Alimentación

I Said the Era of Famines Might Be Ending. I Was Wrong.

Internacional,

Nearly eight years ago I wrote an essay for New York Times Opinion asking whether the world had finally moved beyond the peril of large-scale famines. My answer was that it might very well have.

I was wrong. Famines are back.

I underestimated the cruel resolve of some war leaders to use starvation as a weapon. And I overestimated how much the world’s largest humanitarian donors cared about feeding the hungry in conflict zones, and giving them the necessary help to rise above the devastation when the fighting finally ended.

Since 2016, the year I took that optimistic view, a decades-long improvement in world nutrition has stalled.…  Seguir leyendo »

A customer shops for food items at a grocery store in Alhambra, Calif., in April 2022. (Frederic J. Brown/ AFP/Getty Images)

InternacionalEconomía,

The system of food labeling in the United States does not make it easy for consumers trying to assess the nutritional value of the foods they buy. Now, the Food and Drug Administration can do something about it.

More than 40 countries have adopted easy-to-understand, front-of-package nutrition information showing, at a glance, which foods are more — or less — healthful. Thus far, the United States has not required front-of-package labeling, relying instead on the food industry’s voluntary efforts, laden with confusing numbers and percentages. Compare that with the “excess sugar” stop signs you’ll see in Mexico, the Nutri-Score system used in France, or the Health Star Ratings in New Zealand.…  Seguir leyendo »

The lunchroom at Alyssa Blakemore’s son’s school. (Alyssa Blakemore)

MundoAméricaEuropaUnión Europea, , ,

Each day on our short walk to our town’s scuola materna, my son and I stroll past tiny yards brimming with tomato plants, squashes and citrus trees. A vine of kiwis adorns the entry to one neighbor’s home, and rows of olive trees dot a hillside nearby. Juicy cantaloupes in summer, ripe figs in fall — these are but a few of the mouthwatering choices my son enjoys every day at his Italian preschool.

In the six months since we moved to Italy on military assignment, I’ve been shocked at how well Italy feeds its schoolchildren compared with the United States.…  Seguir leyendo »

President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Marina Silva, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change of Brazil, pictured at COP28 (Photo by Stuart Wilson / COP28 via Getty Images)

MundoAmérica, ,

The United Arab Emirates’ COP presidency has successfully moved food system transformation firmly onto the global climate change agenda.

A new US–UAE fund, pledging $17 billion to support low carbon food system practices, and initiatives such as the Alliance of Champions for Food System Transformation (with Brazil as co-chair), are important signals that governments and non-state actors recognize the speed and scale required to deliver both climate and biodiversity objectives.

A new report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Global Roadmap for food system transition, offers a clear vision for countries to adopt in this global effort.

The problem is serious and urgent.…  Seguir leyendo »

Crop spraying in Ens, The Netherlands. (Photo by Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty Images)

ReflexionesNaturaleza, ,

This year’s international climate change conference, COP28, will be the first such conference to have a major focus on food, which the UAE as COP28 president sees as important aspect of its agenda.

This is long overdue: food systems are responsible for about a third of all greenhouse gases produced by human activity. Modern farming methods are the most significant drivers of biodiversity loss. In turn, the world’s ability to provide healthy diets (‘food security’) is threatened by the impacts of climate change, with severe weather like storms and drought affecting the ability to produce and transport food.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine have also emphasized the global food system’s lack of resilience, and how easily events drive up food prices.…  Seguir leyendo »

Alimentos basados en plantas por defecto

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Los efectos catastróficos del cambio climático están aquí: olas de calor abrasadoras y mortales están chamuscando a Europa, y los polos se están derritiendo. El crecimiento de los hielos marinos en la Antártida está alcanzando mínimos sin precedentes. ¿Hay algo que los individuos puedan hacer al respecto?

La respuesta es un sí contundente. Lo que comemos, en particular, es de suma importancia. La afirmación de que “las vacas son el nuevo carbón” puede parecer hiperbólica, pero, en efecto, es precisa. Aproximadamente un tercio de todas las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) del lado de la demanda son generadas por los sistemas alimentarios, y solo la carne vacuna representa un cuarto de las emisiones producidas por criar y cultivar alimentos.…  Seguir leyendo »

La ciencia de lo que comemos es deficiente. Y puede mejorar

InternacionalSalud Pública

Hace poco, la Organización Mundial de la Salud recomendó evitar el uso de edulcorantes artificiales para perder peso o reducir el riesgo de problemas de salud como las cardiopatías y la diabetes. Esta recomendación se basaba en la revisión de la organización de la investigación disponible hasta la fecha sobre edulcorantes artificiales.

