Fnord.

Subtle, eh? From the back of a foodie magazine. Yeesh.

Click the link, but be prepared for an experience equivalent to reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Coal tar is in everything. Damn.

Somehow, I really picked up the taste for carbonated water while travelling to Diego’s wedding. The carbonation adds a little zip and zing that I like, and the lack of sugar also appeals. I tried bottled water for a while, but the appalling waste of recycling plastic bottles for every 1.25l was too much. So I did some net-research and found a soda siphon: (also spelled syphon, or called a seltzer bottle)

It works pretty well, and the waste is just a 5cm CO2 canister that (hopefully) recycles easily. So far, so good, if you discount the siphon arriving with missing parts that required two weeks to find and get.

Of course, before the parts even arrived there was a post on Cool Tools, explaining how to make your own for even cheaper and simpler. Damn!

All thing considered, I’ll just use the siphon for a while. If I develop an unquenchable thirst, maybe the CoolTools setup will be required.

Not sure where I found this one, but an awesome and long post on making your own bacon! Here’s a snapshot:

As previously noted we’re fans, and one should never forget the crazy bacontarians, who strive to get bacon accepted as a diet.

Really.

Anyway, read the article, its both informative and amusing.

Qty  Name                                  SKU            Each Subtotal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1    Licorice in Bulk - Haribo Salinos drop34792        $29.95    $29.95
4    Licorice in Bag - Venco DZ Dubbelzout Round (Double Salt) - 4.5oz/140gr34454         $2.20     $8.80
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                    Subtotal      $38.75
                                        Shipping: UPS Ground      $10.36
                                                   Tax Total       $0.00
                                                 Grand Total      $49.11

                       Payment type:    Visa

Please come again!
Store URL: http://www.hollandsbest.com

I’ve used a different source before, am trying this one now due to a tip from Susan. Licorice ahoy!

(Image from Flickr)

Via Momus, a fascinating Guardian article on sugar:

The food industry, of course, is reluctant to surrender the power this sweetness has over its young customers. Global standards for foods are set by the international Codex Alimentarius Commission and these are increasingly used as benchmarks in World Trade organisation meetings. At the last meeting of Codex in November 2006, the Thai government introduced a proposal to reduce the levels of sugars in baby foods from the existing maximum of 30% to 10%, as part of the global fight against obesity. The proposal was blocked by the US and the EU.

…

“The blood sugar curves are quite different with whole foods. They give you a feeling of satiety and fullness and are metabolised slowly so that energy is released steadily over a longer period,” says Aubrey Sheiham, emeritus professor of public health at University College, London. “But as you expose yourself to sugar, your liking for it increases, and your taste threshold changes. You start needing more. Manufacturers have exploited that.” Intriguing evidence is also beginning to emerge that explains why high sugar consumption becomes quite so addictive. In animal experiments at Princeton University, Carlo Colantuoni has shown that rats that have been fed large amounts of sugar in their food and then have it removed show signs of opioid withdrawal. “The indices of anxiety and other symptoms were similar to withdrawal from morphine or nicotine,” he reports in the journal Obesity.

The industry will have none of this. It still maintains through its trade organisations such as the Food and Drink Federation that all calories are equal; the developed world’s obesity epidemic is, it says, the result of too many calories consumed compared with the number of calories expended through physical activity. British Sugar, which controls 60% of the UK domestic market, follows the typical line on its website: “Sugar is a natural carbohydrate … a source of glucose, the vital fuel for the brain and body … an essential part of an active lifestyle.”

An excellent article, well worth perusing, as is Momus’ take on the apologists. I just finished The Omnivore’s Dilemma, so I’ve been thinking about nutrionalism (NYT link) and such of late. I really like the opening sentence, which is also the summary:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Corn, in all of its guises as cheap filler and sweetener, increasingly looks to be part of the obesity epidemic. (Wikipedia entry on corn syrup, and the even worse HFCS.)

We went to a child’s birthday party the other day, and the store-made cake was layered with icing. One piece of it hit me really hard, and for the rest of the day I was off-balance and craving sugar in a very intense and odd sort of way. Disconcerting, certainly.

Things to think about.

The author puts it best:

My name is Alana, and I live in Scotland. I’m an American, and I’ve heard all the cultural stereotypes about British food*, so I thought I would take the time to try a variety of British foods, drinks and dishes, and report on whether or not they really are all that bad. The plan is to eat one new food per week, but that plan may vary.

The reviews are concise, the food described often peculiar and it’s all very well-written and funny. Enjoy!

A sample from the Marmite review:

Okay. I have to do this now. It is absolutely foul and it won’t come off my teeth. Help! Where is water? I need water! Okay, so I can’t finish the cracker. It is all the worst flavors in the world, concentrated into one devil-spawn foul mix. The texture is like really sticky smoker’s lung. Only stickier. It is salty and sour and bitter all at the same time. I think I may cry.

In the continuing list of food and bookmarks, I present to you the spectacle that is Permian Shrimp.

Shrimp, without the ocean, raised in waters from the Permian Basin in Texas. An ancient sea is tapped to farm-raise shrimp, which according the article are organic (unpolluted water) and tasty.

Amazing times we live in. I’m also amused to see the oil prospectors bane used so cleverly.

(Picture links to Flickr page where I found it)

Last year, I read an amazing article on the Times by Michael Pollan called ‘Power Steer’, where he purchased a steer and followed it from birth to slaughter. Pollan is the author of ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ and other books, and writes quite well. In it, he spends a lot of time explaining just why corn-fed beef is bad, both for us and the cows.

I was reminded of this today, when Mark Morford wrote a nice article on grass-fed beef that links to this Slate article reviewing several sources. The winner is Alderspring Ranch. At $21.50/lb (ouch!), they were the cheapest, too. (!!)

When we were in Illinois, it was reasonably easy to get locally produced beef at the farmers’ markets. Here in SoCal, it’s not so easy. Given the rave reviews in the Slate article and Morford, I’m tempted to try the Alderspring but damn that’s a lot of money for a steak.

The continuing irony never ceases to amuse. It’s expensive and difficult to eat healthily, and cheap & easy to eat junk food. The public health consequences of this are a lot less funny, though.

Thanks to Charles Bacon at Argonne for this one; he had to fly to Amsterdam on a half-days’ notice to repair a cluster that had been dropped by UPS. He came back with some entertaining stories and a stash of black, diamond-shaped salt licorice marked ‘Salino.’ It was unlike any I had had before, with an intense anise flavor and odd bite. Here’s a picture I found on the web:

(Picture borrowed from this page.)

(As an aside, the bite comes from Ammonium chloride.)

These are really, really hard to find in the US. Lisa Childers, bless her soul, finally got ‘er done. Head over to Hollandsedrop.com and hit ‘Special order Laura.’ Quite expensive, almost $75 shipped, but it is 3 kilos of the good stuff.

Another, even more intense, is ‘DZ’ or double salt:

(Image borrowed from Slashfood.)

Definitely an acquired taste, also available from Hollandsedrop. For a nice hater review, check out this page on Bad candy.

Anyway, I’ve been out for months and put in an order today; this page is just so I can find the order info next time.