Health Care-Diet Solutions

Seeds and beyond: Native Americans embrace ‘food sovereignty’

Christian Science Monitor Richard Mertens 2/22/21

For many Native Americans, the return to traditional foods is part of a wider effort to “decolonize” their people, a way to repair the economic and cultural damage inflicted by European Americans who drove them from their lands, confined them to reservations, sent them to boarding schools, and tried to sever them from their old ways. It means not just planting old seeds but reviving the economic and cultural life, the ceremonies, the customs and beliefs, around food and food production.

New polymer-coated vitamins and minerals

<embed>https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/new-polymer-coated-vitamins-and-minerals-could-fight-malnutrition-low-income-countries</embed> Science Mag 11/13/19

Frustrated by such failures, health policy experts at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington, sought the help of Jaklenec and her supervisor, Robert Langer, an MIT chemical engineer who has pioneered numerous dissolvable coatings for protecting and delivering fragile medicines.

Jaklenec, Langer, and their colleagues initially considered more than 50 different polymer coatings that were stable in boiling water but would dissolve in the stomach’s acidic environment. After narrowing the list to 10 candidates and studying each closely, they settled on a polymer known as BMC. A protective coating in dietary supplements, BMC is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (and therefore considered safe). The MIT team coated 11 micronutrient powders in BMC, including iron, zinc, folate, vitamin A, and vitamin D. They also coated microparticles containing up to four different vitamins and minerals. Lab testing showed that all stood up well to heat, ultraviolet light, and even 2 hours straight of being cooked in boiling water. The particles also readily dissolved in a low pH solution meant to mimic stomach acid.