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Dr.Robert Lucas’ View on Flours

Submitted by Dr. Robert Lucas   Dr. Robert D. Lucas Dun-Low lane Bridgetown Barbados, BB11157 robertd.lucas@gmail.com   2nd September, 2018 Barbados Underground Bridgetown, Barbados West Indies Dear Sir/Madam, Recently, there has been a hue and cry in the local media about the use of Cassava flour In the manufacture of baked goods Barbadians seem to…

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Submitted by Dr. Robert Lucas

 

Composite-FlourDr. Robert D. Lucas

Dun-Low lane

Bridgetown

Barbados, BB11157

robertd.lucas@gmail.com

 

2nd September, 2018

Barbados Underground

Bridgetown, Barbados

West Indies

Dear Sir/Madam,

Recently, there has been a hue and cry in the local media about the use of Cassava flour

In the manufacture of baked goods Barbadians seem to want to re-invent the wheel. The use of composite flours (wheaten flours plus cassava flour for examples) in the manufacture of bread has been practiced as early as the 1950’s and 1960’s (Kim JC and de Ruiter D. “Bread from non-Wheat Flours”. Food Technology. 1968. 22:7: 767-787 and “Bread from Composite Flour”.1969. FAO Technical Bulletin.. Indeed in the last century, there was much talk about import substitution, the saving of foreign currency and the development of indigenous agricultural and food–processing industries in developing countries. As a result in 1977 when I started my PH.D research at St. Augustine Campus, composite flour was the buzz word in Barbados. The late Professor of Food Technology, George M. Sammy asked me what area of research I was interested in. I told him that composite flour seemed to be a good idea, since I had already done quite a bit of research on fruit juices and wanted to change my research interest. Prof. Sammy laughed and told me that composite flour had been beaten to a frazzle.

All of the baking conditions for bread from composite flours have documented by Kim and de Ruiter and the FAO Technical bulletin and other more recent publications. A perusal of the literature teaches one how to overcome problems with the loaf volume and dough strength. The ratio of Cassava flour to wheaten flours is also documented.

There has also been some talk about the Ministry of Agriculture doing research on Cassava varieties. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s numerous variety of Cassava were imported from South America for the same purpose that is being talked about today. It seems that we are on a merry go round in this island

Sincerely

 

Robert D. Lucas, PH.D., CFS.

Food Biotechnologist.

69 responses to “Dr.Robert Lucas’ View on Flours”

  1. Piece Uh De Rock Yeah Right - INRI Avatar
    Piece Uh De Rock Yeah Right – INRI

    @ Sargeant

    You post at 10.10 a.m. specifically the “knee jerk” aspect of your posit is disingenuous at best and idiotic at worst.

    Finite embodied existence of which class of being you number, MUST INHABIT PROXIMATE SPACE, BEFORE IT ATTAINS ITS ULTIMATE DESTINATION.

    In simple terms, you and me, as humans, SANS TELEPATHY OR TELEPORTATION, can only engage base of the iterative basis of acquisition of solid, liquid or gas, through sensory organs or via shared communications.

    Speech is “acquired” through your synthesis of contiguous sounds composed of vowels and consonants and the same holds for reading where a sequence of letters, in a specific language, conveys a particular concept. Video combines a graphic and sounds to create a similar outcome.

    To use that term knee jerk is a simplistic pronouncement akin to a man reading the first line of a tale of two cities and stating emphatically that the book is going to be a boring book because you assume some deity of sentience we other mortals do not have for unlike us, you do not have “begin points” you do not take 1,000 steps to reach your destination of one mile, you just turn and you are there, transported by higher sentience.

    The author suggests cassava as a viable supplement/additive/alternative to GMO materials and the idea of indigenous supply is an extrapolation from that “begin point” cause my man, I ent know wu planet you living pun but, this system dat we employing in Barbados jest ent wukking.

