The Great Canadian Invention Series: Pablum Baby Food or Cereal

Time to feed your baby solid food. What are you going to feed her or him? Or do you have any ideas for breakfast for babies. Let me give you one suggestion, how about baby pablum - another great Canadian invention. Did you also know that Bobby Orr, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Trudeau and Anne Murray had pablum baby cereal for breakfast when they were infants. Well, I did not. The pablum baby food story started with three doctors working at the SickKids Hospital at Toronto back in 1930s who were concerned about the nutritional value of baby's daily diet. Back then cereals were part of the baby's diet, but there was not enough vitamins and minerals to ensure healthy growth and development. First, the nutritional biscuit for children was invented which was fortified with vitamins. After intensive research and testing in that area this lead to invention of the pre-cooked highly in the nutritional value cereal called pablum. It was based on the wheat meal, oatmeal, cornmeal, wheat germ, bone meal, dried brewer's yeast and alfalfa, and so it is now.

The Great Canadian Invention Series: Mashed Potato Flakes and Other Instant Food Processes

It was Dr. Edward Asselbergs from the Canada Department of Agriculture in Ottawa who in 1961 develop a process for making instant mashed potato flakes that tasted like real homemade version of mashed potatoes. From this idea Dr. Asselbergs moved to make instant meat, chicken, fish and cheese products. If you interested Google Patent search engine is excellent for listing all kinds of patents, and here what I found for mashed potato flakes: PREPARATION OF DEHYDRATED COOKED MASHED POTATO Patent number: 3260607 Issue date: Jul 1966 Inventor: Asselbergs et al.

In addition, it was Dr. W. H. Cook from the Canadian National Research Council, a Director of the Applied Biology Division who came up with several methods to meet the emergency food requirement for troops during World War II. His invention was a special refrigerated storage system used to transport close to 20% of the perishable foods to Britain. He also devised an improved process for drying whole egg powder.

Interesting Video to Watch: The Truth about Pandemics

To follow up on my last post about the swine flu, here are some other interesting findings about current outbreak of swine flu or H1N1 flu.

Video: The Truth about Pandemics from Livescience.com where Dr. Siegel explains why we sometimes panic too much about pandemics, and how media and the government escalates these issues.

On the other hand here is a very interesting claim about the H1N1 flu or swine flu of which I am not surprised about, Claim: Swine Flu Possibly Created in the Lab, Submitted by Robert Roy Britt posted: 13 May 2009 12:58 pm ET, Livescience.com.

In addition, I found this article Pandemics and Pandemic Threats since 1900, an article outlining major pandemics that occurred since 1900 and some major pandemic threats. This article is from PandemicFlu.gov site, another great site to explore and educate yourself:

‘PandemicFlu.gov provides comprehensive government-wide information on pandemic influenza and avian influenza for the general public, health and emergency preparedness professionals, policy makers, government and business leaders, school systems, and local communities.’; Source: About Us, PandemicFlu.gov site.

To conclude this post I want to add one more link, a link to the Canadian site where you can find very useful information about fighting flu, protecting yourself, and the most recent status of the flu in your area or province – FightFlu.ca. Yes, protect yourself, and protect others.

The Great Canadian Invention Series: Why the McIntosh Apple is called McIntosh?

The McIntosh apple was discovered in 1811 by John McIntosh on a little farm Dundas County, Ontario, Canada. John McIntosh found a group of trees growing wild on this farm, and since the apples then where part of farmer’s nutritious diet, he moved all of them closer to his farm house. To his and other farmer’s surprise one of the trees was producing juicy, crispy and very fragrant apples. However, it was only one apple tree that was bearing them. Branches of that one apple tree were grafted to other apple tree, a technique where branch from one fruit are transplanted into another tree. The result was successful. And this is how the McIntosh apple became the most popular apple in Canada started by the McIntosh family.

Are You Ready to Make Your Own Apple Sauce?
Yes you are because it is very simple. Get your ingredients, the McIntosh apples – as many as you wish. Peel, slice or dice all the apples, and cooked them in covered pot until mushy – low heat please. Serve warm or cool, with ice cream, yogurt, or oatmeal.