Carry on golfing

This i love. As Raul starts to open up Cuba and encourage golf tourism some wild snaps from a game back in 1962 between Che and Fidel. Che apparently won after a battle as long as one of Fidels speeches. Not a Pringle sweater in sight

The day after tomorrow

the latest (19th May) issue of Newsweek (available fulltext thru the library) has a special report devoted to the growing crisis in the world food markets. Increasingly this topic is starting to make it's way on to the front of the news media and cannot be ignored as mere scaremongering. Contributors include Gordon Brown and the author Michael Pollan. In the past few months there have been food related riots in 22 countries, food prices are rising rapidly, the days of cheap food are over, many food markets are distorted by both the rich and poor, the industry is corrupted by subsidies and scams, huge amounts of waste.... governments will fall.

The food industry has so far shieded consumers in the west from the worst of it but already the average food bill has increased by 1/3 in the past year. Grain prices have doubled but insanely most of the worlds grain is fed to animals - 10lbs of grain produce 1lb of meal. And there's more madness: in the USA, by encouraging farmers to plant corn, to produce ethanol, to run cars, now means the 4 wheel SUVs on the road are competing with the poorest in our society to feed themselves. Thats not just wrong it's obscene.

Irish Lifestyles. End of an era?

The new Mintel Irish Lifestyles report is all over the media today, Irish Times and Indo, Morning Ireland, etc. It explores in great detail our concerns and worries, our attitudes to ethics, the environment, the economy, to immigration, to new technology. What are we spending our money on? our time doing? our thoughts thinking? Its a thorought insight and snapshot of the Irish today. And of course the full report is available electronically in the library

tourism stats Good news or bad?

CSO tourism statistics were released last week. We had 8mill visitors to Ireland in 2007 who spend a total of 4.9bill euros. Pretty good BUT on the flip side we made 7.7mill trips out of ireland (I contributed 3) spending 6.1bill euros - how they work that figure out i do not know. So by my calculations the tourist industry last year cost our country 1.2bill? Minister Cullen of Arts, Sport and Tourism was unavailable for comment

molecular gastronomy - appliance of science

bit of a coup next week for the dit school of culinary arts & food technology who host a seminar on Molecular Gastronomy: "The latest developments between the kitchen and the laboratory". Among the speakers are Joana Moura from University of Lisbon and Dr. Herve This, chemist and chef, who is probably the most influencial figure, in this area and author of 2 major books on the subject both of which are of course in the library The seminar is in Cathal Brugha St. next wed, 7th May starting at 2pm.
Probably the best known exponent of this culinary equivalent of method acting is Heston Blumenthel (library here) who runs the 3*** Michelin restaurant The Fat Duck where the DIT have been lucky enought to have placement students for the past 3 years

The miracle berry - a new chance for a missed opportunity?

The miracle berry
By Adam Fowler

The berry makes sour things taste sweet
Imagine an extract from a berry that would make sour things taste sweet and help you lose weight. Then imagine not being allowed to take it.
The world is getting fatter. One billion people are overweight, and 300 million of those are clinically obese.
The search is always on for replacements for those things that, eaten in excess, make us obese - fatty and sugary foods. There is no miracle pill that can replace either. Nearly four decades ago one man came close to providing a tablet that could reduce our love of sugar. In the 1960s, Robert Harvey, a biomedical postgraduate student, encountered the miracle berry, an African fruit which turns sour tastes to sweet.

"You can eat a berry and then bite into a lemon," says Harvey. "It becomes not only sweeter, but it will be the best lemon you've tasted in your life."
More importantly, this "miracle" can be used to manufacture sweet tasting foods without sugar or sweeteners, which have always been plagued by an after-taste.
Spotting the potential health benefits, and the healthy profits, that the miracle berry promised, Harvey founded the Miralin Company to grow the berry in Jamaica and Puerto Rico, extract its active ingredient in laboratories in Hudson, Massachusetts, and market it across America. At first, Harvey aimed his products at diabetics.
"In market testing, diabetics thought our product, as the name implies, was a miracle."
But Harvey's sweet dream of making the world healthier came to an abrupt end. On the eve of the launch in 1974, the US Food and Drugs Administration unexpectedly turned against the product.


