A link between late-night eating and weight gain has been debated for years. But though many dieters suspect a connection, it has not been borne out in studies.

Most of the research on the matter has been carried out in animals, and with mixed results. A 2005 study of primates at Oregon Health & Science University found that late-night meals did not lead to extra weight gain; whether consumed at 10 a.m. or 10 p.m., a calorie was just a calorie.

But a study on adult men and women, published in April in the journal Obesity, has added support to the claim that eating late does have a greater effect on the waistline. (…)

Eating at night may in fact lead to more weight gain, though it’s not clear why.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

{ The Evolution of Lids| full story }

Scientists have tested the old Danish myth that it is possible to get drunk by submerging your feet in alcohol. (…)

The researchers submerged their feet in washing bowls containing three 700mL bottles of vodka (37.5% by volume). They then recorded the level of drunkenness using the concentration of plasma ethanol and a more interesting secondary outcome. (…) “The secondary outcome was self assessment of intoxication related symptoms (self-confidence, urge to speak, and number of spontaneous hugs).”

The results of the blood plasma ethanol levels were all below the detection limit of 2.2 mmol/L and the secondary outcome results were deemed not significant. Although they did observe that after the experiment the skin on the researchers feet was ‘clean and smooth’.

{ B Good Science | Continue reading }

Some of the things we enjoy doing most, such as drinking coffee and having sex, may increase the risk of stroke, a new Dutch study has found.

According to the report published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, there are eight main triggers that increase the risk of intracranial aneurysm, which is a swelling of an artery in the brain. If the swollen artery ruptures it can cause a subarachnoid hemorrhage and lead to a stroke.

These triggers include drinking coffee and cola, vigorous physical exercise, nose blowing, sexual intercourse, straining to defecate, being startled and getting angry.

{ Cosmos | Continue reading }

images { 1. Susan Sontag photographed by Peter Hujar, 1975 | 2. Lithograph by William Fairland documenting the work of anatomist Francis Sibson, 1869 }

Almost every country in the EU last week approved the use of Meat Glue in food. Technically called thrombian, or transglutaminase (TG), it is an enzyme that food processors use to hold different kinds of meat together.

Imitation crab meat is one of the more common applications: it’s made from surimi, a “fish-based food product” made by pulverizing white fish like pollock or hake into a paste, which is then mixed with meat glue so that the shreds stick together and hold the shape wanted for it by its creator.

Chicken nuggets are also often bound with meat glue, as are meat mixtures meant to mold like sausage but without the casing. Meat glue is also used by high-end chefs like New York restaurant WD-50’s Wylie Dufresne, who is famous for his shrimp pasta dish—instead of shrimp with pasta, he just makes the pasta out of shrimp.

{ Discovery | Continue reading }

Scientists have untangled some — but not nearly all — of the mysteries behind our love and hatred of certain foods. (…)

Our tongues perceive only five basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and “umami,” the Japanese word for savory. (…)

“We as primates are born liking sweet and disliking bitter,” said Marcia Pelchat, who studies food preferences at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. The theory is that we’re hard-wired to like and dislike certain basic tastes so that the mouth can act as the body’s gatekeeper.

Sweet means energy; sour means not ripe yet. Savory means food may contain protein. Bitter means caution, as many poisons are bitter. Salty means sodium, a necessary ingredient for several functions in our bodies. (By the way, those tongue maps that show taste buds clumped into zones that detect sweet, bitter, etc.? Very misleading. Taste receptors of all types blanket our tongues — except for the center line — and some reside elsewhere in our mouths and throats.)

Researchers have found only one major human gene that detects sweet tastes, but we all have it. By contrast, 25 or more bitter receptor genes may exist, but combinations vary by person. Some genetic connections are so strong that scientists can predict fairly accurately how people will react to certain bitter tastes by looking at their DNA.

