Top 10 Links of the Last Two Weeks: 11/20/09 – 12/3/09

Today, it’s all about changing careers, shocking costs, and the New York Times, all the time. Can I get a witness!

1) The Dessert Psycho: Punk Drummer Transforms Into World-Class Chef With Alarming Swiftness
LOVE this story about Brooks Headley, who went from touring clubs to whipping up delightful concoctions for Mario Batali’s Del Posto. It’s hardcore in so many ways. (Note: except the porn kind.)

2) Eating the Road: What Should I Eat – Cereal Edition
Undecided about breakfast? Don’t fret, morning glories! This handy, super cute infographic will make your choices for you, depending on age, level of sobriety, and many more pertinent characteristics. Incidentally, do they make BooBerry anymore?

3) NY Daily News: 'How to Cook Everything' author Mark Bittman shares his sensible plan for weight loss
In which our minimalist hero details his “Vegan Until 6” diet. I gotta hand it to him – he makes it sound do-able for everybody. Even my dad.

4) NY Times: Across U.S., Food Stamp Use Soars and Stigma Fades
Read it and (seriously) weep, folks: one in eight Americans and one of every four kids are now on food stamps. And it’s affecting everybody, all across the country, from white collar businessmen to the nice lady down your block. On the (only?) upside, it's leading to more widespread acceptance of people down on their luck.

5) LA Times: Culinary schools rebound from recessionary slump
Related story: seems my compatriots in out-of-work-edness are making a career change to cheffery. Eat it, law schools!

6) Food Politics: Food safety bill deserves support, even from small farmers
In matters of food safety regulation, Marion Nestle seems to come down pretty heavily on the side of increased government control. Still, she strongly supports small-scale farmers, many of whom see regulation as inherently biased toward Big Agriculture. Great debate, good points on both sides.

7) Natural Resource Report: Ten-year snapshot shows changes in food consumption
We’re eating less beef! We’re eating more fish! We’re drinking less milk! We’re eating a hell of a lot more yogurt. Thank you, Jamie Lee Curtis?

8) The Atlantic: The Cost of Wasted Food
Could it be true? Could HALF of the food we buy go uneaten? That can’t be right. Can it? I feel ill.

9) EHM Executive Healthcare: The Cost of Obesity in the U.S.
Don’t look don’t look don’t look don’t look … dang. I looked. Another neat infographic predicts 42.8% obesity rates by 2018, if we keep going the way we’re going. There’s more, but you’ll have to look.

10) New York Times: Back to the Land and Health Care Savings Could Start in the Cafeteria and Is There Such a Thing as Agro-Imperialism?
The Times had a bumper crop of excellent CHG-related posts this week, so I’m combining them in one massively mega colosso-post. If you ever wanted to know about slow, cafeteria, or oppressive food practices, this is your lucky day.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The Kitchn: Holiday Gift Guide – 10 Kitchen Basics Under $25
Pyrex! Own it!

Money Saving Mom: Freezer Cooking Day
Jaw. Agape.

NY Times: The Daily Grind
I’m not saying this reflects my life in any way whatsoever, but Flying Saucer, I salute you.

Salon: Ruth Reichl has better salsa
A look into the charming Gourmet EIC’s fridge. Don’t you kind of wish she was your second mom?

Serious Eats: Buy a Home, Get Pork and Beans
This is really real. If you buy a mansion, do you get elephant beans?

The Simple Dollar: How to Start a Meal Exchange
Meal exchanges: they’re like potluck dinners you can take home and feed to the rest of your family. (Slogan alert!)

The Simple Dollar: Simple Ways to Save Money on Salads
Leafy greens and dressing can cost pennies, often doesn’t. Trent has more.

Wise Bread: Fuel Up Your Kids - Frugally
When I was little, all we got for lunch from the school cafeteria was a piece of cardboard and some glue. And guldernit, WE LIKED IT. Now, Wise Bread is trying to mess things up with their fancy-schmancy, newfangled, tasty practical suggestions. I miss the old days.

Wise Bread: Homemade Peanut Butter – Recipe and Cost Comparison
Turns out, making peanut butter on your own might be worth it.

FOOD SONG OF THE WEEK

“The Oatmeal Song” by Mike Birbiglia and Mates of State
Less of a standard standup and more of a superb storyteller, Mike Birbiglia is one of the best working comedians out there. Special note to moms: with the exception of a few four-letter words, Birbiglia’s material tends to be pretty PG-rated. So you can generally watch it with your kids around. Check his “What I Should Have Said Was Nothing” special for the best Dennis Eckersley bit in existence.



CHG ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB

• Carnival of Gluten-Free Recipes @ Wheat Free Meat Free
• Make it From Scratch @ Frills in the Hills

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Posted in: Links

Veggie Might: Newsflash! Scientists Getting Closer to Lab-grown Meat

Written by the fabulous Leigh, Veggie Might is a weekly Thursday column about all things Vegetarian. The illustration is borrowed from the uber-talented Natalie Dee.

A group of scientists in the Netherlands, funded by the Dutch government and a sausage maker, are getting close to viable lab-grown meat replacement. According to Sunday’s Telegraph, they “have created what was described as soggy pork and are now investigating ways to improve the muscle tissue in the hope that people will one day want to eat it.”

The Sunday Times reports that while, “the scientists have not tasted it...they believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years’ time.”

In April 2008, PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk issued a challenge to Scientists Everywhere: figure out how to grow meat in the lab, and we’ll stop actin’ the fool all over the place and give you a million dollars*. Turns out that Newkirk’s gauntlet toss, which came just weeks after the In Vitro Meat Symposium in Norway, was unnecessary.

Scientists Everywhere were already on it, driven by their own innate “what happens if I do this?” genes. They also claim to be spurred by a quest to reduce the environmental impact of the meat industry and encouraged by NASA researchers’ 2002 “success” with tank-grown fish fillets, born of a few goldfish cells and "fetal bovine serum" (blargh).

The Times article is careful to mention no one is allowed by law to taste these delicacies yet, but researchers believe they will have a viable meat replicant within five years—missing the PETA deadline by three and forfeiting the prize money. The science dude(tte)s don’t seem to mind. (See the “what if I go like this?” genes.)

My first reaction to this news is “Eeeewww!” But then, I remember that I just had faux turkey for Thanksgiving. So what am I getting all skeeved out about? Probably “fetal bovine serum,” for starters.

Essentially, three factors come into play for me: an existing environmental crisis that would benefit greatly from the reduction, if not elimination, of industrial farming; animals that would benefit from not being killed for food; and concerns about GMO and bioengineered food. The former two seem like big wins.

Factory farming is a major contributor to the global environmental crisis. According to Science News, “roughly half of the GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions due to human diets come from meat even though beef, pork and chicken together account for only about 14 percent of what people eat.” Plus, consider the increasing number of food safety scares every year: from mad cow-, e-coli-, and salmonella-tainted meat to poisoned produce from feedlot runoff. Safe, sterile test-tube meat isn’t sounding so bad…

But then there’s that pesky GMO-bioengineering issue. I know that processed foods are not as nutritious as whole foods. But what no one knows are the long term effects of genetically modified organisms in our corn, wheat, and soybeans. How different is Petri meat from Bt corn?

So what do you think of all this fiddling around in the lab? Vegetarians, would you eat meat if it didn’t come from an animal? Omnivores, would you consider a bioengineered meat replacement if it helped the environment? Spill in the comments. I’d love to hear what y’all think.

*Psych! PETA will never stop actin’ the fool.

~~~

If you like this article, you might also like

• 26 Common Food Labels, Explained
• COOL (Country of Label Origin) for You and Me
• The FDA and USDA, Explained to the Best of My Ability: a Semi-Coherent Guide to the Government Agencies Regulating Food

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Posted in: Cooking,Health,Veggie Might