Alton Brown Answers, At Last

We knew this was going to take a while -- it turned out to be just about one month since the question post -- due to some show-taping problems Alton had. He was kind enough to warn us about the delay, a warning regular Slashdot Interview readers picked up. Anyway, here we go. (Warning: Reading this interview may cause hunger.)

1) My question
by mofolotopo
Something I've found as a newbie chef is that a good 75.32% of good cooking is good shopping. What tips do you have for finding good, fresh ingredients? Where the heck do you get fresh herbs etc. in a smallish town?

Alton: First off, you need to decentralize your shopping. Don't try to get everything in one place. Even if you don't have a farmers market in the area, I'm willing to bet there's a co-op or health food store that will open up your options. Ditto a butcher. As for fresh herbs, if they're really a problem to find in your area, try growing your own when and where climate allows. The rest of the time, buy dry herbs and spices over the internet from someone like Penzeys or The Spice House. Above all, do not drive yourself crazy. Learn to work with what you have. Oh, and don't forget ethnic markets; they often have the best produce as well as meat.

2) Why are some people better Cooks?
by kallistiblue
I've noticed that some people seem to be naturally better cooks than others. I've know several people that follow a recipe very exactly. The food they create just doesn't turn out very good. Personally, I'll use a recipe as a guideline and use rough estimates. Most of the time, my meals turn out pretty well. It's as if an intuitive sense is needed.

How does someone learn/teach this skill?

Alton: First, you need to become a good recipe follower. Most people who think they can't cook aren't really taking time to properly read the recipes they're working from or they don't really understand what they're being asked to do. For instance, there are plenty of recipes out there that call for "searing" a piece of meat. If you don't know what "searing" really is, you're doomed. Unfortunately most recipes are written for people that already know how to cook. So start by really paying attention to a recipe and make sure you understand it. Then cook it a few times keeping detailed notes about the process and your feelings about the final dish. Keep notebooks?write down as much as you can and slowly you'll begin to learn what you're doing. As long as you're willing to think and taste as you go, you can become a cook?I promise.

3) Vegetarians
by sammy.lost-angel.com
As a vegetarian, I'm compelled to ask this: Have you seen a trend in recent years of more vegetarians, or more dishes made without meat? Time magazine had a recent cover story about this, and my feeling is it's becoming a more important part of everyone's lives, yet whenever I catch a cooking show on TV it lacks making many vegetarian dishes.

Alton: Americans don't eat near enough vegetables. I'm not a vegetarian, though I do respect anyone who makes a hard and fast decision about what he or she is going to live on. All you have to do is look at the health statistics from countries whose cuisines are lighter on meat and heavy on veggies and fish?They live, longer. It's as simple as that. What I would hate to see is a radical swing away from meat. I think we evolved as omnivores for a reason. And that's all I have to say about that.

4) Lower Fat and Cholesterol?
by cporter
Mr. Brown, I love your recipes. In the last few weeks, I've prepared Chocolate Mousse, Party Mayonnaise, Chimney Tuna, and Baba Ganoush from "Good Eats" and Chicken Piccata from "I'm Just Here for the Food." Not all at one meal, of course.

I applaud episodes like "Good Milk Gone Bad" and "The Other Red Meat" that focus on lower fat and cholesterol foods. But many of your recipes call for butter, oil, cream, and other less than healthful foods (even bacon grease!). What do you think about some of the substitutes out there, or using ingredients like applesauce to replace butter?

Alton: There are no bad foods, only bad food habits. I eat cream, butter, and bacon; I just don't eat pounds of it at a time. I use these things when they are needed in recipes and leave them out when they're not needed. As for substitutes, I only agree with them if they really don't change a person's response to a dish. Take mashed potatoes for instance. I recently saw a recipe that suggested that the fat we all know that mashers need could be replaced with vegetable broth. Hogwash. All that does is lead to dissatisfaction and I think that dissatisfaction results in overeating. We like fats because fats satisfy. They break down in the digestive track very slowly so they keep us fuller longer. Now if I find a way to replace a fatty ingredient without missing it (I do this a lot with yogurt) then you bet I'm going to do it. But I repeat: there are no bad foods

5) Art vs. Science
by Susskins
A lot of your show is dedicated to the Science of cooking, and to the underlying physics of food. Your Grandmother (in a really cool episode about biscuits) demonstrated a wicked amount of Artistic Skill, the "look and feel" of food preparation. Do you have any thoughts about the balance of Art and Science in cooking?

Alton: No matter how much creativity goes into it, cooking is an art?or perhaps I should say a craft. It abides by absolute rules, physics, chemistry, etc. and that means that unless you understand the science you cannot reach the art. We're not talking about painting here?cooking's more like engineering. I happen to think that there is great beauty in great engineering (the wing of a Boeing 777, a suspension bridge) but they are not works of art, they are works of science. To my mind art is a matter of personal expression and the exchange of ideas; food is in the end, fuel?a means to an end. Sorry for rambling.

6) Iron Chef
by FortKnox
Seeing that all geeks love Iron Chef, I have to ask, would you be willing to go against an Iron Chef? If so, which would you pick??

Alton: I don't care about the chefs I want a shot at the goofball in the Palomino Jacket. He needs to be taken down. And the judges, oh please let me at them!

7) Elements of cooking
by SWroclawski
Mr. Brown,

I think that the most interesting part of your show to this audience is your emphasis on the science of cooking, from discussion of protein (such as in your angel food cake episode and your recent soufflé episode).

But the other difference in Good Eats is the great emphasis you place on the parts of cooking, that is the elements at a more abstract level, such as use of heat, individual ingredients (which is the topic of many of the shows) and methods of cooking (such as the right way to mix and fold). This all makes Good Eats interesting for us geeks out there who want to understand the science, but also helps us non-cooking geeks become literate in the supermarket and kitchen.

What gave you the idea to present cooking in this way and do you have any suggestions for other resources that present food and food preparation in the same way?

Alton: I approach cooking from a science angle because I need to understand how things work. If I understand the egg, I can scramble it better?it's a simple as that. There are some great food science texts out there?well, a few. Check out the bibliography in my book. (If you don't want to buy it you can just copy stuff out at the bookstore.)

8) Technical questions
by TheJerkstoreCalled
Hello! I actually watched your very first show about steak here on PBS; it was the first thing in my life that made me interested in cooking. Every time I watch an episode of Good Eats, I always end it wanting to go cook something.

I had a technical question; we always see these shots coming out of refrigerators and ovens. Do you actually have little windows in the back of your appliances or are those props built up for the shows? I always assumed they were props but you never know. Also, is that really your house you shoot in? I love the Magritte hat with chicken painting.

Alton: No windows... We actually have cameras now that are small enough to rig inside appliances. It's not easy mind you, but it's doable. That is not my house, but it is a real house. The Magritte rip was commissioned especially for Good Eats.

9) Cooking In Lava
by MrIcee
Mr. Brown. First, thank you for a wonderful television show and an excellent book. I enjoy both continually and look forward to all your new work.

Now... on to, perhaps, one of the more unusual questions you might receive. This question deals directly with how heat affects food.

Specifically... I live on the slopes of an active volcano. One of the things we like to do for fun is cook game hen and pork loins in the hot lava itself. First, let me describe our process, and then our question.

To cook a game hen we first season and then wrap the hen in about 10 Ti (or banana) leaves. These protect the hen from actually burning.

Next we find an active surface breakout of lava. We use a shovel (we also are wearing kevlar gloves that can withstand 2000 degrees of heat) and get a good shovel full of red lava. We place this on the ground a distance from the flow. We then position the Ti-wrapped hen in the middle of the blob of lava and cover it with another shovel full of lava. We try to leave a small opening to the Ti leaves, for steam to escape (or we can potentially have a steam explosion).

Now, the question. The lava is initially at 2000 degrees when we start cooking. After about 15 minutes it has cooled to around 850 degrees (outside of the rock - we read this using an infrared pyrometer). After about 45 minutes the outside is about 450 degrees. At that point we hit the rock with the shovel to open it. Only a few of the Ti leaves will remain uncharred. We remove those and the hen is then very moist and delicious.

How is it possible, using a heat source at 2000 degrees (that granted, gets cooler over time) that it still takes 45 minutes to cook the game hen? We would have thought that the cooking would have been near instantaneous - but repeated experiments at various lengths of time reveal that it takes exactly as long in the lava, as in an oven.

Alton: It's not possible. I can cook a game hen under a broiler in 15 minutes. Tell me, are there any small brown mushrooms growing around your property, and if so have you been using them in salads or pasta dishes?

10) Safe Cooking Temps
by dmaxwell
The wife and I are huge fans of your show but there is one thing we notice from time to time that we've always wondered about. For instance, your country ham recipe specifies that the ham is done when the interior temp hits 140 degrees.

However, fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/ham.htm states that "cook-before-eating hams must reach 160 F to be safely cooked before serving." I know those bad boys have been salt cured but I would still be worried about trichinosis. Your "done" temperatures for meat are often lower than what the food safety people would have them be. This is a long winded way of asking "What is your approach to food safety?" You look pretty healthy to me so I'll assume you know something those government fussbudgets don't but I'd feel better about trying out some of your recipes if I knew what that was.

Alton: I do not always agree with the government and in this case I think they're way off base. For one thing, Trichinella spiralis die at 137 degrees. Of course in this case they would have had to survive the curing process which is highly doubtful. The water activity level of a country ham is simply too low to support that kind of life. Also, T spriralis have been nearly eradicated from the American hog population through the use of better feeds. As far as I know, the only instances of trichinosis in recent years involved wild game such as bear and puma.

Comments

Volcano question

[Ratface]

Shame about the answer to the volcano question - the original poster should have sent the link to their site which has pictures showing this. I couldn't find the original site I have seen which describes this, but here's another which shows that it is indeed possible to cook a chicken atop molten lava!

http://juggle5.50megs.com/travel/Hawaii2000/Cookin g.html

Re:Volcano question

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.dolphinbayhilo.com/cook.html

thats a better one.

Re:Volcano question

[StoryMan]

Is it possible to lavaify rock in a convection oven?

I like the idea of cooking with lava, but here in Iowa, there's not much lava. Can I make my own?

Re:Volcano question

[Anonymous Coward]

No...

Re:Volcano question

[epfreed]

I am no physicis, but maybe the problem of cooking on molten lava is related to people walking over hot coals--that is the important physical quality is not temperature but the ability to transfer heat. Called specific heat, IIRC. If the lava has a low specific heat, then it cannot release the heat to the food fast enough before it cools. Of course on the other hand I could be barking up the wrong tree.

Re:Volcano question

[DJerman]

The real answer to the question is: because you're steaming it.

You may think you're roasting a chicken in lava but:
1) you wrapped it in leaves, which buffer the heat and provide moisture (for steam)
2) you've insulated it from the heat source (to prevent charring, yes)
3) the inside of the lava will cool much faster than the outside because it's in contact with water (212 degrees).

Yes you'll get some superheating at the beginning, but basically that's just searing the chicken and the leaves before the steaming process takes over. If it were continuously superheated, you'd be dodging the chicken-powered missile as it scoots around your lawn :) And the chicken would flash-fry as you expected.

BTW -- I wanna try that!

Re:Volcano question

[hanwen]

Given the fact that the chicken still contains water after it's done, the temperature inside the chicken can't have gone over 100 centigrade. I guess that the lava inside cools down upon first contact, and that it doesn't conduct heat all that well, which means that you're steaming the chicken.

A way cool steamer though.

Re:Volcano question

[schon]

Is it possible to lavaify rock in a convection oven?

No. Convection ovens just don't get hot enough.

here in Iowa, there's not much lava. Can I make my own?

If this story is correct, then you just might be able to, using a microwave oven.

Re:Volcano question

[Anonymous Coward]

exccept for the fact that under higher pressures, the boiling point goes up. So if it was encased in the lava, it would be acting like a pressure cooker and the boiling point would be higher then 100C. Minor point, but that's my $0.02 worth...

Re:Volcano question

[Sodium Attack]

The lava question in the interview above was shortened a bit from the original question. In that, MrIcee notes that they leave holes for the steam to vent (because one time when they didn't, it exploded). Given that, hanwen's conclusion is correct.

Re:Volcano question

[Sodium Attack]

Oops, the original question was in fact quoted in full, here. Didn't read it carefully enough. Mea culpa.

Re:Volcano question

[Captoo]

Now, I can't help but ask this. Where do you get a shovel that survives 2000 degree lava? What's it made of? Steel should melt almost immediately in lava.

Re:Volcano question

[pubjames]

I also thought it was a shame that he didn't seem to take this question seriously. It was one of the most interesting questions of the lot - especially for someone who is supposed to be a scientist.

I think the key point is it sounds like the chicken is wrapped in lots of layers of leaves. This would provide insulation against the extreme heat. The outside leaves would I presume carbonize - this could also provide some protection.

Sounds like a fascinating idea to me and I see no reason why it shouldn't work if there is insulation between the bird and the molten rock.

Re:Volcano question

[coolerthanmilk]

Actually, the superheating at the beginning may do even more than sear it. You could get some interesting flavor differences through redistribution of fats. When water is superheated above the critical point, the solubility of some organic compounds is very high, as opposed to subcritical conditions when it is very low (i.e. oil & water not mixing). It could absorb some fats and carry them with the water until it cooled and they were released again. Depending on how the water moved during that time, who knows how it would end up - leaf-flavored , high fat layers in some part, or low-fat dry fowl.

Re:Volcano question

[Captoo]

Nevermind. I was thinking in terms of Celsius degrees. Steel melts at close to 2800 degrees Fahrenheit. I will hang my head in shame now.

Re:Volcano question

[maxwells_deamon]

The reason the volcano cooking works and takes the time it does can be seen from the question.

Foods burn when they reach excessive temperatures. If you expose the bird to a very high temperature directly to the skin, the outside will quickly get up to over 100 C and the water in the food will boil out. Then the skin will go up over 100 C and char.

When you wrap it in the layers to prevent it from burning, you have insulated it. Also the moisture driven off from the leaves and the bird is kept in a somewhat enclosed area. So the constant adding of heat such as happens in Alton's broiler is not happening here. He does not wrap his birds in leaves before putting them in the oven I bet.

To avoid burning food, cooks reduce the temperature to the point that the interior of the bird gets to a cooked temperature before the outside gets charred.

The volcanic rock may also act as an insulator. If you were to try to cook a water balloon instead of food, I would guess the inside temperature of the lava would be lower than the outside temperature.

Next time you do this try the following two experiments:

After the bird is cooked, when you crack open the lava, measure the temperature of the leaves in contact with the bird and the temperature of the lava on the inside of your oven. It should be less than the outside temperature because the water from the leaves is a much better coolant than the air.

Cook a bird in the normal manner but don't add the leaves. Remove after about 20 minutes, chip through the char and check the inside temperature. Or place it inside a haybox (http://solarcooking.org/ret-heat.htm). The outside may be a charred mess, but the inside done.

Of course, YMMV

Re:Volcano question

[rpeppe]

i'm no expert, but surely the reason that it took a while to cook the chicken in the lava was because of that hole they'd left to let the steam escape. the crucial observation is that the chicken was moist afterwards, so presumably the level of moisture is high enough that the moisture limits the temperature of the chicken to the usual 100 degrees C.

if they'd closed the hole, i imagine the chicken would cook much faster!

Re:Volcano question

[purplebear]

Try a ham or a roast. In scouts, we used to do something very similar all the time. Mostly roasts. We used regular charcoal and sealed the roast in a salt and mustard paste. You then place the sealed roast directly on the coals and cover it with additional coals. It still takes approx. the same time as an oven to cook, but it is an interesting and fun way to cook it.
It is genuinely the tastiest roast I have ever eaten.

Re:Volcano question

[labil]

I have tried something that, granted, was not quite so spectacular, but pretty darn cool anyway.

In the Andees (Bolivian andees) there are a few places with active volcanoes, that have hot springs where the water is boiling. We cooked lamb in them that turned out quite excellent :)

As I said, not as spectacular, but still pretty... exotic.. for a buy from Sweden

labil

Re:Volcano question

[mikeee]

the inside of the lava will cool much faster than the outside because it's in contact with water (212 degrees)

Well, the key questions here have to do with how well lava conducts heat internally, and its specific heat.

Vaporizing all that water will absorb a great deal of heat from the interior of the lava ball; if it doesn't transmit well the interior will stay relatively cool. It's heat absorbtion that's key, not insulation: I'd bet $50 that if you wrapped the chicken in a dozen layers of dry aluminum foil instead of wet leaves it would be burned to a crisp.

Re:Volcano question

[mOdQuArK!]

From what I remember about a web site describing lava cooling, if you don't have a steam vent the chickens have a nasty habit of exploding (due to steam pressure), which also incidentally splatters the cooling lava around.

I'd stick with the steam vent myself.

Re:Volcano question

[R2.0]

Keep in mind that the text of the question said "game hen", which in the 48 states is a wee little thing. The ling shows something a lot bigger, which I would call a "guinea hen", which is a lot closer in size to a capon or a turkey.

Sounds like a linguistic/cultural boo-boo.

Re:Volcano question

[bokmann]

I also believe that the cooling rock is acting as an insulator itself... Just as it can be warm inside of an igloo.

The rock in immediate contact with the leaves transfers its heat into the leaves and the chicken, but that heat is not enough to cook it quickly. Tha t'cooler' layer of the rock serves as an insulator for the chicken. The rock on the outside is still giving up heat to the air (more slowly did to the chicken inside), so it still feels hot.

-db

Re:Volcano question

[bmwm3nut]

not to be nit picky, but you do have the right idea about heat flow...but specific heat is the wrong term...specific heat deals with the ability of something to hold heat, not transfer it...the actual definition of specific heat is in units of energy per degree of temperature...

example: water has a very high specific heat (1 calorie per degree (per kilogram)) that means that it takes a bunch of energy (1 calorie) to heat up a gram of water 1 degree. or conversely, you can store a lot of energy in water without raising the temperature....metals have a low specific heat, that it adding just a little bit of energy to a metal will raise the temperature a bunch.

what you were referring to is just the heat condictivity of lava, which when hardened on the outside is quite low.

Re:Volcano question

[Anonymous Coward]

C3P0 - "Oh, they've encased the chicken in carbonite! It should be quite well protected."

Re:Volcano question

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummmm...aren't they just using the rocks like coals and using a wood fire as their heat source? A la a clambake?

Re:Volcano question

[EnderWiggnz]

not to be even more nitpicky,

but you are referring to a kilocalorie - which is what the popular definition of a "Calorie" is anyway...

truly, a calorie is the amount of energy it takes to heat 1g H2o, 1 degree C ...

Re:Volcano question

[Anonymous Coward]

How was this post rated a 5?

"Superheating" is an unstable thermodynamic state that will return to stability upon the slightest of provocation. It is not a great "marking point" in the solubility of olefins. Fats are a diverse bunch. Also, the "critical point" as I learned it, is ~4C, and is the point at which the solid, liquid and gaseous states of water are in thermodynamic equilibrium at standard pressure. This again has nothing to do with the solubility of olefins in the water.

Where's the window ... I want to throw Science out.

Re:Volcano question

[foxtrot]

BTW -- I wanna try that!

Hell yeah!

I want to try it with fish, though. Many fish that are tasty as sashimi work really well cooked rare-- the inside is, well, basically still sashimi and the outside is a cooked fish, and getting them both in the same bite is really excellent-- and the way to do it is basically to use stupid-hot cooking so you sear the outside and have the inside still raw.

2000 degrees of lava sounds like the ultimate way to do this...

-JDF

Re:Volcano question

[jonadab]

> I'd bet $50 that if you wrapped the chicken in a dozen layers of
> dry aluminum foil instead of wet leaves it would be burned to a
> crisp.

I believe you're right about that, unless a "shovel full" of lava
is a lot less than I expect. Water is pretty amazing stuff -- like
magic if you don't understand the chemistry behind it. What goes on
is, first the water is raised from ambient temperature to boiling
(this will happen almost immediately), absorbing a small amount of
heat. Then the water goes from liquid to vapour, which will take
longer and absorb _considerably_ more heat, without raising the
actual temperature. Some of the steam will escape, as the original
question noted, but not all of it. That which doesn't continues to
absorb yet more heat as the temperature rises. It's that middle
part, where heat is absorbed while the temperature remains constant,
that works the magic.

There are some other notable points. The lava has already cooled
sufficiently to not damage the shovel, so it's borderline on solid
already. Then it gets carried away from the actual flow, which
gives it a chance to cool further, before the cooking process is
begun. It _is_ only a couple of shovelfuls, as has been noted, and
so while it may be pretty hot initially, the amount of heat energy
it can emmanate is limited, proportional to the mass. Compare that
to an oven, which has a continuous supply of incoming energy that
it draws from the power grid, warming everything inside the oven to
the temperature you set the oven to. With the shovelful of lava,
the chicken will not reach the temperature that the lava starts at,
or even close to it. Being insulated by the steam, it is unlikely
even to reach the final temperature of the lava (asserted to be
450F by the original question).

It still doesn't sound possible to me, but I don't know enough
about the lava in question, in terms of what kind of rock it is,
the amount of heat energy it can hold, how well it transmits heat,
and so on to rule it out as the interviewee has done. This
really is a question for a chemist, not a cook, because it's the
physical properties of the rock that really need to be explained,
not the way chicken cooks.

Re:Volcano question

[Suppafly]

That link doesn't tell how to cook on lava.. they are basically making a fire and using the heated ground and hot rocks to do the cooking.. the first reply to his actually has a link with lava cooking as described in the question.

Re:Volcano question

[bmwm3nut]

you're right...i always get that mixed up..the food calorie is 1000 regular calories....i usually stick with si (or atomic units for my molecular simulation), so i just remember 4.184J/g-degree-K

Re:Volcano question

[coolerthanmilk]

The superheating you are talking about is for a liquid. That is a metastable state and doesn't have much to do with olefin solubility. In that you are correct. The triple point is where solid, liquid and gaseous states are in thermodynamic equilibrium, not the critical point, and because of the way things are, you cannot specify a temperature at a specific pressure for it because it is only a single point for a pure component with a specific temperature and pressure (for water, it's 0.01 C and 0.00604 atm). The critical point is basically the point above which liquid and vapor become indistinguishable. Above the critical temperature, you can modify the pressure all you want and never see a phase change.

I'm talking about superheating a vapor (or fluid, or gas, or whatever you feel most comfortable calling anything above the critical point). Once a vapor is heated beyond the saturation point, it is considered superheated. To pass the critical point with water, you superheat it a lot. Above the critical point it is a supercritical fluid which in the case of water has interesting properties, very different from subcritical water as far as solublility goes. The critical temperature of water is just above 705 F. Since the lava was reportedly at around 2000 at the beginning, it's possible the steam gets that hot.

Disclaimer: It's just an idea I threw out of something that's possible. I'm not saying it's definite. I am a thermodynamicist, but I don't work in the food processing industries where they take advantage of this with water, I am just familiar with it in a cursory way.

Re:Volcano question

[motardo]

tell that to my Easy-Bake Oven :) pshaw! silly convection!

Re:Volcano question

[SLiK812]

This site you provided has nothing to do with cooking with lava fresh from a volcano. Imu pits use lava rocks from a beach (which is lava that has cooled into rocks) and heated red hot with regular wood. A pig wrapped in banana or Ti leaves, and stuffed with some of the hot lava rocks is placed on top of these rocks, covered with more leaves, a tarp, and a load of dirt. I think the guy with the fresh lava is kind of doing the same thing, but it seems pretty insane regardless.

Re:Volcano question

[nelsonal]

You could also try the alternative hawaiian cooking method of heating rocks which are placed in a pit, with a pig also wrapped in Ti leaves(pronounced like Tea), buried and left to roast for a few hours. Its makes very moist and delicious roast pig. I don't know if you could do it with pork chops, but a whole tenderloin might work if you aren't feading a luau size crowd.

Re:Volcano question

[fratermus]

Looks to me like they're cooking in a wood pit.

Re:Volcano question

[boomer_rehfield]

This is the same principle behind brick pizza ovens. The fire isn't in there to cook the pizza, it's to heat the zone and they're usually started a long time before cooking any pizzas.

Re:Volcano question

[evilpenguin]

Yeah. I get all my science from Star Wars.

"Great movie, by the way. Very scientific."
-- Dr. Science (on John Carpenter's "The Thing")

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[Ratface]

http://www.dolphinbayhilo.com/cook.html

That was the one!

I love Good Eats, but I am a bit disappointed.

[veddermatic]

Maybe it was the questions, but I was really looking forward to a good, long read....

I'm being selfish, but damnit, I wanted PAGES of answers!!!! =)

Re:I love Good Eats, but I am a bit disappointed.

[AtariDatacenter]

I agree with you. And where Alton said he was rambling, I think he made something that barely passed as a minimum answer. I didn't like the volcano answer very much. I'm just guessing that he didn't give this a best effort. :(

Re:I love Good Eats, but I am a bit disappointed.

[Zathrus]

Same... probably because he often seems prolific in what's only a 30 minute show (which is 22-24 minutes of actual air time).

But we've also been spoiled by a few of the recent interviews that have been very, very long and prosaic.

Re:I love Good Eats, but I am a bit disappointed.

[SWroclawski]

Yes, there's also the time:word ratio...

The questions that were asked were usually no less than two or three paragraphs. They were carefully worded, open ended and often multifaceted.

Alton's answers were about two sentences each and only addressed a part of the question.

The answers would have been fine if:

1) This were not an interview (rather than a response to a personal email).

2) We didn't already know he could write (based on his books).

3) He hadn't taken more than three weeks to answer the questions presented to him.

The answers seemed hurried at best, and more than a little terse to the point of being curt. I feel like I'm taking more time to write this comment than he did to write his interview questions. :)

I hate to flame Alton, since he was nice enough to do the interview, but I think I'm actually more disapointed with these answers than I was before the interview.

- Serge Wroclawski

Re:I love Good Eats, but I am a bit disappointed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't the guy just write a book? There you will find PAGES of good reading.

Re:I love Good Eats, but I am a bit disappointed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your right! He should never have to write AGAIN!