Desafortunadamente, no se puede confiar en esos hallazgos. Esto se debe a que los estudios existentes sobre edulcorantes artificiales están plagados de problemas metodológicos. Incluso la OMS lo sabe, dado que describió su certeza en las pruebas existentes como “baja”. Tal vez sea cierto que los edulcorantes artificiales no ayudan a perder peso, pero realmente no lo sabemos con certeza.…  Seguir leyendo »

One major contributor to climate change is the methane produced by farmed animals – mainly cows and sheep — as they digest their food. Gary Kazanjian for The New York Times

ReflexionesNaturaleza, ,

The year of the first Earth Day, 1970, was the year I stopped eating meat. I didn’t do it to save the Earth, but because I realized that there is no ethical justification for treating animals like machines for converting feed into meat, milk and eggs. It is wrong to ignore or discount the interests of sentient beings because they are not members of our species.

In the United States and beyond, giant agribusiness corporations continue raising animals in ways that disregard their welfare, never allowing pigs or chickens to walk outside, crowding hens who lay eggs into cages that prevent them from stretching their wings and breeding chickens to grow so fast that their immature leg bones struggle to bear their weight.…  Seguir leyendo »

El kiwi enano, también llamado kiwi baby, minikiwi y kiwiño, pertenece a la especie Actinidia arguta. Shutterstock / DronG

InternacionalSalud Pública

Quizá le ha llamado la atención encontrarse los llamados “kiwis enanos” en algunas tiendas de alimentación. ¿Merecen que los incluyamos en la cesta de la compra? Al margen de su llamativo tamaño y aspecto, ¿destacan también por sus propiedades nutricionales?

En las sociedades occidentales actuales, cuando hablamos de alimentación encontramos múltiples tendencias que, con mayor o menor acierto, prometen beneficios para la salud y el medioambiente. En este aspecto, una cuestión bastante clara es que la diversidad de alimentos (incluyendo productos tradicionales y novedosos) es una buena estrategia para disfrutar alimentándonos de forma saludable: en la variedad está el gusto… y, en este caso, la salud.…  Seguir leyendo »

Kerstin Ade stands next to her camper during a semiannual trip for former East Germany residents in Leipzig, Germany. (Kerstin Sopke/AP)

EuropaUnión Europea, ,

Soup and sausages might not seem like the usual stuff of public controversy. In Germany, however, even such humble household staples can trigger deep-seated national anxieties. In the east of the country, several big supermarket chains have revived food products that hark back to the region’s socialist past during the Cold War. Now, they stand accused of “trivializing the injustice of communist dictatorship”.

The controversial items back on east German shelves include dishes such as solyanka. This thick, meat-based soup has its origins in Russia and Ukraine but became popular across the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. In socialist East Germany, it was a regular item on restaurant menus and in school canteens.…  Seguir leyendo »

Nuevos criterios de Nutri-Score: cambiar para que todo siga igual

EspañaSanidad y Salud Pública

“Si queremos que todo siga como está, es preciso que todo cambie”, le dice Tancredi a su tío, Fabrizio Corbera, príncipe de Salina, en la inmortal novela de Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, El Gatopardo.

A estas alturas, muchos consumidores ya saben qué es Nutri-Score y lo han visto en la parte frontal de muchos productos alimenticios. Aunque en principio parecía una magnífica idea, la realidad es que ha recibido críticas de gran parte de los sectores afectados: industria alimentaria, dietistas-nutricionistas y científicos, entre otros.

Una lluvia de críticas

Los motivos del rechazo son variopintos. Entre ellos, la pésima calificación que otorga al aceite de oliva y que ignora los alimentos ultraprocesados.…  Seguir leyendo »

A man holds wheat grains in a grain storage facility on a farm near Izmail, in Ukraine's Odesa region, on June 14. Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP via Getty Images

Europa, , , ,

The Russian military strategy of cutting Ukraine off from its access to the sea in order to decapitate its economy is now set to cause a worldwide famine. The export of Ukrainian grain provides food security for more than 300 million people around the world. Now, millions of tons of grain are sitting in Ukrainian grain elevators or the cargo holds of dozens of foreign shipping vessels stuck in Ukrainian ports. The embargo on the export of Ukrainian grain by the Russian Black Sea Fleet represents a serious food security threat. It is imperative that the world act.

My hometown of Odesa—a multiethnic, multicultural hub of regional trade—is Ukraine’s main port, including two satellite port cities within 30 miles of the city proper.…  Seguir leyendo »

Egyptian workers fill sacks with wheat during harvest in Saqiyat al-Manqadi, Egypt, on May 1, 2019. MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP via Getty Images

Internacional

This year, Egypt is ground zero for two of the world’s biggest crises—food and climate. Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat, including from Ukraine. Russian aggression there has worsened the already rising risk of humanitarian catastrophes. Grain prices are now around 17 percent higher than during the Arab Spring in 2011, when food inflation and street protests in Egypt toppled the 30-year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak.

A recent United Nations report estimates that up to 49 million people are now at risk of falling into famine or famine-like conditions globally, an all-time high. Climate change has exacerbated the present crisis—worsening drought in parts of Africa and the Middle East, and making the kind of heat waves that have killed dozens of people and reduced harvests in India 30 times as likely.…  Seguir leyendo »

Yemenis receive food aid at a camp in the western province of Hodeida, 29 March 2022. The disruption of export flows resulting from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and international sanctions has raised fears of a global food crisis, particularly in Yemen, where famine is also being used as a weapon in the war that has been raging in the country since 2014. © Khaled Ziad / AFP

Internacional,

A hideous contradiction is playing out in war-torn Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainians are starving in cities besieged by Russian forces. Meanwhile, the country’s grain stores are bursting with food, and the government is begging for international assistance to export Ukrainian grain to world markets.

