Wine ratings are all over the place, particularly when price enters the picture. This video explains that the most expensive wine is not always the best tasting wine, but you might prefer it anyway.
Every state in the U.S. has a unique flavor, from Chicken Cheesesteak to Chinese Chicken Salad. Foursquare analyzed the data to pinpoint which food or drink is most disproportionately popular in each destination, and worked with Mapbox to create the dynamic map.
Louisiana is crawfish, Vermont is maple syrup, and Texas is breakfast tacos. I love that Nevada is bottle service. All that state wants is to get you drunk in the least fiscally responsible way possible.
From juice cleanses to vaccines to gluten to exercise to, uh, vagina steaming, celebrities like Jenny McCarthy and Gwyneth Paltrow are often found making claims that have little or no scientific evidence behind them. Timothy Caulfield recently wrote a book exploring the world of celebrity pseudoscience called Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?
But while much has been written about the cause of our obsession with the rich and famous, Caulfield argues that not enough has been done to debunk celebrity messages and promises about health, diet, beauty, or the secret to happiness. From the obvious dangers, to body image of super-thin models and actors, or Gwyneth Paltrow’s enthusiastic endorsement of a gluten free-diet for almost everyone, or Jenny McCarthy’s ill-informed claims of the risks associated with vaccines, celebrity opinions have the power to dominate our conversations and outlooks on our lives and ourselves.
JB: So is Gwyneth actually wrong about everything?
TC: It’s incredible how much she is wrong about. Even when she is right about stuff — like telling people to eat more fruits and vegetables — there is always a bit of a tinge of wrongness. She’ll say, “It has to be organic,” for example. She is still distracting us with these untrue details, as opposed to just pushing the honest truth.
Update: I had forgotten about this book, so I was pleased to be reminded of it by this recent interview with Caulfield about celebrity health advice.
Colon cleanse: There is no evidence we need to cleanse our colons or detoxify our bodies. Vagina steaming to detoxify and increase fertility: again, absolutely ridiculous. Getting stung by bees is her latest thing for anti-aging — because, yes, anaphylaxis is so revitalizing. Goop, her website, suggested wearing a bra can cause cancer. This is raising fears, completely science free. I could go on and on and on.
But what’s at the heart of Paltrow’s empire? Is she just a dedicated health-seeker taking us on her path for utmost physical and spiritual well-being? No. Paltrow’s Goop is pure, unadulterated, blood-diamond free, organic-certified, biodynamic, moon-dusted bullshit. And you should avoid it at all costs. Here’s why.
For lunch today, I was hungry for some noodles from Xi’an Famous Foods, one of my favorite places to eat in all of NYC. While preparing to trek to the East Village or up to Bryant Park, a friend told me about a relatively new location on 34th Street, just down the street from the Empire State Building and only 10 blocks from my office. When I looked it up on the website, I noticed something else: a real-time traffic meter that shows how busy each restaurant is.
What a great idea. The Shake Shack cam is one thing, but I want a meter like this (w/ a forecast option as well) on every restaurant listing in Foursquare. Like Google Maps real-time traffic, except for restaurants.
Published in 1961 with an introduction by Alice B Toklas, The Artists’ and Writers’ Cookbook features recipes and wisdom from dozens of writers and artists, including Harper Lee, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Pearl Buck, Upton Sinclair, John Keats, and Burl Ives. Lee shared her recipe for crackling cornbread:
First, catch your pig. Then ship it to the abattoir nearest you. Bake what they send back. Remove the solid fat and throw the rest away. Fry fat, drain off liquid grease, and combine the residue (called “cracklings”) with:
1 ½ cups water-ground white meal
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
Bake in very hot oven until brown (about 15 minutes).
Result: one pan crackling bread serving 6. Total cost: about \$250, depending upon size of pig. Some historians say this recipe alone fell the Confederacy.
Let me begin by saying, ma chere, that Steak Tartare, alias Bitteck Tartare, also known as Steck Tartare, is in no way related to tartar sauce. The steak to which I refer originated with the Cossacks in Siberia, and it can be prepared on horseback, at swift gallop, if conditions make this a necessity.
