Category Archives: Food

Food, Poetry, Security

You need an RFID-enabled rabbit, said Mr. Kitten

Leave a comment

This BBC story is just too strange to believe:

“In the average house you have about 10,000 different objects and right now you have maybe three objects connected to the net – phone, computer and perhaps a rabbit,” he said.

“But we think that more and more objects are going to be connected,” said Mr Kitten.

A rabbit connected to the net? That is Jean-Francois Kitten, a spokesman for Violet, talking about a Nabaztag wi-fi rabbit gadget that can interpret RFID chips. Put a chip in front of the rabbit and it will “read” aloud. For example a book for children, or maybe a recipe for a cook.

The big question, I suppose, is whether Mr. Kitten will be tracking rabbit behavior. Is there a privacy-enabled rabbit?

Food, Security

Teflon Gets Heat from Environmentalists

1 Comment

If I asked you what a normal cooking temperature was, could you tell me within ten degrees of accuracy; what about fifty degrees of accuracy?

I am certainly not the best chef. I confess I have no idea what the exact temperature of a frying pan is when I put it on medium, or medium-high, high, etc..

Now consider the latest news from the Environmental Working Group on Teflon:

For the past fifty years DuPont has claimed that their Teflon coatings do not emit hazardous chemicals through normal use. In a recent press release, DuPont wrote that “significant decomposition of the coating will occur only when temperatures exceed about 660 degrees F (340 degrees C). These temperatures alone are well above the normal cooking range.”

I see. So the normal cooking range is below 660 degrees F. The only problem with DuPont’s reasoning is that most people probably do not know this and regularly cook above the level that they consider “normal”. Safety suddenly comes into play, and yet I would bet not a single DuPont teflon user has any idea of the risks:

In new tests conducted by a university food safety professor, a generic non-stick frying pan preheated on a conventional, electric stovetop burner reached 736°F in three minutes and 20 seconds, with temperatures still rising when the tests were terminated. A Teflon pan reached 721°F in just five minutes under the same test conditions (See Figure 1), as measured by a commercially available infrared thermometer. DuPont studies show that the Teflon offgases toxic particulates at 446°F. At 680°F Teflon pans release at least six toxic gases, including two carcinogens, two global pollutants, and MFA, a chemical lethal to humans at low doses. At temperatures that DuPont scientists claim are reached on stovetop drip pans (1000°F), non-stick coatings break down to a chemical warfare agent known as PFIB, and a chemical analog of the WWII nerve gas phosgene.

Personally, I have never liked teflon because I felt the risks were not clearly discussed or identified and so I have only bought stainless steel cookware. Come to think of it, I have not owned teflon for over fifteen years. When I first started looking for safety data and could not find anything conclusive, I steered clear. I also never understood the idea that it could peel off if you touched it with metal, like a normal fork or spoon. What kind of “hard” surface requires you to replace all your cutlery?

This general unease now turns out to be well founded.

Unless you can monitor your temperatures and/or install controls to keep teflon below 660 degrees F, there are some serious health risks to consider. I guess I will stick to stainless steel for now (pun intended).

Food, Security

NYC Tuna Toxicity

Leave a comment

The NYT reports that the fish being served in their fair city has toxic levels of mercury:

Sushi from 5 of the 20 places had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market. The sushi was bought by The New York Times in October.

“No one should eat a meal of tuna with mercury levels like those found in the restaurant samples more than about once every three weeks,” said Dr. Michael Gochfeld, professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J.

Yikes. Perhaps most notable is that the restaurant owners had no idea they were serving toxic fish. Will they test at the market? Will fish markets test before selling? Where will the controls emerge? What if restaurant guides like Zagat started to include toxicity tests in their reviews and award cleanliness? Or will consumers be expected to carry a toxicity test when they eat out or even shop at the grocery?

Will someone please market a sushi preparedness kit? A pair of organic-based chopsticks, chemical free soy sauce, natural wasabi, and a box that you can drop your food into to assess mercury levels before you put it into your mouth. Ok, just kidding. But you get the idea.

Update: Apparently Greenpeace offers a $25 mercury do-it-yourself test kit.

The results are in, and the findings are worse than we anticipated: one in five women of childbearing age that were tested have mercury levels exceeding the EPA’s recommended limit.

