Inquiring minds want to know!
Originally shared by +Les Jenkins:
Obvious Plant — Go check your milk right now!!
Go check your milk right now!!
Category: Food & Drink
The Rise and Fall of Margarine
We were very much a margarine household when I was growing up in the 60s-70s — soft margarine in tubs was a convenience, as well as being (per the accepted wisdom of the day) healthier than all that milk fat.
Today, I’m more than happy to deal with regular butter (just as spreadable when not kept in the fridge, which isn’t necessary if you eat it on a regular basis).
Reading the history of margarine — why it was actually such a useful idea, the fight against its spread (so to speak) in the US, and how it peaked then fell — is an interesting glimpse into food fashion and how things were not always as they are today, and won’t be tomorrow, either.
I can believe it’s not butter: The rise and fall of margarine
You may not have seen the commercial in years, but you’d recognize the setup instantly. Sweeping chords play and a day-dreaming, bespectacled housewife sighs as the screen does that fuzzy flashback fade. There are quick shots of vaguely fairy tale locales—an Italian palazzo, stately fountains, a rose garden straight out of Beauty And The Beast—and our suburban soccer mom reappears in flowing gown and sparkling jewels. Then we pan to the best gem …
A bit of Personal Holiday Cheer
I finally got my mom’s not-actually-eggnog “Recipe” up on my wife’s recipe. She originally scribbled it down on the back of a bill envelope in 1975 when she heard Mike Roy on the radio (or maybe saw him on TV) giving it. With variations, it’s been a standard for Christmas Morning Gift-Giving at her house ever since.
And now will be for many years to come.
Perhaps I should get an exciting career as a warehouse worker
An executive networking group I’m in did some volunteer work at Food Bank of the Rockies this morning, helping pull donated goods (all corporate donations in our case) onto pallets, shrink wrap them, then identify what shipment they were for (mostly to food banks or religious groups that organize food distribution for poor in their communities).
In the course of the morning, the trio I was in loaded up six pallets six feet high full of light things (13 cases of Sriracha Cheez-Its! 30 boxes of Sweet Potato Flake Cereal) and not-so-light things (71 12-packs of Coconut Water! 12 20# bags of onions!), all for one particular organization. It was very tiring work, but interesting to see how it all worked.
FBR provides food relief for 30 Colorado counties and all of Wyoming, delivering close to 49 million meals a year. Volunteering helped me feel a part of that, which is a neat thing to do around the holiday season, but I suspect they can use help all year around. And I suspect there are other organizations of this sort in communities around the nation that could use help in these times.
(Also, they have a huge wall in the warehouse covered with giant checks — company X gives a $20K donation to the FBR, and there’s a photo op with the giant check, and they actually keep them here (after deposit, one presumes), mounted on the wall. It was kind of fascinating to see; not sure why I didn’t take a picture.)
On the Introduction of Diet Coke
While a bit self-congratulatory in places, this history of the development and roll-out of Diet Coke has some interesting trivia tidbits (the lower case “d” in the name was both a branding and legal decision) that make it worth a read.
The Extraordinary Story of How Diet Coke Came to Be
The original Diet Coke team tells the story of how they created, launched and marketed the number-one rated diet soda brand.
Terry Tate: Office Linebacker
If an armed society is a polite society, then an office linebackered workplace would be a polite workplace.
Hmmm. Probably just as well not, but there are times when I’ve wish I could invoke such a spirit.
[h/t +Stan Pedzick]
This should be posted in every break room in the United States
If you empty the pot, and it’s not five minutes before quitting time for everyone, make more coffee.
Originally shared by +Les Jenkins:
I need to print this out and hang it up at work.
PHD Comics: The Office Coffee Flowchart
Link to Piled Higher and Deeper
In-N-Out Comes (finally!) to Colorado
Colorado is apparently an interesting bird when it comes to national chains. Denver (the population core) is a remarkable distance away from other major population centers, leaving supply and distribution networks as a significant barrier.
But, over time, as we’ve lived here, those barriers have slowly fallen. Trader Joe’s. IKEA. And, it seems, finally, the one thing that people (or California immigrants) have jonesed after for so long …
In-N-Out Burgers is finally arriving. Albeit, initially, down in Colorado Springs.
To be sure, there’s also been some melodrama over the chain reaching out to Colorado, as the family elders that owned the company long resisted departing from California. With various deaths and legal battles, the “Go East, Burger Folk! Go East!” contingent in the family seems to have triumphed.
Hopefully it will be an expansion that pays off, rather than breaking the company.
In-N-Out, as a California thing, is probably more admired from loss and nostalgia amongst California immigrants than is warranted. That said, it beats the heck out of Burger King, in particular in its burgers. (Its fries are fresh, but not my favorites). While I have no doubt the initial stores will be mobbed, it will not be a slam-dunk that they will have massive success and victory here; there are a lot of burger places already, and I’m honestly not sure that I would go to an In-N-Out before I’d go to, say, a Sonic.
There’s also a sense of loss as one more very localized chain becomes a more national one. There’s something to be said for saying, “Hey, going to California is cool, because that’s where you can find In-N-Outs.” If they’re available everywhere, then the cachet suffers (see also: Coors).
In-N-Out is coming to Colorado, for real this time – Denverite
The Rise and Fall of Turtle as Food
Interesting quick culinary history about how turtles went from expensive delicacy to standard to … completely off the menu. And the reasons for the latter aren’t just about endangered species.
(I have no particular interest in eating turtle, but its still kind of curious how things changed over the course of a few centuries.)
Why have Americans stopped eating turtle?
America has a food diversity problem. Chicken, pork, and beef account for many of the animal proteins found on our dinner table—the product of decades of agricultural industrialization—and this has left us with cheaper but more limited options at the butcher’s counter. Once a year we all sit down to eat turkey, but when was the last time you had snipe, mutton, or rabbit?
Google has some weird emoji problems
Nothing scandalous, just … weird.
Google CEO makes fixing hamburger emoji his top priority
Bun, salad, patty, CHEESE, bun… WTF
What will the neighbor kids think about your candy?
I am not so far removed from the October Candy Harvest that I cannot remember feeling much the same way for most of these.
Originally shared by +Les Jenkins:
Guide to How Kids Judge Your Halloween Candy
Everyone has their varying candy preferences, but sizing up what’s been plopped into the bag is a pretty universal part of Halloween. However grateful and well-mannered they are, it’s impossible for trick-or-treaters to avoid casting some judgement on the… #chart #funny #halloween
“The IPA Has No Clothes!”
While I know that there are folk who actually do like hoppy beers (just as there are people who like practically anything you want to suggest), I have to believe that the current trend of every other beer being sold or on the menu at restaurants being some IPA or other hyper-hopped beer is part of some conspiracy of timid silence, wherein everyone thinks that they must love hops in order to seem cool and with it and sophisticated (and, for men, manly). So everyone nods and orders hoppy beers and doesn’t catch the wince that everyone else makes around the table when they take their first sip.
I am more than ready for the IPA fad to recede into something that will meet the actual demand.
[h/t Doug Moran]
Stop pretending to like IPAs
There’s something I need to say. It’s a tough thing to do and takes bravery, but this has been weighing on my moral compass for far too long. It’s about …
Why you can’t get Kinder Eggs in the United States
And why you’ll be able to sorta-kinda next year.
I already knew much of this from a recent encounter with the confection. In Spring 2016 +Kay Hill‘s high school band and orchestra went on a very fun trip to Austria and Germany (with an array of family and friends along with). On our last day, in Germany, the tour guide presented the kids with Kinder Eggs, which led to the discussion of why they are illegal in the US.
There were no problems with any of the kids bringing them through customs, as the eggs were consumed within about thirty seconds. Because teenagers.
Anyway, a lengthy video, but some interesting history.
The one Obama legacy that Trump hasn’t tried to get rid of (yet)
Melania Trump is continuing the White House South Lawn vegetable garden that Michelle Obama planted, and the harvest is both being used by the White House kitchen and donated to local charities.
It’s a small thing, and a lot of the other substantive food health policy that the Obamas promulgated has been put on hold or eliminated by Donald. But at least it’s something.
(The article begins, “The first lady, more at home in Manhattan than among rows of crops, hosted local schoolchildren at the White House on Friday …” which suddenly conjured images of Eva Gabor and Green Acres. Hmm. Melania even sounds a bit like Gabor; they were born only about 250 miles (and 50 years) apart.)
Melania Trump embraces Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden – POLITICO
“Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch”
I am not a fresh fruit guy (much to my housemates’ disdain), but I find relegation of pawpaws to traditional songs and small farmers markets a fascinating commentary on how food is produced and sold in the United States.
Meet the pawpaw, America’s forgotten fruit
The pawpaw, the largest edible fruit native to the US, is unknown to most people. Yet it has earned a loyal following among those who are familiar with it. A new book peers into the pawpaw’s storied past, how its popularity has grown today, and why it’s not a staple in the produce aisle.
