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 an attempt to move the blog away from the virus and nutrition, I have veered off into a different topic this month by reviewing Note by Note Cooking by Hervé This. And, yes ‘This’ is really his last name. Note-by-note cooking is an extension of molecular gastronomy. Since I am not a foodie and not a commercial chef, neither molecular gastronomy nor note-by-note cooking … 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

It is everywhere. On any given day I might encounter something like: Coworker Group Text: “Anyone want me to grab you something unhealthy from McDonalds?” Me, responding in my head because some battles are not worth the energy of fighting out loud…or in a text with coworkers: “It’s not unhealthy if it is providing pleasure, satisfaction, and sustenance. It’s not inherently unhealthy just because it comes from a fast-food … Continue reading Intuitive Eating in Practice: From Fad Diets to Food Freedom by Kortney Karnok

We live in a diet culture that may be making our collective weight problem worse. That is the underlying premise of the Intuitive Eating concept. What if it is not “overweight” people who are to blame for our obesity crisis? What if it isn’t even the overabundance of food that is causing our weight problems? What if it is our over-obsession with food that is … Continue reading Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach