This paper reviews some of the evidence that dietary behaviours are, in large part, the consequence of automatic responses to contextual food cues, many of which lead to increased caloric consumption and poor dietary choices. We describe studies that illustrate how these automatic mechanisms underlie eating behaviours, as well as ...

The ability of hydrothermal treatment to reduce or eliminate selected indicator organisms in food waste was assessed in this study. Raw food waste collected from student canteens at Tsinghua University was heat-treated under hydrothermal conditions at 90-140 °C for 10-40 min. Hydrothermal inactivation analyses were carried out on four types of indigenous ...

BACKGROUND: Perhaps the most difficult thing to ascertain concerning the behavior of another animal is its motivation. The motivation underlying the preference of Drosophila melanogaster for ethanol (EtOH)-rich food has long been ascribed to its value as a food. A recently introduced idea is that, as in humans, the pharmacological ...

A 2009 systematic review of the international evidence on food and beverage marketing to children is the most recent internationally comprehensive review of the evidence base. Its findings are consistent with other independent, rigorous reviews conducted during the period 2003 to 2012. Food promotions have a direct effect on children's ...

This article reviews the research that has looked at the role of audition in both flavour perception and feeding behaviour in humans. The article starts by looking at early research that has focused on the effect of background noise on the sensory-discriminative aspects of taste/flavour perception and on people's hedonic ...

The Cao Vit gibbon is a critically endangered species with only about 110 individuals remaining in a degraded karst forest along the China-Vietnam border. Behavioral data from this site are particularly useful in understanding gibbon behavioral adaptations to different sets of ecological conditions and will contribute to the conservation of ...

The current economic downturn has caused some states to consider serving inmates less food to save money. Because South Carolina has been reported to have the lowest meal costs at $1.13/day per inmate, this study analyzed nutritional value of its prison meals. Menus were obtained from the South Carolina Department ...

Miniaturized acceleration data loggers were attached to the lower mandible of common carp Cyprinus carpio to remotely identify feeding behaviour. Whether the acceleration signal could distinguish the quantity and quality of food was also investigated. The frequency and amplitude of the lower mandible stroke, calculated from surging acceleration determined by ...

The study aimed to assess the adherence of Kuwaiti adults to dietary guidelines for daily fruit and vegetable intake. Data were compiled from national cross-sectional studies from 2006 to 2008 including 9350 adults. Demographic data, frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption and anthropometric and lifestyle indicators were collected. Approximately 11% ...

The newt is an indispensable model animal, of particular utility for regeneration studies. Recently, a high-throughput transgenic protocol was established for the Japanese common newt, Cynops pyrrhogaster. For studies of regeneration, metamorphosed animals may be favorable; however, for this species, there is no efficient protocol for maintaining juveniles after metamorphosis ...

China's milk scandal is well known for causing the nation's largest food safety crisis and for its effect on thousands of children. Less, however, is known about the effect on the other victim: China's small dairy farmers. Although small backyard producers were not the ones that added melamine to the ...

Cross-ecosystem movements of material and energy, particularly reciprocal resource fluxes across the freshwater-land interface, have received major attention. Freshwater ecosystems may receive higher amounts of subsidies (i.e., resources produced outside the focal ecosystem) than terrestrial ecosystems, potentially leading to increased secondary production in freshwaters. Here we used a meta-analytic approach ...

Whether nectarivores or frugivores place selective pressure on the plants they feed on, in terms of nectar or fruit traits, is much debated. Globally sugar preferences, concentration preference and digestive ability of avian nectarivores have been extensively researched. In contrast, relatively little is known about mammalian nectarivores or frugivores in ...

The global importance of grasslands is indicated by their extent; they comprise some 26% of total land area and 80% of agriculturally productive land. The majority of grasslands are located in tropical developing countries where they are particularly important to the livelihoods of some one billion poor peoples. Grasslands clearly ...

We hypothesised that (i) increased feeding motivation will cause sheep to move further apart as a result of individuals trying to find food and (ii) in conditions of high food availability, sheep will move less and show greater social attraction. The effects of both feeding motivation and food availability on ...

The childhood obesity epidemic is a current public health priority in many countries, and the consumption of fast food has been associated with obesity. This study aims to assess the relationship between fast-food consumption and obesity as well as the relationship between fast-food outlet access and consumption in a cohort ...

