Bread that lasts for 60 days could cut food waste

By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

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An American company has developed a technique that it says can make bread stay mould-free for 60 days.

The bread is zapped in a sophisticated microwave array which kills the spores that cause the problem.
The company claims it could significantly reduce the amount of wasted bread - in the UK alone, almost a third of loaves purchased.
The technique can also be used with a wide range of foods including fresh turkey and many fruits and vegetables.
World of waste Food waste is a massive problem in most developed countries. In the US, figures released this year suggest that the average American family throws away 40% of the food they purchase - which adds up to $165bn (£102bn) annually.
Bread is a major culprit, with 32% of loaves purchased in the UK thrown out as waste when they could be eaten, according to figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

The machine uses similar technology to a home microwave

One of the biggest threats to bread is mould. As loaves are usually wrapped in plastic, any water in the bread that evaporates from within is trapped and makes the surface moist. This provides excellent growing conditions for Rhizopus stolonifer, the fungus that leads to mould.
In normal conditions, bread will go mouldy in around 10 days.
But an American company called Microzap says it has developed a technique that will keep the bread mould free for two months.
At its laboratory on the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, chief executive Don Stull showed off the long, metallic microwave device that resembles an industrial production line. Originally designed to kill bacteria such as MRSA and salmonella, the researchers discovered it could kill the mould spores in bread in around 10 seconds.
"We treated a slice of bread in the device, we then checked the mould that was in that bread over time against a control, " he explained.
"And at 60 days it had the same mould content as it had when it came out of the oven."
Question of taste The machine the team has built uses much the same technology as found in commercial microwaves - but with some important differences, according to Mr Stull.
"We introduce the microwave frequencies in different ways, through a slotted radiator. We get a basically homogeneous signal density in our chamber - in other words, we don't get the hot and cold spots you get in your home microwave."

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20th-Century history of bread

• 1928: First bread slicing machine, invented by Otto Rohwedder, exhibited in US
• 1930: Large UK bakeries take commercial slicers and sliced bread first appears in shops
• 1933: About 80% of US bread is pre-sliced and wrapped, and the phrase "the best thing since sliced bread" is coined
• 1941: Calcium added to UK flour to prevent rickets
• 1942: The national loaf - much like today's brown loaf - introduced to combat shortage of white flour
• 1954: Conditions in bakeries regulated by the Night Baking Act
• 1956: National loaf abolished
• 1961: The Chorleywood Bread Process introduced

Source: The Federation of Bakers

The company's device has attracted plenty of interest from bread manufacturers - but it is worried that it could push up costs in an industry where margins are very tight.

And there is also a concern that consumers might not take to bread that lasts for so long. Mr Stull acknowledges it might be difficult to convince some people of the benefits.
"We'll have to get some consumer acceptance of that," he said. "Most people do it by feel and if you still have that quality feel they probably will accept it. "
Mr Stull believes that the technology could impact bread in other ways. He said that bread manufacturers added lots of preservatives to try and fight mould, but then must add extra chemicals to mask the taste of the preservatives. If bakers were able to use the microwave technology, they would be able to avoid these additives.
While a wholesale change in the bread industry might be difficult to achieve, there may be more potential with other foods, including ground turkey.
In 2011, food giant Cargill had to recall 16 million kg of the product after a salmonella outbreak. Mr Stull believes that using microwaves would be an effective way of treating this and several other products ranging from jalapenos to pet foods.
The only fruit that his device was unable to treat effectively were cantaloupes.
"We've used our tumbler machine to treat them, he says "but you can't tumble cantaloupes because they damage."

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Somalia famine: UN warns of 750,000 deaths

Some 750,000 could die in Somalia unless aid is stepped up, the UN warns

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As many as 750,000 people could die as Somalia's drought worsens in the coming months, the UN has warned, declaring a famine in a new area.

The UN says tens of thousands of people have died after what is said to be East Africa's worst drought for 60 years.

Bay becomes the sixth area to be officially declared a famine zone - mostly in parts of southern Somalia controlled by the Islamist al-Shabab.

Some 12 million people across the region need food aid, the UN says.

The situation in the Bay region was worse than anything previously recorded, said senior UN's technical adviser Grainne Moloney.

"The rate of malnutrition [among children] in Bay region is 58%. This is a record rate of acute malnutrition," she told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

This is almost double the rate at which a famine is declared.

