food
moleculeoftheday | September 23, 2008Plants need nitrogen. You're soaking in it - the air is 78% N2 Trouble is, the kind of nitrogen plants need is reduced (i.e., has more electrons) relative to dinitrogen in the air. In the past, this meant rotating crops - peanuts, for example, promote nitrogen-reducing, or "nitrogen-fixing" bacteria.
We learned some time ago, though, that we could fix our own nitrogen. The Haber-Bosch process can take dinitrogen and dihydrogen and produce significant amounts of ammonia - "fixed" or reduced nitrogen. You can use ammonia as a fertilizer - if you keep it in big tanks like you use for BBQ propane…
jstemwedel | September 22, 2008By request, here's a reconstruction of the recipe for the lemon-chard soup we made with the rainbow chard from the garden:
Big bunch of chard (1.5-2 lbs.)
Medium onion
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 cup red lentils
4 cups vegetable stock
2 teaspoons chopped cilantro (or more, or less, or none, to taste)
1/2 cup lemon juice
Rinse the lentils well and make sure there aren't any rocks in them. Combine the lentils and the stock in a large pot, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for about 30 minutes. At this point, the red lentils will have lost all sense of their individuality. (If you prefer…
clock | September 10, 2008A lovely article in Bon Appetit about the food scene in Durham and Chapel Hill - here are a few short snippets:
America's Foodiest Small Town:
Imagine a place where foodies not only have a favorite chef, but also a favorite farmer; a place where the distance between the organic farm and the award-winning restaurant is mere miles; a place where a sustainable future is foreseeable. It's all a reality in Durham-Chapel Hill.
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Durham and Chapel Hill--united by an eight-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 15-501--are best known for two things: tobacco and their utter hatred for…
clock | September 10, 2008From SCONC:
Monday, Sept. 22
5:30 - 7:00 PM
Lecture: "Hot, Flat and Crowded"
New York Times columnist and Pulitzer-Prize winning author Thomas Friedman will discuss his new book on the technology needed to address the energy and climate crisis and how America can be a leader in the "Green Revolution."
Information: Karen Kemp 919-613-7394
Page Auditorium, Duke
mikethemadbiologist | September 3, 2008In the midst of all of the hoopla surrounding Republican VP nominee and full-blown bugshit insane lunatic, Sarah Palin, I think it's worth noting that Obama's candidacy is also historic for another reason:
He is the first recipient of food stamps to run for president:
McCain, who has portrayed Obama as an elitist, is the son and grandson of admirals. The Associated Press estimates his wife, a beer heiress, is worth $100 million. Obama was raised by a single mother who relied at times on food stamps, and went to top schools on scholarships and loans.
Quite conceivably, we could have a…
greengabbro | September 1, 2008 It might be Labor Day, but summer isn't really over until the blackberries are gone. Since it's harvest season and I'm still on leave from the workforce, I've been spending my time figuring out clever things to do with the bountiful produce of my neighborhood's back alleys. (Tonight: lemon verbena drops and blackberry meringue pie.)
Hoping to bring a little more order to the proceedings after a failed blackberry fish sauce, I cracked open Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking, written by one of the gurus of high tech haute cuisine, Hervé This.
This explains with charming prose…
aardvarchaeology | August 31, 2008
An hour and a half in the woods around little nearby lakelet Knipträsk garnered us a fine harvest of mushrooms. The last time I blogged about a shroom-picking expedition we had ten kinds. Today we had eleven, most of them hedgehogs and boletes:
Terracotta hedgehog, Rödgul taggsvamp, Hydnum rufescens
Birch bolete, Björksopp, Leccinum scabrum
King bolete, Stensopp/Karl Johan, Boletus edulis
Velvet bolete, Sandsopp, Suillus variegatus
Slippery Jack, Smörsopp, Suillus luteus
Gypsy mushroom, Rynkad tofsskivling, Rozites caperata
Common puffball, Vårtig röksvamp, Lycoperdon perlatum
Black…
angrytoxicologist | August 25, 2008There's a story in the WashPost today about how spicy marinades decrease the heterocyclic amine (HCA) content in grilled meat. They think you should care because HCAs are likely carcinogens. There are many things about this that get my back up so lets make a list:
1) Nobody knows how much cancer HCAs may be causing. As far as I can tell (I'd be glad to be e-mailed some reasearch that disputes this), there isn't any study that directly links HCAs to human cancer, qualitatively or quantitatively. I'm not saying they're not carcinogens, I'm pretty certian they are, but the only studies that I…
greengabbro | August 20, 2008It was hot out last weekend. Some of you might scoff at what I consider "hot", but the glorious thing about Seattle is that the entire city seems willing to join me in whining and wilting whenever the temperature breaks 80 (that's 25 of your Earth units). Naturally, I spent a lot of time thinking about ice cream.
