Food manufacturers face immense industry pressures, from eliminating production inefficiencies to reducing waste to maintaining profitability when costs continue to rise. But among the laundry list of concerns, food and plant safety ranks at the top of the list.

Foodborne diseases have always been a concern for manufacturers, but with the advent of the Internet, social media and the 24-hour news cycle, any outbreak that occurs can quickly become breaking news and put the public on high alert. The cost of a food product recall on both reputation and revenue can be swift and devastating.

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified that 65 percent of disease outbreaks occur in restaurants, with seeded vegetables as the number one offender, the public still looks to the food processing and manufacturing plants when an outbreak first occurs.

All processors know that a proactive approach to quality, compliance and safety while diligently adhering to established guidelines is essential protection for both the consumer and the company.

There are a few key proactive measures that food processors can take to ensure quality, compliance and safety.

Proper Plant Equipment

For most food processors, product safety begins in the plant. With product running constantly, equipment and facilities that are easy to clean and durable are essential parts of any safety program.

When it comes to equipment, it is universally accepted that stainless steel is the preferred choice. From the production line to shrink packaging equipment, stainless steel has numerous benefits for the processing plant:

• Easy to Clean — Stainless steel’s smooth, non-porous surface is easy to clean and sanitize as it doesn’t have cracks that could harbor potentially dangerous bacteria.

• Corrosion Resistant — Over time, the harsh chemicals used in the wash-down process can cause areas of corrosion on some materials, creating potential danger spots for bacterial growth. Stainless steel is highly resistant to pitting and corrosion even after extended heavy use and repeated cleaning.

• Non-Reactive — Stainless steel will not take on flavors, odors or colors from the food, making it easier to clean and eliminating the worry of transfer of flavors to other products.

• Long-lasting — Stainless steel stands up to rigorous abuse, resists corrosion and requires minimal maintenance and repairs.

Once the proper equipment is in place, processors can take their commitment to safety one step further by employing packaging and ingredient advancements into their operations.

Addressing Shelf Life

Ensuring that products can remain safely on shelves is another concern for processors. While the average product shelf life can vary depending on how a product is packaged — 20-90 days for meat and poultry — processors can maintain product integrity by using packaging advancements and functional ingredients to help extend salability and safety.

Modified-atmosphere packaging enables processors to inject packaging with carbon dioxide to minimize oxidation and preserve product freshness. Similarly, post-pasteurization packaging destroys unsafe bacteria by applying a thermal or pressure treatment to products like processed meats. Finally, a bulk packaging system helps to extend the shelf life for case-ready meat and poultry in retailers by placing proteins in overwrapped trays and only bringing out product as needed.

In addition to using innovative packaging to reduce spoilage and extend shelf life, processors may also consider incorporating functional ingredients and additives into processing operations to help enhance product freshness.

In place of traditionally used phosphates, an increasing number of processors are turning to phosphate alternative solutions to eliminate organism growth, reduce free moisture and improve product yields and safety.

While stainless steel plant equipment and packaging technology empower processors to take control of safety, food packagers are also stepping up their efforts to satisfy their customer base and to instill confidence and trust.

Committing to Quality & Safety

Food processors have a responsibility to provide safe, quality products. In a world where food safety issue after food safety issue makes headlines nearly every week, it’s not enough for food processors alone to make food safety a priority. They need to partner with suppliers who share their commitment to safety.

One way that processing and packaging vendors can show that they’re on board is by earning quality certifications. There are several global food safety certification programs, such as ISO 22002 or the Food Marketing Institute’s Safe Quality Food certification program, that are widely recognized by both retailers and food-service providers.

Certified suppliers are able to provide verifiable evidence showing that food safety control systems and monitoring procedures have been implemented. Food processors should raise the expectations for their suppliers and insist that they have one of these global quality certifications.

The priorities and demands of food safety are driving change in the industry, and forward-thinking processors are taking notice and taking charge. By proactively tackling food safety head on, processors have the opportunity to instill consumer confidence and provide the highest quality and satisfaction.

By Kathy Morris in "Food Manufacturing", USA, vol.29, n.4, July/August 2016, excerpts p.12. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Textured Soy Flour

Demand for lean protein is on the rise, as are meat block prices. Given that convergence of trends, it’s no wonder meat processors are taking a second look at their meat extension options. Most often, meat processors incorporate a form of textured soy protein into their meat block. These products can provide meatlike texture, mouthfeel and visual appearance, while dramatically reducing formulation costs, boosting yield and, in many applications, improving performance. They come in a wide array of forms, sizes, shapes and colors, but choose wisely. Use the wrong one, and it could prove costly.

Choosing the Right Soy Protein

Two of the most common soy meat extenders — textured soy flour and textured soy concentrate — are often confused. Textured soy flour includes the sugars and dietary fiber naturally contained in the soybean, while textured soy concentrate does not. That distinction has little effect on the functionality or appearance of the two products, but can represent a significant difference to the bottom line. Textured soy flour is usually half the cost of concentrate. For a meat processor producing 50 million pounds of 30 percent soy-extended meat annually, switching to textured soy flour could translate into a saving of $1.875 million.

Get beyond the cost savings, however, and you’ll find few differences in the two products. Both benefit from the same advances in extrusion technology. The biggest leap forward — twin screw extrusion — dramatically reduces the amount of friction and heat in the production process, resulting in a more uniform product. It requires a multi-million dollar investment by ingredient suppliers, but for those committed to quality, the resulting flakes and minced pieces offer far greater uniformity in size, shape and color. That consistency is especially important in meat applications, where particle size, color and shape play a major role in hydration.

Functional soy proteins can form strong gels and have high water-binding capacity. In meat applications, textured soy products help retain moisture, resulting in a juicier, more desirable end product. Meat tends to release its water, but textured soy protein can hold six times its weight in water. This water-binding capacity is a benefit for a range of applications, from meat patties to egg rolls. Similarly, in kettle-cooked products like chili, textured soy protein can absorb the melted fat, improving product appearance and customer appeal. Textured soy protein even offers nutritional benefits, resulting in leaner meats with higher protein levels.

Textured soy flour holds one additional edge over its more expensive counterpart. In sensory panel testing, products made with textured soy flour consistently score higher in flavor and overall liking, as compared to those made with textured soy concentrate. The difference in preferences likely comes from the presence of natural soybean sugars which remain in the textured soy flour products.

These same sugars explain why textured soy flour has a lower protein level than concentrate. Where textured soy flour has a minimum 50 percent protein, textured soy concentrate has a minimum 65 percent. However, moving to textured soy flour decreases the overall protein level of the final product by a small amount, often as little as one percent or less.

Selecting Particle Size

Regardless of the textured soy protein option used, one size definitely doesn’t fit all. Matching the right size, shape and color to the meat application is critical. Minced pieces work best in applications like chili, pizza toppings and taco filling, where particle definition is important. Flaked particles are best for patties, nuggets and Salisbury steak. The determining factor is how the product is cooked. Flakes hydrate faster in cold water, but are torn apart in high heat or long cooking processes. Minced forms require longer hydration and are typically used in retort and high-heat applications.

Color determinations turn on the same question. Caramel color is available, but is best used in pre-cooked beef products such as Salisbury steak or pizza toppings. Plain-colored textured soy protein mimics the fat pieces in raw red meat, and blends well in both cooked and raw white meat products.

Textured soy protein products offer meat processors myriad benefits, from yield increases and cost management to functional and nutritional benefits. While textured soy flour and concentrate have many similarities, meat processors should understand the key differences in consumer preferences and affordability. Today’s consumers want high-quality, leaner meat products — at an affordable price. The right textured soy protein can help meat processors meet those expectations.

By Tom Katen, in "Food Manufacturing", USA, vol.29, n.5, September/October 2016, excerpts p.31. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Dali dining at Parisian restaurant.

To Salvador Dalí, food was an endless bufet of symbols and sight gags, a metaphor for pleasure and pain, sex, and politics. As a child, Dalí wanted to be a chef, and as an artist, he was always hungry. “Beauty will be edible,” he once said. “Or will not be at all.”

Dalí’s dietary obsessions—lobsters, eggs, sea urchins—inspired many of his Surrealist set pieces. Even the melting watches in his seemingly food-free masterpiece, The Persistence of Memory (1931), were modeled on oozing Camembert. Bread, above all, fed the artist’s imagination. Baguettes popped up in his paintings along with pan Catalan and “sodomized” Portuguese bread crumbs—intentionally inscrutable and nonsensical, in classic Dalí fashion. In Paris, he befriended the famed Parisian boulanger Lionel Poilâne and commissioned a birdcage, a chandelier, eventually an entire set of bedroom furniture baked out of bread. “What man cannot do,” went another Dalí koan, “bread can.”

This fall, Taschen published a handsome facsimile edition of Les Diners de Gala, a cookbook the artist wrote in 1973. Named after his wife, also a legendary gourmand, it’s one of the most unusual recipe books ever created, a bit like Escoier on acid. Today, signed copies sell for as much as $25,000. I once sat at the New York Public Library for hours, flipping through Dalí’s illustrations of dishes and meals in a kind of terrified thrall. Crayfish towers are topped with the torso of Joan of Arc, her amputated arms gushing blood. Chickens are trussed with barbed wire. A swan, its head chock-full of human teeth, is served on a pastry dish. Dalí is there, too, pictured at the swanky Parisian restaurant Maxim’s, wearing a plush velvet suit, holding a golden scepter, surrounded by a Rabelaisian feast of his own devising.

As for the recipes themselves, they’re a gas—designed to amuse and repulse in equal measure. Steaks are baked for hours; boiled brains mushed into avocado toast; tuna, caviar, and lamb shoulder slathered in béchamel. Dalí’s Surrealist cuisine was a bit like his Surrealist art: The outlandish jokes and self-spoofing persona concealed tremendous technique.

That’s evident in Dalí’s more straight-faced recipes—for a champagne sorbet or celery au gratin—which are full of anachronistic charm and fairly easy to pull of. My new dinner party staple is Dalí’s roast leg of lamb flavored with madeira, brandy, cloves, and garlic. It’s a crowd-pleaser, even without the entertaining art-world backstory.

Dalí often spoke of wanting to consume the things he loved—from Antoni Gaudí’s architecture to his wife’s beautiful face. Perhaps this is why he held gastronomy in such high regard: Most of its creations could be safely ingested. “It does not seem enough to devour things with our eyes,” he once wrote. “Our anxiety to join actively and efectively in their existence brings us to want to eat them.”


By Stephen Heyman in "Saveur", USA, issue 186, December 2016/January 2017, excerpts pp. 34-36. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa

Lulu Peyraud in 1968

A tireless home cook, a storied vineyard, and the lessons learned in a timeless Provençal kitchen.

When Lulu Peyraud invited me to lunch with her family one fine sunny Provençal afternoon, the welcome was genuine. From the first moment, I felt cared for and at ease, as though I had never really experienced true hospitality before. Lulu immediately struck me as a generous soul. Then in her late 60s, she was vivacious and charmingly down to earth (as she still is).

I had already been impressed with many tales of the extraordinary Peyraud family and their vineyards and fabled winery, Domaine Tempier, located near the town of Bandol, a half-hour drive from Marseille. I’d seen photographs of the domaine and sampled a goodly amount of their wines, but in California. Alice Waters had given them pride of place on the wine list at Chez Panisse, where I worked at the time. Alice fell for the Peyraud treatment in the early 1970s and established a lifelong bond with Lulu. She still visits at least once a year. The Berkeley wine merchant Kermit Lynch was so smitten, he bought a house near Bandol and now spends half the year there.

The late Richard Olney, the influential American expat food writer, was also part of the extended family. The much-admired author of several cookbooks on simple French cooking and wine, he was persuaded by Alice to write a cookbook that would capture Lulu’s food and style. Drawn from a series of interviews intended to translate her words into written recipes (Lulu herself has never relied on them), the result was Lulu’s Provençal Table, published in 1994.

But the lunch I describe here took place in 1984. We were a party of eight: Lulu and her husband, Lucien, their two winemaking sons and their wives, and a mutual friend.

We began in the garden with a glass of cool rosé, a bowl of radishes, and little toasts topped with inky black tapenade. This radically elemental aperitif was pure Provence.

In the old dining room, Lulu constantly flashed a mischievous and knowing smile, presiding over the simple but sumptuous lunch she had prepared, which kept us happily at the table for hours.

The menu—still ingrained in memory—was perfectly conceived. The vintage white linens, the old silver and glassware, and the heavy antique chairs looked fittingly natural and echoed the age of the solid Provençal farmhouse. Yet the meal wasn’t in the least formal. Lucien, the family patriarch (and the driving force behind the winery), poured the wine as Lulu passed a salad of roasted yellow peppers and rice dressed with fruity olive oil and vinegar. We lingered while Jean-Marie, the elder son, stepped outside to grill the quail over a fire of vine cuttings. Upon his return, knives, forks, and fingers gleefully attacked the grilled birds, the smoky aroma of thyme and garlic perfumed the room, and the Bandol Rouge flowed. But the meal was far from over. There would still be local goat cheeses, a fruit tart (maybe apricot) for dessert, cofee, and little glasses of marc de Provence, the fiery local variant of grappa. The afternoon was punctuated with lively stories, earthy jokes, and a genial, relaxed intimacy. Afterward, everyone retired for a postprandial nap.

This was the first of numerous ad hoc lessons learned from Lulu. They weren’t so much instructions in cooking as demonstrations of how to live. More than anything else, Lulu has reinforced for me how life and food— and wine—are intertwined. And how, more often than not, the most satisfying food is the least complicated and the best cooks are not necessarily found in restaurant kitchens. Simply put, Lulu’s food embodies the best of French home cooking. Since the quails were grilled outdoors, it hadn’t been necessary that day to use the enormous fireplace that spans one wall of Lulu’s kitchen.

On future visits, there would be safron-and-garlic-perfumed bouillabaisse simmering in a copper cauldron over a crackling live fire. Or a leg of lamb turning slowly on a spit, or grilled stuffed squid.

The kitchen, amazingly, has not changed much since the house was built more than two centuries ago. Among the very few nods to modernity are a tiny fridge and gas cooktop stuck in a pantry closet, and a few well-used but seemingly out-of-place electric conveniences: a coffeepot, a blender, a mixer. (Well, and of course electric lights.) Aside from the fireplace and its well-worn iron tools, there are a few heavy mortars, a large wooden worktable, and a collection of earthen-ware cooking vessels and colorful pottery from the region. Sitting together with Lulu peeling garlic or chopping wild herbs from the surrounding hillside feels so utterly peaceful and calming. With the brilliant morning sun pouring through the kitchen windows, it seems almost like a Provençal postcard cliché.

Lulu cooks with straightforward Provençal simplicity and elegant restraint. When I think of her kitchen, I picture marinated sardines, grilled eggplants and peppers, basil-infused vegetable soupe au pistou, home-cured anchovies and olives—and olive oil, naturally. I see fresh melons, juicy figs and ripe tomatoes. Vegetable tians of every sort. Small violet-hued artichokes, tender enough to eat raw.

Of course, this kind of cooking depends on daily visits to open-air markets. To accompany Lulu on one of these shopping forays and see her in action is inspiring. She knows what she wants and goes after it, whether it is skinny haricots verts or fresh shiny mackerel. Her smile seduces even the grumpiest merchant.

Lulu has always been remarkably self-reliant. She still hasn’t given up her solo afternoon swim and has been living in this house, in which she raised seven children, for more than 75 years. Only recently has one of her daughters moved in to help. Her other grown children live nearby, and there are flocks of doting grand-children and great-grandchildren.

At 98, Lulu is a bit too advanced in years to climb the stairs, so she depends on one of those electric Easy Climber chair lifts, un monte-escalier. Now, if you’re having after-dinner drinks with her in the salon and she’s ready to retire for the evening, there is a new routine. Perched in the chair, she pushes the button and slowly ascends. The lift faces you as it moves so you see her smiling broadly as she floats upward.

By David Tanis in "Saveur", USA, issue 183, May 2016, excerpts pp. 30-36. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa

King Diniz (1279-1325) introduced Portuguese as the official language of the realm in place of Latin and imposed its use on the south. Called O Lavrador (the Farmer), he encouraged his nobles to bring their wastelands into cultivation and to take an active interest in agricultural development. It was not an easy step for a warrior aristocracy to settle down as estate managers, and Diniz found it necessary to reassure them that "no baron shall lose caste by dedicating himself to the soil." The new lands in the south, whose development he supervised, provided an abundance of fruits, olives, wine, almonds, and grain that was turned for the first time toward stimulating Portugal's export trade but, despite increased production, Portugal remained a poor country even by medieval standards.

Portugal's kings were fruitful in their children, legitimate and illegitimate. Favors granted by doting royal fathers to their numerous bastard offspring, those of Diniz more plentiful than most, frequently provoked rebellions by legitimate heirs. The daughters of prolific Portuguese monarchs were married well, however, extending Portugal's political contacts to England, Flanders, Burgundy, France, and Denmark, as well as cementing dynastic connections with other Hispanic states.

The Portuguese monarchy had fewer constitutional limitations placed on its authority than those imposed by custom and law on other medieval kingdoms. The king's government was administered by a centralized bureaucracy. The forais (charter rights) defined the relationship of individual subjects and communities to the king both directly and through intermediate lords or town corporations. In return for immunities and privileges on their own lands nobles were obliged to provide for the defense of a sector of the country. Rural collectives were encouraged by grants of tax relief and local self-government to farm the poor soil of Tras-os-Montes. The Portuguese Cortes (parliament), composed of representatives of three estates—the church, the nobility, and the towns — had a continuous history beginning in 1254.

Early medieval monarchs were expected to be self-sufficient and to operate the government out of their own resources but, as government became more complex and expensive, they were forced to call on the resources of their subjects as well. In return for a vote of subsidies to the royal government, the estates, through their representatives in the Cortes, compelled the king to listen to their grievances, seek advice, and get their consent for the projects for which the revenues that they granted were intended. The stronger the king, the more willing was the Cortes to provide the funds that he requested; the weaker the king, the more demands were made on him by the estates.

Though feudal terminology was used in charters and deeds in Portugal for lack of a more specific vocabulary, feudalism (that is, hereditary title to the use of land and to legal jurisdiction on that land in return for personal allegiance and service to the donor) did not exist de jure in any developed form in medieval Portugal; in practice, however, situations very much like it did occur. According to Portuguese custom landholders were limited to economic control of the property they held. Legal jurisdiction on that property might be granted, but it was separate from title to the use of the land. All governmental and judicial power was vested ultimately in the crown, but in time it was delegated to landlords acting as the king's agents on their property. As the origin of grants of jurisdiction was obscured by the years, lords assumed that they exercised it as a right, and the crown had to review grants and titles to land continually in order to reclaim and reallocate its own property and authority.

Portugal's borders with Castile were stabilized after 1295. But the threat of war with the stronger Spanish Kingdom was a constant concern to a succession of kings in the fourteenth century. To keep the tenuous peace, Alfonso IV (1325-57) had ordered the murder of Ines de Castro, heroine of a romance with his heir, Dom Pedro, on suspicion that she was involving Portugal in Castilian politics. When Dom Pedro became king as Pedro I (1357-67), O Justiceiro (the Judge)—as he was called because he punished the wicked indiscriminately regardless of rank—proclaimed Ines his queen and forced his court to do homage to her corpse, clothed for the occasion in the robes of state. When he died, Pedro was buried with Ines at the abbey of Alcobaca, where his tomb was embellished with the scene in stone of her murderers in hell. Their son, John, became grand master of the military Order of Aviz.

SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

The social and economic structure of medieval Portugal differed radically from region to region. A frontier society developed in the north that persisted after the region ceased to be a frontier. Liberties had been granted to soldier yeomen who were willing to take responsibility for defending their holdings. A petty nobility or gentry had risen among those who had succeeded in consolidating their holdings and those of their dependents, as had a caste of commoner knights (cavaleiros vilaos) who were granted land to defray their military expenses. But the dominant pattern in much of the north remained that of the small-holding yeoman farmer who, according to the Germanic landholding system inherited from the Swabians, divided his land among all his heirs in plots that shrank in size with each generation. For the man who possessed it, his land was as much an heirloom as it was a piece of potentially productive property.