"In total, 4 million people are in crisis in Somalia, with 750,000 people at risk of death in the coming four months in the absence of adequate response," the UN's Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) says.

Half of those who have already died are children, it says.

Neighbouring Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda have also been affected by the severe lack of rain.

'Not short-term'

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Previous Major African Hunger Crises

• Niger: 2010 - Food shortages affect more than 7 million people after crops fail; 2005 - thousands die following drought and locust invasion
• Ethiopia, 2000: Three consecutive years of drought leave millions at risk, with famine declared in Gode, the Somali region
• Somalia, 1991-1992: Drought and war contribute to famine across the country; the US Refugee Policy Group estimates at least 200,000 famine-related deaths in 1992
• Ethiopia, 1984-1985: Up to one million people die in famine caused by conflict, drought and economic mismanagement
• Biafra, 1967-1970: One million die in civil war and famine during conflict over Nigeria's breakaway Biafran republic

• What is a famine?

But 20 years of fighting and the lack of a national government mean that Somalia is by far the worst affected country.

The UN-backed authority controls the capital, Mogadishu but few other areas.

Unni Karunakara, head of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), says al-Shabab's restrictions on aid workers mean many people in Somalia cannot be helped - and says aid agencies should be more open about this when appealing for more money.

"The grim reality of Somalia today is we are not able to get to south and central Somalia, which we consider to be the epicentre of the crisis," he told the BBC World Service.

"What is needed is a better representation of the challenges that aid agencies, including MSF, face in delivering assistance in Somalia today.

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At the scene

Will Ross BBC News, Wajir

In a sandy clearing surrounded by leafless bushes, people queued up for help.

Food aid is reaching Kenya's Wajir district but not enough of it. The demand is overwhelming and so the religious leaders have to pick out the most vulnerable - only they are given the sought-after parcels of rice, sugar, beans, flour and oil.

Schools are supposed to be reopening this week but there will be many empty benches as some children are too weak to make the long walk to school.

"The children are demoralised and many will not go. Also the UN has reduced the school feeding programme and the children can't learn without food," said father of five Mohammed Abdulahi.

In Griftu hospital a mother lay beside her terribly malnourished four-year-old daughter. Listless and stick-thin Ahado was being fed through a tube. The nurses are hopeful that within a month she will be out of danger.

"On the ward we now have an average of six to 10 severely malnourished children each week. The numbers have gone up. The drought is still getting worse," said Doctor Kosmos Ngis.

"Even if we are able to get food and supplies to the main ports of Somalia, I think there is a real challenge in being able to deliver that assistance - what I call the 'last-mile' problem.

Some officials from al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaeda, have accused Western aid groups of exaggerating the scale of the crisis for political reasons.

Tens of thousands of Somalis have fled their country to seek help.

BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says that even if there is rainfall in October or November, people will need food aid for several more months until the crops have grown.

"This isn't a short-term crisis," said UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Mark Bowden.

In Kenya's Wajir district, just across the border from Somalia, health workers are reporting an increase in the number of malnourished children.

Weakened by the lack of food they are more susceptible to disease.

The drought is still taking its toll on the livestock - people living in the arid areas of Kenya depend on their animals for their livelihood and with no rain expected for several weeks the crisis is still deepening despite the presence of aid agencies, says our correspondent.

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How pasta became the world's favourite food

By Caroline McClatchey BBC News Magazine

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In today's Magazine

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Pasta has topped a global survey of the world's favourite foods. So how did the dish so closely associated with Italy become a staple of so many tables around the globe?

While not everyone knows the difference between farfalle, fettuccine and fusilli, many people have slurped over a bowl of spaghetti bolognese or tucked into a plate of lasagne.

Certainly in British households, spaghetti bolognese has been a regular feature of mealtimes since the 1960s. It's become a staple of children's diets, while a tuna-pasta-sweetcorn concoction can probably be credited with sustaining many students through their years at university.

But now a global survey by the charity Oxfam has named pasta as the world's most popular dish, ahead of meat, rice and pizza. As well as being popular in unsurprising European countries, pasta was one of the favourites in the Philippines, Guatemala, Brazil and South Africa.

And figures from the International Pasta Organisation show Venezuela is the second largest consumer of pasta, after Italy. Tunisia, Chile and Peru also feature in the top 10, while Mexicans, Argentineans and Bolivians all eat more pasta than the British.

