Goodbye, Sliced Pyramid: Hello, Plate

This week the USDA is releasing a new design for its food recommendations. Gone will be the preposterously awful "new pyramid." The original food pyramid made sense: you had the big blocks on the bottom (of stuff you were supposed to eat more of), and the tiny bits up at the top (fats and oils, eat sparingly).

But the new pyramid was just downright confusing. I never could make heads or tails of it, and I always wondered why they didn't just use a pie chart in the first place. (I also wondered why someone was walking up the side. It gave an air of progression that made no sense, given the graphic. Nothing about that thing made any sense whatsoever.)

One of many problems with the second generation pyramid was that it didn't come with a key. Nowhere on the MyPyramid.gov website am I able to find a pyramid graphic with a key beside it. The colored slices remain resolutely un-labeled. The best you can do is flip back and forth between this page and this one to see what you should be eating. And even so, it's not like you can get any meaningful information on the serving number or sizes.

I'm still not sure why they have to make it into a plate. Why not just present a pie chart? The American public is pretty familiar with pie charts. Even USA Today uses pie charts with abandon! Why dress it up like a plate? I don't know. Sometimes you really have to wonder what's going on at the USDA.

My question is how the plate will represent the latest round of USDA dietary suggestions, which I like to call, "Please eat a vegetable, just one!" These guidelines were much more broad than earlier versions, which dictated the number and size of the portions the government recommended.

The original food pyramid came under fire from a number of quarters for pushing grains. In 1992 the USDA released the familiar original food pyramid, in which the "Bread, Cereal, Rice and Pasta Group" was the largest segment by far, with a whopping 5-11 servings recommended daily.

In 2005 the USDA revised its pyramid, and knocked carbs down to 6-8 servings a day. They also meekly suggested that "at least half" of these should be whole grains. (Most Americans go days, even weeks without eating a whole grain. Our national lack of healthy dietary fiber is but one of many health problems we face.)

In January of this year, the USDA released a new set of recommendations. You get the feeling someone in the government just threw their hands in the air and said, "I don't really care what people should eat, they should just eat less of it."

These new guidelines also flipped some earlier recommendations, and advised that you should "make half your plate fruits and vegetables." It also offered real-world suggestions like "Drink water instead of sugary drinks." In case this hadn't occurred to you!

At any rate, I await the announcement of The Plate with bated breath!

Why do lobsters have to be boiled alive?

My husband and I love food shows, though neither of us are big fans of seafood (and I’m not a big fan of meat). We were watching Eat Street yesterday, which is a fun show about food trucks across America and Canada (which makes me insanely jealous, as the only food trucks we have in our area are ice cream trucks—and they don’t come often).

There was a man who had a lobster truck in the Wall Street area—something that disgusted me on multiple levels—and he claimed he loved lobsters so much he had one tattooed on his arm.

“If he loves them so much,” I asked my husband, “then why does he boil them alive?”

Seriously, why do you have to boil lobsters alive? The man joked that he’d never heard one scream, though people claim to hear it, and then the show dubbed in a stupid false scream that made me want to puke.

Talk about unappetizing.

I get keeping them alive until you eat them to maintain their freshness (though honestly, I don’t get why people want to eat them at all), but why do they have to stay alive during the boiling process? Can they not be killed quickly right before being put in the pot, perhaps by cutting their heads or something to prevent being boiled alive?

It’s just sick to me.

Cooking Mexican Food: The Basics

Tips on Making Tacos

Fortunately for me, I had the opportunity to eat good Mexican food on a regular basis because the person I was living was had learned to cook from his Mexican grandmother. I have to admit that I became a little snobby about my Mexican food. No more Taco Hell, and no more Taco del Mar either. Truthfully, only the best taco trucks around town survive my intense taco scrutiny (unless I’m extremely hungry at which point all rules about my food intake change).

 

In addition to my pickiness about Mexican food, I seem to have actually picked up a few basics about cooking Mexican food. While I’m not at liberty to disclose his grandmother’s top-secret recipe for the most delicious Spanish rice you’ve ever tasted, I can pass along a few simple Mexican food tips for the gringas and gringoes out there who are on my cooking level.

 

First, and most importantly, throw out your taco seasoning now. Lawry’s is WAY too salty and contains all kinds of strange ingredients that have zero to do with making tacos. Instead, use some sort of combination of cayenne pepper and cumin for seasoning. There are other spices you can use, but those are the basics that will get you through every time.

