By Holly Stemberger, Kate Smith, Derrik Voogd, Shawn Tremblay and Woody Phung
Miscellaneous
January 09, 2012
January 03, 2012
August 29, 2011
Soymilk, a great alternative to dairy milk?
Soymilk is a soy-based product that is a healthy alternative to traditional dairy beverages and can be found at most local supermarkets. Health conscious individuals or those who are lactose intolerant may find soymilk to be a good replacement to cow’s milk because of its beneficial properties. These properties include key elements such as lowering cholesterol as well as the risk of heart disease, due to the lower fat content.
Creating soymilk consists of four simple steps; crushing the soybeans, soaking them in water, boiling them and straining the slurry to extract the liquid form of the soybean. After soymilk is extracted, vitamins and minerals such as calcium and vitamin D are added as these vitamins and minerals fortify the soy milk to the levels seen in cow’s milk. A variety of flavors such as chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and many others are also added to enhance the taste and appeal of the beverage. The end product is an enriched drink that has all the benefits of cow’s milk, while having significantly less calories, fat and cholesterol content.
Soymilk has long been recognized for its health benefits worldwide. In 1999 the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) authorized a health claim between the relationship of soy protein and its effect on coronary heart disease. Phytochemicals; plant based chemical compounds in soy protein, have antioxidant properties and can help reduce low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, also known as the “bad” cholesterol. These phytochemicals in soymilk are called Isoflavones, which have a chemical structure similar to estrogen. According to Julia MacLaren who is part of the nutrition program at the University of Alberta, “Soy is a good source of estrogen for women going through menopause and may reduce symptoms”. Many other benefits such as improving bone health, reducing cancer risk and protecting against prostrate problems have been associated with soymilk and are now being studied.
Our neighbors to the south, the United States of America, grow most of the soybeans in the world, accounting for 40% of worldwide soybean production in 2004. Canadian soybean production is mostly limited to the eastern provinces of Ontario and Quebec; to find out more about Canadian growers visit the site: http://www.soybean.on.ca/index.php. Soybeans have been traditionally associated with Asian cultures that used soy to supplement their protein intake. Since then it has been adapted as a high protein feed for beef producers around the world and the production of tofu and other soy products.
Soymilk has been steadily increasing in popularity with consumers and is now available at all major supermarket chains as well as health food and organic stores. We had a chance to talk with Karmeyn Tesiar, from Home Grown Foods and Agriculture Products in Stoney Plain Alberta, to talk about soymilk. We asked her about sales and product popularity. She replied saying that it was not very popular in her store and that they sell more goats’ milk and cows’ milk than they do soymilk. We also asked what types of customers were purchasing soymilk; her answer was “people with hormone imbalances and people looking for a source of milk substitute.” Her perceptions on soymilk were both good and bad and she needs to do more research on the product before she finalizes her opinion on soymilk.
The future of soymilk seems bright as its health benefits continue to be explored and its popularity among consumers increases steadily. Advertising for the product can be seen on television and in many magazines as the soymilk industry seeks to firmly establish itself as a competitor for your traditional dairy beverage.
- Robyn Adderson, Anthony Hodson and Eric MacDonald
August 22, 2011
What can molasses do for your silage pit?
When you think of molasses you probably think of baking and of the sweet treats Mom used to make, but molasses can also be useful in the preparation and storage of silage. Molasses can be mixed into silage as an additive to make up for low levels of carbohydrates or it can be poured on as a cover for open silage pits to help prevent spoilage. In either case the addition of molasses can make the silage into more useful and higher quality feed.
Most silage starts out as a crop that is partially ripened. Ideally, the crop is cut and chopped when its moisture content is between 60 and 70%. Barley, oats, wheat, alfalfa, corn, as well as various grasses and legumes are all commonly used to make silage. Once it’s cut and chopped, silage is stored in large open pits, silage bags, or the distinctive, tall concrete or steel towers that identify many farms. The whole point of making silage is to store the extra feed that is available at some times of the year for times in the year when feed is not as readily available. This means stockpiled silage must still be a useful feed product after many months of storage.
When silage is stored it is compacted and covered so that very little air gets in. This deprives naturally occurring bacteria of oxygen and causes them to break down some of the fermentable carbohydrates in the silage anaerobically. That means they consume sugars in the silage to live but without oxygen. The products of this reaction are lactic acid and acetic acid. When silage is first stored it has a mildly acidic pH of about 6.5. Within about 21 days the acid production of the bacteria makes the pH of the silage too acidic for them to live in. The bacteria become inactive and stop producing acid when the pH reaches about 4.0. At this point the pH will remain stable and unless something happens that changes the pH of the silage very little of it will spoil. Most of the organisms that cause silage to decompose cease to operate under these conditions. This allows the silage to be stored for months at a time.
One problem with many types of silage is they contain a low concentration of easily fermentable carbohydrates. The bacteria that produce lactic acid are unable to operate well if there isn’t a good supply of simple sugars. This is a common problem in silage made out of grasses such as alfalfa that contain large amounts of cellulose, a complex carbohydrate, and not a lot of simple sugars like the starch in corn or other grain silage. Decreased lactic acid production gives destructive bacteria a chance to break down the silage before the pH becomes low enough to stop them. As well, some of these bacteria produce butyric acid, a product that gives poor quality silage a distinctive sour smell and taste.
Molasses makes a great additive for silage because it has exactly what lactic acid bacteria need – easily fermentable carbohydrates. The large amount of energy contained in molasses provides additional fuel for lactic acid production and increases the overall food energy content of the silage. As an additional benefit molasses also contains 3-5% protein and a number of essential nutrients including: potassium, sulphur, iron, and manganese.
Getting to the right pH is only part of the problem; the low pH needs to be maintained to keep the silage from spoiling. Compacting silage isolates the lower layers of silage from outside air but the top layer can still spoil due to the availability of oxygen for the bacteria contained within. Rainwater can also cause problems by neutralizing the acidic conditions created within the silage. To solve these two problems silage is usually covered and sealed from the environment. Molasses can help with this. Spreading a thin layer of molasses over stockpiled silage forms a barrier between the silage and the environment. Compared to leaving silage uncovered just a 1⁄2” of molasses can reduce spoilage by up to 50%. Using molasses as a cover also doesn’t create any waste because it remains as part of the feed when the silage is used.
So in conclusion: Molasses doesn’t just make great tasting cookies. It can help you make better silage too.
- Marlee Dunlop, Charles Mckay, Trevor Sheehan
August 18, 2011
Theese boots are made for walkin'
What’s the hardest working part of any cowboy? His boots! Whether he’s outside wrangling steers in the pasture or mucking out stalls in the barn, his boots go wherever he does. Many cowhides are used to provide those rowdy cowboys with hardy boots. The question remains: how many cowboy boots can be made from one cow, and how are they made? First the hide must be removed from the cow carcass at the slaughterhouse. A hide is split into two sides; each is measured from the belly to the back of the cow. The hide is cured in a brine or salt solution for approximately 16 hours. It is soaked in clean water and the hair is removed in a process called scudding. The dehaired hide is then degreased, desalted and soaked in water. The whole process takes about 50 hours.
Finally, the hide is tanned. There are two processes that may be used when tanning. Vegetable tanning is the traditional method where hides are stretched on frames and immersed for several weeks in vats of increasing concentrations of tannin. Tannin is a plant compound that occurs naturally in bark and is useful because it binds and removes the leftover animal proteins found on the hides. In today’s fast-paced industry, where time is money, a more efficient tanning process is needed. Mineral tanning, or “wet-blue” tanning takes less then a day. This method uses chromium salts which cause the leather to turn blue in the raw state and produces stretchable leather that is often used in lighter weight cattle hides.
In the finishing stage the hide is split, shaved, dyed and embossed, depending on the purpose of the leather. The leather used in cowboy boots is either full-grain leather or top-grain leather. Full-grain leather is left unchanged after processing and is leather in its natural form. Topgrain leather has a layer of the natural grain sanded off and an artificial grain applied to it.
Boot manufacturers then use the assembly system to punch out the different boot pieces from the hide and assemble the boot. Glen Bird of Cargill Foods Alberta recently toured Red Wing boot factory and describes the assembly line process: “First, there is a punch used to cut out the different patterns of the boot. They cut out the toe, heel, tongue, sides, and finger loops to pull your boot on. Then the pieces get passed on to the next station.”
According to the Alberta Boot Company, (Alberta’s only manufacturer of cowboy boots), this process involves over 200 steps performed by skilled employees. If Alberta Boot can manufacture 10 000 pairs of boots yearly and 40 pairs per day, then how many boots can they make from one cowhide?
