Pretzel Crisps: "Rethink Your Pretzel"

The Snack Factory Company was very generous. They sent me seven complimentary bags of Pretzel Crisps. You might be wondering what a pretzel crisp is. Is it a pretzel? Nope. Is it a cracker? Well, the slogan on their Facebook page says “Rethink your pretzel.”

Pretzel crisps were born in 2004 when the Wilson’s (a family from New Jersey) got a U.S. patent for a flat pretzel cracker. The Wilson’s are also responsible for the invention of Bagel & Pita Chips and they got their start selling the delectable Dutch dessert funnel cakes. They opened Pennsylvania Dutch Treats at the Paramus Park Mall in Paramus New Jersey in 1974.

As I write this, I am munching on their Cinnamon Toast pretzel crisps. These are a sugary treat that are just a little salty. Overall, the flavor is delicious. I’m almost tempted to warm some maple syrup so I have an equally delicious dip. According to a fan on Facebook , they go great paired with your morning coffee.

Another flavor they sent me was Tuscan Three Cheese. These, like the Cinnamon Toast, were coated in a tasty flavor. Instead of cinnamon and sugar, they tasted like one of those cheesy pretzels you’d get at the mall. Though there was also the smallest lingering sweet taste in my mouth. This was a very zesty snack. I recommend pairing these with White Bean & Basil Hummus from Trader Joes. If there are no Trader Joes grocery stores near your city, make your own hummus.

I think pretzel crisps would pair well with wine or beer alike! These are great to serve with the hummus at a party for a fast, easy and most importantly, tasty appetizer. In addition to the Cinnamon Toast and Tuscan Three Cheese, they also sent me five deli style flavors, these were Sesame, Everything, Garlic Parmesan, Buffalo Wing and Original.

When I tried the Everything deli pretzel crisps, they reminded me of Thomas’s Everything Bagels. I love to toast a half and spread with butter as a snack. These crisps really did taste like an Everything bagel. They were very satisfying. They would pair well with cheese or peanut butter alike!

The Sesame deli pretzel crisps had sesame seeds spattered all over them. Upon first taste, I noticed a slight sweetness combined with a little saltiness. They had a nice wheat texture and mouth feel. They really hit the spot.

On pretzel crisps’ twitter, someone tweeted that they like to pair their Buffalo Wing crisps with blue cheese dip. That sounds amazing! I may have to try that.

News Flash: Breakfast Cereal Isn't Magic

You know that Vitaminwater is just soda, it's not actually vitamins, right? Well, in yet another blow to "neutraceuticals," the FTC has announced a class action lawsuit against General Mills cereals for two ridiculous claims they made for their cereals over the last few years.

The first claim was splashed across Rice Crispies in the winter of 2009, at the height of swine flu (and swine flu vaccine) panic. I remember walking down the cereal aisle, only to be stopped in my tracks by the bright yellow banner on the box trumpeting that the humble cereal "Now helps support your child's IMMUNITY."

NOW helps support immunity? Now helps support IMMUNITY? There were so many disbelieving ways to read that line.

At the time, I picked up the box and flipped it over to read more. Very little was forthcoming from this little cereal box. From what I could gather, the cereal had a tiny amount of vitamins (25% of your US RDA of vitamin C is, like, nothing). These vitamins didn't seem to be new to the cereal. These vitamins - surely in too small a concentration to do anything - weren't specifically known to "support immunity" except in the vaguest sense. I shook my head and put the box back on the shelf.

I wonder how many parents were lured into making a fear-based cereal purchase? This box's lies and pandering both fed off and stoked unrealistic parental fears about vaccines, about illness, about this magical property called "immunity."

(Side note: "immunity" is one of those BS red flag words to watch for. If a product claims to do anything about "immunity" it's probably lying, or a placebo, or worse. The problem being that "immunity" isn't something you can see or measure, so it's a claim that can never be refuted. Second only in BS red flag popularity to the words "cleanse" and "toxins.")

The second cereal taking a hit is Mini-Wheats, which had claimed that clinical studies showed Mini-Wheats caused kids to be able to concentrate 20% better. (20% better than what was never said. 20% better than Cheerios? 20% better than no breakfast at all? 20% better than a fluffy kitten running around the classroom?)

These claims are so clearly bunk, but they only happen because people buy them. I'm often dismayed by how willing people are to believe the claims of advertisers. And by how little people differentiate between "something printed in the New York Times" versus "something printed on a cereal box."

In the end, all that happened was that General Mills moved some extra units of cereal thanks to the wallets of gullible parents. And luckily the FTC stepped in with a class action lawsuit before this could go too far. But where does it end? What claims AREN'T being litigated in court? Where is this happening but we haven't learned about it yet?

This kind of callous corporate irresponsibility and disregard for the truth should be instructive. Here's hoping at least a few pairs of eyes were opened by these lawsuits.

Photo credit: Flickr/theimpulsivebuy

Eat Your Fruit and Veggies for Nice-Looking Skin

A recent study conducted by Dr. Ian Stephan at the University of Nottingham at the Malaysia campus proves that eating fruits and vegetables will give your skin a glow that looks better than a tan. Dr. Stephan’s study was published in the Journal Evolution and Human Behavior and evaluates how we perceive skin.

 

 

The study took place in Malaysia; the participants were asked to compare how skin looked after a fruity diet heavy with fruits and vegetables (5 times a day) compared to skin after tanning. The sixty participants were given computer images of participants with tans and participants who had eaten a healthy diet of fruit and vegetables and were asked to choose which participants had been looking skin;  most of the participants preferred the carotenoid skin color, which is “responsible for the red skin color in fruit and vegetables such as carrots and tomatoes.”

“Dr Stephen and his team in the Perception Lab found that people who eat more portions of fruit and vegetables per day have a more golden skin colour, thanks to substances called carotenoids. Carotenoids are antioxidants that help soak up damaging compounds produced by the stresses and strains of everyday living, especially when the body is combating disease.” Carotenoids are more commonly found in deeply-colored vegetables.

 

Although the research was conducted in Malyasia--a mutli-cultural society consisting of Malays, Indians, and Chinese--the research conducted by Dr. Stephan was done on Caucasians. A different study that was cited by Dr. Stephan and his research team in the paper found that Africans also had a strong preference for yellow-tinged skin. ( I don’t know if a similar study has been performed on Asians but do know that Asians in several countries have a strong preference for lighter-colored skin, which means that tanning was never all that popular to begin with.)

 

Humans aren’t the only species that prefer the healthier color resulting from the carotenoids in fruits and vegetables—male birds with brighter plumage  (also as a result of carotenoids) find themselves more popular with female birds than their duller-feathered counterparts.

 

Caretenoids are also beneficial for fertility and also contain anti-oxidants. Interestingly enough, carotenoids are helpful to prevent aging; as everyone should hopefully know by now, tanning has the exact opposite result.

 

 It might be wise to consider some of the health and beauty benefits of reducing the amount of tanning and eating more fruits and veggies instead. The fruits and vegetables portion of the food pyramid may just be the only part of the pyramid that is actually correct.

Image Courtesy of Flckr User: karimian

Another Kellogg’s Fail

I just finished writing about what jerks Kellogg’s are—how they sell Americans inferior, more harmful products than the ones they sell in Europe—and then they come out with this heinous commercial for their “Special K” cereal.

It must be so new that there’s not a copy on the web yet, as I can’t seem to find one, but it basically goes like this: A woman wearing a red coat with white trim is lugging in her holiday decorations from outside and having a hard time of it. This is a natural thing, right? We all hate hauling stuff away, and she has a lot to haul—lights and plenty of other odds and ends.

It’s important to note that this woman appears perfectly healthy.

She does not seem to be overweight—at least, not to me, though in America, if you’re bigger than a size two you’re considered rotund these days—and in fact is doing just fine lugging those decorations into her house.

