Letteratura scientifica selezionata sul tema "Poland Sugar cane"

Romania and Bulgaria are two neighboring countries located in one of the most deficient regions in terms of own raw material for sugar production in Europe. The region is defined as deficient due to unfavourable climatic conditions for sugar beet cultivation compared to the largest sugar producers in Europe: Germany, France, the Netherlands and Poland, where 70% of all sugar production in the EU is concentrated. At the peak of the sugar sectors in the two countries, there used to be 40 sugar factories with more than 9,500 employees. After their accession to EU and the end of the so-called sugar sector reform, only five factories managed to survive. The EU sugar sector reform itself was not carried out on a parity basis for all operators, but it gave more rights to beet processors at the expense of restrictions imposed on cane refineries and imports of raw cane sugar for refining. One of the outcomes of the reform is the differentiation of three regional markets, with a price gap of €61 between the first and the third region. The Balkan sugar sector is highly endangered and threatened with destruction. There is an urgent need of preferential custom quota for import of raw cane sugar to be implemented. Deficit countries like Bulgaria and Romania need to secure the traditional sugar consumption with local production from an independent source. Such a measure will prevent the monopolization of the market and protect the interest of the local economy, industry, and consumers.

Background. The problem of the 21st century both in Poland and around the world is overweight and obesity, and diabetes. Due to the increased incidence of these diseases, the consumption of intense sweeteners, which are used as substitutes for sucrose, has increased. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the sweet taste intensity of selected sweeteners in comparison with the benchmark - beet sugar. Methods. The material for the study consisted of four sweeteners: sugar, xylitol, stevia, and cane sugar. The substances were subjected to dilution in an infusion of black tea. This tea was then divided into 4 portions and each portion was sweetened with a different sweetener at a rate of 20g per 1l of infusion. The samples were coded with 3-digit codes, and the paired method was used for sensory evaluation. A total of 78 people participated in the study. Results. Differences in the intensity of sweet taste between beet sugar and the substitutes used were confirmed. Cane sugar and xylitol were characterized by a lower intensity of sweet taste, but these substitutes were preferred compared to beet sugar. Stevia is characterized by greater sweetness than beet sugar, while survey respondents strongly preferred beet sugar. Conclusions. Consumers, participating in the survey, prefer products with a less intensely sweet taste. Learning about consumers' preferences for sweet taste will allow the use of appropriately preferred substances in the production of food and dishes. This will have a positive effect on the sugar content of the daily ration and its overall consumption.

Sugar is an important food in the diet, and ensuring a sufficient production of sugar beet is important for food safety. At the level of the European Union, the sugar industry is a strategic sector, having economic, social and environmental importance being part of the CMO (common organization of the markets) with a safe role for agricultural markets. At the same time, the sugar market in the European Union is one of the best regulated markets and was based on the existence of well-established market shares, pricing and export regulation until 2017. Market shares were eliminated on October 1, 2017, this measure influencing both the situation of production and processing of sugar beet. In this paper we aim to analyze how the elimination of quotas in 2017 has led to changes at EU level in terms of sugar beet production, but also in terms of raw material and product prices finished, starting from statistical data provided by Eurostat, ITC and the National Institute of Statistics, data that were collected, pre elaborated and analyzed and which were the basis of the study. The conclusions were formulated based on the analysis performed and highlighted the fact that in the European Union the largest producers of sugar beet are countries such as France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland. At the same time, in the European Union there is a strong refining sector that processes both sugar beet produced within the union, but also sugar cane that comes from imports.