We know that the surface area of cowhides varies depending on the breed, size and age of a cow. The rough surface area of a hide is 3.8m². By calculating the surface area of each piece of leather used in the boot, the total amount of leather used can be found, which is, on average, 0.3m². Thus, 11 cowboy boots per cow can be made. That’s enough to outfit five cowboys as well as another cowboy who enjoys wearing only one boot.
Some boots are made entirely of leather, including lining, pull straps, side panels and soles. Other boots are made partially of synthetic materials such as vinyl. If boots were made specifically for children or Shaquille O’ Neill (with size 22 feet), the area of leather required for these boots would vary dramatically. The Alberta Boot Company may use up to eight cowhides per day or almost 2000 cowhides per year.
Boot making can be quite a profitable business – custom boots can take two to three weeks to make, and can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. Diablo Boots of Edmonton, Alberta can sell approximately 100 pairs per week, bringing in revenue of about 15 thousand dollars per week during the busy summer season. Costs all depend on the type of leather, embossing, and those other extra details. While many cow folk prefer the standard cowhide, there are the occasional eccentrics out there that want boots made out of python, lizard, shark, stingray, kangaroo,or even ostrich.
Cowboy boots aren’t just for cowboys and cowgals anymore: there are millions of boot fans out there. Boots are just as much a fashion statement as a work shoe. And when the entire process from farm to foot takes over 300 steps, cowboy boots can cost a small fortune. Boots that good must be made for walkin’.
- Jennifer Cave, Chantel Brust, David Law and Dawn Trautman
Who knew that 200 acres= 50,000km?
In 2004, students involved in Heifer In Your Tank found that you can travel from Edmonton to Calgary on the methane produced from 88 heifers. Using their information and combining new technologies such as biodiesel, we have found a better way to get your Hummer further down the road.
We compared two fields, each consisting of 20 acres of canola – one used to produce biodiesel and the other fed to cows which produce methane – and calculated the energy harnessed from each field. We then compared the fuel mileage of a Hummer using both kinds of fuel to determine which can get the Hummer further.
Biodiesel is made from canola oil which can be converted at a 1:1 ratio from canola oil to biodiesel. From 20 acres of canola, yielding an average of 45 bushels per acre, we can make 120 gallons of oil per acre, or 2500 gallons total. Changing oil to biodiesel takes relatively little time and is very efficient. From our yield of oil, 2500 gallons of biodiesel can be created. At 14 miles per gallon, this amount of fuel will be enough to drive 35000 miles or 50 000 kms. Using information from the previous Heifer In Your Tank group, enough methane would be produced from 20 acres of canola to drive 4,500 km. Biodiesel made from canola would allow travel of an extra 45,500 km at 14 miles per gallon.
Using cows to create methane, is a relatively inefficient process as a large amount of energy is used for both production and maintenance of the cow. Producing biodiesel eliminates the production and maintenance losses from the animal, allowing an energy savings of ten-fold.
Biodiesel is made using a chemical process called transesterification which adds a strong acid to the oil and produces a byproduct of glycerol and biodiesel. Glycerol can be sold in the market to offset some cost of production. Biodiesel offers many benefits both to the environment and to the user’s engine. Environmental benefits include reduced reliance on fossil fuels and lower emissions as compared to burning regular diesel. Biodiesel offers other benefits including increased consumer acceptance due to better smelling exhaust. Using canola to make biodiesel adds a French Fry smell when the fuel is burned. Benefits to engines, as compared to regular diesel fuel, include better lubrication, especially when compared to new ultra low sulphur diesel introduced in October 2006. Sulphur is ow limited to 15 parts per million, and it played an important part in adding lubrication to diesel fuel. Biodiesel is supported by many engine makers in the agriculture industry, including John Deere and New Holland which both allow use of up to 5% blend of biodiesel with regular diesel in their new equipment.
This is a very exciting new technology helping agriculture throughout Canada. When comparing energy created from 20 acres of biodiesel vs. 20 acres of methane, 10 times the energy is created, showing biodiesel is a much better choice. Energy gains from biodiesel could be one of the future options for Canada’s farmers, and could help reduce dependence on fluctuating oil prices for industry.
“An increase in consumption of commodities driven by biodiesel manufacturing will drive prices higher, allowing a better future for Canadian farmers”, says Rick Dobush a Western Canadian Farmer. Next time you fill up your Hummer, remember that biodiesel helps your vehicle, farmers, and the environment.
- Dustin Dinwoodie, Nicole Hurt, Dan Rondeau and Chuck Scwanbeck
August 17, 2011
And on that farm he had a...bee?
Are bees not all the same? And why do we need them? The alfalfa leafcutting bee (Megachile rotundata) is an important team member on alfalfa-producing farms. The leafcutter is the only bee capable of pollinating alfalfa without tripping the floral release mechanism. When tripped, the keel of the flower traps the bee against the petal, making it hard to escape. Honeybees are too smart for our own good, since they are able to rob the nectar without pollinating the plant. According to D.W. Goerzen, Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Alfalfa Seed Producers Association (SASPA), “bumblebee populations are not generally present at high enough numbers to pollinate an alfalfa field and cannot be managed in open field situations.”
The alfalfa leafcutter is a small (only a quarter of an inch long), black bee with stripes of white hair on its abdomen. Male bees live 3 to 4 weeks and females live 4 to 5 weeks, with 4 life stages: egg, larva, cocoon, and adult. This bee typically grows up on rations of alfalfa pollen and alfalfa nectar, and is raised and sold commercially to pollinate alfalfa, carrots, and onions.
More and more farmers are turning to alfalfa leafcutter bees to supplement or replace domesticated honeybees in fertilizing crops that depend on insect pollinators. The reason is that, unlike domesticated honeybees, alfalfa leafcutter bees don’t mind working in screened enclosures or greenhouses, allowing better management of the bees. Studies have also shown that alfalfa leafcutter bees are more efficient: about 150 alfalfa leafcutter bees working in screenhouses or greenhouses would do the job as well as 3,000 domesticated honeybees. With increased efficiency, the leafcutter bee may reduce pollination costs, as well as ease the stress on people working with the bees. When large numbers are confined in small spaces, the domesticated honeybee can become very irritable, intimidating people. Alfalfa leafcutter bees are gentler and are known only to sting when squeezed.
Another advantage of the alfalfa leafcutter bees is that it is a species of solitary bees. This solitary bee is a species that is not affected by two kinds of mites that have decimated many commercial honeybee colonies. Also, the solitary bees can’t mate with Africanized honeybees, so the risk of picking up the Africanized bees’ trait of extreme defensiveness is eliminated in the alfalfa leafcutter.
Unlike the honeybee that lives in a communal nest or hive, the solitary female leafcutter uses cut alfalfa leaves to build a nest of cells to house her offspring. This allows the bees to be housed in huts with nest trays, an ideal space saver when storing the bees is a necessity during Canadian winters. Luckily, the leafcutters are one of the few bees that undergo diapause, an increase in glycerol levels to prevent freezing, similar to hibernation. When temperatures increase to 20°C again leafcutters resume development.
With rising management and technology, the future of the alfalfa leafcutter bee looks very promising. It is an important domesticated pollinator of alfalfa for seed production in western Canada and has been used by alfalfa seed producers in Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan for over thirty years, and slowly it is emerging on the commercial market as the preferred bee for pollinating. Under ideal conditions this alfalfa leafcutting bee population doubles each year, with excess production marketed primarily to alfalfa seed producers in the northwestern United
States, globalizing the market for these wee bees. When an alfalfa producer uses 20,000 alfalfa leafcutting bees per acre for alfalfa seed production in Alberta, he knows that choosing co-workers that do not steal from the company, nor are clumsily tripping over production is important.
-Mat Bolduc, Jameh James, DebraMurphy and Amanda Still
August 16, 2011
How did they get the silk in the milk?
No, we’re not talking about soy milk: we’re talking about spider silk proteins in goat’s milk. Developed by Nexia Biotechnologies, silk milk could revolutionize the centuries old textile industry. Spider silk is five times stronger than steel, twice as strong as Kevlar and twenty-five percent lighter too. A cable as thick as your thumb has the ability to lift ninety elephants without breaking. If silk is woven into fabrics, it can be used as a super textile, coveted by many different industries for its strength and versatility.
In order to actually produce the silk protein in goat’s milk, scientists had to create a transgenic goat. A transgenic animal has a gene inserted into its own genome from another animal. For milk silk, scientists took one of the many different types of silk from an orb weaver spider and placed it into a quick growing dwarf goat from central Africa. Creating a transgenic goat involves many complex processes that can be simplified into five steps (Figure 1).