Indications: Chop one half pound (per person) of the very best beef obtainable, and shape carefully with artistry into a bird’s nest. Place on porcelain plate of a solid color — ivory is the best setting — so that no pattern will disturb the distribution of ingredients. In hollow center of nest, permit two egg yolks to recline. Like a wreath surrounding the nest of chopped meat, arrange on border of plate in small, separate bouquets:
Chopped raw white onion
Bright green capers
Curled silvers of anchovy
Fresh parsley, chopped fine
Black olives minutely chopped in company with yellow celery leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
Each guest, with his plate before him, lifts his fork and blends the ingredients with the egg yolks and meat. In center of table: Russian pumpernickel bread, sweet butter, and bottles of vin rosé.
Not to be outdone, MoMA published their own artists’ cookbook in 1977, featuring contributions from Louise Bourgeois, Christo, Salvador Dali, Willem De Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. Here’s Warhol’s recipe:
Andy Warhol doesn’t eat anything out of a can anymore. For years, when he cooked for himself, it was Heinz or Campbell’s tomato soup and a ham sandwich. He also lived on candy, chocolate, and “anything with red dye #2 in it.” Now, though he still loves junk food, McDonald’s hamburgers and French fries are something “you just dream for.”
The emphasis is on health, staying thin and eating “simple American food, nothing complicated, no salt or butter.” In fact, he says, “I like to go to bad restaurants, because then I don’t have to eat. Airplane food is the best food — it’s simple, they throw it away so quickly and it’s so bad you don’t have to eat it.”
Campbell’s Milk of Tomato Soup
A 10 3/4-ounce can Campbell’s condensed tomato soup
2 cans milk
In a saucepan bring soup and two cans milk to boil; stir. Serve.
1. Get as much of your nutrition as possible from a variety of completely unprocessed foods. These include fruits and vegetables. But they also include meat, fish, poultry and eggs that haven’t been processed. In other words, try to buy food that hasn’t been cooked, prepared or altered in any way. Brown rice over white rice. Whole grains over refined grains. You’re far better off eating two apples than drinking the same 27 grams of sugar in an eight-ounce glass of apple juice.
What’s more interesting than the guidelines is the admission up front that they’re not supported by rigorous science…and neither is nutrition in general. In the absence of science, “everything in moderation” seems to be the recommended course. (via @jimray)
Update: Julia Belluz recently interviewed Surgeon General1 Vivek Murthy for Vox and within, Murthy shares his four basic rules for health:
One is to eat healthy. I tend to avoid salt, added sugar, and processed foods whenever possible, and try to eat fresh fruits and vegetables as part of all my meals whenever possible.
Second is to stay physically active. That means not just going to gym but incorporating activity into whatever I do, whether that’s taking the stairs or converting sitting meetings to walking meetings whenever possible.
Third is making sure I’m focusing on my emotional and mental well-being. For me, an important part of that is the meditation practice that I do every morning. It’s a chance for me to center myself, a chance for me to remember who I want to be every day.
The fourth thing is I remind myself to stay away from toxic substances like tobacco and drugs.
What an odd antiquated governmental post, Surgeon General of the United States. The US government needs a robust advocate for the health of its citizens, but maybe not a 3-star admiral in the uniformed services you refer to as a surgeon? And while we’re on the topic, sort of, why not a Filmmaker Laureate, Musician Laureate, YouTube Star Laureate, TV Showrunner Laureate, iOS App Programmer Laureate, and Blogger Laureate in addition to Poet Laureate? ↩
Jiro Ono (who Dreams of Sushi) and René Redzepi (who is probably the current Best Chef in the World™) sit down for a cup of tea and a chat.
At one point, Redzepi asks Jiro at what age he thought he had become a master. The reply:
Let’s say it’s 50. There is a lot of failure before that. You go through failures and successes, and more failures for years until it feels like you have achieved what you had in mind the whole time.
There’s also a bit at the end, offered almost as an aside, of what it takes to be a master: a blend of stubbornness and sensitivity. What a combination…I wish they’d had another cup and talked about that.
Watson, IBM’s evolving attempt at building a computer capable of AI, was originally constructed to excel at Jeopardy. Which it did, handily beating Jeopardy mega-champ Ken Jennings. Watson has since moved on to cooking and has just come out with a new cookbook, Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson.
You don’t have to be a culinary genius to be a great cook. But when it comes to thinking outside the box, even the best chefs can be limited by their personal experiences, the tastes and flavor combinations they already know. That’s why IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education teamed up to develop a groundbreaking cognitive cooking technology that helps cooks everywhere discover and create delicious recipes, utilizing unusual ingredient combinations that man alone might never imagine.
In Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson, IBM’s unprecedented technology and ICE’s culinary experts present more than 65 original recipes exploding with irresistible new flavors. Together, they have carefully crafted, evaluated and perfected each of these dishes for “pleasantness” (superb taste), “surprise” (innovativeness) and a “synergy” of mouthwatering ingredients that will delight any food lover.
This is…weird. The National Archives contains a Cocktail Construction Chart made in an architectural style, for some reason, by the US Forest Service in 1974.
If it does, royalties might be due to the family of late Forest Service Region 8 Engineer Cleve “Red” Ketcham, who passed away in 2005 but has since been commemorated in the National Museum of Forest Service History. It’s Ketcham’s signature scribbled in the center of the chart, and according to Sharon Phillips, a longtime Program Management Analyst for Region 8 (which covers Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma and Puerto Rico, though Ketcham worked out of its Atlanta office), who conferred with her engineering department, there’s little doubt Ketcham concocted the chart in question. “They’re assuming he’s the one, because the drawing has a date of 1974, and he was working our office from 1974-1980,” she said. And in case there’d be any curiosity as to whether someone else composed the chart and Ketcham merely signed off on it for disbursement, Phillips clarified that, “He’s the author of the chart. I wouldn’t say he passed it along to the staff, because at that time, he probably did that as maybe a joke, something he did for fun. It probably got mixed up with some legitimate stuff and ended up in the Archives.”
I contacted the librarian at the Forest History Society and found similar information. An archivist pulled a staff directory from the Atlanta office (aka “Region 8”) from 1975 and found three names that correlate with those on the document: David E. Ketcham & Cleve C. Ketcham (but not Ketchum, as on the document) and Robert B. Johns (presumably aka the Bob Johns in the lower right hand corner). Not sure if the two Ketchams were related or why the spellings of Cleve’s actual last name and the last name of the signature on the chart are different.
However, in the past few days, I’ve run across several similar charts, most notably The Engineer’s Guide to Drinks.1 Information on this chart is difficult to come by, but various commenters at Flowing Data and elsewhere remember the chart being used in the 1970s by a company called Calcomp to demonstrate their pen plotter.
As you can see, the Forest Service document and this one share a very similar visual language — for instance, the five drops for Angostura bitters, the three-leaf mint sprig, and the lemon peel. And I haven’t checked every single one, but the shading employed for the liquids appear to match exactly.
So which chart came first? The Forest Service chart has a date of 1974 and The Engineer’s Guide to Drinks is dated 1978. But in this post, Autodesk Technologist Shaan Hurley says the Engineer’s Guide dates to 1972. I emailed Hurley to ask about the date, but he couldn’t point to a definite source, which is not uncommon when you’re dealing with this sort of thing. It’s like finding some initials next to “85” scratched into the cement on a sidewalk: you’re pretty sure that someone did that in 1985 but you’d have a tough time proving it.
FWIW, if I had to guess where this chart originated, I’d say that the Calcomp plotter demo got out there somehow (maybe at a trade show or published in an industry magazine) and every engineer took a crack at their own version, like an early internet meme. Cleve Ketcham drew his by hand while others probably used the CAD software running on their workplace mainframes or minicomputers.
Anyway, if anyone has any further information about where these CAD-style cocktail instructions originated, let me know. (thx, @john_overholt & tre)
Over the past three decades, Ben & Jerry’s has created over twenty flavors honoring various famous people, and only two of those people have been female: Tiny Fey’s character on 30 Rock (“Liz Lemon’s Greek Frozen Yogurt”, released in 2013 ) and Olympic snowboarder Hannah Teter (“Hannah Teter’s Maple Blondie”, released briefly in 2009).
There are currently no female flavors of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (even Tina Fey would agree that, while “Greek frozen yogurt” is certainly a healthy ice cream alternative, it is not the same as ice cream), despite the fact that women consume significantly more ice cream than men do.
“I love my butter pecan ice cream,” she says, “but I also love to work out. We all have our issues. Mine is arms and legs, keeping them tight and toned. It takes work, believe me.”
Ben & Jerry’s! Let’s make this happen! (via @amateurgourmet)
If you and a friend are walking around Manhattan trying to find dinner, this is how the conversation will go:
It’s funny because it’s true. That’s a clip from We’ll Find Something, a short film by Casey Gooden starring Upstream Color’s Shane Carruth and Amy Seimetz.
