A recurring theme on this site has been on the health effects of ultra-processed foods. The Twinkie and a Coca Cola represent the ultimate in ultra-processed foods. The NOVA classification of foods defined ultra-processed foods. Do these products represent the greatest dietary danger to American health? Or are the dangers overexaggerated? Note, this post was inspired by an article by Linn Steward on Gourmetmetrics. In … Continue reading The Twinkies caper: Separating processes and ingredients

Sugar is sweet. We all know that. Sugar performs many other roles in food that make it a valuable ingredient in food. We call these roles functional properties. Sugar is important in home-cooked meals. Sugar is also important in manufactured foods. Absence of sugar in a recipe or formulation may result in inferior quality of the food. Formulations are scientific versions of a recipe. Food … Continue reading Sugar as an ingredient: functional and dangerous

What do you get when you turn a biochemist loose in the kitchen of a school for boys? You get Shirley Corriher, a gift to anyone interested in food and cooking. Her book, KitchenWise, arrived unsolicited in the mail as an early Christmas gift. What a delightful book from a delightful person! Many years ago I was at a dinner meeting of Dixie (since renamed … Continue reading KitchenWise: Essential Food Science for Home Cooks

Most of us are not sad to leave 2020 behind. It has been a miserable year in many ways, more for some than for others. I am optimistic for 2021, but we are not over the pandemic yet. Normal, whatever that will look like, will not be part of our lives for some time. Will we return to a diet of more processed food in … Continue reading Remembering 2020; Looking ahead to 2021

Religious organizations undergird food pantries across the country. Many Christians feel the need to give back to society. They see the need to serve others who are suffering from hunger. In Feeding the Other Rebecca de Souza does not value pantry volunteers. She suggests that they distribute food through a sense of guilt or superiority. She also indicates that volunteers are predominantly white and look … Continue reading A gospel guide for distributing food to the poor

I had heard about food pantries but never knew what went on at a food pantry, who worked or volunteered at food pantries, or who received food from food pantries.  One of my neighbors mentioned that her church announced that a food pantry was looking for additional volunteers.  I could say “the rest is history” because I have volunteered at food pantries and food banks … Continue reading Why I volunteer at the food pantry by Roberta Parillo

“Equality if the mother of justice . . . Justice is the offspring of equality.” –Philo of Alexandria Rebecca de Souza criticized food pantries and the volunteers who inhabit them in Feeding the Other. Today’s blog is a direct response to those criticisms.  She studied two very different food pantries in Duluth, Minnesota. The book relates what she learned. I volunteered at a monthly food … Continue reading In defense of food pantries

Rebecca de Souza is a middle-class Indian immigrant living in Duluth, Minnesota. She writes a harsh critique of food pantries and the volunteers who work in them. Feeding the Other characterizes the ubiquitous pantries that dot the American landscape. It concludes that these pantries are  part of the hunger problem rather than part of its solution. The author advocates radical change in the American food … Continue reading Feeding the Other: Whiteness Privilege and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries

So many crops, so little time. Blueberries, onions, snap beans, peppers, rockmelons, broccoli, bananas and apples. Then there was bread and wine and rice and baby food. Why couldn’t I ever focus on only a few foods? My thirty years of research at the University of Georgia were great. Almost half of those years were in Griffin. Athens occupied the rest of my career. Those … Continue reading Blueberries, onions and other crops

Another crop our Postharvest Systems Team studied was peaches. Georgia is the Peach State. They still represent a major fruit crop in the state, but we no longer hold the distinction of the top producer. South Carolina claims that title. California produces prettier peaches than those on the East Coast. Our peaches have much better flavor. We attribute our predominance to the freestone varieties. California … Continue reading What I learned about peaches during my research career