Jeff Potter's Blog, page 4

GM Foods, Monsanto, and Logic

GMO is a hot topic, one that generates a lot of emotions on both sides. My views almost always boil down to show me the data—the role of science is, after all, to understand how the world works and not to make ethical judgements about what should or shouldn't be done.

That disclaimer out of the way, here's one tip for looking at written statements: replace one category with another equal category and see if the statement still makes sense.

For example, anytime a politician says something about gay rights, replace the word "gay" with "black" and see if it makes sense.

Take Michelle Bachmann:

…the immediate consequence, if gay marriage goes through, is that K-12 little children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal, natural and perhaps they should try it.

Re-written:

…the immediate consequence, if black marriage goes through, is that K-12 little children will be forced to learn that being black is normal, natural and perhaps they should try it.

Okay, so a little nonsensical, although I do think we'd all get along a lot better if everyone had to try being black for a week. (Note: this Bachmann quote was the first one I found in two minutes of Googling; I did not have to search hard; and I was searching for "gay politician quotes", not to pick on Bachmann specifically.)

Monsanto has the following statement up at www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/food-safety.aspx:

There is no need to test the safety of DNA introduced into GM crops. DNA (and resulting RNA) is present in almost all foods–the only exceptions being highly refined materials like oil or sugar from which all cell material has been removed. Thus, DNA is non-toxic and the presence of DNA, in and of itself, presents no hazard.

That's be like saying:

There is no need to test the safety of molecules introduced into GM crops. Molecules are present in almost all foods–the only exceptions being highly refined materials like oil or sugar from which all cell material has been removed. Thus, molecules are non-toxic and the presence of molecules, in and of itself, presents no hazard.

Uhhh… "DNA is present in food; thus DNA is non-toxic." That'd be like saying: "Molecules are present in food; thus molecules are non-toxic."

Would somebody please pass me the arsenic? Thanks.

Dear Internet: I’m looking for a Food TV Co-Host…

Dear Internet,

Hi there, I’m Jeff Potter. And I’ve got this great idea for a TV show where we show viewers a new kind of cooking: one based on science. If you’re the type of cook who doesn’t like to follow a recipe, and if you’re curious about why we do things the way we do them, then my show American Food Geeks is going to rock your world.

But: I’m looking for a co-host. Maybe you know someone who’d be perfect? Head over to Jeff Potter’s American Food Geeks page to learn more.

Dear Internet: I'm looking for a Food TV Co-Host…

Dear Internet,

Hi there, I'm Jeff Potter. And I've got this great idea for a TV show where we show viewers a new kind of cooking: one based on science. If you're the type of cook who doesn't like to follow a recipe, and if you're curious about why we do things the way we do them, then my show American Food Geeks is going to rock your world.

But: I'm looking for a co-host. Maybe you know someone who'd be perfect? Head over to Jeff Potter's American Food Geeks page to learn more.

Japanese Edition of Cooking for Geeks

Asahi Newspaper is the most prestigious newspaper in Japan; they reviewed the Japanese edition of my book: Ｃｏｏｋｉｎｇ　ｆｏｒ　Ｇｅｅｋｓ　[著]ジェフ・ポッター／味わいの認知科学　[編]日下部裕子・和田有史 The writer of this article is YAMAGATA Hiroo (山形浩生), who is a famous critic and translator. Photo by MIZUHARA Bun; translation by TAMAGAWA Ryuji from Osaka, Japan.

Cook Like Science Experiments

It is quite popular to see stories in cooking comic books (mangas) where a gifted and passionate super-cook super-hero fights against a scientific cook who uses theorem and computers. Of course, the hero always wins and says, "Cold science never touches people's soul!"

But a large part of cooking is done with chemical changes and it is obvious that chemical knowledge is useful. Though intuition and trial-and-error are important, scientific knowledge shows you the right direction to avoid mistakes. That is the reason why we have so many guide books.

"Cooking for Geeks" by Jeff Potter is outstanding in quality and quantity. It is truly a book for geeks, with rich contents such as how to adopt various cooking tools and surprising cooking methods. The book also covers related topics like organic foods and dishes that have less of an impact on the environment. In this book, recipes are demonstrations and experiments.

I do not recommend this book for cooking novices. There are no color pictures. The recipes look like science experiment manuals and do not seem delicious at the first glance. You should start with easy cooking guides. However, you will not understand the real fun in cooking until you start to make your own changes to recipes. Then, the explanations in this book come to the rescue.

"Cognitive science of Taste (Ajiwai No Ninchi Kagaku)" is more theoretical. It is a collection of papers which dives into the taste cognition system in the brain and completely an academic book. The contents are far beyond from being useful for cooking, but if you want to dive deep, you should read this.

The analytical approach of these books gives you strange feelings if you are used to popular recipe books. Some people will like this approach while others will not. But the process of institutional trials -> theoretical analysis -> reorganization is an essential process for any learning. These books will certainly help you in the process. And when you do, you'll find that the dishes that result from the "cold science" aren't bad. Give it a try!

Photo by TAMAGAWA Ryuji from Osaka, Japan

SNAP Gardens and Dinner Garden receive Awesome Food grant to promote food stamps for gardening

I'm delighted to announce this month's Awesome Food grant has been awarded to a great project that helps get the word out about using food stamps to buy supplies for growing your own food. Here's the press release! -Jeff

Awesome Food is delighted to announce its third microgrant of $1,000 has been awarded to SNAP Gardens and Dinner Garden to fund a collaboration to raise awareness that food stamps can be used gardening. The project is among the nearly 800 projects from around the world who have applied for grants from Awesome Food, a chapter of the Awesome Foundation which made its first micro-grant award in October.



"SNAP Gardens and Dinner Garden show us that we don't always need to create new programs but to maximize the initiatives — like food stamps — that we already have," said Amanda Hesser, an Awesome Food trustee and co-founder of FOOD52." They have a clear mission to get the word out that food stamps can be used to buy seeds and plants, and we believe it's an important one."

SNAP Gardens was started in 2011 by New Yorker Daniel Bowman Simon in an attempt to bring to light decades-old legislation: in 1973, an amendment was made to the Food Stamp Act to allow the purchase of seeds and food-producing plants. While it's been possible to use food stamps to purchase seeds and plants ever since, it hasn't happened much, because, as Simon says, "It's been buried in the fine print." Simon's mission has been to raise awareness of this legislation to beneficiaries and administrators of the food stamp program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program  (SNAP).

In its short time so far, SNAP Gardens has already distributed posters to farmers markets in 24 states and Washington DC. Their posters are designed to reach a wide audience through translation in multiple languages, including Spanish, Hmong, Cherokee, and Mandarin. Their hope is to help make gardening a viable option for people who may have limited resources and immediate hunger needs.

The accolades SNAP Gardens have received thus far include winning the "Editor's Choice" award at NYC Maker Faire in September and presenting a webinar titled "Food Stamps Grow Gardens" to the USDA's People's Garden in October, which attracted nearly 1,000 listeners, including many Master Gardeners.  Simon noted that although the word is getting out to many, he believes that only a small fraction of the nearly 46 million Americans on food stamps now know that they can choose to buy seeds and plants, it's the beginning of having more and more gardens in every state, and a great opportunity to help people feed themselves.

Dinner Garden — a non-profit based in San Antonio, Texas — sends free starter packs of vegetable seeds to low-income families nationwide, and has distributed tens of thousands of packets across all 50 states. "We want to make sure that everyone who gets free seeds from Dinner Garden also knows that if they receive food stamps, they can buy some of their own seeds and plants. And if they don't get food stamps, as dedicated gardeners, they can, and will, help spread the word!" Simon explained.

The grant will be used to print information cards and to establish a toll-free information hotline for a full year — all to increase awareness of food stamp use for seeds and plants. The information cards will be sent to 15,000 Dinner Garden recipients with their seeds, and the hotline will provide access to information in multiple languages, as well as providing a place for people to share stories and ask questions.

"It's exemplary activism," said Raj Patel, author of The Value of Nothing and Stuffed and Starved. "I had no idea such provisions existed in the law, and am so glad both that Daniel found them, and that he's developing the micro-flash of insight into a much more sustained and important project. If it pans out, it'll make possible a new wave of urban agriculture supported by entitlements that already exist (and in budget strapped times, that's legislatively vital) — and that'll make a huge difference in the under-served communities that already depend on food stamps. And that's what I love about this project — it builds on what's already there in terms of hunger legislation, and turns it in a new a possibly transformative direction for the very communities most underserved by the urban gardening movement."

Simon added that while there are over 1.8 million SNAP recipients in New York City alone, he sees a strong audience for the program in rural areas where SNAP recipients are more likely to have access to arable land, and may already have gardening experience.

Gary Oppenheimer of AmpleHarvest.org, an organization that urges gardeners to donate excess produce to food pantries, echoed this sentiment, adding that planting seeds and growing food can really help take some of the growing burden off of food pantries.

Looking for Single Cook for TV Show

My life continues to be full of unexpected surprises. A few days ago, I received an email asking if I was single and "would you be interested in being the star of a TV show where a bunch of beautiful women try to cook their way to your heart?"

It's not a good fit for me (although it'd be fun to do!), but maybe someone out there reading this would be interested? Here are the details…

PRODUCERS SEEKING CHARISMATIC CHEF OR FOODIE FOR HIS OWN DATING SHOW

Are you a chef, restaurateur, foodie or gourmet who is ready to find the love of his life? Pilgrim Studios (www.pilgrimstudios.com) is looking for a single, attractive and charming culinary enthusiast to be our featured bachelor on a new, unscripted show for a major cable network.