Şəkər çuğunduru yabanı halda bitən, əsas məhsulu yarpaq olan “Monqold” növmüxtəlifliyindən əmələ gəlmişdir. Həmin yarımnövün yabanı bitkilərinə Kiçik Asiya, Suriya, Zaqafqaziya, Aralıq dənizi, Xəzər dənizi və Qara dəniz sahillərində rast gəlinir. Bu bitkinin becərillməsinə eramızdan 2 min il əvvəl başlanılmışdır. Dəclə və Fərat çayları vadilərində yaşayan insanlar bu bitkinin yarpaqlarından müxtəlif xörəklər hazırlayırlarmış. Çuğundurun kökümeyvə kimi becərilməsinə isə eramızdan əvvəl V-VI əsrlərdə başlanılmışdır. Çuğundur sonradan Suriyadan Aralıq dənizi ölkələrinə, Fransa, İtaliya, İsveçrə, İspaniya və s. ölkələrə yayılmışdır[1]. Şəkər çuğunduru əsasən Rusiyada, Fransada, Polşada, Almaniyada, İtaliyada, Rumıniyada, İspaniyada, İngitərədə, Çexiyada, Slovakiyada, Belçikada, Macarıstanda, Yuqoslaviyada, Türkiyədə və ABŞ-da becərilir. Dünyada becərilən şəkər çuğunduru əkinlərinin 80%-i Avropanın payına düşür. Şəkər çuğundurunun tərkibində şəkərli maddənin olması və onun şəkər qamışının tərkibindəki şəkərəbənzər maddənin eyni olduğu ilk dəfə Markqraf tərəfindən müəyyən edilmişdir. O, bu haqda 1747-ci ildə Berlin Elmlər Akademiyasında məruzə etmişdir. Lakin onun laboratoriya şəraitində çuğundurdan ayırdığı şəkər barədə təcrübəsi o zaman lazımi diqqəti özünə cəlb etməmişdir. Markqrafın şagirdi alman alimi Axard 1797-ci ildə çuğundurdan şəkər almağın üsulunu təklif edir və bununla da Almaniyada ilk dəfə 1802-ci ildə şəkər zavodu tikilir. Rusiyada ilk şəkər zavodu 1802-ci ildə Tula quberniyasının Alyabevo kəndində Yesipov tərəfindən tikilmişdir [2]. Açar sözlər: aqrosenoz, bioekologiya, zərərverici, şəkər çuğunduru, stasionar sahələr Saliga Galib Gazi The study of sugar beet Abstract Sugar beet is formed from the "Mongol" variety, which grows in the wild and has a main leaf. Wild plants of this subspecies are found in Asia Minor, Syria, the Caucasus, the Mediterranean, the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. The cultivation of this plant began 2,000 years ago. People living in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers prepared various dishes from the leaves of this plant. The cultivation of beets as a root crop began in the 5th-6th centuries BC. Beets are then exported from Syria to the Mediterranean countries, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and others. spread to countries [1]. Sugar beet is grown mainly in Russia, France, Poland, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain, England, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Belgium, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Turkey and the United States. Europe accounts for 80% of the world's sugar beet cultivation. It was first determined by Markgraff that sugar beets contain the same amount of sugar and that the sugar-like content of sugar cane is the same. He reported on this in 1747 at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. However, his experiment with sugar, which he separated from beets in the laboratory, did not attract the necessary attention at that time. Markgraf's student, the German scientist Axard, proposed a method of extracting sugar from beets in 1797, and in 1802 the first sugar factory was built in Germany. The first sugar factory in Russia was built in 1802 by Yesipov in the village of Alyabevo, Tula Province. Key Words: agrocenosis, bioecology, pests, sugar beet, stationary areas

Pumpkin flowers, in their composition, contain many bioactive ingredients that have a beneficial effect on the human body. The aim of the research was to evaluate the antioxidant activity and chemical composition of flowers of various species and varieties of pumpkins: Amazonka, Ambar, Atlantic Giant, Bambino (Cucurbita maxima L.), Butternut, Muscade de Provence, Rouge vif d’Etampes (Cucurbita moschata Duch.), and Miranda (Cucurbia pepo L.). The flowers came from flowering pumpkin shoots, grown in Poland (Krakow). The total polyphenols, carotenoids, total sugar contents, antioxidant activity, and fatty acid composition were determined. The content of dry matter, protein, ash, fat, and selected minerals were also determined. Pumpkin flowers of the Atlantic Giant variety were characterized by the highest content of total polyphenols and sugars and antioxidant activity. They also showed the highest percentage of n-myristic acid (C14:0) and docosanoic acid (C22:0). The energy value of fresh pumpkin flowers, of all varieties, was low and averaged 22 kcal/100 g. Fresh pumpkin flowers are a significant source of iron, covering 60–80% of the EAR standard for adults (Atlantic Giant and Bambino varieties).

