The products that we buy today
Are often full of DNA—
Consumers must be made aware!
But then may buy them… if they dare! [Read more…]
The Digital Cuttlefish
Since the music plays so briefly... Can you blame me if I dance?
The products that we buy today
Are often full of DNA—
Consumers must be made aware!
But then may buy them… if they dare! [Read more…]
The latest health craze? Here’s the scoop:
It’s sausage made with baby poop.
Or (as the press release explains)
With cultured pro-biotic strains
So you can populate your gut
With flora from a baby’s butt
The best advice these authors give?
For better health… eat shit and live!
This is actually a pretty cool paper, despite the sensationalist headlines (including my own). In the search for probiotic foods, various different fermented foods like yoghurts and cheeses have been tried, but this study looks at another sort–dry-cured and fermented sausages.
An appropriate probiotic, then, has to survive two different environments, then–the fermenting and curing sausage, and the human gut. I suppose there are a couple of ways, broadly speaking, to look for potential bacteria: you could look through all the bacteria that naturally appear in sausages, and see which ones do well in the gut, or start out with bacteria that do well in the gut, and see which ones are potential sausage-fermenters. The latter is what the news-making researcher did, testing 6 strains and finding one that survived a particular type of sausage-making well enough to have active strains in sufficient numbers to inoculate a human gut.
The methodology is straightforward, with (to me) a fascinating glimpse into an unknown world of meat science. It’s a nice, useful finding, but likely wouldn’t have made the news, were it not for the last sentence of the introduction, which everyone (yes, including me) have latched onto.
The aim of the present work was to assess the suitability of three potential probiotic lactobacilli strains (L. casei/paracasei CTC1677, L. casei/paracasei CTC 1678 and L rhamnosus CTC 1679), previously isolated from infants’ faeces and three commercial probiotic strains (Lactobacillus plantarum 299v, L. Rhamnosus GG and L. casei Shirota) as starter cultures during the manufacture of low-acid fermented sausages (fuets) with reduced fat and NA+ content and their effect on the sensory properties of the final product.
“Isolated from infants’ faeces”. (For the record, it was one of the baby-poop strains that made the best sausage, in terms of both flavor and availability of probiotics.)
The WA Today article (second link above) asked a local researcher about the source of the bacteria:
It was important to take the bacteria from infant poo rather than adult poo, Curtin University’s Dr Hani Al-Salami said.
“Babies at that young age, the gut content is quite mild and nice compared with an older person,” he said.
“The reason is, as we grow, we do eat a lot of things and not everything we eat is the best in terms of quality.”
Despite the futility of disagreeing with a Dr. Al-Salami on a matter of sausages, I am gonna have to disagree. And suggest something that could make the right investor an awful lot of money. (I will, of course, require a finder’s fee–but this idea is worth it.) So you see, I am watching the Olympic Games, and I know that I will never have the physique of any of the athletes there… but recent popular news stories (take them with a grain of salt–you know how far afield they can be from the studies they allege to report on) tell us that the difference between the person with six-pack abs and the person with half-keg abs is partially determined by gut flora. Fecal transplants are being explored as a means of reprogramming a body, of jumpstarting the path to health.
So here’s my idea… boutique gut flora. (link from a year ago, in case there is a struggle over who had the idea first.) You can have the gut flora of an Olympian, or an actor, or scientist, or poet (well, hypothetically). The sausage scientists are far more concerned with health and safety, and as such are missing out on profit. “Eat Shit And Live!” It practically sells itself!
We know it can be done–scientists have made cheese from the bacteria harvested from particular individuals (you might not want to click). But frankly, I doubt there is much market for food made from Michael Pollan’s belly button bacteria. But sausage that will give you Michael Phelps’s gut flora?
Ok, I think I just went a step too far. I may never eat again.
(Cuttlecap tip to Kylie!)
