<a href="http://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/index.asp">Food Ingredients First: Nutrition, Ingredients and Foods Online</a>: “Food Ingredients First.com is the food industry’s leading portal for unique content on food & beverage development. It is a specialist�international website for beverage and food product developers and�the food ingredients industry. It focuses on the technical challenges�of combining ingredients in the product development process. It�covers key successful new product concepts from around the world�with extensive illustrations and supplier information.”
Cinnamon spice produces healthier blood
<em>Via <a href="http://nowthis.com/log/2003/11/28.html#000694" title="Now This log: Friday, 28 November 2003">Now This log:</a></em>
<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994413">New Scientist</a>: “Just half a teaspoon of cinnamon a day significantly reduces blood sugar levels in diabetics, a new study has found. The effect, which can be produced even by soaking a cinnamon stick your tea, could also benefit millions of non-diabetics who have blood sugar problem but are unaware of it…
“The active ingredient in cinnamon turned out to be a water-soluble polyphenol compound called MHCP. In test tube experiments, MHCP mimics insulin, activates its receptor, and works synergistically with insulin in cells…
“The cinnamon has additional benefits. In the volunteers, it lowered blood levels of fats and ‘bad’ cholesterol, which are also partly controlled by insulin. And in test tube experiments it neutralised free radicals, damaging chemicals which are elevated in diabetics.
“[The team of Richard Anderson at the US Department of Agriculture’s Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland,] were awarded patents related to MHCP in 2002. But the chemical is easily obtained. He notes that one of his colleagues tried soaking a cinnamon stick in tea. ‘He isn’t diabetic — but it lowered his blood sugar,’ Anderson says.”
Who goes to a restaurant on Thanksgiving?
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17500-2003Nov27.html">Nothing Fancy for This Thanksgiving (washingtonpost.com)</a>: “More Americans eat Thanksgiving dinner out than ever, according to the National Restaurant Association — 11 percent now, compared with 8 percent in 1996. That’s significantly lower than other holidays: 38 percent of Americans eat out on Mother’s Day and 32 percent on Valentine’s Day.”
Britain has a weight problem, too
<a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=467939">News</a>: “[Britain’s House of Commons Health Select Committee] is considering whether to recommend a ban on television advertising of high-fat and sugary foods during children’s viewing times, and the introduction of cigarette-style health warnings on junk food. One in five people in Britain is classed as overweight or obese and rates have tripled among children.
“Campaigners say the aggressive marketing of sweets, crisps and soft drinks, using sporting heroes such as Gary Lineker for Walkers crisps and cartoon characters for McDonald's Happy Meals, encourages people to eat poor diets. Increased portion sizes, such as ‘go large’ burger meals and extra large chocolate bars, have also been blamed.
“But [the chief executives of the of McDonald’s, Cadbury Schweppes and Pepsi] rejected these claims.”
Food Log
I had three slices of eggy bread and a glass of orange juice for breakfast this morning. No weigh-in.
<ins datetime="2003-11-28T19:44:00-05:00">I had a <a href="http://www.sierra-nevada.com/beers/celebrationale.html" title="Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale">Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale</a> for lunch today. I had a Caesar salad with a slice of Gretchen’s buttermilk white bread and a <a href="http://www.sierra-nevada.com/beers/celebrationale.html" title="Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale">Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale</a> for dinner.</ins>
So you thought you had a hard time cooking Thanksgiving dinner?
<img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/iss.jpg" width="341" height="256" alt="International Space Station" />
<a href="http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/techscience/story/0,4386,222359,00.html">Food that's just out of this world - NOV 28, 2003</a>: “Preparing the food for astronauts aboard the space station often begins a year before it is to be eaten. Finished meals are shipped aboard Russian supply vehicles; the latest batch arrived last month, along with the space station's new two-man crew, astronaut C. Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Yurievich Kaleri. The meals must be able to survive for months without refrigeration.”
