Moving On – Farewell, Food Matters
Hello . . .and good-bye. After today, I’ll no longer be part of the highly talented crew at Food Matters. It was fun while it lasted!
Stories by See Arr Oh
The Sciences
Naming Nootkatone
I’ve always enjoyed the citrusy, dark, mellow-but-tangy notes emanating from a freshly-cut grapefruit. Some of that flavor comes from(+)-nootkatone, a terpene fragrance that, as a recentNature News article points out, will be one of the first fine chemicalsproduced using the relatively new technique of synthetic biology...
Can Steel Stop Garlic’s Stink?
It took me a while to come around to garlic. Now, I find it delicious, whether powdered on pizza, fire-roasted, swirled into curries and casseroles, or chopped fresh onto french fries...
Pumpkin, hold the spice
Feel that chill in the air? Must be Fall, and with the change in seasons comes the latest food craze: pumpkin spice. Now, I’m hardly the first person to notice this.
Science “Wine Snobs”
Alton Brown’s got our science communication conundrum solved. Brown, celebrity host of Food Network’s Good Eats, Iron Chef America, and Cutthroat Kitchen, recently dropped by the American Chemical Society’s Fall Meeting in Indianapolis...
Breaking Food Down
What is food? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary entry says “Something that nourishes, sustains, or supplies.” How beautiful. That statement captures much of the emotion and feeling surrounding food, yet it’s only part of the full definition...
Introducing: The Food Matters Crew
Do you ever wonder about the science behind your food? We do, too. Our group of writers serves up juicy topics like genetic engineering, gut bacteria and the chemical reactions that occur during cooking...
Health
Cochineal Dye Bugs Starbucks Customers
Pink food seems to be raising a lot of eyebrows lately. A few weeks ago, meat product “pink slime” became embroiled in debate, and now a new crimson challenger has stolen the limelight: Starbucks has come under fire for using the pink dye cochineal (carmine) in their Strawberry Frappuccino drink ( blogs including NPR’s The Salt and Bug Girl have also covered this story ).What’s the issue?...
Health
Pink Slime, Deconstructed
"I don’t eat school lunch anyway . . . It looks weird."This is from a high school student, quoted in the New York Times over the weekend, in response to a seemingly "beefless" future in school cafeterias...