“In the samples we analyzed, the greatest single factor influencing mercury exposure was the frequency of fish consumption,” said Dr. Steve Patch, Co-director of EQI and co-author of the report. “We saw a direct relationship between people’s mercury levels and the amount of store-bought fish, canned tuna fish or locally caught fish people consumed.”

Yikes again. Is this Department of Homeland Security material? Or will this be left up to the EPA to sort out?

Food, History, Poetry, Security

Absinthe legal in the US again

1 Comment

I have a bottle sitting on my shelf. It was a novelty gift from Prague. My favorite part is the label. Now I hear that a local distiller will be selling bottles and offering authentic samples in their tasting room.

The SF Gate has written a fascinating story that touches on why this relates to hype versus reality in public safety:

Now it seems that no one can remember exactly why it was prohibited. Some say it was the chemical thujone found in the herb wormwood, used to make absinthe, that affects the brain. Others say it was a plot by the wine industry to put the popular spirit out of business. And there are those who believe it was a case of baseless hysteria, not unlike “Reefer Madness,” the 1936 propaganda film about marijuana.

Perhaps because there is nothing exact to remember in these issues of human behavior? Hysteria is the right word. Fear is another one.

Earlier this year, a lone Washington, D.C., lawyer took on the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau in an attempt to lift the ban. After some legal wrangling, the agency agreed – with some limits.

Lone? Personal mission? I am surprised they do not say lawyer and poet, or lawyer and aspiring artist? Alas, even though a lawyer is to blame for the legalization of the drink I am sure it will continue to be associated with those least involved in its production and distribution. I just can not see absinthe being associated with holiday parties at big law firms. Consumption would appear to be most conspicuous among those who are least controlled/contrived in their daily expressions.

Last week, St. George Spirits of Alameda received the news that, after seven applications, the federal agency had approved its label, the final obstacle before going to market. On Monday, the small artisan distillery sold its token first bottle, becoming the only American company since 1912 to sell absinthe in the United States.

Approval of the label is a big deal because there is little to object to in the substance itself if made properly. Might as well have a team of legal and risk experts debate the merits of marketing it safely while this substance has no more risk that the millions of bottles it will sit by on the shelf. Will they use something like Cigarette pack warnings? Those vary by culture and country, but they are the hallmark of regulated marketing.

Overall, I found the article highly entertaining. It puts to light much of the controversy about causality:

“Look, absinthe is bad the way Jack Daniels is bad, the way Skyy Vodka is bad,” says Lehrman. “The worst component is the alcohol. If you drink too much, something bad will happen.”

I guess you could expect a distiller to say that about alcohol. Moderation, and self-control right? Might as well ask someone from Colt if guns kills people. Sorry, I digress…

But in 1905 the Swiss government was convinced that it was absinthe alone that turned a law-abiding citizen into a homicidal maniac. After Jean Lanfray, a 31-year-old laborer, killed his pregnant wife and two children, the Swiss government banned the spirit. Although Lanfray had sampled a bottle of absinthe before breakfast that morning, officials failed to take into consideration that he had also consumed Creme de Menthe, cognac and soda, more than six glasses of wine and a cup of coffee laced with brandy, says Barnaby Conrad III, the San Francisco author of “Absinthe: History in a Bottle” (Chronicle Books, 1988; the publisher is not affiliated with this newspaper).

Nice try, but the Swiss should have banned cups, glasses and bottles. Homicide would have ended with the demise of drinking vessels. Or maybe they should have banned labor.

I’m kidding.

With that in mind, here’s my favorite part:

…the drink became synonymous with the degeneration of the world’s most famous bohemians, from Van Gogh’s infamous ear cutting to Verlaine’s debaucherous sprees of sex and rage.

Even Oscar Wilde was quoted as saying “After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, which is the most horrible thing in the world.”

Clarity…or degeneration. It is all about perspective, I suppose.

Ironic when you think about all the work for a label to avoid confusion about something that is said to bring clarity.

Perhaps when you drink it, you become clear on why it should be banned.

If not, you are in good company; just ask the Wormwood Society. They point out that absinthe was actually never illegal…just restricted:

There is no law which prohibits absinthe by name, but any drink which contains in excess of 10ppm of thujone is prohibited from being imported into, or produced for sale and consumption in, the United States.

Good to know. Consumers will benefit from safe absinthe, although modern science apparently has found thujone as relatively safe (“0% mortality rate at 30 mg/kg”).