How Genomics Solved The Mystery Of Ireland's Great Famine

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This illustration from 1846 shows a starving boy and girl raking the ground for potatoes during the Irish Potato Famine, which began in the 1840s.

This illustration from 1846 shows a starving boy and girl raking the ground for potatoes during the Irish Potato Famine, which began in the 1840s.

An international group of plant pathologists has solved a historical mystery behind Ireland's Great Famine.

Sure, scientists have known for a while that a funguslike organism called Phytophthora infestans was responsible for the potato blight that plagued Ireland starting in the 1840s. But there are many different strains of the pathogen that cause the disease, and scientists have finally discovered the one that triggered the Great Famine.

And although so many Irish emigrated to the U.S. to escape the devastation, little did they know they were only getting closer to the source of the pathogen in the Americas.

Plant pathologists sequenced the genome of 19th century potato specimens like this one from London's Kew Gardens herbarium, collected during the height of the Irish famine in 1847.

A team of researchers from the U.K., Germany and the U.S. sequenced the genomes of some herbarium samples dried plants preserved by botanical gardens and museums. They compared the pathogens in 11 of these potato samples from more than 100 years ago with 15 modern strains and found the one responsible for Ireland's devastating blight. The culprit's name? They dubbed it HERB-1.

This uprooted the previous theory that another strain, called US-1, was behind the blight. But the two are closely related, says Sophien Kamoun, a co-author of the study, which appears in the journal eLife. With this information, he and the other scientists deduced a possible timeline for Phytophthora infestans.

Everything began in Mexico's Toluca Valley, the center of the pathogen's diversity. "The Spanish introduced Europeans to the South American staple crop potato shortly after their conquest of the New World," the authors write, "but for three centuries Europe stayed free of P. infestans."

They think that it wasn't until the start of the 19th century that a strain of the pathogen left Mexico. Wherever it ended up the researchers suspect farther north in North America it then separated into HERB-1 and US-1, and each strain set off to take over the world, one potato at a time.

By the summer of 1845, HERB-1 had made it to Europe and spread quickly across the continent. Because of Ireland's high dependence on potatoes and its fragile socioeconomic status, losing much of the crop to the blight was catastrophic. A million Irish died and another million left the island before the famine lifted in 1852.

In the early 20th century, people began breeding potatoes that would be more resistant to pathogens. "We have some data from the genetics that suggests that HERB-1 wouldn't have been able to cope with those resistance genes," Kamoun says. "Of course, we can never really know for sure, but it looks like HERB-1 is most likely extinct at this point." Even the heartier US-1, which dominated the globe for 150 years and is still around today, was overshadowed by more aggressive strains in the 1970s.

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The funguslike organism Phytophthora infestans causes potato leaves to decay and tubers to rot.

The funguslike organism Phytophthora infestans causes potato leaves to decay and tubers to rot.

But the scientists weren't merely sleuthing for the sake of history. Though the pathogen behind the Irish potato famine is no longer a threat, related strains, they say, are still a menace.

"Potato blight is still a huge problem worldwide," Kamoun says. "[It's] the third most important food crop in the world, and potato blight is the major constraint for growing potatoes." One 2012 estimate says the amount of potatoes lost each year to blight would be sufficient to feed at least 80 million people and perhaps hundreds of millions more.

So plenty of scientists are trying to breed new potato varieties either through classical breeding or through genetic modification, but they're up against the "amazingly adaptable" Phytophthora infestans. "Understanding the pathogen dynamics and how the pathogen has evolved through time is really important for helping us predict future changes in pathogen populations," Kamoun says.

And to him, the millions of herbaria stored in museums are hidden treasures just waiting for researchers to find. "We can go back and not just look at the leaves or identify the species by looking at the shape of the flowers. ... We can actually get to the DNA," he says. "This is a great example of how we can use all those treasures in museums and use the latest technology to exploit information that's in those museums."

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Could African Crops Be Improved With Private Biotech Data?

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Marula is one of the crops whose genome will be sequenced through the African Orphan Crops Consortium.

Marula is one of the crops whose genome will be sequenced through the African Orphan Crops Consortium.

"I'm shocked by the optimism here," Howard Yana-Shapiro, the chief agricultural officer for Mars Inc. said Tuesday to the audience of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs' Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C.

Seated there before him were some of the leaders from the wealthiest international organizations and multinational companies of the fight to end hunger. And Shapiro told them they weren't even close.

"To pat ourselves on the back and say we've reached 4 million African children well, we need to reach 100 times that," he said.

About four years ago, Shapiro, a plant scientist who's also a senior fellow at the University of California, Davis, and the World Agroforestry Centre, learned about stunting, a result of malnutrition and undernutrition that affects 1 in 4 children worldwide.

Shapiro decided to make it his mission to use plant science to end stunting because, he says, the international community currently relies too much on food donations, or crops like corn with few nutrients. "We need nutrition security, not food security," he says. "A lot of the calories out there right now simply aren't that useful."

In 2011, Shapiro, and Mars yes, the candy company launched the African Orphan Crop Consortium, a project to improve the nutrition, productivity and climatic adaptability of little-known African food crops by mapping and analyzing their genomes. The 100 crops that are the focus of the AOCC include African eggplant, cocoyam and Ethiopian mustard. Shapiro says they have been neglected by researchers because they are not economically important on the global market.

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The baobob fruit is one of the 100 traditional African food crops that a group of scientists want to learn more about to improve nutrition.

The baobob fruit is one of the 100 traditional African food crops that a group of scientists want to learn more about to improve nutrition.

Now, the Beijing Genomic Institute is helping the consortium to sequence these crops' genomes. The hope is that as the genome sequences start to become public next year, African scientists can breed more nutritious and productive varieties of the crops.

On Tuesday in Washington, Shapiro appealed to the world's biggest life sciences companies to help him by sharing what they already know about the 100 crops.

"I would appeal to the presidents of Dupont Pioneer and BASF and Monsanto to give us all the information they have on nutritional content and where the markers are on the plants for it," Shapiro said. "We're looking at the genomics to have a road map of what to do. We're looking for the turn signs, and I think those companies may have some of those signs."

But can the kings of agricultural intellectual-property technology get onboard with open source agricultural information for Africa? Monsanto, for one, regularly fights to protect its patents most recently in the Supreme Court.

Well, at least one company says it's planning to sit down and talk with Shapiro about his request.

Jane Slusark, a spokeswoman for Dupont Pioneer, says the company wants "to figure out where we may have that knowledge and opportunities to collaborate."

Not long ago, DuPont donated its patented technology to improve the nutrition, production and availability of sorghum, a staple crop in Africa, to the Africa Biofortified Sorghum initiative.

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Ag Biotech News Scoop.it Scoops on agricultural biotech, GMOs and related info
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In Raw Milk Case, Activists See Food Freedom On Trial

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Supporters say Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershberger's trial isn't just about raw milk: It's also, they say, about the right to get foods from farmers without government intervention.

Supporters say Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershberger's trial isn't just about raw milk: It's also, they say, about the right to get foods from farmers without government intervention.

What is the case against Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershberger really about? It depends on whom you ask.

To hear the prosecution, it's about licensing, not raw milk: Hershberger, a dairy farmer hailing from the town of Loganville, is on trial this week for operating without three licenses. He's also accused of continuing to sell raw milk to members of his private club after he was ordered not to.

If convicted, the father of 10 faces more than a year in jail and more than $10,000 in fines.

Prosecutors say they aren't debating the safety of raw milk and the judge in the case has pretty much banned all mention of the stuff in the courtroom. His defense team tells us that one trial spectator wearing a T-shirt expressing support for raw milk had to turn it inside out before he was allowed in the courtroom.

But activists say the case is about raw milk and much, much more.

Fundamentally, they say, it's about personal food freedom and the rights of farmers and consumers to enter into private contracts without government intervention.

"As a mother, I have the right to choose the nutritious foods that I want to feed my son. I don't want the government making that choice for me," says Jen Morrison, a member of Hershberger's Grazin' Acres private food buying club.

In addition to raw milk, she gets beef and poultry raised by Hershberger and his family. In return, she pays a $25 annual membership fee considered an investment in the farm plus the cost for each product she buys (such as a gallon of raw milk). Occasionally, her family volunteers on the farm.

Across the nation, private food clubs, where members claim an ownership stake in the farm, have become a popular way to skirt laws that limit or bar sales of raw milk. (The Food and Drug Administration bars the interstate sale of raw milk, but laws regulating intrastate sales vary from state to state.)

Club members argue that if you own a stake in the farm, then you're not technically buying or selling raw milk. But regulators aren't buying it: From California to Minnesota, prosecutors have cracked down on private food clubs selling raw milk.

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Activists supporting Hershberger have set up camp across the street from the Sauk County courthouse, in the Al Ringling Theatre.

Activists supporting Hershberger have set up camp across the street from the Sauk County courthouse, in the Al Ringling Theatre.

Some food activists see these cases as an assault on all private contracts between farmers and consumers which is why Hershberger's case has become a rallying point for the dozens of activists from around the country who've shown up in Baraboo, Wis., for the trial. They've set up camp across the street from the courthouse in the Al Ringling Theatre, no less where they're hosting a week of "Grow Your Own Food Freedom" events.

"I'm concerned that producers of other commodities not just raw milk, but eggs, meat and produce will start to put burdensome regulations on farmers markets," says Wisconsin Raw Milk Association board member Margo Redmond, who has been at the trial.

But such fears are misplaced, says Susan Schneider, director of the LL.M. program in agricultural and food law at the University of Arkansas.

Raw milk has special status under the law, says Schneider, because of the public health risks involved. Though raw milk aficionados believe their drink of choice has extra nutritional benefits when consumed fresh from the cow, the FDA says pasteurization is needed to kill microbes that may linger in the milk.

"I really think that this case is about raw milk," Schneider says, "but even more specifically, it's about the right of the state to have some basic public health licensing requirements for food that is recognized as having some potential health problem." And that right, she says, is a pretty well-established legal principle.

Neil Hamilton, director of the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, agrees. Just because regulators are cracking down on raw milk buying clubs, he says, doesn't mean that other ventures that allow consumers to buy food directly from farmers such as community-supported agriculture, for example are in jeopardy. Unlike CSAs, he notes, raw milk buying clubs were devised "as a way to dodge or avoid food safety regulations."

No one has gotten sick from drinking Hershberger's raw milk, notes Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which is representing the farmer in the case. So if no one's being harmed, he says, shouldn't consenting adults be allowed to make a private agreement about the foods they want to consume? "Do they have the right," Kennedy asks, "to be left alone?"

Nope, that's not the way the law works, says Hamilton. You can consent to whatever you want, he says, but it still "has to be legal."

With additional reporting in Baraboo, Wis., by Maureen McCollum of Wisconsin Public Radio.

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Raw Milk Facebook Hi all, The trial is going very well from a defense perspective. The defense team is amazing and doing a wonderful job! Vernon is very happy and very optimistic. The China Study Raw Food SOS Rescuing good health from bad science. ... Welcome to the Official Roundup Page for all my blog posts pertaining to T. Colin Campbells The China Study. Raw milk news, articles and information: - Natural health news Urgent: Big Ag group trying to ban raw milk sales in South Carolina - your help needed to stop this tyranny 1/25/2013 - It has come to our attention that the American ... Where Will Legal Maneuvering in Hershberger Raw Milk Case ... Legal Maneuvering in Hershberger Case Is Mind Numbing, And Heres Why It Makes Me Nervous Judge Won't Drop Acquitted Charges in New Trial Against Raw Milk ... Heather Callaghan Activist Post Last September, Alvin Schlangen was acquitted in Hennepin County, Minnesota of the following three charges: selling raw milk ... Food Freedom News Decentralize Grow Your Own Buy Local Decentralize Grow Your Own Buy Local ... By FTCLDF Food rights activists from around North America will meet at the Sauk County Courthouse in this tiny town ... Farm Food Freedom Coalition Facebook Heads Up Wisconsin (and neighboring areas): THIS JUST IN...NEED BODIES IN THE COURTROOM: Hi all, The trial is going very well from a defense perspective. Raw Milk Farmers, Pick Your Legal Poison The Complete Patient For Schmidt, Schlangen, Hershberger, Its Pick Your Legal Poison Time, and We're Not Talking About Raw Milk The war on milk MinnPost Diving into the raw milk underground, Emily Sohn discovers an unlikely alliance of suburban parents, health-conscious foodies and farmers who believe milk is best ... Fresh Milk Food Politics Raw Milk Myths Versus Science ... Freedom of Choice for Raw Milk Drinkers ... Thanks to Raoul Bedi, BASc, for writing up these detailed summaries of the proceedings from the April 6th ...

African Cities Test The Limits Of Living With Livestock

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Sheep graze in the street last year in Cairo.

Sheep graze in the street last year in Cairo.

Raising chickens has become so fashionable among some urban Americans that there's now a market for chicken diapers, as we reported this month.

For a bit of a reality check, let's consider what it means to raise urban livestock in the developing world, where people are poorer and hungrier, and cities are much more densely populated. It's a starkly different picture of people and animals living together, and the question of how it's done has major implications for improving food security and preventing public health disasters.

While humans have been raising food animals in their homes for thousands of years, what's different now is that they're doing it with so many other humans crammed next to them.

And they're not just feeding their families: They're feeding their neighbors, too. Worldwide, 34 percent of meat and nearly 70 percent of eggs are produced in urban areas, according to a 2008 report by the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization. In Maputo, Mozambique, for example, a city with about 1.2 million people, 37 percent of households produce food and 29 percent raise livestock.

