Friday, August 12, 2011

[www.keralites.net] SCIENTISTS DEVELOP 'INSTANT' AID FOOD

 


SCIENTISTS DEVELOP 'INSTANT' AID FOOD



The puffy product is milled to make a porridge-like meal when warm water is added. Photo via Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Peggy Greb.

After a decade of research, the USDA has released an "instant" cooked meal better suited for feeding hungry people abroad.

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Street boys eat near a garbage dump in New Delhi


The technology to produce the instant corn-soy blend was modeled after other food production machines that churn out popular foods such as cheese and cereal puffs.

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Most aid foods can travel well, but the oils in them often spoil, ruining whole batches at a time, according to one USDA article. Also, nutrients in the foods would settle at the bottoms of storage bags, affecting their distribution in each serving by the time they reached people receiving the products.

The new instant corn-soy blend relies on an older technique called extrusion, where ingredients are mixed, cooked and pushed through an opening into a desirable shape. Often, machines cook the product for a short period of time at high heats and pressures. Researchers, including Charles Onwulata who led the effort, helped create these crunchy, puffy pieces of food.

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Hunger figures - graph showing the number of undernourished people in the world.

During the final process, the puffs are milled into a fine, powdery blend, which makes it easier to ration and mix warm water into. Unlike previous foods, the product doesn't spoil and retains the same amount of nutrients throughout.

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Que for food

Researchers also sought to include more vitamin supplements that young children need during development. Often, these are the individuals who need humanitarian aid the most during humanitarian efforts.

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a boy with severe acute malnutrition sit in his mother's lap

The agency's Agricultural Research Service branch developed the blend, which may be distributed through theMcGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. USDA's Farm Service Agency also supplies aid resources abroad, sometimes partnering with the United Nations World Food Program.


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Finding ways to better transport nutritious foods abroad remains an important challenge, as nearly 925 million people around the world are undernourished, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

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Thanks & Regards, Raj. Kumar(courtesy to various websites)


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