<em>Via <a href="http://www.adrants.com/2003_11_23_archive.php#107004603526456719" title="Adrants Steve Hall's Advertising Weblog including, internet marketing and online advertising with news, commentary, and opinion.">Adrants</a>:</em>
<a href="http://www.usbdt.com/AboutUs.htm">About USBDT</a>: “The U.S. Beer Drinking Team (USBDT) is the first team dedicated to the millions of passionate beer drinkers in the United States. If you enjoy the passions that accompany beer: life, family, friends, laughter and good times, then the USBDT is the team for you! At the USBDT we’re always looking for the best beer on the best day at the best place with the best people enjoying themselves to the fullest.”
Gretchen’s New Site
Gretchen has just put up a <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/gretchenlinton/index.html" title="Appaloosa Territory HomePage">Web site</a> devoted to her horses and their heirs. <img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/gasp.png" height="18" width="18" alt="Gasp!" />
Food news from The Netherlands
<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.”