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Cold plasma hydrogenation process creates oil without trans fats
Two Purdue University researchers have developed a hydrogenation process that could solidify soybean oil for food processing without creating trans fats, which have been linked to heart disease and stroke.

Hydrogenation is a chemical process that transforms liquid vegetable oil to a solid or semisolid state, which is useful for creating food products like vegetable shortening and margarine. However, the intense heat required in the conventional hydrogenation process causes the formation of harmful trans fats, which can raise cholesterol levels and lead to heart disease and diabetes, the Purdue news release explained. Because of this, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration removed partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) from the list of safe foods in 2015. Some food manufacturers now use palm oil and other imported oils that do not require hydrogenation rather than less expensive soybean oil.


USDA changes SNAP retailer rule
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced final changes to increase access to healthy food choices for participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The provisions in this rule require SNAP authorized retail establishments to offer a larger inventory and variety of healthy food options.

"This final rule balances the need to improve the healthy staple foods available for purchase at participating stores while maintaining food access for SNAP recipients in underserved rural and urban areas," Vilsack said. "We received many helpful comments on the proposed rule and have modified the final rule in important ways to ensure that these dual goals are met. I am confident that this rule will ensure the retailers that participate in SNAP offer a variety of healthy foods for purchase and that SNAP recipients will continue to have access to the stores they need to be able to purchase food."

Restaurant visits decline in Q3 2016
A combination of squeezed consumer wallets, the rising cost of dining out and changing needs and wants has brought U.S. restaurant industry traffic growth to a halt in the first two quarters of 2016 and into the negative in the third quarter, according to The NPD Group, a leading global information company.

Total foodservice visits declined by 1% in the third quarter compared to same quarter last year, and quick-service restaurant traffic, which represents 80% of total industry visits, dropped for the first time in five years, according to NPD's ongoing foodservice market research.

"The term 'growing your business in a 1% world' has become a popular mantra for the restaurant industry after six consecutive years of annual traffic gains of just 1%," NPD restaurant industry analyst Bonnie Riggs said. "However, over the past six months, restaurant industry traffic growth has come to a standstill, and quick-service restaurants, which have been the traffic growth drivers, are now experiencing a slowdown in visits."


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Avian influenza shaking up global trade conditions
A generally positive 2017 outlook for the global poultry industry is now being challenged by a new wave of avian influenza (AI) outbreaks - a most unwelcome development in a global market that was just recovering from the negative impact of the 2015 highly pathogenic AI crisis, according to Rabobank's "Poultry Quarterly Q4 2016" report.

New outbreaks - at just the beginning of the Northern Hemisphere winter season, when risk is usually high - certainly have the potential to shake up global market conditions in 2017 - both in meat trade and breeding stock trade, the report said. This adverse development comes at the same time as the favorable fundamentals and just as the industry has started reporting better results. The industry currently has strong market balances in most regions and ongoing low costs, despite pressure from declining red meat prices.

"The return of avian influenza is now shaking up global trade conditions and is especially affecting the outlook for Asia, Europe and Africa," the report said. "It will also be a test for the U.S. industry after last year's multiple AI outbreaks. As many European and Asian countries are exporters of meat and breeding stock, this will certainly impact the outlook for the industry and could shake up meat and breeder trade again."


Saturated fat could be good for health
A new diet intervention study (FATFUNC), performed by researchers at the KG Jebsen center for diabetes research at the University of Bergen in Norway, raises questions regarding the validity of a diet hypothesis that has dominated for more than a half-century: that dietary fat - particularly saturated fat - is unhealthy for most people.

The researchers found strikingly similar health effects of diets based on either minimally processed carbohydrates or fats. In the randomized controlled trial, 38 men with abdominal obesity followed a dietary pattern high in either carbohydrates or fat, about half of which was saturated. Fat mass in the abdominal region, liver and heart was measured with accurate analyses, along with a number of key risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

"The very high intake of total and saturated fat did not increase the calculated risk of cardiovascular diseases," said professor and cardiologist Ottar Nygard, who contributed to the study. "Participants on the very-high-fat diet also had substantial improvements in several important cardiometabolic risk factors, such as ectopic fat storage, blood pressure, blood lipids (triglycerides), insulin and blood sugar."


Those pesky plasmids have popped up on a pig farm (commentary)
Dr. Richard Raymond

Not to go into too much detail about research by a group of Ohio State University (OSU) investigators that was published Dec 5 in Antimicrobial Agents & Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, a peer reviewed journal, but I do need to at least describe the rather scary finding.

In this research, OSU found the carbapenem resistant gene that is carried on a plasmid on a pig farm. Plasmids are scary because they can be transferred from germ to germ, even crossing species lines.

Carbapenem resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE), which is what they found, are even scarier, so scary some call them "killer germs" because the chance of living if you contract one of these infections is 50-50.

To date, CRE infections in this country have been pretty much limited to health care settings, although some companion animals have been noted to be carriers. Carbapenem can be used by small animal veterinarians to treat Fluffy's runny nose, but they are banned in animal agriculture.

So how did this bug show up in farrowing barns and a nursery on a large hog confinement facility?

Read more


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