If you need a reason to spend a bit more on produce at a local farmers market over buying imported stuff from the supermarket, this story about fruit farmer Duncan Smith should convince you. [Toronto Star]
Not so great with the chopsticks? Even if you’re not, it’s a good excuse to buy this totally cute panda game that helps improve chopsticks skills. [Bon Appetit]
I’m looking at this list of tips for reading restaurant menus and I can’t help but think that they’re geared towards mainstream chain places with marketing departments. Certainly, I never took a “how to fleece your customer by manipulating how they read the menu” course in culinary school. [Toronto Star: Moneyville]
Soup from a tube? Cool? Ick? Weird? [Food Manufacture]
Snack attacks and mindless eating – could this be what’s causing people to gain weight? [National Post]
Cut the salt, and have a banana. [Toronto Star]
Things that are just wrong – baked bean cheese, and moldable chocolate. [Daily Mail]
You know how there’s a study that tells you to eat some thing and then another study that refutes the claims of the first? Now the European Food Safety Agency has the final word (and for the record, they call BS on the whole probiotic thing – just sayin’… smugly). [Toronto Star]
Life’s not a bowl of cherries if it’s too wet for the flowers to pollinate. Which is why the cherry crops are much smaller than normal this year. [Not Far From the Tree]
Pity the poor, maligned potato. What did it ever do to you, besides be all tasty and stuff? [NW32.com]
I was editor of a B2B magazine about the Canadian potato industry (no, seriously) for two years during the height of the potatoes-are-evil-please-pass-the-red-meat trend, and it was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life, at least as far as health and food-based research is concerned. So-called academics were actually putting forward the argument that potatoes were unhealthy because people who consumed French fries tended to gain weight and have high cholesterol. And of course, the mainstream media covered that argument unchallenged.
Eat your potatoes. But make sure you eat the skin. And for Gord’s sake, don’t deep-fry them and then act surprised at what they do to your health.
You’ve had some interesting gigs, Neil.
I’ve been watching the transfat thing with interest recently. All of those studies they did on fried potatoes and acrylamide were originally done on rats. The study went out and the media jumped on it and we were all told to stop eating fried food OMG or we’ll get the cancer. Further research so far is not supporting the original study at all (trials on rats only go so far), but we’re seeing very little of that trickling through to mainstream media. Not getting cancer from fries is less of a headline, I guess.