The foraging, territoriality and displacement of the Snail Kite were studied over 232 hours of observations in an urban lake during the dry and wet seasons. The temperature and rainfall variations were used to correlate with predation rates and the correlation coefficients were 0,39 and 0,34, respectively. Snail Kites spent ...

Plastic packaging for food and non-food applications is non-biodegradable, and also uses up valuable and scarce non-renewable resources like petroleum. With the current focus on exploring alternatives to petroleum and emphasis on reduced environmental impact, research is increasingly being directed at development of biodegradable food packaging from biopolymer-based materials. The ...

Many organic foods and high-energy products are sweetened with brown rice syrup as an alternative to high-fructose corn syrup. Consumers who eat these products may be avoiding high-fructose corn syrup, but they also may be exposed to arsenic that's been absorbed by the rice plants from which the syrup is ...

This review compiles recently published scientific reports on the bioactive compounds present in virgin argan oil along with their possible beneficial effects on human health, which could justify consideration of this oil as a new functional food. Virgin argan oil is characterized by high levels of linoleic and oleic acids, ...

A relevant proportion of patients say that their migraine attacks may be precipitated by dietary items, the percentage of patients reporting foods as trigger ranging in different study from 12 to 60 %. Fasting, alcohol, chocolate and cheese are the dietary precipitating factors more frequently reported. The finding that diet-sensitive migraineurs ...

Overweight and obesity are known risk factors for several modifiable, if not preventable diseases. Growing evidence suggests that lesbians may have higher rates of obesity than other women. This study was designed to describe weight loss and behavior changes related to food choices and exercise habits among lesbians who participated ...

We proposed new method for measuring dynamic changes in hunger motivation in rabbits in the course of satisfaction of nutritional need by weight, time, and rate parameters of effective food-procuring behavior. Transformation of the amount of food eaten into the electric signals was performed using electronic weighing machine incorporated into ...

The choice of foraging strategies implies an attempt at gaining energy by predators. Supposedly, the difference in employing the "sit and wait" or "active foraging" behavior lays in hunter skills, experience and the kind of prey consumed. With the hypothesis that "active foraging" demands no learning, in this study we ...

ABSTRACT: The production reactors at the U.S. Department of Energy Hanford Site used large graphite piles as the moderator. As part of long-term decommissioning plans, the potential need for C radiobioassay of workers was identified. Technical issues associated with C bioassay and worker monitoring were investigated, including anticipated graphite characterization, ...

Microbiological testing for various indicator microorganisms is used extensively as a means of verifying the effectiveness of efforts to ensure the microbiological quality and safety of a wide variety of foods. However, for each use of an indicator organism the underlying scientific assumptions related to the behavior of the target ...

Contemporary animal agriculture is increasingly criticized on ethical grounds. Consequently, current policy and legislative discussions have become highly controversial as decision makers attempt to reconcile concerns about the impacts of animal production on animal welfare, the environment, and on the efficacy of antibiotics required to ensure human health with demands ...

Northern elephant seals are naturally adapted to prolonged periods (1-2 months) of absolute food and water deprivation (fasting). In terrestrial mammals, food deprivation stimulates ATP degradation and decreases ATP synthesis, resulting in the accumulation of purines (ATP degradation byproducts). Hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase (HGPRT) salvages ATP by recycling the purine degradation ...

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a mycotoxin commonly present in cereals, grapes, coffee, spices, and cocoa. Even though the main objective of the food and feed chain processors and distributors is to avoid the extended contamination of plant-derived foods and animal feeds with mycotoxins, until now, complete OTA removal from foods ...

Six pigeons key-pecked under a fixed-interval (FI) 3-min schedule of food presentation. Each pigeon was studied for 200 daily sessions with 15 intervals per session (3,000 total food presentations). Analyses included the examination of latency to first peck (pause), mean rate of key pecking, and ambulation. Characterizations of stable performance ...

This study aimed to investigate the relationships between sodium release, saltiness and oral parameters during the eating of lipoprotein matrices (LPM). Sodium release and saltiness relative to 10 LPM were recorded during normal mastication by 5 subjects with differing oral parameters (chewing efficiency and salivary flow rate). The samples varied ...

Fish discards and by-catch issues are highly topical subjects that are permanently under a social focus. Two main approaches are being considered to address this discard problem: reducing the by-catch and increasing by-catch utilization. Interest in increased by-catch valorization may arise from a greater demand for fish products, such as ...

The functional link between food as an energy source and metabolizable energy is the digestive tract. The digestive organs may change in size, structure, or retention time in response to energetic demands of the animal. Very efficient digestive tracts may be better at processing food but require higher energetic investments ...

This qualitative study explored the concept of acceptance of wholegrain foods in an adult population in the UK. Data was generated via focus groups with volunteers from a randomised controlled wholegrain based dietary intervention study (the WHOLEheart study). WHOLEheart volunteers, who did not habitually eat wholegrain foods, were randomised to ...

Crop and animal production in China has increased significantly during the last decades, but at the cost of large increases in nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) losses, which contribute to ecosystem degradation and human health effects. This information is largely based on scattered field experiments, surveys and national statistics. As ...

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is expressed in the hypothalamus where it exerts orexigenic actions within the feeding control circuit. While NPY stimulates feeding in juvenile and adult animals, it is not known whether NPY influences food intake at earlier life stages. We investigated a role for NPY in regulating feeding at ...

Galactooligosaccharides are sugars composed of 3-10 molecules of galactose and glucose via a transgalactosylation reaction mediated by the enzyme β-galactosidase. Prebiotics are non-digestible food ingredients that pass through the upper digestive system relatively intact and ferment in the lower colon, producing short-chain fatty acids that support the growth of supplemented ...

Feeding behavior and reproduction are coordinately regulated by the brain via neurotransmitters, circulating hormones, and neuropeptides. Reduced feeding allows animals to engage in other behaviors important for fitness, including mating and parental care. Some fishes cease feeding for weeks at a time in order to provide care to their young ...

It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that consumers can safely enjoy a range of nutritive sweeteners and nonnutritive sweeteners (NNS) when consumed within an eating plan that is guided by current federal nutrition recommendations, such as the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Dietary Reference ...

The approximately 100 million tonne per year increase in the use of corn to produce ethanol in the U.S. over the past 10 years, and projections of greater future use, have raised concerns that reduced exports of corn (and other agricultural products) and higher commodity prices would lead to land-use ...

The aggregation of parents with offspring is generally associated with different forms of care that improve offspring survival at potential costs to parents. Under poor environments, the limited amount of resources available can increase the level of competition among family members and consequently lead to adaptive changes in parental investment. ...

Numerous reports have emphasized the need for major changes in the global food system: agriculture must meet the twin challenge of feeding a growing population, with rising demand for meat and high-calorie diets, while simultaneously minimizing its global environmental impacts. Organic farming-a system aimed at producing food with minimal harm ...

Phthalate esters are ubiquitous environmental pollutants and are recognized as environmental endocrine disruptors because of their potential to elicit reproductive and developmental toxicity. Several phthalate esters have been listed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as chemicals of concern. Determination of concentrations of phthalate esters in foodstuffs, typically present ...

There is a paucity of studies acknowledging the existence of alternative food sources, and factors associated with food purchasing from three common alternative sources: vendedores (mobile food vendors), pulgas (flea markets), and vecinos/amigos (neighbors/friends). This analysis aims to examine the use of alternative food sources by Mexican-origin women from Texas-border ...

Measurement of the home food environment is of interest to researchers because it affects food intake and is a feasible target for nutrition interventions. The objective of this study was to provide estimates to aid the calculation of sample size and number of repeated measures needed in studies of nutrients ...

Proanthocyanidins (PA) or condensed tannins, a major group of oligomeric and polymeric dietary polyphenols, have an essential role on the organoleptic and health-related properties of plant foods. Their content is usually determined by HPLC analysis of aqueous-organic extracts. However, appreciable amounts of polymeric PA that remain in the residues of ...

Exposure to stress is inevitable, and it may occur, to varying degrees, at different phases throughout the lifespan. The impact of stress experienced in later life has been well documented as many populations in modern society experience increasing socio-economic demands. The effects of stress early in life are less well ...

Laboratory experiments are often preferred over field experiments because they allow the control of confounding factors that would otherwise influence the causal effect of a particular focal experimental factor. These confounding factors can, however, significantly alter the response of an organism confronted with a particular situation, which can have great ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The transition of young people from school to university has many health implications. Food choice at the university can differ because of childhood food consumption patterns, sex and the living arrangements. Food consumption may change especially if students are living away from home. We aimed to assess food ...

Phenotypic plasticity has long been a focus of research, but the mechanisms of its evolution remain controversial. Many amphibian species exhibit a similar plastic response in metamorphic timing in response to multiple environmental factors; therefore, more than one environmental factor has likely influenced the evolution of plasticity. However, it is ...