Catering Stockholm

good:

Austin, Texas is already home to Whole Foods, but that won’t stop a group of entrepreneurs from founding a new grocery store right in the natural food behemoth’s backyard. While the new store In.gredients will also specialize in local and organic ingredients, there’s one major difference between this venture and its hometown competion: In.gredients promises to be the country’s first ever ”package-free, zero waste grocery store.”

The idea is so simple, it’s surprising that no one in the United States has implemented it yet. (The United Kingdom, on the other hand, got the bulk food-only Unpackaged in London last year). Just like many people bring tote bags to the grocery store, shoppers at In.gredients will be encouraged to bring their own containers to pack up items like grains, oils, and dairy. If a shopper doesn’t have his own containers, the store will provide compostable ones. It’s as if the specialty bulk food section rebelled and took over the rest of a traditional grocery store. In.gredients will replace unhealthy, overpackaged junk with local, organic, and natural foods, and moonlight as a community center with cooking classes, gardening workshops, and art shows on the side

good:

Altering the perception of health food as junk food just might help us for what’s left in our current 30 Days of GOOD challenge. 

laughingsquid:

How Carrots Became the New Junk Food

whakahekeheke:

Everything You Know About Nutrition is Wrong

(Well not “everything,” but muchos de the conventional wisdom is probably ass-backwards.)

I get bored with political economy at times… largely because convincing people to adopt correct ideas is hard and probably won’t have much benefit for a while. However, with nutrition, determining correct ideas and refuting incorrect ones can have benefits quickly.

So, a brief and simplified overview of the science on human health:

0. Biologically modern humans have been living on Earth for at least 100,000 years. Our larger family of humans have been living on Earth for millions of years. For the vast majority of that time, we lived as hunter-gatherers. Evidence from anthropology, archaeology, and epidemiology strongly indicates that people in hunter-gatherer societies almost never experience:

• obesity
• diabetes
• heart disease
• high blood pressure
• cancer
• Alzheimer’s
• acne
• tooth decay
• poor vision

and many other health problems associated with metabolic syndrome. Indeed, hunter-gatherers are usually lean, healthy, and have long lifespans without modern medicine.

It was not until the first Agricultural Revolution, when we began to eat a lot of grass seeds (a.k.a. “grains”), that we began to experience these health problems at high rates. And it only got worse from there (until the advent of modern medicine around 100 years ago when it started getting better—on the treatment side).

1. A logical starting point for determining what is healthy, therefore, is to look at what we typically ate as hunter-gatherers vs. what we didn’t typically eat. This logic gives some clear answers which have been further confirmed by biological science and clinical trials.

2. It makes no sense whatsoever to avoid meat for health reasons. (Especially not beef, lamb, game, or fish.) Meat is the most healthy food. Meat, including offal, contains bioavailable amounts of all the nutrients necessary for optimal human life and no significant anti-nutrients. Unlike vegetables, you can live well on meat alone. Our bodies evolved adaptations to eating significant quantities of meat, and significant amounts of saturated fat. Hell, we likely hunted big game almost to extinction on some continents. Being efficient hunters and eating more meat allowed us to grow more powerful brains and thus become the smart modern humans we all are and love.

3. Neither cholesterol nor saturated fat cause heart disease or any other significant health problems. The myth that consuming saturated fat causes heart disease has been thoroughly debunked by the last 50 years of clinical trials, scientific advances in physiology, and epidemiology. It persists only thanks to inertia and politics.

Cholesterol is a bit more complicated, but the evidence is unambiguous that neither dietary cholesterol nor total blood cholesterol cause heart disease or any other significant health problems. Cholesterol is a vital nutrient, necessary in significant quantities for good health. The only potentially “bad cholesterol” is that contained in small, very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL). And what increases VLDL? Not fat or cholesterol in the diet, but rather carbs in the diet. Want to reduce this so-called potentially “bad cholesterol” in your blood? Eat more animal products, more saturated fat, more complete protein, less carbs. All that crap (Cheerios, Quaker Oats, Cocoa Puffs, granola, low-fat yoghurt, etc.) government-approved as “heart-healthy” is exactly the opposite.

4. Refined carbs are unhealthy and fattening. That means bread, pasta, cereal, etc.—anything made with flour or sugar. To simplify things a lot, refined carbs sustain raised blood sugar and, eaten regularly, keep you more hungry and your insulin+ high and thus keep your bodyfat cells full, growing, and reproducing.

5. To understand this, you have to understand that the conventional “it’s all about calories in vs. calories out” approach to bodyfat is backwards. If you get fatter, it’s not because you’re eating too many calories. You eat more calories because you’re getting fatter. And you’re getting fatter due to dysregulation of the bio-chemicals (like insulin) which control your bodyfat tissue, in turn driving bodyfat accumulation, bodyfat retention, and hunger.

6. Fat is not fattening. Eat more fat if you want to be lean and healthy. Okay… so you can get energy from eating either carbs or fat. Your bodyfat is a buffer meant to be continuously consumed for energy when you’re not consuming food. However, if you’re eating carbs rather than fat, and thus have a defect in your fat metabolism, your body will be burning carbs for energy and not fat—including bodyfat. To lose bodyfat, you need to get your body burning fat for energy instead of snacking on refined carbs all day. There are two ways to do this:

1. semi-starve yourself (calorie restriction) or
2. eat fat and protein instead of carbs

The latter is healthier… and it is the only method consistently demonstrated in clinical trials that actually works for statistically significant weight loss. If you want to lose body fat, eat more saturated fat.

7. Wheat is especially unhealthy and fattening. Not only are wheat products made up of mostly fattening refined carbs, but they also contain the dangerous protein gluten and other anti-nutrients that inflame and penetrate your gut. An inflamed gut can’t absorb other nutrients properly, and allows toxic substances to leak into your system. Furthermore, there are molecules in wheat that bind to minerals in other foods and prevent them from being absorbed. Finally, certain wheat proteins can stimulate the immune system in a bad way, so that it begins attacking your own tissues (“autoimmune disorders”), making you sick not just in your gut but everywhere (like people with celiac disease but subclinical). And there is nothing good in wheat that you can’t get more efficiently from animal products, vegetables, or tubers. If there is one thing you should completely avoid eating, it is wheat.

8. Sugar is especially unhealthy and fattening. Fructose, found largely in table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup (and fruit juice), is seriously bad shit when consumed anywhere near the levels of the standard American diet. Fructose is very likely a trigger that causes the bodyfat tissue defect mentioned in point #5. If you want to lose weight or improve your health, and you’re drinking a lot of soda pop, that’s the first thing you should cut out. Now, thanks to government subsidies, high-fructose corn syrup is currently found in virtually all processed and sweetened food… including those “heart-healthy” cereals and “low-fat” yoghurts and all that other nasty stuff.

9. Vegetable oils are unhealthy due to high levels of omega-6 fats, which block omega-3; so use heart-healthy butter instead (or coconut oil or ghee). Also, for similar reasons, avoid nuts and legumes. Especially soy.

10. So for optimal health and weight management, based on good science and quality clinical studies, what should people avoid eating? What should people eat?

Eat to satisfaction:

• meat
• fish
• shellfish
• eggs
• butter
• vegetables
• coconut products
• heavy cream
• hard cheeses
• cocoa
• herbs, spices

In moderation (can eat more of these if you’re not trying to lose bodyfat):

• fruit
• tubers
• good nuts (almond, macadamia, cashew)
• whole milk
• soft cheeses
• full-fat greek yoghurt
• rice

Minimize:

• sugar
• legumes, especially soy
• vegetable oils
• “low-fat” dairy
• corn
• oats

Avoid completely:

• wheat and other gluten grains

staff:

The slow-motion disaster of the food crisis in the Horn of Africa is truly horrifying. Last Wednesday the United Nations declared a famine in two large regions of Somalia; 3.7 million people, nearly half the country’s population, are affected. The crisis is larger than just Somalia. Right now the devastating drought in the region means that more than 11 million people need food aid across Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. 

You can help by making a contribution through the Tumblr Dashboard or on the Somalia tag page, and we’ll match your support up to $10,000. Proceeds will go to the United Nations World Food Programme.

foodspotting:

Some call it food photography, others go so far as to call it porn. Whether it makes you lick your lips or green with envy, it’s clear that even the most casual food photography elicits a visceral reaction. You may have been hungry before, but the best food photos really get you going - into kitchens, into restaurants, you name it. Take it from us: pictures are the deal breaker when it comes to deciding what to eat.

In this spirit, we’re celebrating the release of On A Stick by California-based food photographer and beloved food blogger Matt Armendariz today! You gotta see some of these recipes to believe em: chicken and waffles on a stick, fried popcorn balls on a stick, skewered fruit, skewered meat, and, of course, traditional impaled appetizers grace the pages.

The book is available on Amazon, but thanks to Quirk Books, we’re also giving away ten copies to foodspotters who spot foods on sticks! To enter, use Foodspotting to share photos of skewered foods you order at restaurants or find at food stores. Make sure to include the tag #onastick in the Notes section so we can account for your entry! You can use #onastick to enter via Twitter too.

Ten lucky winners will be selected randomly on Friday, May 13th 20th. Good luck and go forth, Foodspotting peeps.

To sign up for Foodspotting: foodspotting.com/signup

and download our free app for iPhone & Android! foodspotting.com/apps

Every food interview we aired this week is here. Back to normal grab bag of topics tomorrow!

“USE LEFTOVERS… ” (by The U.S. National Archives)

catering looking at food

Paula Deen rides Food Network star Robert Irvine at the South Beach Food & Wine Festival. (Alexander Tamargo / Getty Images Contributor)

Food festivals get crazy, I guess?