Livescience.com, just yesterday, ran a story on a new health drink, made from cow urine. It’s been slightly updated, with mentions of a 2012 and a 2013 rat studies, but the main story is something we’ve seen before, back in 2009. Most of the quotes in yesterday’s article are actually from ’09.
As is this little jingle, for when the ad campaign gets rolling:
I don’t like the taste of Pepsi,
I don’t like the taste of Coke;
Dr. Pepper’s not the drink for me right now.
7-up and Sprite are dreadful
Every Root Beer is a joke;
What I really want is urine. From a cow.
If you like the taste of urine, you’re in luck!
If you think the taste of piss is bliss, it only costs a buck!
If you want to float your kidneys, you can buy it by the truck—
If you like the taste of urine, you’re in luck!
I don’t want to drink the Kool-Aid
I don’t want a mug of juice;
I don’t even want a tall glass of iced tea.
I’d really hate a cold V-8—
That’s vegetable abuse—
What I really want’s a cup of bovine pee!
If you like the taste of urine, you’re in luck!
If you think the taste of piss is bliss, it only costs a buck!
If you want to float your kidneys, you can buy it by the truck—
If you like the taste of urine, you’re in luck!
It’s a cure for diabetes,
It’s the finest healer known—
You will never need another drink than this!
In the battle of the soft drinks
This elixir stands alone,
And I guarantee it really tastes like piss!
If you like the taste of urine, you’re in luck!
If you think the taste of piss is bliss, it only costs a buck!
If you want to float your kidneys, you can buy it by the truck—
If you like the taste of urine, you’re in luck!
If I chance to bake a cheesecake
Half the neighborhood appears
All concerned it looks like too much food for one
Every neighbor wants a nibble—
There’s no lack of volunteers—
And I go from too much cheesecake down to none
But this week I did some cooking—
And it really turned out well—
But it doesn’t meet the neighborhood’s demands
Cos I didn’t bake a cheesecake
And the neighborhood can tell
So I’m left with too much haggis on my hands
Now for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
I’ve got haggis on my plate—
I’ve got more than I can handle, you can see
But my cheesecake-eating neighbors
Are indifferent to my fate…
And nobody’s eating my leftover haggis but me
I wrote this while eating a plate of haggis and eggs for breakfast. It was delicious, but yeah, the problem with haggis (this was my first homemade haggis–not the “presentation haggis” in a stomach, but just a regular recipe) is that there really is no way to make a small batch. You boil up the liver, heart, and lungs, and it’s not like you can say to a sheep “could you maybe have a smaller liver?”. So I made a regular recipe, and it yielded enough for a large family of hungry Scots, and there were just me and Cuttleson home at the time. He won’t touch it, so I’ve had haggis quite a bit over the past few days.
The dogs, though, are eager volunteers; I think next cheesecake, I’ll let the dogs lick the plates, right in front of the neighbors.
I don’t know why Comeradde Physioproffe is posting a recipe for Squid Ink Penne with Arctic Char and Raclette Cream Sauce–as wonderful as it looks–you see, today is National Sandwich Day. And sandwiches are wonderful things. Both literally and metaphorically. First, the literal…
Two buns diverged from a breaded mass,
And sorry I could not, like a snake,
Unhinge my jaw to let it pass
Took one small bite, affecting class,
And thought it likely a mistake.
Then took another, as just a tease
And knowing I could not eat it all—
The deep-fried patty, stuffed with cheese—
I gobbled up with seeming ease
Until the point I hit the wall
And, gut distended, there I lay
With melted cheese upon my shirt
Oh, I lived to eat another day
And try again? Perhaps I may,
When I’ve recovered from the hurt.
I shall be saying this, with a sigh,
When fever fades, and I’m making sense:
Two buns diverge, and I will not lie,
This Heart Attack could make you die
And that would make all the difference
Context is here–suffice it to say, it describes a real sandwich.
I grind my coffee fresh each day,
A hearty, fragrant scoop
With hints of citric acid, and
A note of civet poop
But with the market full of fakes
I might just have to quit…
I mean, who wants a cup of joe
That doesn’t taste like shit?