The Lamb-Eating Elephant in the Room
The group Meat and Livestock Australia is under fire (apparently once again) for a new ad touting Australian lamb. The concept is sort of fun — gods and goddesses and similar religious figures from a number of faiths gathered around a lunch table, enjoying (of course) lamb.
Problem is, one of the deities involved — the Hindu god Ganesh — is famously vegetarian.
That’s led to a diplomatic squabble with India, not surprisingly, not to mention protests from Hindus in Australia.
The ad itself is mildly amusing, in a subdued non-reverent way. A number of the jokes in the full-length ad fall a little flat. I have no doubt the same ad, in America, would spark other controversies. But it remains a little hard to believe that the MLA actually got “extensive consultation with religious experts,” while still missing this little detail. (What next, a follow-up pork ad featuring Mohammed?)
My read, from across the Pacific, is that the MLA actually likes a bit of controversy, based on previous ads they’ve run, and considers it a feature, not a bug. If so, I do hope they get their hand slapped, hard. Using religion to sell stuft, esp. with humor, requires a certain degree of sensitivity to how potential customers might react. While not all Hindus are vegetarian, ignoring that sort of thing (or intentionally flouting it for publicity’s sake) seems like dodgy business indeed.
Some clever (and not so clever) kitchen / cooking hacks
Watched this as a family, including with my “all cooking is a hack” chef wife, and agreed:
About 15% “hmm, that’s clever, will have to try it”
About 30% “oh, I’ve seen that before”
About 10% “oh, that’s been disproven”
About 45% “why would you bother doing that?”
Your numbers may vary, but it’s worth a watch to pick up at least one potentially useful trick.
So maybe it's time to switch back to Regular Soda
Yeah, people have been kvetching about Aspartame (the only artificial sweetener that I can stand) since it was first introduced, but I've always thought, "It's better than the calories. It's better than the calories. It's better than the …"
Turns out, just from a weight loss/gain perspective … it's not. Various trials continue to show that Aspartame in diets, vs. sugar, does't reduce weight. And scientists are beginning to understand why.
'Dr Hodin and his team found that the artificial sweetener inhibits intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP), which is a gut enzyme that researchers believe prevents obesity. So even though there's no sugar in your diet beverage, it might not aid you in your weight loss journey.'
And, in more detail:
'At the end of the study period, while there was little difference between the weights of the two groups fed a normal diet, mice on a high-fat diet that received aspartame gained more weight than did those on the same diet that received plain water. Aspartame-receiving mice in both diet groups had higher blood sugar levels than did those fed the same diets without aspartame, which indicates glucose intolerance, and both aspartame-receiving groups had higher levels of the inflammatory protein TNF-alpha in their blood, which suggests the kind of systemic inflammation associated with metabolic syndrome.'
I used to joke that my body is a temple, so I only consume pure sugar. I got away from that in an attempt to still drink sodas and yet not be guzzling hundreds of calories in glucose and fructose.
This still doesn't mean that those high calorie sugary drinks are good for you (esp. if they are made with high fructose corn syrup), just that thinking you're avoiding weight gain by drinking Aspartame diet sodas isn't true, either. So time for me to re-evaluate, maybe.
More here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161122193100.htm
Scientists Discover Why Diet Coke Is Probably Undermining You
Aspartame — the artificial sweetener found in drinks like Diet Coke — is probably not good for you. If you believe otherwise, I admire your commitment…
Nestle announces a sweet discovery
They say they've found a way to restructure sugar that releases the same amount in the mouth, but doesn't send the same amount down to the stomach.
Alas, the tweak doesn't work for sodas or for sugar in your coffee, but it could reduce sugar / calories in your candy.
See also: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/business/nestle-reformulates-sugar-so-it-can-use-less.html
Nestlé Creates A New Sugar: Use Less, Get The Same Taste
For years, food and beverage companies like Pepsi Co. have tweaked their use of sugar and sweetener substitutes to find just the right mixture that aligns with consumers’ tastes and perception of a…
On being a picky eater
I don't think I've ever not been called a picky eater, but my 17/87 on this quiz says I'm not really one.
(What I have learned to be over the years is a polite eater, admitting that if my particular culinary aesthetic doesn't include something[1] that those around me enjoy, that's my kink and my problem and not a moral absolute or something to take out on those other folk. Except in fun.)
—–
[1] Most likely raw tomatoes, bananas, and avocado products, but also including (thanks for reminding me, quiz) cottage cheese).
How Much Of A Picky Eater Are You?
Warning: This checklist will make you hungry and make you gag in equal measures.