{ Washington Post | Continue reading }

Numerous studies in recent years have reported that drinking coffee may be good for the cardiovascular system and might even help prevent strokes. Just last month, Swedish researchers announced results of a large study showing that coffee seemed to reduce the risk of stroke in women by up to 25%. (…)

A 2008 study of more than 26,000 male smokers in Finland found that the men who drank eight or more cups of coffee a day had a 23% lower risk of stroke than the men who drank little or no coffee. And a few other reports suggest the effect applies to healthy nonsmokers too.

{ LA Times | Continue reading }

{ How food-breaks sway the decisions of judges. The graph above shows that the odds that prisoners will be successfully paroled start off fairly high at around 65% and quickly plummet to nothing over a few hours (although, see footnote). After the judges have returned from their breaks, the odds abruptly climb back up to 65%, before resuming their downward slide. | Discover | full story }

Cranberry juice is apparently very good at prevent urinary tract infection, particularly in women. There have been a few studies approaching it from different angles but, disappointingly, the studies all use different types of cranberry product, different doses and dosing techniques but despite all this the message seems to be pretty clear. Cranberries prevent urinary tract infections kicking in.

Before we can consider how this occurs its important to define what we are talking about. Urinary tract infections or UTIs are generally caused by a strain of Escherichia coli called Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) and it gets there by moving from the colon…ew. For this reason men rarely have to worry about them while they can be a chronic problem for women around the world, however the insertion of urinary catheters is a major risk factor for both genders. Clinical symptoms include burning sensation during urination and cloudy urine but these are only really evident once the bacteria have ascended the urethra into the bladder causing urethritis and cystitis respectively. If you want to feel real pain however let the little bastards work their way into your kidneys where kidney infection (or pyelonephritis) results in the above symptoms plus back pain and fever and the possibility of systemic spread.

{ Disease Prone | Continue reading }

Researchers looked at the role tomato products play in health and disease risk reduction. Results indicate that eating more tomatoes and tomato products can make people healthier and decrease the risk of conditions such as cancer, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease.

{ SAGE Insight | Continue reading }

Mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, meatloaf…they may be bad for your arteries, but according to an upcoming study, they’re good for your heart and emotions. The study focuses on “comfort food” and how it makes people feel. (…)

In another experiment, eating chicken soup in the lab made people think more about relationships, but only if they considered chicken soup to be a comfort food—a question they’d been asked long before the experiment, along with many other questions, so they wouldn’t remember it.

{ APS | Continue reading }

Disaster and rebirth is an old story in this part of the country. I know. My family has lived that cycle for generations deep in the Mississippi Delta—in Plaquemines Parish, a name that since the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill has become a cultural marker, the equal, after Katrina, of “the Lower Ninth Ward.” But the oil spill? Will it prove one too many disasters for the return of the Plaquemines Parish my family once knew? Or will it, like Hurricane Katrina, be a dangerous opportunity for changes long overdue?


As much of America suddenly knows, the mouth of the Mississippi River and the surrounding marshlands of Plaquemines Parish nurture the foodstuffs that grace the tables of New Orleans’s world-famous restaurants and provide much of the seafood—25 to 30 percent of it—that Americans eat. Over two centuries the region’s diverse, amphibious Delta culture—Alsatian, Croatian, Isleño, African American, Italian, and Native American—also nurtured my family’s culinary roots that flowered into the Ruth’s Chris Steak House restaurant empire.

{ Randy Fertel/Gastronomica | Continue reading }

photo { Jessica Craig-Martin }

Red Bull is a carbonated beverage that initially gained wide popularity in the U.S. during the late nineties. Taking root amongst college campuses, it appeared throughout underground clubs and eventually entered mainstream pop-culture. The manufactures claim that drinking Red Bull enhances physical endurance, concentration and reaction speed. The main ingredients of Red Bull include sugar, taurine, glucuronolactone and caffeine. It is hypothesized that the combinatorial influences of these ingredients are responsible for Red Bull’s proposed effects. This report critically reviews these claims and concludes that caffeine alone may be responsible for the proposed effects.

{ Debunking the Effects of Taurine in Red Bull Energy Drink | eScholarship | Continue reading }

collage { Lola Dupre }

Many a beer drinker will have puzzled over the following: why, when a can of beer is opened, do carbon dioxide bubbles form so slowly. Why not all at once?

The study of bubble formation in carbonated drinks is a relatively new science. In fact, it is only ten years since scientists settled this matter. One group calculated from first principles the rate at which carbon dioxide leaks from solution into a bubble. The answer is slowly. What’s more, it cannot start without some sort of nucleation site.

Then, another group discovered that the primary sources of nucleation are pockets of gas trapped in cellulose fibres in the drink. The news was greeted by the sound of clinking glasses the world over. Problem solved?

Not quite. While most beers and lagers are pressurised with carbon dioxide, some stouts, dark beers such as Guinness, are pressurised by a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

They do this because nitrogen forms smaller bubbles giving the drink a smoother, creamier mouth feel. But it also changes the bubble dynamics significantly. The question is why.

{ The Physics arXiv Blog | Continue reading }

gelatin silver print { Alison Rossiter }

{ Breast Milk Ice Cream A Hit At London Store | NPR | full story }

Culturally, food has become completely internationalized. One of the reasons I write about food is because it reflects history and society and what’s going on. I spend a lot of time in Basque country; it has a great food tradition. Basque dishes, like the beans of Tolosa, came about because of 17th-century trade with Central America. Foods like that last because they came about through a historical process. But a lot of the famous new Basque chefs, their food is odd and curious, foods that could be from anywhere with no cultural underpinnings. So in the long view of history, it won’t have any importance. (…)

The word for salad in Latin is salted, but it’s a misrepresentation — they didn’t sprinkle salt on it, they used a brine dressing.

{ Interview with Mark Kurlansky | Culinate | Continue reading }

The word “salad” comes from the French salade of the same meaning, from the Latin salata (salty), from sal (salt). (Other salt-related words include sauce, salsa, sausage, and salary). In English, the word first appears as “salad” or “sallet” in the 14th century.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

photo { Jessica Craig-Martin }

previously { Paul Krugman, Supply, demand, and English food, 1998 }

Michelle Obama wouldn’t be pleased. Maine’s Legislature appears poised to make the whoopie pie the official state dessert.

The designation, supporters say, would give Maine bakeries a marketing edge and raise awareness that the pies are more popular here than anywhere else in the country.

But opponents say the legislation sends the wrong message at a time when the nation is struggling to fight childhood obesity, an issue the first lady has championed.

{ Kennebec Journal | Continue reading }

Whoopie pies are a New England cousin to Southern moon pies. They are chocolate snack cake “sandwiches” with a filling. Moon pies use marshmallow, whoopie pies use a cream filling.

{ The Nibble | Continue reading }

photo { Nicholas Lorden }

related { Maine lawmaker proposed a bill to allow one-armed people to have and carry switchblade knives. }

also related { Why Men and Women Gain Weight }

{ Dominic Episcopo, Meat America | more }

The food scientist Beverly Tepper is director of the Sensory Evaluation Laboratory at Rutgers University. Her research combines nutritional science and psychology with the genetics of taste perception in order to better understand the links between flavor, diet, and health. We talked about some of the innovations she thinks will reshape our food in the coming years, where food scientists have gone wrong in the past, and what she thinks of molecular gastronomy.

(…)

To give you a specific example, the food industry often uses a technique called encapsulation to protect a flavor that they’ve placed in a food product. That means you coat it in some kind of material that allows the flavor compound to stay fresh and separate within the food product until you release it by eating it. The next generation of encapsulation uses nanotechnology, which will open up an entirely different dimension in the kinds of technologies that can be placed in foods and food packaging. For example, there are things that you can place on the inside of a food package that act as a sensor to tell you if the food is spoiled or release molecules into the package that fight bacteria.

{ Good | Continue reading }

photo { Todd Fisher }