Then she hears a loud noise behind her. She turns to find a sleigh, attached to eight reindeer, in her yard, as if they are waiting for her orders. They apparently believe she is Santa because of the pounds she put on during the holidays, and Special K has just the thing to get rid of those!

Oh, where to begin with the issues this commercial has? Let’s set aside the obvious issue that reindeer are apparently completely stupid, that they couldn’t distinguish between a giant, jolly, hundreds-of-years-old elf next to a non-obese, healthy woman (or their home, or the date they normally fly to houses every single year). We do tend to look down at non-human animals quite a bit as a whole, after all, mocking them for our enjoyment, because we’re so superior with our light-up shoes and snuggies and highballs.

The bigger issue here, of course, is the portrayal of poor body image and fat hatred in this country—how even a few pounds of weight gain make us jumbo-sized in the eyes of the status quo, and how we should assume that this woman—again, who doesn’t seem fat at all (and even if she did, that doesn’t mean she needs to change herself)—wants to lose weight, or worse, should lose weight because we’re judging her based on her weight. “Oh, yes,” we’re supposed to agree, “After the holidays she looks like a blimp! She needs the Special K diet. I gained five pounds, too; I need to eat Special K, too!”

Instead, all I could do was narrow my eyes and hiss at the screen. When I want to lose weight, I do it for myself—not because I apparently look like Santa Clause (though this woman clearly did not). And I won’t do it by eating cereal twice a day—though that could be healthy if it’s whole grain and paired with fresh fruits and vegetables; I do it through balanced eating and exercise. I would encourage anyone else who wants to lose weight for themselves—not to satisfy the demands of society—to do the same, or to consult with a doctor on the safest route for them, and not buy Special K cereal until they can stop shaming women.

Special K, You've Truly Outdone Yourself.

It is that time of year. You know the one where everyone decides there is no better time than January to get healthy? The gyms are crowded, and your neighbor's sweat may unfortunately drip right on to you if you don't move fast enough.  (Which I guess in itself is a pretty good motivator to pick up the pace right?) The grocery stores are packed with new products that probably won't make it past Valentine's day, and soon your sweet love affair with it will be over. Every once in a while though a new line of products come out that deserve some recognition. Kellogg's in previous years, has really done a nice job of keeping in the diet and healthy eating market. They took it to a whole new level when they added their Special K Challenge Program.  It allowed them to incorporate their newest products into a menu that you plan yourself to help achieve weight loss goals.  Offering, protein infused water, protein bars, cereal bars, fruit crisps, and cereals, helped keep users of the programs on track.  We now know that fiber in diet leads to a more full feeling of satisfaction, but some of us don't have the time to sit down for a full fiber packed meal, which means getting it in a delicious tasting bar is always great.

I was happy to see this week at the grocery store 2 of the newest flavors in the Special K Cereal Bar. The previous tasting bars were always really good, but the newest addition of  Raspberry Cheesecake is downright wonderful! Not only do I know it is a healthy snack for me, that will keep me feeling full most of the morning, but at just 2 WW+ Points, I don't feel guilty! It is hard to trick yourself sometimes into eating healthy when you know it is the right thing to do, but with this new flavor I feel like I am truly treating myself.  The other new flavor that is out is Chocolatey Chip Cookie! When the boyfriend sits down with a package of cookies I know I don't want to eat, I reached for this last night and truly was happy with the substitute. It had a great chocolate flavor. Only 90 calories and it has real chocolate chips in it! What more could you ask for.

Also I look forward to trying out the other new Kellogg's product which is their Cracker Chips. A full serving is 27 cracker chips, and if you are a quantity eater that sure is a lot!  These are made out of potatoes, and brown rice, and come in 2 delicious flavors of Sea Salt and Sour Cream & Onion.

The best part of these new products, is they are healthy, full of fiber, easy, AND affordable! Look for them in your grocery store!

