Rohit > Rohit's Quotes

“Chinese is a tonal language. Words spelled the same way mean different things when pronounced with one of the four different tones: the 1st stays level, the 2nd rises, the 3rd sinks and then rises, and the 4th falls. For example, the sentence “ma [1st] ma [4th] ma [3rd] ma [1st]?” means “Did mother curse the horse?” First-year Chinese students either use their heads or their index fingers to try to get the tones right: half the class looks like bobblehead dolls, the other like conductors of a Lilliputian orchestra. “Where?”
― Matthew Polly, American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in theNe w China

“The Japanese fighter was wired. He ran forward several steps and then backpedaled to where he stood before, ten yards away from his opponent. He repeated this several times. It was like he suffered from physical autism. “What does this stupid egg think he’s doing?” Deqing asked of no one in particular. “Feinting?” It was a surreal sight watching this karateka repeatedly charge forward and then dash back, as if his opponent lacked any depth perception and would therefore be fooled into thinking that the object in front of him was closer than it appeared. Finally,”
― Matthew Polly, American Shaolin: Flying Kicks, Buddhist Monks, and the Legend of Iron Crotch: An Odyssey in theNe w China

“Australia has become one of the most consistent producers of high-quality oil because many of their farms are designed specifically for speedy pressing (plus, Australia has the world’s strictest laws governing olive oil quality).”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“Australia enacted its best-in-class consumer protection regulation in 2011, it became the first country to ban misleading label terms such as “premium,” “super,” “light,” or “pure,” to provide more clarity.”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“California’s McEvoy Ranch makes high-quality real extra-virgin olive oil, available by mail order and at gourmet stores. McEvoy’s acclaimed oil maker, Deborah Rodgers, also recommends Australia’s Boulder Bend, sold under its Cobram Estate label in the United States. Cobram is Australia’s most-awarded olive oil, winning more than 150 medals in competitions. Their top-shelf ultrapremium collection is guaranteed milled within four hours of harvest and is sold online, as is Spain’s vaunted Oro Bailen.”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“naturally occurring spore in these caves can be used, and there are many other requirements too. The milk can only come from three specific breeds of sheep, all of which have to be ranged in this area, where what they eat is natural and regulated. In addition, the time from milking to cheese making is tightly controlled. Every other step of the process, from maturation to cutting to packaging, must also occur here.”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“Six hundred years after it became protected, there are still only seven producers allowed to make all of the real Roquefort cheese. Today, the mold can be manufactured in a laboratory, but under French law, only mold produced from the naturally occurring spore in these caves can be used, and there are many other requirements too. The milk can only come from three specific breeds of sheep, all of which have to be ranged in this area, where what they eat is natural and regulated. In addition, the time from milking to cheese making is tightly controlled. Every other step of the process, from maturation to cutting to packaging, must also occur here.”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“Bresse chicken, aka “the Queen of Poultry, the Poultry of Kings.” The first livestock of any kind to be granted AOC protection (1957), production of the famed Poulet de Bresse is so small and demand so high that very little leaves France. In the domestic market, it commands at least five times the price of other chickens. Under French law, each free-ranging bird must have more than one hundred square feet to itself, essentially a studio apartment in New York, along with lots of other rules. The pampered poultry has been praised by everyone from star chef Heston Blumenthal”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“The country is justifiably famous for its tomatoes, especially the legendary San Marzano, grown in rich volcanic soil and so special it has been awarded a PDO”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“Italy’s two greatest food towns are Parma and Bologna,”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“Japan has a lot of really great beef, like Matsuzaka, but outside of Japan only Kobe is known,” said Troy Lee, an Australian who is the head chef at the Oak Door steakhouse at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo.”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“KOBE BEEF OUTSIDE JAPAN This is much trickier, and the only three places in the United States I consider reliable are the restaurants in the Wynn Las Vegas casino resort, 212 Steakhouse in New York City, and Hawaii’s Teppanyaki Ginza Sumikawa, the sole spots in this country certified by the Kobe Beef Association.”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“My personal favorite of all these alpine specialties is raclette, which is sort of reverse fondue—instead of dipping food in melted cheese, you spread melted cheese on top of food.”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“In the case of Gruyère, Switzerland’s rarest grade, Le Gruyère Premier Cru, is one of the most critically acclaimed cheeses on earth: it is the only one ever to win Best Cheese at the prestigious World Cheese Awards in London four different times.”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“The most reliable pork and chicken label is “USDA Organic” (used mainly for meat and much different from the FDA’s version of organic), which requires a 100 percent organic diet, no antibiotics (ever), and bans feed made with synthetic pesticides. For poultry shoppers, Smart Chicken is a national brand owned by Tecumseh Poultry, founded in 1998 to fill the void in the quality chicken market. It comes in organic and regular versions, both of which are completely antibiotic and animal by-product free, using a 100 percent vegetarian or 100 percent organic vegetarian diet. I buy Smart Chicken regularly. For pork, the Niman Ranch brand is antibiotic free with a 100 percent vegetarian diet.”
― Larry Olmsted, Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don't Know What You're Eating and What You Can Do About It

“Saliva is basically filtered blood.”
― Giulia Enders, Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ

“Our stomach sits much higher in our abdomen than we think. It begins just below the left nipple and ends below the bottom of the ribcage on the right. Any pain felt farther down than this lopsided little pouch cannot be stomachache. Often, when people say they have stomach problems, the trouble is actually in the gut. The heart and the lungs sit on top of the stomach. This explains why we find it more difficult to breathe deeply after eating a lot.”
― Giulia Enders, Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ

“Mindful yogurt manufacturers often use bacteria that produce more dextrorotatory (right-turning) than levorotatory (left-turning) lactic acids. Molecules of the two kinds of lactic acid are mirror images of each other. Feeding the human digestive system with levorotatory lactic acid molecules is like giving a left-handed pair of scissors to a right-handed person: they’re hard to handle. That is why it is a good idea to pick yogurt from the supermarket shelves that states on the container: “Contains mainly dextrorotatory [or right-turning] lactic acid.”
― Giulia Enders, Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ

“Preliminary studies carried out at Harvard and in New York have shown that the two antibiotics metronidazole and gentamicin cause particularly hefty changes in the flora of the gut.”
― Giulia Enders, Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ

“Pure prebiotics can be bought at the pharmacy or drugstore. These include the prebiotic inulin, which is extracted from endives, and GOS (galacto-oligosaccharides), which are isolated from milk. These”
― Giulia Enders, Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ

“Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. Very soon this traditional model will become utterly obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives, and to reinvent themselves repeatedly. Many if not most humans may be unable to do so.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

“If modernity has a motto, it is ‘shit happens’. On”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow