The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Dubai cafe ‘camel-ccino’ new take on Bedouin staple Posted: 22 Oct 2012 05:24 AM PDT  Camels are seen walking on Jumeirah's popular tourist beach in front of tower blocks in Dubai in this file photo. A Dubai cafe, Cafe2Go, launched in September has started putting camel products on its menu. – Reuters pic Cafe2Go, launched in September last year by an Emirati entrepreneur as part of a scheme to revive Bedouin traditions, now features camel-lattes, camel-ccinos and camel-meat fajitas. Earlier this month, he launched Camellos – a brand name for his products derived from the Spanish word for camel. "Camel milk has been around for centuries and I wanted our younger generation to start drinking it again," Jassim Al Bastaki, the cafe owner, said. "From here came the idea of mixing it with modern drinks." Camel milk has been a staple for desert Arab nomads for generations. However its boom in modern day food and beverage industries in the UAE adds a new level to its commerciality. Apart from being a novelty in the glitzy home of the world's tallest building and the man-made palm islands, Bastaki swears by the health benefits of camel milk. Studies show it is almost as nutritious as human breast milk and offers 10 times more iron and three times more vitamin C than cow's milk. The challenge in marketing the product comes from the taste and smell. Unlike common dairy products, camel milk is slightly saltier and has a heavy taste, and from the smell, one knows immediately where it came from. Bastaki said he had spent months testing different concoctions on family and friends before coming up with the perfect blend. "Camel milk is known for being a healthier choice," he said. "We just had to find the right coffee bean mix and degree of steaming the milk to make it taste good." – Reuters |
| Pesticides put bumblebee colonies at risk of failure Posted: 22 Oct 2012 03:28 AM PDT  A bumble bee is seen on a sunflower as a ladybug sits on a petal. Pesticides used in farming are also killing worker bumblebees and damaging their ability to gather food. – Reuters pic The United Nations has estimated that a third of all plant-based foods eaten by people depend on bee pollination and scientists have been baffled by plummeting numbers of bees, mainly in North America and Europe, in recent years. British scientists said they exposed colonies of 40 bumblebees, which are bigger than the more common honeybee, to the pesticides neonicotinoid and pyrethroid over four weeks at levels similar to those in fields. Neonicotinoids are nicotine-like chemicals used to protect various crops from locusts, aphids and other pests. "Chronic exposure ... impairs natural foraging behaviour and increases worker mortality, leading to significant reductions in brood development and colony success," the scientists wrote in the report in the journal Nature yesterday. Exposure to a combination of the two pesticides "increases the propensity of colonies to fail", according to the researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London. A 2011 UN report estimated that bees and other pollinators such as butterflies, beetles or birds do work worth US$200 billion (RM610.48 billion) a year to the human economy and are in decline in many nations. The findings underscored the importance of wider testing of pesticides to ensure they do not also target bees, it said. France banned a neonicotinoid pesticide made by Swiss agrochemicals group Syngenta in June, citing evidence of a threat to the country's bees. A report last month, however, said that the original research was flawed. "My guess is that the decline of bees is like a jigsaw – there are probably a lot of pieces to put into place. This is probably a very important piece of that jigsaw," lead author Richard Gill said of the findings about pesticides. PARASITES In a separate commentary in Nature, Juliet Osborne of the University of Exeter in England said the study underscored the need to understand all factors that may contribute to harm bees and to "Colony Collapse Disorder". "For example, we have as yet no convincing demonstration of the relative effects of pesticides on bee colonies compared to the effects of parasites, pathogens and foraging resources," she wrote. Gill endorsed recommendations by the European Food Safety Authority for longer testing on adult bees and larvae, new ways of assessing cumulative exposure to toxins and separate assessments for different bee species. He said previous studies had mostly examined the impact of pesticides on individual bees, rather than colonies. Bumblebees form colonies of a few dozen bees, while honeybees can number up to tens of thousands. "Effects at the individual level can have a major knock-on effect at the colony level. That's the novelty of the study," he said. The average number of bees lost in the experiment – both dead in the nesting box and failing to return – was about two-thirds of the total for bees exposed to a combination of the two pesticides against a third for a control, exposed to neither. Bumblebees exposed to a combination of pesticides were about half as successful at gathering pollen, used as food, compared to a control. They also devoted more workers to collecting food, meaning fewer were raising larvae. Other experts said more research was needed. "It certainly wouldn't be fair to say that this research spells doom for wild bees," said James Cresswell of the University of Exeter. – Reuters |
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