Niall O'Higgins

Natural vs Artificial flavours

Wed, 13 May 2009 21:38:53 PDT

I've always been under the impression that there was an important distinction between the "natural flavours" and "artificial flavours" listed on food ingredients. After having read this food science article (adapted from Fast Food Nation) Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good, I realise the difference is essentially meaningless:

Natural flavors and artificial flavors sometimes contain exactly the same chemicals, produced through different methods. Amyl acetate, for example, provides the dominant note of banana flavor. When it is distilled from bananas with a solvent, amyl acetate is a natural flavor. When it is produced by mixing vinegar with amyl alcohol and adding sulfuric acid as a catalyst, amyl acetate is an artificial flavor. Either way it smells and tastes the same.

Natural flavours no healthier than artificial I had for some reason assumed that natural flavours were probably not quite as bad for you as artificial flavours, however this is not necessarily the case:

A natural flavor is not necessarily more healthful or purer than an artificial one. When almond flavor -- benzaldehyde -- is derived from natural sources, such as peach and apricot pits, it contains traces of hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison. Benzaldehyde derived by mixing oil of clove and amyl acetate does not contain any cyanide. Nevertheless, it is legally considered an artificial flavor and sells at a much lower price. Natural and artificial flavors are now manufactured at the same chemical plants, places that few people would associate with Mother Nature.

So, basically "natural flavours" and "artificial flavours" are the same thing, and are best avoided if possible.

CrossFit and quitting coffee

Tue, 05 May 2009 22:19:59 PDT

Although I enjoyed both the taste and ritual aspect of coffee, around six weeks ago I decided I was too dependent and that it was having a negative effect on me. Specifically, I felt like it was sapping my energy and leaving me with a kind of brain fog around mid afternoon that nothing could fix. Drinking more coffee wouldn't help at all. I had also noticed that the acidity of coffee was contributing to indigestion. I guess I was drinking two large cups of strong drip coffee per day on average, sometimes more, sometimes less. I would also drink green tea in addition to this. Aside from the morning dependency (MUST have coffee before starting work), the mid-afternoon mental slowdown I'd experience sometimes, and the increased stomach acidity, I didn't have any greatly negative experiences - unlike other people who have trouble sleeping, get very anxious, and so on. I could drink many cups and not have any real problems. I never drank coffee immediately before a work out so I'm not sure if it was helping my performance much. It seems that there is no clear cut story about the long term health effects of coffee or caffeine. There are plenty of studies on both sides of the issue - some report that caffeine contributes to high blood pressure, increases stress, leaches calcium from the body, and so on. Others point to increased athletic ability, protection against cancers and protection against Parkinson's disease. I found this post on the CrossFit Santa Cruz blog which seems to reach a similar conclusion. I didn't find it hugely difficult to give up - I simply decreased initially to a single shot in the morning for a week, then I dropped it off completely substituting black or green tea, and then gave up completely. I suppose its been over a month now since I last had coffee. I don't have any particular urge to drink it, I'm happy enough with herbal teas and the occasional black or green tea when I feel like it. I don't notice a huge difference in how I feel apart from a reduction in what I call brain fog, and of course not craving coffee in the morning. I don't think coffee could have been helping my CrossFit performance that much - since quitting coffee my Fran time has dropped by a minute and a half. On the other hand, I'm not implying any causality in that - I'm sure my performance would have improved if I hadn't quit coffee. Overall, I feel like being dependent on any substance for a long period of time is not good, that its healthy to break these mild addictions. Its rewarding just to know I can, and also not to have any pressing need to either brew a cup or pay someone else to brew one for me. I think I'll stay off coffee for the foreseeable future - I feel more free without it.

Recipe of the week: Steak a la Fei fei

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:00:30 PST

I can't take credit for this one. No, I'm merely acting as a conduit for a recipe created by my lovely girlfriend, Feifei, who has cooked this wonderful dish on a number of occasions. She kindly agreed to tell me the secret components of this steak marinade, and I'm naming it after her. Steak a la Feifei Serves two.

Two USDA ribeyesteak
140 ml Thai sweet chili sauce
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
5-6 cloves garlic, chopped
4-5 coarsely chopped shallots
1 tsp. freshly grated ginger
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation Mix the marinade in a small dish with high sides - whatever size container you have that will accommodate the steaks submerged into as much marinade as possible. Cut into the steaks so that they can absorb more marinade, then place in dish with marinade, for at least 15 minutes per side. Be sure to cover the steaks thoroughly. When steaks have been soaked in marinade for around a half an hour, cook the steaks. Feifei used a George Foreman contact grill. Whatever you use, cook the steaks in the marinade - pouring it over it. On the George Foreman, it took around 5-6 minutes to cook the steaks so they were medium. Serve and enjoy!