Peasants in the Douro-Minho as well as in Tras-os-Montes formed collective associations (pactos de bemfeitoria) to pay rent on fields and pastures that went toward the support of the military aristocracy, which also agreed in the bargain to defend them. Originally they retained full freedom to negotiate contracts with their protector and if unsatisfied to choose a new lord. As the frontier was pushed forward, however, peasants were usually tied to one lord. The crown, particularly after Diniz, encouraged family and collective farming by alienating aristocratic and ecclesiastical land to peasant proprietors.

Above them all was a small number of interrelated great families, relatively poor in liquid income. From the crown they regularly received subsidies that allowed them to meet their obligations and that also tied them tightly to the crown.

In the central regions and on the lands in the south added in the thirteenth century, the military and monastic orders, the hierarchy, and military aristocrats had been vested with vast latifundia to support their services to the crown and church. The land was tilled by sharecroppers, by peasants contracted to the land (though dependent serfdom appears to have been rare) and, most numerously, by wretched masses of itinerant rural laborers who worked without the protection of a lord or a manorial contract that would have regulated their status and assured them of minimal rights.

The Sesmarias Decree (1375) brought about government regulation of agriculture and served to stimulate a stagnating economy. It ordered that all arable land be put under the plow and allowed seizure by the crown of underproductive estates.

The hierarchy and many religious houses grew enormously wealthy by Portuguese standards from the lands granted them during the Reconquest, and their wealth often implied great political power as well, which engaged the crown in a running dispute with the church over title to land.

THE HOUSE OF AVIZ

Ferdinand (1367-83), last of the House of Burgundy, left no male heir, but his daughter was the wife of John I of Castile, and it was intended that their offspring should inherit Portugal. Until issue was forthcoming, however, Portugal was to be governed under the regency of Ferdinand's unpopular widow, Leonor Teles. John, grand master of Aviz, expelled the regent and was proclaimed king as John I (reigned 1385-1433), by a Cortes called at Coimbra in 1385. In response a Castilian army invaded Portugal to uphold the rights of an as yet unborn Castilian heir to the Portuguese throne. What had taken place was a dynastic revolution that had provoked foreign intervention, but the struggle that followed was also a Portuguese civil war.

The traditionalist north supported John of Castile and the cause of legitimacy; the towns and the south where the Order of Aviz was one of the great landholders, backed their John. The future of the House of Aviz and, from the perspective of John's followers, the independence of Portugal were decided at the epic battle of Aljubarrota near Lisbon. Fewer than seven thousand Portuguese on foot, under Nuno Alvares Pereira, the Constable, and a contingent of English longbowmen faced an opposing army of ten thousand infantry and twenty thousand cavalry, the cream of Castilian chivalry. As the Constable's men held their positions, the longbowmen shattered the enemy's heavily armored cavalry and won the day for John of Aviz.

English aid to the Aviz Dynasty set the stage for the cooperation with England that would be the cornerstone of Portuguese foreign policy for more than five hundred years. In 1386 the Treaty of Windsor confirmed the alliance born at Aljubarrota with a pact of perpetual friendship between the two countries. The next year John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, son of Edward III and father of Henry IV, landed in Galicia with an expeditionary force to press his claim to the Castilian throne with Portuguese aid. He failed to win the support of the Castilian nobility and returned to England with a cash compensation from the rival claimant, but the war with Castile continued for Portugal until 1411.

John of Gaunt left behind his intelligent and cultured daughter, Philippa of Lancaster, as the wife of John I to seal the Anglo-Portuguese alliance. She introduced an English element at court—an "icy influx," according to the Portuguese, that reformed the morals of their court and imposed uncomfortably rigid standards of behavior on them. More important, Philippa provided royal patronage for English commercial interests that sought to meet the Portuguese desire for cod and cloth in return for wine, cork, salt, and oil through the English-run warehouses at Porto. Philippa also became the mother of an extraordinary line of royal princes who led Portugal into its Golden Age. For the poet Luis de Camoes they were the "marvelous generation," the brothers Duarte the king, Pedro the regent, Antonio the Crusader, John, and Dom Henrique—Prince Henry the Navigator.

John I distrusted the old aristocracy that had opposed his rise to power. He promoted the growth of a lower nobility attached to the crown and rewarded the urban commercial oligarchy with position and influence in the realm in return for its support of Aviz. He surrounded himself with skilled bureaucrats who professionalized royal administration and extended royal jurisdiction at the expense of the old aristocracy. A strong and confident monarch, John nonetheless summoned the Cortes biennially to approve his legislation and lend legitimacy to the title that he had seized by force. The future of the Aviz Dynasty seemed assured by the presence of John's five legitimate sons, but the king also provided for his illegitimate children as he had been provided for by his father. John conferred on his bastard son Alfonso the hereditary title of duke of Braganza and endowed him with lands and jurisdiction that amounted to creation of a state within a state supported by a huge reserve of armed retainers. The House of Braganza accumulated wealth to rival that of the crown and assumed leadership of the old aristocracy in opposition to Aviz.

THE EXPANSION OF PORTUGAL

In 1415 the Portuguese seized Ceuta in Morocco, the western depot for the spice trade, and began a campaign that by the end of the century had put them in control of most of Morocco's western coastline. From strongholds on the coast the Portuguese manipulated satellite Muslim states in the interior and provided cover for settlers who had carved out estates in North Africa but derived most of their income from raiding along the frontier between Portuguese and Muslim-held territory. Portuguese efforts throughout most of the fifteenth century were focused on Morocco rather than on exploration by sea and colonization of unknown territory.

HENRY THE NAVIGATOR

Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), to whom much credit for early Portuguese exploration has gone, was not himself a scientist, nor was he well traveled, but he possessed intellectual curiosity and surrounded himself with skillful and imaginative minds at his retreat, the Vila do Infante, on the promontory of Sagres. As master of the Order of Christ, one of the crusading orders, he commanded a permanent military force and had access to substantial resources. His order paid for fitting out expeditions of which the risks outweighed the expectations of profit, and it bore the cost of their failures. Henry prodded his mariners to explore beyond Cape Bojador on the west coast of Africa, a psychological as well as physical barrier that was thought to be the outer boundary of the knowable world. In 1420 Portuguese seamen reached Madeira and by 1427 the Azores. In 1434 Gil Eanes rounded Cape Bojador and reported back to Henry that it was not the end of the world.

Although Henry's motives were obviously many, he saw exploration primarily in terms of outflanking the Moors and contributing to the success of the conquest of Morocco. His attitudes matured over forty years, however, as his knowledge increased and he began to recognize the separate advantages of overseas expansion. The expeditions he sponsored were better planned and organized, and they began to turn a profit in gold and slaves. By midcentury Portuguese mariners had mapped twenty degrees of latitude south from Cape Bojador and had perceived the curve of the African continent.

ROYAL PATRONAGE

A conflict over priorities continued to brew between the factions: the old aristocracy, led by the duke of Braganza and demanding expansion in Morocco, and commercial interests in the towns and among the lower nobility, favoring expanded trade overseas and looking to Prince Henry's older brother Dom Pedro for leadership. Pedro was made regent for his young nephew, Alfonso V (1438-81). A scholar and collector of maps, the regent saw the Moroccan wars as a wasted effort and emphasized commercial expansion. In the practical matter of securing profit from exploration Pedro was more effective than his brother Henry. But Pedro's attempts to pull back from Morocco led to armed conflict within Portugal in which the regent died in 1449. An aristocratic reaction took place during the reign of Alfonso V, and for a decade after Pedro's fall no further expeditions set sail, but interests revived as even the duke of Braganza saw profit in the importation of slaves from Africa. In fact the renewed wars in Morocco, championed by him, had the desired effect of rechanneling the Sudan gold trade away from North Africa to the Guinea coast, where the gold was picked up by Portuguese ships and conveyed to Europe.

Official patronage of exploration and trade was renewed under John II (1481-95), and to him belongs credit for the first comprehensive plan for overseas expansion and the idea of rounding Africa to open a new trade route to India. The crown would thereafter take its "royal fifth," or share of the profit, on all chartered commercial ventures, assume direct management of trade, and reap most of the benefits.

THE PASSAGE TO INDIA

The Portuguese conducted their expeditions in greatest secrecy. Foreign investment, except by the Genoese merchants living in Portugal, was discouraged. The advantages that Portugal derived from advanced ship design and navigational devices and maps, charts, and reports from earlier voyages were carefully guarded. In 1484 Christopher Columbus's recommendation for a westward approach to the Indies was rejected; the Portuguese had an accurate measure of the earth's circumference that had confirmed them in their commitment to finding an eastward route.

To head off conflict between Portugal and Spain after Columbus's initial discoveries in America, the Pope's Line of 1493 was devised by Alexander VI, a Spaniard, to divide the world between the two countries, Spain having title west of a line passing near the Cape Verde Islands and Portugal to the east of it. The next year the line was redrawn in the Treaty of Tordesillas and moved more than one thousand miles westward.

By Gene Gurney in "Kingdoms of Europe", Grown Publishers Inc., New York, 1982, excerpts pp. 357-360. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Il fait partie des rites exigés pour la survie de l’âme du défunt ; car, peuple optimiste, les Égyptiens pensent que la mort n’est qu’un passage vers une nouvelle vie de bonheur absolu en compagnie des dieux. Pour cela, des opérations magiques doivent protéger le corps avant son dépôt dans le sarcophage et dans la tombe, c’est la momification.

Pour les Égyptiens, l’homme dans son intégralité physique et morale est composé de quatre éléments: le Khet, le corps (la chair qui meurt); le Chout, l’ombre; le Ba, concept immatériel, l’esprit, l’âme, représenté par un oiseau; le Ka, c’est ce qui fait l’«originalité» de chaque homme, son tempérament, sa personnalité. Constamment, grâce à la nourriture et à la boisson, le Ka se crée. Chaque homme a son Ka. Il subsiste dans le corps du défunt, mais sa survie dépend des offrandes et des objets qui entourent la momie. Pour vivre une nouvelle vie auprès des dieux, le Ka et le Ba doivent se retrouver dans le corps qui les a abrités, et qu’il faut donc protéger.

C’est surtout important pour le Pharaon, dont la survie assure celle de tout son peuple. Cette croyance permet aux plus pauvres de se sentir concernés, même s’ils n’ont pas les moyens de payer les soins des embaumeurs. Un «double», statuette ou effigie du défunt placée dans la tombe, suffit à lui assurer l’union du Ba et du Ka.

Le culte des morts comprend trois étapes.

Les soins de conservation du cadavre ou momification Cerveau et viscères sont placés dans quatre vases «canopes». Le corps est rempli d’aromates et séjourne soixante-dix jours dans un bain de natron (carbonate de sodium) ; puis on l’entoure de bandelettes parfumées par de la gomme arabique ou gomme d’acacias.

La cérémonie de l’enterrement

Devant la tombe, la momie est redressée, le prêtre touche les sept ouvertures du visage pour leur permettre de fonctionner dans l’au-delà.

Toute cette cérémonie est accompagnée de lectures, de prières extraites du «livre des morts». Certaines, recopiées, sont glissées dans le sarcophage. Elles doivent aider le défunt dans la difficile épreuve de la pesée de l’âme ou psychostasie devant les dieux.

Les âmes vertueuses guidées par Anubis entrent dans le royaume d’Osiris. Les âmes mauvaises, dévorées par un monstre, disparaissent à jamais.

L’ensevelissement dans la tombe, demeure d’éternité, souhaitée inviolable.

. Les mastabas sont les premières tombes, d’abord surmontées d’un tertre en terre puis construites et recouvertes de briques.

. Les pyramides à degrés superposent plusieurs mastabas, elles précèdent les pyramides classiques.

. Les pyramides géométriques sont édifiées à l’aide de blocs énormes de pierre ajustés, puis recouverts d’un parement de calcaire blanc fin et poli. La chambre funéraire doit être tenue secrète.

. Les mastabas sont les premières tombes, d’abord surmontées d’un tertre en terre puis construites et recouvertes de briques.

. Les pyramides à degrés superposent plusieurs mastabas, elles précèdent les pyramides classiques.

. Les pyramides géométriques sont édifiées à l’aide de blocs énormes de pierre ajustés, puis recouverts d’un parement de calcaire blanc fin et poli. La chambre funéraire doit être  tenue secrète.

Un «pyramidion» pouvait en couronner le sommet. C’est une petite pyramide en pierre d’excellente qualité et, peut-être, recouverte d’or. Les pyramides restent un sujet d’intérêt toujours actuel. Elles existent en grand nombre, mais les plus célèbres se trouvent près du Caire:

. celle de Khéops, 147 m de haut à l’origine, la plus haute, 230 m de côté à la base, édifiée grâce à des millions de blocs de pierre de 2,5 tonnes chacun;

. celle de Khephren, 143 m de haut à l’origine et 215 m de côté;

. celle de Mykérinos ; la plus petite, haute de 66,5 m.

La construction des pyramides et leur rôle, peut-être, de repère astronomique, continuent à passionner les chercheurs. Il est vrai qu’au même moment l’Europe sortait à peine de la Préhistoire!

Les Hypogées sont, au Nouvel Empire, des tombeaux souterrains importants mais soigneusement cachés pour en éviter les pillages.

La plus vaste nécropole connue se trouve à Thèbes et réunit la «vallée des Rois», la «vallée des Reines» et les tombeaux des courtisans. Soixante-deux rois y ont été enterrés avec les objets précieux qu’ils avaient utilisés durant leur vie terrestre.

Les inscriptions de ces appartements souterrains sont exceptionnelles par leur état de conservation, leur beauté, leurs couleurs et les renseignements qu’elles nous apportent.

La découverte en 1922, par Carter et Carnavin, de la tombe de Toutankhamon et de son trésor nous laisse imaginer la richesse disparue des autres tombeaux!

Par Éliane Lopez dans "L'Histoire des Civilisations", Paris, Groupe Eyrolles, 2008, pp.73-75. Adapté et illustré pour être posté par Leopoldo Costa

Dr Michael Mosley.

You are what you eat and few know this better than internationally renowned Dr Michael Mosley.

Mosley studied medicine in London and qualified as a doctor, but for the last 25 years he’s been working as a documentary maker and an awardwinning science journalist. His programmes have won an RTS and an Emmy, and he was named Medical Journalist of the Year by the British Medical Association for a groundbreaking programme on Helicobacter pylori.

He’s a regular presenter on The One Show, the most popular daily magazinestyle show in the UK, discussing topical issues around science, and has fronted a number of Horizon specials such as The Truth About Exercise. In August 2012 he was credited with popularising the 5:2 diet, after appearing in the documentary Eat, Fast & Live Longer. Mosley also presents stand-alone series covering a wide variety of topics including Infested! Living with Parasites, where he turned his body into a living laboratory and deliberately infested himself. Here he reveals what he believes is the truth about meat and meat eaters.

1. Following your research for The Truth About Meat, is it really possible to be an ecofriendly carnivore?

"Yes, it is, but we will have to limit the amount of meat we eat and waste less. The world can probably support a consumption of less than 100g per person per day. This is also the sort of levels that are now regarded as healthy."

2. Do you think your research will make people reconsider the amount of meat they consume?

"I hope so. The 2 shows between them look at the effect of meat on your health, but also on the planet."

3. What was the most shocking health risk you discovered while filming Should I Eat Meat? For me the biggest surprise was that eating red meat, at least red meat that has not been reared the American way (fed on corn, antibiotics and hormones), is surprisingly safe. It is rich in iron and other nutrients. The most shocking statistic I was given relates to processed meat. Every bacon sandwich you eat knocks about half an hour off your life.

"You seem to put your body on the line to get the answers to your questions. What was more taxing on your system – going on a heavy meat diet or infesting yourself with a fully grown tapeworm? Oddly enough it was the heavy meat diet. I didn’t even notice the tapeworms (there were actually 3 growing inside me) were there."

4. Did you come to any conclusions about whether some of these parasites can be beneficial?

"Yes, there seems to be good evidence that some parasites help to manipulate your immune system in ways that are good for them, but also for you. Researchers are looking at deliberately infesting people with different types of worms to treat autoimmune diseases like asthma, Crohn’s and eczema."

5. There are so many fad diets around these days. Why do you think people struggle so much with moderation?

"I think the problem is that we are constantly surrounded by temptation. We also consume far too much sugar and this has upset our metabolisms."

6. Would our health suffer as a consequence of eliminating meat and dairy products?

"No, there are plenty of healthy vegetarians and vegans, but they have to supplement as there are some vitamins you only get from meat."

7. Do you think that adopting a plant-based approach to nutrition would improve the health of people, as well as the planet?

"I suspect it would, but I don’t think it is going to happen any time soon."

8. Is meat still on the menu for you?

"Yes, it is. I eat mainly chicken, but I am also fond of beef, pork and lamb. I try to avoid eating processed meats."

9. You’re arguably the most famous human-health guinea pig. What’s the biggest health myth that you’ve busted?

"That we should eat lots of small meals a day “to stabilise our blood sugar levels.” I blame constant snacking for our current obesity epidemic. There are a lot of health benefits to be had from practising intermittent fasting (cutting your calories a couple of days a week), and I wrote a book about it called The Fast Diet."

10. What diet do you follow when you’re on holiday or relaxing at home?

"I eat protein for breakfast, normally eggs or fish. I either skip lunch or go for something light, such as soup. If I am hungry during the afternoon I eat a small handful of nuts. In the evening I eat lots of vegetables and meat or fish. I rarely eat dessert and try not to eat junk food more than once a week." 

Text courtesy of BBC published in "Braintrainment", South Africa, issue 27, January/February 2016, experts pp.10-11. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

It appears that they do. Research from 2006 conducted by experts at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and the Peninsula Medical School studied the effects of both parents on their child in 1,000 families.

Early results from the study showed that the taller fathers produced longer, heavier babies at birth in approximately 1,500 children, measured from birth to 2 years of age. The initial results were more conclusive when it came to the weight of the babies. The mother’s body mass index (BMI) was the main determining factor.

In a more recent study conducted in 2015, researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine discovered that while we inherit equal genetic material from our parents, we use more of the DNA that we inherit from our dads. While the study was conducted on mice, the implications for understanding the influence that genetic mutations have on diseases such as type-2 diabetes, heart disease, schizophrenia, obesity and cancers are huge, potentially leading to understanding the causes and the creation of treatments for these diseases.

By Linda Naldoo in "Braintrainment", South Africa, issue 27, January/February 2016, experts pp.13. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Kale and chia, goji berries and blueberries, salmon and spinach. We investigate the science behind whether superfoods are the magic bullet that can cure all our ills, and which ones deserve their ‘super’prefix.

Billed as the superheroes of the culinary world, today, superfoods are as widespread as comic-book films - every day a new one hits our plates. “There is neither a regulatory nor scientific definition of a 'superfood'," says Dr Jeffrey Blumberg. from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Boston. “It is a marketing term which marketers apparently do not wish to define either." However, through an equally unscientific survey of the books and blogs that liberally sprinkle the term - more on those later-some common characteristics of these so-called superfoods can be discerned.

Superfoods typically have high levels of certain nutrients - such as the goji berry, which boasts more vitamin C than oranges, more beta carotene than carrots and more iron than spinach. They are often exotic in origin - the goji berry hails from the Himalayas. “This seems to suggest that they have some special health-promoting properties,” says Dr Blumberg. “Although the countries from which they come are not characterised by especially healthful or long-lived people."

• Be ready to fork out

Indeed, superfoods are often rediscovered and repackaged staples of ancient civilisations, which also lends them credibility and a quasi-mylhical air. even though those ancient civilisations are long-dead. Like the goji berry, which allegedly helped Chinese herbalist Li Ching Yuen live to the ripe old (unverified) age of 256. Coincidentally, he also sold goji berries. Which leads us to perhaps the defining characteristic of most superfoods - they're expensive.

The appetite for superfoods is growing - according to the International Food Information Council, nearly nine in 10 Americans are interested in foods that have health benefits beyond basic nutrition (what the IFIC calls ‘functional foods’). But they're also swallowing some unsubstantiated claims. Legends of doctors discovering remote mountain tribes of age-defying, goji- munching centenarians should self-evidently be taken with a large pinch of pink Himalayan sea sail - another superfood with little scientific backing to elevate it above the table variety. But there's scarcely a grain of proof for the efficacy of the goji berry or any other superfruit.

A 1994 Chinese study of 79 patients with advanced cancers found that their conditions regressed when treated with goji polysaccharides - in conjunction with immunotherapy. But information about the design of the study and the compounds used is. like evidence for the majority of goji's Everest-sized claims, lacking. Another study, on goji juice's effects on brain activity, was only performed on 34 people, and inconclusive at that.

Most of the various studies related to goji and immunity, heart disease and life expectancy have been either small, or used concentrated extracts which would be unrealistic - not to mention costly - to eat the equivalent of in real life.

• Free radicals

Like many superfoods, such as açaí and blueberries, goji berries are touted as being high in dietary antioxidants. “They act to quench reactive oxygen, nitrogen and halide species - often called ‘free radicals’," explains Dr Blumberg. who is also the senior scientist at Tufts' Antioxidant Research Lab in the US. Free radicals are commonly cited as causing cancer - the marketing goes then that more antioxidants means less cancer. The science is not so straightforward. “Many free radicals play important, positive roles in cell biology and human physiology,” says Dr Blumberg. 'in excessive amounts, though - generally referred to as 'oxidative stress' - they can damage cell constituents like lipids, proteins and DNA. and contribute both to the aging process and the development of many chronic diseases, including cancer. However, this simple concept is actually extraordinarily complex, and incompletely understood."

For one thing, more is not always belter. “While consuming more antioxidant- rich fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds can certainly be good, everything can be harmful at a high enough intake," says Dr Blumberg. One study on people at risk of developing lung cancer had to be stopped because those given antioxidants were dying more quickly. But while a diet that's high in antioxidant-rich produce probably won't do you much harm - unless you consume them in wine form - they won't necessarily do you that much good either. "While antioxidants are what marketers focus on. the science does not indicate that they're the most important part of a food's nutritional repertoire." says Kama! Patel, a nutrition researcher and director of examine.com, an independent study analysis website. "The federal government used to use the ORAC antioxidant scale, but no longer does due to lack of support for its impact on health."

Nor will the presence of high levels of antioxidants in a food, super or otherwise, necessarily result in a proportional antioxidant effect. For example, anthocyanins. found in the blueberry - often referred to as the grandaddy of the superfood movement - have been shown to inhibit growth of cancerous human colon cells in vitro. But there's no evidence that the flavonoids, the class of antioxidants that anthocyanins belong to. are even absorbed in the human body - indeed, studies show that less than 5% survives consumption and is promptly excreted. "When you consume an antioxidant, the main antioxidant effect often comes from your body's reaction to consuming a foreign substance, rather than from the substance itself," says Patel. "Plus, our body's own antioxidant systems - involving compounds like glutathione - are more powerful than what we can get from food."

• Tricky to study

The proof of the superfood pudding is in the eating - by humans, not mice or rats. But unfortunately, most scientific research is not conducted this way. "Nutrition studies often don't apply to real life on a 1:1 basis," says Patel. “If you want to test. say. the effect of grape juice on cognition, you’d give it enough lime, plus you'd check to make sure they actually drink it. In real life, that almost never happens.” Lifestyle factors are difficult if not impossible to separate. And there are other problems, says Patel: pilot studies and animal trials will often use larger dosages, while 'acute* studies will look at just the food without any other things consumed. Meanwhile, eating different foods together, which is what most of us do, can dramatically alter their effects for better or worse: "Co-consumption makes things more complicated."

Another issue affecting superfood research is that it is often paid for by interested parlies. "We're funded by food and supplement companies in many of the studies we conduct,” admits Professor David Nieman, Director of the Human Performance Labs at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. "But the North Carolina university system demands contractual agreement that gives the primary investigator 'academic freedom', or the right to publish the data, positive or negative. Many of the companies I work with are so convinced that their product has special effects that they sign these agreements." What buyers should beware of are studies conducted in-house by companies, which are “close to worthless", says Prof Nieman. But while industry- funded doesn’t mean false, the anointed superfood might not be much better than a cheaper, less exotic equivalent that doesn't have the same commercial imperative.

The problem is not so much that superfoods are a con - many of them, like chia seeds (right) or kale, are highly nutritious - more that calling them 'super' gives unrealistic expectations of what they will do.

”I prefer the concept of 'high nutrient density' foods, which is a central theme in the new 2015 to 2020 dietary guidelines for Americans,” says Prof Nieman. "The term 'superfood' is not used by most scientists in the field, because the implication is that one can expect quick and high-end health benefits." By all means, sprinkle some chia seeds on your oatmeal, and even stir in some blueberries. You’ll gel a nutritional boost, you just won't instantly become immortal: “What matters is the habitual eating pattern over months and years."

• A balanced diet

By seeing superfoods as a magic bullet, we risk shooting ourselves in the foot. "Some people think if they eat one ‘superfruil'. they don't need to eat the recommended two to tour servings of fruit a day." says Dr Blumberg. But no one superfood is a panacea: nor will it make up for other deficiencies. “Adding superfoods to a good diet is line." says Dr David Katz. Director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center in the US. “Counting on them to £1 compensate for a bad diet Ois not.” And undue emphasis on superfoods can be unhealthy. "The term helps companies sell product, and it ‘helps' consumers oversimplify their diets." says Patel. All the experts cited here stressed the importance of consuming a wide variety of natural, ‘whole’ foods, which in turn reduces their individual significance. “No single food or beverage is important enough to stand out from the overall lifestyle." says Prof Nieman.

Another unintended consequence of the fashionable superfood label can be fell in their countries of origin as they attain trendy status in the developed world. Quinoa, aka ‘the miracle grain of the Andes’, tripled in price between 2006 and 2011. becoming too expensive for many in its native Peru and Bolivia. Diversity of crops also takes a hit as farmers jump on the lucrative bandwagon. And. ironically, people in those countries wind up eating more imported junk food, because it’s cheaper. (However, quinoa is now being grown in the UK.) Meanwhile, the Ethiopian government recently lifted a ban on the export of teff (a gluten-free super-grain), which was imposed in 2006 amid fears of a grain shortage. They’re increasing yield by 40% first to ensure adequate supply, but there are still concerns. Superfoods can be costly for us too - they drive us to spend more, feed the untrue notion that healthy eating has to be expensive, and lead us to overlook other beneficial foods.

"Açaí and other exotic- sounding foods haven't been shown to be healthier than other foods, and there are few if any long-term studies on their effects on disease." says Patel.

If such things as superfoods exist, then they're hiding behind their secret identities as the mild-mannered Clark Kents of the supermarket produce section. "Garlic has a tonne of evidence,” says Patel. “Potatoes are cheap, nutritious and filling, yet they don’t get much attention - or they get negative attention, because they have white flesh.”

Ultimately, while superfoods may be a misnomer, we shouldn’t throw the broccoli out with the coconut water (a sugary waste product of farming that is no better for rehydralion than plain old H²O).

"The term is more about marketing than meaning,” says Dr Katz. “But, of course, there is no clear definition of ‘junk food’ either. Sometimes we understand terms without precise definitions. And being nutrient-dense does, in general, make a food belter. There are complications in how nutrients are metabolised, of course. But that doesn't undermine the value of naturally nutriem- rich foods.”

They just aren't necessarily the most heavily marketed ones. Or the most expensive. Rather than hero-worship particular superfoods, think of your diet as like the Avengers: a diverse assortment of colourful characters with different powers that work well together. And the largest part of it should be green.

By Jammie Millar in "Very Interesting", South Africa, issue 32, November/December 2016, excerpts pp. 26-32. Adapted and illustrated do be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

A visão da medicina e da sociedade sobre pacientes mentais evoluiu muito nos últimos anos. Mas uma pergunta continua sem resposta: qual é a linha que separa a lucidez da loucura?

David Rosenhan resolveu fingir-se de louco. Em 1972, ele se dirigiu a um hospital psiquiátrico americano alegando escutar vozes que lhe diziam as palavras “oco” “vazio” e o som “tum-tum”. Essa foi a única mentira que contou. De resto, comportou-se de maneira calma e respondeu a perguntas sobre sua vida e seus relacionamentos sem mentir uma única vez sequer. Outros oito voluntários sãos fizeram a mesma coisa, em instituições diferentes. Todos, exceto um, foram diagnosticados com esquizofrenia e internados.

Assim que foram admitidos, os pacientes passaram a agir normalmente. Observavam a tudo e faziam anotações em suas cadernetas. No começo, as anotações eram feitas longe do olhar dos funcionários, mas logo eles perceberam que não havia necessidade de discrição. Médicos e enfermeiros passavam pouquíssimo tempo com os pacientes e nem ao menos respondiam às perguntas mais simples. “Apesar de seu show público de sanidade, nenhum deles foi reconhecido”, escreveu Rosenhan no artigo On Being Sane in Insane Places (“Sobre Ser São em Locais Insanos”), publicado na conceituada revista Science, em janeiro de 1973. Ironicamente, os pacientes reais duvidavam com freqüência da condição dos novos colegas. “Você não é louco. Você é um jornalista ou um professor checando o hospital”, disseram diversas vezes.

Os pacientes estavam certos. Rosenhan era mesmo um acadêmico e sua internação, assim como a dos outros voluntários, era parte de um estudo pioneiro para avaliar a capacidade médica de diagnosticar distúrbios mentais. Posteriormente ele se tornou professor emérito das Faculdades de Psicologia e Direito da Universidade de Stanford.

Os falsos pacientes foram mantidos nos hospitais por períodos que variaram de 7 a 52 dias. Foram medicados (assim como boa parte dos internados reais, eles escondiam as pílulas sob a língua e as jogavam fora quando já não estavam mais na presença dos funcionários) e liberados com o diagnóstico de “esquizofrenia em remissão”, uma expressão médica usada para dizer que o paciente está livre dos sintomas.

Já de volta à sua identidade real, os pesquisadores requisitaram os arquivos sobre suas estadas nos hospitais. Em nenhum dos documentos havia qualquer menção à desconfiança de que estivessem mentindo ou que aparentassem não ser esquizofrênicos. A conclusão que David Rosenhan escreveu para o estudo desconcertou a psiquiatria americana. “Agora sabemos que somos incapazes de distinguir a insanidade da sanidade.”

LOUCURA EXISTE!

A conclusão de Rosenhan não era de todo uma novidade para a comunidade médica. Desde a Segunda Guerra Mundial, quando a porcentagem de homens liberados pelo exército por razões psicológicas variava de 20% a 60% entre estados, os americanos começaram a desconfiar de que seus diagnósticos tinham a precisão científica de uma cartomante. Para piorar, pesquisas começaram a mostrar que os Estados Unidos estavam diagnosticando um número muito maior de esquizofrênicos do que a Inglaterra. Seria o chá das cinco um remédio tão eficiente contra distúrbios mentais?

O estudo de Rosenhan deixava claro que o problema não eram as mentes dos ingleses e sim a maneira pouco eficiente de se fazer diagnósticos nos Estados Unidos. O instrumento usado por médicos e psiquiatras nessa tarefa era (e continua sendo) o Manual de Diagnóstico e Estatística dos Distúrbios Mentais (DSM, na sigla em inglês). O manual é reconhecido pela Associação Americana de Psiquiatria como a lista oficial de doenças mentais e é usado em hospitais e consultórios psiquiátricos do mundo inteiro.

Mas em 1973, o DSM ainda estava em sua segunda versão e os diagnósticos dados usando o livro de cem páginas variavam de forma absurda. Um mesmo paciente poderia ser descrito como histérico ou hipocondríaco, dependendo apenas de quem o avaliasse. E essa era uma das questões centrais do estudo de Rosenhan. “Será que as características que levam alguém a ser tachado de louco estão mesmo no paciente ou estão no ambiente e contexto em que o observador está inserido?”, escreveu ele em On Being Sane….

Essa pergunta faz ainda mais sentido quando comparamos os diferentes conceitos de loucura ao longo da história. Homens cujo estado de espírito difere drasticamente da média dos demais existem desde as épocas mais remotas – assim como tratamentos para curá-los. No entanto, por séculos, acreditava-se que a loucura era causada pela vontade dos deuses sendo, portanto, parte do destino de alguns. Fosse para punir ou até mesmo para recompensar – o Alcorão conta como Maomé achava veneráveis os loucos, já que tinham sido abençoados com loucura por Alá, que lhes tirava o juízo para que não pecassem – fato é que a loucura estava associada com a idéia de destino e participava da vida social assim como outras formas de percepção da realidade. “A definição de loucura em termos de ‘doença’ é uma operação recente na história da civilização ocidental”, escreveu João Frayze-Pereira, no livro O que é a loucura.

E mesmo vista como doença mental, a relação que se desenvolve com ela pode variar muito de cultura para cultura. Na Malásia, é comum mulheres mais velhas apresentarem um quadro psíquico conhecido como latah. É uma condição que faz com que a pessoa fique completamente alterada por um bom tempo, gritando e falando palavrões. Mas, no lugar de serem excluídas socialmente, essas pessoas são celebradas e costumam animar reuniões sociais com seu pequeno show de excentricidades.

Os próprios exemplos do que configura um estado alterado de consciência mudam radicalmente de acordo com o lugar, o tempo ou a cultura. Só para citar um exemplo, em 1958, um jovem negro americano foi levado a um hospital psiquiátrico depois de se inscrever para a Universidade do Mississippi. Qualquer negro que pensasse que pudesse estudar ali estava, obviamente, louco.

Ora, se a loucura – suas razões, interpretações e definições – pode mudar tão drasticamente diante de conceitos como geografia e tempo, como é possível afirmar que a loucura seja um distúrbio da mente e não apenas um desvio social? Será que Thomas Szars, um dos líderes do movimento antipsiquiatria no mundo, está certo quando diz que a psiquiatria não passa de uma polícia moral disposta a impedir pensamentos e condutas que não são agradáveis à sociedade?

A CIÊNCIA FALA

Hoje, a ciência faz uma distinção clara entre loucura e doenças mentais. “Talvez pareça desconcertante, mas os psiquiatras não se utilizam de termos como louco ou loucura e nenhuma das atuais classificações dos distúrbios psiquiátricos os inclui”, diz Sérgio Bettarello, do Instituto de Psiquiatria da USP. Os absurdos classificatórios de alguns anos atrás, como chamar uma mulher que se apaixona por um homem mais novo de louca, minguaram. “A loucura como estado de ampliação da existência é positiva. Você costuma sair enriquecido depois de uma experiência dessas. Já as doenças mentais são o oposto disso. No lugar de liberdade, elas te dão uma restrição da autonomia”, diz Bettarello.

A loucura que a psiquiatria trata é chamada de psicose, uma distorção do pensamento e do senso de realidade, que pode prejudicar drasticamente a vida do paciente. De fato, de acordo com a Organização Mundial da Saúde, cinco entre as dez maiores causas de incapacidade no mundo são problemas mentais. O ranking é feito levando em conta dois quesitos: número de anos de vida e número de anos produtivos que a doença rouba do paciente. E, no caso das doenças mentais, há pouca concorrência em relação ao segundo quesito. “Seja pelo estigma que carrega, seja pelos transtornos que traz à rotina da pessoa, distúrbios mentais podem levar a péssima qualidade de vida”, diz o psiquiatra Roberto Tynakori. Qualquer pessoa com depressão crônica ou com um parente próximo que sofra de esquizofrenia sabe bem disso.

Quando surgiu, no século XVIII, a psiquiatria era vista como uma prática menor, sem a objetividade necessária às coisas tratadas pela ciência. Se a própria definição de seu objeto de estudo era nebulosa, como seria possível propor diagnósticos e tratamentos confiáveis? A busca desesperada por explicações lógicas e maneiras científicas de tratar os males da mente produziu algumas das práticas mais macabras na história da ciência (veja quadros abaixo) e não teve muito sucesso até a metade do século 20. Somente quando o neurocientista português Egas Moniz ganhou o Prêmio Nobel de Medicina pela invenção da lobotomia – uma cirurgia de danificação dos lobos frontais que é vista hoje como um dos exemplos mais bem-acabados da crueldade enfrentada em hospitais psiquiátricos – é que a psiquiatria viu-se, finalmente, aceita entre os homens da ciência. “Pode-se dizer que uma nova psiquiatria nasceu em 1935 quando Moniz deu o primeiro passo corajoso em direção ao campo da psicocirurgia”, escreveram os editores do New England Journal of Medicine em 1949. A psiquiatria havia, finalmente conquistado a credencial necessária para vestir o jaleco da medicina.

A segunda revolução nos tratamentos veio algum tempo depois, com a criação dos remédios antipsicóticos. Agora era possível tratar pacientes mentais dispensando a internação – uma condição fundamental para a revolução que teria início na década de 1960: o fim dos manicômios. A invenção facilitou a vida de muitos pacientes, piorou a de outros (os efeitos colaterais costumam ser graves) e trouxe muito dinheiro para a indústria farmacêutica (só para citar um exemplo, o antipsicótico olanzapine é o terceiro remédio mais vendido do mundo).

Mas o avanço nos tratamentos não resolvia a questão mais fundamental no processo: a precisão do diagnóstico. Há casos muito claros de perturbação mental, mas há outros em que é quase impossível determinar a linha que separa a simples imaginação humana da falta de lucidez restritiva típica das manias ou psicoses. David Rosenhan é uma prova disso.

Quando seu artigo foi publicado, Rosenhan recebeu críticas duras de diversos psiquiatras. Muitos o acusaram de não ser suficientemente científico, afinal era impossível provar como os pacientes realmente haviam se comportado (Rosenhan nunca divulgou o nome das instituições em que foram internados já que, dizia, não era sua intenção atacar pessoalmente esse ou aquele hospital). Um dos grandes críticos do trabalho dele foi Robert Spitzer, que na época trabalhava no Centro de Pesquisa e Treinamento Psicanalíticos da Universidade Columbia, nos Estados Unidos. Spitzer acredita que o fato de terem sido liberados com o diagnóstico de esquizofrenia em remissão é uma prova de que os funcionários do hospital conseguiram sim distinguir a sanidade da insanidade. Ainda assim, Spitzer resolveu revisar o Manual de Diagnóstico vigente e logo percebeu que havia pouquíssimas provas científicas embasando os diagnósticos. Ele montou grupos de pesquisadores e foi atrás de pesquisas e evidências. Em 1974, lançou a terceira edição do DSM, um calhamaço de 480 páginas e quase 300 diagnósticos catalogados.

OS LOUCOS FALAM

Durante sua temporada no hospital psiquiátrico, David Rosenhan percebeu que “uma vez marcado como esquizofrênico, não há nada que o paciente possa fazer para superar essa etiqueta. A etiqueta muda completamente a percepção que os outros têm dele e de seu comportamento”. Características normais, relatadas pelos pseudopacientes, foram interpretadas pelos enfermeiros como sinais da doença. A aproximação de um dos pais durante a adolescência, por exemplo, transformou-se em “ausência de estabilidade emocional” no relatório médico. E a irritação dos pacientes com a falta de atenção dos funcionários era vista como mais um sintoma da doença e não como reação aos maus tratos.

Ao lutar por seu lugar entre as práticas da ciência, a psiquiatria moderna havia instituído uma relação com os doentes que ficou famosa na definição do filósofo francês Michel Foucault: o monólogo da razão sobre a loucura. A idéia de que pacientes mentais eram desprovidos de razão e, portanto, não tinham direito a opinar sobre sua vida e tratamento legitimou vários abusos da medicina. Esterilização forçada e proibição de casar são só dois exemplos do que era visto como verdade incontestável quando o assunto era a vida dos doentes mentais. Um dos jornais mais respeitados do mundo, The New York Times, escreveu em seu editorial, em 1923, que “é uma certeza que o casamento entre dois doentes mentais tem de ser proibido”.