Re:I love Good Eats, but I am a bit disappointed.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want pages and pages of Alton Brown's words and wisdom, go buy the book!

Re:I love Good Eats, but I am a bit disappointed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee...
His answers didn't meet our standards. How dare he! Get your own shows folks, write your own books, and then let's see how you handle web interviews...

Trichinosis

[The Ape With No Name]

Hog feed has little to do with it. Cooking the hog feed does. Societies where hogs are fed uncooked slop experience higher rates of trichinosis, while those that boil hog slop do not see trichinosis at all. Break a link in the parasite's path to a host and incidence of the parasite diminishes. Pretty simple and exactly what cooking the pork to at least 137F does.

Re:Trichinosis

[jcw2112]

Hog feed has little to do with it. Cooking the hog feed does.

so cooking the hog feed has nothing to do with the quality of the hog feed? um...or hog feed has little to do with cooking the hog feed? wha?

Re:Trichinosis

[Darkfred]

Why the hell is this off topic? Did the moderator actually read the article?

Shame on you stupid pasty faced geek.

Re:Trichinosis

[The Ape With No Name]

In order to stop trichinosis from passing from host to host, you have to cook the food either fed to the host or the cook the food made from the host to stop the trichnosis. So if you eat a hog that has trichnosis because it was fed uncooked slop, and you get trichnosis. Subsequently, if you get eaten by something that doesn't cook you then that something will get trichnosis.

Bears in the Southeast US eat the occasional feral hog. People in the Southeast hunt bear and occasionally eat the bear. Poorly cooked bear meat is a well-known vector of trichnosis.

Re:Trichinosis

[Anonymous Coward]

Just finished a serv safe course myself and the National Restaurant Association does recommend 140F. It is totally safe and many restaurants are now serving American Pork at a medium rare temp as well...
just my $.02

Re:Trichinosis

[corey_lawson]

commercially raised pigs in the US and Canada are not fed "slop" in the US any more, but grain-based feeds. Any animal-based protein in it has probably been "hydrolized" (steamed), because it's animal byproduct. Also, because their food tends to be so concentrated, their poop is also more concentrated (smells like shit and is pretty acidic. Yes, there is "good" shit, too, but it's all relative. If you live in dairy country, where the cows get to spend a lot of time in pastures, not California feed lots, their manure is less hostile to the nose. It's still shit, but I'd take living near a dairy farm than a hog or chicken farm. Oh, wait. I already have done that).

Can't say about your typical small pig operation, though.

Re:Trichinosis

[Slime-dogg]

So... Essentially it is a quality of feed issue.

Cooking the feed will cause the feed to be of a higher quality, because it does not contain the parasite. Also possible is that the feed never did contain the parasite.

I'll bet that there is little, if any, parasitic presence in the uncooked slop, and then it's probably cooked for good measure.

Re:Trichinosis

[nelsonal]

Up here the daries are all just slightly better smelling than the feedlots the cows are concentrated in a small area, and fed hay. Not to mention that one of the most common methods of waste disposal is to spray it on fields as fertilizer. Its still weird to me to see a nice green field with brown liquid leaving all the sprinklers. The better smelling areas are the beef operations that keep the cows in a pasture until butchering time.

Re:Trichinosis

[The Ape With No Name]

"Feed" in the developed world sense is commercially bought cooked kibbles. "Feed" in the rest of the world (and in not-so-long-ago America) is slop. Slop is not homogeneous and is often includes meats, feces, dirt, plant matter, etc. It is cooked to prevent disease. Just becuase someone doesn't have a computer doesn't mean they can't cope. Often the inverse is true.

Re:Trichinosis

[The Ape With No Name]

AHHHHHHHHH! Read my reply. This is not the point. Of course hog feed is cooked now in States and Canada and primarily made of grain (and hormones and animal byproducts). It is cooked for various reasons. When you HAD to cook pig food ( slopping ) it was done so to prevent disease. This isn't a GRE reading comprehension test.

Question?

[jhunsake]

Really, that's all? very? interesting?.

*gasp*

[FortKnox]

Alton Brown vs. Chairman Kaga?

It'll be the battle of the century! STUFF THAT YELLOW PEPPER DOWN HIS THROAT!

LOL! Thanks for the reply Alton!

Re:*gasp*

[unicron]

I saw the "Futurama" the other where Bender went up against the Iron Chef, and at the end the Chairman goes "Domo Arigoto, Mr. Roboto"..easily one of the funniest scenes ever in that show.

Re:*gasp*

[mrv]

That would be interesting, as Takeshi Kaga is just an actor playing the role of the head of Kitchen Stadium...

I still have problems watching Iron Chef, as I'm too used to Kaga from his previous stage career... He was the first Jesus in the Original Tokyo Cast production (and recording - I have the CD) of Jesus Christ Superstar back in 1976, besides also doing West Side Story in 1977 and Les Miserables in 1994...

See his brief writeup from FoodTV if you don't believe that he's just an actor: http://www.foodtv.com/celebrities/takeshibio/0,340 6,,00.html

(i.e. AB could easly whip Kaga at a cookoff, but Kaga would probably beat AB at a singing contest!)

Re:*gasp*

[FortKnox]

Yeah, I'm familiar with his history.

Its why people had such a hard time believing Shatner was some cooking god in Iron Chef USA.

I think Alton Brown is more interested in a wrestling/boxing match than a cookoff ;-)

Did anyone else hear Alton in their head?

[bgarland]

When reading this, I couldn't help but hear the voice of AB in my head, reciting the answers in the same way he delivers the little tidbits of info on "Good Eats"... weird.

Ben

Re:Did anyone else hear Alton in their head?

[schon]

When reading this, I couldn't help but hear the voice of AB in my head, reciting the answers in the same way he delivers the little tidbits of info on "Good Eats"

Yup.. me too.. (Course maybe it helped that I just watched the salad episode..)

Re:Did anyone else hear Alton in their head?

[matt4077]

Maybe you should re-read the part where he talkes about little brown mushrooms...

Re:Did anyone else hear Alton in their head?

[penginkun]

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! I tell ya, it's SPOOKY!

Re:Did anyone else hear Alton in their head?

[NeuroKoan]

I also got the theme song playing in my head while he is speaking :)

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[Anonymous Coward]

So we've got a link showing that it is possible, and a quote from Alton saying that it's not.

"That recipe is purely theoretical..." -Alton Brown.

Slashdot, making the theoretical possible since 1998...

Not Offtopic

[henben]

He's talking about a point raised in the interview.

9) Cooking In Lava

[scaramush]

I thought this guy's claim to cooking fame was that he used a scientific approach? What's wrong with this picture?

Scientist 1: I have a phenomenon I don't understand and I want your opinion on it.

Scientist 2: Your data doesn't match up with mine. Therefore I will discredit you by suggesting you take drugs.

Scientist 1: But I have reproducible results!

Scientist 2: Nope, sorry. Talk to the hand, crack smoker.

I understand a lot of /.'ers respect this guy, but I'm not too impressed with this answer.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Wiseazz]

I have to admit that I, too, was intellectually blue-balled by his answer.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Reality Master 101]

Well, while the answer was a bit abrupt, but I think it was like a physicist trying to answer: "Why is it I can hold a hot steel ball that is 2000 degrees without getting burned?" The answer is "You can't".

In other words, the problem isn't with the laws of physics, the problem is with the questioner's data. Obviously the internal temperature of his make-shift oven isn't 2000 degrees.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[_Neurotic]

I'm a bit miffed by his answer as well but I can understand how it went wrong. Alton is probably pretty busy (like most celebrity types) and frankly couldn't spend the time researchiing a proper answer to the poster's question.

Where he went wrong, IMHO, is that he simply dismissed the poster instead of just saying, "Wow, I have no freaking idea how that could be done and I would love to see it in action."

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[GlassUser]

I think that's the key. The actual heating element in your conventional oven is probably about 2000 degrees (note I have never tested this), though the ambient temperature is more like a few hundred. Same thing with chicken and lava.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[blank]

some guy on slashdot says "hi, i have cooked chickens in lava. here are my facts." and it's suppose to be taken as fact at face value? i can agree that he could have given a more diplomatic answer but in real life i think i would have used harsher words.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[StoryMan]

I suspect that if you kill the chickens first, it'll take much less 45 minutes.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Anne_Nonymous]

He thinks the poster is pulling his leg.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[consumer]

I'm guessing it's the banana leaves that make it take so long. When they put the chicken into an oven, they don't wrap it in wet banana leaves. That's probably lowering the temperature in the chicken considerably.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[squaretorus]

Quite right. The insulation of multiple layers of banana leaves will create a steep temp gradient within the 'rock' leading to an oven like temp within the banana leave packages.

This is a common practice with Aga style ovens - you put everything into a hot oven, you wrap anything that needs a low oven in multiple layers of foil / leaves.

This guy is an ass!

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah...
He talks like that in his show! It's his way or no way and I love it. Some of the things on his show I don't agree with but I still love the show and the majority of what goes on there.

Cooking in lava? Get a fuckin oven.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Zinho]

I hope a website with color pictures of the process would be proof enough for you... If you don't want to keep an open mind, at least keep it well ventilated. ;)

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Anonymous Coward]

Alton's answer was right on the mark. If you don't believe it, try cooking your next game hen (wrapped in banana leaves if you like), steak, hamburger, veggie lasagna, "Friday Special" casserole ..., whatever, at 2000F for 45 minutes and see how it turns out. Then again, if I had some little brown mushrooms growing on my property, I might see things differently. ;-)

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[crisco]

Yeah but he says he uses kevlar gloves and the guy on the website isn't wearing any gloves. There goes his credibility right there...

Seriously though, don't some volcanic eruptions involve poisonous gasses? Couldn't that poison the lava cooked meal?

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Well, while the answer was a bit abrupt,

Good job you're not prone to that trait then!

but I think it was like a physicist trying to answer: "Why is it I can hold a hot steel ball that is 2000 degrees without getting burned?"

Yeah, it's dead like that, except he wasn't holding it, it wasn't a steel ball, and he wore gloves.

The answer is "You can't".

Oh? And you've tried this I take it?

I mean come on. There's lots going on here:

a) what's the heat conductivity of lava? Not nearly as high as a steel ball.

b) the leaves and the food are going to steam. Steam forms a good insulating layer, meaning little heat will reach the food. In an oven this steam is removed by vents.

c) the heat capacity of the food is likely to be higher than the rock. Don't forget that water has one of the higher heat capacities, and food is usually mostly water by weight.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[PD]

Something else not considered. In your oven a relatively small amount of the water is going to boil off the chicken. In the Lava, a large amount of water is going to boil, especially from the wet bannana leaves.

All that boiling water is known as steam and steam carries a lot of energy. So much energy in fact that it can drive a steam locomotive. Anyway, the escape of steam is what's carrying away all that extra heat from the cooking bird.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[phriedom]

Perhaps the suspicion of mind-altering substances has nothing to do with the data, and is a comment on the very idea of risking life and limb to cook with lava.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[RobertNotBob]

Scientist 2: Nope, sorry. Talk to the hand, crack smoker.

I know that the names have been hidden to protect the innocent, but I'm pretty sure I've met Scientist 2

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the page?
The guy scooping the Lava does not need gloves.
The one who places the chicken onto the lava and holds it in place while the other starts scooping the top layer onto the chicken is the guy who needs the gloves.
They even have a link to where you can buy the gloves.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Zinho]

don't some volcanic eruptions involve poisonous gasses? Couldn't that poison the lava cooked meal?

You've got a good point there. [sarcasm]Maybe the people who live there only build their houses near the non-toxic lava flows? But then, you'd think that they'd maybe move to a slightly less-active island...[/sarcasm]

I'm willing to give the guy with the web site the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's avoiding flows where he starts getting dizzy or nauseated from sniffing the fumes. I'd also be willing to guess that anyone who spends significant amounts of time around active volcanoes either 1) understands the risks and takes safety measures, or 2) quickly becomes a Darwin award nominee.

That doesn't, however, rule out the possibility of this guy trying out for the Darwins ;)

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe not 2000 degrees but:

http://www.wiley.com/college/phy/halliday320005/pd f/leidenfrost_essay.pdf

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[mbmusgrove]

In his defense, I believe he tries to explain what transpires when cooking in a scientific, or at least academic manner to your everyday Joe Sixpack and Jane Housecoat. But remember, he went to to the New England Culinary Institute, not MIT. He's a chef, not a scientist. Or culinary anthropoligist.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[nelsonal]

The explosions do, but I think the lave is collected a ways from the emission zone. Since you would have to be able to get close enough to the lava to scoop it out without melting, and scientists who study volcanoes usually have reflective suits on when they get near the cone. Also the steam that is emmitted from the chicken and leaves are likely to keep any toxic gasses from entering the bird while it is cooking. Similar to secure biotech labs being kept at pressures slightly different from earths atmosphere to prevent contamination. Finally most big islanders who live near enough to the volcano to cook in this fashion regularly are likely to be pretty familiar with the risks they are taking.

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[blank]

okay, as someone who likes fire and cooking, that is neat. and since it's on a webpage i have to believe that it's true!

Re:9) Cooking In Lava

[ElectricRook]

I don't have either cable or satellite tv, so I've not seen very much of his show. But I am starting to become dis-illusioned with all "showmen". They have a schtick, and when that wears thin, there is nothing left but the substance. And if that ain't much...

Same with Martin Yan (Yan Can Cook) with his monogramed cleavers for sale. Although when Martin travels to Viet Nam, and watches a family cook over a fire in a bamboo hut. With chickens, pigs, and kids running around outside, it's a bit more interesting.

Thanks!

[xy]

Thanks Alton! I'm a big fan of your show, and the interview was fun to read. Also, I think you should really have a go at that Iron Chef thing ;-)

Wise Words

[Copperhead]

"All [replacing of fat] does is lead to dissatisfaction and I think that dissatisfaction results in overeating."

Very wise words. I remember hearing Julia Child saying that the reason obesity is becoming such a problem is because of fat has become taboo in cooking. It's the fat in foods that make us feel full and keep us full longer. Generally, people who eat excusively low fat foods at their main meals are those who have the most trouble keeping from snacking between meals.

I've gone from eating low fat meals and snacks to eating "sensibly", and I really am a lot less hungry, even though I'm eating less.

My rules to live by... if you're hungry, drink a glass of water, avoid eating after dinner, and never, ever eat before bed.

Re:Wise Words

[Lumpish Scholar]

I remember hearing Julia Child saying that the reason obesity is becoming such a problem is because of fat has become taboo in cooking.

And never use the "m-word"* to her. She's been known to say, "You don't have to use butter in this dish ... [wink] you can use cream instead."

Generally, people who eat excusively low fat foods at their main meals are those who have the most trouble keeping from snacking between meals

I agree with Ms. Child and Mr. Brown that "fats satisfy.... they keep us fuller longer"; but I think the extent to which people "snack" has a lot to do with how they're wired, above the neck and below. It's not so much a matter of having enough will power, but more a matter of how much or how little will power you need to have in order to deal with what your body does.

*Margarine.

Re:Wise Words

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that simple. It really depends on who you are. Some people gets big, others don't. I always eat between meals, and I eat fat.
Hey, I even eat before bed every day.

I weight 65 kg for 1,80m.

The thing is, we aren't born to weight the same. Eat good food (yes, you're right, fat food), do some exercise, and don't eat when you're not hungry, even if that chocolat looks good. You'll eventually be at your weigth, whatever it is. Maybe it'll be 60kg, maybe 100kg. We aren't all born to be slim.

Eat what your hunger says, and don't confuse hunger with stress, excitment, or what else. You body knows what it needs, you just need to learn to listen to it. A lot of people eats more when they are stressed. It's not that they're more hungry, it's just that they confuse hunger and stress. Same with people stopping cigarets.

Learn to listen to your hunger, to not confuse it, and, eventually, you'll be at the right weight. And the right weight is YOUR weigth, and it'll be different from the guy next door.

A lot of people get fat because they don't know how to eat, and begin seeing food as something to be careful about. It's wrong. Food is something you need when your body tells you so, and don't need when it tells you to stop. Simple as that.

Re:Wise Words

[jamesoutlaw]

I've found it's better to eat 6 (or more) small meals throughout the day- each meal totalling 300 to 600 calories. I eat a little something every 2 or 3 hours throughout the day and never get hungry- of course, it annoys my cubicle neighbors, who think I eat all the time and wonder why I am not the size of a whale :)

I think that your quote from Julia Child is right on track. I remember when low fat "snack foods" became really really popular in the early 90's- snackwells, baked potato chips, etc People would think that because it was low fat, they could eat all they wanted... I remember a friend of mine holding up a bag of Baked Tostito's Tortilla chips and exclaiming gleefully that there was only "1.5 grams of fat in the whoooooole" bag... then she promptly proceeded to eat the entire bag- completely ignoring the fact that it still contained about 1,000 (or more) calories.

It's ok to include a little fat in your diet, but as long as you don't over do it, you'll be just fine.

I eat a lot of low fat meals, but the majority of the fat I consume comes from olive oil or "fatty" fish like salmon.... the so-called "good fats".

Re:Wise Words

[ryanvm]

My rules to live by... if you're hungry, drink a glass of water, avoid eating after dinner, and never, ever eat before bed.

I never have bought this one. Sleeping is exactly what most carnivores do after eating. Have you ever seen a fat tiger? Besides, in today's sedentary society, many people are hardly more active during the day then they are asleep. Why should someone not eat before bed just to eat at 8:00 AM and sit at a desk for 9 hours?

The unfortunate truth is that The Man Show had it right with the amazing new "Stop Eating So Much Diet". Seriously, it's called "caloric restriction" and not only will you lose weight, you'll live longer (up to 150% longer in lab animals).

[*Me kisses my karma goodbye as I'm modded into oblivion by thick-fingered Slashdotters.]

Re:Wise Words

[jdreed1024]

Amen to that. The fact that the person who asked the question included an exclamation point next to "bacon grease" shows that they're just another victim of cuilinary brainwashing. The FDA, Surgeon General, and all these other people can't make up their minds as to what's good and what's bad. All they need to do is use common sense.

Yes, bacon grease is bad for you, if you chug a whole 20 oz bottle of it every day. However, it's the only way to get fried eggs crispy on the outside and still soft on the inside. Heck, I still use lard to prepare some dishes, but there is no subsitute for it. However, if you use a tablespoon of it, it won't kill you.

Substitutes are a waste of time. I'd venture that if you drank nothing but skim milk, and ate nothing but margarine, and snacked on nothing but aspartame, you'd probably die an early death too. If you want a desert dish, but don't want the cream and sugar that's in chocolate mousse, than don't make chocolate mousse. Have an apple instead or something.

Re:Wise Words

[schon]

I think the extent to which people "snack" has a lot to do with how they're wired, above the neck and below.

Actually, I read an interersting study (sorry, no link available) that measured brain activity during eating...

It seems that fat people have more activity in the brain's pleasure centre when they eat.. which suggested that food might simply "taste better" to them. If so, it follows that they might have a harder time limiting their food intake.

Re:Wise Words

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so with that. The only problem is the rest of the world isn't engineered socially to deal with us 6-meal/day eaters. And the prep/cleanup time for a lot of meals has a high floor.

Got any strategies for this? I do a lot of half-eating. half a sandwich now, other half later. But on the whole, it's not the best. Plus, when you go to restaurants, they give you these friggin' huge bowls of pasta, and if you don't eat it all, people are all, "you eat like a bird". Fuck that, I'm gonna eat again in two hours.

Re:Wise Words

[Kintanon]

Here's the deal on eatting, sleeping, and how your metabolism reacts to combinations of the above.

If you eat 2-3 large meals (most people eat a big lunch and a big dinner/supper and nothing much else) then your metabolism will start to operate slower. It will store more food for periods between meals and you won't burn calories as quickly as if you eat many small meals.

If you eat 5-6 small meals (200-300 calories each) over the day your metabolism never stops. You continue burning calories almost non-stop. If you want to lose weight, this is the best way to do it, reduce your calorie intake by eatting more small meals. And ALWAYS eat a snack before bed. that keeps your metabolism going while you are asleep and helps you burn more calories. You can really live just fine on 1800 calories per day and lose weight until you balance out. If you build muscle, you'll need more calories. And if you want to build muscle you'll need to eat more protein. But that's a whole different subject.
The bottom line is, if you want to lose weight, eat 5-6 small meals each day, make sure you eat as soon as you wake up, then every 3 hours or so until you go to bed. Make sure the snacks are relatively healthy (granola bars, etc...) avoid foods with simple sugars like soda and candy. And do 20-30 minutes of light aerobic excersise everyday, walking is fine. If you do more intense aerobics you can do 5-10 minutes per day instead. (jogging on a treadmill at 7mph for 5-10 minutes, doing jumping jacks for 5-10 minutes, jumping rope, and most excersise machines fit under this category) I don't know of any body types that don't respond to this particular treatment IF they stick to it. And I've worked with a lot of people to help them get in shape and lose weight.

Kintanon

Re:Wise Words

[TobyWong]

Don't worry about the thick fingered mods, their hands are so greasy they can't hang on to their mouse...

Re:Wise Words

[sammy baby]

Damn straight. I made the mistake of putting myself on the Atkins diet. During the intial induction phase (which is supposed to last two weeks), you're to consume less than 20 grams of carbohydrates per day, but can otherwise eat pretty much what you want (although most diet sodas are considered bad too - apparently, they can trigger insulin reactions similarly to non-diet sodas). Atkins insists that it is impossible to feel "deprived" on this diet.

Lemmee tell you something: I felt deprived. Not hungry, mind, but definitely deprived. I would have killed your grandmother for a piece of Wonder Bread.

I did manage to lose weight in the - oh, four days I managed to stay on the stupid diet, but that's mostly because I was eating less in total, not because I'd entered ketosis. I was cranky all the time.

These days, I eat slowly, but eat pretty much what I want, and make a concerted effort to stop when I'm not actually hungry anymore. I'm in better shape than I've been in years. In the end, that's just about the best advice I can give anyone.

Re:Wise Words

[SerialHistorian]

"Have you ever seen a fat tiger?"

No, but I've never seen Joe Sixpack chase a zebra and kill it with his teeth, either.

Re:Wise Words

[dasmegabyte]

My rules to live by... if you're hungry, drink a glass of water, avoid eating after dinner, and never, ever eat before bed. Are you a mogwai?

Re:Wise Words

[Quixote]

Have you ever seen a fat tiger?

Have you ever seen how much a tiger has to bust his ass to get a meal? If s/he becomes fat, no more meals and its slim city for El Tigre.

Re:Wise Words

[Quill_28]

Yes, but a tiger's goal in life is to become fat. They never do out in the wild, because they have to hunt for all their food.

Re:Wise Words

[SquadBoy]

Margarine is *evil*. http://atkinscenter.com/helpatkins/faqs/faqfood/fa qWhyismargarinetobeavoided.html

Re:Wise Words

[foobar104]

Yeah, the thing about the Atkins (or is it Adkins? I forget) diet is that you're trying to drastically change your metabolism. You can succeed, too. But if you ever go off of it, you'll be far worse off than you were before you started.

For a while, the Atkins diet was very big in the community of young doctors that I spend most of my social time with. It was always fun to listen to them talk about how they're peeing out ketones and proteins and all of this incredibly unhealthy stuff just so they can keep a 32-inch (or 24-inch, for the girls) waistline. Insane.

Of course, when you're a doctor you eat very much like a predator anyway. You'll go without eating anything for long stretches-- 18, 24, 36 hours-- and then you'll gorge yourself at a drug rep dinner and go right to sleep.

Re:Wise Words

[crawling_chaos]

Yes, bacon grease is bad for you, if you chug a whole 20 oz bottle of it every day.

Great. I hope nobody from Frito-Lay's reading Slashdot. Otherwise, we may have a new snackfood phenomenon on our hands. If they'll market Pop-Rocks, they'll try anything.

Re:Wise Words

[cmpalmer]

Ditto on the richness (often due to fats) and overeating bit.

If I don't watch it, I will gorge myself on stir fry, pasta, red meat, etc. The other night I cooked Alton Brown's Beef Stroganoff recipe.

This was not a high fat recipe, but it did use a total of about 3-4 tablespoons of butter and a bit less oil and a lot of stew beef browned in seasoned flour. It develops a dark and very rich wine and beef broth sauce/gravy to which you stir in about 4 tablespoons of sour cream at the end. Plus about a pound of mushrooms and some garlic and onions. Yum.

All in all, this was one of the best meals I have ever cooked and my family agreed. As good as it was, I barely finished one plate of it (but that was fine, I had plenty of leftovers). I've never been so full from a meal.

Re:Wise Words

[jholzer]

My secret to not getting overweight.
I eat when I'm hungry and stop eatting when I'm not.
The 5-10 hours of exercise a week probably helps a little also.

Re:Wise Words

[jamesoutlaw]

I almost never eat out during the week, so I don't have to deal with that too much. When I do, I try to order something small... I agree, though, it's a problem at times.

On a daily basis, I usually bring a bunch of food with me to work and eat it at my desk while I am working (there are no problems with me doing that here, but some places kind of frown on eating at your desk). A lot of the time I eat sandwiches during the day- I make a couple in the morning when I am fixing breakfast. Also, I eat a lot of protein bars and things like that when I don't have time to fix something special. I *really* like the Myoplex Delux bars from EAS- they've got about 340 calories, and about 24 grams of protein in them, with 40-something grams of carbohydrates. They can be kind of expensive if you buy them individually, but I usually buy a couple of boxes of them at a time from http://netrition.com - that's cheaper than buying stuff like that from GNC or your local health food/grocery store. The nice thing about them is that they taste good- and good-tasting protein bars are hard to find. I used to eat the ones from MetRX, but I just got to the point where I could not stand hte taste and the texture of them. The Zone Perfect protein bars are pretty good, but they are a little too sweet for my taste- I think they have about 240 calories and 14 grams of protein (off hand i can not remember the carb content) There are a number of other brands, but the ones from EAS are better than any of the others I have tried.

I stay away from meal replacement shakes though, they are too much trouble- you have to have a blender around or a shaker bottle that you have to wash, etc... and they are not as filling as the equivalent protein bar.

Re:Wise Words

[stephanruby]

In the past two months, I've lost 32 pounds, I've lowered my cholesterol to normal levels, and I've increased my daily energy consistently. And all of this, I did by eating two eggs a day (yolk included), eating at least one portion of protein at each meal, drinking plenty of water and unsweetened pure cranberry juice, drinking a table spoon of flaxseed oil in the morning and at night, cutting out sugar (such as fruit juices) and cafeine, limiting my intake of raw carbohydrates (such as bread), and replacing all those carbohydrates with vegetable carbohydrates. See more...

Re:Wise Words

[Slime-dogg]

I'll cite "What if it's all a big fat lie" from the NYTimes. I'd post a link, but you have to purchase some kind of archive pack, so screw that b.s.

Basically, your body functions better on ketones then it does on glucose. Ketones are not unhealthy at all, and your cells operate up to 20% more efficiently when you are in ketosis.

The Atkin's diet is not new, it was the diet that everyone had before the rise of agriculture. A society that has the sole source of food as a meat product usually has thinner people that tend to live longer.

Only when you introduce carbs, or anything with a high glycemic index (starches, sugars, etc.), do you run into incidence of diabetes and obesity.

Re:Wise Words

[tswinzig]

I never have bought this one. Sleeping is exactly what most carnivores do after eating. Have you ever seen a fat tiger?

Tigers have a good diet and run around on all fours during the day when they're not sleeping. Why would a tiger get fat?

Why should someone not eat before bed just to eat at 8:00 AM and sit at a desk for 9 hours?

Because when you're sleeping, your metabolism slows waaaaay down. This is why you will get fat if you eat meals right before you go to sleep.

Re:Wise Words

[ryanvm]

Have you ever seen how much a tiger has to bust his ass to get a meal? If s/he becomes fat, no more meals and its slim city for El Tigre.

Bingo. The end result is that meals are pretty hard to come by for the tiger and it therefore ends up eating less.

Re:Wise Words

[Anonymous Coward]

[*Me kisses my karma goodbye as I'm modded into oblivion by thick-fingered Slashdotters.]

Kind of like this.

Re:Wise Words

[Dixie_Flatline]

Moreover, low fat foods often have no fewer calories. For instance, low fat yoghurt is sweetened with sugar to cover up the lack of flavour from having no fat. Total calories are approximately the same, but the yoghurt isn't as satisfying. As well, it's likely to lead to an insulin spike, which prevents you from using stored fat as an energy source. (This is more of a concern if you're an athlete, however.)

Re:Wise Words

[ryanvm]

Because when you're sleeping, your metabolism slows waaaaay down. This is why you will get fat if you eat meals right before you go to sleep.

Slow metabolism is a good thing. That's the point of caloric restriction.

Again, the problem is eating too much.

Re:Wise Words

[jnd3]

It's the fat in foods that make us feel full and keep us full longer.

Ain't that the truth. Here's a neat trick: try some home made pasta. Beats the pants off the boxed stuff as far as flavor goes, and it takes about a third as much to make you full.

For a good 4-6 servings, mix up three eggs, two cups of semolina flour (or other pasta flour), and one cup of plain old white bread flour. You might need more or less flour depending on the size of the eggs. Knead it until it's nice and smooth. Run it through the pasta machine (what, you don't have a pasta machine? They're worth every penny!) and throw it in boiling water for about three minutes. Drain it, toss it in the sauce, and you're ready to go...

Re:Wise Words

[mdwebster]

My wife cooked the same thing the other night. Lots of leftovers, went through a total of two 1lb bags of egg noodles & quite a bit of rice finishing it all off over the next week ...

Recipe was badly worded though, it says to add the sour cream with the other stuff at the beginning then says to add it again at the end ... :P Came out OK though having added it at the beginning so no harm no foul ... :)

Re:Wise Words

[LinuxGeek]

but change it to "...kill it with his breath..." and I will disagree with you.

Re:Wise Words

[PainKilleR-CE]

Because when you're sleeping, your metabolism slows waaaaay down. This is why you will get fat if you eat meals right before you go to sleep.


Yet your body's metabolism and brain activity are higher when you're sleeping than when you're sitting watching TV (what a large portion of the population does after dinner if the ratings are to be believed). How many people do you see in an average office that look like they're more active than they are when they're watching TV at home?

Re:Wise Words

[djchristensen]

> Have you ever seen how much a tiger has to bust
> his ass to get a meal? If s/he becomes fat, no
> more meals and its slim city for El Tigre.

Not to mention the fact that the tigers that were prone to getting fat would not have survived evolution. We superior humans, on the other hand, can medically treat seriously obese people (and those with various other inherited conditions), allowing those genes to continue to propogate.

I am not advocating genetic cleansing by any means, just pointing out that many undesirable genetic traits are with us for good.

Re:Wise Words

[nelsonal]

I have heard of a study that suggested that there might be a gene, or combination that regulated how much heat we lose to cold weather. That heavier people generally burn fewer calories as heat, than skinnier people do. Which was assumed to be a good gene to have until we invented grocery stores and central heat, now it just makes us fat.

Re:Wise Words

[cmpalmer]

Yeah, we had the same problem with the sour cream. Adding it early makes it a bit cloudy, since the heat breaks it down. Great dish, though...

Re:Wise Words

[hey!]

I never have bought this one. Sleeping is exactly what most carnivores do after eating. Have you ever seen a fat tiger?

Ever see anybody who runs down their prey and kills it with the bare hands/claws/teeth get fat?

Re:Wise Words

[hanwen]

For a good 4-6 servings, mix up three eggs, two cups of semolina flour (or other pasta flour), and one cup of plain old white bread flour. You might need more or less flour depending on the size of the eggs.

Actually, Italian pasta with eggs is made with soft (the white fine-milled type) flour; 10 seconds of boiling should be enough. Serve with butter and/or cream based sauces.

Re:Wise Words

[Avumede]

No, the FDA & Surgeon General can in fact make up their mind. What is thought of as good for you today has not changed substantially in the last 50 years. The Food Pyramid is the same as ever.

Re:Wise Words

[Elwood P Dowd]

Tigers have to struggle for their existence. They have very good reasons for wanting to conserve as much energy as possible. Tigers should *want* to become fat, because then they would have more energy to screw and make baby tigers.

People do not have to struggle for their existence. We do not need to store fat, because we are guaranteed to be able to eat later.

Our core desires and behaviors have not changed since our operational environment was more like that of tigers. So we want to sleep when after we eat large meals so we can turn it into fat. Keep in mind that evolution isn't going to necessarily favor a very long life. If we lived to be 90 years old when we were still hunters, too much of the population would not be able to produce food.

Re:Wise Words

[ryanvm]

The reason that tigers (or any other carnivore) are not obese isn't because they exercise a lot, it's because their meals are pretty difficult to come by. Hence they eat less than they'd like to, and that is very different than what obese humans are doing.

Re:Wise Words

[Fjord]

The question is, though, are do they eat a lot because the food tastes better, or does the food taste better because they've eaten so much?

This assuming the activity actually has a causual relationship to their eating.

Re:Wise Words

[Darby]

"you eat like a bird". Fuck that, I'm gonna eat again in two hours.

Which is, more or less, how a bird eats.

Re:Wise Words

[boomer_rehfield]

believe it or not, those are the wisest words on these boards right now... How many people eat just to eat? How many ONLY eat when their stomach tells them they are hungry? Do you snack because it looks good? Would you brush off dinner if your stomach wasn't empty? Most people eat out of pure habit. People associate food with a time of day, not neccessarily how they are feeling. You look at the clock and see that it's 11:30, your mind registers that it's almost lunch time and you start thinking about food....

Re:Wise Words

[Enthrad]

I haven't seen a tiger do that either. :)

Re:Wise Words

[geekindustries]

it's called "caloric restriction [sciam.com]" and not only will you lose weight, you'll live longer (up to 150% longer in lab animals).

I saw a show on dateline (or some news program like that) a few weeks ago on caloric restriction. It all sounds pretty convincing. The lab animals are all living longer, and it seems that people following this program are also healthier and living longer. They say they have more energy and more strength. But have you SEEN these people? The one guy I saw looked like a freaking skeleton! Serious! He looked absolutely hideous.

So I guess you have a few choices in life. Eat sensibly and exercise....look good feel good (proven by great people like Alton). Don't eat sensibly or exercise....look bad but might feel good or bad about it. Or follow caloric restriction and exercise....look like a walking skeletion but live healthier and maybe 150% longer. Just my 2 cents.

Re:Wise Words

[OrcSlicer]

You just read _A_Week_in_the_Zone_, didn't you?

Re:Wise Words

[Kintanon]

Me? No. All of this stuff is what I learned from taking a few nutrition classes, talking to a couple of personal trainers for a few months, and from my experience with the hundreds of Martial Artists I've known over the last 8 years. I've never read a fad diet book...

Kintanon

Re:Wise Words

[spacey]

Being a vegeterian, I've chased down many a tomato and claimed the rights of the victor with my bare teeth, its flesh and juices staining my incisors and my throat.

So there :)

Re:Wise Words

[rustycage]

Hey, what's wrong with Pop Rocks you troll!!

Re:Wise Words

[ces]

Ugh, so called "energy" bars and drinks are among the worst things the US has done to food and eating. I really don't understand how people can eat these things, the average "energy" bar has about as much flavor and as pleasant a texture as a chocolate covered piece of drywall.

If I need to snack I buy a bag of baby carrots or some fruit. If I have time to prep at home I'll take a bunch of carrot and celery sticks with hommade peanut-butter or a homemade fruit salad.

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[Anonymous Coward]

So all it takes is an explaination and pictures to convince you?

You shouldn't be allowed to surf the net. Its a gullible persons paradise!

Lets see... trust the professional chef that has a specialty in the science of cooking, or some random guy on the net with pictures....

Mmmm...lard

[Bazzargh]

Alton: There are no bad foods, only bad food habits. I eat cream, butter, and bacon; I just don't eat pounds of it at a time...We like fats because fats satisfy.

Hmmm... reminds me of someone...

Next morning, the family tries to pry the bucket off Homer's noggin.

Bart: [tries to pull the bucket off, but fails] Sorry Dad, it just won't budge.
Marge: I tried greasing the bucket with bacon fat, but your father kept eating it.
Homer: Couldn't you try a non-delicious fat? [breaks down] Oh, there's no such thing!

Simpsons: Faith Off

Re:Mmmm...lard

[the way, what're you]

We like fats because fats satisfy.

Reminds me of someone too...

Re:Mmmm...lard

[i give up there are]

One of my family's most repeated Simpsons quotes: "Butter your bacon!" (We don't, really, although while eating out recently some of the whipped cream from my waffle ended up on the bacon, which had us in hysterics.)

Re:Mmmm...lard

[Lee Cremeans]

Don't forget Bart's Friend Falls In Love:

We take eighteen ounces of sizzling ground beef, and soak it in rich,
creamery butter, then we top it off with bacon, ham, and a fried egg.
We call it the Good Morning Burger.
-- Homer watches a television advertisement, ``Bart's Friend Falls in Love''

Lisa resolves, ``I've gotta help him.''

Vegetarian...

[ackthpt]

Inspired somewhat by the poll and Q #3 (which I feel he kinda weaseled on) I'll pass along a tid-bit of wisdom gleaned from experience:

If you are a vegetarian and participating in a potluck/buffet with non-vegetarians (this particularly if you are one of one or two) plan for more. As much as I've got a few views on eating animals, it's been exasperating to bring the only vegetarian dish and have non-veg people suddenly decide to try them and take all before you get a chance (or just keep a private stash in a container for yourself to guarrantee you eat!)

If you want to sell people on virtues of vegetarian dining, make good dishes to share. Beats the heck out of getting into debates. :o)

Re:Vegetarian...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to get into a religious war, but some of us meatatarians don't actually eat meat in every dish. For example, I frequently eat vegetarian salad, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese (it's cheese powder) and celery sticks. Sometimes, I put a huge piece of raw ground beef on a celery stick and eat it like a lollipop, but that's only once in a while.

Re:Vegetarian...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that... I notice the same phenomenon when there's only one veggie pizza and about 10 different ones with dead critters on them. Suddenly all the omnivores descend on the veggie one.

ps. Did you really think he would say anything more? It would kinda diminish his appeal to the non-vegetarian crowd. Sorta like Dubya admitting he was a closet vegetarian.

Re:Vegetarian...

[John Harrison]

Your advice reminds me of a common occurance in college. For dorm parties we were supposed to provide "equally attractive non-alcoholic beverages". The people buying beer would generally buy no-name soda and hardly anybody would drink it. I asked to be put in charge of the non-alcoholic beverages. I would buy a variety of juices, carbonated beverages, etc. Once I was in charge we ALWAYS ran out, while there was always leftover alcohol. Strangely this was never seen as evidence that the 5 to 1 budget discrepance was out of whack.

Re:Vegetarian...

[Buck2]

Sometimes, I put a huge piece of raw ground beef on a celery stick and eat it like a lollipop, but that's only once in a while.

You do that too? Our family always called those Meat Trees. Like, "Yay! Meat Trees for dinner! Yay!"

Re:Vegetarian...

[TobyWong]

Thanks for making me spill coffee on myself... jerk!

=P

Re:Vegetarian...

[ackthpt]

Interesting variation on the behavior. I suppose a qualified psycologist would be better to weigh in on why this happens than we amatures: Curiousity? Rebellion against peer (self imposed or external or both) pressure? Or simply what they'd prefer, despite what they normally consume?

I've got beyond the "just surviving" part of vegetarian diet, and am proceding well along inventing my own recipes and food combinations. This often results in cases like I posted. Similar we have a source, at work, of some high quality juices (Hansen's/Jarritos, i.e. better than generic sodas or Hawaiian Punch) and they go first during parties. I've even noticed people taking bottled water rather than name brand sodas, diet or regular.

Re:Vegetarian...

[BigChigger]

that's because normal people are OMNIVORES. They aren't CARNIVORES. Say it with me...

BC

Re:Vegetarian...

[ackthpt]

First, lemme say this, I'm not a vegetarian zealot. I eat veg because I like it (70%) good for my health (20%) good for the environment (10%), or something like that. I will respond in kind, however, to people who berate my choice of diet.

That out of the way...

I used to eat meat. I used to have a paper route and hit McD's at the end, where I'd chug 3 Big Mac's, 2 Lg Fries, a strawberry shake and a pie or two, then go home and eat dinner, back when I could make a mountain of food disappear faster than David Copperfield. Gradually I lost interest in meat, perfering to eat what I liked and finding less meat translated into more other stuff I liked. I'm pretty hooked on Gimme Lean soy sausage fried up with slices of polenta (fancy name for corn meal mush), no sausage ever tasted as good to me. Eventually it wasn't hard to become veg because I was heading in that direction out of personal taste.

A highschool friend used to eat hotdogs right out of the package, they're usually pre-cooked so no fear of getting bugs. It seemed weird at the time, but it's effectively a stick of balogna, eh?

Re:Vegetarian...

[dasmegabyte]

Oh, and if you're a vegetarian inviting your non-vegetarian friends to a potluck/buffet, make sure to cook up something with meat in it for us.

"Gross," you say? Not I. My wedding was meatless to appease my poseur vegetarian wife (a poseur vegetarian being someone who looks down a menu past all the delicious meat dishes and orders a boring vegetarian entree, despite not being a vegetarian. Or one who says "Ew, bacon!" and then eats it anyway. Or any "vegetarian" who eats chicken wings / fried catfish / filet mignon because they "miss it sometimes"). I invited four other vegetarians, all of whom really enjoyed themselves on some fantastic cusisine the caterers pulled out (frankly, I think they were excited to to have something to cook besides bland swedish meatballs and little wieners in shells). I thought the food was fantastic, but hardly anybody ate any of it. Of some 100 portions, nearly 60 were left at the end. My dad & some of my friends snuck out to a burger place midway through the reception.

Talk about embarrassing! Furthermore, people ate a lot more cake than they usually do -- meaning that there was only one slice left to save for the aniversary.

Meat satisfies, people, as much as I hate to admit it. If you can't stand cooking it, get somebody else to do it.

Re:Vegetarian...

[i give up there are]

That's odd. Do you happen to remember what the menu was?

I was a veggie for ten years, and more often than not our dinner guests didn't even realize we'd had a "vegetarian" meal. I mean, lasagna (with mushrooms, as long as nobody there is scared of fungus), salad, and garlic bread doesn't leave anybody hungry.

That said, there are plenty of unfilling and weird veggie dishes (summer squash tofu soufle, anyone?) out there.

Re:Vegetarian...

[Suppafly]

Meat satisfies, people, as much as I hate to admit it.

I agree totally. As a meat eater, I still often try non-meat dishes (olive garden makes some really good ones) but often find them lacking.. Halfway through eating a spaghetti dish that I didn't even know was meatless when I ordered it I kept thinking it would be better with some spicy sausage instead of just tomatos and peppers and such.

Re:Vegetarian...

[jefflinwood]

That's because they were using your non-alcoholic drinks as mixers! Nothing worse than no-name sodas for your mixed drinks.

Re:Vegetarian...

[PainKilleR-CE]

A highschool friend used to eat hotdogs right out of the package, they're usually pre-cooked so no fear of getting bugs. It seemed weird at the time, but it's effectively a stick of balogna, eh?

(depending on the hot dog, of course) It's usually less fat and has a better texture and flavour, too.

Re:Vegetarian...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a meat eater, I still often try non-meat dishes (olive garden makes some really good ones) but often find them lacking.

We meat eaters also need to stop bowing and scraping to vegetarians. I love tofu, I really like "soysage" on occasion, but I eat meat because it's good for me. And it's been good for us since we were proto-homonids, unlike fake meat products which, although very tasty, are just more processes foods.

Re:Vegetarian...

[John Harrison]

That would happen on occasion, but generally it wasn't the case.

Re:Vegetarian...

[StormCrow]

Ah yes, that lasagna would be for all the vegetarians that still eat cheese.

Re:Vegetarian...

[Pansy]

Thank You! I have no problem with vegetarians whatsoever, but if you don't want to eat meat, don't eat fake meat. It would seem to me that you would undermine your own position by buying this slop (most of which tastes horrible), by stating that meat was a desirable part of your diet, even though you don't eat it. If you really don't want to eat meat and don't need it, then you don't need a substitute for it.

There are a plethora of vegetarian dishes which do not rely on fake meat and taste much better as a result. ...$8 soy-sausages just seem ridiculous to me.

Re:Vegetarian...

[Damek]

tofu is not fake meat. Soybeans are not fake meat, and soy products like tempeh are also not fake meat. Tofu and Tempeh have been around for many hundreds of years. Unfortunately, just not in Europe or Europe's colonies, so people like you see vegetarians eating meals with tofu and think "they're just trying to substitute meat!"

In a way, soy products are a substitute - they substitute for the nutritional value of meat.

Other than that, I pretty much agree that the attempts to produce "meat look-alikes and taste-alikes" is rediculous. Although I like a nice spicy tempeh strip - all the flavor of some meats comes from the marinades, sauces, and spices, so just doing the same thing to tofu or tempeh, without processing it, results in pretty much the same flavor.

So basically I'm trying to point out that eating tofu and tempeh and other soy products is not necessarily a statement that one misses meat, but rather that one recognizes the nutritional advantages of soy, and likes to consume them with convenience.

Re:Vegetarian...

[ackthpt]

BTW, a brother worked in a butcher shop for a couple years, hot dogs are not the worst thing you can buy. ;-)

Re:Vegetarian...

[ackthpt]

So basically I'm trying to point out that eating tofu and tempeh and other soy products is not necessarily a statement that one misses meat, but rather that one recognizes the nutritional advantages of soy, and likes to consume them with convenience.

Cheers! I'm a pretty unconvetional cook. For spicy marinara, I toss in some pepper/pickeled olives (which are pretty hot from the deli I shop at) I do things with soy "substitutes" which I never would have considered using meats for, but I have been off the meat wagon for nearly ten years. Recent adopters of the veg diet, and people who think because it's meatless it's healthier, are the most likely candidates for soy in the shape or flavor of meats.

One of my favorites is Gang Phed (Thai red curry) with fried tofu. Hardly healthy, but very good, particularly with a few dragon peppers in the sauce. :-9

Re:Vegetarian...

[Mr.Mustard]

Also, when setting up a food line with both vegetarian and meat dishes, put the vegetarian stuff at the end.

The wrost case I ever saw was pizza. The cheese and veggie pizza was at the beginning of the spread. All the meat eaters got some just because it was the closest and it was all gone before the vegetarians got to the food.

Re:Vegetarian...

[Hal-9001]

I thought that not eating cheese was more of a vegan thing...

Re:Vegetarian...

[StormCrow]

Beats me. I'm more of a recycling vegitarian (I eat things that eat vegatables).

Re:Vegetarian...

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, like no one knows what's in a hotdog

There is only one rule in good cooking...

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

Use the timings on the instructions as a guide only.

THE PERFORMANCE OF MICROWAVE OVENS REALLY DOES VARY.

Learn how your equipment compares to the average. I have a 750 WATT microwave oven, but I know that it packs a punch like an 850 WATT microwave oven, so I follow the instructions for category "E", even though my oven is a category "D".

To many cooks, bless them, will cook something at gas mark whatever it says, for as long as it says, and not a minute less, not a minute more. They will not learn (accumulate over time / through experience) how the performance of their oven compares to the "average" (i.e. that on which the recipient was based).

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[schon]

Use the timings on the instructions as a guide only.

THE PERFORMANCE OF MICROWAVE OVENS REALLY DOES VARY.

Actually, it not just microwaves, but almost all (consumer) convection ovens aren't exact.

In my old apartment, my wife kept wondering why everything she baked/roasted never turned out properly - so after watching the good eats pork ribs episode, I put a reliable thermometer in the oven - turns out it was out by almost 60 degrees!

An interesting aside - we just bought a house, and I wanted to see how far out the oven temperature was (it's an old oven, probably 20 or 30 years old), and (amazingly enough) it was almost exact!

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[knodi]

No kidding! My roommates have all expressed fear and disgust over those microwaves that have an analog twisty timer dial instead of a digital timer. I always tell them "what, is your food going to turn toxic because you didn't punch in the same numbers as on the box?"

These people honestly (!!!) think that it takes 20 seconds to melt 4 pats of butter. It takes exactly 30 minutes for our oven-pot-pies. If one of the pies has been in there for +/- 5 minuts, they make me eat the "bad" one.

Thank you! You bastion of rationality. (ps, all my roommates have been engineers or scientists!)

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[dboyles]

This reminds me of something...

What's up with those microwaves that kick on a full blast and then off for a period of time (depending on what your cooking power is set at)? I have one, and it absolutely sucks. It's pretty new, too (3 years).

What's wrong with operating at a lower power all the time rather than HIGH... off... HIGH... off... ?

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're so right on this one.
The best thing I ever did was to get a thermometer that sits in my oven. Only then did I realize that my oven calibration was off by 100 degrees F!

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[Quikah]

My rule of good cooking is microwaves are the spawn of satan. :)

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[swisener]

You may be surprised to learn that ALL microwave ovens work that way. The "power" setting doesn't control power, but how long the magnetron (the thingy that emits microwaves) stays on over the course of the desired time. The downtime between bursts allows the heat to travel by conduction through the food. If you're interested in this stuff, I highly recommend this book

--Steven

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[par38lamp]

Inverter microwaves vary the magenetron output power instead of the traditional "duty cycle" heating.

Panasonic Inverter Microwaves

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[JabberWokky]

Using a commercial microwave is the best way to cook thick things like primerib - microwave for awhile, than transfer to a tradional oven to cook. You wind up with very juicy, evenly cooked meat with nice rare slices.

I also use my microwaves (yes, plural) for things like having hot water or broth ready for rice (which I mix with my dry ingredients like curry and other spices, a touch of oil, and heat, strring often before adding boiling water) or tea (while ceremony is nice, I only drink tea or wine (occasionally Guinness), so I make a helluva lot of tea).

A microwave is useless for most forms of cooking - but very good at heating, which is a side task that normally requires a saucepan and a burner. I've cut down my dishes for nice dinners from nine or so pots and pans to five or six by judicious use of a microwave. And, like prime rib or popcorn, there are a few very odd uses at which it's unique heating method excels.

--
Evan (no references)

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[djrogers]

AAACK!!!! Please, please, please stop doing that to your prime rib! The correct way to make a moist, jiuicy, tender prime rib is by cooking it loooow and slooow. Start with well aged beef, or age it yourself (yes, this is a key step to getting the best flavor from your roast, it allows enzymes in the beef to break down some of the proteins into amino acids and improving the flavor greatly), brown all sides on the stove (6-8 minutes total), then roast in a 200* oven until it reaches a 130* internal temperature (roughly 30 minutes/lb).

Try it once, and you'll never nuke another prime rib again!

D

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[JabberWokky]

Funny - I learned that from a chef who cooks them that way at the Breakers, a rather fine dining locale. Note that I did not say 'a microwave', but rather a 'commercial microwave' with adjustable power, even heat distribution and a thermometer jack in the top of the oven that trails down to a spike that goes into the meat. My parents have one. The chef learned his technique from a fine restaurant in France.

It's hardly simply 'nuking' the primerib - you do it to raise the internal temerature to an even medium high temperature *without* cooking it, and then place it in the oven to cook. Having the meat be very warm throughout means it cooks differently - more evenly. It's an especially good way if you really like good rare prime rib (the only way to eat meat, imo). The slightly more traditional way, incidently, is to leave the meat out in the sun, but that's frowned upon nowadays.

Incidently, talking about good aged beef and the proper starting temperature to cook meat at, there are still places in the south where you can find part of a side of beef lying across above the cooking area. When somebody orders, they hack a steak off, trim the smoke and edges, and cook it. No refrigeration. And damn fine, melt in your mouth steak it is.

Yes - aged beef is far far better for roasting. And traditonal steaks (not the uber thin ones that are in some supermarkets) should be seared, then roasted. Or, like my dad occasionally does, you can smoke them (but then, my dad smokes damn near everything - turkey, fish, duck... slow cooked and truly good eats).