Abstract The prevalence of early childhood caries and its level varies. The present study was to establish the trends in dental caries and the impact of behavioural changes on the prevalence of caries in three-yearolds in Poland within a fifteen-year period. The results of a cross sectional survey carried out on 3439 three-year-olds in 2002, 2009, and 2017 using WHO criteria for dental caries (dmft, dmft=0, dmft≥4) and the results of a questionnaire filled by their parents with data on sociodemographics, oral hygiene and dietary habits, especially their sugar intake, were assessed. The dmft/dmfs index is applied to the primary dentition and is expressed as the total number of teeth/surfaces that are decayed, missing, or filled. The Cochran-Armitage test for trend was used to assess the fraction changes in time. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to assess the changes in dmft trends and the correlations between behavioural changes, awareness levels, and the prevalence of caries. Within the fifteen-year period minimal changes in the prevalence of early childhood caries (15% down), dmft≥4 (11.4% down) and a lower dmft (36% down) were accompanied by a better parent awareness about the causes of caries and better oral hygiene routines. Sugary beverages were no longer drank at least once a day, however sweetened milk, cake, doughnuts, and sweet rolls were consumed more often. Being female, living in an urban area, having parents more aware about caries, consuming sugary beverages less frequently, brushing teeth twice a day, and using a fluoride toothpaste promoted lower early childhood caries. Gradually healthier teeth are linked to an increased awareness of the parents and healthier routines. A too frequent exposure to sugar promotes early childhood caries. Should the changes of dietary habits be insufficient, brushing teeth with fluoride toothpaste becomes crucial.

Motivation: Obesity is one of the gravest public health challenges facing the world today. Out of different policy action undertaken by counties to counteract these threats, taxes imposed on sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) has gaining growing popularity. They are currently imposed on 47 countries worldwide. The Polish ‘sugar fee’ came into force on January 1, 2021. Aim: The aim of the article is to synthesize the global experience with sugar-sweetened beverages taxation, to assess on that basis the construction of Polish ‘sugar fee’ and to identify key opportunities and threats connected with its implementation. Results: Introduction of ‘sugar fee’ in Poland is consistent with the latest global trends in taxation. Its formula gives an opportunity to stimulate consumers to displace SSBs by other healthier beverages and to incentivize drink manufacturers to reformulate their products and change their marketing strategies. There is growing that evidence ‘sugar taxes’ can be effective tools to achieve public health goals, however its effect must be strengthen by multifaceted instruments (e.g. broad information action). The fiscal potential of ‘sugar fee’ is limited, if we assume that its main purpose is to stimulate healthier consumption patterns.

Background. The aim of the presented research is a case study consisting in an analysis of publicly available Internet articles describing the phenomenon of influencers’ impact in the context of consumer behavior on the food market in Poland. This applies in particular to non-basic, impulsive, high-fat and high-sugar content foodstuffs. An example of that is previously unprecedented demandfor Koral Ekipa sorbet ice cream among children and school youth (up to 17 years of age), which is discussed in this paper. It was a phenomenon observed in April 2021 as a result of the PLL Koral marketing campaign carried out in cooperation with the most popular Polish youtubers, known as Ekipa Friza (Friz’s Team). Results and conclusions. The presented case study demonstrates the power of social media and influencer marketing in shaping consumer behavior among children and school youth. One of the commercial activities of the Team was cooperation with well-known producers and distributors of food products in Poland, such as PPL Koral, Dooti Donuts, Krynica Vitamin and Millano Group. The team assigned its name to four food products, with the Koral-Ekipa ice cream, introduced at the end of March 2021, having the greatest market success. Their sales exceeded by at least 300% other new products in over forty years of Koral's history. High sales figures for ice cream were already achieved in March and April, which prompted the manufacturer to launch an additional line, allowing the production of about one million ice creams a day. In this context, the authors also referred to the impact of influencer marketing on the health of young people and, consequently, the whole society

During World War II, the Soviet Union’s food supply was in a state of crisis. Hitler’s army had occupied the agricultural heartlands of Ukraine and Southern Russia in 1941 and, as a result, agricultural production for the entire nation had plummeted. Soldiers in Red Army, who easily ate the best rations in the country, subsisted on a daily allowance of just under a kilogram of bread, supplemented with meat, tea, sugar and butter when and if these items were available. The hunger of the Red Army and its effect on the morale and strength of Europe’s eastern warfront were causes for concern for the Soviet government and its European and American allies. The one country with a food surplus decided to do something to help, and in 1942 the United States agreed to send thousands of pounds of meat, cheese and butter overseas to help feed the Red Army. After receiving several shipments of the all-American spiced canned meat SPAM, the Red Army’s quartermaster put in a request for a more familiar canned pork product, Russian tushonka. Pound for pound, America sent more pigs overseas than soldiers during World War II, in part because pork was in oversupply in the America of the early 1940s. Shipping meat to hungry soldiers and civilians in war torn countries was a practical way to build business for the U.S. meat industry, which had been in decline throughout the 1930s. As per a Soviet-supplied recipe, the first cans of Lend-Lease tushonka were made in the heart of the American Midwest, at meatpacking plants in Iowa and Ohio (Stettinus 6-7). Government contracts in the meat packing industry helped fuel economic recovery, and meatpackers were in a position to take special request orders like the one for tushonka that came through the lines. Unlike SPAM, which was something of a novelty item during the war, tushonka was a food with a past. The original recipe was based on a recipe for preserved meat that had been a traditional product of the Ural Mountains, preserved in jars with salt and fat rather than by pressure and heat. Thus tushonka was requested—and was mass-produced—not simply as a convenience but also as a traditional and familiar food—a taste of home cooking that soldiers could carry with them into the field. Nikita Khrushchev later claimed that the arrival of tushonka was instrumental in helping the Red Army push back against the Nazi invasion (178). Unlike SPAM and other wartime rations, tushonka did not fade away after the war. Instead, it was distributed to the Soviet civilian population, appearing in charity donations and on the shelves of state shops. Often it was the only meat product available on a regular basis. Salty, fatty, and slightly grey-toned, tushonka was an unlikely hero of the postwar-era, but during this period tushonka rose from obscurity to become an emblem of socialist modernity. Because it was shelf stable and could be made from a variety of different cuts of meat, it proved an ideal product for the socialist production lines where supplies and the pace of production were infinitely variable. Unusual in a socialist system of supply, this product shaped production and distribution lines, and even influenced the layout of meatpacking factories and the genetic stocks of the animals that were to be eaten. Tushonka’s initial ubiquity in the postwar Soviet Union had little to do with the USSR’s own hog industry. Pig populations as well as their processing facilities had been decimated in the war, and pigs that did survive the Axis invasion had been evacuated East with human populations. Instead, the early presence of tushonka in the pig-scarce postwar Soviet Union had everything to do with Harry Truman’s unexpected September 1945 decision to end all “economically useful” Lend-Lease shipments to the Soviet Union (Martel). By the end of September, canned meat was practically the only product still being shipped as part of Lend-Lease (NARA RG 59). Although the United Nations was supposed to distribute these supplies to needy civilians free of cost, travelers to the Soviet Union in 1946 spotted cans of American tushonka for sale in state shops (Skeoch 231). After American tushonka “donations” disappeared from store shelves, the Soviet Union’s meat syndicates decided to continue producing the product. Between its first appearance during the war in 1943, and the 1957 announcement by Nikita Khrushchev that Soviet policy would restructure all state animal farms to support the mass production of one or several processed meat products, tushonka helped to drive the evolution of the Soviet Union’s meat packing industry. Its popularity with both planners and the public gave it the power to reach into food commodity chains. It is this backward reach and the longer-term impacts of these policies that make tushonka an unusual byproduct of the Cold War era. State planners loved tushonka: it was cheap to make, the logistics of preparing it were not complicated, it was easy to transport, and most importantly, it served as tangible evidence that the state was accomplishing a long-standing goal to get more meat to its citizenry and improving the diet of the average Soviet worker. Tushonka became a highly visible product in the Soviet Union’s much vaunted push to establish a modern food regime intended to rival that of the United States. Because it was shelf-stable, wartime tushonka had served as a practical food for soldiers, but after the war tushonka became an ideal food for workers who had neither the time nor the space to prepare a home-cooked meal with fresh meat. The Soviet state started to produce its own tushonka because it was such an excellent fit for the needs and abilities of the Soviet state—consumer demand was rarely considered by planners in this era. Not only did tushonka fit the look and taste of a modern processed meat product (that is, it was standard in texture and flavor from can to can, and was an obviously industrially processed product), it was also