Food and Food Culture

That may be true, but one of the major issues with a lot of these studies is that Observational studies (Which is often what these warnings are based on) are notoriously really bad at actually engaging with the actual science behind food, and based on Questionnaires that are really terrible (Like, how many times did you drink Orange juice in year, for instance), and often have a Healthy User Bias.

Good point. Still, I think it makes good sense to be at least a little wary of claims of being "diet" or "lite".

I can speak from personal experience that switching to sugar free sodas and other beverages was part of how my weight plummeted from being obese to being a reasonably healthy weight.

The problem I think with these sorts of studies is that there's no magic bullet when it comes to weight loss, it always takes a combination of factors to be successful. And in specific case, you have to be very careful to not replace the calories you lose from sugary sodas with something else.

...also not eating entire bags of twizzlers in a single day (in some cases family-sized bags) probably helped a lot. I was not a healthy eater back in those days and I'm probably lucky to only be mildly diabetic now.

Speaking of diabetes, anyone’s got good recipes for sugarless cakes?

I often use my parents as taste-testers for my cakes and cookies but my dad is also mildly diabetic (not so much that he can’t take any sugar but still) so I’d like to try something more fitted for him…

Probably should ask a doctor first if you are looking for a safe substitute for sugar.

Yeah, that's probably a better question for a dietician.

, Alright, I’ll try that.

For now I’m experimenting with apple or orange-flavored cookies. The latter works wonders with the orange zest and orange flower but I can’t find the right balance with apple… If I put too much apple the paste isn’t firm enough but if I try to correct that by adding flour the taste of apple is drowned… Maybe I should add some juice to compensate.

Maybe use applesauce instead?

I'd add some cinnamon or nutmeg too.

For diabetics you shouldn't focus just on "sugar" as much as you should also focus on total carbohydrate counts. Straight up sugars will cause a rapid spike in blood sugar but once your body starts breaking down carbs from flour/starches someone unprepared for it will have prolonged highs that are just as bad if not worse. It's a trap I see a lot of older T2 diabetics falling in to when they don't have access to a dietician after diagnosis.

But if you're baking a cake, you can do things like going for a recipe that doesn't use frosting or go for a dark chocolate ganache and cut the carb count by a very good bit. The flour in the cake will add a lot of carbs no matter what you do. Chopped nuts will also add some mass to the recipe and offset the amount of flour you need by a little. You can stretch a smaller cake by splitting a single cake into a layer cake and use stabilized whipping cream as a filling.

I've tried sugarless cakes but I have a hard time getting the crumb and moisture right. Since you can't cream sugar with butter you have to go with gum blends, or go old fashioned with beaten egg whites. I've tried the applesauce idea but I personally don't like it since it tends to make the batter more "gunky" for lack of a better description. I like the egg whites but you get a drier sponge cake type cake. Does make for a good tiramisu-themed cake if you brush it with some espresso or have something else to soak into it.

Edited by carbon-mantis on May 30th 2023 at 1:13:14 PM

So I watched Across the Spider Verse with friends and then we went to a Japanese restaurant after the movie.

On a dare I tried Surume Ika. Some kind of Squid, for the first time and I really enjoyed it.

I should try squid more.

Healthcare Traige goes into the issues that often plague nutrition studies with the recent ones about Artificial Sweeteners.

So I just came across this food called chicken adobo:

My first reaction upon seeing it was, what the actual Hell...How come I never heard of this until now?!

Holy crap, that looks like the exact kind of chicken dish I love!

Chicken Adobo is from the Philippines, and it's very common here.

Good stuff.

Though like I said, I'm mostly here on a temporary basis. Might head to Saudi or Australia next.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Jun 21st 2023 at 12:21:34 AM

Things I made the past 1-2 weeks that I will do again:

• Sofrito fried rice and beans with fried eggs (someone said I should add chorizo so I'll do that next time.)
• Honey barbecue smashed potatoes (and well smashed potatoes in general)

Edited by MacronNotes on Jun 25th 2023 at 4:18:46 AM

How do you do sofrito exactly?

The basic recipe for sofrito is to purée garlic, onions, red and green bell peppers, tomatoes, and cilantro into a thick paste, reminiscent of pesto. Regional variations also immensely change the flavor of sofrito, such as habaneros for the Yucatán, or vinegar and annatto for the Dominican Republic. Uses vary just as much as the regional variations, from putting it first to lightly sauté, to putting it last as a topping.

I just had a gallbladder operation, so I sure hope I can still eat fries and stuff. Chocolate and sausage seems to be fine so far, though.

Sorry to hear about that, but glad to hear you are doing fine and can still eat some foods you can enjoy.

That kind of life change is never easy.

Wow.

I know China have some..."very creative" dishes even by that standard this one sure is something.

Thank God the consumers aren't supposed to eat the rocks...although it still doesn't help a whole lot.

And before you even post, yes, I know that things like sawdust bread and mud cookies exists/ed.

Edited by dRoy on Jun 28th 2023 at 8:41:07 PM

Maybe the idea is that you cook the rocks with the food so the minerals add to the taste, but you don't actually eat them? You'd probably still want to boil or otherwise sterilize them, though. Rocks may seem very solid, but on a microscopic scale they can be quite porous and have plenty of space for bacteria to hide.

It’s not really that widespread a thing. It exists, yeah, but it’s mostly a meme even in China.

Whenever you get one of these things that’s like “China is so weird, they do this thing!” it usually just boils down to people being gullible and ignoring that China has its own meme culture and that a lot of the stuff that blows up on Chinese social media is either fake (like memes in the anglosphere) or are deliberately exaggerated jokes.

A Chinese friend of mine once mused that people abroad believe all that weird shit as a sort of superiority complex.

"We don't eat dogs, but people will believe it because it makes them feel superior to us if they make us out to be weirdos who eat cute animals."

I can see two reasons to cook with rocks. One is that once heated, rocks can somewhat maintain their heat well compared to certain other cooking materials, so it can serve as a way to maintain consistent heat in an insulated environment, especially if you don't have access to a constant fuel source. One time for a potluck, I was serving wings, but didn't have access to electricity or gas stove to re-heat or keep warm. So instead, I baked some bricks in the oven, placed them in a cooler and stored my food in there (properly wrapped of course). Good for a few hours.

The other is if the rocks imbue a flavor all their own. I think for these stir-fried rocks, the idea is to just suck on them, so like how we believe wine will take on flavors of the type of wooden barrel you use, the stones take on the flavors of where they were gathered from. Can sort of get the idea. It reminds me of that one food process where you cook/serve the food on a giant block of salt.

Not related to the rocks thing, but still interesting to me, Lab-Grown Chicken Revolution: Two Bay Area Firms Get First USDA Approval to Sell in the U.S.

Basically two companies just got approval to start selling their cultured chicken in the US, more than likely to upscale restaurants to start. I'd be up to trying it and if it came down in price, actually using it regularly if it was available, especially if it makes the jump to other meat products. Imagine having pork or chicken sashimi, carpaccio, or tartare and not have to worry about e. coli or salmonella.

I know the polling on eating cultured meat is still a bit divisive in the US as plenty aren't want to try it, usually citing things like safety, taste, finding it weird, or just no reason to make the change, but I would argue that a lot of it tends to be excuses to not consider change rather than well-researched and reasoned considerations.

I'll say when I read "lab-grown chicken revolution" my imagined something very different.