The secret slimming effect of sweet potato waste.

The secret slimming effect of sweet potato waste.The sweet potato pie you eat during the holidays might not be good for your waistline, but according to a new study, the starchy water left over from cooking the sweet potato could have slimming effects . In the new study, mice on a high fat diet had significantly lower body weight after one month if they were also fed sweet potato peptide, which was produced by enzyme digestion of proteins in the water wasted during processing. This suggests the peptide plays a role in digesting fats, but more research is needed to determine whether this also happens in humans. In the new study, Dr. Koji Ishiguro from National Agriculture and Food Research Organization in Japan and colleagues wanted to find a new way to use this waste, so they investigated the effect of proteins found in the water on digestion in mice. "We throw out huge volumes of wastewater that contains sweet potato proteins -- we hypothesized that these could affect body weight, fat tissue and other factors," explained Dr. Ishiguro. "Finding alternative uses for the sweet potato proteins in wastewater could be good for the environment and industry, and also potentially for health."

How to set up an aerial vegetable farm with plastic bottles.

How to set up an aerial vegetable farm with plastic bottles. Plastic bottles have found various uses in agriculture from drinker to feeder to brooder and fish tank,these innovations have turned waste to wealth and also ensuring a clean environment.

 An agripreneur has used waste plastic bottles to set up an aerial vegetable farm. Anthony Mutugi has grown 294 spinaches and kales on a 4m by 5m by 3m space. 

The 294 crops may require about 0.02 acres on a flat ground. The Kiambu’s Juja area farmer has suspended six crops in the one-and-half-litre bottles with a wire string in a shed net wooden structure that creates greenhouse effects for quick growth. Each of the bottles is lying horizontally with its bellies ‘scoped’ slightly to accommodate about three quarters of a kilo soil and the kale or spinach.Each of the crops is one and half feet away from the other and the space of one row to the other is about one and half feet. 

 The crops depend on irrigation. The excess water can drain via the uncapped opening of the bottle. Wedding is done by hand in this aerial farm. Soil nutrients are not leeched since the bottle is non-porous. It is a perfect example for urban farmers, who do not have permanent residences.

They can move with their crops any time by unhooking the strings and dissembling the wooden farm. source

Raising cattle on a candy diet.

Cattle rearing is a very lucrative business,but the high cost of feed has pushed many farmers to the extreme to look for an alternate source to break even. Cattle are ruminants and thus tend to thrive on forage,cereals amongst other supplements but to strike a balance the ration must be complete with representatives of all classes of food and water. 

 Water is very vital to growth and development of the cattle as well as support all the metabolic activities in the body. Cattle must be given cool,fresh water everyday which must be clean,odorless and colorless. The alternate options to cattle feed are candies,orange peels,potatoes,dried fruits,rice products amongst others.

 According to CNN,farmers tapped into the candy factory to augment the feed of cattle when corn prices soared,now prices have skyrocked and farmers are at the candy station. The sugar in the candy is source the farmers want for the cows,as they gain weight and even increases milk production. 

 The candy is mixed with other forms of cattle feed, but at a percentage of 3%. This is how a farmer uses the candy; a dairy farmer in Middlebury, Ind. feeds his 400 cows bits of candy, hot chocolate mix, crumbled cookies, breakfast cereal, trail mix, dried cranberries, orange peelings and ice cream sprinkles, which are blended into more traditional forms of feed, like hay.

 The farmer said that he goes over the feed menu every couple of weeks with a livestock nutritionist who advised him to cap the candy at 3% of a cow's diet. He said that the sugar in ice cream sprinkles increase milk production by three pounds per cow per day. Sugar also helps to fatten up beef cattle, according to livestock nutritionist Chuck Hurst, owner of Nutritech, Inc., in Carmen, Idaho, without any ill effects to the cow, or to the person consuming its meat or milk. He said that it's the sugar in the candy that's important, and that it provides "the same kind of energy as corn." source