an excellent way to make the most of the predominant kind of meat the Soviet Union had the in the 1950s: small scraps low-grade pork and beef, trimmings leftover from butchering practices that focused on harvesting as much animal fat, rather than muscle, from the carcass in question. Just like tushonka, pork sausages and frozen pelmeny, a meat-filled pasta dumpling, also became winning postwar foods thanks to a happy synergy of increased animal production, better butchering and new food processing machines. As postwar pigs recovered their populations, the Soviet processed meat industry followed suit. One official source listed twenty-six different kinds of meat products being issued in 1964, although not all of these were pork (Danilov). An instructional manual distributed by the meat and milk syndicate demonstrated how meat shops should wrap and display sausages, and listed 24 different kinds of sausages that all needed a special style of tying up. Because of packaging shortages, the string that bound the sausage was wrapped in a different way for every type of sausage, and shop assistants were expected to be able to identify sausages based on the pattern of their binding. Pelmeny were produced at every meat factory that processed pork. These were “made from start to finish in a special, automated machine, human hands do not touch them. Which makes them a higher quality and better (prevoskhodnogo) product” (Book of Healthy and Delicious Food). These were foods that became possible to produce economically because of a co-occurring increase in pigs, the new standardized practice of equipping meatpacking plants with large-capacity grinders, and freezers or coolers and the enforcement of a system of grading meat. As the state began to rebuild Soviet agriculture from its near-collapse during the war, the Soviet Union looked to the United States for inspiration. Surprisingly, Soviet planners found some of the United States’ more outdated techniques to be quite valuable for new Soviet hog operations. The most striking of these was the adoption of competing phenotypes in the Soviet hog industry. Most major swine varieties had been developed and described in the 19th century in Germany and Great Britain. Breeds had a tendency to split into two phenotypically distinct groups, and in early 20th Century American pig farms, there was strong disagreement as to which style of pig was better suited to industrial conditions of production. Some pigs were “hot-blooded” (in other words, fast maturing and prolific reproducers) while others were a slower “big type” pig (a self-explanatory descriptor). Breeds rarely excelled at both traits and it was a matter of opinion whether speed or size was the most desirable trait to augment. The over-emphasis of either set of qualities damaged survival rates. At their largest, big type pigs resembled small hippopotamuses, and sows were so corpulent they unwittingly crushed their tiny piglets. But the sleeker hot-blooded pigs had a similarly lethal relationship with their young. Sows often produced litters of upwards of a dozen piglets and the stress of tending such a large brood led overwhelmed sows to devour their own offspring (Long). American pig breeders had been forced to navigate between these two undesirable extremes, but by the 1930s, big type pigs were fading in popularity mainly because butter and newly developed plant oils were replacing lard as the cooking fat of preference in American kitchens. The remarkable propensity of the big type to pack on pounds of extra fat was more of a liability than a benefit in this period, as the price that lard and salt pork plummeted in this decade. By the time U.S. meat packers were shipping cans of tushonka to their Soviet allies across the seas, US hog operations had already developed a strong preference for hot-blooded breeds and research had shifted to building and maintaining lean muscle on these swiftly maturing animals. When Soviet industrial planners hoping to learn how to make more tushonka entered the scene however, their interpretation of american efficiency was hardly predictable: scientifically nourished big type pigs may have been advantageous to the United States at midcentury, but the Soviet Union’s farms and hungry citizens had a very different list of needs and wants. At midcentury, Soviet pigs were still handicapped by old-fashioned variables such as cold weather, long winters, poor farm organisation and impoverished feed regimens. The look of the average Soviet hog operation was hardly industrial. In 1955 the typical Soviet pig was petite, shaggy, and slow to reproduce. In the absence of robust dairy or vegetable oil industries, Soviet pigs had always been valued for their fat rather than their meat, and tushonka had been a byproduct of an industry focused mainly on supplying the country with fat and lard. Until the mid 1950s, the most valuable pig on many Soviet state and collective farms was the nondescript but very rotund “lard and bacon” pig, an inefficient eater that could take upwards of two years to reach full maturity. In searching for a way to serve up more tushonka, Soviet planners became aware that their entire industry needed to be revamped. When the Soviet Union looked to the United States, planners were inspired by the earlier competition between hot-blooded and big type pigs, which Soviet planners thought, ambitiously, they could