--
Evan (no reference, and I'll keep 'nuking' my prime rib, but thanks for the concern)

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[DerekLyons]

It's hardly simply 'nuking' the primerib - you do it to raise the internal temerature to an even medium high temperature *without* cooking it, and then place it in the oven to cook.

Except that a microwave *doesn't* heat it to an even temperature. It works exactly like a regular oven, energy is deposited near the surface of the food, and then travels inward. (Cook a roast in a microwave, note the well done outer layers and the rarer core.)

Having the meat be very warm throughout means it cooks differently - more evenly.

Yup, and it's easy to do without a microwave. Bring the roast to room temp, place in a hot oven, drop the temperature after a few minutes, and allow to roast until done. In other words, the classical technique. (Though Alton reccomends the opposite, start slow and raise at the end.)

Funny - I learned that from a chef who cooks them that way at the Breakers, a rather fine dining locale. The chef learned his technique from a fine restaurant in France.

All he's doing is shortcutting the classical technique, not performing some magic that only a microwave can do.

Re:There is only one rule in good cooking...

[JabberWokky]

All he's doing is shortcutting the classical technique, not performing some magic that only a microwave can do.

Yep, I agree - that's why I said there are plenty of other ways of bringing the temperature up. Using a microwave to bring the temperature up to the point just below where it actually starts cooking versus leaving it out (as you say, "Bring the roast to room temp") or Alton's method of starting slow and then raising at the end. All are variations of the same theme.

All he's doing is shortcutting the classical technique, not performing some magic that only a microwave can do.

The nice thing is that it is cooked more evenly from edge to center. It's the equivelent of starting it at room temperature as you recommend - only in a really really warm room. Just as you say, there is nothing magic about a microwave, and I'll tell you is there nothing nefarious about it either - it's just a way to heat things (note I say heat, and not cook).

--
Evan (no references)

Re:First post?

[Anonymous Coward]

He is basically an uber geek of cooking. Watch food network for fook's sake.

The Other Other Other White Meat

[jeffersonebell]

Mmmm.... Puma

Re:The Other Other Other White Meat

[Darkstar9969]

To quote the Pumaeater: Mmmm.... Puma

Aren't Puma's black in color???

Re:The Other Other Other White Meat

[nelsonal]

South America has some black panthers, but North American Pumas aka Mountain Lions aka cougars aka panthers are a reddish to tawny grey to chocolate brown at least accoriding to this site. Being red green color blind they have always just looked grey and white to me.

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[Snot Locker]

That would be a joke, son....

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[Planetes]

I thought he was being funny. I didn't think he was being serious at all.

IMHO

[byron150]

I think that perhaps the Ti leaves have something to do with the cook time of said goose. I don't know what kind of constitution these leaves have....but if after being surrounded by molten lava and allowed to sit for 45 minutes(admittedly while the lava is consistently cooling around it), some of those leaves are still uncharred, I imagine they are acting as an excellent insulator against the external heat. I would recommend a thermometer or something to measure the internal temp of said bird while cooking which, if wired(are there wireless thermometers or ones that will record temperature's over periods of time independantly????)could be run out the steam vent. If you monitor the internal temperature I expect you'll find it isn't nearly as hot as the external lava surrounding it. I want to insulate my house with Ti leaves.

Re:IMHO

[RicoX9]

If they take the example of the Luau pig-roasters, put a couple HOT rocks inside the bird. Bet that speeds things up considerably.

Thanks Alton!

[jkerman]

I NEVER miss your show since I heard about it. Thanks for getting me interested in cooking again!

(well... your show is mostly a science show anyways) that is so cool!

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[Squarewav]

Im pritty sure that was a joke

it's funny laugh

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[schon]

all geeks love Iron Chef

Are you talking about Alton, or FortKnox?

I *hate* Iron Chef. Next to Emeril, it's the worst show on Food Network.

Seems to me that speaking on behalf of "all geeks" would be MUCH more arrogant than Alton making a joke of the answer (and it was a joke - perhaps you need to check the permissions on your /dev/senseofhumor )

Puma?

[smoondog]

I've never heard of someone eating puma. Does it taste like chicken. (Or tabby?) I wonder where I could find some recipes....

-Sean

Re:Puma?

[pyler]

Actually, it tastes a little like whooping crane ;>)

Re:Puma?

[GLX]

It's a little gamier than bald eagle, but a little less fishy than a humpback whale :-)

Re:Puma?

[jfengel]

I can't imagine that it tastes very good. In general, carnivorous mammals taste nasty. (Carnivorous fish are OK, and birds that eat bug's aren't too bad.)

I have no idea who would eat puma. Best guess: rich hunter manages to kill and eat a puma, only to get hit with a massive case of chronic retribution. Trichinosis is really, really unpleasant.

Re:And that's...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Alton Brown was the name of a steamboat.

Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[fetta]

"Unfortunately most recipes are written for people that already know how to cook."

A good resource to deal with this is to keep a copy of "The Joy of Cooking" handy. I think the recipes in there are just okay, but it's the Rosetta Stone for cooking recipes.

Unfortunately, his statement is true of a lot of computer "recipes" as well. I always try to identify a "Rosetta Stone" book for every technology I dive into. For example, I was lost in the Linux Documentation Project until after I read Mark Sobell's A Practical Guide to Linux.

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[rolofft]

Another good cook book for beginner's is Elaine Corn's "Now You're Cooking". It has the basic information that a beginner needs to get comfortable with the essentials of cooking. It's very user friendly and has lots of good tips that would take a novice a lot of trial and error to learn otherwise.

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[abischof]

I see that there're some new books in the Joy of Cooking series:

From the makers of The Joy of Cooking comes a series of beautifully illustrated books that focus on a variety of well-loved culinary subjects. Taken from the pages of The Joy itself, with helpful additions and illustrations, these are sure to inform both the culinary novice and professional.

They now apparently have books specifically on Chicken, Cookies, and so on. Are those any good?

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[Tibaron]

Love the Joy of Cooking. Not only does it have recipes for bear and beaver (huh huh he said...)it tells you the basics of cooking, like how to boil a potato.

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[Lovejoy]

I treasure Joy, but I like How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman, even better. We have given it as a gift innumerable times and everyone just loves it. It's all scratch recipes which focus on enhancing a relatively small number ingredients, not using a million ingredients and fancy techniques.

It assumes almost zero cooking knowledge and goes from there. My wife and I both love it. Bittman says "Everyone can cook, and most people should."

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[stephanruby]

The Better Homes and Gardens cook book is not bad either. All the techniques are completely described (even boiling an egg or selecting whatever kind of vegetable).

My rosetta stone for programming is Smalltalk, Objects, and Design by Chamond Liu. It's a bit out of date on Objects and I never really learned Smalltalk, but whenever I'm learning a new programming language, I go back to this masterpiece to ground myself.

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[ipxodi]

Another good "Rosetta Stone" especially for beginning cooks, is The Frugal Gourmet. The "Frug", Jeff Smith, had a great cooking show on PBS in the 80's and early '90s. I learned a lot from his books, but the first one is a treasure -- lots of explainations of technique and suggestions for outfitting a beginning kitchen. He also included lots of history of the foods and recipes. The book is out of print now, but not too tough to find.
For the more advanced cook, The Professional Chef by The Culinary Institute of America is a great resource. Nearly half of the 1000+ page book is about techniques, the rest is mostly recipes. The recipes are geared for large (restaurant) quantities, so you have to cut 'em in half at least.

BTW: Does anyone know if The Frug is still around? I know he had some serious heart problems several years ago, and was also hit with an (apparently) false sexual harrasment or molestation charge. One or both of those certainly ended his TV career, but usually even "retired" TV chefs make appearnces every do often.....

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[mudder]

How to Cook Everything rules!!!

I use it when I want to cook something fairly simple and quick, but I use Joy when I'm looking for a longer, more complicated recipe.

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[TrinSF]

I'm pretty sure the sexual charges weren't deemed "false" -- I want to say he plead out on them, but I'm not certain.

Re:Recipes and Rosetta Stones

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure the sexual charges weren't deemed "false" -- I want to say he plead out on them, but I'm not certain.

Link to an article on the settlement.

There are SO bad foods!

[Schlemphfer]

Excerpt from response to question 4:

There are no bad foods, only bad food habits. I eat cream, butter, and bacon; I just don't eat pounds of it at a time.

This kind of thinking gets people in loads of trouble. Sure, a sip a cream or a pat of butter or a piece of bacon once a month wouldn't do anybody any harm. But once these foods are included in the diet, it's easy for them to become habits. When I go to a Safeway or Wegman's and see every tenth person over 300 pounds and pushing a shopping cart loaded with milk, cheeses, beef, etc. it makes me wince when I hear this "no bad foods" kind of thinking.

The main problem is that when cookbook authors like Brown create recipes that emphasize these nasty foods, at least some people end up including tremendously unhealthy amounts of these foods in their diets. You want incredibly tasty food where none of the ingredients cause health problems? Check out this one by Lorna Sass.

Disclaimer: I have no financial connection to this book, and have refrained from embedding my Amazon Associates code in this link.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[wiredog]

Sure, a sip a cream or a pat of butter or a piece of bacon once a month wouldn't do anybody any harm.

Amounts that small will do no harm if taken daily. (Assuming you get a decent amount of exercise.) Alcohol is an industrial solvent and attacks almost every system in the body if overindulged in. Does that mean it should be completely avoided? (Well, yes if you're alcoholic.)

I bet you cook with dihydrogen monoxide, which has been found to be used by everyone who has ever developed cancer.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[PsionicMan]

You want incredibly tasty food where none of the ingredients cause health problems?

Absolutely impossible (unless you consider crushed ice, with water sauce, and a nice tall glass of water an incredibly tasty meal). Alton's point is that overeating and such is the problem. Any food that is capable of nourishing you is able to cause health problems if you eat too much.

Now, I can't speak for everyone, but I can honestly say that I am much less likely to eat "too much" if the food is heavy and fatty than if it is not.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[nomadic]

But you're assuming the dubious research compiled about high-fat foods causing obesity is true. Not sure why you'd "wince".

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Fastball]

When I go to a Safeway or Wegman's and see every tenth person over 300 pounds and pushing a shopping cart loaded with milk, cheeses, beef, etc. it makes me wince when I hear this "no bad foods" kind of thinking.

No. These folks are more likely OD'ing on simple carbs late in the day or at night. Plus, they probably have to break out mutliplication tables to figure out how many calories/serving sizes their shoveling down their craws.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[klasker]

So, it appears that our ancestors who lived on the land (i'm thinking like 50-75 years ago here, folks) and brought up with meat, cheese, veggies, etc are somehow less healthy? I know my grandmother is alive and kicking and she's been a meat and potatoes gal her entire life.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-vegan. I've had a number of good meals with no animal by-products. I just think you're a little short sighted here. Lack of exercize (ahh, television!)and excessive consumption (ahh, Taco Bell!) lead to overweight people, not diet alone.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Desert Raven]

There are no bad foods, only bad food habits. I eat cream, butter, and bacon; I just don't eat pounds of it at a time.

This kind of thinking gets people in loads of trouble. Sure, a sip a cream or a pat of butter or a piece of bacon once a month wouldn't do anybody any harm. But once these foods are included in the diet, it's easy for them to become habits. When I go to a Safeway or Wegman's and see every tenth person over 300 pounds and pushing a shopping cart loaded with milk, cheeses, beef, etc. it makes me wince when I hear this "no bad foods" kind of thinking.

No, this kind of thinking mixed with stupidity gets people in loads of trouble. I've lived by that philosophy for a long time without becoming obese. I cook using butter, I just don't use pounds of it. Trust me, you really can taste the difference. The people who abuse this theory are that same wingnuts who order double-cheeseburgers with a diet cola. If you have an over-eating problem, it really doesn't matter what you eat, you're going to be obese.

And lets not even mention the fact that a number of our healthy substitutes have turned out to be worse for us than what they were replacing.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Amazing Quantum Man]

\i{I bet you cook with dihydrogen monoxide, which has been found to be used by everyone who has ever developed cancer.}

I used either oxygen dihydride or hydrogen hydroxide. I think those are much safer.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to take exception to this. It's not what you eat, but how much you eat of certain foods that is the problem. Look at herbivores. They get so little energy from their diets that they must eat almost constantly to maintain themselves.

Similarly, I have to agree with Alton here(LOVE the show). Butter, cream, etc aren't, per se, bad. But if you go through a pound of butter a week feeding just you, I'd start to worry. Not to mention that if you actually want to loose weight, you must alter your diet in sustainable ways. Cutting back on the fat to a reasonable level still lets you eat foods that you enjoy. If you hate what you eat, you're eventually going to break your diet anyways. From what I've seen of AB's recipies, he hardly _emphasizes_ any of these so-called "nasty" foods(unless you're talking about an episode dealing exclusively with that food). He merely uses them as appropriate for tasty, well-balanced dishes.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[stratjakt]

"You want incredibly tasty food where none of the ingredients cause health problems?"

impossible. Eating any one type of food exclusively can lead to health problems. A diet of nothing but lettuce is just as unhealthy as a diet of nothing but pudding pops. And eating 6 peaches is just as sugar-laden as eating 6 bowls of jell-o.

We're omnivores, we need a variety of foods in moderation. Good dietary habits, quite frankly, aren't so simple. Doctors and researchers are still learning how the various vitamins and chemicals and whatnot interact with our bodies.

Calorie counting, deal-a-meal, shed-a-bed, and all the other 'nutrition fads' have pretty much been debunked.

Noone has the 'magic formula'. Common sense is still the way to go. If that wasn't true, we'd have the 'meal in a pill' diet that was promised us in so many 50's era sci-fi films. (Though I want the rocket pack first)

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually calorie counting can be used effectivly.
You must just eat less calories then you burn. To be very healty, just east as many as you burn.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's starting to look to me like carbo binging. They just did a neat show on carb addiction (Increases brain's manufacture of seritonin IE makes you feel better.) Problem is most carbos come with an assload of fat and other bad stuff.

I'd suggest cutting out those 2 or 3 (half dozen, litre...) sodas a day before cutting out that tablespoon of butter you use to make your catfish caper sauce ('course if you have catfish every night and are eating 5 fishes at each sitting... well...)

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[shaldannon]

But the meal pill would be the complete antithesis of cooking. One of the joys of cooking and eating good food is that you get to savor the process of creating it, then you get to enjoy the nuanced flavors and textures of the food. With a pill, you get it from a manufacturer, it has no flavor, and it has no texture.

Besides all that, the human body is meant to actually digest food...can you imagine the hunger pangs you'd feel if all you were doing is popping nutrient pills?

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[foobar104]

Drinking too much water can lead to a condition called hypervolemic hyponatremia, which can cause seizures, coma, and eventually death.

Everybody knows that the amount of sodium (and potassium, of course) in your body is a critical factor in the correct functioning of your nervous system. But not everybody realizes that the concentration of sodium is just as critical. If you throw that concentration off by drinking too much water, you can make yourself very sick.

(Don't get paranoid. To put yourself into hypervolemic hyponatremia you'd have to drink something like 10 gallons of water in a 4 hour period. Athletes can consume that much while running or bicycling long distances, but us mere mortals are in relatively little danger.)

So another way of making the same point is to say that any food, if misused, can kill you.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Quill_28]

Believe it or not, too much water can kill you(it's alot) and there have been people who become addicted to water. I undersatnd it screws around with electrolytes in the brain achieving some kind of high. So even water can be bad for you!

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Kintanon]

on simple carbs
Please refer to this as simple sugars. It makes a difference. Eatting carbs is no big deal, you turn it straight into energy, it's rarely stored as fat (unless you're totally sedentary), it's simple sugars (which are also called simple carbohydrates, but most people don't know them by that name, so it muddies things up) that you mean and they provide a quick boost of energy, then contribute to mood swings and lethargy if they aren't backed up by something more solid like some good starches or some protein, or more complex carbohydrates.

It's also a good idea to eat late in the evening, before you go to bed, if you are trying to lose weight, but only if you are following the multiple small meal plan I described in an earlier post here.

Kintanon

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[phriedom]

"When I go to a Safeway or Wegman's and see every tenth person over 300 pounds and pushing a shopping cart loaded with milk, cheeses, beef, etc. it makes me wince when I hear this "no bad foods" kind of thinking."

I took a quarter off once and bagged groceries. It is not good science, since I didn't record data and the sample was large but all from the same store in the same city. However, it was very clear to me that fat people weren't buying meat and cheese and cream, they were buying soda, chips, and prepared foods. Simple carbs, not fats, were getting them. In contrast, people buying fresh produce with or without dairy and meat, were never fat. Not once did I see a fat person buying fresh vegetables.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Lovejoy]

Wow! It looks like everyone disagrees with you. Simple carbs, white bread, potatoes, rice, and low-fat ultraprocessed packaged foods make you FAT, increase your triglycerides, LDL, and blood sugar.

Sugar & the carbs I mentioned above are the real evil for people who have developed insulin resistance and the vicious carb cycle. That is a surprisingly large number of people in the states. (I'll betcha 99% of the obese people you see in stores are victims of low-fat diets)

For everyone else, moderation works. Does Alton look unhealthy to you?

Ever been to France? They are some skinny folks. And they eat cheese, butter, bernaise, and bechamel like they're going out of style - in moderation.

Low-fat diets are a scam!

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[davebooth]

Agreed absolutely. YES you can taste the difference between the "real" fats and their "healthier" substitutes. YES you can eat it in moderation without ill effects. I cook with and eat the same fats that were in my diet as a kid in the sixties - my pan-frying uses lard where appropriate, I use butter where the recipe calls for it. The only reason I dont use old-fashioned beef dripping for some things is that its almost impossible to find an old-fashioned butcher that can sell it to you. I also eat more (in terms of overall quantity and calorific value) than most folks I know. Whilst I dont eat too many burgers (because I dont like the taste of most commercial ones) the ones I make are huge - a 1lb burger is a meal, anything smaller is a snack. If the "healthy food" zealots were to be believed I should be one of the folks over 300lb and waddling through the supermarkets. I'm positively scrawny and my lipid profile is excellent. All this whilst working a relatively sedentary job. Of course I also study martial arts and work out hard on a daily basis (because it feels good, not because I'm trying to control my weight or anything.) Whats more, on a low fat diet I literally starve - I'm constantly hungry and my weight plummets like I was an anorexic teen... On the medical evidence I'd say my diet exactly fits my own physiology and lifestyle, and that is the important thing, not what components actually go into it.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[cmpalmer]

"Not once did I see a fat person buying fresh vegetables."

Unfortunately, you must never had seen me check out :-)

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[jackbang]

It's not that people are just doing the math wrong when trying to calculate the correct caloric intake for fat, protein and carbohydrates and that some slight adjustment would bring them back to a normal diet, when the real problem is degrees of magnitude worse. It starts with the fact that most people are completely ignorant of basic nutritional information (what does my body need and what am I actually putting into it) and then eating at McDonald's five times a week and chugging a gallon of soda every day. If you educate yourself about even the simplest information on nutrition and then eat everything in moderation it will make a world of difference.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[twisted_pickle]

Not once did I see a fat person buying fresh vegetables.

That's because fat people don't do anything that makes their bodies scream out for good nutrition. Exercise will fix that problem in a hurry.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[BumbaCLot]

Apparently you've never taken speed (which most diet pills are made of). It takes the hunger pangs away. How hungry are you on a head full of cold medicine?

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want to add to the chorus of people who say that the problem is with the processed, "improved" foods that have taken over the american diet.

Meat, eggs, and dairy were the staple foods of our ancestors, who not only weren't fat, but were virtually free of heart disease and cancer. (Not to mention tooth decay and a host of other problems) A fascinating web site that goes into this is http://www.westonaprice.org.

Weston Price was a dentist back in the 30's who was getting concerned with all the dental problems he was seeing in his patients, especially children - so he took it upon himself to travel the world and investigate the diets of indiginous peoples (many of whom were still, at that time, relatively isolated) and investigate their diets and their physical well being. He found that, while diets varied widely, without exception the less contact with "modern" foods such as white flour, vegetable oils, etc. the people's had, the heathier they were - he even took pictures that show tall, healty people with straight, undecayed teeth. Like I said, worth checking out...

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Fastball]

Add forty-five minutes to an hour of quality cardio exercise, and you will return to your proper weight. Of this there is no doubt.

Re:There are SO bad foods!

[Scrameustache]

"There are no bad foods, only bad food habits. I eat cream, butter, and bacon; I just don't eat pounds of it at a time. "

This kind of thinking gets people in loads of trouble. Sure, a sip a cream or a pat of butter or a piece of bacon once a month wouldn't do anybody any harm. But once these foods are included in the diet, it's easy for them to become habits.

What? You disagree with what he says, and then you say the same thing in other words!

If you have a habit of eating double cheese burgers with bacon you have bad food habits!

If you eat it once in a while, you don't.
Its not eating it that's wrong, its eating it in great quantities, repeatadly.

Obesity

[mirnav]

I remember hearing Julia Child saying that the reason obesity is becoming such a problem is because of fat has become taboo in cooking.

This is such crap. Obesity has become a problem in the US (65% fat or obese, right?) because you guys eat A LOT. I was astonished by the portions in the US that could feed 2-3 people with normal (unstretched) stomachs. (And don't even get me started on all the junk food most Americans munch on at various hours of the day.)

Go to a restaurant in Europe, and the portions are about a third of what they would be in America. What you eat is also very important, much more so possibly than the amount of oil you put in your food. Come to South of Europe and look around for a while. The normal everyday meal is a huge salad with a big chunk of meat or a bowl of pasta, fast food is a dying species, junk food consumption is very low, and obesity is so rare as to be statistically insignificant and would attract as many stares as a guy with two heads.

Re:Obesity

[daeley]

Erm, I think that's what he was saying, echoing Brown's comments about there being no bad food. Portions are too big, but what's in them isn't necessarily bad in moderation.

Re:Obesity

[Reality Master 101]

Go to a restaurant in Europe, and the portions are about a third of what they would be in America.

That's because the food is so expensive. When I've travelled to Europe, I was appalled at how expensive everything was. Drinks were particularly expensive. In one place, it was like $8 for a small glass of coke! I would say that food on the average was twice as expensive as the US, and in some places (Switzerland) it was three times.

obesity is so rare as to be statistically insignificant and would attract as many stares as a guy with two heads.

What the hell are you talking about? Clearly you've never been to Germany or Italy. Maybe France, where the portions are so small that you're forced to look like a death-camp victim.

Re:Obesity

[FortKnox]

Clearly you've never been to Germany or Italy

Damn straight. As a second generation Italian, I can tell you that the "American" italians in my family are much smaller than those that still live in Italy.

Re:Obesity

[American AC in Paris]

Go to a restaurant in Europe, and the portions are about a third of what they would be in America.

...Unless, of course, you go to Hungary. (Meat, meat and meat with a side of goulash, all liberally covered with paprika. Mmm...)

Or Germany. (Or perhaps a nice ham hock, with sauerkraut and mashed peas and a beer that takes two hands to lift.)

Or Greece. (Olive oil, with a side of feta cheese and leg of lamb...)

Or England. (Fish, chips, and--oh, what the heck! Another pint! And that quivering blob soaking in grease, please!)

Or Spain. (Tapas! Tapas! Tapas! Perhaps...more tapas? Yes--It's only 4:30 AM!)

Or France. (Please, enjoy this perfectly reasonably-sized entree. It will be followed by a perfectly reasonably-sized plat, which will be followed in turn by a perfectly reasonably-sized salad, which will be followed in turn by a perfectly reasonably-sized cheese plate, which will be followed in turn by a perfectly reasonably-sized dessert. Kir, Wine, Wine, Congac, and Wine will be served.)

Or Italy. (As with France, but with first and second main courses! In your face, France!)

Or the Czech Republic. (Dumplings, meat, and beer that flows like the Vltava!)

Now, it's perfectly true that my fellow Merrikins eat out waaaay too often, far more frequently than your average European. It's also true that the average American gets a lot less exercise than the average European. I'd also wager that the average American eats far more processed/pre-prepared food than the average European; since most pre-fab food is both high in fat and far less tasty and satisfying than a properly-prepared meal, we get the double-whammy of high-fat diets and snacking desires. That, and we drink way too much [pop|soda|Coke] here.

But to claim that restaurant portions in Europe are smaller? I don't buy it, not for a second.

Re:Obesity

[david duncan scott]

To be fair, he did say "the South of Europe", which kind of rules out Germany. Italy certainly qualifies of course, and I don't think Greece is populated entirely by runway models either.

Re:Obesity

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and that people eat too much in the US because the food is unsatisfying (for want of fat).

Re:Obesity

[MKalus]

>>Or Germany. (Or perhaps a nice ham hock, with sauerkraut and mashed peas and a beer that takes two hands to lift.)

If you need to hands to lift your mug you're not old enough to drink.

Simple as that.

Re:Obesity

[sammy baby]

This is the funniest thing I've read on /. in months. Would that I could mod you up.

Re:Obesity

[American AC in Paris]

If you need [two] hands to lift your mug you're not old enough to drink.

Simple as that.

Psssh--I bet you're still using one of those piddly 5-liter mugs, aren't you?

Re:Obesity

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW, worldly Americans exist??? Incredible! Great post!

Re:Obesity

[mOdQuArK!]

Spoken like somebody who hasn't seen the "jumbo"-sized mugs commonly served at popular "biergartens". They make 64-ounce Big Gulps look like Dixie cups.

When they're full, you need two hands to hold them steady at your mouth. (Of course, the drunker you get, the less you worry about holding things steady...)

Re:Obesity

[ncc74656]

Go to a restaurant in Europe, and the portions are about a third of what they would be in America.

That's because the food is so expensive. When I've travelled to Europe, I was appalled at how expensive everything was. Drinks were particularly expensive. In one place, it was like $8 for a small glass of coke!

I spent two years each in England and Germany in the mid-80s, and I don't recall eating out as being outrageously expensive. I suspect prices would be higher in the big cities (London, Paris, etc.), but the same is true here in the States (NYC, San Francisco, etc.). Elsewhere, pricing tended to be more reasonable. Europeans are ripped off in a number of ways (confiscatory tax rates, $5/gallon gasoline, expensive housing), but I don't think food was one of them.