Going through all that trouble may seem rather silly instead of just harvesting silk right from a spider, but it’s actually the better option. Spiders can become cannibalistic if housed together, including a short period of time when the next generation of spiderlings needs to be made.
It may seem odd to cross these two very different animals, but they share some of the same systems.
The spider’s silk glands and the goat’s mammary glands are very similar in terms of protein production and storage. The similarities have provided a possibility to have silk produced in the mammary glands of a goat.
Once all the science was out of the way, all that remained were the mechanics: taking the silk protein out of the milk and spinning it into BioSteel®. The silk protein is water-soluble so it cannot be simply filtered out of the milk. Salt is added to the milk mixture to separate the silk from the milk; ethanol and water are then added in order to create the purified silk protein. From this point, scientists at Nexia attempted to spin the silk protein into the super-strong fibers that come out of the spider. Unfortunately to have the strength, you need to line up the proteins in a row – and this is where the difficulties come in. Scientists have been unable to spin the silk the way a spider would, and this results in a less durable silk line. Many of the proposed applications of spider silk would require the silk to be woven into a cable that could then be made into sheets of silk. Although there have been technical problems with the development of the actual fiber, ideas still abound for the use of this superior material.
For example, NASA was interested in woven spider silk to build aircrafts and spacecrafts. The US Army, which initially funded the spider silk research, wanted to use it to build body armor and other military devices. Due to its lightweight yet extremely strong design, it would be perfect for military protective clothing.
There are also more common uses being considered, such as fishing line and fishing nets. Because it is iodegradable, spider silk would not pose the threats to the aquatic environment that current fishing nets do. The medical community could also make use of this amazing material. Spider silk is compatible with the human body, so that things like artificial tendons, ligaments and limbs made out of silk would not be rejected by the body when transplanted. It would also be a good material for the sutures used in eye and neurosurgery. Even the fashion industry is interested in spider silk as a new material for its haute couture lines.
With all of the possible applications above, one might wonder why transgenic animals have not been used more widely. While the main reason is the cost behind the research and development, another huge impact is the skepticism of many scientists and researchers. Dr. Craig Wilkinson, a veterinarian and professor at the University of Alberta states, “While transgenic technology has the potential to be beneficial to humans and in some cases, the animals involved, we must be careful to evaluate the unintended consequences before adopting this technology broadly.” For these reasons it is anybody’s guess at what point in the future astronauts will be flying into space on a carrier manufactured out of a product of goat's milk.
-Aleks Argals, Carla Ollenberger, Kevin Hunt and Megan Roxbugh
August 13, 2011
Not scaredy cats...Scaredy goats.
Would you like to learn more about fainting goats?
Yes, there are fainting goats. No, they are not a mythical creature from an island far away or a trained circus animal. You can find them right here in Alberta. Just a change in a single nucleotide can make a goat can end up with this interesting ability.
Any sudden change in the environment that causes a goat to be nervous, scared, or excited can cause their external muscles to stiffen up. Do you REMEMBER the part in Jurassic Park where the raptors pop out in the kitchen? Did you jump as high as I did? My whole body stiffened right up. Then, in a split second, I was relaxed and checking to see if anyone saw me jump.
These goats are easily scared, but when their external muscles contract they lack the ability to relax again immediately. This gives the appearance of fainting. Technically the goats have what is called myotonia congenita. An autonomic recessive gene causes this. A recessive gene takes second fiddle to the more dominant gene when the
two of them are present. This double recessive trait causes a malfunction of the chloride ion channels in the skeletal muscles. Chloride ions are important for relaxation and contraction of muscle. When these goats get scared, these chloride channels maintain muscle contraction longer than usual.
It is an hereditary trait, meaning even if the parents do not show symptoms they can pass it along to their offspring. Adults can sometimes learn to brace themselves instead of falling over and will even try to run with a stiffened sawhorse appearance. Generally as the animal gets warmed up from exercise the stiffening lessens temporarily. The same is true of people with this condition, and is referred to as “the warm-up phenomenon.”
Since discovery in the 1880s, farmers have found many uses for these goats. The history surrounding these goats is a mystery and not well documented. What is known is that a stranger, John Tinsley, wandered into a town in Tennessee with a couple of fainting goats and a cow. He then sold them to a local veterinarian named Dr. Mayberry before leaving the area. The vet then took it upon himself to breed them to research their strange condition.
