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Denis Giles

30 May 2017

Created: 30 May 2017

Last Updated: 30 May 2017

Hits: 1624

By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

Every summer I make a thick mango juice, put it into plastic kulfi holders and freeze it. We have it as a formal dessert for the next few months. You can do it with most fruit juices - watermelon, phalsa, jamun. I learnt this from my mother who would always have orange popsicles waiting for us when we came back from school.

Sonal makes delicious vegan ice cream in Gurgaon under her brand White Cub. Once a year when I have my organic food mela, for ten days at Delhi Haat, we give her a stall and watch everyone enjoy icecream that has no milk in it. There is an Indian site called The Vegan Store and they sell dairy-free icecreams online. These are 100% cholesterol free, gluten free and 100% trans-fat free. Most importantly, they are a compassionate food choice: both to animals and to your own body which you stuff with rubbish every day. White Cub helps those with dairy allergy - almost everyone in India, as we do not have lactase in our body to digest lactose, lactose intolerance, gluten allergy - to enjoy rich creamy ice creams. My favourite is banana- strawberry.

The secret to vegan icecream is full fat creamy coconut milk. Some icecreams use almond milk, or soya milk, but coconut is the creamiest. Add a little cornstarch or arrowroot starch. Put in a sweetener and cook it till it becomes thick. Make sure any sweetener you add is in syrup/liquid form, or it’ll cause crystals to form. Make sure all your ingredients are as cold as they can be. That’ll help everything combine.

For a sweetener you can put in agave (if you can get it), honey (this is not vegan, though, since it is bee vomit) , maple syrup, gur or just plain sugar. To the coconut base can be added anything from nuts, fruit and fruit juice, mint, dark chocolate, and tropical flavours.

Start with a can of coconut milk for a rich and creamy base. Simply combine the coconut milk with some almond milk and blend in ripe fruit and organic sugar. Chill the mixture, then freeze in an ice cream maker. Scoop and enjoy.

For a firm, scoop-able consistency, transfer to a freezer container and freeze until firm. Homemade ice cream freezes very firm. To serve, let the coconut ice cream soften at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes, or until soft enough to scoop.

Here are some recipes for homemade ice cream. I have taken them from the Net. Get yourself a small ice cream maker. There are three steps which enable ice cream to be made without an ice cream maker. The idea is to prevent crystals getting formed in the ice cream so that the texture remains smooth. The first step is to add cornstarch to the ice cream mixture. Cornstarch absorbs any extra water in the mixture. The second step is to put a cling-film on the container while freezing it. The cling film should touch the surface of the mixture.

 Along with using both the above methods, an essential technique is to take the ice cream mixture out of the refrigerator while it is still being set and beating it all over again, preferably with an electric beater, before keeping it back to set. This needs to be repeated after about two hours each time, at least three times during the setting of the ice cream. Beating the ice cream mixture midway ensures that the crystals either do not form or get dissolved if at all they start forming. This gives the ice cream a smooth texture.

What You Need-

Ingredients:

2 (13 to 15-ounce) cans full-fat coconut milk

½ cup agave syrup / maple syrup / honey / turbinado sugar / or cane sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons cornstarch (or 1 tablespoon arrowroot starch)

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Optional extras: nuts, chocolate, fruit puree.

Equipment:

Measuring cups and spoons

Whisk

2-litre saucepan

Wooden spatula

Glass or plastic dish, for cooling the base

Ice cream machine (at least 1½ quart capacity)

Plastic wrap

Freezer container, like a loaf pan or pint container

Parchment or wax paper.

Instructions:

At least 24 hours before you plan to churn the ice cream, put the ice cream machine's bowl in the freezer to freeze. It should be frozen solid before using (you should hear no liquid sloshing inside when you shake it).

1.    Cans of coconut milk separate into a thick, creamy layer and a thin watery layer on the shelf. Before opening them, shake the cans of coconut milk thoroughly to incorporate the layers.

2.   Open the cans of coconut milk. Measure ½ cup and set this aside.

3.   Pour the remaining coconut milk into a 2-litre sauce pan.

4.   Measure the sweetener (agave, maple syrup, honey, or sugar), and add it to the coconut milk, along with the salt.

5.    Warm the coconut milk on the stove over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the sweetener has completely dissolved into the coconut milk, 1 to 2 minutes.

