1.
Japan Next-Generation Farmers Cultivate
Crops and Solar Energy
‘By knowing that too much sun won’t help further growth of
plants, Nagashima came up with the idea to combine PV systems and farming. He
devised and originally patented special structure, which is much like a pergola
in a garden. He created a couple of testing fields with different shading rates
and different crops. The structures he created are made of pipes and rows of PV
panels, which are arranged with certain intervals to allow enough sunlight to
hit the ground for photosynthesis (Figure 1).’
I am tempted to whack a solar panel over the vegie patch at
home J
2. Is a hot dog a
sandwich? An extended meditation on the nature of America
Still,
there are some limits to what makes a sandwich. The presence of some form of
bread alone is not criterion enough. As soon as "bread" transitions
from noun to verb form it transgresses the space between sandwich and
non-sandwich. Breading food does not make a sandwich, tempura offers no
challenge to our understanding, and fried chicken is merely seasoned chicken.
Likewise, while the flaky pastry of a Croissan'wich makes for a kind of
sandwich, the same pastry baked around a steak filet does not make beef
wellington a sandwich.And, despite its possible shape, I cannot agree with my friend that the universe is a sandwich.
A thorough – nay forensic exploration of the question ‘what
is a sandwich’. Hilarious, too...indeed I was at risk of choking on my banh mi.
3.
What burritos and sandwiches can teach us
about innovation
...or the idiocy of food health regulations.
‘And then
you have to sort of say, are burritos really a sandwich?" New York says
yes, the USDA says no, and it makes a difference come inspection time. "We
do not inspect closed-faced sandwiches regardless of the amount of meat in
them. We inspect burritos that have meat or poultry filling," Wheeler
says. The debate gets so heated that in 2006, a contract dispute over whether
Qdoba Mexican Grill's burritos qualify as sandwiches went far beyond lunch — it
went to trial. Expert witnesses including a chef and food critic testified,
much deliberation took place, and in the end, Superior Court Judge Jeffrey
Locke ruled
burritos are not sandwiches.’
4.
Extreme food art J
5.
Do cookery programs really influence the
way we cook
‘What is most startling about the results overall is that
people are influenced
by the programmes they watch. I had always suspected cookery television to be
rather like Grand Designs or Changing Rooms – entertaining, certainly;
instructive, maybe; but then you would switch the telly off and forget about
it. If this isn't the case when it comes to cooking shows, then it would be
good to see a few more programmes celebrating food's beauty, simplicity, scope
and delight, and fewer that involve two men in a studio shouting at each
other.’
Not sure who actually does the cooking and I have startling
visions that it isn’t two men shouting at each other but one man shouting at a
woman...a lot.
6.
Organic food is still not more nutritious
than conventional food
‘The bottom line though is that the whole organic vs
conventional food is a pointless distraction. Australians don’t eat anywhere
near enough fruit and vegetables, in fact only
5.5% of adults have adequate intake of fruit and vegetables. Worrying about
whether having 25% more antioxidant in organic fruit is irrelevant when we
don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables in the first place, if you eat the
recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables you will have adequate nutrition
with sufficient vitamins and antioxidants for healthy life, the minor
differences between organic and conventional foods will have no impact at all.’
But then , that isn’t why I choose to eat organic produce
when I can anyway, which kinds makes the whole research redundant for me and I
suspect a heap of others who choose organic too.
Nice compost this week Paul. I admit to having been influenced by Jamie Oliver, although I think his casual, bit of this, bit of that attitude actually turned my son off cooking when it didn't work for him - you do have to know some of the basics before you dollop and slosh.
ReplyDeleteAgree with you about organics, I buy for environmental reasons & have always been a bit sceptical about supposed nutritional superiroty - even flavour isn't always better so long as you buy seasonal & fresh from other suppliers. I love my fruit & vegies so I guess I'm in the 5.5% anyway.