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Posts Tagged ‘food’

Careful what you eat, especially if you are allergic to certain antibiotics. Recent studies have shown that some vegetables absorb the antibiotic chemicals from the soil they are grown in. Why? Animal manure.

In our vast food chain, it seems that we have come across the ultimate irony. Humans are now being punished by their own attempts to optimize the animal and plant food industries. Instead of people being superior to animals and plants in the food chain, we’re now being “kicked in the pants,” so to speak.

Here’s the explanation: Animals raised for human consumption are often fed antibiotics in order to make them stronger and larger, making them more marketable animals, according to the Journal of Environmental Quality’s report on antibiotic infused crops. In raising these animals, their manure is also collected to be used for soil in raising crops. This manure, used as soil, has now been found to transfer the antibiotics put in the animal feed to the very plants that grow in this soil. In other words, by feeding animals antibiotics to capitalize on the market, we are actual introducing a potential danger in human consumption.
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Bad eggs are rare but they do occur. Crack eggs into a separate bowl before mixing with other ingredients. If the egg shell from shattering when you crack the egg.

First, find a flat surface and not on the floor, pour salt on the floor, heavily. Wipe it up fifteen minutes later. Salt will set up the upper part of your palm, between your thumb and middle finger. The egg will gently fall into the bowl as the shell spreads apart.

If you drop an egg on a flat surface.

Once the egg on the floor, pour salt on the floor, heavily. Wipe it up fifteen minutes later. Salt will set up the egg’s protein and make it harder to wipe off the bowl.
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Legend has it that a hardy Colonel named Robert Gibbon Johnson, tired of his superstitious and uninformed countrymen’s refusal to touch or eat tomatoes, sat in front of the Salem, New Jersey Courthouse with a basket full of the little red fruits. To the shock, horror, and eventual awe of the 2,000 person crowd, he consumed every last tomato without dropping dead.

Of course this isn’t true, nor are any other claims of American leeriness of tomato consumption. But there are plenty of foods we don’t eat because we think they’re bad for us when in reality they’re not. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at some misunderstood foods!

The Egg: harbinger of doom?

The humble egg, a baking and dietary staple nearly everywhere on earth, has hit its share of rough times. Though it’s an incredible source of protein and choline, an egg’s yolk also contains a large amount of cholesterol—cholesterol which was thought to be utterly terrible for the body. However, there’s endless dissent, with some researchers claiming that an egg’s cholesterol actually lowers “bad” cholesterol and raises “good” cholesterol, with other scientists claiming the opposite. Combine this hotly-contested nutritional value with the salmonella scare (how many times did mom tell you not to eat cookie dough?) and you get one woeful reputation for such a delicious and useful food.

Sure, you shouldn’t pig out on eggs every day, but by using them properly you can enjoy the taste—and the protein—without having to resort to egg whites in a carton!

Some good egg recipes include:

Scrambled Eggs in Baby Brioches with Smoked Salmon and Asparagus
Eggs Sardou
Egg Puff-Muffins
Old-Fashioned Egg Noodles

Coffee: those jitters are just the caffeine.

You remember the turning point. Suddenly health experts everywhere started talking about the perils of coffee and the dangers of caffeine. Gloomily, coffee drinkers everywhere switched to decaf or learned to get more sleep at night (God forbid). But while too much coffee is certainly bad for your health (go here to see some alternatives), drinking a moderate amount actually helps with more than your fatigue!

Coffee is rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and other important nutritional components. Drinking three to five cups daily, researchers say, can lower the risk of Alzheimer’s, kidney stones, Parkinson’s, depression, and suicide. And to think, it keeps you awake, too!
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Barbecuing is not what it used to be. When growing up the only time that my family would start up the grill or smoker was in the summer and on the weekends. Today, people barbecue every night and all year round. Barbecue sauces have come along way since then as well. There used to be only a couple of choices at your local market. But now with the invention of “super” markets the amount barbecue sauces you can buy locally has grown significantly. For those gourmet barbecue sauces the web is probably the only place you will find these unique sauces. If you don’t live in the Alabama area the only place you will find traditional White BBQ Sauce like Big Bob Gibson’s is on the web or of course you can try to make it yourself.

In Alabama Barbecue traditional Sauce uses Mayonnaise as its base rather than tomato sauce, vinegar, or any of the other more typical barbecue sauce bases. It is clearly a region favorite. Bob Gibson of Decatur, Alabama is credited with the invention the white sauce back in 1925. Friends and family were first treated to this secret-recipe sauce on chicken and pork at weekend barbecues where boards were nailed to trees for tables. Today, this famous mayonnaise-based condiment is traditionally employed to baste chicken, seafood and pork.

White BBQ Sauce is as synonymous with the state with Alabama as the legendary “BAMA” football program. White BBQ Sauce’s intriguing flavor complements salads and is a superb baste for chicken, pork and turkey. You can also use White Sauce as an ingredient to add an extra kick to your favorite slaw or potato salad. However, because the racks of your local grocer are dominated by many incarnations of tomato-based sauces and white bbq sauce is such a regional anomaly, most people outside Alabama have not tested this concoction of flavor.
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