A obra de Foucault transformou-se em inspiração para os movimentos que começavam a tomar corpo na década de 1960: a luta antimanicomial e a antipsiquiatria. Em todo o mundo, ex-pacientes de hospitais psiquiátricos começaram a se organizar contra os abusos da razão sobre a loucura. O objetivo era um só: dar “ao indivíduo a tarefa e o direito de realizar sua loucura”, como escreveu Foucault.

Mas até que ponto vai a liberdade do indivíduo de realizar sua loucura? Para a maior parte dos governos, o limite é o risco de morte. Foi exatamente por isso que Rosenhan e seus companheiros foram internados. Naquela época, acreditava-se que ouvir uma voz dizendo palavras como “oco” e “vazio” era um sinal de que, inconscientemente, aquela pessoa acreditava que sua vida era oca, que não valia a pena. Dali para o suicídio, seria um pulo, acreditavam os médicos. Mas nem todo mundo concorda que o tratamento deve ser obrigatório quando há risco de morte. “Qualquer tratamento forçado é ilegal”, diz David Oaks, ex-paciente de hospitais psiquiátricos e fundador da organização Mind Freedom, uma organização que tem como um de seus lemas “psiquiatria cura discórdia, não doença”.

O fato de o tratamento ser imperativo quando existe risco de morte impede que, para algumas doenças, estudos sejam feitos usando dois grupos de pacientes: um medicado e outro não medicado. Sem provas de que o medicamento funciona melhor do que nenhum tratamento, a psiquiatria vira alvo de diversas críticas, principalmente no que diz respeito aos efeitos colaterais de seus medicamentos. “O que se espera da psiquiatria é que ela seja 100% eficaz e que não tenha nenhum efeito colateral. Obviamente, ela não atinge esse objetivo”, diz Bettarello. Mas nem todo mundo diz esperar 100% de eficácia. “No topo da minha lista de desejos está um simples pedido de honestidade”, escreveu o jornalista médico Robert Whitaker no livro Mad in America (“Louco na América”, sem edição em português). O livro faz um balanço das pesquisas sobre tratamentos psiquiátricos nos últimos anos e mostra como não existem evidências concretas para a maior parte das declarações de eficácia feitas pela indústria farmacêutica e, conseqüentemente, dentro dos consultórios psiquiátricos.

Honestidade também é o que pedem os participantes do Mad Pride (Orgulho Louco), um movimento de combate ao preconceito contra pacientes psiquiátricos e de celebração da cultura Louca (com L maiúsculo mesmo). Uma das ações do movimento é a passeata anual de loucos, inspirada nas paradas gays que já existem em diversas cidades do mundo. A idéia é desestigmatizar os doentes mentais e mostrar que existe sim vida normal entre eles.

No Brasil, o movimento da luta antimanicomial cresceu nos anos 80 e, inspirado em projetos bem-sucedidos dos Estados Unidos e Europa, idealizou centros de apoio a pacientes mentais organizados e administrados pelos próprios usuários, em conjunto com médicos e seus familiares. “A inserção não é algo que você concede a alguém. Ela precisa ser conquistada. O doente faz parte da sociedade e a relação que ele tem com sua doença é a mesma que a sociedade propõe”, diz o psiquiatra Tykanori, um dos expoentes do movimento no Brasil. A luta antimanicomial transformou o atendimento público de saúde mental com a criação dos Caps, Centros de Apoio Psicossocial, e abriu caminho para a aprovação, em 2001, da lei que prevê a extinção progressiva dos manicômios no Brasil. E incluiu efetivamente os pacientes em sua batalha. “Nós entendemos que podemos colaborar na construção teórica de um saber e nas práticas de reabilitação psicossocial”, escreveu a usuária Graça Fernandes no artigo “O avesso da vida. Como pode a assistência se transformar?”. Os pacientes, finalmente, rompiam o monólogo da razão e estabeleciam um diálogo sobre sua própria condição. “A sociedade percebeu que a participação dos doentes mentais enriquece-nos muito mais que o seu isolamento”, diz Tykanori.

O QUE É NORMAL?

Com os avanços da ciência, a baixa popularidade dos manicômios e a força dos movimentos organizados contra abusos psiquiátricos, é de se pensar que, se o experimento de Rosenhan fosse realizado nos dias de hoje, ele teria um resultado bem diferente do que o internamento imediato dos anos 70. Certo? Era isso que a psicóloga americana Lauren Slater queria descobrir quando decidiu procurar, em janeiro de 2004, oito prontos-socorros de saúde mental e afirmar que vinha ouvindo o som “tum-tum”. Ela conta que, exatamente como Rosenhan e seus colegas, a voz foi o único sintoma falso que apresentou.

Slater não foi tachada de esquizofrênica nem internada. No entanto, nos oito hospitais em que esteve, foi diagnosticada com depressão e recebeu pílulas de risperidone, um antipsicótico bem popular que, na época, era tido como um remédio leve (seis meses depois da experiência, o fabricante divulgou uma nota confessando ter minimizado os riscos do uso do medicamento nos materiais promocionais enviados a médicos). “Eu acredito que a ânsia de prescrever remédios dirige hoje o diagnóstico da mesma forma que a necessidade de enquadrar o paciente como doente fazia nos anos 70”, escreveu Lauren no artigo Into the cuckoo·s nest (“Dentro do ninho do louco” uma referência a One Flew Over the Cuckoos’s Nest, o título em inglês do filme “Um Estranho no Ninho”), publicado no jornal britânico The Guardian e, mais tarde, no livro Mente e Cérebro, que acaba de ser lançado no Brasil.

O médico Spitzer soube, pela própria Slater, do resultado do experimento. “Acho que médicos simplesmente não gostam de dizer eu não sei”, disse a ela pelo telefone, depois de um longo silêncio. A recusa em confessar ignorância não é uma particularidade da psiquiatria. “O problema é que o objeto dessa ciência somos nós mesmos e nossa normalidade. Ou seja, nossa natureza básica”, escreveu Lawrence Osbourne, no livro American normal: the hidden world of Asperger syndrome (“Normalidade americana: o mundo secreto da síndrome de Asperger”, não lançado no Brasil), que reúne informações sobre Asperger, uma doença cada vez mais comum nos Estados Unidos.

A síndrome de Asperger foi incluída no DSM-IV – a edição mais recente do manual, de 1994, com 884 páginas e 365 diagnósticos. Como o manual descreve os distúrbios a partir de seus sintomas, lista uma variedade imensa de emoções humanas, condutas e regras de relacionamento como desvios patológicos. Sentir-se angustiado depois do fim de um relacionamento, comer muito, comer pouco ou comportar-se mal na sala de aula são alguns exemplos de ações que aparecem na lista. É quase impossível não se reconhecer ali e se perguntar: mas, afinal, o que é normal?

Das duas uma: ou estamos mesmo ficando menos equilibrados – o que poderia ser explicado pelo ritmo e modos de vida do mundo moderno – ou nos viciamos em diagnósticos psiquiátricos. “Estamos transformando todo comportamento humano em patologia. Fazendo isso, criamos um sistema verdadeiramente louco, em que todos estão doentes”, diz o psiquiatra Mel Levine, diretor do Centro Clínico de Estudos sobre Desenvolvimento e Aprendizado, da Univerdade da Carolina do Norte. Nos Estados Unidos, o uso de medicamentos psiquiátricos está atingindo níveis altíssimos. Crianças de 2 anos recebem prescrição de remédios cujos efeitos a longo prazo são completamente desconhecidos. “É muito mais fácil encaixar a criança difícil em uma categoria e medicá-la, do que deixar que ela desenvolva naturalmente suas habilidades sociais”, diz Levine.

E, como quase tudo na vida, o mais fácil nem sempre é o melhor. “Mais do que tudo, o aumento de diagnósticos psiquiátricos representa um aumento gradual do preconceito em nossa cultura”, diz o psicólogo Richard DeGrandpre. Talvez seja a hora de começarmos a lidar melhor com as nossas próprias neuroses, manias e loucuras. E, sobretudo, aceitarmos nossas diferenças.



Tratamentos usados para curar a loucura revelam algumas das convicções médicas ao longo da história.

Furos no crânio (século V a.C.)

O que é: Fazer buracos no couro cabeludo do paciente.

Justificativa: Os buracos permitem que os demônios, que provocam a loucura ao ocupar o corpo do paciente, possam abandoná-lo.

Disciplina total (século XVII)

O que é: Thomas Willis, um dos primeiros médicos a escrever sobre loucura, dizia que “disciplina, ameaças, algemas e bofetadas são tão necessárias quanto tratamento médico”.

Justificativa: É a razão que separa os homens dos animais. Loucos são, portanto, como bichos e, para se recuperarem, precisam aprender a ter medo e respeito.

Dor (início do século XVIII)

O que é: São empregadas diversas técnicas com o objetivo de machucar o paciente. A mais comum consiste em provocar bolhas no crânio e genitálias, usando soda cáustica

Justificativa: As dores obrigam a mente do louco a focar-se nessa sensação, deixando de lado pensamentos raivosos.

Indução de vômito (1715)

O que é: Durante vários dias, diferentes tipos de purgantes são ministrados ao paciente.

Justificativa: “Enquanto a náusea durar, alucinações constantes serão suspensas e, algumas vezes, removidas. Até o mais furioso vai se tornar tranqüilo e obediente”, dizia o médico George Man Burrows.

Sangramento (1790)

O que é: Retirada de até quatro quintos do sangue do corpo.

Justificativa: Danos cerebrais, masturbação ou muita imaginação podem levar à circulação irregular nas veias que irrigam o cérebro, que é a causa da loucura. A retirada do sangue poderia normalizar o fluxo.

Afogamento (1828)

O que é: O paciente é colocado dentro de um caixão com furos e imerso na água. Deve ficar submerso até que “bolhas de ar parem de subir”. Depois é retirado e reavivado.

Justificativa: O método leva à suspensão das funções vitais e possibilita que o paciente volte à vida com maneiras mais ajustadas de pensar.

Cirurgias ginecológicas (1890)

O que é: Amputação do clitóris e retirada do útero

Justificativa: A vagina e o clitóris têm grande influência na mente feminina. A loucura pode ser resultado da agitação provocada por esses órgãos.

Hidroterapia (1896)

O que é: O paciente é enrolado em uma rede e mantido dentro de uma banheira encoberta por uma lona (com um buraco para a cabeça) por horas ou até dias. Água gelada e água fervente são usadas alternadamente para encher a banheira.

Justificativa: O banho prolongado induz à fadiga psicológica e estimula a produção de secreções da pele e dos rins, que podem reestruturar as funções do cérebro.

Terapias endócrinas (1899)

O que é: Injeção de extratos dos ovários, testículos, glândulas pituitárias e tireóides de diversos animais.

Justificativa: Os extratos modificam a nutrição das células do corpo e, portanto, levam à cura permanente.

Esterilização (1913)

O que é: Esterilização forçada nos homens

Justificativa: A operação viabiliza a conservação do esperma, o elixir da vida, ajudando na melhoria do quadro.

Extração de dentes (1916)

O que é: Remoção de dentes que apresentam problemas. A terapia não é aconselhada para pacientes num estágio avançado da doença.

Justificativa: Bactérias são a causa de várias doenças crônicas e costumam ficar escondidas perto dos dentes. Elas podem seguir até o sistema circulatório e chegar ao cérebro, causando doenças mentais.

Hibernação (1920)

O que é: O paciente permanece entre “cobertores” congelados por até três dias, para que a temperatura do corpo caia 12oC ou menos

Justificativa: O choque térmico pode fazer com que o paciente recobre parte das funções mentais.

Coma provocado (1933)

O que é: O paciente recebe uma dose de insulina suficiente para levá-lo ao estado de coma. Depois de um tempo (de 10 a 120 minutos), é reavivado com uma solução de glucose

Justificativa: A hipoglicemia pode matar ou silenciar as células doentes e sem possibilidade de restauração. Os pacientes voltam do coma agindo como bebês de 5 anos o que é, sem dúvida, uma prova de sua recuperação.

Convulsão (1934)

O que é: O paciente recebe uma injeção de metrazol e entra em forte convulsão, correndo o risco de quebrar ossos e dentes e ter hemorragias.

Justificativa: A convulsão pode restaurar as funções mentais. Ou isso, ou o temor do paciente diante da terapia causa um choque cerebral tão forte que provoca a cura. De todo modo, a terapia é válida.

Eletrochoque (1937)

O que é: Uso da eletricidade diretamente na cabeça para provocar o ataque de epilepsia.

Justificativa: A convulsão produz danos cerebrais, eficientes na recuperação do paciente. A perda de memória, outra conseqüência do choque, é benéfica já que torna impossível a lembrança de eventos que lhe causem preocupação ou angústia.

Lobotomia (1940)

O que é: Aprimorada pelo neurologista português Egas Moniz, a cirurgia, que já vinha sendo realizada de diferentes maneiras desde o século 19, consiste em danificar os lobos frontais do cérebro.

Justificativa: Distúrbios acontecem porque pensamentos patológicos “fixam-se” nas células cerebrais, especialmente nos lobos frontais. Para curar o paciente, é preciso destrui-las.





Alguns estereótipos fazem parte da imaginação de todos nós e ajudam a construir nossa idéia do que é a loucura.

O profeta

O profeta Gentileza abandonou seu trabalho e sua família para andar pelas ruas do Rio de Janeiro pregando o amor e a paz. “Louco é o homem que preferiu enlouquecer, no sentido em que socialmente se entende a palavra, a trair sua idéia de honra humana”, escreveu o artista francês Antonin Artaud.

O gênio

Van Gogh é só um dos exemplos da combinação entre talento extraordinário e distúrbios mentais. “Quando um intelecto superior se une a um temperamento psicopático, criam-se condições para aquele tipo de genialidade que entra para os livros de história”, dizia o filósofo inglês William James.

O melancólico

Um tipo comum no mundo moderno, o deprimido é o homem que perde o interesse pela realidade e passa a viver “no escuro”, abandonando progressivamente a relação consigo mesmo.

O delirante

Dom Quixote é o exemplo mais famoso do herói sonhador, que passa a viver dentro de seus próprios sonhos. Seus delírios, como enxergar gigantes em moinhos de vento, criam uma realidade própria, que, para ele, é a verdadeira realidade.

O violento

Edward Gein, um dos serial killers mais famosos do século 20, foi preso em 1957 quando a polícia achou corpos de mulheres esquartejados em sua casa. A história inspirou filmes como O Massacre da Serra Elétrica e reforçou a imagem que liga loucura e violência.

O ilógico

Twiggy, modelo famosa nos anos 60, inaugurou o ideal de magreza exagerada. Vítima de anorexia nervosa, não enxergava o que parecia óbvio aos demais. Olhava o corpo esquelético no espelho e enxergava-se gorda.

Texto de Barbara Soalheiro publicado na revista "SuperInteressante", Brasil, edição 211, março de 2005. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

In a true horror of story of survival, discover how the Donner Party went from emigrants to man-eaters.

It’s the tale of how the pursuit of the American dream turned into one of the great American nightmares, and a reminder of the dark side of the frontier spirit. 170 years after the Donner Party set out from Springfield, Illinois, their tale still haunts and fascinates us. But how did 89 men, women and children meet such a gruesome fate? It began with a hope for a better life in the West. California was their destination, painted as a land of opportunity and plenty by Lansford W Hastings – a pioneer and aspiring land developer. Hastings had great dreams for what he could accomplish in California but he needed able bodies to make them a reality. In 1845, he published The Emigrants’ Guide To Oregon And California, containing a shorter route to their destination via what would become known as ‘The Hastings Cutoff’.

The year of 1846 saw a huge number of settlers heading westward. James Frazier Reed was driven by the prospect of new business ventures and a better climate for his wife Margaret, who was prone to terrible headaches, while George Donner and his family were veteran emigrants. They left Springfield on 14 April, late in the season for a westward passage, but making for an impressive sight, thanks in large part to the Reed’s opulent two-storey wagon known as the ‘pioneer palace car’. By 19 May, they had joined Colonel William Russell’s wagon train, then 50 wagons strong, and more would join them over the coming days. In June, Russell left the group and Lilburn Boggs took command. The group would soon splinter, but it wasn’t over a question of leadership. It was about Lansford Hastings and his cutoff.

When the Boggs train reached Fort Laramie on 27 June, they met James Clyman – an experienced traveller who had just journeyed east with Hastings – and he had a dire warning for Reed and his companions. It was hard enough on foot, he told them, and to attempt to travel that route by wagon would be incredibly dangerous. Reed ignored him, putting his trust in Hastings and a faster way to their final destination.

A letter from their guide was found at Independence Rock, telling the group to meet him at Fort Bridger, and the Reed-Donner party split from the Boggs train on 20 July. The group now needed to appoint a leader, and chose Donner over the proud and domineering Reed, who had alienated many of his fellow travellers. They reached Fort Bridger to find that Hastings had already gone ahead, but he had left instructions behind. After four days of rest and repairs, they set out to follow him.

At first, it seemed like Clyman’s warning about the trail had been an exaggeration. They embarked on a few days of easy passage and made good time. However, on 6 August, they found a note at Echo Canyon in Utah. In it, Hastings told them that the planned route was “impassable” and wrote that he had gone on ahead to find another way. Reed and two men went looking for their absent guide, and when they finally found him, Hastings pointed out a new path but refused to return with them.

Hastings’ new route through the Wasatch Mountains was incredibly tough going. The emigrants had to clear a path for the wagons past bush and boulders, and the supplies were just days away from running out when the desert came into view. There, at the end of August, the party found another note from Hastings, a ragged, tattered order to follow him across the Great Salt Lake Desert, which he described as two days’ and two nights’ hard driving. As the emigrants stockpiled water and grass for this next ordeal, they knew they had come too far to turn back now.

Travelling across the salt was beyond difficult. By day, the heat of the Sun turned the salt into sludge, and the wheels of the wagons sunk up to their hubs. Their water ran out on the third day, and that night the Reeds lost their oxen; the beasts had been driven mad by the lack of water and fled.

It took five days for the Donner party to reach the other side of the salt flat, at which point they had lost 36 cattle and four wagons. After a week’s recovery, they set out again on 8 September, and sent Charles Stanton and William McCutchen to Sutter’s Fort when they realised that they didn’t have enough food to make it to California.

They found the Humboldt trail on 26 September – the original, advised safe track. Hastings Cutoff had added 200 kilometres to their journey, and cost them equipment, livestock and, perhaps most crucially of all, time. The snows were coming and the group was falling apart. Tempers snapped on 5 October when Reed attempted to stop a fight between one of his men and the Graves’ driver John Snyder. The furious Snyder beat Reed with his whip, and before he could land another blow, Reed planted a knife in his chest.

The emigrants watched Snyder stagger away for a few paces and die, and promptly accused Reed of murder. After Margaret begged for his life, the group banished him, forcing him to ride away from his wife and children. A day later, an elderly gentleman, Mr Hardkoop, was ejected from Lewis Keseberg’s wagon and, unable to keep up on foot, was last seen at the side of the road. By the middle of October, the Paiute Indians had become aware of the struggling emigrants and destroyed their oxen.

Finally, the group had some good fortune when Charles Stanton rode into view around 25 October with supplies and two Miwok guides, Luis and Salvador. Inevitably, the new supplies prompted discussion among the group about taking a rest, but when George Donner cut a gash in his hand while making a new axle for his wagon, they were reminded just how isolated they were. They pressed on and stopped for the night by Truckee Lake in the shadow of the lake, and it started to snow. They were a day late.

They tried for the summit on the next day but they were turned back by snow 1.5 metres deep, and a night on the mountain convinced them to turn back for the relative shelter of the lake. A winter camp was their only option, and the weather got worse and worse. The shacks were barely enough to keep the elements at bay, with roofs made of animal hide that would later become their food. The group anxiously watched the weather for signs of improvement, desperate to make a break for it across the mountain, but when days passed, they realised that the wagons would simply not make it. The first aborted attempt to cross on foot was made on 12 November, and with each successive failure, spirits worsened and supplies continued to dwindle.

Eventually, on 16 December, a team of 17 took advantage of the fair weather and set out on makeshift snowshoes for the mountain pass. They were in trouble after just a few days. Charles Stanton, the man who had been the group’s salvation once before, realised that he was struggling to keep up and told his companions to go on without him. He was last seen smoking his pipe in the snow.

On 24 December, they realised just how bad the situation was. They were lost, their supplies were gone, and the storm had returned. Desperate, they drew lots, but no one could bring themselves to kill the unlucky Patrick Dolan. Two days later, four were dead and the group resorted to cannibalism, taking care not to eat their family members. Cruelly, and inevitably, this food quickly ran out, and William Foster suggested that they murder Luis and Salvador. The appalled William Eddy told the two Native Americans of Foster’s intentions and they vanished, only to be found at death’s door roughly ten days later, at which point Foster carried out his initial plan.

On 12 January, the group found a Miwok camp, and the inhabitants nearly ran from the starved figures that appeared from the trees. The Miwoks gave them what food they could spare, and with their help Eddy soldiered on, finally finding Johnson’s Ranch, a farming outpost in Sacramento. A rescue team was scrambled and located surviving members of the Camp of Death on 17 January. Their ordeal was finally over.

Meanwhile, at Truckee Lake, the Donner party was becoming desperate. Patrick Breen wrote that he prayed to God on Christmas Day but the weather refused to let up, they struggled to forage or hunt, and animal hides became the basis of their meals. While the Forlorn Hope party was being saved, numbers at the lake were dwindling. Death was everywhere, and the storms continued. But a rescue party was coming. With the Mexican-American War over, Reed and McCutchen were able to rally men, and they left San Francisco on 7 February. Just two days later, Breen wrote, “Pike’s child all but dead. Milt at Murphy’s; not able to get out of bed. Keyburg never gets up; says he is not able. John (Breen, Patrick’s son) went down today to bury Mrs Eddy and child.”

The rescue party did not arrive until 19 February. Daniel Rhoads wrote about shouting a greeting and being met by a woman emerging from the snow, followed by others pushing their way towards them. “They were gaunt with famine,” he wrote, “and I never can forget the horrible, ghastly sight they presented. The first woman spoke in a hollow voice, very much agitated, and said, ‘Are you men from California or do you come from heaven?’” Carefully giving out small quantities of food, they decided to take 23 of the emigrants, leaving 21 behind for successive rescues. In their absence, the hunger at the camp was worsening. Breen wrote in his diary at the end of February that, “Mrs. Murphy said here yesterday that she thought she would commence on Milton and eat him. I do not think she has done so yet; it is distressing.”

James Reed was in the second rescue party, which arrived at the lake on 1 March. The Murphy cabin was a nightmarish pit of sickness, madness and cannibalism. The same scenes were found at the Donner camp, where the remains of Jacob Donner showed that his party had been surviving on him.

17 emigrants were taken from this hell, leaving just five behind, but a savage snowstorm left the party exhausted and stranded. Young Isaac Donner perished, and Mary’s feet were so badly frostbitten that she fell asleep with them in the fire. The Breen and the Graves family refused to go on, but James Reed drove ahead, meeting William Foster and William Eddy, who were heading back to the lake with a rescuer named John Stark to save their families. They took four of Reed’s men and came across the Breens and Graves, with 11 survivors sat around a fire pit a short distance away from gruesome evidence of cannibalism. Foster and Eddy took two men and carried on, while the other two took a child each and headed back. In an incredible act of heroism, John Stark picked up two children and all the provisions he could carry, and guided the 11 to safety.

When Foster and Eddy arrived on 14 March, they discovered that they were too late to save their children. They left for Bear Valley with four youths and two adults, but Thomasen Donner chose to stay behind with her husband, George, whose grotesquely advanced gangrene made travelling impossible. Lewis Keseberg also stayed behind. It would be another month before a fourth relief party could make it through.

George Donner had finally died towards the end of March, at which point Thomasen had set out for Lewis Keseberg’s cabin. Accounts differ as to how she met her fate, but when Keseberg was finally discovered, his shack was littered with the halfeaten bodies of his dead companions, including Mrs Donner. They left with Keseberg on 21 April, and he arrived at Sutter’s Fort over a week later. The horror stories from the ‘cannibal camp’ would shock the nation, and dog the survivors for the rest of their lives. For settlers, they became the definitive cautionary tale. As Virginia Reed wrote, “Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can.”

By Jonathan Hatfull in "All About History" UK, issue 45, November 2016, excerpts pp. 78-83. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Daring escapes, diabolical villains, valiant freedom fighters, love across a class divide - the Robin Hood story has got the lot. But the question that's been puzzling historians for centuries is - are these escapades the product of a medieval fiction-writer's fertile imagination, or could they in some way be grounded in historical reality? In other words, did a real-life Robin Hood ever exist?

Every generation has its favourite Robin Hood. To those of a certain age he is Kevin Costner, releasing a flaming arrow with unerring precision to the strains of Bryan Adams' mega hit ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’.

For readers of an older vintage. Robin will always be synonymous with Errol Flynn, the swashbuckling, green- eyed Saxon knight, who in the 1938 production, foiled King John’s dastardly plans in glorious Technicolor.

For those with less conventional tastes, however, the archetypal Robin I lood may not be a man at all. Instead, he’s a frog named Kermit, racing to Maid Marian’s rescue in the Muppet Show's unforgettable rendition of the famous outlaw tale in 1979.

Three very different productions these may be, but each is testament to the spectacular success of what is surely the world’s ultimate outlaw story. Robin’s trusty arrows have been pricking the public imagination ever since his talc was first told sometime, somewhere, in the depths of the Middle Ages. And, centuries later, his magnetism is showing no signs of waning.

THE STORY

There are almost as many versions of the Robin Hood story as there are trees in Sherwood Forest. But most modern adaptations of the talc begin with England’s brave and noble king. Richard the Lionheart. heading off to the Holy laind on crusade. With Richard occupied overseas, his evil, grasping brother. John, usurps the English throne and embarks on a reign of terror. Ably assisted by the equally diabolical Sheriff of Nottingham. John taxes his people until the pips squeak and imprisons (or worse) those who arc unable or unwilling to pay up.

Into this maelstrom steps the brilliant outlaw-archer Robin Hood. He decides to take a stand against John and his evil sheriff Operating from a base deep in Sherwood Forest. Robin masterminds a guerilla campaign against the Sheriffs men. eluding their attempts to capture him and. of course, robbing from the rich to give to the poor. In this, he is assisted by his 'Merry Men', a band of outlaws that includes the massive Little John - who befriends Robin after defeating him in a fight with quarterstaffs and Friar Tuck, a portly, jovial man of the Church with a soft spot for good food and wine. Yet the Merry Men don't have things all their own way. The Sheriff comes up with a plot to capture Robin by announcing an archery tournament at Nottingham Castle. Robin quits the safety of the forest to take part in the tournament and wins, but is taken prisoner by the Sheriffs men and sentenced to hang.

Death appears certain until the noblewoman Maid Marian helps the Merry Men rescue Robin and spirit him back to the forest. Soon Robin is back at Nottingham Castle to rescue Marian from the evil Sheriffs clutches and pay his respects to King Richard, who has just returned to reclaim the throne from his brother. England is safe, and Robin and Marian live happily ever after.

MAN OR MYTH?

But did any of this actually happen? To answer this question, wc have to leave the 21st century far behind, and return to an age when the name ‘Robin 1 lood' first left its imprint on the w ritten record. We know that Robin was already a literary figure by around 1377 because he shows up albeit fleetingly - in Piers Plowman, a poem by William Langland. In it. Sloth, the drunken priest, declares that he might not know the Lord’s Prayer but that he can recite the "rymes of Robyn Hood".

We have to fast-forward to about 1450 to find the first substantia] reference to Robin in a written text, That arrives in the form of the ballad Robin Hood and (he Monk, which tells us how Robin goes to Mass at St Mary’s Church in Nottingham, only to be recognised by a monk who he has previously robbed on the highway. Robin is arrested, and the not-so-heroic hero is only saved when Little John breaks him out of jail.

These tales reveal that Robin I lood was very much part of the national consciousness by the 15th century, but they do little to tell us whether or not he actually lived. For that, we need to look elsewhere, and we’ll begin with the era’s historical record.

It’s now that things get interesting for. in the 13th century alone, there’s no shortage of leads to men who could potentially have been Robin. Perhaps the most intriguing of these appears in the King’s Remembrancer’s Memoranda Roll of Easter 1262. which reports the pardoning of the Prior of Sandleford for seizing without warrant the personal possessions of a fugitive who the court called ’William Robehod’.

This wasn’t the first time that the name Robin Hood or at least something remarkably similar to it - had been read out in an English court. Almost four decades earlier, in 1226. the royal justices held an assize in York in which they slapped a penalty of 32 shillings and sixpence on a ’Robert 1 lod\ who they describe as a fugitive.

Could one of these two outlaws have been the real Robin? Was the Scottish historian John Major, writing in 1521, onto something when he claimed that Robin was active in 1193-94 at the time of John’s attempted coup against Richard? Did the Sloane Manuscripts, gathered by the 18th-century physician Hans Sloane. have it right when they claimed that the famous outlaw was bom in Locksley (probably Yorkshire) in 1160? It’s possible. But the cruel truth may be that these men weren’t referred to as Robehod’ or ’Robert I lod’ because they were Robin I lood. but because so embedded was the legend in the national ps>Tche - that’s just what fugitives were commonly called at the time. The appearance of‘Robehod’ and ‘Robert Hod’ in the records is undoubtedly intriguing, but it proves nothing. In fact, it has been argued that ’Robin Hood’ is merely a contraction of‘Robin o’ the Wood*, a purely legendary' figure whose nickname was first widely used in the 12th century.

BAD KING JOHN

But that doesn’t mean that the Robin Hood story' is utterly divorced from historical reality. On the contrary', it gives us an invaluable perspective on what life was like in the Middle Ages and. more specifically, what it was like to live during the reign of the tale’s infamous villain. King John. In an age when rulers were hardly averse to acts of cruelty, John (who reigned from 1199 to 1216) took despotism to new low’s. He imposed ruinous taxes on his subjects, waged unwinnable wars, and threw his enemies into prison on trumped up charges (in one infamous act of savagery, he ordered two aristocrats Maud de Braose a nd her son William to be starved to death in a castle dungeon).

John was a vindictive, incompetent, unpopular leader. “Hell itself is made fouler by the presence of King John,” was the chronicler Matthew’ Paris’s verdict on him in the 1230s. Yet John did, it seems, achieve something during his hapless reign and that was to turn the once-reviled figure of the outlaw into a champion of the little man. Under John’s father. Henry II. outlaws had been public enemy number one. Now’, they were heroes. This backdrop provided fertile territory for the emergence of a figure like Robin Hood.

And where better for Robin to wage his war against an unscrupulous king than from the depths of a forest? Not only was this practical - forests were huge, often wild and easy to hide in but. to our 13th century ancestors, highly symbolic. In medieval England, forests were largely the private preserve of the King, subject to draconian laws and, as such, incredibly unpopular. So not only was hiding in Sherwood a great way for Robin Hood to evade his would be captors, to early readers of the talc it would have been interpreted as a public act of defiance against the King.

QUESTION OF COUNTY

Whether Robin was a historical character or not, he certainly wasn’t the only outlaw operating during King John’s reign, and nor was he the most high- profile (not in the 13th century, at least). That accolade has to go to a powerful marcher lord called l;ulk FitzWarin. Fulk and John were childhood friends, until the pair had a fight over a game of chess. Ihe future king never forgot the incident and, when the two had grown up. took Fulk’s ancestral lands from him and gave them to a rival. Morys FitzRoger. Fulk promptly murdered FitzRoger and fled into outlawry - an act of defiance that earned him admiration across the land. Could his historical exploits be the template on which the Robin Hood story was based?

Maybe. Maybe not. But even if that was the case, most of the early balladeers don’t portray Robin Hood as the kind of person who would have circulated in royal circles as a boy. While Fulk was an aristocrat, the original Robin Hood was probably a member of the yeomanry, an emerging class that sat somewhere between the peasantry - those at the bottom of society’s pile, who were bound to a lord and had to pay a fixed rent for their land and the nobility.

Before turning to outlawry, the early balladeers' Robin Hood may have owned his own land, he may even have been a merchant, but he wouldn’t have broken bread with royalty.

Nor would he, necessarily, have been a man of Nottinghamshire. For centuries, two rival counties •• Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire - have claimed Robin as their own. Ihe prominence of the evil sheriff in modern versions of the story suggests that the former has come out on top. But not everything about this take on events stacks up. For example, the tradition that Robin Hood and his Merry Men hid out in the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest is compromised by the revelation that the tree would have been a mere sapling during the reign of Bad King John.

Yorkshire’s claim cannot, then, be discarded. Numerous ballads from the Middle Ages - A Gest of Robyn Node and Robin Hood and the Monk among them claim that he was born in South Yorkshire, and that he operated out of Barnsdalc Forest in that same county. And one of the most enduring traditions associated with the Robin Hood story suggests that he died there too. Robin, it’s claimed, was buried in the grounds of Kirklees Priory in West Yorkshire after being bled to death by a vindictive abbess. Realising that his demise was imminent. Robin fired his final arrow from the gatehouse window, entreating Little John to bury him exactly where the arrow fell.

A drawing made by the antiquarian Nathaniel Johnston in 1665 shows a slab decorated with a cross, and the inscription "Here lie Roberd I lude, Willm Goldburgh. Thoms-.“ carved around the edge at the spot where the outlaw is said to be buried. Yet Sir Samuel Armitage. investigating the site in the 18th century, found no evidence for a grave. He therefore concluded that the memorial must have been "brought from some other place, and by vulgar tradition ascribed to Robin Hood".

So neither Nottinghamshire nor Yorkshire have staked an undeniable claim to being home to the Rohin Hood legend. All we can say with at least a degree of confidence is that he was a man of the north.

Whichever county gave us Robin Hood, there's little doubt that, by the late Middle Ages, men and women across England had adopted him as their own. Visit any May Day celebration across the land from at least the 15th century and there's a good chance you’d have been greeted by the sight of revellers dressed in Lincoln green participating in the hugely popular ‘Robin Hood games.

And this evidently wasn’t solely the preserve of the great unwashed. Die chronicler Edward Hall tells us that in 1510, to mark the year’s May Day celebrations, the young Henry VIII entered Queen Catherine of Aragon’s chamber with 11 of his nobles, “every one of them with his bowe and arrowes. and a sworde and a bucklar. like outlawes. or Robyn Modes men“.

Even the great playwright William Shakespeare fell under Robin’s spell, writing him into two of his plays - The Tito Gentlemen of Verona and As You Like It {in the latter we’re told that a duke-turned-exile is living "like the old Robin Hood of England").

LOOKING FORWARD

Around the start of the 16th century. John Major wrote: “I conceive, there flourished those most famous robbers, Robin Hood and Little John, who lay in wait in the woods but spoiled of their goods those only w ho were wealthy. They look the life of no man unless he either attacked them or offered resistance in defence of their property". Here, in two short sentences, Major got to the nub of why Robin Hood remained so enduringly popular among his countrymen - Shakespeare to inebriated May Day revellers. To tehm, he was the heroic everyman cocking a snook at authority: the comforting proof that absolute, unbridled power doesn’t always win the day. Haifa millennium after Major breathed his last - and having conquered America in the 19th century, courtesy of Howard Pyle’s wildly successful children’s book.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - the elusive outlaw7 from the mists of medieval England has become a truly global phenomenon. It seems that the idea of a triumphant underdog still has cache, even in the digital age.

Today. Hood inspires Hollywood blockbusters (Russell Crowe is the latest A-lister to play him. in a Ridley Scott- directed 2010 production), provides the hero for popular video games, and has even given his name to a tax system that alms to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor.

We may never know whether he was himself rich or poor, where he live and that’s that Robin Hood is the irresistible centrepiece of one of the most enduring and enchanting legends of them all.

In "History Revealed", UK,  issue 38, December 2016, excerpts pp. 26-35. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

GM FOOD HAS BEEN AROUND FOR OVER 30 YEARS, YET IT STILL IGNITES HEATED DEBATE. SO IS IT SAFE, AND SHOULD WE ALLOW IT TO GRACE OUR SHELVES?

For most people, Miami is either a sun-drenched holiday destination or the favoured location for US crime dramas. However, in 1983, it was forever written in the annals of science as the place where it was first announced that we could introduce specific genes (pieces of DNA) into plant cells, then generate whole plants with only a single altered characteristic. Before that, plant breeders had been confined to crossing together two parents and then screening the resulting plants for that rare individual that emerged with better properties. This process was by its nature hit and miss and it took several years before a new variety with the desired properties could be bred. Suddenly it became theoretically possible to make specific alterations to an existing variety with relative ease. Thus began the age of genetically modified (GM) or transgenic agriculture.

From that point onwards a race began, headed by US agricultural and agrochemical company Monsanto, to exploit this technology and develop novel varieties of crops. Understandably from a commercial perspective, the first targets were those predicted to generate the largest sales. The two dominant products were plants designed to be tolerant to herbicides - particularly the Monsanto product glycophosfate - so weeds could be killed without harming crops.and those expressing toxin-encoding genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to give them resistance to certain insect pests. The strategy behind these approaches represented something of a revolution. In the period immediately after WWII, research investment focused solely on the discovery of new herbicides and insecticides. But now, scientists could achieve the same effect by modifying genes within the crops rather than inventing new chemicals to spray on them. The first GM crops came to US market in 1996 and sales grew rapidly.

It is estimated that sales of GM seed in 2015 amounted to $ 15.3 bn. This was grown in over 20 countriwa on an area greater than 440 million acres - more than a 100-fold increase since 1996. In 2015, the top five countries in order of area of GM crops cultivated were the USA (175 million acres), Brazil, Argentina, India and Canada. In the USA, more than 90 per cent of all maize, soybean and cotton is GM. In contrast, only about 200,000 acres were grown in the EU (mostly in Spain; all were an insect-resistant variety of maize.

DIFFERENCE IN OPINION

Although GM seed is more expensive than conventional equivalents, the extra cost can be seen as an insurance policy against crop losses due to weeds or pests. No longer is it necessary to spend so much time and money on the application of repeated sprays of herbicides or insecticides.

So why have EU farmers not taken the same route? The answers are based on differences in both the supply of GM seed and the demand for it. First, the range of crops differs between the two regions, with very little soybean being grown in Europe. Perhaps more importantly, attitudes to GM crops and to food derived from such crops are different on the two sides of the Atlantic. In the US, agriculture takes place mainly in regions that are far removed from the main centres of population, and who also have a general acceptance of government policy to GM.

In Europe, however, there is much greater awareness of farming locations as people tend to live closer to agricultural areas. In many countries there is also a greater distrust of government and the regulations surrounding GM. But these views are not held uniformly across Europe. Such diversity, aliied to the complex politics within the present 28 EU members, means that few GM crops have even been approved for cultivation. This has led to the withdrawal of commercial investment in GM in Europe, to be redirected to the US or Southeast Asia. This continues the trend of rapid commercial consolidation, to potentially just three massive conglomerates in the future - a significant issue to many who see commercial domination of agriculture, including GM, as detriment to fair competition and a threat to livelihoods in the developing world.

ARE GM FOODS SAFE?

In addition to opposition based on the perceived danger of concentrating commercial power in fewer hands, there is also vocal criticism of GM on the grounds of food and environmental safety. But is there any evidence of this? First, it is helpful to consider the origin of the crops that we eat. Many farmed crops are genetic mutations of their wild ancestors, with such spontaneous mutations having been identified as occuring between 10.000 and 20.000 years ago, when humans moved from hunting and gathering to farming. These mutations led to dramatic changes in characteristics. For example wild species of potato often contain toxic levels of chemicals called glycoalkaloids - compounds that protect them from insect attack. Similarly, the amount of edible fruit in a wild tomato is much smaller than in their farmed counterparts.