Update: The full film has been released online and it is excruciating to watch if you’ve ever had bad relationship moments while traveling.
I love watching people who are particularly adept at food prep and this guy preparing teh tarik certainly fits the bill. His pour seems to violate at least two of Newton’s three laws of motion.
About a minute into The Katering Show, I already knew it was going to be my favorite cooking show of all time. In this episode, the toothsome twosome with the Beatlesesque names of McCartney and McLennan make risotto hot wet rice using a Thermomix.
So “what is a Thermomix?” I hear anyone under the age of 33 ask. It’s a blender, a microwave, an ice bucket, and a set of kitchen scales. It’s a gangbang of kitchen appliances that’s created a futuristic robot saucepan. It’s the kind of appliance that your rich mother-in-law gives you as a wedding gift because she doesn’t think you can cook. Or something that you buy yourself because you’ve always wanted to join a cult, but you don’t have the energy for the group sex.
David Chang is exactly right: when dining at a restaurant, often the best option is to sit at the bar.
When everyone’s so close, it changes the dining experience. Out on the floor, you’re a dickhead if you overhear a conversation and chime in. Not at the bar. You connect, trade stories, then trade bites. I’ve never shared as much food with strangers as I have at the bar. You meet great people that way — you’re part of this band of outsiders within the restaurant. And for me, that’s the best possible dining experience of all.
I’ve caught a couple of episodes of CNN’s Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown and I’ve been impressed with the show so far. In it, chef/author Anthony Bourdain travels to places off the beaten path and explores the local culture. But it’s not just about food and culture as with his previous shows. In Parts Unknown, Bourdain also delves into local politics and social issues. In Iran, he spoke with journalists about their tenuous relationship with the government (and two of the journalists he spoke with were subsequently arrested). Episodes in the Congo, Myanmar, and Libya are produced with a focus on their oppressive governments, past and present. Even in the Massachusetts episode, he talks about his former heroin addiction and the current addiction of poor whites in the US. Many of the places he visits, we only hear about the leadership and bad things that happen on the news, but Bourdain meets with the locals and finds more similarities amongst cultures than differences. I’d never considered going to visit someplace like Iran, but Parts Unknown has me considering it…what a great people.
Season four recently wrapped up and they’re shooting season five now. The first three seasons are currently available on Netflix and all four seasons are on Amazon. (FYI to the web team at CNN: “Unknown” is misspelled in the
of that page.)
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Anthony%20Bourdain">Anthony Bourdain</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Anthony%20Bourdain%3A%20Parts%20Unknown">Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Iran">Iran</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/travel">travel</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/TV">TV</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2015-01-23T15:50:04Z">Jan 23 @ 10:50 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/15/01/matchbook-diaries-of-new-york-city">Matchbook Diaries of New York City</a></h2>
<p><a href="http://instagram.com/matchbookdiaries/">Matchbook Diaries</a> is an Instagram account collecting photos of NYC restaurant matchbooks. Some notables:</p>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-01.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-01.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-01.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="640" height="640" border="0" alt="NYC Matchbooks" /></p>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-02.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-02.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-02.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="640" height="640" border="0" alt="NYC Matchbooks" /></p>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-03.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-03.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-03.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="640" height="640" border="0" alt="NYC Matchbooks" /></p>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-04.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-04.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/nyc-matchbooks-04.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="640" height="640" border="0" alt="NYC Matchbooks" />
</p>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/NYC">NYC</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/photography">photography</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/restaurants">restaurants</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2015-01-22T23:38:14Z">Jan 22 @ 06:38 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/15/01/the-shake-shack-economy">The Shake Shack Economy</a></h2>
<p>The food is fresh. Natural. Locally sourced. Sometimes even organic. That might sound like your local farmer’s market, but it’s actually part of a new and growing movement in the fast-food industry. Think Shake Shack, Chipotle, Panera. While we’re not exactly seeing tractors in the drive-thrus, the rise of these chains (and the pressure on their predecessors that placed a lot more emphasis on the fast than the food) tell us a lot about economic inequality, the modern workday, and fries. From The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki: <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/shake-shack-economy">The Shake Shack Economy</a>.