 

Second, if you are making beef tacos with ground beef, please add in some minced garlic with the ground beef. It makes the tacos taste 100% better. If you plan on making chicken tacos, pre-roasted chicken is really tastier than just stir-frying some skinless boneless chicken breasts. (I didn’t believe it for a long time myself, but it’s true.)

 

Third, don’t buy the crappy pre-made taco shells. If you can stand a little grease, use corn tortillas, stick them in a frying pan on medium heat, and dowse them with olive oil. Fry until half-crispy and then use a spatula to fold them in half. Voila. You have taco shells (that are probably just as unhealthy) that taste much better than the hard store-bought tacos that always seem to go stale.

 

Fourth, cilantro is your friend. (Unless, of course, you are one of those strange people who consider themselves squarely in the cilantro-coriander hating crowd.) Put fresh cilantro in your salsa and your tacos to give your tacos an extra oomph. I’m not exactly sure why, but cilantro and spicy food go together pretty well.

 

Granted, these are just the Mexican food basics, but that’s really all I’m at liberty to disclose right now. 

Vegan Black Metal Chef

Where animal rights and Satanism intersect

Lest anyone doubt that you can be both vegan and badass, one cruelty-free rocker has combined his passions for music recording and cooking to create one awesome YouTube channel. Vegan Black Metal Chef went from vegan to viral in no time, garnering a million views on his first video in a little over a week. The titular star outfits his kitchen with decor befitting the Dark Lord and demonstrates his cooking skills in armor and corpse paint. What's more, he demonstrates his recipe for pad thai musically, growling out cooking instructions against fiery guitar licks. 

Even non-vegans will appreciate VBMC's choice of demonic cutlery as he slices up tofu and veggies. It's cool to see a self-proclaimed ethical vegan getting pretty much unanimously positive attention for a hilarious video. Contrary to some opinions, vegans aren't so serious all of the time. Sometimes they like dressing up and sharing their eating habits in silly ways. Besides, that pad thai looks tasty (and spicy) enough to satisfy the devil himself. 

There's only one recipe video from VBMC so far, although he has set up a domain where you can read an essay on his reasons for veganism. There's also a small forum set up, and you can download the audio for the pad thai recipe if you're so inclined. The VBMC promises more info and further recipes in the future. Vegans, metalheads, and everyone else can check out the Chef's debut video here: 

USDA: "Pink Pork Chops A-OK"

In a surprising statement, the USDA (who are in charge of food safety for the United States) has indicated that a little pink in our pork chops is okay as long as the internal temperature is at least 145 F.

The new internal temperature guidelines are 15 degrees lower than the previous ones but are reportedly still enough to kill harmful trichinosis as well as other unsavory bacteria and viruses.

From the USDA website:

"USDA is lowering the recommended safe cooking temperature for whole cuts of pork from 160 °F to 145 °F and adding a three-minute rest time. The safe temperature for cuts of beef, veal, and lamb remains unchanged at 145 °F, but the department is adding a three-minute rest time as part of its cooking recommendations. Cooking raw pork, steaks, roasts, and chops to 145 °F with the addition of a three-minute rest time will result in a product that is both microbiologically safe and at its best quality."

The only question I have now is, "what's going to happen to the "other white meat" campaign"?

Is Summer Sun Tea Safe?

Summertime is here, and while it’s really my least favorite season, it definitely has its perks. From strawberry picking to all kinds of family deals (largely due to school being out), summer can really be full of fun. Sweet, cold summer iced tea is definitely one of the best things that come out of the summer months as well.

I remember every time I went to visit my grandmother during the summertime, she would have this enormous pitcher of sun tea out on her picnic table, nearly sizzling in the sunlight. The pitcher was clear and covered with a lemon pattern, and just staring at it would make my mouth water.

Making sun tea is very simple; you can get how-to instructions and watch a video about it here. But what about the dangers associated with sun tea? Are they legit?

When I took a ServSafe class in 2004 for my brief restaurant management career (yeah, that was fun! Note my sarcasm) I learned that it was indeed true. And if you don’t believe me, just check it out on Snopes. Sun tea can definitely breed bacteria.

But the thing is, I’ve never been sick off sun tea, and I’ve had quite a bit of it. In fact, I’ve never been sick on tea, period—and I’m pretty sure there were times that I made tea that did not boil in the microwave and in the coffee maker. Am I willing to risk making sun tea now? Well, now that I have a child, as well as no insurance, I’m a bit more careful than I used to be.

