Facts and fiction about food and cooking, by Peter Aitken
I am all for organic food and buy it whenever I can (as long as the price is not too outrageous). But, I do so out of concern for the environment and for the farm workers. There is, to my knowledge, no scientific study that shows harm to people from eating non-organic food (if you know of one, please let me know). In fact, a close examination of the organic food movement shows some strange inconsistencies. For example, nicotine, naturally occurring in tobacco, has long been known to be toxic to humans, but it is permitted as an insecticide on organic food because it is a “natural” product. The same is true of other toxic natural pesticides such as rotenone and pyrethrum. Yet, synthetic pesticides with demonstrably lower toxicity are banned. Go figure!
It’s also a myth that organic foods retain more of their nutrients—the best evidence says that this is not the case. It’s also been claimed that organic foods are produced with higher safety standards and are less likely to have, for example, e. coli contamination. Nope.
Another myth is that organic food comes from small, family-run farms and buying it helps support the individual farmer as opposed to the huge corporations. Nope again. The big corps have jumped on the organic bandwagon in a big way, which is a good thing, but organic is no longer the province of the small farmer. In fact, at our local (and excellent) farmers’ market, a majority of the vendors, all small local farmers, do not sell produce that is officially organic because of the hassles and expense of getting the organic certification.
So, buy organic by all means if you want, but do it with a knowledge of the facts.
MSG, or monosodium glutamate, is an amino acid that was originally isolated from seaweed. It was found to provide a flavor that was neither sweet, salty, sour, or bitter (the 4 traditional basic tastes). This savory taste, called umami, is not really a flavor in itself. Rather, MSG makes food taste better—it is a flavor enhancer. It rapidly gained popularity as an additive in many restaurant and processed foods.
Then came “Chinese restaurant syndrome,” so-called because people would complain of various symptoms (headache, drowsiness, palpitations, and others) after eating at Chinese restaurants, where MSG was a popular additive. Subsequent to this, a raft of scientific studies failed to turn up any shred of evidence for a health effect of MSG, and in fact people who vociferously claimed to be MSG-sensitive have proven unable, in double-blind studies, to reliably tell whether food has MSG in it. Plus, there’s the fact that many cheeses, seaweed, and tomato paste, among other foods, have high levels of glutamate and no one gets a “syndrome” from them. So, stop worrying about MSG and enjoy your lo mein!
No so, but there’s a nugget of truth in the origin of this myth. Tryptophan is an amino acid, and it—or specifically the isomer L-tryptophan—does in fact have the documented effect of inducing sleep. But, you have to take L-tryptophan on an empty stomach, without any other amino acids or proteins, for it to have this effect. I don’t think the terms “empty stomach” and “Thanksgiving dinner” belong in the same sentence! Also, other foods, such as chicken, pork, and cheese, contain as much or more tryptophan than turkey, and you don’t hear people claiming that these foods cause drowsiness.
It’s true, however, that tryptophan may be involved in feeling drowsy after any large, carbohydrate-rich meal. It’s not the tryptophan in the food, however, but the tryptophan that’s already in your body. Eating a lot of carbs causes insulin production, which in turn reduces the blood level of some other amino acids. As a result, the relative concentration of tryptophan in the blood is increased, which leads to more synthesis of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which makes you drowsy. That’s the theory, anyway.
Other reasons for feeling drowsy after Thanksgiving dinner (or most any large meal):
So, snooze to your heart’s content after Thanksgiving dinner, but don’t blame the turkey. Just be sure to wake up in time for sandwiches!
Most seafood lovers always head to the fresh fish counter and never go near the frozen seafood case. Why? Because fresh – that is, never frozen – seafood is generally considered to be higher in quality. This is a misconception. It’s true that high-quality fresh seafood is the gold standard, meaning that it has been handled properly, kept at the proper temperature, and isn’t too old. Unfortunately, most of the “fresh” seafood sold in this country does not meet this standard—you see some pretty sad looking specimens for sale! In contrast, much of the frozen seafood is frozen right on the boats, soon after being caught, or maybe as soon as the boat returns to port. The result can be very good quality fish or shellfish, better than the tired old fillets at the fish counter. So, don’t turn your nose up at it.
Mushrooms naturally contain a lot of water, up to 90% by weight according to some sources. This makes them difficult to sauté properly because they will give off that water and end up stewing, at least until the water cooks off. But, they won’t absorb more water if you wash them. Of course, some water may adhere to the gills, but that can be shaken or dabbed off.
Many cooks and recipes specify that kosher salt be used. Why? Truth be told, because it’s trendy, mostly. Kosher salt is relatively pure sodium chloride, and so is the usual table salt that is available in every supermarket at half or less the price. If you think you can taste the iodine in iodized salt, buy the uniodized version and save some money.
I do like the larger grains of kosher salt because when cooking I prefer to grab salt with my fingers to add to a dish, rather than using a shaker, and the larger grains don’t stick to my fingers as much. But, I am not fooling myself that my food tastes better as a result.
By the way, kosher salt is really misnamed. It is not “kosher” in the sense that observant Jews can eat it, but can’t eat other salts. It’s true name is “koshering salt” because it is traditionally used to salt meats in the kosher butchering process.
The long-held opinion that pork should be cooked thoroughly is based on the transmission of the parasite trichinella spiralis, whose larva can be present in pork meat (also in wild game). The cooking kills the parasite. But, it’s been known for a long time that the trichinella larvae are killed at temperatures considerably lower than required for well-done. Old habits die hard, however, and countless pork roasts have been cooked to leathery toughness as a result.
Many professional chefs and home cooks have long known that pork with some pink remaining in the center is perfectly safe. Now, the USDA is finally wising up—they have changed the recommended internal temperature for whole cuts of pork from 160 degrees Fahrenheit to 145 degrees, with a 3-minute rest period after removing from the heat. Note that the 160 degree temperature is still recommended for ground pork.
It depends. A lot of attention has been given to the dangers of eating a burger that hasn’t been thoroughly cooked. There’s good reason for this. Commercial ground beef is made in factories in huge batches, and a single burger can contain meat from dozens or hundreds of individual animals. The chance of bacterial contamination making it into your supermarket package not insignificant, and this is a risk that many people don’t want to take. In fact, some states have banned restaurants from selling burgers that are not well-cooked. Too bad, because real burger aficionados know that the best tasting burgers are cooked to medium at most.
Is there a way around this? Yep—grind your own beef. If your ground beef comes from a single chuck or sirloin roast (or a mix of the two, my favorite), there’s a vastly smaller chance of contamination. You must observe proper procedure, making sure your grinder is spotlessly clean and keeping everything cold, of course. Buy your meat from a reputable, high-turnover retailer. There’s no absolute guarantee against contamination, of course, but the risks are much, much lower this way and your can enjoy a juicy, pink-in-the-center burger again.
I am all for eating organic food. It helps the environment, it’s better for the farm workers who aren’t exposed to toxic pesticides, and I would just as soon not eat artificial chemicals with my meal. But, does it taste better? Not necessarily. Being organic or not has no relation to the taste of a food—when it comes to flavor, some organic food is great, most is OK, and some is pretty poor. The same goes for non-organic foods. So, use organic ingredients by all means if you like, but don’t expect it to make your meals taste better.
It used to be true, back in the early days of the organic food movement, that organic foods were higher quality. This wasn’t because they were organic, however. Originally, all producers of organic food were small, dedicated farmers who devoted great care to their products and sold only locally, so things were likely to be fresher and tastier. Now, however, the corporate giants have gotten into the field in a big way, and this is no longer the case.
Your taste buds will give the lie to this myth. The brown cremini have a deeper and more mushroomy flavor than the white mushrooms. Choose based on the needs of your recipe.
On a related note, did you know that portobello mushrooms are nothing more than large creminis?
The skins will darken, but refrigeration slows ripening of bananas the same as it does other fruits. The insides will be fine.
Another old wives’ tale (or old husband’s if you prefer). Mayonnaise, because of its relatively low pH (in other words, it is acidic) will actually help prevent spoilage. The pH (level of acidity) of commercial mayo in the US is required to be 4.5 or below, and that is very uninviting to spoilage bacteria. When chicken salad or something similar spoils, it is the other ingredients spoiling, not the mayo. When going on a picnic or setting out a buffet it is important to keep foods cold, but there’s no reason to avoid mayo.
The avoidance of mayo in some situations likely got its start back in the days when mayo was almost always homemade, and homemade mayo typically is a lot less acidic than today’s commercial product.
There are three “facts” you’ll often hear about cooking dried beans, such as kidney and great northern beans. It turns out they are all myths.
Note, however, soaking can help reduce the “gas attack” effect that some people experience after eating beans. Bring dry beans and water to a boil, remove from heat, and let sit for an hour. Drain, add fresh water, and continue cooking. This removes some of the chemicals in the beans that cause the gas.
The surface of guacamole turns brown by reacting with oxygen in the air. The guacamole that is directly under the pit won’t turn brown because the pit prevents air from getting to it. Otherwise, the oxidation process turns the exposed surface brown, just as it does on apples and other fruits. You’ll have much better luck protecting the surface from air by pressing aluminum foil or plastic wrap on it.
This myth has some basis in fact. Raw milk (milk that has not been pasteurized) contains enzymes that can interfere with the thickening action of milk and the rising of bread. The scalding destroys these enzymes. Today, almost all the milk that is sold has been pasteurized, a process of heating the milk to destroy bacteria. This has the same effect as scalding the milk, so by the time you buy the milk those nasty enzymes are already gone. Unless you milk your own cow, you can skip the scalding.
Scalding can however be beneficial if you are making yogurt or other cultured milk products. Even pasteurized milk contains some bacteria, and they can compete with the yogurt culture and affect the result. By heating milk to 180 degrees you eliminate most of these other organisms and give the desirable culture bacterial a clean slate to work with.
Olive oil has a lower smoke point than most other oils and as a result many people think you cannot use it for deep frying. Balderdash! This would be news to many Italians including the famous TV chef Mario Batali. Olive oil’s smoke point is about 375 degrees and most frying is done below that. Also, just because an oil smokes a little does not mean it is ruined.
Using olive oil for deep frying is undoubtedly expensive. The least expensive olive oil is, in my experience, about twice the cost of other oils that are used for frying such as peanut or canola. Plus you should discard the oil after a single use because the low smoke point means that the oil degrades more during that first use. So, you may never actually want to use olive oil for deep frying, but it is most certainly possible – and can give terrific results for some recipes!
Here’s another “common sense” myth that turns out to be false. Alcohol has a lower boiling point than water so it should all evaporate first, right? Nope – that’s not the way it works. The alcohol will evaporate faster than the water but there will still be some left after even extended cooking. The text below shows just how much alcohol is left after different methods and periods of cooking.
The bottom line is that no one is ever going to get tipsy from alcohol in a cooked dish, but people who want to avoid all alcohol for religious or medical reasons need to be aware that some alcohol will remain even after long cooking.
It’s commendable that people do not want to inflict pain on animals, but this one is definitely false on the first account (screaming) and probably false on the second (pain).
As for the “scream,” there’s the problem that lobsters have no throat, no vocal cords, no lungs, so how could they scream at all? The fact is that the noise is caused by air trapped in the shell. When heated it expands and forces itself out through small gaps, causing the sound – sort of like when you force air out between your tightly clenched lips to make a rude sound.
Read more of this postMany people think that “sushi” is synonymous with raw fish. Not so – the term actually refers to the vinegared rice. This is made by dissolving sugar and maybe a touch of salt in rice vinegar and tossing with the hot, just-cooked rice. Sushi therefore refers to vinegared rice served with other ingredients which may or may not include fish (which in turn may be raw or cooked). The vinegared rice itself is referred to as shari. Raw fish served by itself without the rice is called sashimi.
Some people will tell you that using milk when making scrambled eggs and omelets results in tough eggs – that you should use water instead. It’s puzzling how this myth continues to propagate because it is so easy to disprove for yourself. But if you require the pronouncement of some authority, tests by Cook’s Illustrated (the “America’s Test Kitchen” people) revealed that scrambled eggs made with water are less flavorful, do not fluff as well, and are not as soft as those made with milk. Cream is better still, but that’s another story!
By the way, this advice is for eggs cooked to be moist and creamy, the way they should be. I know some people prefer the dry, fluffy style but all we can do is feel sorry for them.
A common technique in cooking is to use a starch to thicken a liquid such as a gravy or sauce. Wheat starch (flour) and corn starch are perhaps the most common, but potato starch, arrowroot, and tapioca are also used. Does it matter which one you use? Most definitely. These agents differ in five ways.
Now let’s look at how the various thickening agents stack up:
Read more of this postYou hear this on a regular basis, mostly from Texans. The fact is that many delicious traditional (and non-traditional) chilis are made with beans and/or tomatoes. There is in fact some basis for this myth. Traditional Texas-style chili is usually made without beans or tomatoes, and it can be great, but that’s just one regional variant.
What about “Cincinnati” chili? I used to think it was meant as a variant on southwestern chili, and a very poor one at that. I learned later that Cincinnati chili is actually a dish invented by Greek immigrants in Cincinnati and meant as a spaghetti sauce or hot dog topping. It has some chili powder in it, but also more traditional Mediterranean spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. Learn more on Google.
False, but true in a way. The heat in hot peppers comes from a chemical called capsaicin, and most of the capsaicin is contained in the pith, the white material that holds the seeds in place. The seeds actually contain very little. So, you could remove just the seeds from a pepper and affect the heat not at all, but because most people remove the pith along with the seeds, they get the desired result. Although, hot peppers are supposed to be hot, so why would you do this? Another mystery!
Nope. You may want the salt for the taste, but it has no effect on the color of the final product. A pinch of baking soda could actually improve color by making the water more alkaline, but because most people have water that is already a wee bit alkaline to begin with, you may not notice a difference.
Now wait just a minute, how can one statement and its opposite both be false? This is because there are so many divergent opinions about salting pasta water, often strongly held, and none of them is “true” in an absolute sense. Salting does not shorten the cooking time by raising the temperature of the water (it does, actually, but by a tiny amount that makes absolutely no difference). The fact is that salting does one thing and one thing only: it makes the pasta salty (well, duh!). You have to add a good bit of salt to get any real taste effect because most of the salt goes down the drain. There you have it. You want salty pasta, add salt – otherwise, no.
But, there is one situation where I think adding salt is a good idea. For the common tomato-based sauces, the sauce can add the needed degree of saltiness to the dish. With oil-based sauces, however, we face the fact that salt does not dissolve in oil, so the sauce cannot add the needed salt (and the result is often the addition of too much grated cheese to get the desired salt level). Salting the pasta water in these situations can provide a better balance. The same is true of pasta that is destined for a cold mayonnaise-based salad.
In theory, this will work–oil is slippery, after all! In realty, almost all the oil goes down the drain when you drain the pasta and the septic tank beasties will enjoy your good olive oil. Tossing the pasta with a little oil just after draining works much better. But, most sticking problems can be avoided by buying high quality pasta (which sticks less than the cheap stuff), by not overcooking the pasta, and by making sure you are boiling it in enough water. Also, stirring the pasta for 10-20 seconds right after adding it to the boiling water makes stickiness less of a problem.
The corn, not the worm! The corn earworm, Helioverpa zea, is the larva, or caterpillar, of a moth. There is almost always one per ear, and they inhabit the tip of the ear, feeding on the kernels. I have seen a lot of people at the local farmers’ market rejecting ears of otherwise excellent corn because there’s a worm. What a waste! Organic corn often has a worm, because spraying with toxic insecticides is the only way to prevent them. All you need to do is cut off the tip of the ear, removing the worm and the damaged kernels, and you’ll be fine. I’d much rather eat an ear of corn that had a worm removed than one soaked with insecticides.
Oh pish-tush! For medium to long-term storage (more than a couple of weeks) this in fact the best place to store coffee. Coffee goes stale mainly because the oils in the coffee (I am talking roasted coffee, whole beans or ground) react with oxygen in the air and go rancid, giving the coffee a stale taste. One way to prevent this is to seal the coffee away from air—this is why coffee in cans and some bags is vacuum packed. The second way is with cold, which slows down chemical reactions. Cold, freezer, duh!
The reason I have heard for not storing coffee in the freezer is that it can absorb odors from the other food. Well, I dunno about you, but I wrap things tightly before they go in the freezer. Even if my leftover garlic and limburger tart comes unsealed, the coffee will be in a jar or zip-loc bag.
There is one situation when freezer storage may not be a good idea, and that when the weather is very humid and your kitchen is not air conditioned. Because moisture condenses on cold surfaces, there’s the risk of the coffee becoming moist when you take it out of the freezer to use. This would likely affect the coffee.
We all know that extra virgin olive oil has the best flavor. But, it turns out that these flavors pretty much all vanish when the oil is heated to sautéing temperatures. If you still want to use olive oil, for the health benefits perhaps, save your money and use a cheaper refined oil, saving the extra virgin for salads, dipping bread, and other non-heated uses. If you want that lovely olive oil flavor on cooked foods, drizzle a bit of the good stuff on after cooking.
