Neon Tummy

mothernaturenetwork: 27 gourmet vegetarian recipes for...

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:28:20 -0800

27 gourmet vegetarian recipes for Christmas dinner
If you want to make your holiday meal a lot more interesting, check out these gourmet vegetarian and vegan recipes. Bonus: Most are fairly simple to make.

huffingtonpost: huffposttaste: In case you are still...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:06:33 -0700

huffingtonpost:

huffposttaste:

In case you are still scrambling, you can find all of our Halloween recipes here!

If you can tonight, relax and eat everything you haven’t eaten from your cupboards over the last 3 days.

unknowneditors: Want by Erin Hanson.

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 15:14:00 -0700

unknowneditors:

Want by Erin Hanson.

flavorpill: The greatest food still lifes in art history

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 10:46:15 -0700

flavorpill:

The greatest food still lifes in art history

Rats fed Monsanto's GM corn suffer from tumors

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:39:33 -0700

A study conducted at University of Caen in France finds that rats fed Monsanto’s genetically modified corn suffered from tumors and severe liver and kidney damage. Rats fed corn from NK603, a seed variety that is tolerant to Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, died earlier than rats fed a standard diet. Tom Sanders, head of the nutritional sciences research division at King’s College in London remarked the study did not provide data on the amounts of food fed to the rats and what their growth rates were.

GMOs are highly unpopular in Europe and are a debated topic in the United States. In California, the 2012 ballot measure Proposition 37 seeks to mandate labeling of genetically engineered foods. The results of this study could create further opposition to GMOs.

Click to read more http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49086360/ns/health-health_care/#.UFuICUI8hhO

McDonald’s will now display a calorie count on their menus...

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:36:39 -0700

McDonald’s will now display a calorie count on their menus with hopes of helping customers make more informed choice.

Photo credit-rob_rob2001

buzzfeed: In case anyone forgot, today is National Cheeseburger...

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:02:26 -0700

buzzfeed:

In case anyone forgot, today is National Cheeseburger Day.

Canned Soup is convenient but not always safe!

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:38:02 -0800

As a current college student this is very good to know, we usually go for the food that is most convenient (not time consuming and easy to make). -Aliyah, Neon Tommy

If you’re looking for a hearty meal to warm you up as the temperature drops this winter, you may want to put down that can of soup and back away slowly.

Researchers at Harvard found that people who ate canned soups for five days in a row had 1,200 times as much of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in their bodies as those who ate fresh soups.

BPA has been linked to a wide array of health issues such as reproductive abnormalities, cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and is used in the lining of canned foods.

Too much food when other people are starving

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:01:06 -0800

I’ve long believed that chefs can radically reduce food waste by planning better, prepping less food, and donating leftovers, in that order. Other strategies, such as “tray-less dining,” help in “all you care to eat” settings, such as college dining halls. I recently decided to put my beliefs to the test. In doing so, I realized the limitations of my good intentions and how tough it can sometimes be to put ideas into practice.

I attended a chefs’ competition — a real one, without squadrons of makeup artists, predetermined “secret” ingredients, or unseen hours of washing and prepping ingredients — for Bon Appétit Management Company chefs. This semiannual Northern California Chefs Exchange started at 7 a.m. with a butchery demonstration, followed by a farmers’ market trip and then a tutorial on artisanal tofu making. By noon, the 32 chefs I accompanied on their morning journey were as hungry to compete with each other as they were to eat each others’ creations……

Food waste happens, especially when feeding a crowd. Fewer guests show up at events than expected, an inexperienced chef or host that genuinely wants to demonstrate generosity orders far too much food. But donating leftovers has its complications too, even with the best of intentions at play. Most agencies want familiar food, not “fancy food.” And like the rest of the population, they want meat. For those of us on the giving end, it’s important to experience our embarrassments — and get over them. Reducing food waste is critically important for humanitarian and environmental reasons, but donating prepared food has its challenges. Perhaps this means we need to work harder at not having so many leftovers in the first place.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE: The Atlantic

How many servings? ...new CBS Food Icon

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:35:00 -0800

This looks cool! -Aliyah, Neon Tommy

Any Special dishes for Thanksgiving today?

