Why Water Matters in our Food?

     Sudanese men pull drinking water from a well in Shendi, Sudan. Lack of
                       drinking water remains to be problematic in most homes in Shendi.(Associated Press)

More pictures about World Water Day   from Boston:

• The World Water DayThe World Water Day in 2012 is intended to draw the international attention on the relationships between water & food security. “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” and water is one of the fundamental input factor to the food production."



All You Eat Video  is a promo by  UN for World Water Day 2012  and launched by the Food and Agriculture organization (FAO)  and check this animation as well.
This is another effective video by UNICEF: 2 lives, 2 miles apart series // Water
 

HORECA :A Feast for the Senses

Horeca is the region's largest trade show for both the hospitality and food and beverage service industry. This is the 19th edition for HORECA.
 Date: Tuesday to Friday ( March 20-March 23)
Where: Biel, Beirut, Lebanon
What: More than 350 companies from Bahrain, Egypt, France, Iran, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, KSA, Lebanon, Poland, Sri Lanka,  Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey and the UAE will participate in more
than 10 daily events.
Find the Full program here.

I will be attending Horeca 2012 ( As Al-Wazir invited me)  to check the latest news of the Food and Beverage industry in Lebanon and the region. Besides the companies' exhibting their products, there will alot of live shows, symposiums and contests ( Check the events  below). I will also be interviewing owners of Lebanese food industrialists to see their  future expectations, their fears and their innovations!
I think it is interesting that this show is taking place just recently after the scandals of selling expired food in the lebanese markets. So what will these exhibitors have to prove to the Lebanese? Let us wait and see these few days!

Matteh, A Healthy Traditional Drink

Throw away your energy drinks! Matteh is much better! 

In winter, our house was like a walk-in industrial freezer. So we had to keep ourselves warm with a heater, and surely with food and drink.
Cocoa milk, hot custard, rice and milk ( riz bi haleeb) were always there to keep us warm and give us energy. Not to mention the whole set of hot drinks, green tea, black tea, zhourat ( i.e flower mix ), rosemary tea, ..and finally Yerba Mate.
Yerba mate was our afternoon tradition, sipping it while eating a chocolate bar aside!
Even during Ramadan, mom made it custom for us after we break our fast to drink matteh ( the lebanese pronunciation). Drinking quinched our thirst, rehydrated our bodies, gave us energy and eased digestion!
Below will be the scientific proofs for all what we felt after drinking it.

History:

Yerba mate has indeed an exquisite history. It is not Lebanese. It is originally a South American drink:

• The Guarani peoples of South America were the earliest to harvest and drink yerba mate.  
• They considered the yerba tree a gift of the gods and they called it the "drink of the gods".  
• Yerba Mates was part of their rituals and as used as a currency of exchange with the Incas and the Charruas. 
•  Every part of the preparation and drinking of yerba mate is in fact a ceremony or ritual.
• When the Spanish conquistadors came to Argentina early in the 16 th century and found the indigenous people drinking yerba mate, they tried the tea, liked it, and learned how to brew the tea.
• This created a demand for the tea all over Europe and by the 1600s the Jesuits were harvesting and cultivating it on yerba mate plantations. It was called the "Tea of Jesuits".

Today it is being cultivated on plantations in parts of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Many attempts have been made to cultivate the herb in similar areas on other continents, but outstandingly they have all failed.
The custom of yerba mate from processing to consumption has basically remained unchanged from early times.
The huge Lebanese diaspora that reside all over the world and mostly in South America, brought this drink and habit to Lebanon when they came back.
Drinking matteh or yerba mate in Lebanon is mostly common among those who reside in the mountains.

Nutritional Content:

Anorexia Nervosa

”I love food and hate exercise. I don’t have time to work out… I don’t want to be on the cover of Playboy or Vogue. I want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone or Q. I’m not a trend-setter… I’m a singer… I’d rather weigh a ton and make an amazing album then look like Nicole Richie and do a shit album. My aim in life is never to be skinny.”

-Adele Adkins

Realisticaly, woman should care about their bodies in terms of keeping themselves healthy but not starving themselves so that they can fit the “prefect-skinny” image created by media, which may or may not make them look more beautiful. Adele's interview with the Rolling Stones magazine in April 2011 might be one of the most influential quotes I have came across about the image created by media.

 For this, I interviewed Dr. Lama Mattar, who did her PhD in human nutrition in University Pierre Marie Curie to explain further this subject from the scientific point of view. Mattar, who is specialized in eating disorders, lists the types of eating disorders as anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa, and eating disorders not otherwise specified (EDNOS).