If chosen, you will be featured on your own series and have the opportunity to date a select group of amazing women who share your love for great food and the culinary arts. You MUST have a strong background in cuisine (food writers and connoisseurs welcome as well!), and be the kind of man who thinks that there's nothing sexier than a woman who can cook her way into your heart.

If this sounds like you, and you're ready to make spectacular meals with the perfect woman, then contact producers TODAY! Email CulinaryBachelor@gmail.com with your name, age, location, a recent photo and a brief description of why you'd be perfect for this show.

Deadline to submit is November 9, 2011! Producers are waiting to hear from you NOW!

Wanted: Your Food Questions

Dear Internet: what questions do you have about food? Or food science? Ever wonder why certain foods cook the way they do? Or certain dishes call for the ingredients they do? Or maybe you have a recipe that you can't get to turn our just the way you like. Please leave your questions in the comments below, or use the "contact me" option to email it.

And yes, I'll give away a hint: this is for a project I'm working on. It'll be fun! Can't wait to see where this one goes…

P.S. If you're comfortable, please leave your first name and city / state / country so that I can do the whole "Linda from Salt Lake City wrote in to ask 'Why do blah blah blah?' …"

Awesome Food announces $1000 grant to CompostMobile

I'm delighted to announce that Awesome Food (of which I'm a trustee) has selected our first $1,000 micro-grant: CompostMobile. I had the great joy of calling Jennifer to tell her the good news, and let me just say that I could get used to calling people and telling them they're awesome, doing awesome things, and that we're giving them $1k to make the world a more awesome place.

(In case you missed my post about Awesome Food: Awesome Food helps the world realize awesome ideas that further food and culture by awarding a no-strings-attached $1,000 microgrant to people who want to pull off awesome ideas involving food. To learn more or to apply for a grant, visit http://www.awesomefood.net.)

We had over 600 applicants, many of which were truly, well, awesome. (It's a "rolling pool," so we'll still consider the other applications in future deliberations.) Perfect ice cubes? Random sandwiches? Gardens for schools? Lots of awesome ideas; enough to call someone every day instead of once a month!

Here's the announcement we sent out—please help spread the word!

Awesome Food is superexcited to announce that its inaugural micro-grant of $1,000 has been awarded to Compost Mobile, a residential compost service based inMiami, Florida that provides a home pick-up service for food scraps that are then delivered to urban farms and community gardens. Compost Mobile, which is a project of the non-profit Up-Lab, was chosen out almost 600 applications submitted to the first round of Awesome Food call for proposals.

"We think Compost Mobile is awesome because it's making a difference at the ground level," said Jeff Potter, author of Cooking for Geeks who is one of the Awesome Food trustees. "They're figuring out how to take food scraps from the home and use them to help low-income communities start gardens and urban farms. It's an awesome idea because it takes a bunch of problems—waste, food illiteracy, lack of nutritious food—and cancels them out by combining them in an awesome way!"

Jennifer Siqueira, coordinator of Compost Mobile and co-founder of Up-Lab with Hector F. Burga, had been working in community gardens locally, when she learned of a similar scraps to-compost effort in Washington DC. (There are similar efforts throughout the country).

Jennifer explained, "I had friends who came to me with their scraps of food, asking me to take it to my other friends in various community gardens throughout Miami. I started wondering if I could start a program where hundreds of individuals could start disposing of their food scraps in the same manner and in doing so provide a wider community benefit. Since the number one commodity of a great farm or garden is good soil, I started questioning why we should continue dumping perfectly good compostables in landfills, when we can re-use them to create a network of collaboration and alternative sustainability practices in Miami."

"With this funding opportunity from Awesome Food, we can get more people participating in the program and coordinate with other Up-Lab efforts of similar scope," she said.

The first compost pickup, which took place in July 2011, was a 10 pounds of compost delivered to the compost pile at Earth & Us Farm in Miami. Compost Mobile started with only two households in July, but grew to four households in August and eight households in September. Now the service collects about 30 pounds of scraps per week from between 15 and 20 residences and small businesses.

In order to start collecting scraps in any neighborhood, they need 10 homes to compost in each area. Currently, they are hoping to start four groups in Miami Beach, Brickell, Upper East Side and El Portal.

