Quotulatiousness

March 11, 2010

Researchers say that fat may actually be a flavour

Filed under: Food, Health — Tags: — Nicholas @ 07:13

This may provide some clues to obesity, as tests show that some people can detect fat at much lower concentrations . . . and therefore consume less:

It’s a theory set to confirm why humans are so fond of fatty foods such as chips and chocolate cake: in addition to the five tastes already identified lurks another detectable by the palate — fat.

“We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes — sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury, protein-rich taste contained in foods such as soy sauce and chicken stock),” Russell Keast, from Deakin University, said Monday.

“Through our study we can conclude that humans have a sixth taste — fat.”

Researchers tested 30 people’s ability to taste a range of fatty acids in otherwise plain solutions and found that all were able to determine the taste — though some required higher concentrations than others.

[. . .]

The results, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, have not definitively classified fat as a taste but Keast says the evidence is strong and mounting.

For something to be classified as a taste there needed to be proven receptor mechanisms on taste cells in the mouth, he said.

March 9, 2010

If persuasion doesn’t work, raise the taxes

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Food, Law, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:12

New York City is moving ahead in their war on junk food, with a new proposal to add a significant tax to the sales of carbonated pop:

[Mayor Michael Bloomberg] described the soda tax — equivalent to an extra eight pence on a can — as “a fix that just makes sense”, saving lives and cutting rising health care costs.

“An extra 12 cents on a can of soda would raise nearly $1 billion (£663 million), allowing us to keep community health services open and teachers in the classroom,” he said on his weekly radio programme on Sunday.

“And, at the same time, it would help us fight a major problem plaguing our children: obesity.”

David Paterson, the mayor of New York state, has already proposed a soda tax but it was dropped last year following a public outcry.

H/T to Chris Greaves for the link, who said “Let’s see now, prohibition didn’t work, so let’s try something different!”

Of course, the proposed tax would be very popular in some areas: all the retailers outside NYC who would be able to reap significant additional sales to New Yorkers who didn’t want to pay the sin tax.

March 4, 2010

Teenagers: Mom was right about your need for a good night’s sleep

Filed under: Education, Food, Health — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:02

I know, you stopped listening to your parents around age 12, but every now and again, they do have useful advice for you:

Only 5% of high school seniors get eight hours of sleep a night. Children get an hour less than they did 30 years ago, which subtracts IQ points and adds body weight.

Until age 21, the circuitry of a child’s brain is being completed. Bronson and Merryman report research on grade schoolers showing that “the performance gap caused by an hour’s difference in sleep was bigger than the gap between a normal fourth-grader and a normal sixth-grader.” In high school there is a steep decline in sleep hours, and a striking correlation of sleep and grades.

Tired children have trouble retaining learning “because neurons lose their plasticity, becoming incapable of forming the new synaptic connections necessary to encode a memory. … The more you learned during the day, the more you need to sleep that night.”

The school day starts too early because that is convenient for parents and teachers. Awakened at dawn, teenage brains are still releasing melatonin, which makes them sleepy. This is one reason why young adults are responsible for half the 100,000 annual “fall asleep” automobile crashes. When Edina, Minn., changed its high school start from 7:25 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., math/verbal SAT scores rose substantially.

Furthermore, sleep loss increases the hormone that stimulates hunger and decreases the one that suppresses appetite. Hence the correlation between less sleep and more obesity.

So, even though the temptation is to stay up as late as you possibly can . . . don’t. You’ll actually notice the difference the next day.

January 7, 2010

Marmite versus Vegemite

Filed under: Australia, Britain, Food, Humour, Randomness — Tags: — Nicholas @ 07:25

Charles Stross has run out of things to post that will rile up the reader base, so he finds another way to get the chattering masses chattering — by declaring his unnatural love for Marmite and Vegemite:

Note to American readers: Marmite is what I (being a Brit) grew up with. If you brew beer on a commercial scale, when you drain the fermenting vessel you end up with a scum of dead and dying yeast cells on the side. Some time in the late 19th century, rather than treating this as waste, some nameless genius had the idea of tasting it. It turns out that brewer’s yeast, once you lyse the cells by adding salt, tastes remarkably savoury — somewhat like soy sauce, only thicker (with much the same consistency as non-set honey). Marmite, the product, is mostly yeast extract, combined with salt and a few additional spices. It’s what belongs on toast, or cheese, or in gravy and sauces to add body to them. And the stuff’s addictive. I get through it in catering-tub quantities, alas: it’s my one real high sodium vice.