Legal advice and contact with the FDA had led Harvey to believe that the extract from the berry would be allowed under the classification "generally recognised as safe". Having been eaten for centuries in Africa, without anecdotal reports of problems, it could be assumed not to be harmful.
But the FDA decided it would be considered as an additive which required several years more testing. In the poor economic climate of 1974, this could not be funded and the company folded.
"I was in shock" says Harvey. "We were on very good terms with the FDA and enjoyed their full support. There was no sign of any problem. Without any opportunity to know what the concern was and who raised it, and to respond to it - they just banned the product. "
Harvey remembers a number of strange events leading up to the FDA's decision, beginning immediately after one particular market research test.
His investors, including Reynolds Metals, Barclays and Prudential, had put up big money. They were looking for big returns.
"From the beginning my interest was in the diabetic market but my backers wanted to put double zeros after the numbers we were projecting."


So, in the summer of 1974, miracle berry ice lollies, in four different flavours, were compared to similar, sugar-sweetened versions by schoolchildren in Boston. The berry won every time.
Don Emery, then vice president of the Miralin company, recalls the excitement.
"If we had got beyond the diabetic market we could have been a multi-billion dollar company. We'd have displaced maybe millions of tons of sugar and lots of artificial sweeteners as well."
A few weeks later, things turned sour. A car was spotted driving back and forwards past Miralin's offices, slowing down as someone took photographs of the building. Then, late one night, Harvey was followed as he drove home.
"I sped up, then he sped up. I pulled into this dirt access road and turned off my lights and the other car went past the end of the road at a very high speed. Clearly I was being monitored."
Sugar denial
Finally, at the end of that summer, Harvey and Emery arrived back at the office after dinner to find they were being burgled. The burglars escaped and were never found, but the main FDA file was left lying open on the floor.
A few weeks later the FDA, which had previously been very supportive, wrote to Miralin, effectively banning its product. No co-incidence, according to Don Emery.

Obesity is a massive problem in the West
"I honestly believe that we were done in by some industrial interest that did not want to see us survive because we were a threat. Somebody influenced somebody in the FDA to cause the regulatory action that was taken against us."
The Sugar Association, the trade body representing "Big Sugar" in the US declined to be interviewed on the subject but flatly denied that the industry had exerted any influence over the FDA. The Calorie Control Council, which represents artificial sweetener manufacturers in the US, has failed to respond to questions on the issue. The Food and Drugs Administration also refused to be interviewed and has indicated that a Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation request to look at the relevant FDA files will not be considered for a year.
Faced with this silence, it's virtually impossible to assess what actually happened to prevent the miracle berry's progress to a sugar-free market.

But all hope is not lost for the berry's champions.
Today a firm called BioResources International is trying to produce freeze-dried miracle berry at a plant in New Jersey. Dieters will watch the outcome closely.
[From BBC News website]

Citius, Altius, Fortius (Swifter, Higher, Stronger to you and me)

This year, not for the 1st time the location of the Olympic games has become a cause for political protest - the flame, as it travels the globe, being more a hot potato than a beacon for a new China. Intute, a free online service trawling the net for quality and informative sites has just published "Internet resources for Olympic studies" which brings together a wealth of well research and reliable links to the Games past and present and Event Management in general. And for event management the Olympics are as big as it gets. Amongst other online booklets produced by Intute and of particular interest to students in tourism and hospitality is their "Internet resources for business and tourism" guide, also available to download

Dublin City to charge tourist tax?

A tourist tax is among a number of measures being considered to raise revenue for Dublin City Council.
A meeting of the council's finance committee heard today that a charge of €1 per bed night would raise €24m a year.
Other measures to be considered include raising the amount developers pay for large scale planning applications.
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Labour councillor Dermot Lacey claimed that Dublin is owed over €200m a year by central Government.
He says this figure includes the shortfall in funding paid in lieu of rates, the rates exemption for Government buildings in the city and the failure to reimburse the council for the cost of benchmarking.
'Dublin is massively discriminated against in terms of Government funding. Leitrim gets three times as much per capita subvention,' he added.
The proposals for council taxes will be sent to the Commission on Taxation which is due to report after next year's Local Elections.
[From RTE breaking news, 24/4/08]