combine into one splendid pig. The Soviet Union imported new pigs from Poland, Lithuania, East Germany and Denmark, trying valiantly to create hybrid pigs that would exhibit both hot blood and big type. Soviet planners were especially interested in inspiring the Poland-China, an especially rotund specimen, to speed up its life cycle during them mid 1950s. Hybrdizing and cross breeding a Soviet super-pig, no matter how closely laid out on paper, was probably always a socialist pipe dream. However, when the Soviets decided to try to outbreed American hog breeders, they created an infrastructure for pigs and pig breeding that had a dramatic positive impact of hog populations across the country, and the 1950s were marked by a large increase in the number of pigs in the Soviet union, as well as dramatic increases in the numbers of purebred and scientific hybrids the country developed, all in the name of tushonka. It was not just the genetic stock that received a makeover in the postwar drive to can more tushonka; a revolution in the barnyard also took place and in less than 10 years, pigs were living in new housing stock and eating new feed sources. The most obvious postwar change was in farm layout and the use of building space. In the early 1950s, many collective farms had been consolidated. In 1940 there were a quarter of a million kolkhozii, by 1951 fewer than half that many remained (NARA RG166). Farm consolidation movements most often combined two, three or four collective farms into one economic unit, thus scaling up the average size and productivity of each collective farm and simplifying their administration. While there were originally ambitious plans to re-center farms around new “agro-city” bases with new, modern farm buildings, these projects were ultimately abandoned. Instead, existing buildings were repurposed and the several clusters of farm buildings that had once been the heart of separate villages acquired different uses. For animals this meant new barns and new daily routines. Barns were redesigned and compartmentalized around ideas of gender and age segregation—weaned baby pigs in one area, farrowing sows in another—as well as maximising growth and health. Pigs spent less outside time and more time at the trough. Pigs that were wanted for different purposes (breeding, meat and lard) were kept in different areas, isolated from each other to minimize the spread of disease as well as improve the efficiency of production. Much like postwar housing for humans, the new and improved pig barn was a crowded and often chaotic place where the electricity, heat and water functioned only sporadically. New barns were supposed to be mechanised. In some places, mechanisation had helped speed things along, but as one American official viewing a new mechanised pig farm in 1955 noted, “it did not appear to be a highly efficient organisation. The mechanised or automated operations, such as the preparation of hog feed, were eclipsed by the amount of hand labor which both preceded and followed the mechanised portion” (NARA RG166 1961). The American official estimated that by mechanizing, Soviet farms had actually increased the amount of human labor needed for farming operations. The other major environmental change took place away from the barnyard, in new crops the Soviet Union began to grow for fodder. The heart and soul of this project was establishing field corn as a major new fodder crop. Originally intended as a feed for cows that would replace hay, corn quickly became the feed of choice for raising pigs. After a visit by a United States delegation to Iowa and other U.S. farms over the summer of 1955, corn became the centerpiece of Khrushchev’s efforts to raise meat and milk productivity. These efforts were what earned Khrushchev his nickname of kukuruznik, or “corn fanatic.” Since so little of the Soviet Union looks or feels much like the plains and hills of Iowa, adopting corn might seem quixotic, but raising corn was a potentially practical move for a cold country. Unlike the other major fodder crops of turnips and potatoes, corn could be harvested early, while still green but already possessing a high level of protein. Corn provided a “gap month” of green feed during July and August, when grazing animals had eaten the first spring green growth but these same plants had not recovered their biomass. What corn remained in the fields in late summer was harvested and made into silage, and corn made the best silage that had been historically available in the Soviet Union. The high protein content of even silage made from green mass and unripe corn ears prevented them from losing weight in the winter. Thus the desire to put more meat on Soviet tables—a desire first prompted by American food donations of surplus pork from Iowa farmers adapting to agro-industrial reordering in their own country—pushed back into the commodity supply network of the Soviet Union. World War II rations that were well adapted to the uncertainty and poor infrastructure not just of war but also of peacetime were a source of inspiration for Soviet planners striving to improve the diets of citizens. To do this, they purchased and bred more and better animals, inventing breeds and paying attention, for the first time, to the efficiency and speed with which these animals were ready to become meat. Reinventing Soviet pigs pushed even back farther, and inspired agricultural