    BU is a humanoid mechanism through which we simple sentient beings suggest these “begin points” notwithstanding I am sure that others here would benefit greatly from your advanced telepathy and transmutation techniques that subsume “knee jerks”

  2. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    mrs fraser unfortunately
    1 died too young
    2 was black and maybe too poor to be influential

    however, it can not be denied that she had very useful ideas

    there is a lot of talk about sugar and salt BUT NONE ABOUT HORMONES- WHICH IS APPARENTLY THE REAL CAUSATIVE AGENT IN DISEASE

    IF SUGAR WAS THE MAIN CULPRIT IN DIABETES FOR INSTANCE THEN SHOULD NOT DIABETICS JUST EAT LHTS OF PROTEIN AND FAT—- AFTER ALL YOU CANT TURN FAT INTO SUGAR (ALTHOUGH GLYCEROL CAN BE CONVERTED INTO A LITTLE BIT OF SUGAR BY GLUCONEOGENESIS)

  3. Well Well & Consequences Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences

    GP…people been talking about casava as a anothrr staple as well as an export product for many yesrs, no one listens, they prefer depend on tourists….ONLY. buena suerte.

  4. Kammie Holder Avatar
    Kammie Holder

    Oh by the way, Cassava leaves and Sweet Potato leaves are eaten all over Africa and some parts of Asia. Can we not export these leaves?

    I forget we are still dumb enough as a black diaspora to be waiting for a neocolonist to start a direct shipping and airline route from the Caribbean. #CaricomInept #VisionlessCaricomLeaders #ANewWay

  5. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    sOME INFO ON GENETIC ENGINEERING