Sheep farmers used them to distract predators from their flocks, as a goat flat on its back is a much easier target, nearly leading to extinction by the 1970. If it were not for the people who keep them for pets, the breed would be extinct. Fainting goats have a reputation for being mild mannered, friendly, easily kept animals. Susan White from Faint Hope Acres in Nanton, Alberta told us “they are excellent 4-H projects due to their medium size…less intimidating for children.” Plus, they provide great entertainment for hours on end.
So if you’re driving down the highway and see goat legs sticking up through the blades of grass, relax: you don’t have to rush out of your car to give the goat CPR. You can think of this article and know that in just a few seconds that it will be back up and at ’em. Just remember…“They can be like a problem with a car, when you specifically want to show them fainting to someone, that’s when they will not do it.” (Douglas Scott, Poplar Ridge Farm, Kitscoty, Alberta)
-Jocelyn Babin, Dani Paron and Kim Christie
August 09, 2011
If it doesn't neigh is it still horsepower?
The horse was brought to North America in the early 1600s and was quickly adopted into the aboriginal culture, becoming known as a symbol of power and wealth. The buffalo hunting Plains tribes saw the horse as sacred, with supernatural powers to help in hunting, medicine, and other aspects of tribal life. Cree First Nations Elder Jerry Wood, from the Aboriginal Student Services Centre at the University of Alberta, commented on how the horse replaced the dog. He jokingly admitted that the horse became more valuable than the woman, who was responsible for making and moving teepees. The horse eventually took over the task of transporting teepees, which allowed the Plains Tribes to follow the buffalo with greater ease. Elder Jerry Wood also spoke of the "Sundance Horse", a poem dedicated specifically to the horse. This poem shows that the horse was respected, honored, and loved because the horse helped the people to live and to continue on for generations. Nevertheless, with the arrival of settlers and the buffalo herd collapse, the traditional Plains tribal life transformed dramatically. The use and symbolism of the horse diminished—their monetary value decreased due to a sudden increase in the horse population and they became inadequate for use in the hunt. The use of the horse increased among the settlers, and their main purpose was to improve farming techniques, where they proved to be more flexible, faster and easier to handle than the oxen used previously.
By the 1900s, horses were used for everything, from riding into town to powering large machinery like reapers and threshers. Such horse-powered machines multiplied man-hour production of wheat eighteen fold! However, the time it took to care for the horse limited its efficacy, thus farming proved laborious and demanding for the farmer and his horses. Furthermore, World War I demanded farmers to increase production, which led to the rapid replacement of horses with such horsepower equivalents as the tractor. To help the transition, the Canadian government contracted to buy 1000 2-plow tractors and sold them to farmers at cost (about $800), thus further expanding the popularity of the tractor. Unfortunately, farmers were becoming anxious about the now un-saleable horses eating their valuable grass. In 1943, the end of the horse in horsepower was signaled by the shipment of roughly 100,000 horses from Alberta to the Chicago killing yards. Although horses remained for odd jobs unsuitable for the tractor, their numbers continued to decline throughout the 1950s. Today, the tractors used in agriculture dwarf the tractors of old. With the plethora of luxuries found in them, you would be hard-pressed to find farmers returning to the old standard of horse-driven power. Presently, Lewis Farms Ltd. has a couple of horses, which Corrie Lewis states, "are used just for pleasure riding and occasionally for moving cattle," and other farms have horses for this use or no horses at all. Nevertheless, the term "horsepower" does stem from the very thing that neighs; yet today, it is used for the very thing that roars, a tractor, which has replaced the standard horse.
- Kelsey Bourgeois, Abrya Suthendran, Alexia Hoy, Julia Mitchell, Robyn Thrasher and Gina Vivak
How many licks does it take to get to the centre of a salt block?
Who really has the time in between studying and work to go to a farm and watch cows lick salt?... We do!! One Friday, we decided to head out to the farm to do an experiment- determine how many licks does takes to get to the center of a salt block. For accurate results, we weighed a blue cobalt-iodine block initially to the nearest gram. Then, we watched a cow lick the block for 30 minutes and counted how many licks were taken -every single lap of the tongue- until the cow had licked 1789 times! We reweighed the block found that a cow removes, on average, 0.06 grams per lick. Then we whipped out the calculators and the real math came into play.
After determining the radius (r) of the sphere, we calculated the volume that had been licked out, then divided the volume (v) by two because only half of a sphere consumed.