6.   Measure the cornstarch and add it to the reserved ½ cup coconut milk. Whisk thoroughly until the cornstarch is totally dissolved.

7.    Pour the cornstarch mixture into the warm coconut milk while whisking gently.

8.    This is your ice cream base. Increase the heat to medium. Stirring occasionally, continue cooking the base until it has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon, 6 to 8 minutes. Do not allow the base to come to a boil.

9.    Remove the base from heat and stir in the vanilla.

10.  Pour the base into a shallow container. Let the base cool slightly on the counter so it's not hot when you put it in the fridge. Before refrigerating, press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface — this coconut milk base doesn't form a skin quite as badly as a milk-and-egg base, but it doesn't hurt! Cover the container and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or for up to 3 days.

11. Remove the base from the fridge. It should be completely chilled and slightly pudding-like in texture. Pour the base into your ice cream machine and begin churning.

12. Churn the ice cream until it thickens considerably and is roughly the consistency of soft-serve ice cream. Depending on your machine, this could take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes. If you want to add any extras, add them now and churn a few more seconds until they are fully incorporated.

13.  Scrape the ice cream into your freezer container. Press a piece of parchment, or wax paper, against the surface to prevent ice crystals from forming.

14. Transfer the container of ice cream to the freezer and freeze for at least 4 hours to harden the ice cream.

15. If your ice cream is too hard to scoop, let it warm a few minutes on the counter before scooping. Coconut ice cream melts a little more quickly than milk-based ice creams, so don't wait too long!

Coffee Coconut Milk Ice Cream

Yield : 6 cups

2 (15 oz) cans full fat coconut milk

¾ cup regular sugar

¾ strong brewed coffee

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

Combine coconut milk, coffee and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat and whisk until well combined – about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla. Transfer to a bowl to let cool completely in the fridge – at least 6 hours, overnight being preferable. Transfer to ice cream maker and prepare according to manufacturer instructions. Pour into container, smooth out top, and put a plastic wrap directly on the ice cream. Cover with lid. Let harden for several hours in freezer. Let stand for 15 minutes at room temperature before serving.

Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream

Yield: About 2 ½ cups

 Ingredients:

 2 (13.5 oz) cans of full fat coconut milk

 1 ¼ cup sugar

 ½ cup good quality unsweetened cocoa powder

In a pot over medium heat, add all the ingredients and stir. Allow to simmer until thickened slightly, about 8 minutes. Place in a container and refrigerate until cold, about 4 hours. Add to an ice cream maker and churn until set, about 15 to 20 minutes. Freeze until desired consistency is reached. Churn time is 15 minutes for a "soft serve" consistency and another 2 hours of freeze time for a harder scoop style ice cream.

You can mix with bananas, strawberries, cherries.

Mango Coconut Ice Cream

Yield: 4 cups

1 can (14 ounces) unsweetened coconut milk (do not use light or cream of coconut)

½ cup organic evaporated cane sugar

½ cup unsweetened almond milk (homemade or purchased)

1½ cups chopped ripe mango

1 tablespoon orange liqueur such as Grand Mariner or Cointreau

½ teaspoon pure vanilla.

Combine coconut milk, sugar, almond milk and mango in blender. Cover and blend until smooth. Add orange liqueur and vanilla and blend. Cover and refrigerate coconut mixture at least 4 hours, until well chilled. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions. Makes about 1 quart (4 cups)

Homemade ice cream freezes very firmly. Adding the orange liqueur makes a slightly softer ice cream since alcohol does not freeze.

For a soft serve consistency, serve immediately.

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Denis Giles

15 May 2017

Created: 15 May 2017

Last Updated: 15 May 2017

Hits: 1498

By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

Veganism finally has meat eating on the run in the United Kingdom. Not only are the ad campaigns, all over metro stations, really big and powerful showing what happens in slaughterhouses, but people are actually listening to them and making a switch. So much so that The Independent newspaper has just revealed (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/save-veganism-abattoirs-animal-cruelty-terrorism-vigils-animal-welfare-a7579251.html) that a meeting was called by the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers and the National Pig Association with the official National Counter Terrorism Police Operations Centre team to find out how they could stop peaceful vegans from holding candlelight vigils outside slaughterhouses, to show love and compassion to pigs, cows and chickens in their final moments and to raise awareness of the cruelty we inflict upon them.