    • Today, over 18 million people in the United States have diabetes, a group of diseases resulting from abnormally high blood glucose levels. One cause is from the inability of the body to produce sufficient levels of insulin (referred to as juvenile or insulin-dependent diabetes or type I diabetes) to control the blood glucose level.
    • This means that diabetics must receive daily injections of the protein to survive.
    • Before 1982, diabetics received purified insulin extracted and purified from the pancreas of cattle and pig cadavers. This can pose a problem because animal insulin could trigger allergenic reactions and possibly contain unknown viruses that had infected the animal.
    • The solution was to produce insulin using genetic engineering techniques. Eli Lilly marketed the first such synthetic insulin, called Humulin, in 1982.
    • Since then, other genetically-engineered insulin products have been developed. Such commercial successes of biotech¬nology were a sign of things to come.
    • The best way to understand how genetic engineering operates is to follow an actual procedure for the production of insulin. •
    • Microlnquiry 8 describes one of the early methods—by cloning the human gene for insulin into bacterial cells.
    • This involves isolating the piece of DNA containing the human insulin gene, precisely cutting the gene out, and splicing the insulin gene into a bacterial plasmid.
    • The recombinant DNA then is placed in bacterial cells like E. coli, forming clones. The cells transcribe the mRNA, translate it into the protein, and then secrete the human insulin.
    • Besides insulin, a number of other proteins of important pharmaceutical value to humans have been produced by genetically-engineered microorganisms.
    • Many of these proteins, such as the interferons, are produced in relatively low amounts in the body, making purification extremely costly. Therefore, the only economical solution to obtain significant amounts of the product is through genetic engineering.
    • In 2005, thousands of biotechnology companies worldwide were working on the commercial and practical applications of genetic engineering.
    • Some are research companies with special units for these studies, while others were established solely to pursue and develop new products by gene engineering techniques. Let’s look at a few examples.
    • Environmental biology.
    • We already know the usefulness of prokaryotes as a source of genes.
    • Prokaryotes represent a huge, mostly untapped gene pool representing metabolically diverse processes. Examples such as bioremediation have been discussed where genetically engineered or genetically recombined prokaryotic cells are provided with specific genes whose products will break down pollutants, clean up waste materials, or degrade oil spills.
    • We have barely scratched the surface to take advantage of the metabolic diversity present in prokaryotes.
    • Antibiotic production.
    • The presence or threat of infectious disease represents a high demand for antibiotics.
    • Therefore, many antibiotics today are produced commercially using microorganisms. Although antibiotics are produced in nature, the bacterial or fungal cell often does not produce these compounds in high yield.
    • Furthermore, as no new class of antibiotics has been identified since the early 1990’s, existing compounds need to be redesigned to reach their targets more efficiently.
    • This means the microbes must be genetically engineered to produce larger quantities of antibiotics and/or to produce modified antibiotics to which infectious microbes have yet to show resistance.
    • Pharmaceutical applications.
    • The pharmaceutical products of DNA are numerous and diverse
    • Many of the genetically engineered products are either the organism itself or proteins expressed by recombinant DNA in clones
    • Agricultural applications. Genetic engineering has extended into many realms of science.
    • In agriculture, for example, genes for herbicide resistance have been transplanted from bacterial cells into tobacco plants, demonstrating that these transgenic plants better tolerate the herbicides used for weed control.
    • For tomato growers, a notable advance was made when researchers at Washington University spliced genes from a pathogenic virus into tomato plant cells and demonstrated the cells would produce viral proteins at their surface.
    • The viral proteins blocked viral infection, providing resistance to the transgenic tomato plants.
    •
    • For gene transfer experiments in plants, the vector DNA often used for transfer is a plasmid from the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens.
    • This organism causes a plant tumor called crown gall, which develops when DNA from the bacterial cells inserts itself into the plant cell’s chromosomes. Researchers remove the tumor-inducing gene from the plasmid and then splice the desired gene into the plasmid and allow the bacterial cells to infect the plant.
    • The dairy industry was the first to feel the dramatic effect of the new DNA technology. In the 1980s, researchers at Cornell University injected dairy cows with bovine growth hormone (BGH) produced from bacterial cells engineered with the BGH gene. They reported a 41 percent increase in milk from the experimental cows.
    • Also being developed is a pig with more meat and less fat, a product of genetically engineered porcine growth hormone.
    • Scientists at Auburn University have endowed young carp with extra copies of activated growth hormone genes, hoping to enable the fish to grow more efficiently in aquacultural surroundings.
    •
    • Detection and diagnosis. The genes of an organism contain the essential information responsible for its behavior and characteristics.
    • Bacterial pathogens, for example, contain specific sequences of nucleotides that can confer on the pathogen the ability to infect and cause disease in the host.
    • Because these nucleotide sequences are distinctive and often unique, if detectable, they can be used as a definitive diagnostic determinant.
    •
    • In the medical laboratory, diagnosticians are optimistic about the use of DNA probes, single-stranded DNA molecules that recognize and bind to a distinctive and unique nucleotide sequence of a pathogen.
    • The DNA probe binds (hybridizes) to its complementary nucleotide sequence from the pathogen, much like strips of Velcro stick together.
    • To make a probe, scientists first identify the DNA segment (or gene) in the pathogen that will be the target of a probe. Using this segment, they construct the single-stranded DNA probe.
    • More than 100 DN probes have been developed for the detection of pathogenic viruses and microbes.
    •
    •
    • As an example, a DNA probe exists for the early detection of malarial infections caused by the protozoan Plasmodium falciparum. DNA isolated from the tissues of the suspect patient and fragmented into single-stranded DNA segments. These segments are attached to a solid support.
    • The labeled DNA probe is added. If the DNA sample from the patient contains the target P. falciparum DNA segment, the probe binds to the complementary nucleotide sequence.
    • In doing so, it concentrates the label (radioactivity,fluorescence, or a colored chemical) at that site and indicates a match has been made.
    • Clearly, the use of DNA probes represents a reliable and rapid method for detecting and diagnosing many human infectious diseases.
    •
    • Vaccine production. Microbial vaccines traditionally have been either killed or attenuated (inactivated) preparations. Sometimes attenuated microbial preparations are not completely inactivated and a slight chance exists that the patient could develop the disease for which they have been vaccinated.
    • Today, genetic engineering has developed subunit vaccines, which are risk free for people being vaccinated The hepatitis B vaccine, for example, is perfectly safe because the vaccine is made from only the protein coat subunits of the virus.
    • The viral genes for the coat are cloned in yeast cells, and the viral protein harvested as the vaccine. Active hepatitis B viruses cannot arise from such vaccine material.
    •
    •
    • Recombinant vaccines also are attractive because the precise genetic makeup of the vaccine is known, often making the administration of higher doses possible without the development of serious side effects.
    • Such vaccines can be produced faster than traditional vaccines, although they are not always cheaper.
    • Also being developed are DNA vaccines where the genetic material (a gene) is the vaccine.
    • Such gene vaccines often produce immunity in the individual in which the gene has been taken up. Again, they should be safe and cheaper to produce.
    •
    • Lastly it should be mentioned that genetically engineered products are not always a “no brainer” in terms of their development. This is no clearer than in the attempts to develop a vaccine for AIDS.
    • Since 1987, scientists and genetic engineers have tried to identify viral subunits that can be used to develop an AIDS vaccine
    • However, it is not so much that genetic engineering can’t be done as it is the virus just seems to find ways to circumvent a vaccine and the immunity developing in the patient.
    • Still, scientists hope a safe and effective genetically-engineered vaccine can be developed.

  6. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    @PUDRYR
    I believe that you have something so say but you should recalibrate your weapon because your aim is askew, hope they accept you back in sharp shooting school.

    I gather from the author’s piece that there is some disquiet about the composition of flours in Barbados and he was simply iterating that flour has had other components for a considerable time and he was also commenting on the availability of cassava flour. Now up rides Bush Tea on his trusty steed to write that Gov’t should impose a “health levy on flour” and about many black people have celiac disease. That response in my opinion counts as “knee jerk” and I have no apologies to make for that statement.

    BTW that prose you proffered bordered on PHD material and yuh had this lesser mortal scrambling for his Thesaurus.

  7. Piece Uh De Rock Yeah Right - INRI Avatar
    Piece Uh De Rock Yeah Right – INRI

    @ De Word aka DPD

    I should have made some disclaimers when I concurred wit Chad 99999 on “amiable dunces”

    Normal Governments elsewhere are facilitators our successive governments are competitors.

    Normal governments have enabling mechanisms and Human Resources that are capable of providing that support that entrepreneurs need, our mock stick government does not. In fact the agencies so mandates are, in their majority filled with public service minded staff AND NOT ENTREPRENEUR SUPPORT HR!!!

    Normal governments have micro enterprise development agencies which coexist with and ably assist SMEs. We in Barbados have pretend Bank Managers masquerading as MEDIs and pretenders wanting to get their money on SME funding

    Look in the paper today and you will the embodiment of what I am speaking about.

    SBA CEO Lynette Holder, a member of the Bridgetown Credit Union is consorting with its CEO Steve Belle to force the Minister of Finance Sinckler to instruct the Barbados central Bank to permit her credit union to access the central bank guarantee so that he and she can divvy up the money among the SBA members that suck her and Mugabe’s pooch!!!

    Gentlemen leh we get serious here!!! We need to call this shyte what it is.

    And De Word you dun know that we do not have a private sector with a mindset to support new technologies like first world countries, what we have are a band of leeches that trade in imported produce!!!

    What a man like Dr Lucas or Dr GP or any son or daughter of the soil encounters is not camaraderie it is sanctioned extermination at the hands of our own citizens

    I see that another black man in America had adopted my ting about not standing ever again to the Bajan National anthem because it ent bout me or you my brother it is about form without substance.

    I therefore categorically re-state my agreement with part of Chad s posit i.e. that we have amiable dunces and I further re-state what I said before and append that “the normal dynamic of a country committed to development through positive actions of private and public sector actors, DOES NOT EXIST”

  8. Bernard Codrington. Avatar
    Bernard Codrington.

    GOB is not responsible for taking innovative ideas to market. But for the past 40years it has been doing so from BADMC. The causes of NCDS are now more clearly identified. This should provide a market and a reasonable chance of making these local products profitable. Congratulations Robert Lucas for your inforamatve article and your attempts to educate Barbadians over your whole career.

  9. Piece Uh De Rock Yeah Right - INRI Avatar
    Piece Uh De Rock Yeah Right – INRI

    @ Sargeant

    Forgive the theosophical discourse.

    This is what I read “… “nothing new under the sun” and people have been using some version of cassava flour for millennia the difference here is that Dr. Lucas wrote about the subject and people here want the Gov’t to set up Cassava plantations.

    The knee jerk response to articles is overwhelming.”

    I interpreted that you had said “what he, Dr Lucas spoke or regarding what his thesis was based on, was not new” and that ensuing suggestions or what I called “begin points” for indigenous alternatives were “knee jerk reactions”

    I was only saying circuitously that the gateway that BU provided should be a “begin point” facilitator but I see that your focus was on another aspect of that former post

    My bad.