That said, people who do want to make sun tea can follow some simple directions to keep it safe—such as making sure their tea containers are super clean before they are used. Making only enough tea to drink in one day and removing the tea from the sunlight within three hours are other ways to make it safer to drink.

Still, the Centers for Disease Control maintain that your tea reach 195 degrees for at least three minutes to be safe to drink—and it won’t get hotter than 130 degrees on your porch.

All of this said, I can still guarantee you that your tea could be just as sanitary as the tea you buy from restaurants. When I worked at one, I saw that nasty tea container remain unscrubbed, its spigot filthy and insides painted brown. While I always made sure it was scrubbed and sanitized on my night shift, I could also be sure to see it look disgusting when I came back on the day shift. And let me tell you, that thing smelled so nasty that even I refused to drink tea from it.

So if you’re really worried about your tea safety, I would suggest making it at home, indoors, on the stove, the old fashioned way. But in all honesty, if you do eat fast food, or leftovers, or tea with garnishes at restaurants, or pretty much any other thing that most Americans consume at some point, you’re putting yourself at risk anyway.

Hostess Fruit Pie: Apple

These were on sale at the store. How many "I bought something bad for me" stories start out that way? Most of them, I would wager. At any rate, I was lured into buying them by the combination of a low price and a cheerful wrapper on a soggy gray day.

One question which perennially reappears in conversation both online and off is, "What things do you only buy the name brand?" Some people assert that all name brands are the same as all store brand or generic versions. Other people will never buy anything but the name brand version, having become convinced (largely by marketing) that the generic version is never as good.

Most people fall into the middle, but have a short list of things they only buy name brand. For me, fruit pies are on that short list. (So are Tampax tampons and Always pads, not that you asked.) Any off-brand fruit pie is never as good as the genuine Hostess item. They are not as fresh, and they taste even more fake than the Hostess pies. Which, let's face it, is a pretty amazing accomplishment.

It takes a lot of chemicals to make a shelf-stable apple pie. Even though the pies don't last forever (if you check the wrapper, most of them expire within a month) they still have to last. Imagine the food engineering required to make the apple pie filling sit inside a wrapper of pie crust without saturating it. This is a process which is inevitable in the real world. If you make a pie from scratch (which is not difficult, I assure you) your crust will have gone soggy within a few short days.

How, then, does the Hostess Fruit Pie keep its structural integrity?

I don't know. Maybe it's better not to ask.

Fruit pies are the favored dessert of Bobby Hill from the late, lamented "King of the Hill." And Bobby Hill knows what he's talking about. These things are straight up delicious. Probably the most amazing feat of food science is the way that Hostess has crammed so many chemicals into a simple apple pie, without leaving behind a product that tastes chemical-y.

Don't get me wrong, you will not mistake this for a pie made from scratch. For one thing, it has a sugary outer coating which is unsettlingly like frosting. Who needs a frosting on a pie? That's just gilding the lily. For another thing, all of the apple chunks are perfect cubes, which is also a little unnerving. And finally, it does have a certain processed flavor which is difficult to pin down. It doesn't taste artificial, just… over-done.

I'm pretty sure Michael Pollan sheds a tear each time an American eats one of these things. Sure, you can make your own apple pie with apples, flour, butter, sugar, a pinch of salt, and a few tablespoons of spice. Sure, it seems like the downfall of our society is heralded by that fearsome ingredients list. Sure, 470 calories may seem like a lot for what the wrapper claims is a "snack."

But you know what? For a dollar, sometimes you just can't resist.

Quark Cheese: Low-Fat and Tasty


You probably are familiar with the word “quark” as it refers to a kind of particle, but may not be familiar with “quark cheese.” Quark is a German soft cheese that is becoming increasingly popular in the United States because of its versatility.

 

Quark is most commonly used in baking, but can be used as a substitute for cream cheese, ricotta, or even sour cream. Most specialty grocery stores now stock quark on their shelves; quark is typically low-fat, but comes ready-made no-fat varieties for the weight conscious.

 

 

This LINK contains a recipe for making your own quark with buttermilk and goat’s milk as the two primary ingredients. While I haven’t had an occasion to try the recipe out myself, all the reports that I’ve read about quark-making claim that the German cheese is easy to make at home.  As an alternative to the quark recipe using goat’s milk, here is another RECIPE for quark that uses skim milk instead. Other recipes for quark call for yoghurt, so you have plenty of options when making your own quark. 

