DailyDirt: Food By The Numbers...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some folks are obsessed with numbers. Others are obsessed with food. Combine these two tastes that taste great together and you get: Reese's peanut butter cups infographics about food. Here are just a few random sets of data on food consumption in the US.

• Just as you probably already knew: Thin Mints are the most popular Girl Scout cookies, raking in about 25% of Girl Scout cookie sales. Samoas (aka Caramel deLites) come in at #2 with 19% of sales. [url]
• What does the average American consume in a year? Hmm: 110 lbs of red meat vs 415 lbs of vegetables? Do those numbers sound right to you? [url]
• In a survey of 500 "dudes" (ages 18-35), 90% of them had visited a McDonald's in the last 3 months. It's gotta be the fries -- a surprisingly high percentage of guys just get a drink or fries. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Filed Under: consumption, cookies, food, infographic, sales, samoas, thin mints
Companies: girl scouts, mcdonald's

DailyDirt: Cooking Up Something New...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The science of food has led to some pretty important discoveries as modern technology is applied to more and more food processing techniques. While some folks are suspicious of foods that have indefinite shelf lives, being able to avoid billions of tons of food waste can't be all bad. Here are just a few quick links on some interesting food findings.

• Food scientists now know that the melting point of sucrose depends on how fast you heat it. Apparently, sugar decomposes with heat, and knowing this, researchers could develop tastier candies or better pharmaceuticals. [url]
• Some harmless bacteria in the human gut produce bisin -- which could be the next "organic" food preservative. Bisin kills off stuff like E. coli, salmonella and listeria -- and could allow foods like meat, dairy and eggs to go unspoiled for years. [url]
• Would you really want to eat a chili pepper that requires protective gear to harvest? The secret to growing them could be "worm juice" in the fertilizer. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Filed Under: bisin, chili, food, preservative, science, sucrose

DailyDirt: The Fungus Among Us

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Fungi are fascinating organisms. They can grow on almost anything and decompose all kinds of materials into soil and other useful stuff. Folks are finding more and more uses for these sometimes-tasty-or-sometimes-poisonous little suckers. So here are a just few fun links on fungi.

• A mystery fungus that covered an entire town turned out to really like the vaporized ethanol produced by the local whiskey distilleries. So now the joke about a mushroom walking into a bar actually has a bit more to it. [url]
• If you want to learn how to grow your own fungus, there are a bunch of seminars waiting for you. You'll have to wait until 2012 for an opening, though. [url]
• Growing gourmet mushrooms can actually be a nice little business. Especially if you can grow your shrooms on waste materials like coffee grounds and sell the mushroom soil. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Filed Under: food, fungus

DailyDirt: Food That's Not Quite For Eating...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Parents everywhere are usually scolding their kids for playing with their food, but maybe kids are right to look at food as building materials and decorating items. Here are just a few unconventional uses for edible goods.

• SPAM Lip Glaze probably doesn't have the same shelf life as regular SPAM. But it's way more portable and would probably get by TSA security checkpoints. [url]
• Sun-dried squid bodies make nice little sake bottles that are traditionally called Ika Tokkuri. Who needs to worry about BPA-free or Phthalate-free plastics when you can just eat your drinking vessels? [url]
• Condiment wallpaper is a cheap (but perhaps not very long-lasting) way to decorate a room. And it looks better than filling nail holes in drywall with toothpaste... [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Filed Under: condiment, food, ika tokkuri, sake, spam, squid

DailyDirt: Ancient Food

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Most folks probably have a few food artifacts that are pretty old in the back of their refrigerators, but some scientists are looking for slightly older specimens that weren't artificially cooled. Here are some interesting pre-historical morsels to chew on.

• It looks like homo erectus might have known how to cook. And they might have even saved money on car insurance, too.... [url]
• Thousands of years ago, Romans probably shipped live fish around in boats -- since they didn't have refrigeration. But maybe not, someone will have to build a replica of a floating Roman aquarium to see if the hypothesis holds water. [url]
• A 5,000 year old iceman has been found with stomach full of deer meat and cereal. This guy also apparently suffered some blunt force trauma to the mouth, but the CSI team suspects his killer is long dead. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Filed Under: cooking, food, homo erectus, iceman

DailyDirt: Robots To Help Feed Everyone

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Robots are supposed to help people do all sorts of jobs -- dangerous jobs, repetitive jobs, etc. And one really important job that robots could be really useful for... would be to help feed us humans. Here are some robots that are already pitching in.