Recipe of the Week: Allspice Steak with Brocolli and Shitakes

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:14:22 PST

I think food is one of the most basic things in life. Most people eat around three times a day, every day, for their entire life. How food tastes, and what it does to your body, would seem to me to be absolutely critical. Few people here in the San Francisco tech industry seem to cook for themselves, or pay much attention to the kind of stuff they put into their bodies, which I find quite bizarre. The culture of consuming vast quantities of heavily refined sugars (via sodas, donuts, pastries, icecream and all that junk) along with highly processed carbohydrates (pizza, bread, potato chips, etc) along with plenty of fatty, fried foods, seems completely insane. And then people wonder why they are overweight, and suffer from all manner of health problems - diabetes, heart disease, and of course deadly cancers. While I don't advocate going crazy and completely cutting out entire food groups willy nilly - probably such an effort will be unsuccessful in the long run, and almost certainly decrease your overall happiness and emotional well being - I do think its important for people to reclaim their connection to food and at least choose their own ingredients, cooking methods, and generally go through life being aware of the details of food. If ever details are important, its the details pertaining to food. Anyway, on to this week's recipe. Andronico's had organic New York Steak on special, so I bought a nice cut and cooked it. Allspice Steak with Broccoli and Shitake Mushrooms

One USDA organic New York Steak
1/2 tsp. Jamaican Allspice
One crown of broccoli
1/3 lb fresh Shitake mushrooms
1 tsp salt

Preparation: A friend of mine, Chris, who is a fantastic cook (and chefs professionally) once told me the secret to good tasting steak is salt. While my steak isn't as good as his, he's certainly right about the salt. Rub both sides of the steak with plenty of salt, and then rub in the allspice. I cooked mine on a George Foreman, but you can easily do its under your own non-contact grill or even use a pan. I like my steaks to be done medium, so I cooked it for around 6-7 minutes. In the meantime, I finely chopped the shitake mushrooms and coarsely broke up the brocolli crown (I like brocolli coarse). Shitake mushrooms are well-known for not only their anti-cancer properties, but a whole myriad of health benefits such as anti-viral effects, thrombosis reduction, and so on. Brocolli, like all cruciferous vegetables, have tons of health-promoting qualities. Both of these foods taste great, too. So, dump your veggies in a pan with some water and sautee until they're done to your liking. I like mine on the less-cooked side. Serve and enjoy!

Recipe of the week: Roasted pork loin chops with chemoprotective shallots

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:15:47 PST

Andronico's near my place have had a great deal on pork loin chops for the past few days, you can pick up a couple of pork chops for around $3. Pork chops are super easy to cook and are very tasty. When I cook red meat, I make a special effort to mix in some powerful and healthy vegetables - for example cooking with shallots or having sauteed broccoli and shitake mushrooms on the side. Onions are extremely good for cancer prevention, and shallots (which are essentially a kind of onion) are the most potently beneficial sort. Here's what I did: Roasted pork loin chops with shallots

2 pork loin chops
Salt and pepper to taste
Lots of shallots, peeled and sliced
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Preparation: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Coat baking dish with oil. Place meat in baking dish. Rub in salt and pepper to taste. Cover chops with shallot slices. Pour water in, making sure chops are not covered. Cook for 45-50 minutes, ensuring chops are cooked through and slightly brown. Serve with healthy veggies. Enjoy!

Recipe of the week: Spicy anti-oxidant lamb burgers

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:34:14 PST

Trying to post a new recipe every week from now on. Last week was Tilapia with garlic butter sauce for reducing inflammation. This week I've cooked something high in anti-oxidant herbs and spices, notably Oregano which displays, on a gram for gram basis, four times as much anti-oxidant activity than even Blueberries - impressive when you consider Blueberries are no slouch at mopping up free radicals! Here we go: Spicy anti-oxidant lamb burgers

1 pound ground lamb
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons minced fresh oregano
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 ounces feta cheese, finely crumbled

Tilapia with parsley garlic butter sauce for reducing inflammation

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:56:22 PST

This evening I cooked some Tilapia. It was a post-workout meal and so I decided to bake it with plenty of garlic. Garlic is known to have powerful anti-inflammatory properties. This makes it a great food to eat if you do a lot of physical exercise, to reduce any pain and decrease recovery time. I also love the taste of the stuff! Tilapia with parsley garlic butter sauce

2 tablespoons butter or so.
A few cloves garlic, as finely chopped as you can manage.
Bit of pepper.
Bit of salt.
Bit of parsley.
Bit of paprika.
3 tilapia fillets.