Not only should every slaughterhouse have a CCTV, any citizen should be allowed in. That way the enormous cruelty that happens to animals – apart from dragging buffaloes and calves off overloaded trucks by their tails, or throwing them off with one leg, or wing as in chickens, dragging them across the floor, hanging them upside down, slitting their throats to catch the blood, pouring boiling water on them while alive to loosen their skins etc. – there is the gratuitous cruelty of slaughterhouse workers amusing themselves at work. Live chickens are used as footballs, pigs are stabbed repeatedly as target practice with knives, competitions take place on novel ways to kill. The Mayor of North Delhi and Gauri Maulekhi of PFA went to the Delhi Ghazipur slaughterhouse on a surprise inspection last month. Apart from finding no vets there (they get their haftas sitting at home) they found buffaloes being hit many times over by laughing butchers with live electric wires. The animal collapsed repeatedly. When it got to its feet again, they did it again. They took bets on how many times an animal could sustain electric hits before it dissolved into a trembling conscious mass on the floor. Then they slit its throat – in full view of a hundred other buffaloes and their children.

One herd of goats had a little kid who ran for her life. She was chased by ten shouting men with heavy sticks, and who would have crushed her to a pulp had Gauri not caught her. She is now in my house. Gauri took a video of the slaughterhouse and was nearly lynched by hundreds of resentful butchers and the owner’s manager (Allana and Co) who knew what they were doing is so wrong but what-the-hell.

I once did a survey of the animals being killed. We found 78% of all chickens had broken legs and wings at least three days before being slaughtered; 60% of all large animals had shattered limbs and 45% were diseased. Forget the terrible pain they were in, by law none of them should be killed as they were gangrenous and the meat dangerous for humans.

Instead of me saying anything else, let me quote the rest of the Independent article :

“To regard Save vigils as terrorism is genuinely absurd: a panicked, guilty response from the planet’s most brutal industry. Our counter-terrorism experts should be concentrating their efforts on genuine threats against British public safety, not a bunch of vegan campaigners who only wish to expose the reality of a commercial sector that the majority of its consumers remain in the dark about.

But although Save protestors are not terrorists, perhaps abattoir bosses have good reason to fear their work.

The meat industry is vulnerable when consumers learn the reality of how it operates; when they look directly at the faces of the animals it condemns to short, torturous lives and ferocious deaths. Protestors share videos from the vigils on social media, offering that connection to the general public. This makes an industry that has poured so much money, time and desperation into keeping consumers’ eyes shut feeling nervous.

According to latest estimates, 542,000 Brits are now vegans, up from 150,000 in 2006 – a 350 per cent increase in just over a decade. Official supermarket revenue statistics for 2016 showed the biggest losers were meat and dairy, while the biggest gains came for dairy-free products. Overall sales of plant-based products are up 1,500 per cent.

Big food and hospitality brands, from Harvester and Wetherspoons to Pret A Manger and Sainsbury’s, are launching successful vegan ranges. Last month, Sainsbury’s reported that sales of its new own-brand vegan cheeses were 300 per cent greater than it had anticipated.

Activists are exposing the truth about the meat on your plate: that piglets who grow too slowly are killed by being slammed headfirst onto concrete floors, a standard industry practice called “thumping”; that in many chicken slaughterhouses workers routinely rip the heads off live birds; that pigs scream in gas chambers, or as they are boiled alive; that cattle sometimes experience having their legs sawn off while they are still conscious.

I’ve nothing but respect for Save as they rattle and expose those complicit in the meat industry. They are not terrorists.

It’s often said that we accuse others of what we secretly know we are doing ourselves. So as abattoir workers toss and turn at night, perhaps they might ask themselves, who is really doing the terrorising?”

Why are you eating meat in India when you have at least 50,000 + options of amazing food which are better for you, better for animals and better for the planet. Each one of us has a belief that we are in our hearts good people. Do good people allow so much pain to be caused in beings that are exactly like you in every way, only kinder and smarter?

Sir Paul McCartney once said “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.”

Are you going to wait for the glass walls to show you what is happening, or will you go with your conscience which tells you what you are doing is wrong?

To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.peopleforanimalsindia.org

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Denis Giles

22 May 2017

Created: 22 May 2017

Last Updated: 22 May 2017

Hits: 1403

By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

In 1930, Dr. Pottenger conducted a study to find out more about the effects of raw versus cooked meat, as well as raw versus pasteurized milk on cats, and whether they had any impact on growth and development.