Re:Obesity

[SiO2]

I would have to assert that meal portions in Europe, at least in the Netherlands, are much smaller than in the states.

My wife and I have the appetites of small birds. When we go to a restaurant in the states, we end up eating our fill, bringing the leftovers home, and eating them for lunches for the next three days.

When we were in the Netherlands last year, we were both surprised to find that at almost every meal we were able to finish our plates.

Besides, you're talking about a number of different courses in a meal and not about portions. You can always choose to skip a course.

Then there's the difference in exercise between Americans and Europeans. While in the Netherlands, we were able to walk to 75% of the places we needed or wanted to go. We simply can't do that here, because of the sprawl-inspired nature of our cities and the shear size of our country. Everything's just bigger and farther apart in the states. That's why almost every family has multiple cars.

Re:Obesity

[Tungsten Chef]

Come to South of Europe and look around for a while. The normal everyday meal is a huge salad with a big chunk of meat or a bowl of pasta, fast food is a dying species, junk food consumption is very low, and obesity is so rare as to be statistically insignificant and would attract as many stares as a guy with two heads.

Obviously you've never been to the beaches of Marseille then, where the men whose thongs have disappeared in their folds of flab *shudder* outnumber the topless girls by about 3:1!

Re:Obesity

[cmpalmer]

"But to claim that restaurant portions in Europe are smaller? I don't buy it, not for a second."

I sorta buy it, judging from my recent trip to Paris. Breakfast is always bread and coffee. Lunches seems to be mostly salads and/or bread. Sandwiches were universally *big* breads with a little meat and cheese. Soda is more expensive than beer or (cheap) wine.

Dinners were long and complex. Never assume that dinner will take less than 1.5 hours. When you eat several courses over an hour or so, you get full way before you overeat. The largest portion we recieved (and the most horrifyingly unhealthy, but delicious thing we had) was a cassoulet with duck, several types of sausage, ham hocks, butterbeans, and God knows what else served in a crock. I swear this stuff had a 1/2" of fat on top and damn was it good.

Now, knowing all of this, you might be surprised that it was 100% completely impossible to find large clothing. Even in the most blatent "ripoff the tourist" shops, their selection of XL T-shirts was very small and they didn't get any bigger. If you are women, expect that you cannot buy clothes in Paris if you are larger than a 10. I'm not sure if this is cause or effect -- are people so thin that it is not economically sound to stock large sizes, or are people thin because, otherwise, they would have to go naked or wear togas?

Re:Obesity

[American AC in Paris]

I sorta buy it, judging from my recent trip to Paris.

Refelctions from a guy who lived there for a year:

• Breakfast bread is loaded with butter and oil. Croissants are essentially sticks of butter that get transmogrified into pastry.
• Lunch is considerably more involved than salad and/or bread, especially for the one or two Parisians that hold down a job. If said job requires a degree of client interaction, you can be assured of regular large meals at lunchtime--business and food are intertwined. Even the techs and peons take healthy lunches, though. Since it's techinically illegal to eat or drink at your desk, virtually everybody goes to the cafeteria/brasserie for lunch, and virtually everyone chows down on what would be a very generous lunch by many American standards (1/4 roasted chicken, a big pile o' fries, and creme caramel, for example, is a fairly common lunch.)
• Sandwiches are indeed universally big. If you get a crepe or a sandwich grec, you're looking at an even more caloric/fat-filled experience.
• You're dead on about dinners--even when my wife and I ate in without guests, we'd generally make dinner the focal point of the evening--prep, eating, enjoying a bottle of cheap, tasty wine, and long conversation. (It's a habit we've brought back to the States with us.)
• Cassoulet is the nectar of the gods.
• There are indeed fat people in Paris, and there are indeed many places to buy "normal" and "large" clothing in Paris. Tati springs immediately to mind as a prime example, as do any number of shops at Les Halles and La Defense. Tourists generally aren't going to go to these places, though, as they're crowded shopping malls that don't feature anything terribly special.
• If you leave Paris, you'll begin to see "larger" people more often. I suspect this has something to do with the mad amount of walking you need to do in Paris, coupled with the stress of living there and the added energy you body uses to combat the chonically bad air in the city.

Cordially,
American AC in Paris

Re:Obesity

[Anonymous Coward]

So how many European countries have YOU eaten in?

Re:Obesity

[cmpalmer]

Actually, I should have said "Lunch, for us" was salad or a sandwich, since we typically ate on the run and saved our money for dinner. I do understand that lunch is a major affair.

I didn't expect to find large sizes at boutiques, but the tourist T-shirt stand thing really surprised me. We tried Tati, but it seem more just "Wal-Mart" type clothes and we were trying to find souvenirs for *ahem* larger relatives...

Finally, I agree about the exercise from walking. We didn't even consider driving and we used the Metro frequently, but I'll bet I still walked more in that week that I did in the previous 2 months.

Re:Obesity

[MKalus]

I am German ;) Believe me, you can do it one handed.

Re:Obesity

[mOdQuArK!]

Oh well if you're GERMAN, you've been weight training for that kind of thing since you were allowed to drink - those of us hailing from semi-teetotalling societies start with a big disadvantage! :)

Re:Obesity

[hanwen]

From the reverse side: I live in the Netherlands and was in NYC last january. In the few restaurants I visited, the food was really too too: too much salt and too large quantities. (And for Dutch standards, I have a really huge appetite).

Re:Obesity

[Fjord]

Restaurant portions here in Florida are certainly a lot larger than they are in Ontario Canada. My estimate is about twice as large. I also found the Portugese meals to be about the same size as the Canadian meals. I can't comment on the rest of Europe since I haven't been there since I was 10.

Re:Obesity

[Anonymous Coward]

of course, birds eat something like their own weight in food every day. Hummingbirds even more.

Re:Obesity

[Darby]

My wife and I have the appetites of small birds.

Wow. You eat 6 times your weight a day?!?
That's crazy.

Re:Obesity

[boomer_rehfield]

a mass is 1 liter...that's 1000 milliliters...
a 64 oz cup is 1920 milliliters..

while the 'mugs' are large, they are only a liter...

Re:Obesity

[Fjord]

In this part of Florida (which considers itself part f "the south"), a 1/4 chicken, big pile of fries, and a dessert are a small lunch. 1/2 chicken is more like it, although thats a average lunch, 8 chicken legs from BW3s is more like it.

The dinners put those to shame. My wife and I will often just split an entre between us.

Re:Obesity

[mirnav]

Thanks for the European gastronomical overview, but you may have noticed that I was talking about Southern Europe. Chunks of greasy pork and dumps of potato are more the diet of the North - Austria, Hungary, Holland, etc. Ever heard of the Mediterranean cuisine? That is what we eat around here...

>But to claim that restaurant portions in Europe are smaller?

>I don't buy it, not for a second.

Suit yourself. I live in the South of France. Our meal is a big salad and a piece of 'entrecote'... or a bowl of pasta and a salad... or some other healthy stuff, the portions of which are significantly smaller than those in North America. One trip the the IHOP in Los Angeles, and the after-image of the plate they brought before me is burnt into my retina for all time - if you call that a one-person meal, you are probably four times my size.

I live in the South of France, and I am a girl who weighs 55 kg. and takes care of her body - so I just might know a little about the eating habits, the portions, and most of all, just how well-maintained the people are around here, since I see them barely clad in little swimming suits six months out of a year. Good for you if you are not completely ignorant about the cuisines of the world and can recite a few of their cherished meals, but the fact stands that America has a +60% overweight/obese population whereas this is not a problem in Europe, AND the number in Southern Europe is in single digits. I am telling you my observations as to why this is probably so... you do what you want with this information.

Re:Obesity

[mOdQuArK!]

Don't forget to include the weight of the mug itself - the last one I got to drink out of had at least 1 inch thick walls on the side, if not 2 on the bottom.

Re:Obesity

[boomer_rehfield]

the walls are about a half to three quarters I think...bottom is much thicker...prolly an inch. There's an extra two inches added to the top of the mass for head. Clay mugs have a line drawn inside showing the 1 liter mark and the glass mugs have a distinct line around the top. The clay mugs are a bit thinner than the glass ones. I've seen more than one broken over the head of a drunken fool.

Re:Obesity

[mOdQuArK!]

Heh - maybe I was overestimating the thickness (and the weight) 'cause I was wearing "beer goggles" at the time (the waitress was looking pretty damn good too :)

Re:Obesity

[CaptainZapp]

Or England. (Fish, chips, and--oh, what the heck! Another pint! And that quivering blob soaking in grease, please!)

Not that our Limey friends are the role model of healthy and wholesome nutrition. Not to mention tasty.

Cooking at 2000 C

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem with the person asking about cooking with Lava is that just because you've encased the game hen in 2000 C lava doesn't mean that's the same as putting something in a 2000 C oven. In an oven, the temperature of the air is what cooks the food. In the lava oven, it's the lava. I don't know how well lava transfers heat (it's probably better than air), but I bet that the lava touching the hen cooled off a great deal quicker than the rest of lava, which caused the hen to cook slower. With air, there's always enough circulation that cooled air gets quickly replaced with hot air. Thus the food is cooked at a constant temperature. This wouldn't happen with the lava oven.

Either way, I doubt the poster actually did what he said, rather he copied it from a website and claimed to have done it. I hate it when people take stories from other people and claim to have done it themselves. That's why so many urban legends keep getting circulated.

Re:Cooking at 2000 C

[stratjakt]

And in an oven, elements constantly supply new heat energy. In a ball of lava, there's a fixed amount of energy which constantly dissipates.

I do recall something about lava-rock being good at spreading heat, distributing it evenly across its exposed surfaces. This is why you put a bunch of lava-rocks in your gas grill - to spread the heat evenly across your cooking surface. Maybe this has something to do with it?

I dont think Alton Brown knows alot about thermodynamics. Shame he has to resort to childish insults about drug use, rather than admit he just doesn't know.. Hey! He's now a true slashdotter.

(the last paragraph was a joke, you dorks)

Re:Cooking at 2000 C

[ceejayoz]

this is the website he likely copied it from...

Vegetarians live longer?

[clion999]

I'm not sure about vegetarians living longer in the United States, but I'm sure that people living countries with substandard sources of meat protein do not have longer lifespans. The US may not keep people alive as long as places like Japan, but folks do live much longer than in places like Africa. Come on.

Most of the vegetarians I know have a kind of wan and lifeless glow. They're often fairly passive. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the vegan population is dying sooner than people with a balanced diet.

The real question is what is a balanced diet. 90% of Americans eat too much of anything. That's why they're so fat. It's not the meat in the diet as much as the volume. Encouraging people to eat more vegetables is one thing, but making of fake statistics about lifespans isn't a great idea.

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[Licinius]

First, it doesn't say anywhere that vegetarians live longer. It just says that in places where meat consumption, etc. is lower than what Americans are used to usually have a healthier and longer living population. There've been numerous studies on it (search on Google), such as the average diet in the Mediterranean region.

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[HarvDog]

I'd have to disagree with your comment about vegetarians having a "wan and lifeless glow." I have quite a few vegetarian friends and none of them look wan and lifeless. In fact, they all look pretty healthy. (I eat some vegetarian meals, but I'm far from a full-blown vegetarian) That being said, I do know some vegans who are sorta funny-looking, but for all I know they looked that way before they got started. :)

You are absolutely right about Americans eating too much of everything. I think of that everything I pass by a Sonic drive-in with their cursed Super Sonic double cheeseburger value meals. The fact is, fat tastes good. (cooked fat, that is :)

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[clion999]

Again, that's my point. Eating less meat than Americans doesn't mean you live longer. People in poor countries eat less meat than Americans, and most of them don't live as long. Just because some folks eating the Mediterranian diet eat less meat and live longer doesn't mean that eating less meat leads to longer lives. (Maybe vegetarianism starves the parts of the brain that support logic.)

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[clion999]

Okay, I didn't say all of them. But you've got to agree that some of them just look like their body has checked out from active duty. It's like the body thinks that some famine is sweeping through. The body is saying, "Must stop any unnecessary activities. Must conserve calories. Famine is here."

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[david duncan scott]

Although Africans die young from a lot of things, getting shot is among the most notable, and I don't think diet is much protection against that (unless you eat a lot of Kevlar.)

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[Kintanon]

Stupid Vegans, not Vegans in general.

The people you see who look like that are the STUPID vegans who are eatting 1300 calories worth of green vegetables every day, and nothing else. They are getting the bare minimum to survive in calories and not getting enough vitamins. I'm a Martial Artist, an Amateur Weightlifter, and a fitness consultant/personal trainer as well as the rest of my activities. I was also a vegetarian for about a year. During that time I ate healthier because I had to THINK more about what I was eatting. When I stopped going vegetarian, I kept thinking about what I was eatting. So I might have a double quarter pounder once every 3 or 4 months. My primary meat is turkey. I was very healthy when I was eatting vegetarian, and I'm very healthy now. Not because I was eatting vege then, or because I'm not eatting it now, but because I started thinking about what I was eatting and making concious decisions based on my health, not on what the cheapest thing in the store was.
Vegans who have that wan, washed out look are the ones who aren't thinking about it, they are just eatting their head of lettuce per day and drinking their water and letting it go at that. Just like the 400lb people that can barely walk aren't thinking about their diet, they are just eatting anything that comes to hand. Thought is always the primary ingredient to a healthy lifestyle. Think first, then act.

Kintanon

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[forevermore]

The problem with many vegetarians is that they merely remove meat (and yes, fish is meat, too) from their diets, but fail to re-add things that meat formerly provided. Thus, if you only eat salad and pasta, you're missing out on a lot of nutrition (not to mention flavor).

I've been a veterian for about 8 years now, and am far healthier than I was before (might also be because I cut out most artificial color and flavor, too). But most of my vegetarian friends who actually EAT RIGHT, are the same way (my wife has had all kinds of wonderful health things happen since she stopped eating meat a year or so ago).

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[i give up there are]

Ugh--those are the "all mac 'n cheese, all the time" vegetarians, the ones who don't actually like vegetables.

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, could you paint "stupid fucking troll" on your head any larger?

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[L. VeGas]

I do know some vegans who are sorta funny-looking

I live in Vegas, and trust me, some of us are downright ugly.

Re:Vegetarians live longer?

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1984 the USDA completed a 20 years study of Seventh Day Adventists in the US. (They are vegetarians, and also do not use alcohol or tobacco.) The report, as I read portions published in the Washington Post, showed that the incidence of cancer and heart disease for these people was at less than 5% of the population. The average American population has a 30% cancer rate and a 25% heart disease rate. Also, the study participants tended to have lifespans 7 years longer than the control group.

Food Network anyone?

[lorenlal]

Hey, at least he wouldn't stand on his cutting board, or throw it into the aduience.....

Re:Food Network anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, But Bobby Flay looked marvelous coming back and winning when no one thought he would.

Re:Food Network anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on they had to let him win.. it was a matter of FACE #@*($&(@*&@@!!

Re:Food Network anyone?

[keirfey]

But Bobby Flay is just so funny an asshole... gotta love him! Plus, he's a big fan of MEAT! :)

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[Wanker]

From Alton's response, I think that he thought the poster was completely immersing the chicken in the Lava. Pouring hot lava over a leaf-coated chicken should work since:

a) The lava cools off fairly quickly, meaning that the bird isn't exposed to 2000degF for 45 minutes
b) All those leaves release a lot of steam which both moderates the temperature and steams the chicken. Boiling water to make steam, as any high-school chemist knows, takes a lot of extra heat energy.

The above link also explains that the lava cools to 450degF within a reasonable amount of time, which is a great temperature for cooking chicken. ;-) The original poster explained that it cooled to 850degF, still too hot for chicken.

So, in short, the poster presented an impossible situation, and Alton, like any good literalist, told them so. What he could have done was ask some counter-questions to get a better idea of what was going on before answering.

Quick!...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Someone write a script to replace the "?"s with whatever they're supposed to be...please!!!

Cooking In Lava

[SirTreveyan]

I am really surprised at Alton's response to this question. Although IANAP I would think this is really a simple matter of the thermodynamics of state changes of matter.

An example might be in order here to explain for those who never took chemistry. Take an ice cube with a thermometer frozen within. The temperature of the ice cube will rise 0 degrees C is reached. At this point the state of the ice changes to water. However the temperature of both the water and ice remains at 0 degrees C untils ALL the ice is melted. The same holds true at the boiling point, only if the steam is allowed to maintain constant pressure. When the water boils it remains at 100 degrees C until all the water has turned to steam. If the steam had been collected at constant pressure, once the water is all gone the temperature of the steam will begin to rise.

Now how does this apply to cooking chincken in lava?

"...wrap the hen in about 10 Ti (or banana) leaves. These protect the hen from actually burning" The banana leaves im sure are rather large and contain signicant amounts of water.

"...wrapped hen in the middle of the blob of lava and cover it with another shovel full of lava. We try to leave a small opening to the Ti leaves, for steam to escape..." The water in the leaves is boiling off. The opening maintains constant pressure which results in a fairly constant temperature. As long as the steam is escaping the temperature of the hen is being regulated at a level way below the lava temperature.

If Alton would wrap his hen in banana leaves ( or even wet paper towels ) before placing it under that broiler I will gaurentee it will take longer than 15 minutes to cook.

Re:Cooking In Lava

[petepac]

Don't forget the properties of insulation. You can boil water in a paper cup because the water pervents the paper from reaching it's kindling point which is above 100C.

The leaves (10 of them in fact) traps air next to the chicken which acts like an insulator. Remember all that itchy fiberglass in you actic. Same thing, less itchy. The two properties together keep the chicken ad a comfy 100C for 45 Min. There are only a few leaves left after the process since most gave their lives up for the chicken. The lava also helps since it's made up of trapped bubbles (More Insulation!)

The last part is the hole to let steam escape. Can we all say "Pressure Cooker". This get the job done in no time. Alton, you had a show on pressure cooking to make broth. The pressure get the water above 100C. Hence faster cooking.

Cooking in lava is possible with a scienific explanation. Now if I can only find one in Delaware.

Re:Cooking In Lava

[Hoi Polloi]

I agree but I don't think the water content of the leaves is a major factor. They are quite thin and are charred, according to the lava chefs, when it is done. I suspect the leaves trap some of the moisture coming out of the hen and act as a form of insulation by retarding heat transfer via convection, plus the layer of steam that develops around the hen helps the hen cook evenly. Ever cook corn on the cob in it's leaves in hot coals? The outside leaves will be charred but peel those off and you get a cloud of steam escaping plus you have nicely cooked corn.

Re:Cooking In Lava

[Garridan]

Yup, yup. 2000 degree lava makes 100 degree water (and 100 degree lava-oven surface) until all the water is gone. All that hot, high-pressure water is getting injected into the chicken at an incredible rate, but all the tender juiciness is trapped in the banana leaves! Yum! Psychadelic mushrooms are fun and all, but not necessary for the process. (in fact, they'd make timing the process rather difficult...)

Re:Cooking In Lava

[trentfoley]

Although IANAP I would think...

I am not a Puma?

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[jdreed1024]

Is this Iron Chef (the Japanese show), or Iron Chef USA that we're talking about? The latter is pretty damn funny, if for no other reason than to see William Shatner pretend like he knows what he's talking about, and the comments on food that he delivers in his classic melodramatic style. It's great!

One thing not mentioned yet

[brokeninside]

Others have raised good points concerning the way the chicken actually cooks in the lava. I'd like to make one other point. Cooking a chicken "until it's done" is not necessarily the same thing as cooking a chicken until it first reaches a uniform internal temperature at which it can be consumed.

Consider roasting a chicken in a slow cooker. The chicken isn't done until many hours after it first reaches a uniform internal temperature at which it can be consumed.

My point being that the chicken cooked in lava could very well be ready to eat well before 45 minutes are up, but it may also taste better after cooking a full 45 minutes.

Exactly Alton's point.

[Anonymous Coward]

But once these foods are included in the diet, it's easy for them to become habits.

But, as Alton said (in the quote you included!): "There are no bad foods, only bad food habits." The food itself is not inherently terrible; it's how much you eat of it that causes problems. So, in essence, you agree with Alton.

Be careful what you put your blame on. Remember, the food isn't telling everyone to eat badly. People have to make that decision.

Queen Mum takes it up the ass

[Anonymous Coward]

with her walking cane. That wrinkles old broad is ugly.

Re:Queen Mum takes it up the ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Even after death? Cool!

Does anyone know if his show airs in the UK?

[$rtbl_this]

After all the hype on /. I quite fancy watching Good Eats now, but I can't find any information about whether any UK channels (even satellite) have picked it up. If anyone knows whether it is shown here could they let me know where and when? Cheers!

Re:Does anyone know if his show airs in the UK?

[xTown]

I don't know the actual answer to your question, but I do know they're selling DVDs and videos of some of the episodes at foodtv.com. Click on the marketplace link and you should be able to find the videos under "Apparel and Videos".

Re:Does anyone know if his show airs in the UK?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about UK availability specifically. In the US it shows on Food Network, which I would think would be available by satellite. I don't know if any of the satellite companies in the US are available in the UK or not.

If you _really_ want it, you can get Good Eats on VHS/DVD from foodtv.com, if your player will play US media.

Re:Does anyone know if his show airs in the UK?

[Buster6121]

Sorry, you'll just have to make do with "Two Fat Ladies".

Re:Does anyone know if his show airs in the UK?

[$rtbl_this]

*grin* That's what I end up telling myself when I go out on the pull as well.

Re:Does anyone know if his show airs in the UK?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, even if it were on in England it would not do you much good.

You need to move to a real First World country with REAL ingrediants and more than 4 channels to choose from. I swear "Nigella" and that "Naked Chef" guy really tape the shows elsewhere.

I might have a server up, in a few months, and every episode I catch of "Good Eats", "Buffy", "Seinfeld", "The Suprano's", "Sex and the City", "Friends" and "Junkyard Wars" will be on it if you wish to connect and watch it there.

Ooops! Did not mean that as a tease, since you will have to move to a country with bandwidth to watch it that way too ;-)

Sorry!

Re:Does anyone know if his show airs in the UK?

[evilmutant]

I do not think Good Eats is currently picked up by any UK station. However you can buy DVD/VHS (you might have to convert to UK format) of his previous shows. New shows are being added in the future. Link: http://www.foodtv.com/marketplace/apparel/0,4340,, 00.html This is the Food Network site, but you will see Good Eats DVDs and VHS for sale halfway down the page. Cheers!

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[david duncan scott]

He didn't say that you couldn't cook with lava, he just questioned the time involved, which is, in fact, remarkable.

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[Dirtside]

Yeah... it's dismaying to see "fellow" geeks going around stereotyping themselves. (But then, I guess some geeks are like that...) I've never watched more than two or three minutes of Iron Chef, mostly because I don't watch much TV at all (Buffy and Angel, that's it, and if they go off the air, I probably won't watch TV at all), and even if I did, I don't find cooking particularly interesting. Or sports, for that matter, which removes the competition angle. I'm not into anime at all, and I don't think Natalie Portman is even remotely hot. She's kind of pretty, but in a dead-eyed kind of way.

Has anybody else noticed . . .

[xScruffx]

. . . how much Mr. Brown looks like Thomas Dolby?

I REALLY wanted to ask if he really WAS Thomas Dolby and, if so, who the hell it was that blinded him with science back in the '80s, but alas . . . too stupid to post before the topic was locked.

Darn my lethargic self.

Re:Has anybody else noticed . . .

[RobertNotBob]

Actually, he look like Dolby USED to look like. If you were to see him today, he doesn't look all that much like AB any more. He was on a 'where are they now' deal that VH1 did a little while ago. IIRC he is involved in OSS.

Re:Has anybody else noticed . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking the EXACT SAME THING!!!

As a matter of fact, last Wednesday while I was chatting with a young lady friend online during "Good Eats" I mentioned the resemblance. Her response was "who is Thomas Dolby?" :(

I LOVE the show too but I am cursed by the same affliction as you and did not think to ask before the topic was locked.

Maybe when I start my 31337 H4X0R cooking show, broadcast on HAM radio/video as well as "Cringley cast" on the web, Mr. Brown could do a cameo as Thomas Dolby!

Re:Has anybody else noticed . . .

[Morgalyn]

He answered this question in an interview he did for his internet fan group Alton Brown Interview.. (go to page 5)

ALTON No. [chuckles] Although I did have Golden Age of Wireless when it first came out, but I didn't look anything like Thomas Dolby. I don't think I look anything like Thomas Dolby now. We both have bad haircuts and glasses. Although I often wonder about Thomas, you know. Where did he go? What did he do? He made a lot money there for a few minutes. But, no. No. I am not Thomas Dolby; I'm not related to Thomas Dolby; never met Thomas Dolby. But there are several Blinded Me With Science references in upcoming episodes.

Re:Has anybody else noticed . . .

[Fear the Clam]

IIRC he is involved in OSS.

That's CIA now.

Re:Has anybody else noticed . . .

[xScruffx]

Will you be doing specials on HAM about HAM and it's relative uses? I used to hear about HAM sammiches all the time, but the packets haven't been coming through with mayo of late.

Re:Has anybody else noticed . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, my girlfriend thought he looks much more like George Gray from TLC's Junkyard Wars and the syndicated Weakest Link. *shrug*

I seem to...

[Stapler]

I seem to be endlessly humming the Good Eats theme while reading this article and its comments.

In some ways, I want to stop, in others, I want to go on doing it forever!

Good Eats is just about my favorite show on television right now. I hope we get some new episodes soon.

Re:*gasp* QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

Domo Arigoto, Mr. Roboto

At the risk of sounding un-hip, where is that from and what does it mean? I've heard it before, but never understood the reference.

Interestingly

[brokeninside]

Since the 1950s, the amount of fat consumed by North Americans has decreased significantly. Since the 1950s, the rate of obesesity in North Americans has skyrocked.

One of the most common suppositions about why this is the case is that most people tend to eat larger quantities (and hence more calories) if fat is removed from the diet.

As Alton opined, there is no such thing as a "bad" food. There is, however, such a thing as eating certain foods in unhealthy quantities.

