Haggis, Single Malt Scotch, and a Cigar
(What Can I Say? It's the weekend 
)
Most people don’t really know what’s in a haggis; they only know that they don’t trust it. If pressed, most people would correctly identify it as offal. Specifically, it’s lamb heart, lungs, livers and kidneys, ground and mixed with oats and spices, and served in a stomach.
That sounds like a sinister combination – few enough people eat kidneys. Even those people who might eat kidney may hesitate to eat lungs, and hearts are right up there with brains and testicles in the list of animal parts we feel we understand a little too well to want to put in our mouths. Haggis is essentially a sack of organ meat. Try putting that on a menu and see who orders it.
Yet, as you can see above, the offal is usually so finely ground that there is no visual horror to a haggis. It’s really just a large sausage, and there can’t be anything in it that’s as bad as the mystery meats in a cheap stadium hot dog. Haggis is nowhere near as scary as its reputation suggests.
Very Good Taste: A Blog About Eating And Drinking
The Purest Foods On The Planet
The island, just south of the Arctic Circle, is so remote, and its growing season so short, that people would take whatever they could from the land and the sea, surviving on puffin jerky and (ammonia-reeking) fermented shark. Today, Iceland's geographic isolation—plus strict government environmental regulations—helps it produce some of the purest foods on the planet.
Grass-fed cows with a lineage that goes back to the Norwegian herds brought by the Vikings in 874 AD make milk that's high in beta carotene, creating exceptional butter and cheese as well as the yogurt-like skyr. Family farms sell tender meat from lambs that have grazed in the mountains all summer on moss, scrub and wildflowers. Fish farmers raise arctic char without chemicals or antibiotics in eco-friendly saltwater tanks.
Food and Wine – Should You Eat Like an Icelander?
Maybe Those Urban Legends About Malt Liquor Are True After All
Sadly, I once believed that the US was founded and originally run on sound moral principles, and ran amuck of those principles only relatively recently. The internet is an absolutely wonderful instrument for disabusing oneself of such a quaint and naive notion. I was aware of many of the evils of Prohibition, but not this particular example.
Apparently, one method for bootleggers to produce consumable alcohol was to remove the methyl alcohol that had been added to ethanol in order to "denature" it (and render it unpalatable). After the initial efforts to curtail consumption had failed, miserably, the Feds ordered the producers of denatured alcohol to actually poison it, in the full knowledge that the drinking public would consume it, and that many of them would die. The practice was documented and condemned by no less an authority than the medical examiner of New York City of that era, Charles Norris, so I doubt that this account is fabricated in any important way.
The Chemist's War
The Stone Age and Barley?
During the latter part of the Stone Age, early man was sprinkling grains of barley over various foods, adding a chewy, nutty quality to his meals. Humans had not yet discovered how to grind grain into flour.
Ancient cultures were forming loaves of barley bread long before domesticating wheat. Since barley contains only miniscule quantities of gluten, the protein that makes wheat breads rise easily, the breads made from this grain were heavy and quite dense but nutritious nonetheless.
Our cultivated barley of today was once a wild grass that originated in the Near East, though some food historians believe China was the place of origin, while others say it was Ethiopia. Archeologists discovered remnants of wild barley, H. spontaneum, at many sites across a belt that stretches from North Africa on the west to Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan in the east.
High Flying Barley Crashes in Modern Times
See, I Told You So
It shows men who indulge in regular lovemaking are up to 45 per cent less likely to develop life-threatening heart conditions than men who have sex once a month or less. The study, of over 1,000 men, shows sex appears to have a protective effect on the male heart but did not examine whether women benefit too. Now the American researchers who carried out the investigation are calling for doctors to screen men for sexual activity when assessing their risk of heart disease.
Every year, around 270,000 people in Britain suffer a heart attack, and coronary disease remains Britains biggest killer. Although sex has long been regarded as good for physical and mental health, there has been little scientific evidence to show the full benefits that frequent intercourse can have on major illnesses such as heart disease.
London Telegraph – Having sex twice a week 'reduces chance of heart attack by half'
A Somalian Refugee and Dr. Weston Price
Recently I crossed paths with a Somalian refugee living in political exile here in Maui. Her name is Layla Sheikh. But don’t think that she’s some poor peasant girl fresh outta the Somalian desert sand, begging for food. She sports a stylin’ fro and highly fashionable clothes. She cruises in an SUV, and has her own two-bedroom apartment 200 yards from the Pacific ocean. She works as a professional model, getting gigs like holding the round cards at the UFC fights over in Lahaina, as well as doing plenty of photo shoots and fashion shows. Basically, she’s pimpin’ y’all. The African Queen. Speaks five languages, including Swahili and Arabic. She still runs (not jogs) over 20 miles a day and can climb a tree like a 100-pound squirrel though (why this isn’t on youtube yet baffles me. What I’d give…).
The story of Layla and her perfect teeth — some cultural learnings from Africa
Marijuana Growers Get It – Most of Us Don't. Figures. We Are Still Chasing The Fairy Tale Of Organic Food
Test the juice of fruits, vegetables, or grasses and compare them to the enclosed chart of Refractive Indexes (Brix readings). Within a given species of plant, the crop with the higher refractive index will have a higher sugar content, higher mineral content, higher protein content and a greater specific gravity or density. This adds up to a sweeter tasting, more minerally nutritious food (maximum nutritional value) with lower nitrate and water content and better storage attributes.
Crops with higher Brix will produce more alcohol from fermented sugars and be more resistant to insects, thus resulting in decreased insecticide usage. For insect resistance, maintain a Brix of 12 or higher in the juice of the leaves of most plants. Crops with a higher solids content will have a lower freezing point & therefore be less prone to frost damage.
Plant Sap Analysis
The Fraudulent Science of Climate Change/Global Warming
The Climategate row, which was first revealed by the Daily Mail in November, was triggered when a hacker stole hundreds of emails sent from East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. They revealed scientists plotting how to avoid responding to Freedom of Information requests from climate change sceptics. Some even appeared to show the researchers discussing how to manipulate raw data from tree rings about historical temperatures. In one, Professor Jones talks about using a 'trick' to massage figures and 'hide the decline'.
Giving evidence to a Science and Technology Committee inquiry, the Institute of Physics said: 'Unless the disclosed emails are proved to be forgeries or adaptations, worrying implications arise for the integrity of scientific research and for the credibility of the scientific method. 'The principle that scientists should be willing to expose their results to independent testing and replication by others, which requires the open exchange of data, procedures and materials, is vital.'
Last month, the Information Commissioner ruled the CRU had broken Freedom of Information rules by refusing to hand over raw data. But yesterday Professor Jones – in his first public appearance since the scandal broke – denied manipulating the figures. Looking pale and clasping his shaking hands in front of him, he told MPs: 'I have obviously written some pretty awful emails.'
Daily Mail: Head of 'Climategate' research unit admits sending 'pretty awful emails' to hide data
The Redemption of Ancel Keyes – He may have been the lifestyle nanny who failed, spectacularly so, with The Seven Countries Study and the resultant demonization of cholesterol and saturated fat, but it looks like he may have done yeoman's work elsewhere.
Recipe Of The Week: Blackened Tenderloin – Gives great flavor to the tenderest steak cut of them all.
Recent Comments