Nine hundred cats were studied in ten years in order to not only see the short term effects of the food, but also the influence the cats’ diet would have on their kittens over three generations. The results of this study were stunning: a simple modification in diet – raw vs cooked meat and milk – impacted cats’ health over four generations!

The conclusions of his study were:

Physical degeneration caused by a poor diet in the mother is inherited in the offspring and passed on through the third generation. But when a mother’s diet is nutritious, not only does she benefit with good health, so do her offsprings.

Pottenger went further to see whether poor health could be reversed. The third generation of cats, that developed health problems, was fed well. What emerged was that each kitten of their children, and the three successive generations of kittens they produced, was healthier than the prior one.

What Pottenger discovered 85 years ago is that the food we eat each day influences illness or wellness, not only in ourselves, but in our children, grandchildren, even our great-grandchildren.

The cell is the basic structure of the body, and the human body is built of trillions of cells. Each cell has a nucleus that houses DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid.

Genes are small sections of DNA that contain the instructions for our individual characteristics – like eye and hair colour. The purpose of genes is to store information. The Human Genome Project has estimated that humans have between 20,000 and 25,000 genes. Every person has two copies of each gene; one inherited from each parent. The total number is called the genome.

The DNA code contains instructions needed to make the proteins and molecules essential for our growth, development and health. Examples of proteins include keratin, the protein in your hair, and haemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein in your blood.

Essentially, the deoxyribonucleic acid / DNA in our bodies contains the blueprints for who we are and instructions for who we will become. For example, it can tell our eyes to turn from blue at birth to brown later on, our length to grow from 20 inches to 70 etc.

Do genes mutate according to how we live?

Epigenetics is the science that studies what forces influence our genes to change.

Can the DNA be changed with diet and exercise? This is what Dr. Claudia Aguirre, neuroscientist says:

During the winter of 1944-1945, a terrible famine swept through the Netherlands. The Dutch population’s nutritional intake dropped to fewer than 1,000 calories per day. Women who conceived during this time gave birth to children who survived — but with higher rates of conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity compared to siblings born before. How could something that happened before birth have such a powerful effect on health some 50 years later? The answer is that the foetuses adapted their genes to their environment (a lack of food + high maternal stress), and these early changes set up these descendants for future health complications. Today, we understand a great deal more how the food we consume changes our bodies and brains right down to the genetic level.

There are many studies correlating specific compounds in food to genetic changes in our bodies. Animal studies show that certain foods and exercise can stimulate a protein, called BDNF, in the genes which creates new neurons and improves the functions of the old ones, a necessary factor for learning and memory. So, smart diet choices can actually make you smarter!

Poor diet affects us to our core. And this “core” gets passed down from generation to generation. So that old saying “you are what you eat” should be “You are what your mother ate.”

A number of foods and environmental factors can damage the DNA. Here are some of DNA’s enemies:

The radiation from mobile phones affects the human DNA. Several studies have recommended that we use hands-free technology.

Pesticides and fertilizers which are consumed with all food.

Food wrapped in plastic absorbs it, and studies show that an average person consumes about 210 micrograms of plastic per day.

In a study, researchers at the University of Oxford's Department of Plant Sciences, and the studies published in the journal Genome Biology, demonstrated that the diets of organisms can affect the DNA sequences of their genes. Researchers took two groups of parasites which had common ancestors but had evolved to eat very different kinds of food. The team detected differences in DNA sequences that could be attributed to the composition of their food, providing new insights into how DNA sequences can be influenced by adaptation to different diets.

In a laboratory study pairing food chemistry and cancer biology, scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, tested the effect of foods on the DNA of cells. They found that liquid smoke flavouring, black and green teas and coffee activated the highest levels of a well-known cancer-linked gene called p53. The p53 gene becomes activated when DNA is damaged. The higher the level of DNA damage, the more p53. Two chemicals in these foods were held responsible for the damage: Pyrogallol and gallic acid. Pyrogallol, commonly found in smoked foods, is also found in cigarette smoke, hair dye, tea, coffee, bread crust, roasted malt and cocoa powder. Gallic acid is found in teas and coffees. Liquid smoke is often used to add smoky flavour to sausages and other meats.