Preparation: Throw butter, garlic, pepper, salt, parsley, and paprika into saucepan. Cook on low heat until butter is melted and starts simmering. Stir it for a couple of minutes to let all the flavour come out of the garlic. When you are ready, rub some of the sauce in the bottom of a baking dish then place tilapia fillets into the dish. Pour remainder of sauce on top of tilapia fillets. Bake at 350Â° F for around 20 minutes, until tilapia flakes easily with a fork. Yum!

Quorn, capitalism, irrationality and truffles

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:37:34 PDT

I came across Quorn today. It has a pretty interesting history - it was created initially to address the supposedly imminent global shortage in protein-rich foods. That shortage hasn't occurred (yet) so its been targeted at vegetarians as a meat substitute. Also the fungus (actually a type of mold) itself is quite interesting. It was apparently found in soil in a field in Buckinghamshire, England in the 1960s. It can be efficiently grown in in large fermentation tanks, essentially converting glucose (which the mold feed on) into a high-protein, humanly edible substance. They mix this fungus with egg white to bind it. It is very popular in the UK and Ireland among vegetarians, however has met some resistance in the USA.

I find it interesting that twice as many people will eat Quorn if it is described as a mushroom, than will eat it if it is described as a fungus. People have an irrational distaste for the term 'fungus' it would seem. Of course, this is not really surprising - people are well-known to be irrational about foods. Just look at objections to drinking milk based on the argument "no other animals drink another species' milk, therefore we shouldn't". No other animals cook their food nor make bread, beer nor wine - yet few people argue against consuming these things on the same grounds.

It seems to be this issue which has sparked objections from mushroom producers, Gardenburger etc over Quorn being marketed as 'mushroom in origin'. Quorn clearly isn't mushroom in origin. Mushrooms are much more socially acceptable as food than non-mushroom fungus is. The objectors argue that Quorn's marketers are deceptively trying to cash in on the acceptance of mushrooms, which I think is likely the case. Gardenburger management make the point that they have invested significant amount of money in making mushrooms more palatable, and Quorn are in essence trying to get a free ride on the back of this to market their industrially-produced mycoprotein. I can see how potentially there could be a backlash against mushrooms, should something happen with Quorn - perhaps a health scare or simply anger at being deceived. The most interesting part of all this is the comparison with yoghurt - that the yoghurt industry apparently had to do considerable work to get people past the fact that it contained bacteria. Seeing that yoghurt has been accepted in many cultures for a very long time (just like cheese), indeed its been around much longer than we've even been aware that bacteria existed, makes me wonder why today's consuming public is so easy to scare simply with the spectre of bacteria. Presumably, these are the same as the usual suspects in FUD cases - competing industries or publicity hungry journalists, or whatever.

In the course of my fungus foray, I was also reading a bit about truffles. I don't think I've ever eaten a truffle, but I've certainly been aware of their status as a delicacy. Frankly I didn't see what the fuss was all about, I'm sure they taste nice but I rather doubt they are worth their insane price. I figure its more a status issue than a true taste issue. Anyway, this is all just rambling. Whats really interesting is the fact that we learned to cultivate truffles in the mid-19th century, were able to produce them in such quantities that in 1900 just about everyone could cook with them. Today however, truffle production is far lower than a hundred years ago. Why? According to Wikipedia's truffle page factors such as industrialisation, along with its rural exodus - along with WWI - resulted in many of France's truffle fields returning to wilderness, and the recently developed techniques of truffle cultivation were also lost. This is a fascinating example of an exception from the doctrine of progress, and also of the failure of economic incentives. We aren't supposed to be able to lose knowledge, we're supposed to know more today than we ever did in the past! Of course, there are plenty of other things the ancients could do better than we can. For example, arts of shipbuilding and jewelery making, weapons smithing etc - all gone. Additionally, one would think that, since truffles fetch such a high price, people would be trying frantically to re-discover the methods of truffle cultivation. With all our great inventions, we can't even grow some stupid fungus? Of course, I'm sure there were many barriers. Perhaps truffles require very specific growing conditions, on which land is prohibitively expensive. According to the wikipedia article, some farmers are opposed to mass cultivation of truffles because it would obviously drive them out of business. It probably takes a long time - maybe thirty years or more - to gain enough experience to be able to grow tasty truffles reliably. The wikipedia article seems to hint that this is the case, since it states that numerous attempts at mass production of truffles have been started over the past thirty years. So perhaps we are only a few years away from having cheap, widely available truffles after all. This would be nice, because then maybe I'd finally get the chance to try them!