Ice cream is an igneous rock. You begin with a liquid slurry containing a hodgepodge of chemicals, and by bringing it below its freezing point, you create something solid - or at least solid-ish. Good ice cream or sorbet needs a little give, a bit of liquid remaining between ice…
moleculeoftheday | August 4, 2008Erythorbic acid is a common food additive:
It is a particularly good antioxidant, much like Vitamin C, and can be used to suppress the formation of carcinogenic nitrosamines in hot dogs and other cured meats.
mikethemadbiologist | July 30, 2008
With all of the stories about bacterial contamination of food, a recent paper describes one possible way to reduce the virulence--the ability to cause disease--of the bacterium Escherichia coli.
Farms are an obvious...input of E. coli--the amount of feces that a single pig produces is staggering, never mind a thousand pigs*. The concern is that E. coli from agricultural settings can either serve as a genetic reservoir of virulence (disease-causing) genes (and antibiotic resistance genes too), or as a source of virulent E. coli strains, such as E. coli O157:H7.
What the authors of paper…
revere | July 30, 2008The FDA is saying they still aren't sure how over 1200 Salmonella stpaul cases resulted from food chain contamination but they are saying its from jalapeno peppers grown in Mexico. This from a press release July 25:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is advising consumers that jalapeño and Serrano peppers grown in the United States are not connected with the current Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak.
However, the FDA continues to advise consumers to avoid raw jalapeño peppers--and the food that contains them--if they have been grown, harvested or packed in Mexico.
[snip]
The more narrow…
revere | July 26, 2008We've been saying this for a while. The produce industry has taken a big hit and their successful lobbying is one of the reasons. But it's not just their fault. It's also the fault of the Bush administration:
One of the worst outbreaks of foodborne illness in the U.S. is teaching the food industry the truth of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for because you might get it."
The industry pressured the Bush administration years ago to limit the paperwork companies would have to keep to help U.S. health investigators quickly trace produce that sickens consumers, according to interviews and…
revere | July 22, 2008The tomatoes-peppers-cilantro-? Salmonella story is starting to break, although which way is hard to say at this moment. Beginning about 3 pm yesterday afternoon newswire stories began to report that the FDA had found a single jalapeno pepper in a small distribution center in McAllen, Texas, contaminated with the same uncommon Salmonella serovar (S. stpaul) implicated in a large outbreak that has infected over 1200 people in 43 states. This is the first time any food item has turned up positive for this Salmonella strain in the 14 weeks federal and state authorities have been trying to nail…
angrytoxicologist | July 21, 2008The Woodrow Wilson Center released a report on engineered nanomaterials used for food applications. The aren't common (we think), but there are a few technologies that are making their way to the market. One for instance would have a nanofilm that has anti-microbial properties. Of course, it may also leach into your food. Yum! (Okay, it probably wouldn't taste any different but untested films don't sit that well with me.)
One of the things I love about these type of reports on emerging threats/risks is how they put a bunch of options on the table for industry and regulators as if they are all…
revere | July 20, 2008The US FDA is lifting the warning on eating tomatoes it issued on June 7 because of the country's largest produce-associated foodborne Salmonella outbreak. The source of the Salmonella infections, all said to be "genetically identical" isolates of an uncommon serovar is still to be discovered, although epidemiological evidence associated it with salsa containing fresh tomatoes. Later the possibility that other salsa ingredients such as jalapeno peppers or cilantro might be the culprit has been raised. So far no one seems to know how that thousand plus cases became infected with the Salmonella…
revere | July 19, 2008About a year and half ago, in a post entitled "One donut, black", I noted the claim of a food company that it would soon be able to sell donuts spiked with caffeine. I wasn't sure I would ever see such a thing, but I was too skeptical. Not only is that company still on track with its product, but another company has now announced its intention to put caffeine into bakery goods. All for our benefit, of course:
After announcing the development of a proprietary way to encapsulate caffeine for foods using vegetable-derived lipids last year, the company has worked in collaboration with bakery…
clock | July 10, 2008This is very cool - African Bushmeat Expedition is a project which takes high school students to Africa where they both learn the techniques and at the same time do something very useful - track the appearance of wild animal meat in the market:
Although illegal wildlife poaching is conducted worldwide, the impact in Africa has been devastating. Unsustainable commercial hunting for bushmeat will inevitably lead to species extinction. In turn, localized species extinction impacts the health of native ecosystems. Marketing of illegal bushmeat can also have serious ramifications because pathogens…
revere | July 2, 2008There is a lot of science stuff in newspapers that is just (barely) warmed over press releases from companies or universities. They get pushed out into the world via aggregating services like Eurekalert. Lots of science bloggers and journalists use this stuff for ideas and sources, but even when the origin is a university you have to be circumspect. Some of it is gross over reaching, probably by scientists being pushed by university media relations types trying to get some ink for their institution and not caring how much sense it makes. At least that's how I read this piece on Eurekalert…
moleculeoftheday | June 30, 2008In the news this week: aminopyralid:
Aminopyralid is an herbicide that may have made its way into some manure destined for home gardens and may have resulted in inferior produce. Interestingly, they think it's in manure not because of topical contamination, but via animals that ate contaminated silage:
It appears that the contamination came from grass treated 12 months ago. Experts say the grass was probably made into silage, then fed to cattle during the winter months. The herbicide remained present in the silage, passed through the animal and into manure that was later sold. Horses fed on…