I love reading about food-related psychological studies and this one on how our eating preferences are influenced (by our personal values, the food’s cultural meaning, and its physical appearance) is no exception:
How we feel about a sausage […] says more about our personal values than about what the sausage actually tastes like.
A large group of people were given a “human values” test which seeks to measure fifty six different values (loyalty, ambition, social order, etc.) Then, the subjects were asked to rate a variety of sausages. People who scored high on “social authority” - they believed it was important to support people in power - tended to label the “vegetarian” sausage as inferior, even when the vegetarian sausage was actually from a cow. Likewise, people who scored low on “social power values” tended to score the vegan sausage much higher than the beef sausage, even when they were actually eating meat. Instead of judging the food product on its merits, they ended up preferring the product that more closely conformed to their value system.
I wonder what this means for me. I like vegetarian sausages and always give serious consideration to the Sunday nut roast; but I always go for the meat because, well, it’s more traditional, isn’t it?
via Link Banana
As The Independent points out, Chinese food has a bad reputation in the UK. But understood and prepared properly, it is healthy, fulfilling, and one of my favourite types of cuisine. These Chinese dietary ’secrets’ have rejuvenated my fervour for Eastern cooking.
Stop counting calories
Think of vegetables as dishes
Fill up on staple foods
Eat until you are full
Take liquid food
Bring yin and yang into your kitchen
Raw power? not necessarily
Use food to keep fit
Drink green tea
Take restorative exercise
Recipes and Tips for Healthy, Thrifty Meals is a website created by the US Department of Agriculture’s Centre for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. It contains a wealth of information including: best buys for cost and nutrition; some nice, simple recipes; and food lists for two weeks worth of meals.
If you don’t have all the necessary ingredients, head over to The Cook’s Thesaurus to see if something else you have would make a suitable replacement.
If not, Cooking by Numbers allows you to input what you do have, and will tell you what you can make from it, and how.
Once you know what you’re making, this simple list of Cooking Conversions will come in handy translating those pesky American measurements into British units, or vice-versa.
Also useful is the Encyclopaedia of Spices, Ingredients Guide, and these Cooking Tips.
The Hillbilly Housewife is supposed to be a good resource too, but I haven’t had the time to have a browse.
The Banana: An Atheist’s Nightmare is a video I’ve seen linked in numerous places. I think this video nicely sums up Intelligent Design’s ignorance arguments.
God exists because bananas fit well in the human hand and peel easily.
- First: Hahahahaha!
- Second: Peels easily? Are we ignoring the fact that - if anything - the banana is ‘designed’ more for primates (for whom the banana is a primary source of nutrients) than for humans? Primates peel bananas using a much superior method that differs significantly to the typical way in which humans do… a method that I have recently adopted.
- Third: Bananas are designed - the banana we all know and love is a manufactured product - a product that is under threat because of this.
- Fourth: Hahahahaha!
via kottke and LinkBanana
I’ve loved sushi for as long as I can remember, and since I read Carl’s Sushi: A Layered Technology a few years ago, I’ve also loved making my own sushi - improving and getting more adventurous every time.
On the left, please see my next attempt: Shikai Maki, as demonstrated by myamii over at For the Love of Food. I’m both nervous and excited.