economists and state planners to embrace new farm organizational structures. Pigs meant for the tushonka can spent more time inside eating, and led their lives in a rigid compartmentalization that mimicked emerging trends in human urban society. Beyond the barnyard, a new concern with feed-to weight conversions led agriculturalists to seek new crops; crops like corn that were costly to grow but were a perfect food for a pig destined for a tushonka tin. Thus in Soviet industrialization, pigs evolved. No longer simply recyclers of human waste, socialist pigs were consumers in their own right, their newly crafted genetic compositions demanded ever more technical feed sources in order to maximize their own productivity. Food is transformative, and in this case study the prosaic substance of canned meat proved to be unusually transformative for the history of the Soviet Union. In its early history it kept soldiers alive long enough to win an important war, later the requirements for its manufacture re-prioritized muscle tissue over fat tissue in the disassembly of carcasses. This transformative influence reached backwards into the supply lines and farms of the Soviet Union, revolutionizing the scale and goals of farming and meat packing for the Soviet food industry, as well as the relationship between the pig and the consumer. References Bentley, Amy. Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity. Where: University of Illinois Press, 1998. 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Chances are you’ve heard that, around the globe, people are getting fatter. In fact, you may have read about the “epidemic” of obesity that is causing costly health problems such as heart disease, type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and premature death. Most scientific evidence suggests that approximately 10% of the world’s population is obese (World Health Organization [WHO] WHO 2012b; 2012c, p. 36) and that most of these people live in the northern hemisphere in wealthier countries. The WHO and other groups call obesity a preventable epidemic, like SARS, AIDS, and the flu, caused by the failure of individuals to follow scientific and other rules for increasing exercise and reducing energy intake (calories) and the consumption of specific foods such as sugars and fats (Nestle 2002; Pollan 2008; United States Department of Health and Human Services 2012; WHO 2012c). At the same time that so much attention is given to obesity, hunger and food insecurity imperil almost a billion people globally. While we hear less about the problem of hunger in Western news media, chronic hunger affects approximately 13% of the world’s population, nearly as many people now as it did in the 1970s. Most of these people live in Africa and Southeast Asia (Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] 2012a, pp. 8–9). Many observers believe that hunger is caused by inadequate access to agricultural technologies (International Food Policy Research Institute 2012; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 2013; Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research 2013) or short-term problems such as war or drought (FAO 2012b). Global obesity and global hunger might be seen as independent problems, caused by the personal habits of individuals in the case of obesity or by short-term problems such as war or lack of technical knowledge in the case of hunger. In this chapter, we take a different approach by examining these two phenomena as two sides of the same coin. The causes of hunger and obesity are connected through scientific and technological applications and mediated by political and economic considerations.

The food sector is one of the most important and fastest growing branches of the Polish economy. It employs almost 15% of all employees employed in the industry. Polish manufacturers are characterised by high competitiveness both in the EU and in the world. The macroeconomic environment in recent years has been relatively stable for the development of the food industry production in Poland, but the dynamics of agricultural-food products has experienced a slight slowdown. There were also fluctuations in profitability ratios in the sector, which may have been somewhat alarming for the investors. The article attempted to evaluate the investment attractiveness of 24 joint stock companies in the food sector, representing various industries, listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The Taxonomic Measure of the Attractiveness of Investments (TMAI) and the company rankings were created for the years 2013 – 2016. The results showed that the Wawel and Astarta companies were at the top of the rankings in the studied years, representing the confectionery and the sugar sector, and the Żywiec company from the beer industry. The meat and fish processing companies were more or less centred on the scale. The companies KSG Argo, Milkiland, Wilbo, Pepees and Pamapol involved in the agricultural-food production and processing received the poorest evaluations of the investment attractiveness. The synthetic taxonomic TMAI measure makes it possible to build company rankings within the analyzed group, from the point of view of the assessment of the financial condition and investment attractiveness of the surveyed companies. It can provide additional help in assessing the company’s situation, e.g., for the investors.