Vegemite . . . it’s the antipodean antithesis. Invented in 1922 by Dr Cyril P. Callister in Australia, it was designed to plug the strategic gap opened by unrestricted U-boat warfare against the vital British Marmite convoys that had kept the colonies supplied during wartime — or something like that. Kraft popularized it, pushed it into military rations during the second world war, and over a decade clawed back sales from Marmite until it’s now the favourite toast topping down under. The recipe differs somewhat from Marmite, as does the flavour — just enough that if you’re used to one, the other tastes slightly “off” — too flat, or too astringent.

If you want to really liven up a party, pour a small jar of Marmite into the fruit punch — or add Vegemite to the dog’s bowl (as long as you don’t mind being asked to clean up afterwards). Hours of friendly discussion and informed debate can be provoked by discussing the relative merits of the two products! And it’s always a good idea to introduce visiting American guests to what they’ve been missing all these years, by exhorting them to spread it on their bread “just like peanut butter”.

November 9, 2009

Coffee and the placebo effect

Filed under: Food, Health, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:45

Neuroskeptic reports on some interesting results from a coffee study:

The authors took 60 coffee-loving volunteers and gave them either placebo decaffeinated coffee, or coffee containing 280 mg caffeine. That’s quite a lot, roughly equivalent to three normal cups. 30 minutes later, they attempted a difficult button-pressing task requiring concentration and sustained effort, plus a task involving mashing buttons as fast as possible for a minute.

The catch was that the experimenters lied to the volunteers. Everyone was told that they were getting real coffee. Half of them were told that the coffee would enhance their performance on the tasks, while the other half were told it would impair it. If the placebo effect was at work, these misleading instructions should have affected how the volunteers felt and acted.

Several interesting things happened. First, the caffeine enhanced performance on the cognitive tasks — it wasn’t just a placebo effect. Bear in mind, though, that these people were all regular coffee drinkers who hadn’t drunk any caffeine that day. The benefit could have been a reversal of caffeine withdrawl symptoms.

H/T to Tyler Cowen for the link.

October 30, 2009

Tweet of the day: Expensive food

Filed under: Economics, Food, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:25

Stephen Fry: A spoonful of paté de campagne Ardéchois à l’ancienne is not really that far distant from a spoonful of catfood. Just notably more expensive

October 26, 2009

A partial answer about increasing body weight

Filed under: Economics, Food, Health — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:20

Here are some useful images that help to explain why North Americans have been getting heavier over the last few decades:

Over the past few decades, portion sizes of everything from muffins to sandwiches have grown considerably. Unfortunately, America’s waistbands have reacted accordingly. In the 1970s, around 47 percent of Americans were overweight or obese; now 66 percent of us are. In addition, the number of just obese people has doubled, from 15 percent of our population to 30 percent.

While increased sizes haven’t been the sole contributor to our obesity epidemic, large quantities of cheap food have distorted our perceptions of what a typical meal is supposed to look like. These portion comparisons, adapted from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s (NHLBI) Portion Distortion Quiz, give a visual representation of what sizes used to be compared to what they are today.

Pizza_then_and_now
Bagels_then_and_now

H/T to John Scalzi for the link.

October 11, 2009

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Filed under: Food, Humour, Randomness — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:17

Jeremy Clarkson makes the acquaintance of “limited-edition Insanity private reserve” hot sauce:

It’s an American chilli sauce that was bought by my wife as a joky Christmas present. And, like all joky Christmas presents, it was put in a drawer and forgotten about. It’s called limited-edition Insanity private reserve and it came in a little wooden box, along with various warning notices. “Use this product one drop at a time,” it said. “Keep away from eyes, pets and children. Not for people with heart or respiratory problems. Use extreme caution.”

Unfortunately, we live in a world where everything comes with a warning notice. Railings. Vacuum cleaners. Energy drinks. My quad bike has so many stickers warning me of decapitation, death and impalement that they become a nonsensical blur.