"Those moving from rural areas to the cities are bringing their livestock with them, often keeping them in close confinement inside the slums," Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist and food safety specialist, tells The Salt. "People keep livestock like chicken, ducks, goats and even cows because there's huge demand for them, and they're profitable."

Grace, of the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, is studying these huge new city ecosystems. In a series of papers she's published in the past several months in various scientific journals, she has looked at the risks and benefits of urban livestock in the developing world.

When it comes to risks, Grace says she's most worried about what happens to the animal waste especially in places where human waste isn't even managed well. And she's worried that sick animals that go untreated lead to zoonoses diseases that spread from animals to humans. One of her recent studies, published in the journal Tropical Animal Health and Production, found that zoonoses and diseases recently emerged from animals make up 26 percent of the infectious disease cases in low-income countries.

"We're talking about the everyday events of disease spreading from animals to humans, and the rare but more serious event of the emergence of a new disease," she says. "Slums could be a good test tube for growing new pathogens, because people are poor and malnourished, and there's generally just more disease."

Meat and eggs produced in slums also pose a food safety risk, she says. "There's often no refrigeration or cold chain for these products," she says.

But even with the risks, Grace argues there's a net benefit from people keeping urban livestock, and cities should be trying to help producers learn how to safely care for their animals and the food they produce.

According to her research, urban livestock generate income and improve the nutrition and health of communities they're in, because the animals are a source of fresh food for local consumers. When cities try to ban urban livestock, it backfires, she says. "We found that the more people were harassed by the police about their animals, the fewer precautions they took," she says.

The Salt

From Pets To Plates: Why More People Are Eating Guinea Pigs

Pierre Ferrari, CEO of Heifer International, a nonprofit that targets hunger and poverty by supplying communities with livestock, agrees that urban livestock can be a tremendous nutritional resource for the poor if waste is well-managed and veterinary care is available.

"Nutrition is more important than calories, and animal-based foods are very high-quality, nutritious food," he tells The Salt. "But you also need good nutrition for the animal, and many people are not in the position to keep a cow well fed, which is why we recommend smaller animals, like goats, sheep, rabbits and guinea pigs."

According to Ferrari, two of Heifer's most successful urban livestock projects include a guinea pig operation in Cusco, Peru, and a community in Accra, Ghana, that produces grasscutters, rodents prized there as a delicacy.

"These animals use feed very efficiently, and you can keep them in relatively small cages," says Ferrari.

In fact, Ferrari recommends guinea pigs over chickens to just about anyone living in cities. Listen up, hipsters: Guinea pigs may one day need their own fashion line, too.

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Real Butterscotch: The Beauty Of Sugar And Dairy Transformed

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Get recipes for Butterscotch Budino With Caramel Sauce And Salt, Butterscotch Breadcrumb Cake and Butterscotch Cream Pie.

Butterscotch is going through something of a revival. So much so, that two Kitchen Window regular contributors wanted to write about it. Therefore, welcome to the more-than-you-ever-thought-you-needed-to-know-about-butterscotch special coverage. Today is the second in our two-part butterscotch series. Last week's column has more recipes featuring this resurgent flavor.

To that deliciously deepened sugar and dairy you add a few more elements. There's the perfume of vanilla and then a savory dose of salt, which give a depth to the buttery sweetness.

Poor butterscotch. It seldom gets the love and understanding it deserves. On the few times we venture out past chocolate and vanilla, we are mostly content to open a bag of those artificial waxy yellow chips, or perhaps the cellophane-wrapped candies in Grandma's dish. But butterscotch real butterscotch is so much more.

In its truest form, butterscotch hinges upon sugar and dairy (and the beautiful things that happen to them both at high temperatures). Just as the bitter cacao bean needs to be fermented and sweetened and tweaked to become chocolate, butterscotch arrives when you tweak and transform a few humble elements into a perfect balance.

About The Author

Deena Prichep is a Portland, Ore.-based freelance print and radio journalist. Her stories have appeared on Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Marketplace, The Splendid Table, Voice of America, The World and Northwest News Network, and in The Oregonian, Vegetarian Times and Portland Monthly. She chronicles her cooking experiments at Mostly Foodstuffs.

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Adding to the confusion is the fact that the term butterscotch doesn't have a hard and fast technical description. Scour a few cookbooks, and you'll find several variations. There are recipes that bring sugars to high temperature, creating a deliciously browned caramel that then gets a shot of dairy. You'll also find recipes that start with butter and brown sugar in a pan together, bringing them up to a simmer that may not reach the scalding temperatures of straight-on caramelization but still achieves a wonderful depth of flavor.

There are a few things going on here, according to food scientist Laura Shumow at the National Confectioners' Association. Yes, there's the caramelization of sugars, leading to that distinctive deep flavor and buttery beige color. But the dairy be it from the eponymous butter, cream, condensed milk or really anything goes through its own culinary transformation. When the amino acids in those milk proteins (and yes, even the mostly fat butter does have a helping of protein) combine with the sugar and a touch of heat, you get that delicious Maillard reaction the browning that leads to a whole new world of flavor.

But butterscotch doesn't stop there. To that deliciously deepened sugar and dairy you add a few more elements. There's the perfume of vanilla and then a savory dose of salt, which give a depth to the buttery sweetness. Altogether, it creates a lovely balance. Plus there seems to be, at least for me, a nostalgia factor. Butterscotch tastes like comfort, like childhood. But we can also take that childhood love and give it a whole new grown-up incarnation.

I'm not one to complain about a straight-up bowl of butterscotch pudding, but there's no reason to stop there. The best of the butterscotch desserts those that move from nursery sweet into sophisticated dinner party-worthy dessert involve a bit of counterpoint. First, you can play off the flavor. A blob of barely sweetened whipped cream or creme fraiche cuts nicely through the richness of a butterscotch pudding or cake or pie, making each sweet bite all the more welcome. And any lover of salted caramel will tell you that a few grains of salt especially some nice big flaky ones heighten the drama. Which brings us to texture: A bit of crunch can help cut through the sweet creaminess. I'm partial to candied pecans, but just about any chopped nut will do (and browning them is even better), or chopped bits of toffee, or crunchy cacao nibs or just about anything you like.

Kitchen Window

Part 1: Bringing Back Butterscotch

Once you get to know butterscotch and all its creamy, salty, crunchy accoutrements you'll never go back to those waxy chips again. And you'll want to spread the word, bringing butterscotch into its rightful place in the pantheon beside chocolate and vanilla. Because butterscotch real butterscotch is a thing of beauty.

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Recipe: Butterscotch Budino With Caramel Sauce And Salt

This recipe is adapted from The Mozza Cookbook: Recipes from Los Angeles' Favorite Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria (Knopf, 2011) and has graced the table of Nancy Silverton's restaurant since it opened. It is pretty much everything you want: a buttery-smooth Italian take on butterscotch pudding, topped with a just-this-side-of-burnt caramel sauce, a sprinkling of flaky salt and a dollop of unsweetened whipped cream. Don't be afraid to really let your sugar darken it's the key to the pudding's flavor.

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Makes 12 servings

Budino

3 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 cups milk

3 extra-large egg yolks

1 extra-large egg

2/3 cup cornstarch

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons whiskey

Caramel Sauce

1 cup heavy cream

1 whole vanilla bean

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup light corn syrup

Whipped cream (1 cup heavy cream whipped with 1/4 cup creme fraiche or sour cream, if desired)

Coarse salt

Fill a large bowl with ice water, and set a smaller bowl inside. Set a fine-mesh strainer inside the smaller bowl.

To make the budino, stir the cream and milk together in a medium bowl. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks, egg and cornstarch together. Combine the brown sugar, salt and 1/2 cup water in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over high heat. Cook the sugar, without stirring, swirling the pan occasionally for even cooking, until the sugar is smoking, nutty smelling and very dark caramel color, 10 to 12 minutes. Reduce the heat to low, and immediately add the cream-milk mixture in a thin stream, stirring as you add. The sugar will seize and harden. Increase the heat to high, and cook until it dissolves back into a liquid, 5 to 7 minutes.

Turn off the heat, and ladle some of the hot cream and sugar into the eggs, whisking constantly to prevent curdling. Continue until you've added half the cream, then pour this mixture back into the saucepan, whisking, and cook until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat, and whisk in the butter and whiskey.

Pour the mixture through the strainer into the bowl, then ladle into a dozen small glasses or ramekins. Chill for several hours until thickened and cold (you can do this up to 3 days in advance).

To make the caramel sauce, pour the cream into a medium saucepan. Using a small knife, split the vanilla bean, scrape out its seeds, and pulp and add them to the saucepan. Heat the cream over high heat until it just begins to boil, then turn off the heat and add the butter, stirring until it melts.

Combine the sugar, corn syrup and 1/4 cup water in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook without stirring, swirling for even cooking, until the sugar becomes a medium amber color, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, and gradually add the cream mixture, whisking constantly to combine, and stir until it comes together. This also can be made in advance and reheated before serving if needed.

If caramel sauce has hardened when you're ready to serve, gently heat until it loosens. Spoon a tablespoon of sauce on top of each budino, top with a pinch of coarse salt and a big dollop of whipped cream.