Good answers to Good Questions about Good Eats.

[BigChigger]

Thanks Alton. I've been a fan of your show for a while now.

BC

Re:European Faggots

[Anonymous Coward]

"What?!? Take de Faazha awaaaaay!!! Dutch hater!"
--Goldmember

But THOSE chemicals

[wiredog]

Don't have websites pointing out the dangers of using them!

Re:*gasp* QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be younger than 30 (or older than 50) to not know this

Band: Styx
Song: Mr. Roboto

Translation:
Thank you Mr. Roboto.

Crock of shit

[DnemoniX]

There is nothing wrong with the answer he provided. The problem is over indulgance, period. To much of anything is going to be bad for you. Taking to much Tylenol can cause liver failure. To much beer/wine and you can become an alcoholic. Saying that you shouldn't eat good food in moderation is obsured. Heck for that matter maybe the 300 lb person you saw was buying food for her 12 kids. I suggest you go ask that person next time. This is food not crack.

Re:Crock of shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't make such hasty comments. Some of us struggle with the searing agony of food addiction daily.

I remember when I was diagnosed as a celeriholic four years ago. I had a very deep habit formed, spending up to $25 and more a week on my poison of choice. The green-grocers may look friendly, wearing their little green aprons and all, but they're really smiling because of the power they hold over you as "the dealer."

Celery was my life. I ate it, smoked it, and injected its luscious nectar. Do you know how many stalks it takes to render one pint of that sweet ambrosia??? I started to run with a gang (4-H), holding up vegetable stands on the outskirts of every farmer's market in town. Soon I became known as "Crunchy Cletus" because of my emaciated frame, sunken green eye sockets and intolerable munching.

Finally, I ended up getting caught. A pale, scrawny man walking out of a supermarket with a huge wet bulge in the front of his pants means only one thing: produce shoplifting. My burning desire for yet another fix made me get sloppy, made me get soft.

Fortunately, my judge saw through my vegetable crime orgy to the desperate, needy person inside. I was placed in a program with other people who had similar problems to mine, all working on overcoming our produce addictions. To break my psychological addiction, they forced me to eat fattening, flavorful, soft foods like jambalaya, gyros, pizza and burritos. To ease my chemical addiction, my "methadone" became injections of collard greens.

Today, I cannot claim that I am a cured man, since addiction sticks with you always. But, I *HAVE* been clean for 483 days now, and I thank my Higher Farmer daily for the strength to persevere.

Foods can be addicting if used improperly. Yes, some foods, when administered by trained professionals, can help cure terrible diseases like hunger and malnutrition, but the temptation to "self-medicate" must be fought at all costs.

Don't mock me because I was once a user. Help me to be a stronger person. I hope to eventually overcome my cravings for healthy vegetables, and with your help, I will stay on the meat and carby path!

Re:Crock of shit

[marko123]

My misreading of this comment was:

"... and I think my Higher Farmer daily for the strength to preserve"

I think it came from my memories of Mum's preserving days...

Joy of Cooking

[wiredog]

Use the 2nd edition. It has the recipie for real pound cake, plus howto cook squirrel. Invaluable resource.

Re:Joy of Cooking

[shaldannon]

Invaluable resource in the case that you don't happen to be a redneck and need to know how to cook a squirrel properly?

Re:*gasp* QWZX

[CableModemSniper]

Styx - Mr. Roboto. It's a song.

Puma in Lava!

[SphynxSR]

Puma, lava. what more do you need for dinner.

Re:Puma in Lava!

[Garridan]

Psilocybin salad, of course!

You are right on...

[mekkab]

I've seen that Ti leaf guy's website- next time I'm on the big island, we'll have some hen!

But his website even suggests that the ti leaves are acting as insulation. FIrst you are steaming the chicken, and who knows whats happening when the steam hits some of the lava- I'm sure it cools down and the lava closest to the leaves get hard. It becomes more like a salt-crust bake (for the Iron Chef fans out there).

What Mr ICee should do is experiment in an oven: wrap a hen in some ti leaves and see what cooks.

regardless- that's a pretty frickin' neat-o trick.
I wanna play with lava.

What was the mystery ingredient?

[Conspir8or]

Dr. Zoidberg?

Re:What was the mystery ingredient?

[ebonkyre]

no, it was Soylent Green.

Re:You?re?Using?IE?Aren?tYou?

[dissonant7]

Thought so...

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[GMFTatsujin]

I love Iron Chef, but certainly not for the transmission of cooking expertise. How in the world can you figure out how to cook on that show?

I love it for the pomp and rhetoric. Much like pro wrestling. It's a goofy show with a goofy premise, except that instead of resulting in heads beaten in with folding chairs, you get to see inspired works of culinary art, which probably taste unusual but flavorful.

I enjoy it way more than any sports broadcast, probably because of the mystery of how the food is going to be assembled. I guess I just don't have a strategic play-by-play type of mind, but watching the cooking and construction process makes the problem-solving portion of my brain happy.

And the costumes are great.

Alton Brown's show is head and shoulders above it, though. How many other shows have you seen where the host illustrates the process of yeast fermenting by using burping sock puppets? *That's* entertainment.

GMFTatsujin

Re: That volcano page

[zanetheinsane]

Did anyone else notice that the man shoveling lava isn't wearing kevlar gloves?

toxic lava ?

[Anonymous Coward]

um... isn't the lava, specifically the gasses coming off of it, pretty toxic?

Sig

[CableModemSniper]

- "Shut up. Just shut up. You had me at '0100100001100101011011000110110001101111'" -- J3rry M4gu1r3

0100100001100101011011000110110001101111 == printf("Hello World"); ???

Re:IMHO -- wireless thermometers

[PretzelAvenger]

Yes, there are wireless digital thermometers. I forget the part number, but Dallas Semiconductor makes a bunch. They're handy for shipping things like pre-preg composites, where if the temp gets too high, you can't use it for critical components any more

dogcow

[Erich]

haha... your sig. they say "moof" :-)

Ti leaves...

[PhilMills]

Y'know, when I first read the questions for the interview (and the actual article about the lava cooking), I kept thinking, "Gee, cooking with molten lava is nifty and all, but titanium leaves just seems to be going a little overboard."

I suppose it'd get you that "extra-crispy" skin on your chicken...

Re:Ti leaves...

[Tackhead]

> Y'know, when I first read the questions for the interview (and the actual article about the lava cooking), I kept thinking, "Gee, cooking with molten lava is nifty and all, but titanium leaves just seems to be going a little overboard."
>
> I suppose it'd get you that "extra-crispy" skin on your chicken...

D00d!

I 0vercl0x0r3d my 0v3n with l4v4, it gets 2000 d3gr33z! Check out my case mod! Pure t1t4n1um! Ti-m0dd3d ch1ck3n 0wnz 4ll j00r b4s3! :)

You Gotta Understand the Angle, Man...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm not going to believe you until I see it for myself" translates quite well to "I'm going to try to get Food Network to send me to Hawaii on their dime. Again."

I hope to see a "Cooking in Lava" episode in the near future.

Good Reading

[Anonymous Coward]

If you love good eats you should check out "Cooks Illustrated" its the best magazine for recipes and the science of cooking. I like the way they will take a recipe and try 20 variations of it before they come to the final, published recipe. Additionally they don't accept ads and I've found their reviews of products and kitchen hardware to be top notch.

Re:Good Reading

[i give up there are]

CI also has a TV show, America's Test Kitchen on PBS. It's not as goofy as GE, but very good.

There's another worthwhile magazine, Fine Cooking. It does accept ads, and isn't as good as CI, but better than Bon Appetit or Gormet, or any of the other "lifestyle" cooking magazines.

Re:*gasp* QWZX

[Buck2]

It was a popular song in the 80s.

Styx, Kilroy Was Here, 1983.

Steam stupid!!

[TheLoneCabbage]

The important part of the question was that he let's the steam escape (to prevent explosions).

Water boils at 212F (sea level, but I suspect if he's on a volcano, he may be cooking way above sea level).

Water is also one hell of a coolant. As long as steam is escaping, and the lava doesn't directly come in contact with the bird (conduction), then the chicken is only being steamed. Max temperature (for most any place but the Dead Sea) 212F.

Broiling is a dry heat cooking method. And temperatures GREATLY exceed 212F.

It's the same reason you can put pasta on a red hot stove, and it doesn't burn... untill you run out of water.

Ain't science grand?

Re:Steam stupid!!

[trixillion]

someone mod this up, the answer is spot on.

Re:Steam stupid!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember the various theories about how folks walk on coals? The one I believe is because of the cool layer of steam between their sweaty feet and the hot coals.
Same thing here I'd bet.

Re:Steam stupid!!

[SumOptimus]

Way to go :)
That is of course the explanation, I just wonder where all the alternative explanations comes from...
After all, no black art is involved, just pure science.

Shame shame slashdot...

[dasmegabyte]

For not properly reencoding his answers!

Those question marks? Each represents a subtle Unicode punctuation character that slashcode decided would be better served as itallicized query.

God, proper guestimation of unrepresentable characters is the first thing I learned when I started doing data transformation. Em spaces become regular spaces, not question marks. Same with "smart" quotes and long dashes.

Re:You?re?Using?IE?Aren?tYou?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're in Opera as well...

water (212 degrees)???

[jabber01]

Do you seriously believe that steam does not exceed this temperature? If so, I've a nuclear plant with steam at over 1000 degrees to show you.

I suspect that the secret here is convection. Heat, like water and electricity, will follow the path of least resistance as it dissipates.

There will be relatively little heat flowing into the item you're cooking, unless you completely seal it in the lava.

Re:water (212 degrees)???

[drDugan]

Do you seriously believe that steam does not exceed this temperature?

there are two uses for the word water here... one is all H20 in all phases, the other is just the liquid form of H2O. When you talk about water as just the liquid phase -- then the above poster's comment makes sense. Once you raise the temp of water above 212, you no longer have water, you have steam.

Re:water (212 degrees)???

[SirTreveyan]

Water vapor will not exceed 100 degrees C in an system with constant pressure. Remember there is an opening left to allow steam to vent off, so the system maintains atmospheric pressure. Thermodynamics dictate that if pressure is constant and additional heat is added to the system the volume of the system must increase.

Nuclear plants utilize systems in which the volume of the system is constant. Pressure is maintained at a constant level by regulating the heat source.

GOD HELP US IF YOU WORK AT A NUCLEAR PLANT!

Re:water (212 degrees)???

[radja]

all depends on the pressure. water boils at 100 degrees at a pressure of 1 athmosphere. a higher pressure leads to a higher boiling temperature, which is why stuff in a pressurecooker is cooked faster (higher temperature), and also why it's bloody hard to make a decent cup of coffee on top of Mount Everest (boiling temp. approximately 75-80 degrees, IIRC) //rdj

Stop the "Low Fat" and "No Meat" Lies!

[thelizman]

Every where I go I'm inundated with low fat this, low fat that, no fat, no cholesterol, not meat, et al. It's been 20 years since the AMA dropped the bombshell that fat was killing us, and in spite of the absolute lack of information to back it up (and where it exists, lets call a spade a spade and admit that it was junk science at best). Everyone has been pushing this anti-fat nonsense, yet Americans are getting fatter and fatter, heart disease is on the up as is diabetes, and millions of Americans find that they can't control their cholesterol no matter how hard they try - and now they are on dangerous liver-killing drugs to try.

When will America cast of this "fat is bad" myth, and accept that the real evil - the only evil - in our diets is all the processed crap and high sugar/carbs we consume? In 1910, the average American consumed roughly 1.5 lbs of sugar (and it was unrefined cane sugar at that). Heart disease wasn't even something most doctors knew about because people were dying of crap like tuberculosis and influenze far more often then from heart attacks. Fast forward to today: The average American consumes some 118 lbs of refined sugar. Food makers sell prepackaged foods which are highly profitable, chocked full of artificial flavors and colors, and made mostly from fillers. Labels like "low fat" and "no fat" make people salivate like pavlovian dogs when they think that it must be heart healthy, but eveyone is ignoring the obvious. Scientists still can't tell us precisely what roles cholesterol play, they can't agree on what is good, what is bad, and nobody has a clue on how cholesterol goes from lipids in the blood stream to plaque along the artery walls.

And the diet fads: First we're told that vegetarianism is the way to go, but every vegetarian I've ever met has been relatively unremarkable in their health, and never any better off than before they made their "commitment". Then there are 'hollywood' diet plans that offer people the chance to lose gobs of weight in only weeks, but what they don't mention is that you'll gain all that weight back and then some.

The only vegetarians/vegans I respect are the ones who go on the diet because of concerns about the treatment of food animals. There are alternatives: Nuts, vitamins, soy, etc. But outside of that, anyone who foreswears meat for 'health concerns' is a stark raving fool who is willfully depriving themselves of a number of essential amino acids needed to keep the body healthy. And before you go slathering that baby back ribs with gobs of barbecue sauce, look at how much sugar/sucrose/fructrose is in there. In fact, look at all your foods. If it has "ose", "ayse", or anything you can't pronounce you should toss it in the trash. People rave about the evil of sodium, but if you're drinking water and sweating, sodium is the least of your worries. Watch your intake of sugar and simple carbs. Ban yourself from white bread, cornbread, and anythign that isn't 100% whole grain. Walk straight pass the aisle with all the potato chips, pretend you did'nt even see the pastas, and get your ass into the produce section. If you want to be healthy, make sure there is not more than a few steps between you and your food. And for those of us still eating meat - know where your meat comes from. Free range, hormone free, non-corn-fed meat is the only way to go. And if you don't have a concience, consider this: stress causes animals to pump natural hormones out that make meat taste gamy. Make sure your meat comes from animals that lived happy, and died fast.

One more thing (and I dont think anyone can disagree with this): Unplug yourself, put the remote down, and go OUT SIDE! You see that big burning ball of fire in the sky? That's called a sun. Try to expose yourself to it more often, it's a great source of vitamin D (not directly obviously). Here's a concept that works: RUN. Sweat. Give yourself some cramps somewhere besides your wrists for a change. Unless you want your legacy to be that you wrote somethign that got included in an obscure 8 digit release Linux kernal, then you died fat and alone in your one bedroom apartment in front of your computer while wearing only your underwear and clutching a twinkie in your left hand, you should excercise. Believe me, running a 100m dash in 10 seconds is just as satisfying as killing a bug in your source code.

Okay, I'm done now...oh, and if any of you are wondering what inspired this rant, it was spending the first 24 years of my life as a fat out of shape and hypertensive stress ball. Since I saw through the lies, I have lost 130 lbs. I feel great, look great, I'm happy, and I actually get laid on occasion now. Oh yeah, some light reading on the subject from the New York Times (no registration required, put it helps to have Acrobat reader installed).

Re:Stop the "Low Fat" and "No Meat" Lies!

[tswinzig]

I tried reading your website, but I couldn't get past the quote on the first page.

It's "inconceivable" not "inconVeivable."

And it's Inigo Montoya, not InDigo Montoya.

Re:Stop the "Low Fat" and "No Meat" Lies!

[twisted_pickle]

Here's a concept that works: RUN. Sweat.

Hell yes, I agree!

Exercise is the key, it's as simple as that. I'm talking about the kind that gets your blood pumping and gets you breating a little bit. Ever tried to run a mile when you're out of shape? How about 1/4 mile? How do you feel afterwards?

Like you're going to throw up. Or maybe you are already throwing up. Sedentariness is an illness, and obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes etc. are the side effects.

By exercising every day, and pushing yourself a little every day, you turn your body into the lean mean machine that it was meant to be. It seems to me that, if one exercises and makes it a priority, then all that cake and excessive shit isn't going to look good anymore. The body will start regulating what you eat, and everything will fall into place. Those salads, whole grains, and lean meats are going to look very tasty, and you're not going to want to overeat because you know you'll pay the next day.

Exercise is so good. I'm saddened that so many people haven't discovered it and made it a part of their daily lives. It boosts your health, gives you more energy, more endurance, sculpts your body, and makes you better in the sack. Where is the disadvantage here?

Re:Stop the "Low Fat" and "No Meat" Lies!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think cooked meat is the only thing to give your body proper amino acids you are a fool.

Re:Stop the "Low Fat" and "No Meat" Lies!

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen! This guy is absolutely right. The government has been pushing the food pyramid and the low fat mantra and Americans have been getting more and more of the western diseases, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and related ills. Dr. Atkins is right on the money.

As for me I eat real food (eggs, salads, veggies, fruit, meat, fish, olive oil, butter, cream, nuts, seeds). I avoid processed foods, don't eat sugar of caffeine. The food is delicious, satisfying, and healthy.

Re:Stop the "Low Fat" and "No Meat" Lies!

[scosol]

Then there are 'hollywood' diet plans that offer people the chance to lose gobs of weight in only weeks, but what they don't mention is that you'll gain all that weight back and then some.

Not with Jimmy Tango's Fatbusters

Re:Stop the "Low Fat" and "No Meat" Lies!

[rnd()]

The article you cite from the times makes some very valid points, however I think it misleads the reader in one respect: by showing evidence that the low-fat high-carb food pyramid is flawed and then concluding that the logical alternative is to eat a high-fat low-carb diet, a la Dr. Atkins.

In reality, studies have shown that both high-carb and high-fat diets can lead to health problems.

Keep in mind, the original food pyramid myth was promoted because of discoveries during the Vietnam war that American 18 year olds had tons of plaque built up on their arteries and 18 year-old Vietnamese did not. The conclusion that was drawn was that the American high-fat diet was the cluprit. Hence, the food pyramid as we know it.

However, if you think about what the research has actually shown, the ideal diet is as follows:

Lots of vegetables, some high-fiber grains, and a small amount of meat, preferably fatty fish.

Now think for a moment about the nutritional conditions that existed during the majority of human evolution. We were engineered by evolution to consume a diet very much like the ideal diet described above. Of course, exercise is critical to health as well, and our ancestors got plenty of that in the course of their daily lives.

Re:*gasp* QWZX

[rot26]

Translation:
Thank you Mr. Roboto

I think a closer translation is "I am very very gay and I have succesfully ruined what used to be a pretty good rock band".

Re:You?re?Using?IE?Aren?tYou?

[leshert]

Maybe? so? but? Mozilla? 1.1? shows? the? same? thing.

Wiser Words

[Grimmstail]

Don't get them wet and never, ever feed them after midnight.

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[Anonymous Coward]

What he could have done was ask some counter- questions to get a better idea of what was going on before answering.

Yes, I'm sure Alton has just bags of time to get into a discussion with someone on the physics of lava cooking - seeing as how such a large segment of his audience will be involved in such.

Hog Feed

[Nit Picker]

It's a little more complicated than this. When I was in elementary school in the rural south, after lunch we were supposed to dump leftover food into a barrel. One of the perks of the janitor's job was that he took the barrel home to fed to his hogs, probably without cooking. If the garbabe contained uncooked pork scraps from pigs with trichinosis, the pigs that ate it could get trichinosis.

Nowdays, most hogs are fed a factory blended food containing corn and soy meal with no garbage. Therefore, they cannot get trichinosis from their food.

In those instances where pigs are fed gargabe, I understand that the law now requires it to be cooked. (I am told that this was done to protect the pigs from some disease other than trichinosis, and the benefit to humans is accidental.)

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[Artifex]

What he could have done was ask some counter-questions to get a better idea of what was going on before answering.

This question-and-answer format doesn't allow for dialogues. However, he could easily have made some assumptions about what what really going on, and presented his opinions based on those.

your wish is my command!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's some swiss guy's, anyway.

The Demoroniser!

enjoy!

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[bmwm3nut]

you also have to remember that lava (once hardened on the outside) is a very poor conductor of heat. so even though the temperature may be quite high (compared to a conventional oven) the rate of heat flow may be quite low. incidentally that's why you can walk barefoot over hot coals...it just takes too long for the heat to flow from the coals to your foot.

Lava has slow heat conduction

[TopherC]

I don't know what the exact numbers are, but I know that lava is a fairly good insulator. So it's quite possible that when the inside cools down, the outside remains very hot for a long time. The main reason for this is that the lava contains disolved gasses that create bubbles as it cools. Lava rocks are very lightweight (well, surface flow lava rocks anyway) like solid foam.

I agree that the water in the leaves regulates the temperature inside, especially since pressure is not allowed to build up.

I think there's a simmilar reason that it takes about 25 minutes to barbecue corn in the husk, but only 3 minutes to boil it.

- Topher

Re:Volcano question - Leydenhaus (sp?) Effect

[aikido_kit]

In physics, there is something known as the Leydenhaus (sp?) Effect. This is where a fluid contacts a superhot surface and the first paricles of that fluid vaporize. The vaporized fluid is now a gas, and acts as an insulator.

Example 1: Heat a skillet, and put some water on it. The water will sizzle, and evaporate. Keep heating the skillet for a while, preferably a cast iron one. Pour a little water again, and watch how it seems to stay around longer than it did before. And it will look shinier, like a mirror. Thats the reflection of steam under the water.

Example 2: Ever see Jearl Walker spit liquid nitrogen from his mouth? He takes a sip of liquid nitrogen, and holds it in his mouth for a few seconds before spitting out. The liquid nitrogen goes from liquid to gas wherever it touches him.

Jarritos???

[John Harrison]

Jarritos is high quality? I didn't know. Now Sangria Senorial, that is high quality. At least it usually is. I occasionally get a bad bottle.

Re:Jarritos???

[andyf]

I bet he's thinking of Jumex. I say that because I'm drinking a can of Jumex peach nectar right now (mmm... canned liquid peach).

No kidding.

[Artifex]

THE PERFORMANCE OF MICROWAVE OVENS REALLY DOES VARY

I bought a 1500-watt microwave, because it was on sale and because "more is better." Was I ever wrong! I'm thinking about abandoning it when I move and buying a very low wattage one to replace it, simply so I can follow instructions and not have, say, my microwave popcorn burn in two minutes flat.

By the way, don't ever stick cinnamon roll dough from a can in the microwave. I ignored the "do not cook in microwave" warning, thinking that the warning was because people stuck the can in, or something, and I could just stick a couple of the rolls in for 30 seconds... by the time 30 seconds was up, my oven was unplugged and I was trying to get my front door open to shove the oven outside. It's still a nice speckly beige color inside, after scrubbing...

Re:No kidding.

[filmrodent]

Not to mention:

The Performance of Lava Ovens Really does vary

Re:No kidding.

[cr0sh]

By the way, don't ever stick cinnamon roll dough from a can in the microwave...

I did this once, though not with cinnamon roll dough. I did it with biscuit dough. I knew what would happen, and it wasn't because I was stupid - just wanted to see what would happen (ah, mispent youth).

It started going, then a hole openned on the top and a jet of blue flame erupted (looked like a torch lighter, now that I think about it) - filled the oven with smoke, and after the dough cooled off, it was pretty solid.

My friend and I were always doing funky things with the microwave - we once nuked a hot dog for 10 minutes, to see what would happen. You would not believe the amount of grease and fat in it. Later, we threw it in the middle of the road, where a car came by and crushed it - it was like "hotdog powder"...

Sorry for you - the diet can work

[alexhmit01]

I've been on an Atkins diet for about 4 months, I dropped over 45 lbs, with another 50 to go. Now I'm at the gym a few days a week and feel great. My secret is really unhealthy but uses a 23 year old's metabolism... when I stop losing weight, I eat a carb heavy diet for 2-5 days. Then I go back on induction, that resumes my weight loss.

If you really want breads and pastas, this is a bad diet for you. My diet mostly consists of meats and cheeses anyways, so being on Atkins was mostly about cutting out junk.

It's all about finding a diet plan that meshes with your lifestyle. Excess sugars are bad for you, too many carbs are bad for you. Monitor your intake and work out and you'll be fine. For meat/cheese eaters, Atkins is great. By not eating carbs, your body can't fully digest the fats that you consume, helping you lose weight.

Alex

Re:Sorry for you - the diet can work

[TrinSF]

I second this guy. I went to low carb as an experiment in July, and I've stayed on it since then. I eat omelets for breakfast/lunch (with turkey bacon and cheese in them, mostly), and a meat-food dinner -- steak, tandoori chicken, In & Out burgers done protein style. I also have a fair amount of salad greens, often as a chicken caesar salad, as well as small amounts of peanut butter and almonds. When we eat out (which is several times a week), I sometimes have creme brulee (but I don't eat the brulee part!) or a little cheesecake -- so I do "cheat" some.

The result: I'm not watching calories, I'm not exercising -- which is difficult for me anyway for medical reasons -- and I'm losing about 2 pounds per week. I'm wearing clothes I haven't worn in two years, and I feel sexier and energetic and very happy with my food choices.

I wouldn't suggest low carb for everyone, but I think for a particular physiology -- lots of weight to lose, borderline Type 2 Diabetes -- it can be a really useful strategy.

Re:Sorry for you - the diet can work

[pbuxton]

You don't eat the broiler, huh? Good for you, monolinguist.

Re:Sorry for you - the diet can work

[TrinSF]

Pardon me for
A) not going through the trouble to find the proper special character to display the accent correctly

B) using my household's shorthand-speak on /.

C) vastly underestimating the literalist /. crowd.

I've a pretty good background in four languages, actually, and can read a couple others. It sounds like you'd rather I said "I don't eat the burnt sugar topping on those desserts that have a burnt sugar topping". Happier now?

Iron Chef Chairman

[RobertNotBob]

I don't care about the chefs I want a shot at the goofball in the Palomino Jacket. He needs to be taken down.

Wow. It's been a long time since I have laughed that hard.

Re:Iron Chef Chairman

[Anonymous Coward]

On the earlier comment about the Yellow pepper--
That pepper was originally supposed to be an apple, but someone on the crew switched it.
The Chairman despises bell peppers, almost to the point of being physically ill around them. When he came out and grabbed the pepper, due to the fact that the opening was a one-take shot, he was forced to bite into it.
If you watch, he visibly gags when he bites down.

Good Eats, the Lost Episode

[slagdogg]

AB: You might say that we Americans have forgotten how to enjoy the
simple things in life. With our hectic schedules, the constant pressures of
society, and the plethora of fast food options, people tend to forget about
one of the most simple and pleasurable of ingredients -- psychedelic
mushrooms.