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<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/economics">economics</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/James%20Surowiecki">James Surowiecki</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Shake%20Shack">Shake Shack</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2015-01-20T14:13:59Z">Jan 20 @ 09:13 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/15/01/the-ramen-flavored-omelette">The ramen-flavored omelette</a></h2>
<p><a href="http://luckypeach.com/">Lucky Peach</a>, the publishing arm of the <a href="http://momofuku.com/">Momofuku</a> restaurant group, recently launched their new web site with a bunch of online content. Among their offerings is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/LuckyPeachTV/videos">a series of videos</a> featuring David Chang making various foods, including this omelette flavored with an instant ramen seasoning packet:</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/n1vHuhaxGe8?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>See also Chang making <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2amaunqYYk">tonkotsu broth</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_7hKfQS_Cw">gnocchi from instant ramen noodles</a>.
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<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/David%20Chang">David Chang</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/Momofuku">Momofuku</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/video">video</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2015-01-14T14:26:51Z">Jan 14 @ 09:26 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/15/01/on-the-importance-of-diners">On the importance of diners</a></h2>
<p>At Serious Eats, Ed Levine writes about <a href="http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/01/ed-levine-why-diners-are-more-important-than-ever.html">Why Diners Are More Important Than Ever</a>. From his ten-point list of what defines a diner:</p>
<blockquote><p>8. All-occasion places: Diners must rise to many occasions, from first dates to pre- or post-game celebrations by fans or teammates, to wallowing in solitary self-pity. Diners are the best restaurants for planning murders, stick-ups, or other nefarious enterprises.</p></blockquote>
<p>Being an all-occasion place is not the only egalitarian thing about diners:</p>
<blockquote><p>People talk about Starbucks reintroducing the notion of what sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the “third place” in American life: spaces where we gather besides home and work to form real, not virtual, communities. Starbucks and more high-minded cafes that followed in its wake have surely succeeded on this point, but long before 1971, when the first Starbucks opened in Pike Place Market in Seattle, diners were already serving that invaluable function for us, along with the corner tavern.</p>
<p>And that’s why we need to cherish our local diners, whether it’s a mom and pop or a Waffle House or a Greek coffee shop. They’re some of the few cheap, all-inclusive places to eat and hang out and laugh and cry and stay viscerally connected with other folks.</p></blockquote>
<p>And it warmed my heart to see Ed include Cup & Saucer and Eisenberg’s on his list of notable NYC diners. An unusual thing I’ve noticed about Eisenberg’s: instead of getting your check at the table, you just tell the cashier what you ordered on the way out and pay for it. Like on the honor system! Is there anywhere else in NYC that does this? I wonder what their loss rate is compared to the norm?
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<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Ed%20Levine">Ed Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/food">food</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/NYC">NYC</a></li>
<li><a href="/tag/restaurants">restaurants</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2015-01-08T15:03:56Z">Jan 8 @ 10:03 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/15/01/your-detoxing-juice-cleanse-is-bullshit">Your detoxing juice cleanse is bullshit</a></h2>
<p>Buzzfeed’s Carolyn Kylstra asked some scientists and medical professionals about juice cleanses and while they are (mostly) harmless, <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/carolynkylstra/detoxing-juice-cleanse">they definitely don’t do any of the magical things you think they do</a>, like flush the toxins out of your body or reset your system.</p>
<blockquote><p>“I don’t know why someone would do a juice cleanse,” Dr. John Buse, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the division of endocrinology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told BuzzFeed Life. “There’s very little evidence that it does anything good for you.”</p>
<p>And it definitely won’t “rid your body of toxins.” That really is what your liver (and your kidneys and intestines) is for. “I don’t like the marketing around juice cleanses,” Eric Ravussin, Ph.D., associate executive director for clinical science at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, told BuzzFeed Life. “That it’s going to detox and mobilize all these toxins and all that — this is pure marketing.”</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> From the NY Times in 2009, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/fashion/22skin.html?pagewanted=all">Flush Those Toxins! Eh, Not So Fast</a>. The last paragraph makes me angry:</p>