At the end of 2021, almost 200 million people globally were suffering acute food insecurity. The number climbed after Russia’s invasion and blockade of Ukraine, a key exporter of grains and oil seeds, which disrupted world food markets. This is pushing up food prices and straining aid budgets.

Russia isn’t the only belligerent to weaponize hunger. Most people at risk of famine today live in places afflicted by war.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalONU, ,

At the beginning of my career, I visited a Sudanese refugee camp in Uganda and saw a two-year-old girl die before my eyes. The technical term for what this girl experienced, when you are too thin and malnourished for your size, is childhood wasting. And it was, indeed, a waste. A young life—with all its potential—gone forever. There was enough food in the world to go around. There was no reason for her to die.

That image has stayed with me for decades, and I have devoted much of my career to trying to identify and combat the root causes of conflict, famine, and human suffering.…  Seguir leyendo »

A wheat farmer in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, 21 June 2022. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Internacional, , , , ,

So here we are. The pound has slumped and Britain has the lowest growth and highest inflation in the G7. Manufacturing output has stalled and the financial markets are advising that sterling should be treated as an “emerging market” currency. The prime minister has broken the law and the government will reportedly soon publish a bill that could break international law in our name. You can only imagine the enormous respect and influence that Boris Johnson will carry into the room when G7 leaders meet in Germany. If they don’t burst out laughing at the sight of our threadbare prime minister it will only be because of decent diplomatic manners.…  Seguir leyendo »

Una catástrofe alimentaria en camino

Internacional,

La llamaban crisis incluso antes de que comenzara la guerra: más de 800 millones de personas vivían en estado de hambre crónica. Pero, como ya habrán escuchado, la invasión rusa de Ucrania —dos países que, según se calcula, producen suficiente alimento para 400 millones de personas y representan hasta el 12 por ciento de todas las calorías comercializadas a nivel mundial— dificultó aún más las cosas y agravó el hambre.

The New York Times cubrió por primera vez el efecto de la guerra en el hambre mundial a principios de marzo, apenas una semana después de que comenzara el conflicto; en mayo, el secretario general de la ONU advertía sobre “el fantasma de una escasez mundial de alimentos” y The Economist dedicó su portada a “la catástrofe alimentaria que se avecina”.…  Seguir leyendo »

Planting the fields around Dnipro, Ukraine where many of the workers are women, as most men have signed up for the military. Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

Europa, , , , ,

The blockade of Ukraine’s ports is choking critical supplies of crops to the world and risks tipping vulnerable populations in developing countries closer to famine. Before the invasion, Ukraine and Russia were together supplying 100 per cent of Somalia’s wheat imports, 80 per cent of Egypt’s and 75 per cent of Sudan’s.

Global food prices have reached all-time highs since Russia’s invasion and households in countries across the world are suffering the consequences. Humanitarian agencies are struggling not only to reach those suffering from an acute lack of basic supplies in Ukraine itself, but to maintain their operations in other parts of the world as food and energy prices skyrocket.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaEconomía, ,

La polvareda levantada por la torpe campaña promovida por Burger King esta última Semana Santa quizás nos haya impedido advertir lo que está ocurriendo con el intento de sustitución de la carne natural por sucedáneos artificiales y las implicaciones que ello tiene.

La industria animalista, convenientemente engrasada por unos lobbies poderosísimos económicamente, lleva años tratando de convencer a la sociedad de que el uso de animales por el hombre es éticamente reprobable, propio de una sociedad atrasada y salvaje que debe superarse por una nueva sociedad mejor, en la que el ser humano y los animales compartan el mismo estatus en tanto que seres sintientes.…  Seguir leyendo »

La invasión rusa a Ucrania podría significar menos comida en Egipto, Líbano, Yemen y otros lugares del mundo árabe, donde millones de personas ya luchan por sobrevivir. Un vendedor espera a los clientes en un mercado de la capital yemení, Sanaa, el 28 de febrero. Mohammed Huwais/AFP vía Getty Images

InternacionalEconomía  

Es difícil ver a los refugiados ucranianos llegar a Polonia por coche y a pie y no recordar la Segunda Guerra Mundial, cuando la región fue devastada por combates, la hambruna se extendió y millones de ucranianos murieron de hambre.

No estamos cerca de ese momento. Pero, esta vez, las dificultades alimentarias no serán una crisis aislada. Lo que sucede en Ucrania se ya está extendiendo y amenaza la disponibilidad de alimentos en las naciones menos prósperas que han llegado a depender de las exportaciones de granos y otros productos alimenticios de Ucrania y Rusia.

La región del mar Negro es actualmente un centro vital de la producción y el comercio agrícola global, y Ucrania es uno de los graneros del mundo.…  Seguir leyendo »