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Recipe: Butterscotch Breadcrumb Cake

This cake comes from Matthew Busetto at Portland, Ore.'s Firehouse Restaurant. Breadcrumb cakes are traditional in European cuisine (as well as a great way to use the restaurant's leftover Pugliese loaves). The dessert has a rich-yet-not-too-sweet flavor from the butterscotch, as well as a slightly nubby texture both of which are perfectly matched by some whipped cream, crunchy topping and another puddle of butterscotch sauce. You can use any butterscotch sauce recipe you favor we went with a version riffed from The Perfect Cake: 150 Cakes for Every Taste and Occasion by Susan Purdy (Broadway, 2002).

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Makes 6 servings

Butterscotch Sauce

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 cup cream

1 teaspoon coarse salt (or to taste)

2 to 3 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cake

Granulate sugar for dusting the pan

3 large eggs, separated

1 cup butterscotch sauce (reserve the rest for serving)

1 teaspoon coarse salt

1 teaspoon orange zest

1 1/4 cup dry bread crumbs, fairly fine (panko will work in a pinch)

Unsweetened whipped cream, reserved butterscotch sauce and chopped nuts or toffee bits (for topping)

To make the butterscotch sauce, melt the butter in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar, cream and salt and whisk until well blended. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for about 5 minutes, whisking occasionally. Remove from heat and add the smaller amount of vanilla, taste and add more as needed. Set aside.

For the cake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter an 8-inch square pan or six 6- to 8-ounce ramekins, and dust lightly with sugar. Set aside.

Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and set aside

Whip the egg yolks with the 1 cup of butterscotch sauce, salt and orange zest, until pale and almost doubled in size (a few minutes). Fold the whites into the yolk mixture in thirds, until just combined, then gently fold in the breadcrumbs.

Bake until the cake seems set and a tester comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes for ramekins, 25 to 30 minutes for a full cake. Cool slightly in the pan, then turn out.

Serve topped with whipped cream, reserved butterscotch sauce and any other crunchy toppings you desire.

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Recipe: Butterscotch Cream Pie

Three Babes Bakeshop makes some amazing pies with local California produce. But when the staff are waiting on the harvest, they turn toward pantry favorites such as butterscotch. Lenore Estrada, one of the "babes," came up with this recipe in honor of her late mother, who loved butterscotch candy. Between the flaky crust, creamy filling and crunchy toppings, this pie is pure comfort.

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Makes 1 pie

1 stick butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 cups cream, divided

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon bourbon, brandy or calvados

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 pie crust, parbaked and cooled

Cream or an egg wash

Sugar and salt for the crust

Whipped cream (1 cup cold cream whipped with 2 teaspoons powdered sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract)

Chopped toffee, candied nuts or whatever other crunchy toppings you fancy

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter in a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar, 1 cup of the cream and salt, and whisk until well blended. Bring to a gentle boil and cook for about 5 minutes, whisking occasionally. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract and booze of choice. Allow to cool.

Transfer the cooled mixture to a standup mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. With the mixer running, add the eggs one at a time. Add the remaining 1 cup cream. Make sure to wipe down the sides of the bowl as you go so that everything is evenly incorporated.

Pour the custard into the parbaked pie shell and, with a pastry brush, brush cream or an egg wash on the edges of the fluted pie crust that is exposed. Sprinkle liberally with coarse sugar and a pinch of coarse salt. Bake until pie is just set but center is still slightly wobbly, about 50 minutes. Transfer dish to a wire rack, and let cool completely.

When cool, spread the pie with the whipped cream, and sprinkle with a topping of your choice. Enjoy at once or refrigerate to keep it up to 2 days.

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Nutrition Group Says Chocolate Milk Is OK, No Need For Aspartame

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Morgan Barnett, 7, drinks from containers of 1 percent milk and chocolate milk during lunch at a school in St. Paul, Minn., in 2006.

Morgan Barnett, 7, drinks from containers of 1 percent milk and chocolate milk during lunch at a school in St. Paul, Minn., in 2006.

A controversial petition by the dairy industry to allow milk sweetened with aspartame or other alternative sweeteners to be labeled on the front of the carton simply as MILK is drawing criticism from the nation's leading group of nutritionists.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is urging the FDA to reject the petition, which we first told you about in March.

"The Academy's recommendation to deny the petition is not based on the safety of artificial sweeteners," writes Ethan Bergman, the group's president, in a release explaining its opposition.

So what's the academy's rationale? Well, as we previously reported, the petition is aimed at boosting consumption in schools, where many kids have decided that milk is not their drink of choice. Given the options of water, juice or milk, milk is losing out.