Here are just a very few of the most dangerous processed “foods” and their impact on our DNA:

Genetically Modified Foods (GMO):

Every time a corporate scientist inserts a novel gene into a plant cell, the gene ends up in a random location in the plant’s genome. All that the scientists can do is to pray that the new gene will not destabilize a safe food and make it toxic. When researchers Pryme and Rolf Lembcke conducted studies about the possible health consequences of genetically modified food, they concluded that genetic engineering creates widespread genetic mutations in thousands of locations throughout the genome! Food that’s made in the lab, and was not meant to be recognized by your cells, will eventually build up as toxic material in your body, causing digestive problems, lowered immunity, tumours and cancer.

Processed Omega 6 Fatty Acids and Trans Fatty Acids:

With the processing of omega 6-rich vegetable oils - such as corn, soybean, canola and safflower oils that are so abundant in our diet today – the balanced ratio of omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids, on which our human genome thrived for thousands of years, changed drastically. We now eat one-tenth of the amount of omega 3 fatty acids required for normal functioning. This is why a high percentage of our modern population is susceptible to food-related health conditions like heart disease, cancer, insulin resistance and diabetes, obesity, arthritis and other inflammatory conditions.

The elimination of toxic trans fatty acids alone could avert tens of thousands of heart attacks each year. A team of molecular biologists, at the National Institute of Nutrition in India, performed a study on rats to see how genes are affected by trans fatty acids. They discovered that rats fed higher levels of trans fatty acids modified their genes to become insulin resistant, increasing the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Sugar: Epidemiologist Lisa Giovanelli’s findings revealed that the more simple sugar (from soft drinks, desserts and other processed sweets) a person consumed, the more oxidative DNA damage occurred in blood cells.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS): This is added to thousands of fast foods and soft drinks. It damages genes by producing the chemical hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) while heating. When the effects of HMF on individual human cells were studied, it was found that the more exposure to HMF, the more DNA damage.

Meat: Research at the Medical Research Council's Dunn human nutrition unit in Cambridge, published in the journal Cancer Research, has shown that eating red meat can increase your risk of bowel cancer by producing substances in the gut that damage DNA. A comparison of cells from the lining of the colon shows that people who eat a diet high in red meat have a "consistent and significant" increase in levels of DNA damage compared with vegetarians. Substances called N-nitrosocompounds increase in the large bowel of red meat eaters, destabilizing the DNA, making it more likely to undergo harmful changes that increase the risk of cancer.

But can these genetic changes be passed on to your children? Independent studies show that this happens:

A group, led by Randy Jirtle of Duke University, demonstrated how mouse clones, implanted as embryos in separate mothers, will have radical differences in fur colour, weight, and risk for chronic diseases, depending on what that mother was fed during pregnancy.

In 2010, Jiménez-Chillarón and his colleagues found that overfed male mouse pups developed insulin resistance, obesity and glucose intolerance, and passed these traits to their offspring, who developed these diseases without overeating.

A study led by Ram B. Singh of the TsimTsoum Institute in Krakow, Poland, published in the Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, examined nutrients that affect chromatin, the chemical soup in which DNA operates. "It is possible that eating more omega-3 fatty acids, choline, betaine, folic acid and vitamin B12, by mothers and fathers, possibly can alter chromatin states leading to the birth of a 'super baby' with long life and lower risk of diabetes and obesity."

More and more evidence suggests that what you eat may have a genetic impact on your children and grandchildren. Is bad health the legacy you want to leave them?

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Denis Giles

09 May 2017

Created: 09 May 2017

Last Updated: 09 May 2017

Hits: 1347

By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi

One of the reasons I don’t eat sweets is because, over the years, I have discovered that most of them have gelatine in them. A friend of mine owned a chain of small shops in which you could go, as in the Western sweet shops, and scoop out various candies you wanted from open, shelf-like drawers, have them weighed and pay for them. I liked them very much. When the red and green dot was introduced, she put the red dot on all of them, including my favourite, the black liquorice sweets. She then told me that she – and the rest of the world – bought them from China and simply repackaged them. That was when I realized that I could not eat sweets any more.

I also gave up eating anything in a capsule.

