Jen, an Instructables community manager, has combined regular ol' fresh-squeezed lemonade with capsules of activated charcoal to make her Black Lemonade.
Refreshing, and goth af.
She writes that activated charcoal has several health benefits but, (from what I gather from commenters on the recipe's page) not everyone can tolerate it. So, please, don't serve this to anyone without their knowledge. (Sorry, the mom in me totally just came out.)
Still, it looks really cool.
recipe
(Foodiggity)
Previously: No matter how cool superblack activated charcoal food looks, it's a bad idea Read the rest
According to the Impossible Foods website:
Our burger is made from simple, all-natural ingredients such as wheat, coconut oil, and potatoes. What makes the Impossible Burger unlike all others is an ingredient called heme. Heme is a basic building block of life on Earth, including plants, but it’s uniquely abundant in meat. We discovered that heme is what makes meat smell, sizzle, bleed, and taste gloriously meaty. Consider it the “magic ingredient” that makes our burger a carnivore’s dream.
...
Because we use 0% cows, the Impossible Burger uses a fraction of the Earth’s natural resources. Compared to cows, the Impossible Burger uses 95% less land, 74% less water, and creates 87% less greenhouse gas emissions. And it’s 100% free of hormones, antibiotics, and artificial ingredients.
You can watch Quartz break down the science behind the meatless burger in the above video. Then watch carnivores and vegetarians alike give it a try in this video from BuzzFeed:
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Few things match the delight of my dogs and myself at the sight of Floor Food. When it happens we're like "Ooo! Floor Food!" and compete to dive on it and eat it first. Sadly, The New York Times reports that the Five Second Rule—the cherished belief among some humans that it is 'safe' to eat Floor Food so long as it has been in contact with the floor for less than five seconds—has been debunked.
Professor Donald W. Schaffner, a food microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said a two-year study he led concluded that no matter how fast you pick up food that falls on the floor, you will pick up bacteria with it.
The findings in the report — “Is the five-second rule real?” — appeared online this month in the American Society for Microbiology’s journal, Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
They tested stainless steel, ceramic tile, wood, and carpet, with four different traditional floor foods: bread, buttered bread, watermelon and gummi bears. All resulted in the transfer of a salmonella-like bacterium.
HOWEVER. They also noted that while "bacteria can contaminate instantaneously," it was also the case that "longer contact times resulted in transfer of more bacteria," so I figure we're still good.
Photo: reader of the pack [CC BY-ND 2.0] Read the rest
Bay leaves, writes Kelly Conaboy, are bullshit.
What does a bay leaf taste like? Nothing. What does a bay leaf smell like? Nothing. What does a bay leaf look like? A leaf. How does a bay leaf behave? It behaves as a leaf would, if you took a leaf from the tree outside of your apartment building and put it into your soup. People say, “Boil a bay leaf in some water and then taste the water if you want to know what a bay leaf tastes like.”
No.
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Despite celebrity endorsements from such luminaries as Kourtney Kardashian and Holly Madison, a new review of 10 studies (4 human, 6 animal) shows no evidence for any benefit from the practice. Many believe it can provide pain relief, promote lactation, and even help prevent postpartum depression.
'Our sense is that women choosing placentophagy, who may otherwise be very careful about what they are putting into their bodies during pregnancy and nursing, are willing to ingest something without evidence of its benefits and, more importantly, of its potential risks to themselves and their nursing infants,' said lead author Cynthia Coyle, a Feinberg faculty member and a psychologist.
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According to a survey using Yelp data, Marylanders and Virginians love Peruvian food, Ohioans love soup, Coloradans love gluten free, and West Virginians love hotdog. Other trends: Read the rest
In what he calls "an Experiment in Controlled Digression," Mark Dery touches on xenogastronomy, ortolan, Edible Dormouse, Victor Hugo's fondness for rat pâté, rat-baiting as a betting sport in Victorian times, the rat as New York's unofficial mascot, Luis Buñuel's pet rat, scientific research into such pressing questions as whether rats laugh, and whether rats will inherit the Earth as a result of climate change, Dracula's dominion over rats, and of course the (cryptozoological myth? well-documented phenomenon?) of the Rat King.
The Shite Food blog reviews some of the remarkable foodstuffs available in Britain: the microwave meals and boil-in-bag dregs of another level in the English-speaking consumerspace.
Shite Food was started as an antidote to the middle class ‘food porn’ programmes on television. Tired of seeing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Nigella Lawson spunk the average persons food budget for the week on one meal, I thought it was time for a dose of reality. Britain’s cuisine has supposedly improved immeasurably since the 70′s but, lurking behind the ‘Finest’ and ‘Taste the Difference’ ranges in our supermarkets are some true culinary horrors. We want to highlight the supermarkets who market poor quality, nutritionally dubious, crappy food to those on low incomes to make a quick quid.
Shite Food: Britain's Gastronomic Horrors [via Thomas Sturm] Read the rest
A man who kept fifty dogs and who refused human company was found dead recently at his home near Ironton, Ohio. "He just wanted to be by himself all the time, just be with his dogs," said a neighbor. [Pet Pardons] Also: Will eating chocolate really kill your dog? [io9] Read the rest
Photo: Xeni Jardin
I went to a "cannabis dinner" in a loft in downtown Los Angeles on a day of great significance for potheads: 4/20. I first heard about these speakeasy gatherings from an LA Times article by Jonathan Gold. They're hosted by a zany, playful computer science major turned Hollywood film sales rep turned restauranteur, Nguyen Tran. He runs a restaurant called Starry Kitchen with his wife and foodie partner, chef Thi Tran. Together with LA-based French chef Laurent Quenioux, they put on this now-not-so-secret cannabis dinner. There were about 100 people in attendance, plus a few news crews who shot video.
The food was beautiful. And yes: I got a little high.
Photo: Karen Marcelo
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