Via NPR, the latest on Civet Cat Poop Coffee.
The beans are literally harvested from the feces of the tree-dwelling civet cat in Indonesia. The idea is that a trip through the animal’s digestive tract partially ferments the beans and imparts a much-sought-after flavor to the coffee.
The exotic processing makes the coffee, called Kopi Luwak, exceptionally rare — and expensive: Think $600 per pound. And thus, experts suspect that much of what’s sold as civet coffee on the market is actually either fake or made from low-grade beans.
And worth every penny. Think about it–the only possible reason to buy a cup is conspicuous consumption–showing off–and even more than dusty wine and stinky cigars, nothing says “I’ve got money to burn” more appropriately than paying outrageous sums for a cup of literal shit.
But the story is actually pretty cool. Actually, a lot of coffee chemistry and psychophysics is pretty cool. And the picture of the coffee-bean civet cat shit is classic (the living conditions of the animals, considerably less cool). And while I’d be willing to be part of a blind taste test to evaluate the extravagant claims, there is no way I’d pay for the privilege. Anyone who has seen my wardrobe knows, I am not one for conspicuous consumption.
A rack of ribs; a leg of lamb;
A turkey roast; a marbled ham;
The fat? We’d gladly eat it!
The drippings from the roasting pan
We use for gravy, quite by plan—
For flavor, you can’t beat it.
But now, our culture’s seen a change
And eating fat is more than strange
When folks are on a diet
Though sugar may be worse by far
Fat gets the blame, so people are
Reluctant, now, to try it
In vain attempts to be more svelte,
The fat we hate, we simply melt
And pour it down the sink
Where does it go? It goes “away”
And more than that, we cannot say
Because we do not think.
The fat collected as we cook?
It’s down the drain, without a look;
Our thoughts end with our meals
But in the sewers, fat gets cold;
Beneath our streets, we now are told
It naturally congeals
A city’s worth of melted lard
Starts cooling down and turning hard
We know what comes of that:
Stalagmites of a lipid sort,
And one, we hear by last report,
That’s fifteen tonnes of fat
Of course, there’s much that we can do
To help prevent these bergs of goo,
The sewer gods explain:
It’s time for people to begin
When cutting fat, to toss it in
The bin, not down the drain!
A Thames Water press release has a very practical warning, illustrated by an extraordinary discovery. The warning? Don’t pour melted fat down your drain (they make this plea each year during the holiday season, I hear, when so many families simultaneously dump the fat from a roast turkey, ham, or yak, down the drain), because it will congeal and clog your pipes.
The discovery? A fifteen ton tonne “fatberg” (pic at the link–worth seeing):
“Given we’ve got the biggest sewers and this is the biggest fatberg we’ve encountered, we reckon it has to be the biggest such berg in British history.
“The sewer was almost completely clogged with over 15 tonnes of fat. If we hadn’t discovered it in time, raw sewage could have started spurting out of manholes across the whole of Kingston.
“It was so big it damaged the sewer and repairs will take up to six weeks.
Nearby residents were unable to flush their toilets, and the investigation led to the fatberg’s discovery.
Remind me, next Thanksgiving, to thank the people whose job it is to go down into the sewers in such cases of emergency. 15 tons of rancid fat is, frankly, nasty, but when the system is working perfectly these people are going down into the sewers to check on a city’s worth of waste.
So consider this a public service announcement: Next time you cut the fat from your dinner, dispose of it in the trash, not down the drain. Or do what I do, and cook with it, eat it eagerly, and enjoy it immensely.
(Cuttlecap tip to Ed Yong, via twitter.)
Let us raise our voice in chorus
For that deep-fried, doughy torus
Though it’s not the best thing for us
It’s a super special treat
Found in bakeries or delis,
Dipped in sugars, filled with jellies,
We can stuff them in our bellies
Just as fast as we can eat
And it’s Donuts, Donuts, Donuts, and Hooray, Hooray, Hooray!