Now I know what you're thinking. Psychedelic mushrooms? Wait a second ...
aren't those ... well, you know ... [Cut to Paul in the background in a Tye-Dye T-Shirt, being arrested and
carried away by the police.] ... kind of disgusting?

Well, my fine friend, you have never truly applied
science to the equation. Now, this isn't as difficult as it might seem. If
you want difficult, try preparing some crank on a bed of lava ... but ...
well, that's another show. Now I'm not a nutritional anthropologist, but
fortunately you don't need to be in order to well ... get messed up ... and
enjoy some fine flavors on the way.

So join us as we journey through the world of psychedelic mushroom
preparation, not to mention a journey to some other worlds, as we turn
psychedelic mushrooms into ... Good Eats.

Re:Good Eats, the Lost Episode

[connorbd]

+1, Funny...

That's inspired. /Brian

Re:Good Eats, the Lost Episode

[Anonymous Coward]

That is SO *good eats*. I could even hear Alton's voice and inflection with it. Nice job!

AC'd for preserve precious karma.
(Karma is just sugar that has been burned.)

Re:Good Eats, the Lost Episode

[Mikemenn]

Excellent. I've added that to my Good Eats Humor page, Bad Eats division:

Bad Eats

Main page here:
Good Eats Humor Page

Mikemenn
#1 Good Eats Aficionado
http://www.GoodEatsFanPage.com

And another thing!

[clark9mm]

Not only do the leaves insulate the chicken, so does the cooled layer of lava outside of the leaves -- pumice or cooled lava is full of airpockets and does not conduct heat very well. Also keep in mind that there is no radiant heat in this environment. Aton can cook a hen under the broiler so quickly because there is a combination of ambient heat, convection, and most importantly radiant heat or infrared.

Heat transport from lava to bird

[TopherC]

It feels wrong to reply to my own reply, but here are two or three more ideas:

You have to consider methods of heat transport when cooking. How quickly does the heat transfer from the inner surface of the lava to the bird? In between you mostly have charred leaves. This prevents radiative transfer (broiling) or convective transfer (baking). So you're left with conduction, which will be very slow through the charred leaves. This allows for a large difference in temperature between the rock and the bird.

If you want faster cooking, I suppose one could engineer a metal cage that keeps the lava a safe and uniform distance from the uncovered bird. A coarse wire mesh should do the trick since lava is so viscous and will quickly solidify. Then the bird would be cooked by radiation instead, very similar to broiling. You could get even heating from all sides, or at least from above and below. And the way the lava cools down works in your favor too, searing the bird and then cooking it. I doubt this would taste better than the wrapped-in-leaves method, but I'm sure it would be faster.

- Topher

Re:First post?

[ahaning]

Some of us only have wireless TV, so this (besides the initial story) is our first introduction to Mr. Brown. Sounds interesting, but not so interesting as to make us pay for cable.

Re: That volcano page

[drDugan]

i did... I also was thinking 'hmmm, moving lava and a 160 lb man walking around, looks pretty stupid.'

ever break through the ice on a lake? i don't think there is a chance to survive falling into 2000 degree lava.

basic physics of phase changes

[rhombic]

You have your own nuclear power plant? Man I'm jealous. Of course, your 1000 degree steam is under pressure, isn't it? Unvented, that is.

In a vented system (like this) with a reservoir of liquid water (the leaves) that is likewise under no pressure (like in this case) the temperature of the water in the leaves cannot exceed 212F/100C. That's why the outer several leaves char-- once all the water is gone, the temperature goes up and the cellulose and lignin convert to charcoal and then burn off, leaving the inorganic ash-- sodium and potassium nitrates & etc. As long as there are a couple of leaves left uncharred, the temperature the meat is exposed to isn't going to exceed 100C. Which is why you'll get a perfectly roasted but not browned piece of meat-- you need to evaporate off all of the water in the outer layer of meat to get some nice browning. I'd rather have it grilled on my Weber.

Re:You?re?Using?IE?Aren?tYou?

[Dalcius]

I thought they would render fine in IE....

Since Microsoft uses their own character set, whenever I read an email sent from Outlook, often I get block characters where -- should be. Here you can find some other problem characters.

I was just assuming he wrote this with Word or something and I was seeing ? instead of -- and the like, since I'm on Linux and using a standard character set.

Go figure?

Irma Rombauer/Cincinnati

[Dirk Pitt]

Irma Rombauer, the author of JOC, is another disjoint piece of Cincinnati's strong cooking tradition.

Cincinnati is not only a relatively small 'major' city, but has strong and pervasive German heritage. And despite the fact that (IMHO) German food is not the best of culinary delights, Cincinnati continues to be a significant culinary player in the States. Maisonette is the longest-running 5-star in the US, at one time there were actually at least 3 5-stars there, Sturkey's (modern American fare) received 'Best Dessert in the Nation' from USA Today, there are actually a few decent Sushi bars despite the inland location, and there are a myriad of good (consumer) cooking schools and shops here (anyone out there know Jungle Jim's ;-)). Rombauer, BTW, has a strong German geneology.

I've always found this a strange phenomenon. The art community there is also very strong, despite the rest of the city being a boring/backwards midwest ultra-conservative city. Anyone care to hazard a theory?

Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen

[Anonymous Coward]

do you have any suggestions for other resources that present food and food preparation in the same way?

I started watching America's Test Kitchen (created by the people at Cook's Illustrated ) because I was intrigued by their almost obsessive approach to cooking (which sounded a lot like the approach of many good QA engineers): they try out several recipes for a particular food (over 80 versions of chocolate chip cookies); discover the pros and cons of each; and dissect techniques and ingredients to develop "foolproof" recipes for really good food (their recipes are fairly uncomplicated).

The tv show and the articles in the magazines/books are great fun b/c they include a great deal of commentary about the whys of cooking, explaining the difference between various techniques and ingredients (e.g. overbeating cake batter will overly develop the gluten in the flour, making it tough with an open crumb like bread, not moist with a closed crumb like cake). Most people on this site would probably love their science guy Doc Willoughby; he has a short segment in each tv episode (and sometimes articles in the magazine) explaining things like why you should slightly underbake chocolate (you'll get hit by a login request that will go away if you reload the page).

Cook's Illustrated has a bi-monthly magazine and several cookbooks. America's Test Kitchen is on PBS weekly. Their websites have some articles you can browse through. The other neat thing about the magazine is that it accepts no advertising. They do this so that you know that their reviews are fairly impartial.

Re:Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen

[Anonymous Coward]

Cook's Illustrated and Alton Brown have done a great job of teaching me that order of operations and technique are important to the final product. Example: if you want to mix melted butter, an egg, and milk together, you'll get a smooth result if you beat the egg into the melted butter before adding the milk (you make an emulsion). If you add the milk to the melted butter, you get solid flakes of butter suspended in liquid.

Cook's Illustrated recipes are meticulous in their detail about exactly what to do in what order; I'd highly recommend them for anyone who gets frustrated with cooking. And, their recipes are excellent.

margarine = trans fat

[Lovejoy]

Amen.

But margarine will kill you! Not kidding. Watch out for trans-fats. They are evil, artificial, broken fats.

Check out the Washington Post article.

Exceptions: Brummel & Brown is yummy and has no trans fat. (Don't have any stock in or relation to whatever company makes Brummel & Brown)

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[tswinzig]

From Alton's response, I think that he thought the poster was completely immersing the chicken in the Lava.

So Alton can cook well, but is unable to read?

at checkout

[phriedom]

No, I don't suppose I have seen you at checkout. Are you a fat person who buys fresh vegetables? regularly? Do you buy more fresh produce than prepared foods? Of course I'm open to the possibility of the existance of such a person, I've just never seen one.

Re:at checkout

[cmpalmer]

At the supermarket, I definitely buy much more fresh produce than prepared foods. My undoing has nothing to do with my shopping/cooking habits and everything to do with inactivity, fast food, and soft drinks (all of which I am currently working on changing).

I don't eat ice cream, I don't eat potato chips, I don't eat candy bars (well, I do occasionally, but not daily or even weekly). I always cook healthy meals (which I sometimes overindulge in), but, as I said, it is the sodas, fast food, buffet places (which are easy if you are lazy about decided where to eat and you have dozens of things to do after work with kids and family), and eating out in general that put the weight on.

As other posters have noticed, food is relatively cheap in the U.S. and most chain restaurant try to impress you with quantity more than quality.

The most weight I ever lost was on a "low fat" diet, but, in retrospect, that was probably due to the fact that I decreased my overall caloric intake and, pretty much, only ate food that I prepared. If I was eating out, I pretty much stuck with salad, pasta, or grilled fish. That is pretty much the "diet" I am on now, with less emphasis on "fat grams" and more on portions, preparation, and calories (and exercise).

When I was on the low fat diet, I was reading Covert Bailey's book (I think Fit or Fat). I automatically think most diet book people are quacks, so I did some outside research. I was most impressed by his chapters on exercise. Specifically, that when you do aerobic exercise, you don't start burning fat reserves until your glucogen supply is depleted. This happens at the "second wind" stage, usually after about 20 minutues of exercise, so the first 20 are essentially wasted. Also, that weight and strength training are very important, not because they burn fat, but because if you have a large muscle mass, just walking up stairs burns more calories. This is contrary to the "I'm so fat that just walking up stairs is good exercise for me" idea.

He also pointed out some scary things about how you develop fat in your body. Once you are out of high school/college, you become more sedentary. Your muscles start weakening and are replaced with intramuscular fat. So, for 5 or 10 years, you keep your waistline and your clothes still fit, but your body fat ratio is increasing. Once you get saturated with intramuscular fat, it starts in on your gut and love handles. Then you say, I'm a little fat. If that goes unchecked, it moves on to your arms, legs, neck, back, and chest. At this point, it really starts putting a strain on your heart and lungs. When you start dieting and exercising, you lose it in reverse order, so when you can fit into your size 32 (or 28) jeans again, you still have a ways to go to get back into peak shape.

This may be BS, but it fits my pattern quite well and explains that nice feeling you have during your 20's when you think you can eat whatever you want and not gain weight.

Sorry this is so long...

Geophysics Rules!

[Anonymous Coward]

Any of you ever take a course in Geology? What's the conductivity of rock? Unless it's metallic-oxide it probably doesn't handle heat transfer very well. So, the outer few 10ths of an inch transfer their heat to the leaves, then they're more-or-less in thermal equilibrium with the chicken/leaves ball, and the rest of the heat moves v-e-r-y---s-l-o-w-l-y into or out of the lava.

Lucky for you it's a low-silica deep-source lava - shallow-source lava doesn't ooze; it does a Mt St Helens. I wouldn't want to live near an active volcano of that type... (This is why Dante's Peak is actually a "better" movie than Volcano - more realistic depiction of West Coast volcanoes.)

Picky eaters

[Anonymous Coward]

My wedding was meatless to appease my poseur vegetarian wife [....] I invited four other vegetarians, all of whom really enjoyed themselves on some fantastic cusisine the caterers pulled out.... I thought the food was fantastic, but hardly anybody ate any of it. Of some 100 portions, nearly 60 were left at the end. My dad & some of my friends snuck out to a burger place midway through the reception.

Consider this a great blessing. Now you know which of your friends and family not to bother inviting to anything ever again....

Seriously, anyone who will sneak out for a burger to avoid excellent food specially made for the occasion, just because they have some preconceived idea about what ingredients food should have, is not someone I want to hang out with.

The biggest problem with most people's food habits is this: too many people have no friggin' sense of adventure at all. I'm sick of people expecting sympathy when they tell stories about being invited to this or that elaborate occasion and being "unable" to eat any of the food ("Squid? Snails? Anything they don't serve in the neighborhood I grew up in? Ewww"), thus simultaneously managing to a) insult and disappoint their hosts for no reason, and b) miss out on what could be a once-in-a-life chance to taste something really interesting.

People need to learn to grow up, eat what's on their plate, get a sense of adventure, and realize that just trying something a little different every now and then won't kill them.

Please be embarassed for your dad and your friends, not for your wife.

You Retarded or Something?

[thelizman]

Just wondering, because it's just such a petty thing...not to mention OFF FUCKING TOPIC!

Diet Cola in Fast Food Restaurants

[Nykkel]

The people who abuse this theory are that same wingnuts who order double-cheeseburgers with a diet cola.

As someone who always orders diet cola when eating at fast food restaurants, I'd like to say something about this.

People who order diet cola aren't necessarily under any illusion that doing so is going to magically make them lose weight. (But wouldn't that be nice?) Some people order it because they have sugar problems that make regular soda a bad idea for them. Others want to drink soda, but don't want to take in around 150 calories per 12 ounce serving... and when was the last time you saw a fast food restaurant using 12 ounce cups? You can easily end up taking in an extra 300-600 calories just from your drink, if you order normal soda. Every 3500 extra calories you take in can end up as another pound of fat on your body. That's about 24 cans of cola... probably 8-12 fast food restaurant cups of cola, depending on how large of ones you buy.

I enjoy cola, and want the caffeine, but don't want to take in the extra calories associated with normal cola. So I order diet cola in fast food restaurants. Meanwhile, people around me get to quietly chuckle to themselves about this idiot who is ordering diet cola with his burger. Well, I'd say that the other people in line with me are just as big of idiots for being in a fast food restaurant in the first place! :-) Hope they enjoy the extra calories from their non-diet soda.

Re:Diet Cola in Fast Food Restaurants

[Desert Raven]

People who order diet cola aren't necessarily under any illusion that doing so is going to magically make them lose weight. (But wouldn't that be nice?) Some people order it because they have sugar problems that make regular soda a bad idea for them. Others want to drink soda, but don't want to take in around 150 calories per 12 ounce serving...

There are some folks (diabetics) who have issues with sugars. However, they really shouldn't be scarfing cheeseburgers either.

For those who are concerned about calories, well, you've got a priorities issue. The most common artificial sweeteners have been shown to have significant health risks. Meanwhile, the only natural non-caloric sweetener has been agressively kept out of this country by the FDA reportedly at the behest of Monsanto (maker of Nutra-Sweet).

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[Anonymous Coward]

I love Iron Chef, but certainly not for the transmission of cooking expertise. How in the world can you figure out how to cook on that show?

There's an Iron Chef book that has a few recipes.

I like to watch the show to get ideas for new flavor combinations, not to reproduce their food (it's like going to a fancy restaurant: you're there to enjoy the food, not learn how to make it). But mostly I like to watch the show because it's fun, over the top and everyone on the show has a healthy respect for the food (unlike Iron Chef USA, which was just as campy, but not many people were actually serious about food).

If you like Thai

[Tungsten Chef]

Just a note if you like Thai coconut milk curries. AB's "Yogurt Gone Bad" episode allowed me to attain my holy grail of cooking, coconut milk curries with no coconut milk, which is about nutritionally equivalent to one Big Mac per cup. Just simmer all your other normal ingredients + 1T sugar for every cup of coconut milk called for (CMCF) in a minimal amount of water until the meat's tender (20-30 minutes for chicken). Mix 1.5T corn starch per cup of CMCF with just enough hot water to dissolve, and add it to the curry. Let it boil until it starts to thicken, then attenuate (http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/Season6/YogurtTran s.htm at Scene 10) 1 cup of yogurt per cup of CMCF and add it back to the curry. Heat this over low to serving temperature, and adjust sugar and salt.

Respecting vegetarians...

[BlaisePascal]

I've been a vegetarian (ovo-lacto) from birth. My rule is "if you have to kill and animal to get it, I won't eat it. I will eat gametes but not zygotes." My reasons for being vegetarian have nothing to do with the well-being of the animals; I use leather, prefer eggs from factory-raised hens (held in small cages and fed hormone-laden feed, with no exercise, turning them into egg-producing machines) to free-range hens (who have better overall health and living conditions, but also have access to roosters). I feel I'm living proof you can get fat and diabetic from a vegetarian diet, and I'm reasonably happy with my health. I recognise that I have canines for tearing flesh and an intestinal tract short enoug to clear itself of meat, but I won't eat it to test that. It probably would be healthier to consume some meat, but I don't care.

I'm vegetarian for personal religious reasons. I don't insist that others be vegetarian.

Can you respect my vegetarianism?

Re:Respecting vegetarians...

[gblues]

To get those vetetables, nuts, beans, and whatnot, millions upon millions of insects, arachnids, and other small creatures must be mass-slaughtered.

What, you'll cry over a horse but not over a horsefly?

I disrespect your blatant hypocrisy.

Nathan

Re:Respecting vegetarians...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm vegetarian for personal religious reasons. I don't insist that others be vegetarian.

Can you respect my vegetarianism?

I can respect your vegetarianism, its your belief in a religion that I have a problem with.

Re:*gasp* QWZX

[unicron]

Yeah, that's one of the great paradoxes of modern rock. Easily their best selling song, and it ruined their career.

I live in France

[realkiwi]

In France cooking is 50/50 science and art

You must know what basic ingredients taste like alone. Then using memory mix them in adequate quantities so that in the mix one doesn't overpower the other. Cooking is easy but it takes experience and talent to be a good cook.

Blantant plug.

[laserjet]

What a perfect time to plug my cooking store. IE or Mozilla/Netscape6 is (javascript) is required.

http://www.easycookin.com

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[pbinmt]

There are a few other things effecting the actual amount of heat that the bird is getting from the lava. First, I'll guess that the lava is not 2000 degrees. It is about that at the vent but he his a couple of miles down from the vent at a break out. If he is getting a reading of 2000 perhaps he is actually reading the gas escaping from the lava not the rock. Then there is of course the crusting effect. When this guy pulled his sample from the stream it began to cool on all sides creating foam like crust that is a great insulator. Three or four inches of this crust is enough for you to insulate your hand from molten lava. From personnel experience, I'd say that if you tossed a hen in to 2000 degree molten lava, it would be vapor inside of a minute.

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[Tackhead]

> Is this Iron Chef (the Japanese show), or Iron Chef USA that we're talking about? The latter is pretty damn funny, if for no other reason than to see William Shatner pretend like he knows what he's talking about, and the comments on food that he delivers in his classic melodramatic style.

IMHO, Iron Chef is funny, and it's great entertainment, but it's not really a cooking show, as the pace of the cooking (multiple chefs, multiple dishes per chef, dozens of sous-chefs doing the prep work simultaneously) makes it impossible to really understand what's going on and learn anything. You've got these great chefs out there, doing great things, but you end up with no idea how they did it or how to apply it to your own cooking.

Perhaps that's what the original poster was referring to when he said he didn't enjoy Iron Chef.

It's rather like watching a grandmaster-level chess match, but replayed at one move per second.

Re:Volcano question - heat capacity

[1qaz2wsx]

From chemistry, you need to know an important difference between temperature and heat capacity. If lava has a low heat capacity, it can have a high temperature but still not provide a high overall temperature. I believe that this is why/how people can walk across glowing hot lava rocks - they have a high temperture but low heat capacity. Another example, an aluminum foil placed in an oven compared to a cast iron frying pan. Both may come out of the over at 400 degrees, but you can grab the foil with a bare hand (you can grab the frying pan with a bare hand as well, if you want to get burned).

Volcanco - heat capacity

[1qaz2wsx]

The primary reason it works is that lava has high temperature, but low heat capacity. Steam et. al. would not help if the lava was at 2000 degrees and high heat capacity. Lava walkers (walking across glowing coals) use very specific types of rock, for precisely this reason, their feet would be burnt to a crisp if you substituted a different type of rock. A more common example is aluminum foil in the oven. You can unwrap a baked potato with bare hands, but it is too hot to simply hold the unwrapped potato, even though they were both at 400 degrees.

Imagine...

[Kaz Riprock]

I can cook a game hen under a broiler in 15 minutes.

Imagine a beowulf cluster of these things...

In my experience...

[Space_Nerd]

I lost 55 lbs this year thanks to a good diet and lots of sacrifice, and what i learnt from it is that what you need to control the most when dieting is the quality of the food you eat, then the quantity. Most people that are fat are like that because of compulsive eating, snacking between food and such. How does one keep snacking, eating a lot and still manage to loose weight? healthy food. Lots of vegetables prepared in a lot of different ways, little meat and a lot of excersice. When i felt like snacking on something i could do that without any remorse, but the snacks i ate were always yogurt or fruits.

Most of the diets i tried before consisted in reduced portions of everything plus trying to keep the food healthy. Well, for a midnight snacker like me that didnt work, i would eventually drop out of it and gain what little weight i lost.

Guilt and food always came hand-in-hand to me, and i think it's that way for most people, and a good diet needs to take that into account, because otherwise it will be an impossible diet for almost everyone.

What am i getting at? people who want to loose weight need 2 things: a ton of determination and proffessional advice. A diet should be prescribed by a professional who knows what its best for you (hint: when it comes to diets, you dont know), and then stick to that. There is no secret, no magic formula, just determination.

Enough ranting, enjoy your yogurt :-D

Re:In my experience...

[arwild01]

Wow.... pretty much right on the money.

I've lost 70 pounds so far this year and it's taking a ton of effort and time.

I don't know that you have to see a professional, but it does take a good bit of reading. The first step is determining how many calories you should be eating and that varies based on sex, body type, goal, and present-day body fat percentage and not everybody can calculate that.

I did the math and my diet is only 1400 calories a day.

Now... think about food labels when they tell you 10% of your RDA. That's based on a 2000 calorie a day diet. You can't trust those percentages unless your diet is 2000 calories.

I count my fat grams. I count my protein grams... I count my calories.

I never wanted to be "one of those" people, but I'm sorry to say it works. If you are aware of what you are eating you will lose weight.

Oh yeah... and indulge yourself every once in a while. People need to realize that diets aren't a short-time thing. You need to think about making permanant changes to your eating habits.

Don't think ... a few more pounds and I can eat that bacon cheeseburger. If you want the bacon cheesburger eat it... then write down what you just ate. It'll help you to eat better the next few days or maybe next time you won't want it.

-Alan

You mighta lost weight ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... but you're still a big, fat ass*ole.

That's a pretty rude sentiment

[Anonymous Coward]

With many vegetarians, like me, cooking a meat dish is not an option. If the basic motivation for the diet is a choose life/religious one not a fashion choice as in your situation.

Incidently, my aunt threatened to boycott my sisters wedding because of the vegetarian dishes at the reception. My mother let her know in no uncertain terms that it was perhaps one of the, most self centered things she'd ever heard.

Re:That's a pretty rude sentiment

[dasmegabyte]

As self centered as expecting everybody to agree with your own moral standing against omivorous evolution?

Sorry, not to be rude, but I feel vegetarianism with a cause is a worse pain than religious fundamentalism. I mean, you only die once (Hindus excepted) but you eat three to seven times a day. I used to get a lecture every time I'd eat when I lived with a PETA vegan, which is why I evolved the ability to enjoy meatless meals -- they were delivered without nagging.

At the same time, saying you won't come to an event because of the menu is pretty damn antisocial. A few of my friends teased they'd toss off early for a steak, and I accepted this when we made the meal plan. I even refused my wife's relent to allow shrimp cocktail. I sort of wish I hadn't -- the menu is my only regret. Well, the menu and the hotel we stayed in the first night. Paper thin walls, mate.

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[Anonymous Coward]

b) All those leaves release a lot of steam which both moderates the temperature and steams the chicken.

Ten leaves, even if they are big leaves, contain far less water than the chicken itself does. So they will not moderate the temperature much more than the chicken itself would. Instead they are more useful to keep the outside from getting burnt.

My personal guess is that the lava is a poor conductor of heat, and is probably less than 2000 degrees F when you put it on the chicken.

How exactly do you shovel lava?

[writertype]

From my visits to the big island of Hawaii, my experience has been that getting CLOSE to the damn lava is the hard part. I can imagine that molten lava at 2,000 degrees might cause air temperatures of oh, 300 degrees or so nearby. It might not be a problem if the lava was downwind, but a nice gust of superheated air would cook you, too, I should think. And what kind of a shovel is he using?

137F?

[bcboy]

One glaring problem with this, and the answer in the interview: oven thermometers are notoriously inaccurate. Being off by 10 or 15F is very, very common. Telling his viewers to use 140F seems pretty irresponsible. He probably has accurate equipment, but hardly any home cook does.

This is probably why the goverment recommends a higher temperature: you have to make recommedations based on the equipment people actually use, rather than what is technically possible in a lab.

Re:137F?

[RocketJeff]

Telling his viewers to use 140F seems pretty irresponsible. He probably has accurate equipment, but hardly any home cook does.

You obviously don't watch Good Eats, he's always pointing out the inaccuracy of oven thermostats and recommending that views buy an accurate probe thermometer like this one.

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[smoondog]

Actually there was a misunderstanding. I suspect that Alton mistook a cornish game hen with hawaiian game hens. Cornish game hens are small and can be cooked in 15 minutes. Hawaiian game hens are big like chickens (they really are just free range chickens) and cannot be cooked in 15 minutes.

=Sean

A True Guide to Being Healthy (long)

[ThaenRT]

I'll try to focus on food.

Last summer, my girlfriend and I noticed that our previously diminuitive appearances were growing a little large for our tastes in mirror appearance. As such, we decided to go on the Plan.

What 'the Plan' was, we had no idea at the time. We figured it would be good the exercise, so we joined a fitness club. We figured it would be good to eat better, so we cut fat out of our diet almost entirely.

We worked out about every day, ate two to four large meals a day, nearly devoid of fat and very high in protein and simple carbs (read: sugar), and generally did everything we could to get healthy. It was a disaster. After about 2 months of zero results, we figured we needed to ask for help.

Fortunately, a friend of mine worked at the club we'd joined and gave us both discounts on training plans. We learned how to exercise (actually, we learned _how_ to learn: the advice that the trainers gave was mediocre, at best, but they did point us toward the best magazines and books and other resources to teach ourselves.). More importantly, however, we learned how to eat.

Easily 80% of being a healthier person is what goes in your mouth. Over the last 14 months or so, I've learned quite a bit about what to eat and how to eat it. Alton's advice is damn good, ("There are no bad foods"), but his execution is a bit off (I'm sure he knows more than he's saying, just pressed for time to answer the question).