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TOP FIVE WORLD PASTA CONSUMERS

• Italy - 26kg per head per year
• Venezuela - 12kg
• Tunisia - 11.7kg
• Greece - 10.4kg
• Switzerland - 9.7kg

Source: International Pasta Organisation, June 2010

Global sales figures reflect the world's love affair with pasta - they have risen from US$13bn (£8bn) in 2003 to US$16bn (£10bn) in 2010. The analysts at Datamonitor predict it will hit US$19bn (£12bn) by 2015, despite rising wheat costs.

Just in the UK, retail sales of dry and fresh pasta amounted to £53m in 1987. In 2009, the figure was £282m - include pasta-based ready meals and the value rises to £800m, says consumer research experts Mintel.

So how did pasta become so popular? It's because it is cheap, versatile and convenient, says Jim Winship, from the UK-based Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food Association. A sauce to go with it can be made from simple ingredients.

"You can create lots of different dishes with it. It tastes good and it's filling. It also has a long shelf life, so you can keep it in the larder until you need to put a meal together."

But that's only part of its success. Pasta is also relatively easy to mass produce and transport around the world, making it a popular product with food companies as well.

'Cultural phenomenon'

"It's always been an industrial product," says John Dickie, professor in Italian Studies at University College London and author of Delizia! A History of the Italians and their Food.

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“Start Quote

It's poor people's food. It's unsophisticated. It's the same as bread”

Giles Coren Food critic

"It is definitely one of the things that has contributed to its success - it's easy to transport and has a long shelf life. It has commercial genes."

Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University London, says technological advances in the 19th Century allowed pasta to be produced on a big scale. But the Industrial Revolution did that for everything else, he adds, and the reason pasta had been particularly successful was because people liked it and the Italian way of life.

"It's a cultural phenomenon, not an industrial phenomenon," he says. "People like the Italian way of life and their simple, staple foods."

Pasta has always had a global aspect as its origins are not purely Italian, which is unsurprising considering it can be made with just wheat and water.

The Greeks and Romans had pasta-like foods but they tended to be baked, not boiled. Ancient China had dumplings, but it's a myth that the Venetian explorer Marco Polo returned from China with pasta in 1295.

The most accepted theory is that the Arab invasions of the 8th Century brought a dried noodle-like product to Sicily. This early pasta was made using flour from durum wheat, which Sicily specialised in. Under Italian law, dry pasta - or pasta secca - can only be made from this type of wheat, and the vast bulk of pasta is still made in Italy.

And despite being considered a cheap meal now it was the preserve of the rich in the very beginning, says Prof Dickie.

"We tend to think of pasta like potatoes but it has never been viewed as a bland staple. It's been associated with prestige - people used to buy votes with pasta."

'Overrated gloppy stuff'

The first reference to pasta in Italy was noted in 1154 and it was about an export factory in Sicily, he says.

He says its breakthrough as a common food came in Naples in the 1700s, when it was recognised as "a good way to feed a large part of the populace".

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TOP FIVE WORLD PASTA PRODUCERS

• Italy - 3.2m tonnes per year
• US - 2.6m
• Brazil - 1.3m
• Russia - 858,000
• Switzerland - 607,000

Source: International Pasta Organisation, June 2010

But pasta popularity outside of Italy really took off at the turn of the 20th Century with large-scale Italian immigration to the New World. This is when it started to become known as Italy's national dish, he says.

Italian restaurateur Antonio Carluccio said pasta may have a long history, but the Italians made it their own by eating it with tomatoes.

He says most pasta is spaghetti outside of Italy but there are actually 600 different types and shapes and each region cooks it differently. He says its appeal is in the taste and its nutritional value.

"It is pleasurable with a good sauce, but it should just be coated, otherwise you lose the taste of the pasta. It is a complex carbohydrate which releases all the goodness slowly and you feel satisfied for a long time.

"I don't know one person who doesn't like pasta. It is very similar to bread - both are made with flour and water and they both need an accompaniment."

He's clearly not met food critic and broadcaster Giles Coren, who described pasta as "overrated gloppy stuff" that appeals only to children.

"Ask a footballer what they can cook and they always say spaghetti. It is what you reach for when there is nothing else left in the larder. It's poor people's food and it's unsophisticated. It's the same as bread - you just boil it instead of putting it in the oven."

So as popular as it is, pasta hasn't conquered everyone in the world.

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