<blockquote><p>Still, many people swear by these programs. Denise Whitney, 37, a registered nurse and mother of three in Traverse City, Mich., did the Master Cleanse over a seven-day period, plus six days of pre and post cleanse, which included consuming copious amounts of organic juice, fruit and vegetables. “With all the fast food, preservatives, chemicals in our food, it seems impossible that our bodies are not loaded with toxins,” Ms. Whitney said, adding that she plans to repeat it in the next few months. “I had more energy during this cleanse than I can ever remember having.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Can we get this nurse unregistered, please? FFS. But at The Guardian, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/oliver-burkeman-column/2015/jan/01/detoxing-debunked">Oliver Burkeman cautions against over-debunking</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>We live in the Age of Debunking: no sooner has somebody made a false or hyperbolic claim online (resulting in clicks) than someone else announces, with an air of triumph, that they’ve debunked it (resulting in clicks). I plead guilty. And often enough, debunking is a noble pursuit: the idea that we only use 10% of our brains, to pick one example, is flat wrong, and people who believe it ought to be corrected. No convincing evidence of a Benghazi conspiracy has ever been unearthed. Marie Antoinette almost certainly didn’t say “let them eat cake”.</p>
<p>But the internet’s enthusiasm for a vigorous debunking now frequently spills over into what you might call the pseudo-debunk. Sometimes, this involves cynically claiming you’re debunking when you’re really just disagreeing — thereby implying that your opinion is more than mere opinion; it’s “the facts”.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Tara Fuller of Greatist writes <a href="http://greatist.com/connect/never-cleanse-again">I’ve Tried Almost Every Cleanse. Here’s Why I’ll Never Do One Again</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>2. Eating fruit is much healthier than drinking it.<br />
While juice cleanses may seem like an easy way to load up on vitamins and minerals, they’re often full of added sugars and devoid of the good stuff (like fiber and antioxidants). Juicing fruits does tend to preserve some vitamins, but why guzzle several hundred calories worth of fruit when you can eat one serving and actually feel full? Plus, all that juice can actually lead to type 2 diabetes-whereas eating fruit reduces the risk!</p></blockquote>
<p>(via <a href="https://twitter.com/fakejoshstein">@fakejoshstein</a> & <a href="https://twitter.com/neversent">@neversent</a> & <a href="https://twitter.com/alainabrowne">@alainabrowne</a>)</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Once again, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/health/juice-cleanse-toxin-misconception.html">Fancy Juice Doesn’t Cleanse the Body of Toxins</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>To say that drinking juice detoxifies the body isn’t quite the same as claiming leeches suck out poisons, but it’s fairly close.</p>
<p>The practice of cleansing has become as ubiquitous as the use of hand sanitizer. Celebrities do it. Spas offer it. Fancy food stores sell pricey bottles of juice to accomplish it, and a \$700 juicer will soon facilitate the process for those who are not satisfied with the current D.I.Y. options. But what is it that everybody is trying to remove from their bodies? Is there any science behind it?</p>
<p>“People are interested in this so-called detoxification, but when I ask them what they are trying to get rid of, they aren’t really sure,” said Dr. James H. Grendell, the chief of the division of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. “I’ve yet to find someone who has specified a toxin they were hoping to be spared.”</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> This sort of magical health thinking isn’t restricted to juice cleanses. Yvette d’Entremont writes about <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/350/the-sickening-business-of-wellness">the sickening business of wellness</a> for The Outline:</p>
<blockquote><p>Health is all the stuff that you know you should do. Wellness is all the peripheral shit that someone marketed to you because it sounded almost like health. It’s modern-day snake oil, and today it either comes from extremely well-off celebrities who look healthy under 18 layers of makeup, internet charlatans who probably know they’re full of shit, and people who might not know there’s no science to back them up, but they do see your open wallet and know when business is good.</p></blockquote>
<ul class="post-tags"><li><a href="/tag/Carolyn%20Kylstra">Carolyn Kylstra</a></li>
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-12-19T19:33:22Z">Dec 19 @ 02:33 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/12/how-candy-canes-are-made-by-hand">How Candy Canes Are Made By Hand</a></h2>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/cIKnrFNsGpA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>The first part of this video, the bit with the molten sugar and cooling table, is the most interesting, but the whole thing is worth a watch.</p>
<p>Reminds me of the lettered rock <a href="http://kottke.org/14/07/the-anti-wonka-candy-factory">made at Teddy Grays</a>.
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-12-05T15:19:02Z">Dec 5 @ 10:19 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/12/feedlots-a-satellite-view">Feedlots, a satellite view</a></h2>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/henner-feedlots.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/henner-feedlots.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/henner-feedlots.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="640" height="765" border="0" alt="Mishka Henner Feedlots" /></p>
<p>From artist Mishka Henner, <a href="http://mishkahenner.com/filter/works/Feedlots">a selection of satellite photos of Texas feedlots</a>, where beef cattle are sent to be “finished”, aka to quickly gain weight for slaughter on a diet of corn. I’m pretty sure the redness of that pit/lake is not blood but algae (or whatever), but it sure creates that impression, doesn’t it?
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-12-04T15:01:45Z">Dec 4 @ 10:01 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/12/how-bourbon-is-made">How bourbon is made</a></h2>
<p>Gear Patrol <a href="http://gearpatrol.com/2014/11/24/video-how-bourbon-is-made/">visited 12 whiskey distilleries</a> (including Buffalo Trace, Maker’s Mark, and Jim Beam) to find out how bourbon is made.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ROzOkaLKP_w?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Cool. Some of that I knew, and some I didn’t. My favorite detail is how the placement of the barrel in the aging room can affect the flavor of the bourbon within. Just like cheese. (via <a href="http://digg.com/">digg</a>)
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-11-26T17:57:26Z">Nov 26 @ 12:57 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/11/vanishing-spirits">Vanishing Spirits</a></h2>
<p>Photographer Ernie Button <a href="http://erniebutton.com/?portfolio=vanishing-spirits-the-dried-remains-of-singlemalt-scotch">photographs the dried remains of single malt scotch whiskies</a>, which end up looking like desolate landscapes on distant worlds.</p>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/ernie-button-whiskey-01.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/ernie-button-whiskey-01.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/ernie-button-whiskey-01.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="640" height="640" border="0" alt="Ernie Button Whiskey 01" /></p>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/ernie-button-whiskey-02.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/ernie-button-whiskey-02.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/ernie-button-whiskey-02.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="640" height="591" border="0" alt="Ernie Button Whiskey 02" /></p>
<p>Curious as to how these patterns were formed by some kinds of whiskey but not others, Button reached out to an engineering professor at Princeton.</p>
<blockquote><p>Dr. Stone’s group found that the key difference in whisky is that unlike coffee, it consists of two liquids — water and ethyl alcohol. The alcohol evaporates more quickly, and as the fraction of water increases, the surface tension of the droplet changes, an effect first noticed in the 19th century by an Italian scientist, Carlo Marangoni. That, in turn, generates complex flows that contribute to the patterns Mr. Button photographed.</p>
<p>“Here, they actually looked at what happens when you change the fluids that are drying,” said Dr. Yunker, who is soon heading to the Georgia Institute of Technology as a physics professor, “and they found some very neat effects.” (That would be neat in the usual sense of “cool and intriguing” and not as in “I’ll have my whisky neat.”)</p></blockquote>
<p>(via <a href="https://twitter.com/pomeranian99">@pomeranian99</a>)
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-11-19T17:52:14Z">Nov 19 @ 12:52 PM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/11/thanksgiving-across-the-us">Thanksgiving across the US</a></h2>
<p>From the NY Times, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/18/dining/thanksgiving-recipes-across-the-united-states.html">an epic listing of recipes</a> for traditional (and not so traditional) Thanksgiving food from each of the 50 US states. Featuring lefse from North Dakota, salty pluff mud pie from South Carolina, turkey tamales from Texas, and cheddar mashed potatoes from Vermont. (via <a href="https://twitter.com/jimray">@jimray</a>)
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posted <time class="timeago timeago_short" datetime="2014-11-18T16:11:33Z">Nov 18 @ 11:11 AM</time> by <a href="http://www.kottke.org">Jason Kottke</a>
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<h2><a href="/14/11/relative-sizes-of-the-planets">Relative sizes of the planets</a></h2>
<p>This is a great way to think about how big the planets of our solar system are: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/47222633@N05/15783348542/">in terms of fruits</a>.</p>
<p><img src="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/fruit-solar-system.jpg" srcset="/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=500,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/fruit-solar-system.jpg 500w, /cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,fit=scale-down,width=1200,metadata=none//plus/misc/images/fruit-solar-system.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 500px, 1200px" loading="lazy" width="640" height="454" border="0" alt="Fruit Solar System" /></p>
<p>(via <a href="http://boingboing.net/">boing boing</a>)
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