So let’s all go out and go nuts, saying Happy Donut Day!
Surely, nothing could be duller
Than a day without a cruller
In that toasted-almond color
So you know it’s cooked just right
I love fritters and berliners
Some say Boston Cremes are winners
Cider donuts for beginners
So you’re hooked at just one bite!
And it’s Donuts, Donuts, Donuts, and Hooray, Hooray, Hooray!
So let’s all go out and go nuts, saying Happy Donut Day!
In the US, the first Friday in June is, as you all know, National Doughnut Day (or National Donut Day), and has been since 1938 (I would never have guessed it’s that old!). ABCNews reports that free donuts (or doughnuts) are available at Krispy Kreme, Dunkin’ Donuts, Tim Hortons, and more. Sadly, the best donut in the known universe (as determined by me, but objectively true nonetheless) is no longer being made. It was the apple fritter (don’t complain that it is not technically a donut–it is the perfection that every donut would want to be if were able to choose) made by a small bakery one town over from Cuttletown. I lived next door to that bakery 27 years ago, and never tired of those fritters. We moved away, and when I went back to visit over a decade later, they had discontinued their fritters! Customers just weren’t buying deep-fried pastries, so they got rid of the equipment (gasp!) and the recipe (horror!).
So, you can have your National Donut Day (or National Doughnut Day); for me, it is a day of mourning, for what was, for its time in the universe, the best possible argument for Platonic Ideals.
(Yes, the verse is a re-run; you aren’t losing your mind.) (well, maybe)
It’s processed meat; they say it’s mutton—
And that, of course, is that.
No need to worry over nutton—
It’s not (or is it?) rat.
But rat it is, or fox, or mink,
(And some of it’s diseased)
Chinese officials made a stink
And now it’s all been seized.
Some twenty thousand tons of meat
Were seized in raids this year
From bogus beef to chicken feet
It’s not quite right, they fear.
So have some tart, with not much rat…
It’s safe–but just not very
And if you please, have cheese with that…
Cos next, they’re checking dairy
Yup… via CNN, a story bound to leave you peckish…
Police in China have spent three months seizing bogus meat, some of it fake beef or mutton made out of fox, mink and rat.
They snatched up around 20,000 tons of illegal products, according to state news agency Xinhua.
In 382 cases, officials arrested 904 suspects for passing off counterfeit meat, meat injected with water or diseased flesh to consumers, the news agency said.
I’ve never had rat, but I do have recipes (I collect recipes; if you have some you think I might like, please send them along!), and I would not be in the least hesitant to try them. But. I want my rat meat labeled as rat meat. (More likely, I’ll butcher my own.) If my recipe calls for mutton, I want mutton, and if my recipe calls for rat, I want rat.
It occurs to me that my last comment on Taslima’s blog linked to a cannibalism site. Like I said… I collect recipes.
Via Ed, we hear that there has been a change of dietary heart. Whereas it was apparently once the case that mermaid were officially (there was an official fatwa) off the menu, Ed reports that mermaids A) exist, and B) are halal.
I really never thought I’d have the appropriate excuse to repost this one, but it’s one of my favorites. You have to read it aloud to get the internal rhymes.
A fish connoisseur made paella with Mermaid;
He thought the aroma was nice.
With garnish of seaweed (his sycophants “oui-oui-ed”)
And saffron infusing the rice.
He clarified butter, and started to mutter
“It tastes like it’s really Mazola”
Then added blue cheeses: “the trick, if you please, is—
With Gorgon, you need gorgonzola!”
With minimum bluster, he gutted and trussed her;
You see, in his studies, he’d learned
That the delicate features of mermaid-like creatures,
If left unattended, get burned.
The succulent breast of (as well as the rest of)
The meal, would make proud its creator;
I was told that one bite would bring utter delight,
And I could not refuse… so I ate her.