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:22:00 -0800

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!- Aliyah, Neon Tommy

Turkey and Ham are the main dishes for the holiday but these vegan and vegetarian meals sound tasty as well:

MAIN DISH OPTIONS

Butternut Squash With Whole Wheat, Wild Rice, & Onion Stuffing

Butternut Squash and Mixed Mushroom Lasagna

Winter Squash Stuffed with Mashed Potatoes and Peas

Millet-Stuffed Golden Squashes

“Three Sisters” Stew

Pueblo Corn Pie

Lentil and Mushroom Shepherd’s Pie

Quick Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili

Black Bean and Zucchini Tortilla Casserole

Hearty Vegetable Pot Pie

Tempeh Stew with Wine and Shiitake Mushrooms

Thanksgiving Torte (with wild rice, mushrooms, and nuts)

SEASONAL SALADS

Source: VegKitchen

McDonald's Drops Egg Supplier After Video of Cruelty Surface

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:30:00 -0800

This always makes me sad- Aliyah, Neon Tommy

Chalk one up for the chickens. After animal activist group Mercy for Animals released videos of grievous mistreatment at Sparboe Farms in Iowa, Minnesota and Colorado, McDonald’s and Target dropped the egg supplier late last week, according to The Associated Press.

This is major news, since Sparboe isn’t exactly a tiny operation. The Minnesota-based company churns out 300 million eggs a year, and McDonald’s’ officials say the company is a “significant” supplier.

NEON TOMMY: Congress Calls Pizza a Vegetable

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:11:00 -0800

I love pizza but this is crazy, lets at least educate kids about the healthy choices not deceive them. -Aliyah, Neon Tommy

Congress’ new spending bill would deny funding to healthier school lunches and effectively declare pizza a vegetable.
The bill works against standards set earlier this year by the USDA; standards that would fill students’ plates with more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and decrease their intake of sodium and saturated fat, reports CNN. Under Congress’ new standards, two tablespoons of tomato paste would qualify as a serving of vegetables.

Two of the bill’s biggest supporters are the American Frozen Food Institute and the National Potato Council. According to ABC, the two groups spent a combined $440,000 on lobbying efforts. It’s no coincidence, then, that frozen pizza and French fries are two foods the bill is fighting to keep on the table.

In a nation whose second leading cause of preventable death is obesity, the bill raises major health concerns.

Everyone Talks about eating healthy....so how do we do it?

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 20:23:00 -0800

Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein is the Secretary of Health and Mental Hygiene in Maryland.Sally Sampson is a cookbook writer and editor of ChopChop magazine. Recently, Maryland andChopChop announced a collaboration publicizing fresh, monthly recipes for families to make together. Sharfstein asked Sampson to have a conversation about the initiative.

Sharfstein: Sally, thanks for coming over to our Governor’s house for the launch of ChopChop Maryland, a creative effort to promote family cooking and healthy eating in our state. Our state’s first lady, Katie O’Malley, was very pleased to launch this initiative. It’s one part of our state’s strategy to address childhood obesity. With about 12 percent of teenagers in our state obese, and only about a third of adults at a healthy weight, we’re in the market for new ideas. Your first recipe for Maryland Apple Crisp was very well received (at least by my children). We’ve had 50,000 hits to the website in just the first few weeks. We’re going to distribute 12 ChopChop recipes, one a month, over the next year. Why start with a dessert?

Sampson: The intent of ChopChop Maryland is to get families cooking. While we want them to cook all parts of a meal — soups, stews, entrees, side dishes, and salads — it’s most easy to initially draw kids in with dessert. If I could only eat one dessert for the rest of my life, it would definitely be a crisp: It’s adaptable to every season (you can substitute almost any fruit for the apples), easy, inexpensive, uses readily available ingredients, fast, and, most important, delicious. People forget that you can make wonderful desserts that are not laden with sugar and fat. In fact, this one is so healthy, I’ve been known to eat it for breakfast.

READ MORE HERE: The Atlantic

Pizza is a Vegetable?

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:21:53 -0800

Thought this was a little funny- Aliyah, Neon Tommy

From comedian Mark Russell*

No dessert until you finish your tomato paste.
The push to limit pizza in school lunch programs has been derailed in Congress by members who classify tomato paste as a vegetable. Who says this is a do-nothing Congress?
Their true quote: “An eighth of a cup of tomato paste has the nutritional value of a half-cup of vegetables and when mixed with water for pizza sauce, more of a vegetable is created.”
Right. And when you add cheese, pepperoni and sausage — voila! — you have a healthy fruit salad.

* c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.

SOURCE: Food Politics

Burgers made in the science lab EWWW!

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:53:24 -0800

America’s love affair with meat shows no sign of abating, but as the monetary and ecological costs of factory farming rise, science is swooping in with a solution: cultured meat. Yep, we’re talking about meat grown in petri dishes. Goodbye, barns, hello labs.

Though the technology has been bounced around since 2005, Reuters suggests scientists might have actual cultured meat produced within the next year. And like most new technology, it won’t be cheap. Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, told Reuters he estimates the first lab-grown burger will cost about $350,000 to produce. (Obviously, costs will drop with time if demand grows.)

Zombie Race IV Fungus and the Bananapocalypse!

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:00:05 -0800

Zombie Race IV Fungus and the Bananapocalypse!:

Noooooo I like my bananas! In smoothies, with peanut butter… - Elena, Neon Tommy

“For years journalists have warned of imminent banana extinction. “Get bananas while you still can,” wrote New Scientist over five years ago. “The world’s most popular fruit … is in deep trouble,” it went on to say, adding that the banana would probably be out of supermarkets by 2013, and would soon exist only in backyard gardens and other places the Panama Race IV, a pathogen taking out plantations in Southeast Asia, couldn’t reach.

It turns out that the Race IV fungus does cause a true bananapocalypse.”

Read on here

Photo: Frank Kehren

Extra tax for Drinking? why or why not?

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:00:30 -0800

The Buddha said long ago that salvation lies in the Middle Way. That is something that, as an interventional cardiologist, I and many colleagues within the medical community have also been saying for years regarding alcohol, and specifically wine, consumption. The data examining the health advantages and detriments for alcohol, and wine in particular, is compelling in terms of risk/benefit analysis — with moderate consumption as the caveat.

As a chef and culinary Buddha promoting the gastronomic Middle Path through the Grassroots Gourmet approach to cooking and eating, wine is an indispensable culinary companion of mine. This camaraderie between man and wine goes back many thousands of years. Wine has served us by providing experiences from the medicinal to the mystical, and from the caloric to the culinary. It has been alternatively deified and demonized. But at a personal level, as both a gastrophile and oenophile, wine is an indispensable part of my kitchen armamentarium and dining pleasure; a pleasure I justify as part of a healthy diet and lifestyle.

And now that bastion of medical directives and wisdom, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), agrees. A study from CDC researchers recently published in theAmerican Journal of Public Health examined the consequence of various lifestyle behaviors and their effects — independently and cumulatively — on all-cause mortality, mortality from cardiovascular disease, death from malignancy, and death from other causes. The data came from 16,958 participants aged 17 and older who were part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study III (NHANES III) from 1988-1994 (with mortality assessed through 2006). The four pillars of a healthy lifestyle include never smoking, healthy diet, moderate alcohol consumption, and physical activity. Each positive lifestyle choice was associated with a mortality reduction and the most powerful effect was the synergistic action of all four together. Those who engaged in all four activities were 63 percent less likely to die. The benefit was evident across all ethnic and gender groups. As the authors themselves noted, these findings are consistent with similar data from around the world which include moderate alcohol consumption as part of a healthy lifestyle.

Artificial Sweeteners....

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 15:15:05 -0800

Most of the discussion on artificial sweeteners focuses on their presumed safety, of which I have my doubts.

The “Generally Recognized As Safe” process is not very assuring,political/financial interests can trump scientific objectivity, some research studies certainly give pause, and there isn’t any data on the effects of consistent artificial sweetener consumption over the span of several decades.

Let’s hypothesize, though, that artificial sweeteners are eventually cleared of all wrongdoing. Even then, with undisputed evidence that there isn’t the slightest health risk, I would urge everyone to stay away from them.

School Soda Ban...effective?

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 10:25:05 -0800

This week, various media outlets reported on a studywhich concluded that school soda bans are ineffective; or, as as The Chicago Tributeput it — ‘School Soda Bans Don’t Cut Kids’ Consumption’. This not only frames the issue incorrectly, but also blames “ineffective bans” for problems they were never intended to correct.

According to the study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, “among eighth graders, state bans on all sugar-sweetened drinks in schools meant fewer kids reported buying the drinks there — but it didn’t change how many of them said they drank soda or sports drinks regularly.”

My response: “so?” Schools are only responsible for what happens on school grounds. The fact that children are otherwise barraged with soda advertisements (and that these drinks are artificially cheap) goes beyond the scope of this particular intervention.

Source: Small Bites