Gelatine is a flavourless, colourless, gelling and thickening agent with unique properties: it dissolves in hot water and gels when it cools (a process which is reversible), and creates a texture and bite in various foods. The gelatine market is worth over 3 billion dollars. It is used in gummy chewy candies, gummy bears, jelly babies,  jelly, mints, some chewing gums, marshmallows, ice creams, commercial cakes, icing, frosting, cream cheese, margarine, commercial yoghurt and sour cream, frosted cereals, frosted poptarts, salted nuts (gelatine helps hold the salt onto the nut, like in Planters dry roasted peanuts), coffee and milk substitutes, lozenges, Chinese dumplings, cosmetics (under the name hydrolysed collagen), shampoos, facemasks. Gelatine is also used in fat reduced foods to simulate the feel of fat and to create volume without adding calories. It is used to strain commercial juices like apple juice and vinegar. It is the yellow colour in all soft drinks.

Certain professional and theatrical lighting equipment use colour gels to change the beam colour. All photographic films and paper use it. It is the glue used on match heads, sandpaper and agarbattis. It is found in watercolour paper, glossy printing papers and playing cards, and it maintains the wrinkles in crêpe paper.

Gelatine is made by boiling animal bones, ligaments, skin or tendons, with water. 44% of the world’s supply comes from pigskin, 28% from cowskin, 27% from bones and 1% is anything else. In essence, it’s made primarily from the stuff meat industries have left over, feet, skins, horns, bones It has no nutritive value and is simply a thickening agent to give food a soft, squishy consistency. I don’t even know why it’s legally permissible to be considered a “food” product. You’re basically dropping shards of animal waste into an acid, or alkaline, bath and selling it for 545 rupees a kg.  The market is growing, as India plunges deeper into processed foods. Its growth is projected at 6-7% between 2016 and 2024, with most of it in the Asia-Pacific region.

So far vegetarians have had to restrict themselves to using alternatives made from agar agar, a seaweed algae. Other alternatives are carrageenan, pectin, konjak, and guar gum. Hypromellose is a vegetarian-acceptable alternative to gelatine capsules, but is more expensive to produce.

But now the future is upon us. The inventors of food are no less than the geniuses in the I.T. field - and perhaps far more relevant. I have just read about Gelzen, a company that produces gelatine from a genetically engineered micro-organism in fermentation tanks. If we can take this up it will disrupt the gelatine market with a game changing, animal free, alternative.

Just as two Indian boys are in Silicon Valley making real milk from multiplying milk cells (it was called Muufrii, but I think they’ve changed the name), Alexander Lorestani who studied medicine at Rutgers and bacterial pathogenesis at Princeton, and molecular biologist Nikolay Ouzounov, founded Gelzen in San Francisco in 2015 to do the same with gelatine.

“There is significant demand for an alternative that can precisely replicate the unique qualities of gelatine. While the alternatives are good, agar agar, pectin, starches, gums, they don’t have the same chemical or mechanical properties,” said Lorestani, who is effectively programing microbes to produce collagen via a fermentation process without using or harming animals.

Gelatine replacement has been a major issue in recent years, due to the emerging and lucrative vegetarian, halal and kosher markets. Even meat eaters have problems with gelatine: pork is not halaal or kosher, cows are not permitted for Hindus. There are also concerns about mad cow disease being transmitted. Everyone should have an issue with eating boiled animal tails and feet, teats and unmentionable parts.

In India there is a great demand to switch to plant based alternatives, especially in pharmaceuticals.  Some international companies have started looking at bio engineering plants. For instance, the Israeli firm Collplant has genetically manipulated tobacco plants to produce collagen that can be used for wound care (this frightens me). But Gelzen seems to be the first in trying to produce gelatine, on an industrial scale for food and other commercial-scale applications, from recombined proteins.

Gelzen takes microbes, approved for the production of food that naturally produce proteins, and gives them a set of instructions, in the form of genes, to make collagen. Basically they programme bacteria with the DNA of collagen. There are companies in the world that sell the DNA of any being. So, Gelzen started off by ordering mastodon DNA to make mastodon collagen. (The mastodon is the prehistoric, extinct, ancestor of the elephant.) The microbes are put into large fermenters with their food: sugar, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon. After a batch has been produced, it is purified.  Each batch can be modified according to what it is being used for – whether hard sweets or soft jellies.

Every time a company comes up with humane alternatives to meat, milk and animal parts, I am so hopeful. If I had the money, I would be the angel investor in all of them. Gelzen plans to supply the product by summer 2017 and be in the big league in four years. They have already got 2.5 million dollars in investment.

How come no one in India is doing any original research in food or I.T.? Or anything?

To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.peopleforanimalsindia.org