Linn Steward, a trained chef and RDN, wrote a post on this blog in March. Since then we have engaged in a running discussion on various food topics. I value her comments and consider her my muse. The most contentious topic we have discussed is on the NOVA classification of foods. She finds the classification useful as a guide when she cooks. I find the … Continue reading NOVA as seen by a cook and a food scientist

Data whole-heartedly substantiate Dr. Carlos Monteiro’s statement that the obese are at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and that it increases the risk for more severe illness. Obesity is a factor in other chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, which also increase COVID risk.  All of these underlying conditions create a state of chronic inflammation. Thus, an already overtaxed immune system … Continue reading How much does homemade mayo differ from store-bought mayo? By Julie Jones

George Zaidan is a chemist who does not appear to have a confirmed bias for or against processed food. He views product ingredients on the basis of chemistry. He is also a communicator with an unusual writing style—not one I particularly enjoy. It might be my age. His irreverent approach disguises a philosophical message. If nothing else, the book provides a step-by-step guide to critical … Continue reading Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What We Put in Us and on Us

I love to read books. My mother taught me to love them. We had no public library in our small town on the Canadian Prairies. Christmas came every month when we opened a box of books from the University of Manitoba library. Books deliver a broader perspective than a blog, news story, or even a scientific journal article. If there is substance in a book, … Continue reading Assorted books about food or pandemics for your reading pleasure

In my Quora inbox I recently received the question, “Why does the food industry not create healthy food products?” As a scientist I can’t really answer that question without a definition of a “healthy” food product. As a blogger, I don’t have the same restrictions. There are so many concepts of what is healthy and what is unhealthy. It seems that the more that nutrition … Continue reading Turning our focus to meals and away from classifying foods as healthy or unhealthy

The question I’m asked most often about my work as a culinary instructor is not “will note-by-note cooking be the future of food?”, but usually along the lines of: “Do you ever have a student who you can just tell is going to become the next famous chef?” My cooking career spans 31 years and I’ve taught at one of four different culinary schools. Over … Continue reading Note-By-Note Cooking: Is This’ Idea Going to Be All That? By Chef Michael Wille

It would be difficult to find someone who has influenced the culinary world more than Hervé This (pronounced “Teess”) over the past few decades.  Perhaps, somewhat surprisingly, he is not a trained chef but a chemist who applied his background to understanding gastronomical endeavors that have existed as preparation staples for generations of cooks.  In 1994 he published a paper with his collaborator Nicholas Kurti … Continue reading The Ethos of Molecular Gastronomy by Matthew Eady

“In recent years fearmongers—for that frankly is what they are—have shamelessly sought to take advantage of a certain mood of ignorant naturalism in order to make people believe that additives are dangerous. But isn’t there more danger in a barbequed piece of meat than in xanthan gum?” (p.99) Readers of this site will know that this statement is music to my ears. As I used … Continue reading Note by Note Cooking: The Future of Food

It was a relationship that got off on the wrong foot. It was Sunday afternoon at the IFT Expo. I don’t remember the year or the city, but I can clearly visualize the scene in my mind. I recognized his name tag. I knew him by name only. He had written me a nasty letter upset that that I had chaired the committee that had … Continue reading Breaking news: Dr. Aaron Brody turns 90

There is far more to health than what we weigh, yet we live in a society that ties the way we look, what we eat, and even what exercise challenges we do, to moral virtue. The popular phrase, “You are what you eat,” is often used to motivate people to healthfully fuel from the inside to produce a healthy appearance on the outside. This concept … Continue reading You are NOT what you eat: Exploring Intuitive Eating’s gentle nutrition principle by Emma Laing