Our recent ability to sequence the DNA of crops has led to interestings about these evolutionary processes. It is now clear that genomes have continually been gaining and losing genes. The gains have often come from other species, as part of a process known as 'horizontal gene transfer'. Humans, for example, contain approximately 50 genes transferred from other organisms, including 27 genes from a diverse range of viruses. We should therefore consider the genomes of organisms not to be fixed, but subject to gradual change.

But do any of these genetic changes, whether naturally induced or brought about by humans, have an impact on food safety? Every part of our body, from skin to bones, and from blood to brain, is composed of chemical constituents obtained by the breakdown and reassembly of food. The DNA and proteins in food from GM crops have exactly the same chemical building blocks as those found in any other chemical building blocks as those found in any of her food. Over the last 20 years there has been no confirmed harm to the millions of humans that have eaten GM food, whether as fresh fruit such as papaya, or as processed product from maize, soy, sugar beef or oilseed rape.

In fact, the main global food safety issue is with food-borne diseases caused by contamination, principally with bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli , viruses, parasites, toxins, and chemicals. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) produced the first ever estimates of the global burden of foodborne diseases, and showed almost 1 in 10 people fall ill every year from eating contaminated food and 420,000 die as a result. This also has a significant economic impact. Germany 2011 E. colli outbreak, which caused 50 deaths after consumption of sprouted organic fenugreek seed, reportedly led to 1.3 bn in losses for farmers and industries and $ 236 m in emergency aid payments to 22 European Union member states.

Some people are concerned about the potential danger posed by the spread of introduced genes from GM crops to their wild relatives. Such ‘genetic pollution' is seen as irreversible and a threat to species diversity or stability. Although the gene that codes for herbicide resistance has been shown to transfer in the pollen of a GM grass to a wild relative, this has no environmental consequence. Also, a low frequency of pollination is known to occur between cultivated crops and their wild relatives and vice versa. In most industrialised countries, and in many parts of the developing world, there are government regulations that cover the import and cultivation of GM crops, and guidance on whether or not the food derived form GM crops has to be labelled, in the EU and US, the regulation applies to the process by which a GM organism is produced. In contrast regulation in Canada focuses on the product generated, not the method by it was produced. Many scientists around the world now consider that the logical target of regulation should be the product and not the process, because this approach could accommodate all the new breeding technologies that have been developed in recent years.

THE FUTURE OF GM

We have the somewhat contradictory situation in Europe that only a tiny area of farmland is used for cultivating GM crops, yet about 90 per cent imported soybeans - a major constituent of animal feed - come from GM sources. This means that people in the EU indirectly consume large amount of GM because many animals eat imported GM feed. Meat, milk and eggs from animals fed on these products are sold throughout the UK, but do not need to be labelled as GM. In contrast, products for direct human consumption are labelled as containing GM ingredients. In the US, however, once a product has received regulatory approval it is considered equivalent to that from a non-GM source and doesn't need to be labelled.

Several economic studies have shown that removing GMOs from the food chain would have a significant impact. One carried out at Purdue University in the US earlier this year found that if GMOs were eliminated, there would be lower crop yields and commodity prices would rise. Corn (maize) prices would increase by as much as 28 per cent and soybeans by up to 22 per cent. In real terms, shopper could expect their food prices to rise by between 1 and 2 per cent.

A similar study carried out at North Carolina State University in 2015 found that if someone in the US wanted to convert to a GM-free diet, then when directly compared item by item. GM-free food costs an average of 33 per cent more than a comparable food item that is not GM-free. When compared on a per-ounce basis, GM-free foods cost an average of 73 per cent more. Generalising to the cost a typical basket of food consumed by US households, the consumption of GM-free food would increase the average family food budget from $ 9,462 to $ 12,181 per year.

So what is the status of GM technology now that it is approaching middle age? Will it soon die out, as predicted by its opponents, to become a mere side note in agricultural history? Or will flourish further and help to contribute towards feeding future billions? Based on objective evidence, the great majority of international scientists deem the technology to be safe, while also acknowledging that some parties may have socioeconomic and/or ethical grounds for opposition. Regardless, research continues apace. There are dozens of new forms of GM and gene-edited crops, and a few animals currently being developed. These include non-browning apples and potatoes, purple tomatoes packed with extra nutrients, and even the AquaBounty salmon- fish genetically modified to grow throughout the year rather than just in the spring and summer, making it cheaper to produce and lessening its environmental impact.

These products will possibly have more direct benefit to the consumer than the previous products aimed primarily at the farming industry. In the UK, it is possible that new legislation will encourage a more logical and proportionate regulatory system that might allow the scientific talant in this country to be used more effectively. But only time will tell whether this happens and GM technology leaves a legacy in the form of another generation of science.

By Prof. Jim Dunwell in "BBC Focus Science & Technolgy",UK, issue 301, December 2016, excerpts pp. 79-85. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

(Jim Dunwell is a professor of plant biotechnology at the University of Reading. His research areas include plant breeding, gene expression and protein evolution)

1. JOHN PAUL STAPP AND FLIGHT TESTING

When jets were developed after World War II, questions were raised over what kind of acceleration the human body could safely handle. Colonel John Paul Stapp from the US Air Force volunteered for a series of tests that subjected him to g-forces of up to 45g. He survived the experiments with no lasting injuries and died at the grand old age of 89 in 1999.

2. JOSÉ DELGADO AND HIS BULL BRAIN CONTROL

In 1963, Yale researcher Dr José Delgado stepped into a bull-ring in Cordoba, Spain. A huge, angry bull charged straight at him. But Delgado calmly pressed a button on a remote control, which sent a signal to an electrode he’d implanted in the bull’s brain the previous day. The animal huffed a few times and walked calmly away, leaving Delgado unharmed.

3. STANLEY MILGRAM EXPERIMENTS

In the wake of the war crimes trials of Nazi leaders, a public debate emerged over whether ‘just following orders’ was a valid legal defence. Yale psychologist Dr Stanley Milgram performed an experiment to find out, using electric shocks to prove that people will obey even the most awful orders when they are delivered by figures in authority.

4. STUBBINS FFIRTH AND YELLOW FEVER

In 1804, a trainee doctor named Stubbins Ffirth went to extraordinary lengths to prove that yellow fever wasn’t contagious. He smeared vomit from infected patients into cuts on his arms, poured it into his eyes, fried it and inhaled the fumes and drank it. He didn’t contract the disease, but it was later found that the samples came from patients who were no longer contagious.

5. MARGARET HOWE AND PETER THE DOLPHIN

In the 1960s, NASA funded research into communicating with dolphins, hoping that the principles would allow us to talk to aliens. For 10 weeks, Margaret Howe lived with a dolphin named Peter in a lab flooded with water. Over time, Peter became disruptive, showing sexual attraction to Howe. She relieved his urges manually (?) so the experiments could continue.

In "BBC Focus Science & Technolgy",UK, issue 301, December 2016, excerpt p. 63. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Brazilians make an art out of snacking. Whether it be at home, on the street or at the beach, having food on hand is an essential ingredient of a good time, and gives people the freedom to move about as they catch up with friends and family. But the true temples of petiscos (finger food) are the botecos. These little bars line the streets of every city in the country and range in character from very simple to up-market, although most are humble places. All it takes is somewhere to cook, a place to keep the beer cold and a few plastic chairs and tables on the pavement, and pronto – a boteco! Some are just a couple of chairs, while others boast a sea of tables, often of bright yellow plastic.

In every boteco you’ll find people from all walks of life mixing and mingling, sipping beer or sampling a reputable collection of cachaça, Brazil’s unique sugarcane spirit. The menu outlines all the house specialities and sometimes trays will circulate for patrons to take their pick. Music is always on the cards and impromptu circles of musicians, known as samba de roda (literally ‘samba circle’), can spontaneously pop up, with everyone joining in the singing and dancing.

Boteco food is cherished, and competitions to find the best boteco dish are a hit in many cities. These annual pilgrimages guarantee a fun evening with many pit stops. To win, contenders must score well across a number of categories including the cleanliness of the venue’s bathroom, staff friendliness, and whether the beer is as icy as it should be by Brazilian standards. That’s what we call a holistic approach!

The streets themselves are something of a culinary treasure-hunt, with street food staples varying from city to city. Since Brazilians use the street as if it were their backyard, grabbing chairs and sitting around the pavements shooting the breeze while the kids play, it’s no surprise that a lot of food is sold and eaten on the streets: outside churches, in main squares and in markets around town.

Salvador, the heart of Afro-Brazilian culture, is awash with Bahianas (women from the state of Bahia) dressed in religious clothing and cooking up little gems like acarajé, a type of black-eyed pea and prawn (shrimp) fritter that originated as an offering to the gods. Cities such as Natal and Recife in the North-East are known for the tapioca pancake (Tapioca). This chewy goodness is served with simple toppings – both savoury and sweet – such as cheese, shredded coconut with condensed milk, or charque, a type of sun-dried, salted beef found all over the region.

The combination of freshly squeezed sugar cane juice served with a deep-fried pastry, known as pastel (Pastel de Camarao), is a mouth-watering classic found in every state. Meanwhile, the street food of the Amazon is suitably exotic. Acai smoothies (Acai), tambaqui fish barbecue and tacacá, a soup made from jambu leaves (which make your mouth go numb) are sold everywhere. In fact, you can create a very healthy diet from Brazilian street food alone.


Bolinho de bacalhau are a national favourite and can be found at bars, markets and street stalls all over the country.

Pão de queijo are adored in the state of Minas Gerais. They are perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack and are wonderful with fresh black coffee. Minas Gerais is famous for its locally produced cheese, but a good-quality pecorino romano is a fine replacement, and it’s worth experimenting with a few combinations.

Pastels are served everywhere in Brazil – on the beach, at markets or during house parties. They come with all kinds of fillings: prawn, beef, ham and cheese, plain cheese, cheese and banana.

Fried cassava chips. This typical boteco food is easy to make and seriously delicious to eat. The chips go very well with a cold beer.

Torresmo (pork crackling) makes great finger food and it’s a boteco favourite. It’s also a fantastic side dish for feijoada (pork and bean stew).

Barreado is a type of stew that’s cooked in a claypot, sealed with dough. It’s famous in the small town of Morretes in the state of Paraná and was originally conceived as an easy source of energy for carnival revellers who partied throughout the night. Nowadays people travel to Morretes via the Serra Verde Express – a spectacular railway that connects the capital to the coast – to marvel at the enchanting scenery and try the famous barreado.

Bacalhau (dried salt cod) was introduced to Brazil by the Portuguese, who have been using this preserving technique for centuries, and it has become an essential ingredient of Brazilian cuisine. Bacalhoada is cherished throughout the country and is usually prepared for special occasions, especially at Easter time when the large Catholic population replace the traditional meat in their diet with fish.

Gaúchos, Brazilian cowboys who hail from the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, have a strong culture of food, music and dancing that is still expressed today. Brazilian churrasco (barbecue) originated from the Gaúchos, and no churrasco would be complete without a traditional potato salad.

Farofa is a common side dish in Brazil and no churrasco (barbecue) is complete without it. The key ingredient is cassava flour, an iconic ingredient in Brazilian cooking.

Feijoada is Brazil’s national dish. Popular legend claims that it was created by slaves during the colonial period, using the left-over parts of the animal discarded by their masters, but historians have argued that this is nothing more than a myth. The Portuguese have a strong tradition of cooking stews and it’s possible that this is just another dish they introduced. Whatever version you fancy, the truth is that this hearty pork and black bean stew is celebrated nationwide, and every family has its own special recipe.

Feijão tropeiro. During the colonial period, troops of cattlemen known as tropeiros were engaged to explore the inland territories of Brazil. On their journeys, they had to carry most of their food with them. The essentials – beans, dried and salted meat, and cassava flour – were typically combined to create the iconic feijão tropeiro, a dish that carries the nickname of the explorers.

Carne de onça (Brazilian beef tartare) has been served in the Mercearia Fantinato in Curitiba since 1953 and is so popular in restaurants all over the town that it has been embraced as Curitiba’s official dish. The dish is named after a native Brazilian cat known as an onça. It’s said that, due to its pungent ingredients, eating the dish will give you the breath of the onça. Waiters joke that if a couple are on a date, they both have to order carne de onça, otherwise someone will be sleeping on the couch.

Baião is a much-loved traditional North-Eastern rhythm that combines Indigenous, African and European influences under the rule of the zabumba drum. The name baião de dois roughly translates to ballad for two, which is an allusion to how well the main ingredients, rice and beans, go together.

No book about Brazilian food would be complete without mention of churrasco, but the technique – the type of barbecue used, the temperature, cooking times and preparing the meat – could easily make for a full book!

Paçoca de pilão is a type of sun-dried beef that is mixed with cassava flour and ground until very fine. It’s a popular side dish for stews and bean dishes.

Pudim de tapioca. Sagu (tapioca pearls) are a popular dessert ingredient, usually prepared with coconut and condensed milk.

Acai is a berry harvested from tall palms that grow on the banks of the Amazon River. It is widely promoted as a ‘superfood’ – full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Brigadeiro is a truffle-shaped chocolate sweet (candy) that is very popular nationwide, especially at children’s birthday parties.

The caipirinha dates back to 1918, when a mixture of garlic, lime, honey, sugar and cachaça was a popular concoction used in an attempt to prevent the devastating Spanish flu. The cachaça was sourced from the countryside of São Paulo state, and the drink became nicknamed the caipirinha, meaning ‘little one from the countryside’. In 2003 presidential decree no. 4.851 made the caipirinha the official Brazilian drink.

Goiabada is revered in Brazil, and thick, sticky slices of the paste are eaten with fresh cheese, a combination so perfect that it has been nicknamed ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

Quentão (mulled cacjaça) Festa Junina celebrations take place all over the country during June, in honour of St. John’s birthday. The festivities traditionally take place in a straw tent, where party-goers dressed in peasant costumes dance quadrilha, a traditional square dance, and drink the flavoursome quentão.

By Fernanda de Paula & Shelley Hepworth in "This is Brazil - Home-style Recipes and Street Food",Hardie Grant Books, Australia/UK, 2014. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

COMO UM PAPA EXTRAVAGANTE, UM MONGE FURIOSO, O MAIS FAMOSO DIVÓRCIO DA HISTÓRIA E CRENTES EM TRANSE FRAGMENTARAM O CRISTIANISMO.

A família Medici deu um salto em 1513: emplacou o novo papa. Com o apoio do clã de Florença, a mais influente linhagem da península da Itália, Giovanni di Lorenzo de Medici se tornou Leão X e levou o excêntrico estilo de vida florentino para Roma. Quando foi coroado, aos 37 anos, desfilou pelas ruas, e as fontes de água jorravam vinho para celebrar o pontífice. Voltou triunfante a Florença depois de assumir o cargo e mandou pintar um menino de dourado, dos pés à cabeça, que desfilou com o papa pela cidade como forma de avisar a todos que a “era de ouro" estava chegando. A festa durou quatro dias - e o garoto dourado morreu pouco depois, intoxicado.

O clã era um rolo compressor. Os Medici dominaram as finanças e o comércio da Itália entre os séculos XV e XVI, mas queriam mais poder. Para chegar lá, usaram sua fortuna para patrocinar artistas como Michelangelo e Leonardo da Vinci e boa parte da pintura, escultura e arquitetura do Renascimento.

O plano de comprar a simpatia local deu certo: eles governaram Florença e ajudaram a transformar a cidade no mais excitante destino da época.

Leão X seguiu a tradição da família e bancou os melhores artistas do seu tempo. Ele também turbinou a reforma da Basílica de São Pedro, a sede da Igreja. O projeto, já em andamento, ganhou grandiosidade sob a batuta de Leão, responsável por tornar o imenso templo num dos pontos turísticos mais visitados no mundo hoje - um museu recheado com o melhor da arte renascentista, como a Capela Sistina. Tudo pago com o dinheiro dos católicos.

O papa Medici raspou os cofres para pagar tanto luxo. Com a casa em reformas e o acúmulo de faturas, Roma precisava tirar dinheiro de algum lugar. Leão decidiu que esse lugar seria o bolso dos pecadores. A Igreja tinha um mecanismo de abatimento de penitências em troca de dinheiro: as indulgências. O guloso que exagerava no jantar de sábado podia fazer uma doação para a paróquia para purgar o pecado. O padre entregava um papel, um certificado que garantiria a redução do tempo de purgatório. Pecadores gostavam das indulgências porque podiam anestesiar a consciência sem participar de obras de caridade ou passar semanas rezando. Bastava pagar. Para a Igreja, era melhor ainda. Os certificados custavam caro e enchiam os cofres. O sistema já existia, mas, sob Leão io°, foi turbinado. Assim, pecados como o da gula, luxúria e inveja se transformaram em mármore e afrescos da Basílica de São Pedro, concluída em 1626.

A fama da Igreja não era boa. Outros pontífices já haviam sido acusados de corrupção, nepotismo e de uso do cargo para fins pessoais e políticos. Mas Leão X ajudou a piorar a imagem da Santa Sé. Em pouco tempo, ganhou a fama de o mais extravagante papa da história.

Um dia, o monge alemão Martinho Lutero visitou a capital dos católicos e ficou chocado com a prostituição nas esquinas e com os sermões nada inspirados dos padres. Foi a gota d’água. Os gastos, as indulgências, o papa excêntrico e o descaso com a fé incentivaram o monge a protestar. Em 31 de outubro de 1517 quatro anos após a coroação de Leão, Lutero fez um gesto dramático: pregou na porta de uma igreja da cidade de Mainz, na Alemanha, um documento hoje conhecido como as 95 Teses. Era o início da Reforma Protestante.

Na queixa, Lutero reclamou do comércio de indulgências e questionou o poder do papa para perdoar os fiéis. Foi um ato corajoso. Críticas semelhantes circulavam pela Europa, mas foi o monge alemão que teve o peito de expor publicamente as contradições de Roma. Nos anos seguintes, Lutero seguiu firme na luta. Foi expulso da Igreja, preso, e suas ideias, proibidas. Além de atacar as indulgências, o monge pregou contra o poder do clero. Para ele, bispos, cardeais e papas não tinham acesso ao plano espiritual: eram apenas pessoas comuns que subiram na hierarquia política da Igreja. Lutero convocou os cristãos a retomar o controle da própria fé e dizia que todo Fiél tinha direito de interpretar a Bíblia como quisesse. A lealdade de cada um a Deus nao devia ser medida por obras de caridade ou por doações, mas apenas pela fé. O monge queria uma religião controlada por pessoas comuns - o “sacerdócio de todos os crentes", como definiu. “Para os protestantes, a vivência da fé nlo precisa de intermediários. Essa ideia permitiu a proliferação de denominações e seitas diferentes”, diz Steven Engler, professor de teologia da Universidade Mount Royal, do Canadá.

Leão X não gostou nada da petulância de Lutero, mas, além de excomungá-lo, não tomou grandes providências contra o movimento. Ao minimizar o incidente, o papa deixou espaço para o crescimento das queixas. E não eram poucas: a Europa estava cansada do pulso firme do clero. O papa, herdeiro do Império Romano, tinha influência sobre todos os reis da região. A Igreja era dona de cerca de um terço das terras do continente. Nas vilas, tudo passava pelos padres, responsáveis por batizar, casar, educar e interpretar o mundo para os fiéis. Havia uma sensação generalizada de que a Igreja tinha poder demais.

Na prisão, Lutero traduziu a Bíblia para o alemão para permitir maior acesso dos fiéis ao texto sagrado, até então encontrado predominantemente em latim, hebraico e grego. Não foi a primeira tradução da Bíblia para o alemão, mas foi a mais popular da época. A recém-nascida prensa de tipos móveis ajudou a espalhar a versão de Lutero e permitiu a impressão de textos e filipetas de propaganda da Reforma. A tática, inovadora para aqueles tempos, ganhou terreno. Em 1525, o discurso de Lutero contra a hierarquia estabelecida já tinha conquistado os camponeses germânicos, que pegaram em armas e organizaram um grande levante contra as autoridades - fossem da nobreza ou do clero. Estima-se que 100 mil agricultores foram mortos em questão de meses.

