Why the concern about salt?

Facts:

• American adults consume an estimated 3900 milligrams of sodium a day – more than twice the maximum recommended by US dietary guidelines.
• Excess sodium is linked to high blood pressure, raising the risk of heart attacks and stroke.
• More than seventy five percent of Americans’ sodium intake comes from processed foods and restaurant meals.

Stanford study states that if we emulated a UK initiative and reduced salt by 9.5% in packaged foods that it would:

• Lead to reduction in blood pressure
• prevent 513000 strokes per year
• prevent more than 480,000 heart attacks among Americans ages 40 to 85
• save $32 billion in medical costs

By eating fresh vegetables or frozen vegetables instead of the prepared foods we can take control of our own sodium intake. In fact, eating frozen vegetables maybe your best choice because they are processed hours after harvest stopping therespiration rate while it may be days before we consume fresh vegetables from the super market. It is also worth noting that frozen vegetables can be gotten year round at reasonable pricing compared to the fresh produce in your super market.

Think Frozen.

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On November 8th, 2009 several of China’s top agriculture experts (the eight standards) met in Beijing. One of the presenters of interest was Professor Zhan Jingchun who spoke of his research on his Zero Pesticide Residual.

This should be of interest to all of us who are concerned about pesticides on our foods. Professor Zhan after 18 years of work has developed what he calls the Zero Pesticide Residual degradation technology. At its core it will control a series of biochemical reactions in the plants that will cause it to degrade pesticide residual to zero or near-zero. In addition it will reduce heavy metal toxins by 50% to 86%. The product is to be applied either by seed treatment, leaf application or through irrigation into the root of the plants. The product does not have any negative side effects or contamination.

After review and discussion by the experts it was determined that the Zero Pesticide Residual be approved and further testing be done on a commercial basis. The experts feel that not only will the process comply with China’s eight standards but will also meet the standards of Europe, Japan and USA. All efforts will be concentrated on moving forward and getting final registration in Beijing.

We look forward to seeing more details and explanation of the entire process and how it impacts the plants.

Source: Chinese Food Quality Newspaper, Nov 9, 2009
Eight Standards: Fruits, Vegetables, Fruits and Vegetable Powder, Tea, Cereals, Ginseng, Herbs and Cottonseed.

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“China is suffering the coldest winter (record breaking cold temperature in 30 years history) in Northern, NW, East coast (Yangzi River Triangle Area farm land grounds are frozen solid which is very unusual in that area) part of China, even Southern provinces are affected. The Winter/Spring Crops are damaged. People are scrambling to source fresh vegetables from Sichuan province to many parts of metropolitan areas, like Shanghai for example and prices are going sky high. Many frozen vegetable processing /packing facilities are all having nothing to do, due to lack of raw materials, because fresh vegetables are all going to local markets for people’s daily consumption. Fresh Broccoli and Cauliflowers are in huge demand and hard to come by for frozen vegetable processors. We will see severe shortage of these items in the near future.

This condition will get worse, if the weather condition will not improve in short period of time. It will affect our packers’ ability to get decent prices and good quality/quantities of raw materials in order to fulfill our contracts.”

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I love Toro Sashimi and every time I have the opportunity, I indulge myself with more than one piece of this Japanese culinary delicacy. There are however a few things I didn’t consider when savoring my delicious chunk of fatty tuna.

Most of the tuna that we eat in the Bay Area comes from the port town of General Santos City in Southern Philippines, one of the world’s great tuna-fishing ports. The best tuna will sell for about $700 wholesale. After being cleaned and put in dry ice it takes the 10.30 a.m. flight to Manila. The next day, the fish will be in Tokyo, Seattle of California.

So think about the Carbon footprint my nice and delicious little piece of sushi left behind. And it doesn’t end here, in September the European Commission recommended that the European Union support a temporary suspension of the global trade of Atlantic Bluefin tune. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates that Alantic Bluefin that spawn in the Mediterranean could disappear from those waters as early as 2012. As you might have guessed the ban was shot down by E.U. members with high stakes in the tuna trade.

Scientists believe stocks of southern bluefin around Australia have probably fallen more than 90% since 1950 and could continue to drop.

In order words the amount of tuna we are consuming worldwide is not sustainable and  the consequences of not having tuna in our oceans could be disastrous for the ocean ecosystem and probably many economies.

So next time I go for sushi I might choose an alternative dish, probably Corn Sushi. With nice supersweet corn grown in the Northwest of the USA.

We can make a difference, one mouth at the time… Leave some of that delicious tuna to your great-grandchildren.

Technorati Tags: Tuna, Sustainable, Carbon Footprint

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Technorati Tags: cow, milk

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Hot Sauces

The answer of course, is to be or do something remarkable. Create WOW and the customers will come.

I just recently read a book, Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores In America, by George Whalin. One of those retail superstars is Jungle Jim’s International Market, a humungous supermarket in Fairfield, Ohio.

Jungle Jim’s International is a 285,000 square foot (6.5 acre or 26,000 square meter) Supermarket that has it all (compared to the typical American supermarket from 35,000 – 45,000 sq. ft. or a Walmart or Target Supercenter which can be up to 200,000 sq. ft.). The store is based on themes that entertain the customers. It has one of the largest wine collections in the U.S., live seafood tanks, a cooking school and more. They have foods from around the world, they have Amish, Asian, European and other International foods. In fact if you can’t find it here chances are you can’t find it anywhere.

Jungle Jim's

How about foot traffic? Jungle Jim’s has 50,000 shoppers per week passing through and annual sales of $100 million! Not bad for an independent located in a city with a population of 42,097 based on the 2000 census (Cincinnati is a good 30 minute drive away).

Independents can thrive and do thrive in todays environment. The key is creativity and being remarkable and they will come.

Technorati Tags: supermarket, remarkable

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Frozen and Canned processors scramble for product.

The water chestnut acreage this year is up 20% but due to bad growing conditions. yields are way off and it appears that the market will still be extremely short. In addition to the normal delays encountered during production, we must wait for CIQ (China Inspection and Quarantine) approval of lands to be used for water chestnuts, if they are to be exported.

Initial pricing this year is 40 – 50% higher than last years price. The reason for the current high price is due to the shortage coming into the new crop and the need to fill the pipeline. This applies for both to canned and frozen processors. The canned users are generally willing to pay higher prices then the frozen users therefore they will get initial raw material coming from the fieldsl because of there willingness to pay a premium.

CIQ (China Inspection and Quarantine) delays due to regulation that makes it mandatory that fields be registered with them. This can create some bottlenecks in the supply as packers need to await the certification for the fields being used as well as CIQ approval of finished product before exportation.

The Chinese currency continues to appreciate against the dollar albeit at a much slower rate. Ocean and trucking freight cost remain high but this is starting to come under recessionary pressure.

What to expect?

I would envisage that after the initial replenishment of supply that we will see prices come down due to world wide slowdown. We will encounter consumer resistance to high prices especially for a luxury vegetable such as water chestnuts. Just as we have seen the price of natural resources plummet in the past few months, I believe the food chain will experience the same collapse.

Time will tell, and if I were a betting man, I would bet on lower prices next April or June (and possibly sooner).

The rathe of world wide recession will reck havoc on frozen vegetable pricing in 2009.

Technorati Tags: Water Chestnuts, China

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It doesn’t matter if it’s fresh milk or powdered milk there is a serious problem. According to James Rice in an article in Bloomberg “It’s not commonly known in China, but fresh milk is not fresh. It’s 50 percent fresh milk from cows and 50 percent reconstituted from powder.” Can any infants in China be safe from melamine?

The FDA has now taken action and inspecting at ports of entry to keep out the tainted milk products, the Associated Press reported. It will also be issuing alerts this weekend warning consumers of the potential hazards and to not consume or not buy any milk products from China over the internet, AP said, citing Judy Leon, a spokeswoman for the FDA.

Keep your babies healthy, no milk products from China.

Photo from iStockphoto.com

Technorati Tags: milk, China, melamine

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Chinese authorities have admitted that 4 people have suffered food poisoning from China made gyoza with similar symptoms to those poisoned earlier this year in Japan from China made gyoza.

Click here to read the article.

Technorati Tags: Noon International, gyoza

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Frozen Pineapple Carpaccio, ideal for food service, simply place cake, ice cream or other item directly on top of the pineapple.

Frozen Pineapple in vacuum pack (2 per bag).

Technorati Tags: Noon International, pineapple, mango, carpaccio

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