To determine the mass of salt consumed, we multiplied the volume by the density of the block (2.16g/cm3).
We then divided the mass of salt to the center of the block by the amount consumed in one lick to determine the number of licks required to get to the center.
This is the mass of salt consumed to reach the center of a salt block.
Along with the math, there were a few important assumptions to be made. We had to assume that a cow ingests the same amount of salt in every lick, that they will lick to the center in a shape similar to that of a semi-sphere, and that the salt block was not being affected by external conditions such as the weather. After finding out how much salt one cow consumed, we contacted a veterinarian from Alberta Agriculture Food and Rural Development to find out other nutritional sources of sodium-chloride. We contacted Dr. Jagdish Patel and discovered that cows do not just receive salt from blocks, but also from the high concentration of sodium in water from wells in this area. He informed us that if the soil in the area has a high concentration, then consequently the vegetation will also contain salt. We then asked a local beef producer, Matt Haisan, how his beef cows acquire their salt. "Because salt blocks do not contain all of the trace minerals cows require in their diet, I feed them a loose form of salt mixed with vitamins and minerals. Although this form is more expensive, it ensures my cows get all the nutrients they require" he explained. We discovered that livestock salt can be manufactured, or come from vegetation, soil, or water. By using a commercial cobalt-iodine salt block and a cow from Busby, we were able to perform a simple experiment. After counting the licks, talking to a vet, and to a local farmer, we concluded that it takes over 100 000 licks to get to the center of a salt block. If you don’t believe us, take the day off, pack a lunch, and go watch for yourself!
-Kristen Kliparchuk, Robyn Scmidt, Christy Czapski, Carly Huvenaars and Jennifer Haisan
Is Cheez Whiz one step away from plastic?
Avoid high-cholesterol eggs. Fat is bad for you. Skipping breakfast will keep you slim! Urban food myths have become commonplace, cropping up all over the food world, continuing to mystify even the most knowledgeable people. The more ridiculous the myth, the more widespread it will become. That begs the question: Is Cheez Whiz really one step away from being plastic? For nearly five decades, Cheez Whiz has been manufactured as a commercial cheese spread as it is composed of 47% milk fat. According to Kim McMiller, Associate Director, Consumer Relations of Kraft Canada Inc., the procedure for making Cheez Whiz "begins by blending natural cheeses, milk solids and canola oil heated with an emulsifier. The emulsifier helps the blending process. The result is a cheese of uniform flavour and texture. It is more spreadable and melts better than natural cheese. Casein is a protein found in cow´s milk and as such is a dairy ingredient. In addition, any and all preservatives will be listed on the ingredient line of the product. The milk in all our products is pasteurized." An abundant component of milk, casein constitutes about 80 % of the total proteins, and is also a primary ingredient in cheese. Casein can be precipitated from milk by addition of heat and vinegar. These conditions denature the casein (disturbs the casein micelle granules) which then unfolds and rearranges into long chain polymers, and comes out of solution as a curd. Should plastic be defined in layman terms, it is a material that can be heated and moulded, but retains its shape after cooling. Plastics can be made of long chains (polymers) consisting of small molecules like proteins. Plastic can be divided into two forms: natural plastics (silk and rubber) and synthetic plastics (vinyl and acrylics). "Even if the statement that cheese whiz is one molecule away from plastic is true, it is essentially meaningless. Many disparate substances share similar chemical properties but even one molecule difference in their molecular structure can make a huge difference in the qualities of those substances. A common example is water and hydrogen peroxide.
Although the only difference between the two is an oxygen molecule they are very different substances with different chemical properties," says Lee Finell, a registered nutritionist representing Alberta’s Dairy Producers. An experiment in which milk has been polymerized to "natural plastic" similar to synthetic plastics in stores has been preformed. It involves precipitating out the casein by adding vinegar (an acid) and heat. This concept can be applied to Cheez Whiz, so if you just consider natural plastics, Cheez Whiz is indeed only one step away from plastic! -Nicole Hiebert, Brittany Richardson, Suzy Nguyen and Kyle Dehaan
May 02, 2011
January 07, 2011
Join us on March 22nd for There's a Heifer in Your Tank to find out...
Who put the Culture in Agriculture?
March 22nd @ 7:00pm
U of A, Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, 1-430
The current Animal Science 200 class will be highlighting people who have made major contributions to animal agriculture. .