Mesmo com o povo nas ruas, alguns nobres apoiaram a revolta de Lutero. Um deles foi Alberto, o grão-mestre da Ordem Teutônica, um grupo católico que governava um território onde hoje fica a Polônia. Envolto em batalhas locais por terras, ele leu textos do monge revoltado, se encantou por suas ideias e, em 1525, transformou a área no Ducado da Prússia, o primeiro Estado de inspiração protestante da história. Com a reviravolta, Alberto tomou todos os bens da Igreja Católica, o que lhe garantiu dinheiro para financiar e vencer as guerras contra os vizinhos. A moda pegou. Outros monarcas viram vantagens no rompimento com Roma: confiscaram terras da Igreja, retiveram impostos que iam direto para o papa e exerceram mais poder sobre a população. E, assim, a Reforma deixou de ser um movimento religioso para se tornar também uma grande revolução política.

DIVINA FRAGMENTAÇAO

Enquanto isso, na Inglaterra, o rei Henrique 8o não conseguia gerar um herdeiro macho. A rainha. Catarina de Aragão, ficou grávida seis vezes, mas somente um filho sobreviveu à infância - uma menina, o que decepcionou o rei. Henrique era um homem extremo: comia e bebia muito e tentou construir um reinado forte. Queria um filho para sucedê-lo. Aos poucos, o casamento azedou. O monarca já vivia um caso com uma dama de honra da corte, Maria Bolena, e, mais tarde, se interessou pela irmã dela, Ana. Envolvido pelo novo affair, Henrique pediu ao papa Clemente VII autorização para o divórcio. O pontífice {mais um Mediei, primo de Leão 10o, morto 13 anos antes) vetou a separação. Roma nao queria dar um mau exemplo aos fiéis.

A costura política para sacramentar a separação e garantir a bênção papal para um novo casamento transformou o episódio no mais rumoroso divórcio da história - maior do que o adeus de Angelina Jolie a Brad Pitt. Sem avanço em Roma, o rei convenceu o mais alto líder católico da Inglaterra a autorizar a separação, passando por cima da vontade do papa. Com a ruptura, em 1534, Henrique 8o se declarou o novo chefe da Igreja Anglicana, uma instituição que já existia, mas que deixou de responder a Roma depois da decisão. E ficou assim até hoje: a atual rainha da Inglaterra, Elizabeth II, continua à frente da igreja.

O trono inglês, é claro, tomou as terras e os bens do papa na ilha. Henrique se casou com Ana e teve seu herdeiro homem. Foi a mais radical das rupturas cristãs após a Reforma de Lutero.

A Igreja Católica se fragmentou. A palavra “católico" significa “universal” em grego, e, por um milênio, Roma conseguiu manter o poder cristão centralizado - embora tivesse sofrido outras baixas no passado, como a divisão entre romanos e ortodoxos em 1054. Muito sangue foi derramado após a Reforma: católicos e protestantes se odiavam e lutaram em muitas guerras. Mas a campanha iniciada por Lutero foi bem-sucedida. Levou 38 anos entre a aparição das 95 Teses até que os protestantes pudessem comemorar: em 1555, a Paz de Augsburgo foi assinada para permitir a coexistência de cristãos e luteranos na Alemanha e reduzir a carnificina, um marco na tolerância cristã que foi seguida em toda a Europa com o passar das décadas. Roma reagiu. Reviu alguns procedimentos, freou a farra das indulgências, incentivou a catequese de novos povos nas colônias das Américas, África e Ásia e continuou comandando a maior religião do mundo. O estrago, no entanto, estava feito. Depois de Lutero, a Igreja Católica perdeu muito terreno. Quase metade do território europeu passou para as mãos protestantes, principalmente ao Norte.

O impacto do maremoto de Lutero pode ser sentido até aqui, no Brasil de hoje. Novas igrejas começaram a se proliferar baseadas na doutrina do “sacerdócio de todos os crentes". Não havia mais constrangimento para qualquer cristão pregar numa praça, conquistar um rebanho e abrir uma nova igreja. A leitura livre da Bíblia permitiu uma infinidade de novas visões sobre o livro sagrado. Toda vez que um grupo de cristãos sentia que precisava valorizar determinada interpretação das escrituras, fundava um novo movimento - uma nova igreja.

A REFORMA EVANGÉLICA

A partir desse ponto, a história do novo cristianismo vira uma grande salada. É fácil se perder entre tantas denominações e conceitos. Protestantes, evangélicos, pentecostais, neopente- costais - sem contar toda a gama de igrejas: luteranos, anglicanos, batistas, metodistas e uma porção de nomes que veremos nas próximas páginas. Para entender a ascensão de grupos como a Assembleia de Deus e a Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus no Brasil atual, precisamos mergulhar nesse bufê.

Todos esses grupos sao cristãos. Eles acreditam que Jesus Cristo é o salvador. Os protestantes você já conhece: são todos os cristãos que romperam com o poder do papa e se sentiram livres para criar novas igrejas.

Mas o que é um evangélico? Em resumo, é um protestante entusiasmado. A expressão veio do grego e significa "trazer boas noticias”, e Lutero usou o termo para classificar o próprio movimento. Ou seja, em teoria, todas as igrejas protestantes podem ser consideradas evangélicas. Mas o movimento protestante sofreu uma revolução entre os séculos XVIII e XIX, principalmente na Inglaterra e nos EUA. A partir de então, ser evangélico virou algo diferente.

O liberalismo econômico e o individualismo estavam ganhando terreno na Inglaterra - o capitalismo começava a ganhar a cara de hoje. A vida era dura: não existiam leis trabalhistas, as cidades eram imundas e muita gente morria de estafa e de infecções. Mercadorias começaram a ganhar mais importância do que o culto de domingo. Essa existência cada vez mais desalmada despertou os pastores. “A religião é uma dimensão da sociedade. Se muda a sociedade, muda a religião”, diz a professora Vanda Pantoja, da Universidade Federal do Maranhão, doutora em Antropologia e pesquisadora do protestantismo no Brasil.

George Whitefield foi o mais famoso missionário da época. O inglês era carismático, fazia sermões emotivos e decidiu levar o evangelho para a América em 1739. Na colônia, a vida era ainda mais cascuda. As instituições ainda não haviam se estabelecido, faltavam igrejas para abrigar imigrantes, e a população convivia com guerras contra índios, franceses e espanhóis. Osso duro. Whitefield reacendeu a fé perdida em meio a tantas dificuldades, e deu início ao Primeiro Grande Despertar, movimento que buscou recuperar os valores cristãos na América - e que marcou os EUA para sempre. O pastor ficou famoso e hoje é considerado a primeira celebridade dos EUA. Seu legado foi preparar um grande caldeirão crente, concentrado principalmente ao norte de Nova York.

Nas décadas seguintes à passagem de Whitefield, sobravam novidades: Revolução Industrial, independência da Inglaterra, fim da escravidão, avanços científicos como a Teoria da Evolução e a crescente influência dos jornais. Pastores tentavam aplacar a ansiedade que as mudanças provocavam nos fiéis com discursos cada vez mais emotivos. Para os religiosos, era melhor virar as costas para as transformações que ocorriam na sociedade e se concentrar na Bíblia. Eles começaram a profetizar a chegada do fim do mundo e o retorno de Jesus, mas traziam uma boa notícia: você tem salvação mesmo com o apocalipse batendo à porta. Basta aceitar os ensinamentos da Bíblia. Ou seja, evangelizar se tornou o ato de pregar uma mensagem “otimista” de salvação - embora o discurso fosse embalado num contexto de desgraça iminente. A partir daí, grupos passaram a aguardar a volta do filho de Deus, ter experiências místicas (como conversar com espíritos) e se isolar em comunidades utópicas. Todos buscavam a forma mais pura de viver o cristianismo - uma ideia que sobrevive ainda hoje nos evangélicos dos EUA, considerados fundamentalistas.

Os Grandes Despertares (houve outro no século XIX) deram um novo sentido à evangelização, que se tornou uma combinação de quatro atividades: difundir a Bíblia, valorizar o sacrifício de Jesus, converter novas almas e envolver religião com a vida pública. Tudo com muito entusiasmo. A onda crista tornou os EUA o maior viveiro de novas igrejas dos séculos XVIII e XIX: adventistas, mórmons, testemunhas de jeová e outros grupos nasceram por lá.

Foi como se uma segunda Reforma tivesse ocorrido na América. E o fervor ficou cada vez mais intenso.

FALAR EM LÍNGUAS

Em 9 de abril de 1906, um membro de um grupo evangélico de Los Angeles teve um surto durante um culto comandado por William Seymour, um pastor negro de 35 anos. Semanas antes, o missionário vinha alertando os fiéis de que o Espirito Santo podia se manifestar no corpo dos presentes. Era uma tradição que começava a invadir centros evangélicos. E um fenômeno em particular chamava a atenção dos desavisados. Crentes falavam, gritavam e cantavam em línguas incompreensíveis. Como bem sabem os iniciados, não se tratava exatamente de idiomas. Os fiéis estavam “falando em línguas". No mundo laico, isso significa o mero balbucio de fonemas incompreensíveis. No mundo religioso, é um pouco diferente: a tradição de falar em línguas remonta ao Velho Testamento. O balbucio, e o aparente surto corporal, fazia parte do êxtase profético desde a origem do povo israelita, por volta de 1200 a.C.

A tradição ganhou uma nova roupagem no Novo Testamento. O livro Atos dos Apóstolos descreve assim o dia de Pentecostes: “Todos os apóstolos ficaram cheios do Espírito Santo e começaram a falar noutras línguas, conforme o Espírito os capacitava". Nesse caso, o que temos é uma espécie de evolução do êxtase profético: os apóstolos teriam de fato aprendido instantaneamente as línguas estrangeiras de sua época, capacitando-se para pregar sua fé pelo mundo. Para Seymour, seja como for, o fenômeno do falar em línguas deveria ser encarado como um segundo batismo, um sinal de que a pessoa havia atingido um nível superior de fé - um selo de aprovação divino. Nos dias seguintes, outros seguidores de Seymour viveram experiências fonéticas semelhantes. “As pessoas que viram e passaram por esse episódio muitas vezes voltavam para as suas comunidades e atiçavam a experiência do Espírito Santo entre os membros da sua própria igreja”, diz o professor Steven Engler. Com o boca a boca, o culto de Seymour virou uma atração em Los Angeles.

O pastor pregava na porta de casa, de frente para uma multidão na rua. Era uma balbúrdia de gritos aleatórios. Com o sucesso, Seymour levou o rebanho para um galpão da Rtua Azusa, onde promoveu cultos barulhentos e abarrotados ao longo de três anos, formando uma nova geração de cristãos de fé revigorada. O movimento da Rua Azusa se tomou famoso no mundo inteiro e inspirou o pentecostalismo, uma nova corrente do universo protestante. A onda embalou o barco de dois suecos que desembarcaram em Belém do Pará para transformar o cristianismo brasileiro.


OS MOTIVOS DA REFORMA

1. As indulgências saíram do controle. O comércio dos certificados arrecadou tanto que financiou a reforma da Basílica de São Pedro.

2. Roma tinha muito poder: o papa influía na política de diversas monarquias, e a Igreja era dona de um terço das terras da Europa.

3. O comportamento exótico de Leão X derrubou a credibilidade de Roma.

4.Os cristãos estavam sedentos para explorar novas dimensões da própria fé, longe da burocracia dos ritos e da hierarquia católica.

Texto de Alexandre de Santi publicado em "Dossiê SuperInteressante", Brasil, edição 368-A, novembro de 2016, excertos pp. 8-15. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

Monumento ao primeiro culto protestante no Brasil em 1557

O COMBATE DA COROA PORTUGUESA ATRASOU O CRESCIMENTOS DOS EVANGÉLICOS NO BRASIL.

No século XIX, diversas correntes cristãs ingressaram no pais apesar das fortes restrições a qualquer tipo de pregação para quem era declaradamente protestante. Os cultos dessas congregações só poderiam ser realizados em prédios cuja aparência não fosse semelhante à de uma igreja católica típica.

Os protestantes ganharam corpo no país com a chegada de imigrantes alemães, em 1824. Mas o movimento só se expandiu para valer com o desembarque de missionários cada vez mais empolgados, sobretudo saídos dos Estados Unidos. Por lá, crescia uma nova visão evangélica segundo a qual a pregação nâo deveria se limitar apenas aos países reconhecidamente não-cristãos: era preciso investir também nas populações de maioria católica, como era o caso das nações latino-americanas herdeiras das tradições de Espanha e Portugal.

Os novos evangélicos acreditavam que países como o Brasil eram áreas férteis para ideias pagãs e idólatras. Essa visão estava muito presente, por exemplo, no pensamento de Ashbel Green Simonton, um jovem pastor nascido na Pensilvânia, que chegou ao Rio, em 1859. Simonton foi precursor de um novo estilo de sermão, que nâo se submetia à passividade dos primeiros protestantes brasileiros e adotava um tom mais ousado: queria conquistar católicos e “corrigir” os “vícios" dos latinos. O pastor fundou a primeira Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil. Suas palavras incentivavam a leitura da Bíblia e ocorriam em cultos simples, sem pompas - o que rendeu o comentário jocoso de que eles eram uns “missas- secas” se comparados aos vários ritos e sacramentos das celebrações católicas. Os presbiterianos viveram o primeiro exemplo de uma situação que se tornaria comum entre os evangélicos: uma racha interno. A divisão ocorreu quando o crente Miguel Vieira de Ferreira foi expulso e criou a Igreja Evangélica Brasileira. Apesar das discordâncias, as vertentes tinham em comum a atenção à alfabetização de seus membros.

Esse processo metódico começaria a ser abalado em 1882 com a chegada de missões batistas que subverteram o cenário protestante. Para os batistas, a forma de conquistar novos fiéis deveria ser por meio da simplicidade, com um discurso direto ao ponto. Os batistas eram menos burocratizados, o que permitiu um crescimento rápido. Na virada do século 20, as igrejas batistas pularam de 8 para 80 em menos de 20 anos. A ausência de uma estrutura rígida dava autonomia às congregações locais, que podiam incorporar novos fiéis conforme seus próprios critérios. Uma inspiração que ajudou na expansão da Assembleia de Deus e de todo o movimento evangélico até o século XXI.

arcebispos altamente educados e apontados pela monarquia, os missionários suecos tornaram o comando de sua instituição acessível à população humilde. A formação religiosa só dependeria de conhecer e divulgar a palavra bíblica. Também era fundamental se sentir chamado pelo Espírito Santo. Isso significava que, em teoria, qualquer assembleiano batizado estaria apto a abrir uma nova igreja e começar a pregar, independentemente do nível de estudos, desde que sentisse a “convocação” divina.

Outra novidade trazida pela Assembleia de Deus era a autonomia plena de cada congregação: não haveria um alto escalão definindo caminhos a seguir. Nenhuma orientação nacional da igreja deveria ter mais força do que o líder carismático local. O pastor de cada igreja deveria ser reconhecido pelos seus membros como a principal autoridade religiosa da Assembleia de Deus naquela unidade. Com essas medidas, a pregação se abria a um leque maior de crentes, o que, de modo geral, fez com que os sermões se tornassem mais simples, abraçando o improviso, a irreverência e os arroubos emocionais, sem se preocupar se o templo estava ruidoso demais. Existiam, sim, uma formalidade e uma disciplina, mas elas pesaram sobretudo no comportamento dos fiéis. Até hoje, exige-se um guarda-roupa recatado, cabelos longos para mulheres, e o álcool é proibido. Mas os cultos eram livres.

A Assembleia de Deus incentivou a formação de novos missionários, o que favoreceu o rápido crescimento da igreja em todo o país, principalmente nas partes mais pobres das cidades. Sem a exigência de ensino formal, muitos fiéis de origem humilde se viram em condições de liderar novas congregações. A coordenação nacional era muito mais simbólica do que prática, e a Assembleia de Deus delegava às unidades locais o esforço de financiamento para locar ou construir os templos. Não havia expectativa de luxo ou suntuosidade para os salões (embora grandes templos viessem a ser construídos no futuro), e diversas pequenas igrejas identificadas com a Assembleia começaram a pipocar em bairros periféricos, nas capitais e no interior, às vezes em galpões ou casas de uma peça só.

CONTRA A HIERARQUIA

A aventura tropical de Daniel Berg e Gunnar Vingren começou numa ca- lorenta tarde de novembro de 1910. A dupla sueca desembarcou em Belém do Pará com os bolsos lisos, preparados apenas para pagar um par de refeições e um pernoite em algum hotel decrépito da zona portuária. Depois teriam de implorar por ajuda nas igrejas da cidade.

O encontro dos nórdicos com o verão paraense pode parecer inusitado em 2016, mas fazia todo sentido no Brasil do início do século 20. Naquela época, Belém era uma das locomotivas do país e não ficava atrás das ricas capitais do Sudeste. O boom da borracha estava no fim, abalado pela competição da Malásia e Sri Lanka, mas a metrópole paraense ainda vivia a época dourada dos seringais, quando toda a produção da Amazônia passava por ali. Obras públicas dos tempos de fartura, como o Theatro da Paz, saltavam aos olhos.

Belém era uma das portas de entrada de imigrantes que viam no vibrante Brasil uma terra de oportunidades. O cenário era ainda mais atrativo para missionários protestantes. Eles não chegavam aos trópicos atrás do látex, mas dos “órfãos da seringa”, os homens e mulheres descrentes e desesperados pela decadência econômica da região que se iniciava. Em poucos dias, os suecos bateram na porta da Igreja Batista em busca de um teto para começar a difundir sua mensagem de fé. Não por acaso, o templo era comandado por um sueco como eles: o pastor Erik Nilsson, conhecido pela população local por seu nome abrasileirado - Eurico Nelson.

O fato de ter surgido em uma capital periférica no mapa do Brasil ajudou a Assembleia de Deus a alcançar outras regiões do país. Muitos dos membros da congregação de Belém eram migrantes, geralmente saídos do Nordeste ou de pequenas cidades do Pará e do Amazonas, e possuíam familiares espalhados pelo território brasileiro. Essa rede de relacionamentos permitiu que a Assembleia de Deus conquistasse um grande número de seguidores em um curto espaço de tempo. Em 1924, Gunnar Vingren transferiu-se para o Rio de Janeiro com a missão de ajudar a organizar a congregação na então capital federal - na década seguinte, com o sucesso da estratégia, a sede nacional da Assembleia de Deus foi transferida do Pará para o Rio.

Pouco a pouco, a nova igreja virou uma grande força religiosa brasileira. Em meados da década de 1930, a nacionalização já era quase total: tinha congregações em praticamente todos os Estados e também havia reduzido a influência dos movimentos pentecos- tais da Suécia sobre ela. Vingren morreu em 1933, aos 53 anos, após retornar para o país natal para tratar da saúde. Berg ficou vigiando a igreja de perlo por muito mais tempo, preocupado cada vez mais com o fortalecimento de uma nova geração de ministros que tomaria as rédeas da Assembleia de Deus quando ele se afastasse definitivamente da rotina pastoral, o que aconteceu em 1951.

Nessa época, a igreja originada em Belém já era considerada o terceiro maior movimento pentecostal do mundo em número de seguidores, um fenômeno que continuaria a crescer nas décadas seguintes. A expansão evangélica de congregações como a Assembleia de Deus mudou o perfil do movimento protestante no Brasil: deixou de ser uma porta de entrada de missionários para virar trampolim. Passamos a exportar pastores, principalmente para nações da África.