Jewish Food from Around the World

 

The Jewish people have existed for thousands of years and have made homes in various cultures throughout the world. One of the most enduring aspects of this long-lived, globetrotting history is food. Jewish food isn't so much a culinary tradition on its own as it is a sort of Silly Puddy of world cuisine. Wherever Jews have lived, they have picked up local influences in the foods they create. The following are just a few of the many intriguing, tasty and culture-infused foods in the Jewish tradition.

Kreplach

Just about every society on Earth has embraced the simple beauty of the dumpling. From the Chinese won-ton to the Eastern European pierogi, the filled ball of dough is a satisfying and versatile food that has been part of the human diet practically since the invention of refined grain. Kreplach, like a lot of Jewish bread recipes, is made from a rich, eggy dough. The most basic recipes call for small squares of dough to be filled with ground beef or chicken, then folded into triangles and boiled in soup. There are other variations on kreplach, including the hearty potato-filled style and the creamy cheese-filled dumpling usually served for the holiday of Purim.

 

Hamantashen

Speaking of Purim, these sweet pastries are the favorite symbolic food of the festival. Hamantashen are triangular cookies filled with various flavorings, usually fruit preserves or poppy seed, though more modern recipes allow for everything from chocolate to nut butter. The hamantash cookie represents the villainous Haman, the character in the Purim story who failed in his attempt to eradicate the Jews. Older traditions state that the cookies represent Haman's ears, though that story has been softened recently to equate them with his hat instead.

 

Pescado Frito

Though a lot of the foods associated with Jewish cuisine in America come from the Eastern European Ashkenazi tradition, there are many great foods that come from the Western Sephardim. One of those tasty recipes is pescado frito, a deep-fried white fish popular with the Jews of southern Spain during the Renaissance. The fish is fried in vegetable oil whole and usually served with fresh citrus, like lemon or lime. The batter for the fish is made from eggs and matzo meal, giving it a distinctly Jewish flavor. This recipe, consistent with the oil-centric cuisine of the eastern Mediterranean, migrated with Jews into Spain and some accounts have the recipe jumping to 19th century England where it was altered and became the famous fish-and-chips meal.

Say No To Imported Honey

I read a very interesting article this morning courtesy of Metafilter.  Titled "Honey laundering: The sour side of nature's golden sweetener," this article ran in the Toronto's newspaper "The Globe and Mail."  Funny what a different perspective you get on U.S. food politics when you read it from another country.

Over the summer someone gave me a little jar of local raw honey, and I was astonished.  It tasted so much better than the store-bought stuff!  The difference was comparable to that between store-bought tomatoes and garden fresh heirloom tomatoes.  It was that marked.

After I polished off the jar and went shopping for more, I was surprised at the price differential between "real honey" and the store-bought stuff.  You can buy a 16 ounce plastic bear full of honey for about $3, or a 4 ounce jar of local raw honey for about $8.  That's 18 cents per ounce for the store-brand stuff, versus $2 an ounce for the real stuff.  (Later I discovered that the local food co-op has raw local honey in bulk for $4 a pound!  But I digress.)

I boggled at the price differential.  Having read this article, now I understand: that super-cheap store bought honey was probably made in China, shipped to the U.S. via a series of other countries which put their name on the shipment fraudulently.  It may contain a banned antibiotic which Chinese beekeepers use on their hives, and it has probably been adulterated with water, filtered to remove impurities that can fingerprint the honey's origin, and most likely has been cut with corn syrup or other sweeteners.

The Globe and Mail calls honey laundering "the largest food fraud in U.S. history."  It's an excellent example of how bureaucratic indifference and incompetence combine with the worst parts of capitalism to give us one of the worst food safety systems in the world.

Reading about the honey situation I was reminded of Brooklyn's "swill milk" scandal of the early 1900s, when the FDA was still in its infancy.  The milk - which came from diseased and sickened cows weak from eating a byproduct of distilleries - was diluted with water to stretch it, and then colored with chalk to make it white.  Untold numbers of children died from drinking swill milk.

Free market enthusiasts claim that this is the sort of thing that won't happen under a truly free market.  The problem being (as always) one of transparency.  If people knew that their bottle of honey or milk had poison in it, they wouldn't buy it.  But swill milk was just labeled "milk" and honey with chloramphenicol in it is just labeled "honey."

The solution here is obvious, at least for you and I.  Seek out a actual local honey from a source that you trust, whether it's at a farmer's market, online, or at a local food co-op.  Not only will you be supporting local family agriculture, but you'll be feeding your family something good for them - and without any harmful chemicals or corner-cutting additives.

Photo credit: Flickr/NCReedplayer

6 New Apple Varieties

New varieties of apples are hitting the market all the time.  Last year's growing season had a great crop (sorry) of new varieties which I look forward to seeing more of in the 2011 season.


Aurora
I am IN LOVE with these apples.  They don't ship well, apparently.  At least, judging by the bruised and somewhat mangled condition of the ones I have bought so far.  And the two I bought last week had a somewhat mealy texture. 

But the taste is absolutely wonderful.  It tastes like a Fuji without the tartness - just the wonderful almost perfume-like flavor, and a nice mellow sweetness.

It's a very pretty apple, too, as you can see from the picture above!  Yellow with greenish overtones.

Ambrosia
I tried one of these and was wholly unimpressed.  Maybe I got a bad batch.  It happens.  The one I tried was blandly and overly sweet, with no real depth of flavor.  Wikipedia says it has a "flavor reminiscent of pear" which is kind of the same thing I just said, but more polite.

Honeycrisp
This is the big hot red carpet star right now.  I had some pretty great Honeycrisp apples last year, but I also had some pretty crappy ones.  I suspect the huge popularity of this variety has led some growers to push Honeycrisps to market that don't deserve to be there.

At its best, this is what an apple should be like: tart and sweet and crisp and mild.  At its worst it's basically a big greenish-yellow Delicious.  (I have learned that the bigger the Honeycrisp, the worse the eating.)

Jazz
Jazz has become one of my go-to apples this year.  I have watched a lot of people pass it up at the store, which is a shame.  It's true that it doesn't look as pretty as some of the other varieties - its color tends to be dull; its size, smallish.  It often looks blotchy with red and yellow (although if you ask me, that's a feature, not a bug).

The Jazz is a cross between Galas and Braeburn.  It's what Gala apples were like, before popularity killed them.  It's tart and crisp, and I can attest that it makes a darned fine pie.  If you find yourself lamenting the state of Galas today, try a Jazz!

Opal
I've read great reviews of this apple, but I haven't tracked one down yet.  I have to admit I'm skeptically snobby about this one.  It's a Golden Delicious cross; how great could it be, really?  (I'm just bitter after a childhood of being force-fed Delicious apples.)

Pacific Rose
This is the other go-to everyday apple I have been buying.  I look over the Jazz and Pacific Rose, and just pick the ones which look best at the store.  If the Jazz is the new Gala, then Pacific Rose is the new Fuji.

Visually, I think Pacific Rose is one of the prettier apples on the market, with its lovely dark red color with matte pink blush.

The Doomed Banana

I never really thought about bananas until I read a recent Slashfood article titled "Kiss Bananas Good-Bye?"  When you go to the store you have the choice of several different kinds of apple - Gala, Pink Lady, Macintosh, what have you.  (And a new variety called Aurora, which I recently tried for the first time.  It was delicious, but that's a story for another day.)

But then you hit the bin of bananas, and it's just "bananas." 

Turns out that all bananas sold in the West today are actually one particular variety, the Cavendish.  Bananas are a huge monoculture.  And like all monocultures, this leaves them very susceptible to disease.  Which is what's happening right now.  The world's crop of Cavendish bananas is being threatened by several very serious diseases which could spell doom for the "regular old banana."