    I blame my dimness on the fact that I recently was conversing with a certain body here and something may have rubbed off, lolol

  10. Sunshine Sunny Shine Avatar
    Sunshine Sunny Shine

    Dr Lucas is a brilliant scientist, but with his brilliance, he allowed arrogance, egotistic behaviour, self-centredness, haughtiness, high-mindedness and lack of wisdom in certain situations to take centre stage. He has not gotten his rightful dues because of the latter behaviour. Other than that, this man should have been picked up like a rear commodity and utilised to his full potential.

  11. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    Still here using Carmeta’s cookbook. Marion Harte took over from Carmeta and did as good a job as could be expected under the circumstances.

  12. Exclaimer Avatar
    Exclaimer

    @ Donna,

    I know that you like playing the role of the housewife (smile – remember?).

    The link that i sent earlier includes the recipe below. It sounds like a pone or a stew dumpling mix.

    Cassava pudding:

    Grated cassava roots are mixed with grated coconut and sugar. A banana leaf is cut in to two big pieces and softened over fire. Half of the cassava mixture is put on one piece of the bananaleaf, folded and tied. The other package is prepared in a similar manner. Both packages are putin a greased tin or a small pan and baked in a moderately hot oven until brown. The cassava pudding could either be served hot or cold. A variation in a similar dish involves steaming the pudding instead of baking and groundnut flour could replace the coconut cream

  13. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    Exclaimer,

    I am like GP. I have a memory like an elephant.

    Thanks for the recipe!

  14. Anonymice - The Gazer Avatar
    Anonymice – The Gazer

    Pudding or pone.
    I know pone but never used banana leaves in the preparation.
    Wondering if exclaimer getting his recipes mixed up —- conkies 🙂
    (last line was said in jest)

  15. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    The Bdos national anthem is indicative of becoming a member of the DLP.Never me and that unholy alliance. Just take a drive along the Westbury Road section of the cemetery wall and it’s enough to make one wonder what these ahzouls will think of next.effing clungs.

  16. chad99999 Avatar
    chad99999

    de Dribbler has launched another unprovoked attack on my comment about the need for governments to systematically teach selected local businessmen how to launch and manage business ventures that exploit new technologies.
    So let me point out that governments have or can acquire the connections and capability to do many things. They can hire the best expert consultants available — from the region and around the world — to tutor entrepreneurs in the practical details of financing, producing, and marketing the products generated by a specific new technology. They can create or broker partnerships between foreigners and local businessmen to demonstrate the new technology in local pilot projects — pioneering farms and factories that help tackle the practical obstacles that must be overcome before the profitability of a new technology can be assured. They can even provide loan guarantees for individual ventures.
    I don’t expect politicians or their officials to have practical expertise in agricultural or manufacturing enterprise. I do expect them to hire experts and finance demonstration projects.

  17. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    No Chad45, there can be so real semblance of an ‘unprovoked attack’ in blogging. As soon as we opine others are free to agree or disagree…there is no attack unless you are thin-skinned and cannot debate your own opinions.

    Your remarks at 4:22 PM speak eloquently to a government’s involvement. What I described as the tarmac from which private enterprise flies or what Codrington described as “GOB is not responsible for taking innovative ideas to market.” Your earlier remarks were a mishmash that befuddled commonsense. You clarified that.

    You obviously enjoy provocative posting to prod others…and I do take your bait So don’t try to disown your model this late in the game. You are also obviously a quite intelligent fellow despite any of the personality flaws about which I have accused you previously. So let’s not add wimping-from-debate to those. LOLL.

  18. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    I didn’t know that people had stopped growing cassava and stopped producing cassava flour. In my family we never stopped. Right now my cassava planted at the beginning of the rainy season is tall enough and green enough that yo.u could hide a whole army in the field. At the beginning of the dry season I’ll make enough cassava flour to tide me through to the beginning of the next rainy season. And so it has always gone.

    Pone, cassava bakes, come November and the pumpkins are ripe blackeyed pea soup with cassava dumplings.

    If you have access to any land at all, why would you eat any differently?

  19. balance Avatar
    balance

    “Exclaimer September 3, 2016 at 7:59 AM #

    It is up to the University of the West Indies to carry out research that will benefit our region. However we all know but that institute is inept and not fit for purpose.”

    No Sir- the problem is insularity. No progress will be made satisfactorily at any level or any respect garnered internationally unless we are able to disabuse ourselves of the fantasy that our two by three nations can stand alone. United we stand -divided we fall.

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