SEGUNDA ONDA

Mas, como é tradição entre os protestantes, a Assembléia de Deus também passou a conviver com a concorrência. Na segunda metade do século 20, começou no Brasil o que alguns historiadores da religiosidade chamam de “segunda onda pentecostal": a proliferação de dezenas de novas pequenas igrejas. As principais correntes da nova geração seriam a Igreja do Evangelho Quadrangular (de 1951), que chegou ao Brasil com os pastores norte-americanos Harold Edwin Williams e Raymond Boatright; a Igreja Evangélica Pentecostal O Brasil para Cristo (de 1955), formada em São Paulo pelo missionário Manoel de Mello; e a Igreja Pentecostal Deus é Amor (de 1962), criada pelo pastor David Martins Miranda.

A liberdade institucional das igrejas pentecostais favorecia a inovação. Um bom exemplo foi a estratégia adotada pelos americanos do Evangelho Quadrangular. Segundo Williams e Boatright, a Assembleia de Deus cometia duas falhas. A primeira delas era restringir sua pregação aos templos, 0 que obrigava os fiéis a se deslocar até a igreja. Se a missão era conquistar almas, fazia muito mais sentido ir até elas, e não o contrário. O segundo problema que identificavam na Assembleia era a perpetuação de “preconceitos”, exigindo padrões de comportamento rígidos e tachando de “pecadores” aqueles que não seguissem à risca o modo de vida pregado na cartilha da organização.

A Igreja do Evangelho Quadrangular, que tinha origem em Los Angeles, se apresentava como uma congregação mais adaptada aos tempos modernos. Era a representante do progresso vivido nos Estados Unidos após a Segunda Guerra e mais simpática ao sonho de- senvolvimentista brasileiro comandado pelo presidente Juscelino Kubitschek, cujo mandato foi marcado pela rápida industrialização. Um dos aspectos peculiares da igreja estava no comando: a congregação original havia sido criada por uma mulher, a canadense Aimee Semple McPherson. No Brasil, ainda eram homens que levavam a bandeira adiante, mas eles também traziam novidades: Raymond Boatright, com jeito de galã de filme de faroeste, sempre ia aos cultos acompanhado de sua guitarra elétrica, que usava para embalar os hinos religiosos. Ele e Harold Williams deram início a uma Cruzada Nacional de Evangelização e, com 24 tendas itinerantes compradas com dinheiro próprio e algumas doações dos fiéis, percorreram diversos Estados brasileiros oferecendo consolo e um caminho diferente, com mais liberdade de conduta do que as pentecostais de então.

Inovação também era a palavra de ordem na Igreja Evangélica Pentecostal. O Brasil para Cristo, de Manoel de Mello: a diferença já começava no fundador, que fazia dela a primeira grande organização pentecostal criada por um brasileiro nato - as anteriores haviam sido fundadas por suecos, um italiano, ou americanos. A Brasil para Cristo também tinha a novidade de se apropriar de espaços públicos que ninguém havia cogitado ocupar até então, indo além dos templos tradicionalmente usados pela Assembleia de Deus ou das tendas que ajudaram a popularizar a Quadrangular. A igreja de Manoel de Mello foi pioneira em várias iniciativas que depois seriam copiadas por outras seitas pentecostais - entre elas, a realização de cultos em espaços seculares como cinemas e estádios de futebol.

Outras iniciativas pioneiras empregadas no início dos anos 1960 continuariam a inspirar as demais igrejas por muitos anos. Manoel de Mello comprou espaços no rádio (com o programa A Voz do Brasil para Cristo) e até alguns horários nos incipientes canais de televisão, sempre com o plano de realizar pregações para um público maior. Mais do que isso, a Brasil para Cristo pisou em territórios nunca antes desbravados quando começou a realizar campanhas políticas para tentar eleger seus pastores a cargos legislativos a partir de 1962. A ditadura interrompeu os planos políticos da igreja, mas suas ideias ficaram apenas adormecidas: quando o regime militar iniciou a transição para a democracia, no final dos anos 1970, muitas de suas ideias voltaram com força total entre as diversas congregações pentecostais. Mas, em um pais de esfomeados, uma das principais atividades das igrejas pentecostais para conquistar os crentes foi a caridade, a exemplo da Igreja Católica. Era uma combinação sedutora: pastores criativos, cultos agitados e auxílio aos necessitados.

Texto publicado em "Dossiê SuperInteressante", Brasil, edição 368-A, novembro de 2016, excertos pp. 19-22. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

The production and packaging of food products demands the highest standards of quality and hygiene. For food manufacturers and related organizations where food is at the center of the business, pest infestations are a very serious concern that constitutes a constant threat to business success.

Food manufacturers should have an expectation that pests are always lurking due to the presence of food in their operations. For these businesses, the dangers of pest infestation occur at several points in the supply chain, including when raw ingredients arrive, inside machinery, in the warehouse or at the customer's warehouse. As a result, food manufacturers have the critical need to remain vigilant and maintain careful records to ensure and demonstrate that pest activity is not having a negative impact on their standards — or those of their customers and auditors. Continual action is critical to preventing an infestation from occurring and effectively managing any potential risk.

The Many Business Impacts of Pest Infestations

In order to gain insight into the challenges and issues pest infestation can present in food manufacturing and other industries including the economic impact, Rentokil commissioned independent research agency Opinion Matters and the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) to identify key trends impacting businesses and pest control. This research found that in 2014 alone, disruptions caused by pest infestations resulted in up to $9.6 billion in operating costs in the countries surveyed. Moreover, eighty-four percent of U.S. businesses reported a net impact on revenue due to pest infestation across a five-year period. Statistics like these highlight the seriousness of the issue.

However, particularly for food-related businesses, the potential impact is not limited to financial loss alone. The CEBR research found that food manufacturers and processors reported pest-related costs associated with an erosion of staff morale (30 percent) and contamination of raw materials leading to replacement costs (28 percent). If the pest problem is only discovered in finished goods on arrival at the customer's location, negative impacts, such as penalties and loss of revenue and reputation, will be at their highest. Even before that point, if pests are discovered during production, there can be a loss of productivity due to machine downtime, which can lead to missed fulfillment dates, potential contract losses and financial penalties.

According to the CEBR research, 41 percent of non-public facing core-food firms cited business disruption from infestations that lasted the same amount of time as the infestation itself.

The Benefits of an Integrated Pest Management Approach

The negative consequences of pest infestation is exacerbated for food manufacturing and processing operations because they are typically subject to stringent audits by customers and corporate head offices, as well as independent industry auditing bodies. When auditing is required, up-to-date and easily accessible records are essential in demonstrating that pest control is managed effectively. This is one reason many businesses subject to auditing requirements choose to partner with a professional pest control supplier who can devote full attention to managing and documenting a proactive plan to control pests, freeing the organization to focus on its core activities.

The application of practical and scientific experience to provide a tailored solution for a particular environment is the first step in proactively minimizing the risk of pest infestation and protecting a food manufacturing business. The best approach is to have an integrated pest management (IPM) program as part of the organization's food safety measures. IPM is an approach to pest management that minimizes reliance on chemical pesticides and — instead of only trying to eradicate pests — considers all available preventative and curative options.

In general terms, an effective IPM plan includes four steps:

• Inspecting the physical plant both inside and outside for ways in which pests might enter the building, as well as for the food, water and harborage that may attract pests and allow them access into the facility. While it is easy to neglect corners when cleaning, they are a common problem area for pests for just that reason.

• Identifying any pests that exist and developing a specific plan to eliminate them using mechanical or bait traps, pesticides or other appropriate means. It is important to develop a system for tracking type, frequency and number of pests caught in each identified area of the facility.

• Enlisting the support of company management, as well as production workers, to implement the program, including training sanitation staff to thoroughly clean problem areas according to a specific sanitation schedule.

• Continuously monitoring the program and recording results. In this way, an organization can prove success and/or adjust the program if, when and where necessary. Some qualified pest control partners offer online tools for monitoring and tracking pest activity, control measures and trends.

Pesticides are an important and necessary part of IPM, however the goal of an IPM program is to reduce the amount of pesticides used, which is a better method all the way around for a food manufacturing facility. As the CEBR research results demonstrate, pest control is always a concern for food producers. It’s a task that requires knowledge and expertise to comply with national and local regulations and the requirements of third-party auditors. Additionally, maintaining the cleanliness and safety of an organization's food products is vital to brand reputation, which makes paying attention to a meticulously kept facility of critical importance. An investment in a proactive IPM plan helps ensure the safety and quality of the products being delivered to consumers.

By Tim Larson in "Food Manufacturing",USA,January/February 2016, vol.28, n.1, excerpts pp. 24-25. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Nadie es semillita de cacao Para caerle bien a todo el mundo. Tiene valor económico, nutricional, social y religioso. Es algo para celebrarse y saborear.

Sus flores son polinizadas por las “chinches” chupadoras. El fruto se torna rojo o amarillo purpúreo y tiene un peso aproximado de 450 gramos. El árbol comienza a producir mazorcas cuando alcanza su madurez (a los cuatro o cinco años).

Sin embargo, las especies mejoradas las producen pasados los dos años. Anualmente se tienen dos cosechas: la principal hacia el final de la estación lluviosa que continúa hasta el inicio de la estación seca; y la intermedia, al principio del siguiente periodo de lluvias. Por lo general son necesarios de cinco a seis meses entre su fertilización y su recolección.

El chocolate antes de Carlos V

Los primeros árboles de cacao crecían de forma natural a la sombra de las selvas tropicales en las cuencas del Amazonas y del Orinoco, hace unos cuatro mil años. No obstante, existen evidencias de su consumo como bebida desde hace más de mil años en sitios olmecas como el Cerro Manatí, en el municipio de Hidalgotitlán, Veracruz. Los mayas llamaban al árbol ka’kaw, palabra relacionada con el fuego (kakh). Se creía que estaba escondido en sus almendras. Al chocolate le llamaba chocolhaa o agua (haa) amarga (chocol).

El cacao simbolizaba para los mayas el vigor físico y la longevidad. La palabra náhuatl cacahuaxóchitl se refiere a la flor (xóchitl) del árbol de cacao. En el Popol Wuj, (libro sagrado del pueblo maya k’iche), se describen diversas formas de elaborar y perfumar la bebida: más líquido o más espeso, con más o menos espuma, endulzado con miel, con maíz o ixim, o mezclado con chile picante. Interesante es que, de acuerdo con las fuentes historicas, el dios Ek Chuah fuera Dios del comercio, de la guerra y del cacao...

Del cacao no como cultivo, sino como moneda corriente: Guerra, comercio y dinero (el eje económico de cualquier potencia mundial capitalista) ya ejercían su influencia divina entre los mayas del sureste mexicano; y no solamente entre ellos: Hernán Córtes refiere en sus cartas a Carlos I que el cacao “es un fruto como de almendras que venden molida y tiénenla en tanto que se trata por moneda en toda la tierra y con ella se compran todas las cosas necesarias”.

Por su parte, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, en 1549, decía del cacao usado como moneda corriente para comprar cosas y personas que: "Un conejo vale diez almendras de éstas y por cuatro almendras dan ocho pomas o nísperos de aquella excelente fruta que ellos llaman munonzapot; y un esclavo vale ciento, más o menos, almendras de estas, según es la pieza o la voluntad de los contrayentes se conciertan". Hernán Cortes tuvo la suerte de probar el chocolate en la mesa del tlatoani azteca Moctezuma, quien lo invitó a tomarlo por ser una de las bebidas predilectas del venerado orador. Entonces se preparaba a partir de los granos tostados de los que se obtenía una pasta muy espesa y grasosa. El cacao, cuyo valor era más preciado que el oro para los indígenas, le sirvió a Hernán Cortés para que los aztecas se lo cambiaran por el metal; y fue precisamente su cualidad como moneda lo que permitió a los aztecas fincar buena parte de su poder en el control de tan preciado bien, ya que no sólo equivalía a dinero en efectivo, sino que, por su condición como bien de lujo también significaba estatus y prestigio para quienes podían controlar su distribución y disfrutar su sabor como una experiencia digna de las deidades.

Hablando de dioses, según las fuentes históricas, fue Quetzalcóatl a quien los aztecas atribuían el origen del grano amargo, regalo divino para aliviar el cansancio. El xocolatl era un agua amarga que tanto mayas como aztecas preparaban mezclando chile con semillas de cacao tostadas y molidas, cuya espuma era una de las partes más importantes. Los mayas hacían la bebida aún más espumosa vertiéndola desde un recipiente elevado a otro que estaba en el suelo, y hasta el día de hoy, la costumbre de presentarla bebida así, sigue siendo una constante entre los pueblos originarios de Yucatán y Oaxaca.

Historia, gastronomía, etiqueta y huateque

Es importante hablar de su uso dentro de los protocolos sociales. Los mercaderes aztecas, si volvían exitosos de sus hazañas comerciales en tierras mayas a Tenochtitlán, organizaban fastuosos convites en agradecimiento a los dioses.

El trato del chocolate como elemento culinario comenzaba en el mercado: “Con este propósito començava a comprar todo lo necesario que se havía de gastar en la fiesta que tenía intento de hazer. Primeramente comprava mucho cacao, y también aquella especie muy oloros[a] que se llama teunacaztli o ueinacaztli, la cual molida se beve con el cacao, y otras especies que molidas se beven con el cacao. Comprava también muchas gallinas y gallos de papada, y mucha loça, toda la que era menester para servicio de la comida, y también chiquihuites de muchas maneras, y xícaras de barro para bever, y palos para rebolver el cacao, y mucha leña para guisar la comida, y cañas de maíz o otras cañas que se llaman tlachinolácatl para cozer los tamales. Todo esto lo juntava en su casa. Una vez servido se servia: En la mano derecha, donde lleva la xícara, que se llama ayotectli; no la toca en la orilla sino en la palma. Y el palo para rebolver el cacao, y también el rodeo para sentar la xícara, llévalo en la mano izquierda. Esto davan a los principales y señores, pero a los demás sirvíanlos con xícaras de barro. Se sirve con la flor del itzcuinyolloxúchitl... y beben con el cacao que le da muy buen sabor… Y con eloxochicuáhuitl, flor grande… Si echan mucha, emborrachan”. (Sahagún, 2000: 1110-1120).

Datos Botánicos:

Theobroma cacao es el nombre científico del árbol cacaotero. Fue Carl Nilsson Linnæus quien en el siglo XVIII utilizó dicho nombre para identificar al árbol.

En griego significa “alimento de dioses”. Alcanza una altura promedio entre los seis y los diez metros de altura pero requiere sombra, protección del viento, y un suelo rico y poroso.

El clima para que crezca debe ser húmedo y con una temperatura que oscile entre los 20 y los 30°C. Las pequeñas flores de color rosa y los frutos brotan directamente del tronco y de las ramas más antiguas.

Texto de Ulises Chávez en "El Gourmet", Mexico, n.116, noviembre 2016. pp. 22-23. Adaptación y ilustración para publicación en ese sitio por Leopoldo Costa.

Lacy potato latkes with smoked salmon

Holidays—especially the meals—are a ton of work. And they’re totally worth it.

I remember shredding potatoes with my grandmother, her strong but gnarled hands creating a massive pile of raw strands with a box grater before I could make it through a single spud. I remember the warmth of those hands on mine, showing me the best method, covering my vulnerable knuckles to protect them from scrapes.

Lacy-crisp and golden, potato latkes are a Hanukkah staple that, like many Jewish holiday foods, are eaten to recall a time of struggle that turned out well—against all odds. In this case, children learn that when the heroic Maccabees rededicated their temple after it was defiled in a battle over religious freedom, they found only enough oil to light the candelabra for a single day. Miraculously, this small ration lasted eight times as long as anticipated, creating the foundation for a holiday that takes place over a week and a day and celebrates light, warmth and deep-fried delicacies.

All three of my kids have tried their hands at shredding on the box grater, but I usually use a food processor. While latkes require a lot of effort, I would never purchase them. Storebought ones don’t taste right—and besides, the house wouldn’t be filled with the wonderful aroma that signifies Hanukkah.

I’m not sure if this commitment makes me a martyr. What I do know is that I love to offer my family meaningful food experiences—and if that means grating and frying and flipping for hours, that’s what I’m going to do. For me, Hanukkah is just one of many special days throughout the year where I have an opportunity to mark the holiday—and connect with my Jewish heritage—through food.

Celebrating Purim

In late winter comes the 24 hours of Purim, when we pay homage to brave Queen Esther of ancient Persia, who saved the Jews from a villain named Haman. Purim is a fun and raucous holiday where kids dress up in costumes and generally make lots of noise. Even my baby, Maya, is now 14, so it’s been a while since my children were young enough to get dolled up and drag me to synagogue, but I still make hamentashen, the triangular Purim cookies, which symbolize the three-sided hat Haman was said to wear. My grandmother filled them with prunes, my mother with ground poppy seeds, and my sisters and I with combinations of dried cherries, apricots and lemon peel.

Really, what we put inside doesn’t matter; the dominant flavour is my grandmother’s singularly excellent dough recipe, which we all share. In late February or early March, hamentashen find their way into breakfasts, lunch boxes, desserts and midnight snacks. They’re traded, hoarded, coveted and savoured—until they’re gone.

Passover Rituals

Passover, which coincides with the arrival of spring—usually in early April—centres around the retelling of the exodus-from-Egypt story over huge meals called Seders, which are a major ordeal to put together. The Seders of my childhood were robust and exciting, with my mom and my grandmother working side by side to prepare the dozen or so customary symbolic dishes. My aunts, uncles and cousins always came, the snow outside our Edmonton home melted, and everything smelled like springtime.

As a young mother, I was far too intimidated to host a Seder myself. My dining room wasn’t big enough, the kids were too little, and how would I ever make all those dishes? I accepted every invitation to go out until one year, finding myself in culinary school and out of excuses, I realized it was time.

I put everyone to work. My sons swept the porch and brought up the card tables, my husband moved the sofa and shopped for flowers, and my daughter chopped apples for charoset and scrubbed potatoes to soak in salt water. I sat at my desk and tried to consider the old traditions in a new way. How could I reimagine chicken soup? Instead of eggs and parsley, what could I serve to symbolize renewal and spring?

The answers—and innovations— have taken shape over many seasons. One year, I served chicken soup in demitasse cups with mini-matzo balls and sliced parsnips. Another time, I decided that rhubarb was the quintessential Passover food and wove it into both a side dish and a piquant dessert. I reworked heavy gefilte fish into lemony and light dumplings and tweaked my mother’s Cornish hen recipe to incorporate handfuls of fresh herbs instead of a sweet, sticky sauce. Now, I’m thrilled to have my parents, my sisters and their partners and my nieces and nephews around our table, and I’ve been bowled over by my kids. The holiday I was afraid to take on has become one of our most gratifying team efforts.

Rosh Hashanah Sweets

In fall, we come to the most important of holidays for the Jewish community. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur comprise the Jewish New Year, a time of celebration and reflection. On Rosh Hashanah, my family follows two mornings of synagogue services with long, luxurious lunches. We might have brisket or chicken or even filet mignon, salads with dates or pomegranates, potatoes, barley or rice. But there are always apples and honey to signify a sweet new year—either on their own or baked into cakes. At my table, there are also plum desserts such as puddings and tarts.

Yom Kippur Fast

And finally, solemn Yom Kippur, the day reserved for atoning for a year’s worth of sins. We fast to signify our remorse and, when I was younger, I’d dread it all year long. Not anymore. Yom Kippur has become an important time of taking stock for me and, if I’ve managed to impart anything, for my kids as well. We go to synagogue, rest and take walks. What did we do over the year that we’re proud of? What could we have done better? How did we grow? At the end of the long day, we formally break the fast, and it has become our tradition to invite everyone we can find.

We make vegetable soups, mushroom strudel and homemade pizzas. I serve big baked pastas, roasted fish, salads and tons of wine. If it’s a warm evening, people take their plates onto the back deck, and the children play outside until late. We’re celebrating everything: our delicious food, our comfortable home, our connection to the seasons and our connection to one another. I try to talk to the kids about gratitude, but I’m not sure they hear me over earbuds and Snapchat.

After going without food for a day and then having more than enough, the message finally sticks: we are lucky for all we have—and it tastes so good.

By Bonny Reichert in "Reader's Digest", Canada, vol.189, n. 1135, December 2016, excerpts pp.106-111. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.