Compost Mobile's motto is "We want your scraps. Stale Food. Inedible. Leftovers." Residential customers are given a plastic bucket to collect their food scraps. The process is very simple, explained Vanessa Stelmach, one of Compost Mobile's clients. "All I do is collect my food scraps in a plastic bin and once a week Jennifer comes to my place to pick it up, usually on Saturdays. If I'm not going to be home, I leave my bucket at the front door steps and a few hours later, I pick up the empty bin and start collecting my scraps again, or sometimes I drop the scraps off at the farm where she lives." Ms. Stemach added, "Jennifer pretty much is my organic garbage lady "

 

Compost Mobile customers are charged a disposal and pick-up fee, but compost recipients receive the scraps at no charge. "The idea of collecting food scraps isn't something that most people understand, so getting them to invest in a compost bin was too much," said Jennifer. "With the funding, we can get more people participating in the program. The more that people see it, the more they can understand the benefits on the environment. Someone who lives in a high-rise, just by giving their food scraps, becomes connected to the community farm they walk by, and that helps people become connected and learn more about their food."

Compost Mobile will use the grant towards purchasing more composting buckets, which cost around $18 a piece, for clients' homes.

For more information about Compost Mobile, contact at Jennifer[at]up-lab[dot]org! You can also follow the project on Facebook and Twitter.

Below is a picture of Compost Mobile's first batch of food scraps which was delivered to the compost pile at Earth & Us Farm in July 2011.

(Compost Mobile gives permission for all pictures here to be grabbed and used for other posts)

Wanted: Your stories on Food Coloring

Mmm… delicious, delicious ethyl [4-[ p -[ethyl ( m -sulfobenzyl) amino]-α-( o -sulfophenyl) benzylidene] – 2,5 -cyclohexadien – 1 – ylidene] ( m -sulfobenzyl) ammonium hydroxide …

I'm giving a talk in Melbourne, Australia next week on food dyes and am looking for good stories and experiences with food coloring and dyes.

What fun and interesting things have you done with food coloring? Red milk on Halloween? Green eggs and ham for St Patricks Day?

Do you have any great uses of natural food colorings? Think beet juice, blueberries, etc.

How do you feel about industrial uses of food coloring? Coloring candies? Cereal? Dying the outsides of oranges to be orange? Pumping up the coloring on sausage casings? How about feed farm-raised fish pigment so that they're peach-colored (well, salmon colored) instead of grey? (Let's say, hypothetically, that farm-raised fish could be done sustianably in a way that was zero-impact on the environment, but the fish came out grey. Would adding coloring agents at that point to make it acceptable be ok?)

Do you know anyone who's had ADHD or behavioral problems that they believe are related to food coloring? Details? (The FDA has stated that there's not proof that it's the food coloring that causes behavioral problems… changing diet changes more than just the consumption of food dyes.)

Leave your comments below or use the contact form if you want to keep it private. Thanks!

Ten Places I'd Want A Date To Take Me

During a recent interview, I was asked for a list of ten places I'd want a date to take me. Coming up with four or five was pretty easy, but by the time I was getting down to the eighth, ninth, and tenth, I was having to think for a bit.

Most of us can probably list a few places without really thinking, but what surprised me was how quickly my "build-in" list ran dry, and how quickly I had to start thinking of what mattered to me. I think my first four or five thoughts were pretty boring; the interesting stuff came in the second half. Is this true for you?

What would by your top ten? Leave your reply in the comments…

Per Se or French Laundry: I still haven't been to either of Thomas Keller's most famous restuarants, mostly because I haven't had the right someone and right occasion to go!
Jinpachi (West Hollywood, CA): Best sashimi I've ever had. Good tofu, too.
Bar Tartine (San Francisco, CA): Nice ambiance + good food = great date spot.
Cafe Jacquelyn (San Francisco, CA): Traditional French onion soup and souffles to die for. My parents took me here when I was in high school; it changed the way I looked at food.
Chez Panisse (Berkeley, CA): Work with the very best that nature gives you and do as little as possible to it.
This little tiny roadside diner I once at at (somewhere in France): No, I don't remember where in France, but by that point on a date, I think I'll be okay trying any hole-in-the-wall next to a castle in the French countryside. Incidentally, this is where I first had duck confit.
Veggie Planet (Cambridge, MA): "It's nothing special." — which will only make sense if you're zen about it. Stick around for a Club Passim show while you're at it.
The Bazaar (Los Angeles, CA): Willy Wonka meets Spanish Tapas. Need I say more? Whimsical and fun.
Underground Supper Clubs (Any metro area, USA): You know, out of someone's home. An adventure!
Home-cooked meal (Your place): Cooking for me is alwaysappreciated.* Even if you're nervous and burn the house down (as long as it's your house, not mine).*Cooking is, for me, about sharing and community. Cooking for me is always appreciated. Just because I've done "some" food stuff doesn't mean I'm a food critique who'd tear someone apart. Except if I were a guest judge on Top Chef, in which case, I'd do a constructive critique, but that's different, and we're not on Top Chef now, are we?