a medieval archaeological site in the Pamir Mountains of Uzbekistan have shown that fruits, such as apples, peaches, apricots, and melons, were cultivated in the foothills of Inner Asia. The archaeobotanical study, conducted by Robert Spengler of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, is among the first systematic analyses of medieval agricultural crops in the heart of the ancient Silk Road. Spengler identified a rich assemblage of fruit and nut crops, showing that many of the crops we are all familiar with today were cultivated along the ancient trade...

Almost 25 years after watching the Dawn of Communism collective farm where he grew up land in the dustbin of history, Andrey Burdin is helping turn Russia into something the communists never could: a grain-export powerhouse. Over the last few years, Burdin has tripled the size of his farm on the steppe near the Black Sea, winning prizes from the local government for how much wheat he's produced from the rich soil here and pumping profits back into new tractors and sprayers. His harvest this season will be a third bigger than what it was just five years ago, helping...

Giraffe was on the menu in Pompeii's standard restaurants, says a new research into a non-elite section of the ancient Roman city buried by Mount Vesuvius' eruption in 79 A.D. The study, which will be presented on Jan. 4 at the Archaeological Institute of America and American Philological Association Joint Annual Meeting in Chicago, draws on a multi-year excavation in a forgotten area inside one of the busiest gates of Pompeii, the Porta Stabia. Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, said his team has spent more than a decade researching the life of the middle and...

Researchers Who Provided Key Evidence For Gluten Sensitivity Have Now Thoroughly Shown That It Doesn't Exist Jennifer WelshMay 15, 2014, 3:37 PMIn one of the best examples of science working, a researcher who provided key evidence of (non-celiac disease) gluten sensitivity recently published follow-up papers that show the opposite. The first follow-up paper came out last year in the journal Gastroenterology. Here's the backstory that makes us cheer: The study was a follow up on a 2011 experiment in the lab of Peter Gibson at Monash University. The scientifically sound — but small — study found that gluten-containing diets can...

<p>Beer brewers are objecting to a proposed federal rule that would make it harder for breweries to sell leftover grains as animal feed instead of throwing them away.</p> <p>The Food and Drug Administration rule change would mean brewers would have to meet the same standards as livestock and pet-food manufacturers, imposing new sanitary handling procedures, record keeping and other food safety processes on brewers.</p>

WINNIPEG -- After sending her children to daycare with a lunch of roast beef, carrots and potatoes, Kristen Bartkiw was fed a $10 fine. The reason: An unbalanced meal. Despite the presence of a meat, vegetable, fruits and juice, the meal was missing a grain. The solution was to give the Rossburn, Man., school teacher a $10 fine and give her children Ritz Crackers as a supplement. "I don't blame the daycare," said Bartkiw, who was actually on the board of The Little Cub's Den when they decided to start fining parents. According to Manitoba Early Learning and Child Care...

As of this coming Thursday, the food pyramid -- that symbol of healthy eating -- is going to go the way of the real pyramids and becoming a thing of the past. This week, the Obama administration will be unveiling a new graphic to tell American consumers what quantities of grains, fruits and vegetables, protein and dairy they should eat to maintain a healthy diet. The pyramid is to be replace by a plate, with four different-colored sections indicating how much of each food group the United States Department of Agriculture recommends and is a "crucial element of the administration's...

China Running Out Of Farmland: What This Means For U.S. Stocks by: Greyson S. Colvin October 27, 2010 As the Chinese growth engine continues to propel forward, the government is faced with the dilemma: How do we feed our growing and developing population? China’s middle class is expected to double over the next 10 years and will demand a higher protein diet. China has roughly 20% of the world’s population although only 7% of the world’s arable land. The big problem is that China’s farmland has disappeared at an alarming rate and the country may no longer be able to...

Agri-Food Price Index Makes New High! Commodities / Agricultural Commodities Sep 04, 2010 - 05:16 AM By: Ned W Schmidt One road to wealth is to only own those assets for which the price is rising. That seems to be a rule that equity investors have forgotten. In any event, a great market technician once suggested only looking at those things with prices making new 52-week highs. His reasoning was that for the price of something to rise it must eventually make a new high. Well, based on the above chart, that technician would be all over Agri-Food commodities and...

US Commodities: Gold Climbs, Moves Over $900/Oz; Grains Slide By: iStockAnalyst Thursday, June 19, 2008 5:39 PM NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Gold futures climbed and moved above $900 an ounce Thursday, as rising prices have brought in more buyers thinking gold prices will continue to increase. August gold rose $10.70 to settle at $904.20 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.