YES to Genetic Engineering! -Maryann:)

 I was just thinking of what I could post that would interest you guys. The idea on genetic engineering cropped up when I was reading about GM foods and arguments. Genetic Engineering is the future of this world. However, with so many people disagreeing with it strongly because of health reasons it is really difficult to fully allow it to take place. Well let me start of by stating the NEED for GM foods. Although we would love to argue on the negative aspects of GM foods we should agree that when there is a need that may question our survival than we should take it. With natural disasters occuring and destroying of the crops and nuclear radiation seeping into foods I feel it to be a contamination on its own and definitely a risk to our health already.

Well to do countries have been buying foods from affected countries because prices fall so low when the country's currency falls due to the disasters(natural or human inflicted). Do we even know whats really in our foods? Its all out of desperation. So having mentioned the current status quo, GM foods seems like a safer bet doesnt it?  Lets look at the benefits of GM foods that could support what I am saying.

-Pest Resistance (reduce use of chemical pesticides and to yield stronger crops)
-Herbicide Tolerance (to have stronger crops)
-Disease Resistance (plants that are eaten to have resistance from diseases caused by fungi)
-Cold tolerance (to have stronger crops)
-Drought/Salinity tolerance (to have stronger crops)
-Nutrition(malnutrition)
-Pharmaceuticals(medicinal contents in common foods)
-Phytoremediation (to clean up pollution using plants)




Would love to hear your thoughts:)
References
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/gmfood/overview.php
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumerinformation/gmfoods/

Pandan Cake - 'Ain

Hey guys, since we are doing on pandan cake for our Package 1, I would like to share with you what I've found out while doing some research on the product. 


Pandan cake is actually Asian's Angel Cake, and is popular in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.


It is usually baked with these ingredients; eggs, sugar, pandan leaves juice, oil and flour. However, in the recipe given by the company, fresh milk, pandan paste and sponge gel is added into the ingredients list of making the pandan cake.


Instead of using pandan leave juice, pandan paste is used instead. This is to ensure consistency in flavour of the pandan cakes, as different pandan leave juice would produce different taste due to factors such as the season. Sponge gel, also known as ovalette,  is a stabiliser used in baking sponge cakes. It helps the eggs to rise rapidly and stiffly. It's acidic nature also helps the beaten eggs to remain stable and not lose the airy and voluminous texture, thus making the sponge cake softer and smoother. Also, the addition of milk in the pandan cake will actually enhance the pandan cake's flavour. Thus, it can be said that the additional ingredients are added for a purpose, which is to boost the pandan cake's quality.

References:
http://nyonyafood.rasamalaysia.com/pandan-chiffon-cake/
http://www.dianasdesserts.com/website/forum/printthread.cfm?Forum=9&Topic=78
http://pickyin.blogspot.com/2011/03/pandan-chiffon-cake.html

Microbial experience!!

Haha cultivating microbes is what i have been doing since last month, The following pictures are some air vents, and also a surprising microbial growth!! enjoy :)

SOBA SAUCE- Quanjin

Hey girls, I was doing shelf-life testing on Soba sauce, although it is very high in salt, there were 43000 counts for TPC in it, many microbes are able to surivive inside the sauce. Probably are salt-tolerant type microbes.

Also the company decided not to pasteurise the sauce as they are filling into a plastic cup with seal, they decided to freeze it and see how long it can last without pasteurise. However there isn't any yeast and mould in it. One reason the QA manager told me is that when the product is stored in temperature less then 4 or lower, the yeast and mount count will keep dropping.

Also QA audits came to the company, finally saw a real procedures, a lot of Caucasian, QA manager told be when replying them, you have to be confident, this way will create a trust between them. :)

Meal carts & AGV.

Hello (:

Just thought of posting a picture of a PMDC (patient Meal Delivery Cart) with a automated guided vehicles. (:

I used to think that the meal carts are pushed by labourer. but NO!This is how they sent their meals to patient. The AGV (automated guided vehicles) will transport the Cart up to the wards. Only when the carts are up to the level, then there will be people who push the carts down.

The AGV, instead of reading to a satellite, it is reading to reflectors in a warehouse. They have computers to configure the paths of AGVs.

When I first saw this is really awesome to me! AGVs also have their own lift to send the carts up.they don't use lifts whereby staffs are using.

Thanks for reading. (:
-Jiamin (karmin)

Credits: Fork Lift Action http://www.forkliftaction.com/news/forklifts_news_international/Rocla__Egemin__Danaher__Swisslog__Seegrid__FMC__LiftOne__Robotic_Automation___CD_Skilled_Robotics__Sky_Trax__Savant_6610.aspx
Extracted on : 30/4/11

"Fake" meat! :o

Hello everyone,

I saw the blog post which Maryann uploaded and found that malaysia is not the only country selling "fake" stuff. The news has been reporting that people in china has been selling pork as beef. They flavour the pork using a type of food additive which is some beef flavouring to make the colour and the taste of the pork become like beef. This method is used by many butchers because the cost of pork is much lesser than the cost of beef. So by doing so, they are making a larger profit.

When I was listening the news yesterday, there was one more shocking news. A one year old girl died after eating posonous fried chicken which her parents bought at some roadside stall in China. The parents had signs of poisoning too but survived the ordeal. According to the news, the stall holder used some food preservative in too large quantity which resulted in this incident.
Chui Ying. :)

Kangaroo MEAT:( by Maryann Rolands.

Hey guys.
Check this out. i nearly fainted, i thought australians loved kangaroos didnt think theyll eat them. Food for thought. would we actually eat a lion? Singapore's national animal? hmm.

Cheers,

Maryann