Some advice:

• Don't eat what you watch. Take control over your eating habits. Don't be drawn in by colourful pictures or the golden arches. Don't grab a bag of Cheetos just because you're hungry. Impulse eating is easily prevented by a little willpower and forsight, and will prevent that 'Geek Girdle' from forming about your waste.
• Don't wait to eat. Don't let yourself get hungry. Hungry is bad. It means your body's metabolism is slowing down, and when you finally get around to feeding it again, you won't digest your food as effectively. Admitted, this effect is often negligable (evolution has seen to it that our bodies respond rather quickly to New Food), but staying up all night and not eating from dinner to breakfast can be damaging.
• Plan ahead. Eat breakfast, then grab a bagel and put some low-fat cream cheese (it's not really that low in fat, trust me, and don't bother with that crappy tasting fat-free junk) on it for later. That way when Bob brings in donuts, or Fred offers to go to McDonald's to get everyone a Super-Size French Fry at 11:00 am, you won't be tempted, because you won't be hungry (see #1--don't eat what you watch!).
  Plan ahead for meals as well as snacks. On Monday night, make yourself a huge batch of some of Alton's quality chicken (whatever kind you like) and just freeze it. When you feel like grabbing a bad of Doritos, go dump the chicken in a skillet for 10 minutes instead. More protein, more long-chain carbs, less fat: Better balance. Which of course leads to...
• Balance, balance, balance! The hot item these days is 30-30-40: You should get 30% of you CALORIES from fat, 30% from protein, and 40% from carbohydrates. Note that a gram of fat has about 9 calories, while a gram of protein only has about 4. Watch your fat intake--it's easy to eat 1000 calories from fat in a plates of poorly-fried fish and chips! (Unless they're Alton's fish and chips, in which case eat up!)
  If you're trying to gain muscle through a program of weight lifting, eat more protein and more fat, fewer carbs. If your just trying to lose weight, 30-30-40 and a decrease in total calories should do the trick.
• One more thing, which goes right along with what Alton says: Exercise. There are no bad foods, but if you eat anything, you need to give your body a way to burn off extra calories. Now, there are a million more reasons to exercise, but shedding extra pounds is a pretty good reason, IMHO.

There are a million online resources for the this stuff, and the #1 magazine (for guys) is Men's Health. For women, it's Shape. Hands down, these are quality magazines, and I've had a subscription to both (Shape for my g/f) for about a year.

No doubt, taking cooking and shopping tips from Alton is a step toward health--he's a Seriously Intelligent Man!

thaen

No.

[bcboy]

> Everyone has been pushing this anti-fat nonsense, yet Americans are getting fatter and fatter, heart disease is on the up as is diabetes, and millions of Americans find that they can't control their cholesterol no matter how hard they try - and now they are on dangerous liver-killing drugs to try.

This is bullshit. Americans are getting fatter because they're EATING MORE FAT, as well as eating more of everything else. The only fat statistic that's gone DOWN is the percentage of fat Americans are eating at part of their complete diet. But the absolute amount of fat they're consuming has gone up, because they are eating more of everything.

Re:No.

[easyfrag]

Americans are getting fatter because they're EATING MORE FAT, as well as eating more of everything else. The only fat statistic that's gone DOWN is the percentage of fat Americans are eating at part of their complete diet.

That's an interesting point, does anyone have a pointer to some research that might suggest this?

Re:No.

[flygeek]

You miss the fundamental question: WHY are Americans eating more? Well, obviously, because we're more hungry, of course; most people don't eat to entertain themselves. Why are we more hungry? Because we're eating crap that doesn't provide meaningful, long-lasting nutrition, which causes our blood-sugar levels to zoom up and down wildly, and we're hungry an hour after lunch because the blob of simple carbohydrates we consumed (burger, french fries and a Coke) has already been burned through, and the fat is being stored rather than burned (hey, why burn fat when there's probably more carbs on the way?)

The point of ditching simple carbs, and eating more (yes, more) fat and protein is that you don't have to eat nearly as much to be full, and after you've eaten, you won't be hungry until the next meal-time. Overall, you may even be consuming the same amount of calories, but your body is not only going to burn the fat you eat, it may even burn a little stored fat too. If you eat simple carbs all the time, your metabolism is never going to get around to switching into fat-burning mode, which doesn't happen until you've burned through all available carbohydrate calories.

Re:No.

[thelizman]

Well, thank you. I feel so enlightened by your educated supposition, and it's one word conclusion: "bullshit". Perhaps you'd like to explain how it is that everyone did'nt die of heart disease before we discovered how to make fat free foods? Yes, let me poke some more holes here. The average american diet prior to 1900 consisted of MOSTLY MEAT. Vegetables were fragile and did not ship well. Meat could be preserved for several months merely by salting it. So tell me, how did generations of Americans (and Europeans) live long, happy, healthy lives eatching fatty meat foods loaded with salts?

Here's another tidbit for you: Cows don't eat meat. Cows are vegetarian. How the hell do they get so fat if they don't eat fat? BLING BLING!

Finally, ponder this: Fat is almost a calabolic food. That is, it takes so much energy to break fats down into their glucogenic equivalents, that the body realizes very little net energy profit. I"m not talking calories here, because you're body doesn't burn food. Calories are useless. What you have to look for is the energy content of a food, and meats provide none. Fats provide very little. Candy bars, twinkies, and doughnuts pack the spare tires on like a champ, and leave you hungry for more because your insulin rockets through the roof.

I'd love to hear your educated response.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, people who lived on small, self-soficient farms (maybe most Americans before 1900s?) did NOT eat much meat: the cow was not for eating, it provided milk, cheese, and butter for daily consumption. Chickens were not for deep frying: they provided a daily supply of an even better protein source in their eggs. The hog was slaughtered occasionally and the meat cured (salted pork, bacon, ham, sausage rind a bell?) and stored for months at a time to be eaten on a daily basis. The freshest foods were most likely bread (baked daily) and FRUITS and VEGETABLES (canned for winter months, dipped in wax like apples and/or stored in a root cellar for long term storage).

Meat is costly in terms of the energy required (9 pound of grain for 1 pound of meat sound familiar?) so it is highly unlikely people at this time ate huge amounts of it, since breaking your back on a farm is hard enough without wasting large amounts of food crops on feeding solely meet-producing animals. The only people who could afford the high-meat diets were the extremely rich and how do you compare life-spans between the poor who may eat healthier foods and live in crappy conditions and the rich who ate 'poorly' (refined nutritionally bereft food) and yet didn't live in flith?

So I call BULLSHIT: the high-meat, high-fat diet is what is given Americans their high incidence of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and probably contributes to their cancer rates as well.

And note for the geeky, yet uninformed slashdot readers: protein has MORE caloric energy than carbohydrates (both are less than fat): 17 J/gram compared to 16 for carbs and 30 for fats. Its just that your body will use carbs first, fats second and proteins last in preferential order. More notes: people who don't eat carbs can end up in the hospital because their body has no readily available energy source, especially with the high-protein diets. Not to mention other TOXIC effects....

Leidenfrost effect

[Chagrin]

I think you're exactly right. Alton needs to look up what the "Leidenfrost effect" is.

Re:You?re?Using?IE?Aren?tYou?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're also in Netscape 4.7 and 7.0. What broswer DOESN'T have the ? all over Alton's replies?

same old food pyrimid

[bgbarcus]

The Food Pyrimid is only a few years old. When I was a kid and up until the introduction of the Food Pyrimid they told us to equally balance the four food groups. Back when the government was running short of butter to send to the troops in WWII they told the people margarine was the way to go. Somewhere along the way lard became evil. Since then better science has shown margarine to be no better than butter and worse than lard. The government folks make their health recommendations from committees influenced by anti-everything activists and food industry money. Their recommendations are as reliable as an Arthur Andersen audit.

Re:same old food pyrimid

[Avumede]

Ah, I see I was in fact a bit incorrect. The Food Pyramid was created in 1992 (strange, but I do remember something similar in the 80's).

While there have been some minor changes (butter vs margarine is an excellent example, but really a quibble since both are not good for you), the basic lessons are the same: avoid a high fat diet, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and exercise. This is what the government has been telling us for as long as I can remember.

GoogleCooking

[Felipe Hoffa]

As reported by the Google Weblog, don't forget GoogleCooking! :

Just look at what ingredients you have available and ask Google to find a recipe to match :).

Fh

this makes no sense

[bcboy]

If you eat simple carbs all the time, you're going to be eating too many calories, anyway. This is not revolutionary news, or in any way out of line with standard dietary recommendations of the last half century.

And if eating more fat was effective at making people eat less, why are people eating MORE fat and also MORE of everything else? Eating more fat hasn't had the effect you claim.

Low-carb zealots who are losing weight are doing it because they're eating fewer calories and more vegetables. This isn't news.

question 7

[Anonymous Coward]

one book that is no doubt in AB's biblio is harold mcgee's immovably authoritative treatise on everyone you ever wanted to know about food and cooking: on food and cooking, the science and lore of the kitchen. go out and buy it today (or, uh, sit there and order it today..)

Re: That volcano page

[caferace]

Not too mention that while kevlar gloves may be able to handle 2000 degree heat, a hand inside of it will cook a lot faster than any game hen.

Microwave power++

[Gandalf_007]

I like my Panasonic 1100W microwave. I just have learned to not use the "Popcorn" button but instead set the timer for 95 seconds and voila, perfect popcorn. I hate using other microwaves because they take too damn long to cook stuff. Its auto-defrost works pretty well too -- simply enter the weight of the food and it runs it on defrost for the proper amount of time.

Blame the editors

[goldfndr]

... for not hitting the Preview button.

Thermal Conductivity

[sig]

There is another reason why this might work that people seem to be overlooking. Although the lava is very hot, pumice has an etremely low heat conductivity, which means it can't transfer heat very quickly. Even though the bird is in contact with it, the rock can't dump heat into it fast enough to cook it quickly.

NASA builds space shuttles and covers them with ceramic tiles to prevent them from burning up on reentry. The tiles that they use are physically almost identical to the pumice found in a volcanoe.

If its works for the space shuttle, its going to work for you hen as well.

Re:Thermal Conductivity

[Wanker]

There is another reason why this might work that people seem to be overlooking. Although the lava is very hot, pumice has an etremely low heat conductivity, which means it can't transfer heat very quickly. Even though the bird is in contact with it, the rock can't dump heat into it fast enough to cook it quickly.

After that inner crust of lava has hardened by giving up all its energy to vaporize the water in the Ti leaves, this would make a nicely formed earthenware roaster around the bird. The heat from the hotter exterior would then radiate/conduct slowly through that insulated interior crust.

It seems analagous to the "put a bunch of bricks in your oven on the clean cycle" method of roasting that Alton describes in his book.

Too bad the original poster didn't provide that link. I think it would have cleared things up nicely.

Re:What a fucking arrogant asshole

[Muddle]

http://www.foodtv.com/foodtv/episode/0,6283,EA1E12 ,00.html
In Scrap Iron Chef Bacon episode he even used computer parts found at the junkyard to cure the bacon.
It's the ultimate in Hacker Cooking.
Very few episodes of Scrap Iron Chef were made and it rarely comes on.
Probably this is due to that Wimp Kaga complaining to Food Network about the satire of his suck ass show. When Iron Chef comes on I switch channels.

I'd love to see Alton and Kaga going head to head in a Scrap Iron Chef cooking show.
Kaga could even save face and win because the judges on Scrap Iron Chef are as bad as those on Iron Chef.

why the short answers?

[maiku]

If you head over to the Good Eats Fan Page you'll find a good FAQ list and a very lengthy, sincere interview by AB.

I'm a fan of the show and I admit I was also disappointed by the short responses. Then I read the fan page interview...the man has worked 6 day weeks on 5 hours of sleep a night since 1999! He's truly committed to doing quality work and it shows. He also has a respectable attitude towards product endorsements. You gotta admire the guy.

Oh yeah, did I mention he's a father too!

9) Cooking In Lava

[MrIcee]

I'm responding here to a number of reader comments that appear in response to the Lava Cooking question that I posted....

Water boils at 212F (sea level, but I suspect if he's on a volcano, he may be cooking way above sea level).

Just for the record... we are at nearly sea-level when we do this. The Pu'u O'o vent where the lava is currently coming out is at about 3000 ft above sealevel... but the lava pours down the lavatubes towards the ocean where occasionally it breaks out to the surface. It's these surface flows, at sealevel, that we do the cooking in.

For those of you who point out that the pictures on the website don't show us using the gloves we talk about. First, the person with the shovel doesn't need gloves, because he's a few feet from the ultra hot. Second... we can't just use any surface outbreak of lava... it has to be fluid enough and accessable enough, or our bodies, regardless of gloves, won't let us get close enough. Thirdly, it is the person that has to push the hen onto the first blob of lava that should be wearing the gloves - especially when the second blob is poured on top (the gloves we use, btw, can withstand 2000 degrees for 20 seconds of direct contact without breaching... but after 20 or so seconds, it gets very hot very quick - however, we have actually lifted fairly taffy-like flows right off the ground with the gloves - an awe-inspireing trick.

For those of you that commented about wanting to cook in lava when you visit the big island... first, let me point out that it is illegal to do this in the Volcano National Park. However, some of the time the lava is actually outside of park boundries, and near 4-wheel roads on the Puna (Kalapana) side. When that's the case we simply 4-wheel to the lava and can play to our hearts content - no rangers involved and no laws broken. (right now, however, it's totally inside park boundries and has been for about 6 or 7 months - hope it swings back soon, the rangers are no fun :).

Finally... to those of you who answered my original post before Alton responded... I think your right. Lava does lose it's heat quickly. In fact... a surface flow that has stopped forward motion will cool from 2000 degrees to walkable temperature (with boots) in 10 minutes (granted, your boots are smoking, but you can make it over and across). Additionally, I think your supicions on the steam from the leaves and hen are also correct. The inside of the oven probably drops like a rock (pun intended) while the outside is venting... so my pyrometer (which is reading the outside) is probably recording a higher-than-internal temperature. The person who suggested that I rig an internal thermometer had a good idea... but I have to look into the feasibility of doing that without damage to the cords, etc.

Finally, for those of you who actually intend on visiting the lava on the Big Island... I suggest staying at the Dolphin Bay Hotel. The owner, John Alexander, is a lava nut (and the one in the picture on the website cooking in the lava). His hotel is nice, inexpensive, and he has the low-down on all the great lava (and other) things to do on the island. For those of you who still disbelieve that we actually cook on lava, his website shows the pictures of us doing it (www.dolphinbayhotel.com -- click on Kilauea Volcano and then on Cooking In Lava at the top).

And finally to you Alton... while I didn't agree with your answer (and no... we were not taking mushrooms - but would gladly try if your supplying :))... if you ever want to visit the Big Island and the volcano - and try your hand at cooking in lava... look us up. You can get ahold of myself or John by calling the Dolphin Bay Hotel.

Aloha!!

Dr. Dean's diet...

[samdu]

Eat what you want - eat less of it.

There is no evidence that organic foods are better or worse for you than processed foods. None. Refined sugars and flours are not going to kill you.

Re:Dr. Dean's diet...

[thelizman]

Dr. Dean Adell? If that's who you're referring to, then you need to change the channel and listed to Dr. Lance Dreyer. I think he's cured a lot more fatties than Adell has.

As for this "no evidence" thing, it's absolutely wrong. There are reams of research on the issue of hyperinsulinism and insulin resistance that show it is directly the result of our voracious appettites for sugars and ultra-simple carbs. Even the article itself points out the corelary between Italian's penchants for pasta and big distended bellies. I'd dig it all up for you, but I have a policy that if it requies research, I post it to K-5 instead of slashdot.

Divergent Evolutions, Diverse Metabolisms

[thelizman]

No one diet holds true for everyone. I liked to that article because I felt it was the most respectful treatment of fats and proteins in the popular media today. The bottom line is to eat healthy whole foods prepared with natural processes, and avoid foods that came out of test tubes. Now, for me a high protein diet (50% meat, 5% fats, 35% complex carbs) works the best. My friend Danielle is different. Her metabolism is so high that she can eat all the junk food she wants and not gain a lb (she's a damn twig!). That'll change for her by the time she's 37, and we've seen it in her mom and aunt.

Different people evolved differently. there are tribes in Africa where the diet is almost 100% protein, and heart disease is unheard of. There are cultures in the middle east where you eat little to no meat, and they are equally as healthy. America is the connecting point for all of these cultures, and our American diet is generally incompatible with body types that are the result of millenia of evolution. What is important is that everyone finds their own diet, and not the diet that the USDA, AMA, or FDA tells them is healthy.

Re:Divergent Evolutions, Diverse Metabolisms

[rnd()]

I generally agree with your statement, however I think the majority of the 'evolutionary time' during which the human species evolved was pre-agricultural. Refined carbohydrates and domesticated livestock create a drastic divergence from the diet around which our species evolved.

You Make No Sense: Vegetables Have Carbs

[thelizman]

People on low-carb diets typically shun vegetables. If they get any carbs, it's from leafy greens.

But if they are on high protein diets, they're getting more fat, right? How do you explain that people on no-carb diets typically lose weight very quickly? Ignoring the importance - the VITAL importance - of fats in ones diet is dangerous.

So you ask, why are people eating more fat? WHO SAYS THEY ARE? Go to the store, and you'll see that nearly every product has a low fat/no fat equivalent. As a whole, we consume less fat in this country than we did 50 years ago. Do you know what they are doing to make those no/low fat foods taste as good as the original? They are replacing the fats with carbs. A quick look at the label shows this. Even McDonalds has reduced the amount of fat in their french frieds TWICE in the last 15 years by switching oils, but they aren't any more healthy for you. French fries...made from potatos...potatos are starchy tubers....starches...are we having a break through yet?

Somehow I am going to convince you (keep in mind, I've lost almost 48% of my body in the last two years by eating healthy like i talk about above. How much have you lost on your low fat starvation diets?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

[thelizman]

Absolutely, and I'll tell you why: Because you have a reason. Most people who become vegetarian, lacto-ova, or vegan, do so based on ignorance, not on philosophy. They do it because PETA tells them that animals suffer because of their eating habits. I try to buy free range meat from animals that lived happy and die fast (for the reasons mentioned above). If we could grow meat without an animal attached, (which looks to be a very real possibility), and it was just as healthy as the real thing, we could end animal suffering. But that's not a reality we have right now.

Others become vegetarians because they're told it's healtheir. Well, I've met very few 'healthy' vegetarians, not because vegetarianism is not healthy, but because they don't know how to budget their diet to include essential proteins as provided by nuts, soy, and other plants. They don't know how to include diet supplements that provide them with things they aren't getting from plants.

Finally, there are people who interpret their religeous teachings (or are directly taught by their faith) that eating animals is bad. I can respect this whole heartedly. In general, these people also come from a back ground of vegetarians for the same reasons, and their body is more adapted to their diet. A Sikh from Delhi will live healither off a vegetarian diet than a Hunn from Berlin. People who adopt religeons that are extracultural need to be aware of thier metabolic needs and supplement for them if they expect to have a long healthy life.

You sound like you've got your diet set up right for who you are and how you live, and that's easy to respect. Unfortunately, I can't invite you to my next barbecue; You might offend my carnivore freinds ; )

Anonymous Cowards....

[thelizman]

how apt...look, if you don't have the cahones to type asshole, then dont type at all. Bitch.

I asked that question.

[cporter]

I asked that question. And no, i'm not brainwashed - in any way. I'm quite well aware that high fat foods are not necessarily harmful in moderation. But neither have I been led into believing that Atkins-style or "Zone" diets that promote high-fat, high-protein, and low carbohydrates are healthful or that they can even deliver long term weight loss. I see that many media sources these days are making the strange leap of logic that "we've been told low-fat, but Americans are getting fatter. therefore, maybe low-fat isn't right."

After the death and taxes, the next inevitable truth:
if (calories consumed > calories burned)
then weight++;

The "common sense" for fats and cholesterol has two parts: (1) fat has about 9 calories per gram as compared to 4 calories per gram for proteins and carbohydrates. You need to know this before justifying the eating of a bag of doritos with salsa 'n queso. (2) Cholesterol kills. Medical science has advanced such that the #1 killer in the US is a lifestyle disease - heart disease - directly attributable to diet and lack of exercise. 1 egg yolk has more cholesterol than your body can healthily process in a day. And not to sob story here, but some people's genetic dispositions make them even more susceptible to these problems.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the answer I was looking for. Alton himself often shudders at the specter of high fat and high cholesterol ingredients - in one episode he "dies" of a heart attack and is lectured by god in the form of a tuna. I know that he uses yogurt in place of cream in some episodes. I wanted to know what he thought of other substitutes - natural and otherwise - that are on the market. Is margarine any better than butter, tastewise, can it be used in some of his recipes? What about the various sugar substitutes - can they be used in that chocolate mousse recipe? I grew up with applesauce in my chocolate chip cookies in place of butter - whaddya think?

This was a sensible question. I asked several and this one got modded up. Unfortunately, it probably would have been better asked in a converation rather than by send-away. I'll be sure to ask him when he's touring in support of his book!

P.S. The FDA and the surgeon general have made up their minds, and have left it alone for nearly 20 years. Low fat, high fiber, lots of vegetables and fruit. The nutrition pyramid hasn't changed since I was in 1st grade. The cover story of Time or Newsweek has.

P.P.S. Good Eats still rules. I just tend to make his Salsa, Pasta, Vegetable, and Fish recipes more than I do his deep-fried macaroni and cheese dish.

Re:Margerine

[Joe Mucchiello]

Find a copy of The case for butter, or read the transcript: http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/Season3/ButterTrans cript.htm
Margerine's got Transfatty acids. They are worse for you than fat is. He also talks about Transfatty acids in Fry Hard http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/Season2/FryTranscri pt.htm

Calories are Lies

[thelizman]

A calorie (most properly called a gram/calorie) is the amount of heat required to raise one gram of water by one degree celcius. Heat is the movement of thermal energy, NOT the amount of thermal energy involved in a reaction. A drop (1 cc) of water at a given thermal temperature has more heat than a 1 cm2 square of aluminum, because water doesn't hold its thermal energy as well.

What's the point in this remedial physics lesson? Tell me, what the hell does a 'calorie' have to do with the bodies metabolic processes? The body doesn't combust foods to generate energy, nor is the body made all of water. Even if it was, water is not consistant in its heat value because it is a fluid. So using "calories" is about the most horse-shit dead reckoning you can do. It's like saying that red cars go faster. Well, the most popular color for sports cars is red, right?

The energy in food derived from the amount of ATP that can be derived from the various chemicals in it through the least amount of digestion. Sugars pack the most, followed by starches, followed by carbs, then fats. Proteins have almost no energy (except the ATP in the cells already), we need them to provide essential amino acids for us (those are the amino acids that our body cannot make itself). Amino acids build the body.

When you buy "low fat" foods, all you are buying are un-naturally processed foods where the fats have been displaced by carbs, usually really simple ones. If you don't use those carbs, they go to fat.

For the last time, your body doesn't work like an internal combustion engine, so calories are about as worthless as tits on a boar hog. Answer me this: If calories are the ultimate measure of energy intake, than how can people who go on starvation diets (i.e., 800 calories per day or less) actually gain weight?

BTW, Average americans couldn't afford vegetables 'back in the day'. Any idiot who studied the industrial revolution knows that vegetables were far more expensive than just going out and shooting your dinner prior to the industrial revolution (when durable cans made packing and shipping veggies like corn economical).

Very True, But

[thelizman]

It appears that humans adapt very quickly to metabolic intake, and we may not even need evolution to adapt our dietary needs. As long as the available sustinance is relatively close to our typical diets. We had carbo intake even when we spent time chasing herds around, since there was a lot of gathering going on. Anthropologically speaking, setting down into agricultural societies has more to do with the ease (and safety) of gathering compared to chasing herds of pissed of bison around.

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[evilpenguin]

Hmm. I thought the reason you could walk on hot coals was (and I know I'm going to totally blow the spelling of this one) "the Liedenfost Effect," that some of the perspiration on your feet flashes to steam when you come into contact with the coals. The steam then insulates your feet from the direct conduction of the very hot coals. Again, I know I blew the spelling, but this is the same effect that makes water bead up and skitter around a hot skillet. If it didn't happen, that much water would boil away in a second or two.

Can anyone more than a decade closer to their physics/chemistry/engineering education remind me of the right name for this?

Re:Volcano question - found the right link!

[gorilla]

No. The reason you can walk on hot coals is that most people get confused about temperature and heat. To take an example, if you turn on your oven, and put a cake into it. After 30 minutes, everything is at the same temperature. If you put your hand into the oven, you'll find that you can easily bear the air. You can touch the cake, but it's uncomfortable. If you were silly enough to touch the metal rails, you'd get burned. This is because air has a poor heat capacity, it takes relativly little energy to raise it 1 degree. The metal has a high heat capacity, it takes lots of energy to raise it 1 degree. The coals, while they have a high temperature, they have a low heat capacity, and therefore there is little available energy to transfer to the firewalker's feet.

F*** Microwave Ovens. Get a decent toaster oven

[Anonymous Coward]

It's cheaper, safer and you can cook
all kinds of s*** in it.

I even broil my steaks in it without
heating myself out of the house!

Microwave ovens are for pansys and heating
coffee. Besides which, unless you use it properly
(which I can and absolutely refuse to do anymore),
most everything cooked in it by the average Joe tastes like gummy chewy crap. *shrug*
(I like my coffee cold.. so.. I don't own a microwave oven)

On a side note: It's also easier to take your spare
$20 toaster oven outside to bake your magnesium
sulfate in for a day than it is to drag your house
oven out there. Don't try that with your nice $150
microwave ROTFL

cporter

[drinkypoo]

I applaud episodes like "Good Milk Gone Bad" and "The Other Red Meat" that focus on lower fat and cholesterol foods. But many of your recipes call for butter, oil, cream, and other less than healthful foods (even bacon grease!). What do you think about some of the substitutes out there, or using ingredients like applesauce to replace butter?

Apparently you haven't read What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?.

Pardon me, I'm going to go replace my applesauce with butter.