DailyDirt: Potato, Po-tah-to... Azodicarbonamide

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The words "all natural" might not mean what you think it means when it's on a food label. Likewise, just because an ingredient list contains the name of a chemical you've never heard of -- doesn't necessarily mean that "chemical" is bad for you. Potassium benzoate is a common preservative, but it's no longer found in many beverages because it can react with ascorbic acid to create trace amounts of benzene. Food additives may react with other ingredients in some undesirable ways, but should we get rid of all of them? It's nice to be able to increase the shelf life of a Twinkie -- though maybe we should just eat fewer Twinkies to begin with.

• Ingredients is a book describing 75 common food additives, their uses and history. These 75 chemicals were chosen based on a neutral, negative or positive categorization -- to ensure the book covered the field evenly and didn't just focus on the "bad" ones, but the book doesn't try to encourage chemophobia (though it might not discourage it, either). [note: if you buy the book using that Amazon link, Techdirt may get some compensation.] [url]
• What could be a more natural ingredient than an egg? The egg industry doesn't want anyone else to be able to name mayo or mayonnaise substitutes anything close to "mayo" -- sorry, vegan mayo product companies. [url]
• A bunch of food scientists are trying to make chemicals sound less scary -- by reminding everyone that chemicals are everywhere, even in "natural" foods. Perhaps consumers should be more skeptical or educated about the ingredients in their food, but no one should be afraid of a chemical name simply because they can't pronounce it. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: chemophobia, eggs, food, food additives, food labels, food science, ingredients, mayo
Companies: fda

DailyDirt: How To Cook Simple Stuff...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are all kinds of cooking shows and recipe books, providing a vast and endless library of ways to make any meal you can think of. With this flood of information, the simplest meals can seem daunting because there are so many different recipes and instructions. There really is no single correct way to do anything, but some instructions are easier to remember than others. Here are just a few examples.

• Watch this video on how to cook bacon without creating a charred mess. Cooking bacon in a pan of water doesn't seem like a common method, but this seems like a easy enough trick to try. Plus, you get bacon in the end. [url]
• Martha Stewart claims to have a foolproof way to cook hard-boiled eggs. Except the key tip omitted is that older eggs are easier to peel than fresh eggs. [url]
• If you make pasta a lot, try this method of boiling dry pasta in a frying pan with a lot less water than usual recipes use. Or you could just continue to stick a foam cup filled with water and curly noodles in a microwave.... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: bacon, cooking, eggs, food, how-to, pasta, recipes

DailyDirt: Raw Eggs Are Healthy..?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Maybe you like Caesar salads or the supposed health benefits of drinking raw eggs (a la Rocky Balboa), and you already know about the risks of Salmonella. Well, there's some good news for you: you might be able to get some pasteurized eggs that are virtually indistinguishable from conventional raw eggs. While previous pasteurization methods made eggs a bit thicker in texture, food scientists have been working on fixing that. Here are just a few links on eating raw eggs, if that's your thing.

• About one out of every 20,000 chicken eggs commercially produced in the US is at risk for spreading Salmonella. Fortunately, a new radio-frequency (RF) heating technique could be used to pasteurize eggs more quickly without affecting the taste or texture. [url]
• Not surprisingly, the CDC recommends that eggs be kept refrigerated and cooked fully before eating. Erring on the side of caution, no one should eat raw or undercooked eggs -- unless the eggs have been gone through a pasteurization process. [url]
• If you love raw eggs, you can test your luck and immune system -- and hope that egg industry standards for cleaning eggs have sufficiently improved to reduce the risks of contracting Salmonella. Plenty of people consume raw eggs and are fine, but thousands of Americans are sickened from egg-borne Salmonella each year. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: cdc, eggs, food, health, pasteurization, raw, salmonella

DailyDirt: Keeping Your Food Safe And Sound

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Nature has devised some convenient ways to protect foods until we're ready to eat them -- bananas have nice yellow peels, grapes come in handy bunches, etc. People have also devised a few interesting packages for food (not just Pringles cans), but there's always some room for improvement. Here are just a few examples of some ways to store food/drinks in interesting ways.

• Almost everyone can recognize an egg carton -- a container design that's well over 50 years old. However, the humble egg carton might still evolve if an "eggbox" design (that can fold flat) gets commercial interest. [url]
• Coca Cola is experimenting with a Coke bottle made of ice, but it's only being sold in Colombia. Looks like a cool idea to have the bottle melt away, but the refrigeration necessary to store the bottles isn't too environmentally friendly. (Also, you have to drink it all in one sitting?) [url]
• You can get a 12-course meal to fit into a can -- and you don't even need a can opener to eat it. The pop-top can contains 12 layers of deliciously compacted food, but you have to be a bit careful about getting everything out so you don't mix up the appetizer with the dessert. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: bottle, coke, container, eggs, food, ice, meal in a can, packaging
Companies: coca cola

DailyDirt: Simple Kitchen Techniques

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some people freely admit that they have trouble boiling water when it comes to cooking techniques. But some seemingly simple tasks aren't so easy to do if your standards are set high enough. The proliferation of cooking shows doesn't quite help because every TV chef has his/her own way of creating the same dish -- so there's no consistent method. Here are just a few examples of some "easy dishes" to prepare.

• A perfectly fried egg is cooked in a small pool of olive oil over medium-high heat. But in this particular demonstration, the perfect egg might be a bit more runny than some people like their eggs. [url]
• Freezing water might not sound like a tricky task, but if you want optically-clear ice cubes without any annoying bubbles or haziness in them -- there are a few tricks to it. When water freezes slowly, fewer air bubbles get trapped inside -- so cool your water down slowly in an insulated container. [url]
• There are plenty of tips on how to properly cook a hard boiled egg. Start with room temperature eggs, cold water and remove them from heat about a minute after the water boils... but there are no guarantees on how easy those eggs will be to peel. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: boiling, cooking, eggs, food, freezing, frying, ice, kitchen

DailyDirt: Not-So-Fun Food Findings...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are so many food choices -- but that doesn't make it any easier to eat healthy foods. Being hard-wired to enjoy sugar, salt and fat doesn't exactly help either. Diet resolutions for 2012 are just around the corner, but for now, we'll just point out a few quick links on eating food that might not be that good for you.

• Comparing prison food to school cafetaria food doesn't make for a very appetizing infographic. It might be interesting to see a comparison that includes astronaut food... or military rations [url]
• Most people think that uncooked cookie dough shouldn't be eaten because of the raw eggs, but it's actually the raw flour in store-bought dough that's the likely culprit for making people sick. Seems like cookie dough manufacturers should start pasteurizing their flour since a significant number of people are intentionally eating unbaked batter. [url]
• Correlation is not the same as causation, but there seems to be a correlation between young men who eat a lot of junk food and having lower-quality sperm. In other news, unhealthy food makes you unhealthy. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: cookie dough, diet, eggs, flour, food, junk food, raw, unhealthy