Studies show that offering flavored milk such as chocolate or strawberry turns more kids onto milk, but critics have pointed to the extra sugar as a drawback.

In an effort to get around the sugar problem, the dairy industry has petitioned to change what's known as the "standard of identity" of milk, which is basically the definition of milk, allowing aspartame or alternatives such as stevia to be used to sweeten the milk.

So what's the academy's beef with the petition? Well, it goes back to the assertion that the dairy industry makes in its petition that the change (allowing no or low-calories sweeteners in milk) could promote healthful eating and help reduce childhood obesity.

Not necessarily, says the academy.

"Flavored milk is not a major source of added sugar in children's diets," says Bergman.

The academy points to studies, including this one, that show that school-age kids who drink flavored (chocolate and strawberry) milk meet more of their nutrient needs, and don't consume more added sugar, fat or calories. These kids are also "similar in weight compared to non-milk drinkers," according to a statement released by the academy. In other words, there's no need to try to cut sugar and calories with artificial sweeteners.

And there's criticism among consumers, too.

A petition by the group Sum Of Us, which says the goal of the dairy industry petition is to "turn the wholesome drink (milk) into another artificial flavor-laden sweet snack," has received about 117,000 signatures.

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Growing Vegetables From Seeds Takes Root For Many Gardeners

More and more gardeners are bypassing the local nursery and instead starting their veggies from seed. Seeds are often cheaper, and they give growers a bigger choice of varieties. At a community garden in Venice, Calif., students learn the ins and outs of gardening from scratch.

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Sandwich Monday: The Saltwich

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The pretzel shape provides nice little windows through which you can see your poor choices.

The pretzel shape provides nice little windows through which you can see your poor choices.

For years, one of the pieces of advice we've been ignoring is that we should really cut back on our salt intake. Now, a panel of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine says limiting salt below a certain amount may not really do us any good. Around here, we take this to mean: Eat as much salt as you can or you'll die.

So, we've created The Saltwich, made with the saltiest foods we could find. Salami, bacon, pickles and salt-and-vinegar potato chips, on salty pretzel bread. Salt to taste.

Ian: There's so much salt around my mouth, you could serve a margarita in me.

Eva: This sandwich is great for soaking your sore feet in.

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If you zoom in, you can see how Eva's fingers immediately pruned up when she touched the Saltwich.

If you zoom in, you can see how Eva's fingers immediately pruned up when she touched the Saltwich.

Robert: I know we wanted to get as many salty things on this sandwich as we could, but I'm grateful that we drew the line at Lot's wife.

Eva: My insides are well-preserved for the winter.

Ian: This reminds me of my favorite '90s all-female rap crew, Salt-n-Salt-n-Salt-n-Salt-n-Pepa.

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Salt added.

Salt added.

Mike: I guess I shouldn't be surprised at all the deer that just came out of the woods to lick me.

Peter: This sandwich tastes like it just ran a half-marathon in the heat.

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Because of the limited structural integrity of The Saltwich, Robert had to employ the Butterfly Grip.

Because of the limited structural integrity of The Saltwich, Robert had to employ the Butterfly Grip.

Peter: The good news: We've all been coated with so much salt, we could be slaughtered and still be kosher.

Ian:You might say Sagal is potassium nitrate right now. CHEMISTRY JOKE.

Robert: Sodium is abbreviated as "Na" on the periodic table. Coincidentally, that's exactly what I should have said when I was handed this sandwich.

[The verdict: Surprisingly delicious, with an unsurprising painful salt aftertaste. Bacon and pickles have a bright future together, with the right counterpoint.]

Sandwich Monday is a satirical feature from the humorists at Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me.

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Washington State Butcher Spikes Pig Feed With Weed

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William von Schneidau, who owns the BB Ranch butcher shop at Pike Place Market in Seattle, has made prosciutto from pigs fed marijuana.

William von Schneidau, who owns the BB Ranch butcher shop at Pike Place Market in Seattle, has made prosciutto from pigs fed marijuana.

William von Schneidau, an intrepid butcher in Seattle, is giving a whole new meaning to "potbelly pig." Lately, he's been feeding marijuana refuse to the pigs he turns into prosciutto for BB Ranch, his butcher shop in the city's famous Pike Place Market.

Pot-scented bacon? Well, not quite.

The stems, leaves and root bulbs von Schneidau recoups from Top Shelf Organic, a medical marijuana dispensary, don't season the meat, he says. But the meat from the first few "pot pigs" he's butchered has been "redder and more savory" than what he usually works with, he says.