From our perspective, this isn't necessarily a big deal.  Some other banana crop will slip in to fill the space left behind by the demise of the Cavendish.  Maybe it will usher in a new world of banana varieties, when you get to choose which kind of bananas you want to buy today. 

I look forward to this after reading one banana expert's comment that "There are such diverse qualities to be found in bananas - small, medium, large, yellow, red, creamy, tart, sweet, balanced."  Just like apples, there's a banana best suited for every purpose, whether it's eating out of hand, cooking, or for dessert.  The author himself gets to taste a new variety which he describes as "creamy and sweet, although far from cloying.  I detected hints of strawberry, vanilla and apple - perhaps even a dash of cinnamon.  […] This banana was in a different league."

But the demise of the Cavendish could have a much more serious impact in other countries.  Bananas are a staple in many parts of the world, analogous to rice or wheat.  Like rice and wheat, less desirable varieties and grades are used as livestock feed.  Bananas are a survival food in Africa, in regions like Cameroon, which can hardly afford to lose a keystone food. 

Bananas are a domesticated crop, like corn.  There's no such thing as a wild banana plant.  The banana is a hybrid plant, a sterile descendant of two wild plants.  The first ancestor is a wild plant called Musa acuminata which had small fruit like okra, and big seeds "that resemble peppercorns."  This plant was hybridized with a wild plant in India called Musa balibasana which was large and prolific, but also chock full of seeds.

Thousands of years ago in India, people hybridized M. balibasana with M. acuminate, to create the plantain we know today.  Bananas are sterile (which gives us the lovely seedless banana) and propagate vegetatively by spreading rhizomes and suckers.

The Cavendish banana isn't the best tasting banana.  It's not the easiest to grow, or the most nutritious, or even the prettiest.  However, it IS the easiest variety to ship and store, which has doomed American consumers to a relatively lifeless, flavorless, starchy banana. 

I can't wish for the progression of banana diseases, because this would cause a lot of human suffering in the world.  But I can certainly wish for a broader variety of bananas to come to market.  Imagine the smoothies of the future!

Photo credit: Flickr/pykmi

Does a UTI Have You Down?

Does a UTI have you down? UTI stands for Urinary Tract Infection. One of the most common symptoms of a UTI is constantly feeling like you need to pee. Your body may have bad bacteria in your Urinary Tract. This should not be confused with Frequent Urination, which is a completely different issue.

According to WebMD, “Your urinary tract is the system that makes urine and carries it out of your body. It includes your bladder and kidneys and the tubes that connect them. When germs get into this system, they can cause an infection.”

If you suspect you may have a UTI, it is suggested that you go to a doctor. Why? Technically a UTI is a bladder infection. If left untreated, this bladder infection can spread to your kidneys. A kidney infection is much more serious and can cause permanent damage to your body. The only way to remove the infection is through a course of antibiotics your doctor can give you.

What can you do to prevent a UTI in the first place? I would suggest taking cranberry extract daily. You can take it in the form of a pill once to three times daily. I have found cranberry extract pills sold all over the place. I’m currently taking organic cranberry extract pills from Whole Foods. They were kind of pricey though (30 pills for almost 10 dollars). I’ve also seen them sold at Costco for about 15 dollars, but instead of 30, you’ll get 120 pills making it a cost-effective solution.

You can also take cranberry extract, by sipping on 100% cranberry juice. To benefit from the juice, make sure it’s 100% cranberry juice and not a cocktail that contains 5% juice, for example. I get mine from Trader Joes. They sell it in 32 ounce bottles under label, “100% Cranberry”. With sub-label “Not from Concentrate”. 32 ounces may not seem like much, but I find it will last me for months, because I never drink it straight out of the bottle.

I find the taste to be too bitter on its own. I’ll usually add it to my morning smoothie or top it off with a packet of Emergen-C dumped in an 8oz glass of water. You’ll still reap the benefits of the cranberry extract even if it’s watered down or added to something else. Combining the juice with something else will make it palatable.

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