3 August 2015
They’re spreadable.
- So enjoyable when science proves what people have known all along: researchers use pigs to root out problem weeds. I particularly like the suggestion that “[t]his method of weed control could be used in organic farms”.
- I’m also all for the scientific study of gluten intolerance, and this report on gluten psychosis boggled my mind.
- Can it be possible, though, that food-safety scientists refer enquiries to Wikipedia? Yes it can: “FDA officially refers consumers to Wikipedia for information on food pathogens”.
- And staying with food safety, what would be a suitable punishment for someone who knowingly sold Salmonella-laced peanut butter? Life imprisonment?
- Rachel Laudan plumbs Knight’s New Mechanical Dictionary to consider My Great Grandmother’s Industrially Processed Food. She spoke to me about the benefits of industrial sugar and salt a couple of years ago.
The heat here in Rome has been something the past couple of weeks. Not up to 2003 of blessed memory, but hot nevertheless. The last thing I needed was for the fridge to start playing up, but it did, making horrible noises. Ignoring the disaster foretold, I defrosted the darn thing, which not only solved the problem (temporarily) but also provided inspiration for this episode of Eat This Podcast. At the back of the fridge I found things I had completely forgotten. That prompted me to dig around in the back of the store cupboard too, where there were lots of other things of which I was vaguely aware, but not aware enough actually to have used them. All of which prompted a musing on store-cupboard essentials, gifts from well-meaning friends, and the whole neophilia-neophobia tension. I hope I didn’t ramble on for too long.