It's not clear whether the pigs feel anything from the weed in their feed, or how much, if any, THC the psychoactive substance that gets humans high ends up in the meat. Rather than an attempt to develop a new meaty treat for stoners, the "pot pig" experiment seems mostly to be an (effective) publicity stunt. Von Schneidau's first Pot Pig Gig event where he promoted the product, as well as other local foods sold out quickly. And he says all the media attention he has gotten is generating lots of interest in the next event he's planning.

Still, von Schneidau's creative reuse of a local waste product is part of a larger trend of small farmers looking for new, free sources of livestock feed, especially since prices for corn and soy have been on the rise. In addition to the pot refuse, von Schneidau has linked up ranchers and farmers in the region with a vodka distillery and with vegetable vendors at Pike Place Market who have waste that would otherwise end up as compost or in the landfill.

As we've reported, high feed prices have led some farmers elsewhere to seek out food scraps and even bakery byproduct bread, dough, pastries and cereal for their pigs and cattle.

Pigs have stomachs pretty similar to humans and can eat just about anything we eat. But we couldn't find any research on what happens when you feed them marijuana.

Scientists at the European Union Food Safety Authority looked into the safety of using hemp, a plant that's a close relative of marijuana, in feed for dairy cows. When the cows were fed hemp plants, enough THC made its way into their milk that the scientists recommended prohibiting its use. (However, feeding the cows hemp seeds was just fine, they found.)

Von Schneidau says he's all for finding out what his dietary supplement is doing for his pigs.

"If we had a vet that stepped up to the plate and wanted to check out their joints and mood, and what drugs make pigs happy, that would be great," he says. "But me, I just get out there, and cut them up, and put them on a BBQ, and eat them."

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Can A Piece Of Hair Reveal How Much Coke Or Pepsi You Drink?

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Carbon isotope analysis: a scientific way to know just how much soda kids are drinking behind parents' backs?

Carbon isotope analysis: a scientific way to know just how much soda kids are drinking behind parents' backs?

One way to know how much soda people drink is to ask them.

The problem? We tend to underestimate, lie or forget what we've consumed.

And this is a challenge for researchers who study the links between sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity.

A new study published in the Journal of Nutrition explains a technique that could help researchers get a good measurement of sugary beverage consumption by analyzing a piece of hair or a blood sample.

Researcher Diane O'Brien of the University of Alaska and her colleagues have used carbon isotope analysis to develop their measuring tool. "We're isolating the [carbon] isotope ratio in a specific molecule," explains O'Brien. The molecule is an amino acid called alanine, which captures carbon from sugars.

It turns out that when you consume sweetened soda, slightly more of a particular kind of carbon called C-13 gets trapped in alanine and incorporated into proteins. And proteins hang around in the body much longer than sugar does. So the scientists say they can sample proteins to look for extra amounts of C-13 in alanine. People with a lot of C-13 are likely to be people who have consumed a lot of corn syrup and cane sugar.

Using this technique, O'Brien says, you can capture a longer-term picture of sugar consumption compared with urine samples which only reveal how much sugar a person has consumed in the past day or so.

Carbon isotope analysis has helped scientists piece together ancient dietary patterns, explains Dale Schoeller of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in a commentary about the study: "The use of stable isotope signatures has even provided information about the diet of Otzi [aka The Iceman],the 5,000-year-old natural mummy found in the Alps in 1991."

And he writes that he thinks the technique will be helpful for researchers studying the obesity epidemic.

"This should be a major step toward resolving the controversy over the role of
caloric sweetener intake in the development of obesity," writes Schoeller.

Not everyone is convinced.

"This is an interesting, but preliminary, finding," says Dr. David Ludwig of Boston Children's Hospital and director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center, in an email to The Salt.

Barry Popkin of UNC-Chapel Hill, another obesity researcher, sounds the same note: "This might be useful," Popkin writes in an email. But the big drawback, he says, is that such testing is expensive to carry out.

Still, as the mom of a teenage son who has been spotted more than once sneaking off on his bike to the corner store for a big old soft drink in the afternoon, it would be nifty to perform the r-u-drinking-soda? test.

So can O'Brien help?

"Sure, in theory we could run your son's hair and find out if he's quaffing on the sly," O'Brien says.

Or maybe I should just check the bottles in the recycle bin. ('Fess up, Luke, I'm on to you!)

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Growing Vegetables From Seeds Take Root For Many Gardeners

More and more gardeners are bypassing the local nursery and instead starting their veggies from seed. Seeds are often cheaper and they give growers a bigger choice of varieties. At a community garden in Venice, Calif., students learn the ins and outs of gardening from scratch.

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