• What could be more fun than a pancake-making robot made out of Lego... A Disney lawsuit story over the Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes? [url]
• Autonomous robot farmers will help harvest and cultivate all sorts of crops. As long as humans aren't turned into Coppertops... [url]
• Maybe grocery stores could just be giant vending machines. But somebody still needs to mind the store because it looks like roughly half of the population might try to walk out without paying. [url]
• To discover more interesting robotics-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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Filed Under: farming, food, pancakes, robots, vending machines

DailyDirt: Food Fights...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Feeding lots and lots of people is an important foundation for any civilization. But recently, we've encountered some problems with our modern food chain. While some of these food scares are relatively easy to fix, there are also some issues that have no fast solutions. Here are some quick links to some interesting food news.

• Food allergies seem to be on the rise for children in the US. But it's not clear if there's a cause for the survey results that show this trend. [url]
• Globally, food is being wasted at an incredible rate -- at about 1.3 billion tons every year. Not surprisingly, the developed world throws away "edible food" while the developing world wastes food via poor infrastructure in harvesting, processing and distribution. [url]
• Recycled cardboard for cereal boxes is getting some negative publicity for possibly containing toxic oils that could leach into food. Some cereal makers might switch to cereal bags like the kind potato chips are sold in... [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Filed Under: allergies, food, packaging, recycled cardboard

DailyDirt: Weird Foods That Are Also Natural And Organic

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

In the strict chemical sense, it's actually not that easy to find inorganic foods (ie. foods that are not organic). But you might find some if you practice geophagy. Here are just some examples of foods made from all-natural ingredients.

• Coffee made from beans excreted by civets seems to be pretty popular. But the knock-off coffee made from chemically-digesting coffee beans (in lieu of the animal-digested beans) doesn't sound so bad, actually. [url]
• How about some artificial-meat made out of protein... extracted from human feces? When they're extracting the protein, maybe they should also extract the undigested pharmaceuticals while they're at it. [url]
• Eating marine mammals like dolphins might be a growing trend for poorer nations. Making dolphin hunting illegal, however, is probably not the right response. [url]
• Eating dirt is called "geophagy" -- a practice that expectant mothers sometimes engage in. Yum! pfft! [url]
• Speaking of mothers... A flavor of ice cream with a "yuck" factor twist: Baby Gaga ice cream is made from human breast milk. It's also probably the most expensive ice cream you've never wanted to taste. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Filed Under: baby gaga ice cream, coffee, dolphins, food, geophagy

DailyDirt: Engineering Food For Every Occasion...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The preparation of food has changed a quite a bit over the last hundred years or so. Sure, some things will probably never go out of style, but a few dishes will never be the same once food engineers get their hands on them. Here are a few quick examples of foods that folks are working on.

• A nasty fungus is killing off the popular Cavendish banana. And if it's not stopped, yes, we'll have no bananas. [url]
• The veggie burger is evolving slowly to be more palatable for restaurant-goers and the general public. But stop comparing it to a burger -- because it'll never be the same. [url]
• An Australian brewery has created a "space beer" called Vostok -- a beer that's designed to be consumed in zero gravity environments. Regular beer induces a disgusting "wet burp" in zero-G, and this ain't no Star Trek synthehol. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Filed Under: banana, food, space beer, synthehol, veggie burger, vostok

DailyDirt: Ancient Food & Modern Food

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Food has changed a lot over the last few decades. There's a lot more stuff like high fructose corn syrup in the food we eat, and formerly obscure techniques like sous-vide cooking are becoming more well-known. Here are a few quick links on some modern foods.

• A recent study suggests that Neanderthals gathered plants and cooked their food -- making their diet more similar to ours than previously thought. Unless you're comparing microwaved frozen dinners to Neanderthal meals... [url]
• A "Molecular Cuisine Starter Kit" sells for about $70 and includes ingredients such as calcium lactate, sodium alginate, soy lecithin and xanthan gum. And remember not to eat the little packets of silica gel in the packing material. [url]
• Here are two great tastes that taste great together: beer and marshmallows. Chocolate and peanut butter will always be the classic combination. [url]
• The first printing of Nathan Myhrvold's $625 cookbook has sold out -- so 25,000 more sets are being printed. When will the lawsuits over "stolen recipes" start? [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

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Filed Under: cookbook, food, modern cuisine, nathan myhrvold, neanderthals