Today’s Garfield
<a href="http://www.ucomics.com/garfield/2003/11/27/" title="Welcome to uComics Web Site featuring Garfield -- The Best Comic Site In The Universe!"><img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/garfield-welcome.gif" width="341" height="102" alt="Welcome to my world!" /></a>
The Blessings of Having Just Enough
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/opinion/THKSGIVI.html?ex=1385355600&en=8e543d755696589a&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND">The Blessings of Having Just Enough</a>: “You could sort through America’s Thanksgiving garbage till New Year’s and never deduce from it just why we celebrate this holiday. It would be one thing if the day marked a real divergence from the American pattern of consumption — ending months of barely enough with suddenly too much. Yet for most of us, every day is a case of a little more than we need. One student of feasts stipulates that they contain ‘foods not generally served at daily meals.’ For most Americans, however, daily meals now include foods that never used to be served at daily meals. By the standards of earlier eras, every day is a feast day, which is one way of saying that the very idea of a feast has begun to lose its meaning.”
Thanksgiving Food Log
Gretchen cubed up some of the left-over ham from the other night and made ham and egg scramble for breakfast with a slice of toast with butter and a glass of orange juice for breakfast. The reset of the ham — bone and all — went into a soup pot to make split pea soup. Gretchen also sliced up the bread to start drying for the stuffing. Today I weighed in at 164… there has to be something wrong with the scale! <img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/slant.png" height="18" width="18" alt="Hmmm..." />
<ins datetime="2003-11-27T15:08:00-05:00">Gretchen and I had a little crudités for lunch today. We cut up a couple carrots and celery stalks and served them with a little of <a href="http://www.newmansown.com/4a3_creamyc.html" title="Newman's Own - Creamy Caesar">Newman’s Own Creamy Caesar</a> as a dip. We also had a <a href="http://www.sierra-nevada.com/beers/celebrationale.html" title="Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale">Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale</a>.</ins>
<ins datetime="2003-11-27T19:46:00-05:00">We have a standing invitation to my Uncle’s house for their Thanksgiving celebration. That is where my parents were tonight. However, it would involve our going back to Florida, which is not practical for a long weekend holiday. Instead, we went to the Gretchen’s parents for dinner. We did not drive a car. We did not fly a plane. We walked. They live next door. We were joined by Gretchen’s sister and husband and her daughter and her husband. We started with a little antipasto, chips and dip, and a glass of <a href="http://www.sutterhome.com/html/wine/wz.html" title="White Zinfandel">Sutter Home White Zinfandel</a>. We had turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, black olives, cranberry sauce, and corn on the cob. There were sweet potatoes, but I did not have any. There were four kinds of pie: apple, pecan, pumpkin, and a pumpkin and pecan hybrid. I had pecan.</ins>
And in ‘Stocks of Interest’ today…
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/business/27coke.html?ex=1385269200&en=246637c394370cf8&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND">Subway Chain Chooses Coke, Displacing Pepsi</a>: “In the latest volley of the cola wars, the Coca-Cola Company announced a deal yesterday to become the exclusive supplier of fountain drinks to Subway Restaurants, wooing the chain away from its partnership with thePepsi unit of PepsiCo.
“The deal, which will put Coke fountain drinks in Subway’s 20,000 restaurants around the world, will be effective in 2005. Pepsi had been the primary provider of fountain drinks served in the Subway chain since 1988, although Coca-Cola did supply about 15 percent of the restaurants with fountain drinks, bottles and cans.
“Subway’s decision to shift its business to Coke widens the Coca-Cola Company’s lead over its competitors in the fountain business, which includes beverage service in restaurants and movie theaters.
“Coke has about 68 percent of the domestic fountain business while Pepsi has 22 percent, according to Beverage Digest, a publication that tracks the industry. The fountain business is the second-largest sales channel for Coke and Pepsi after supermarket sales.”