The result is simple. We know these labels are drawn up to protect the manufacturer legally, should you decide one day to insert a vacuum-cleaner pipe up your bottom, or to try to remove your eye with a teaspoon. So we ignore them. They are meaningless. One drop at a time! Use extreme caution! On a sauce. Pah. Plainly it was just American lawyer twaddle.

A valid point: if everything these days carries warning labels, the actual level of concern for ordinary consumers drops . . . so real warnings are drowned out by the hundreds of bogus ones put there merely to avert lawsuits, not to provide useful information about the product.

The pain started out mildly, but I knew from past experience that this would build to a delightful fiery sensation. I was even looking forward to it. But the moment soon passed. In a matter of seconds I was in agony. After maybe a minute I was frightened that I might die. After five I was frightened that I might not.

The searing fire had surged throughout my head. My eyes were streaming. Molten lava was flooding out of my nose. My mouth was a shattered ruin. Even my hair hurt.

H/T to Dave Slater for the link.

October 6, 2009

Another bulletin from the “Institute of Obvious Findings”

Filed under: Food, Health, Law, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 16:02

New York City has the most “progressive” laws on the books for labelling fast food menu items. The intent was to ensure that customers would be aware of the calorie and nutrition values of food before ordering, with the hope being that people would deny their tastebuds and order less fattening foods. A recent study found — to nobody’s surprise — that this hasn’t been working:

A study of New York City’s pioneering law on posting calories in restaurant chains suggests that when it comes to deciding what to order, people’s stomachs are more powerful than their brains.

The study, by several professors at New York University and Yale, tracked customers at four fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken — in poor neighborhoods of New York City where there are high rates of obesity.

It found that about half the customers noticed the calorie counts, which were prominently posted on menu boards. About 28 percent of those who noticed them said the information had influenced their ordering, and 9 out of 10 of those said they had made healthier choices as a result.

But when the researchers checked receipts afterward, they found that people had, in fact, ordered slightly more calories than the typical customer had before the labeling law went into effect, in July 2008.

The laws were changed because paternalists in power thought that consumers were being gulled against their better instincts, and that merely pointing out the information in a hard-to-miss fashion would assist these poor, weak-willed eaters to trim back on calories and fat. It doesn’t work because people like eating food that’s calorie-rich and fattening. You’re not going to change that without instituting literal rationing: and don’t think they haven’t considered it.

July 30, 2009

Organic food shock: no better than non-organic

Filed under: Environment, Food, Science, Wine — Nicholas @ 07:59

This is another one of those “someone paid money to conduct the study?” studies. Organic food has been a boon to certain producers, but it doesn’t provide the kind of benefits most purchasers expect:

But organic is certainly more expensive. A new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds:

On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods.

The study was commissioned by Britain’s Food Standards Agency.

I’ve been skeptical about the claims for “organic” products for quite some time. Similarly, I’m not convinced that there’s any great value in the “biodynamic” model for wine. My strong suspicion is that the same general quality of wine would be produced without all the new age woo-woo mystic crap, because the vineyard owner or manager is paying closer attention to the vines. That, IMO, is the key.

July 19, 2009

Learn something new everyday

Filed under: Food, Randomness — Nicholas @ 00:53

H/T to Craig Zeni, who sent along this valuable bit of knowledge:

July 13, 2009

When the data doesn’t support your claims, obscure it!

Filed under: Food, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:31

Ronald Bailey looks at the too-good-to-be-true claims made for caloric reduction as a life-extending tool:

Last week, two research teams reported to great fanfare that restricting the calories consumed by rhesus monkeys had extended their lifespans. Calorie restriction is thought to increase longevity by boosting DNA repair. The idea is that the mechanism evolved so that creatures on the verge of starvarion could live long enough to reproduce when food becomes plentiful again. But did the experiments really show the CR works?

In my earlier blogpost on the research results, I noted that some experts quoted in the New York Times were not convinced. Why? Because the difference in actual death rates between the dieting monkeys and the free feeding monkeys was not statistically significant.

This doesn’t necessarily derail the notion that calorie restriction may be associated with increased lifespan, but the way this study was performed does not appear to prove anything due to rigging of the data.

(Cross-posted to the old blog, http://bolditalic.com/quotulatiousness_archive/005577.html.)

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