 

 

Quark cheese is actually just thickened milk, which means that the texture of quark is somewhat less firm than sour cream. If I had to describe quark’s texture, I would say that quark is “gloopy-textured” and quite similar in texture to Mexican crema. Quark’s taste is a little sour, but again, quark is not as sour-tasting as sour cream.

 

I haven’t yet resorted to eating quark on its own yet; it’s much too thin to have the honor of being a food to eat in its own right. Unlike cream cheese, quark doesn’t make a good spread for bread either because of its thinness.

 

 

That said, quark is not without its uses. I have used quark as a substitute for both sour cream and yogurt as a topping for a variety of different foods. Quark hasn’t yet replaced Mexican crema as my new favorite soft cheese, but quark does have the advantage of naturally being low-fat. I haven’t used quark in baking yet, but have used quark in a spinach dip—I added cooked spinach and special secret spices to the quark—and as a topping on a variety of foods that usually need a little extra oomph.

 

For more information on the differences between various soft creams and cheese, this website provides an informative overview of the similarities and differences between the soft creams and cheeses of different countries.

 

 

 

 

http://www.everything-goat-milk.com/quark-cheese.html

 

Elvis' favorite sandwich didn't kill him because he is still alive

Some people say this sandwich might have killed him, but what do you care?  Elvis lives!

Elvis' favorite peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich:

What you need:

-3 tablespoons peanut butter

-2 slices white bread

-1 banana, peeled and sliced

-3 slices cooked bacon

-1 1/2 teaspoons butter

How to make it:

1. Slice everything and put it on the bread.

2. Spread the butter on the outside of the sandwich.

3. Grill until the bread is golden brown and the peanut butter is melted.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/elvis-sandwich/Detail.aspx

Yogurt-Covered Pretzels

The "sweet/salty" blend is experiencing a huge revival these days. But certain sweet/salty snacks have been popular for ages. I submit for your consideration: the humble yogurt-covered pretzel.

I struggle with how to explain these to someone who has never heard of them. They are pretzels covered with a sweet coating, much like frosting, but we call it "yogurt," even though it isn't really yogurt. It contains some yogurt, to be sure. Typically the coating will include some "powdered non-fat yogurt solids" or some such nod to healthiness.

In fact, it is that very nod to healthiness which allowed these delicious treats to sneak under my mother's radar. "It's yogurt," I remember explaining. "And pretzels are really low in fat!" (We were obsessed with fat content in the 1980s.) She agreed, and we struck up a formal arrangement by which we would both pretend that yogurt-covered pretzels were healthy. Like carob! (Which she also tried to convince me to eat, with less success.)

The effect of this delicious yogurt-ish coating is similar to that of frosted animal crackers. But with a little salty kick. The toasted flavor of your typical pretzel really lends itself to the pairing, as well. O miraculous pretzel, equally at home with a sweetened yogurt frosting coating, or dipped in mustard!

Yogurt-covered pretzels also have that rarest of qualities, the crunch sugary snack. For the most part, snackers have to choose between a snack that is sweet or a snack that is crunchy. There are few crunchy snacks which are also sweet. And sometimes you just want the crunch, you know?

One mystifying aspect of yogurt-covered pretzels is the price. I happen to know that pretzels are quite cheap. You can usually buy a one pound bag for about two dollars. So why, when you dip them in a fake yogurt-y coating, do they suddenly cost eight bucks a pound?

Adding insult to injury, the thick yogurt frosting is heavy. So there aren't nearly as many yogurt-covered pretzels in a pound as you might want.

There are several grocery stores within my home territory. The one with the best bulk section also has a maddeningly delicious selection of yogurt-covered pretzels in bulk. Why do yogurt-covered pretzels have such a strong smell, and why is it so distinctive? This store seems to know it, too. They always have a display at the front of the bulk section with pre-bagged one pound bags of yogurt-covered pretzels. Seeping their delicious smell to trail across the store. I swear I can smell it the instant I walk through the doors.

They also stock a wide variety of coating flavors, including chocolate, peanut butter, blueberry, and caramel. Personally, I always stick with original white. The taste of the novelty flavors is just too "in your face." I like the blend of the original pairing. Boring though it may be.

Every once in a while someone tries to reproduce the yogurt-covered pretzel magic. Recently I have seen yogurt-covered Ruffles chips for sale. Don't be fooled: stick with the pretzel! Nothing else can come close.

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