We have already dispelled the myth that gluten is somehow bad for your health–aside from the small percentage of people with celiac disease this is simply not true (see here). There’s another gluten-related myth, however: that gluten-free foods are somehow more healthful than their “normal” gluten-containing counterparts. In fact, over 30% of Americans surveyed say they sometimes buy gluten-free because they believe this. But it is not so. In fact, gluten-free foods are very often less healthful because they contain less protein, fiber, and vitamins and more fat! And of course they are more expensive and usually don’t taste as good.

If only. Fact is, there are numerous toxic pesticides (insecticides, herbicides), both natural and synthetic,  permitted on organic crops, with the full blessing of the organic certification agency. This includes pyrethrins, nicotine, spinosad, and copper sulfate. And some organic farmers are pressuring the FDA to allow additional pesticides. Don’t get me wrong, many nasty chemicals are indeed banned in organic farming, and that is surely a good thing for the farm workers and the environment. But don’t be deluded into thinking that organic food is pesticide-free.

This myth is so embedded in our culture that it may be impossible to get rid of. How many hundreds of films, TV shows, and books show us a drunk person being fed “strong black coffee” to get them sober. But it just ain’t so.

Being “drunk” with the attendant loss of mental and physical abilities and loss of judgement is directly related to the amount of alcohol in your system. Once you have had a drink (or two, or three, or eight), the amount of alcohol in your system slowly decreases due to metabolism of the alcohol by several enzymes including aldehyde dehydrogenase and alcohol dehydrogenase. Coffee does nothing to speed these processes. Drink all the coffee you want, you’ll be just as drunk in an hour as if you had not. But … and here’s the rub … the caffeine in coffee tends to make people feel more alert and more in control even though they are just as drunk and just as impaired. So, they think they can do things that they really cannot, driving being the prime example, and they go out and cause an accident.

So, if you have a drunk person on your hands, don’t give them coffee. Give them some ibuprofin and a big glass of water (hangover prevention) and put them to bed.

At the heart of sushi is the rice – not raw fish as some people mistakenly believe (see my related post here). In a nutshell, medium-grained rice is cooked and, while hot, mixed with a vinegar/sugar/salt mixture. After cooling, the sushi rice is used to make the sushi.

Some unscrupulous companies have perpetuated the myth that you need a special kind of rice to make sushi, and I have seen small bags of “sushi rice” for sale at outrageous prices. Fact is, the rice use for sushi is the same medium grained rice used for many other purposes in Japanese cuisine. You do not need to pay extra for “sushi” rice. Our favorite is Kokuho Rose brand, closely followed by Nishiki. These are California-grown and are every bit as good as the much more expensive Japanese imports. They are widely available, you can even get the Nishiki through Walmart! So, don’t waste your money on overpriced rice!

On a related note, short-grained rice is not used for sushi–it’s actually medium grained that is used. Many people call it short as it is indeed shorter than many other rices, such as jasmine and basmatti. Real short grained rice is shorter still with grains that are almost round. Short grained rice is sold as sweet or sticky rice, although it is not sweet–but it is sticky!

---

---

Nitrates and nitrites have been used for centuries as part of the meat curing process (bacon, corned beef, sausages, etc.). They inhibit bacterial growth (particularly the deadly botulism bacterium), improve taste, and give the meat a nice color. But there’s been this “anti-nitrate” movement for a couple of decades now, claiming that nitrates cause cancer and all sorts of nasty stuff. They even pressured Whole Foods into not selling any nitrate-containing meats. The evidence for this health danger? None. A huge number of studies have been done, and while a few suggest a possible problem the large majority have found no negative effects of nitrates on health. But of course the “anti-nitrate” folks always focus on the few studies that support their preconceived ideas and ignore those that don’t.

And think about this: many vegetables contain nitrates, as does much drinking water. Fact is, the Centers for Disease Control has estimated that 90% of the nitrates we consume come from these sources and not from cured meat. Eat a few meals with  arugula, butter lettuce, celery, or beets and you’ll get more nitrates than from several hundred hot dogs. But I don’t see Whole Foods removing those vegetables from their shelves.

For years I have made hard-cooked eggs by putting them in a pan covered with cold water, bringing to the boil, then covering and letting sit off the heat for 20 minutes. The eggs cooked fine but they were sometimes very difficult to peel, particularly as I always use very fresh eggs from the farmers market. The problem was that the thin membrane just under the shall would sometimes stick to the egg white like glue. I recently found out that the problem with this technique is the relatively slow heating of the egg, which encourages that membrane to stick to the white. In contrast, rapid heating lessens the sticking, so putting the eggs into already boiling water is better from the peeling standpoint. But boiling like that can cause cracking because the eggs bounce around, so better yet is to steam the eggs.

Bring 1 inch of water to a boil in a saucepan. Put the eggs in a steamer basket and lower into the pan, then cover. Steam for 13 minutes then cool as peel as usual. I think you’ll appreciate the difference!

I wince to hear some people, including a lot of people who should know better, use the term “deboning” to refer to removing the bones from a fish, chicken, or whatever. Do you “depeel” a banana, “descale” a fish, or “dehusk” a coconut? No, duh. The correct term is simply “boning” – the “de” prefix is an unneeded and incorrect prefix. This may sound like “grammar nanny” crap, but why speak like an ignoramus if you don’t have to?

For most items, such as cakes and muffins, using cold as opposed to room temperature eggs makes no difference in the results other than requiring a slightly longer cooking time. For cakes that use beaten egg whites as a leavening ingredient, however, cold eggs don’t whip up as well and the resulting cake does not rise as well.

If only it were so! Salt is an essential ingredient in so many dishes, that’s just the way human taste works—we like salt (but not too much). With too little salt, savory dishes just taste flat and uninteresting. But over-salted – blech!

The problem is that all salt is not the same. Some salt is saltier than others when measured by volume, strange as that sounds. This is because different salts have different size crystals, and smaller crystals pack tighter than larger ones. So, a tablespoon of standard table salt (the stuff in the cylindrical container) weighs more than a TB of Morton kosher salt, which has larger crystals. And a TB of Diamond Crystal kosher salt weighs less than the Morton’s. It’s the weight that matters, of course. Sea salts vary because they are all different. So, here’s a guide to equivalents:

1 TB standard table salt equals:
1 TB + 1 scant teaspoon Morton kosher salt equals:
1 TB plus 2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt.

So what do you do when following a recipe? Some just specify “salt” while other specify “kosher salt” without saying which brand (and I am sure there are other brands I have not tried). It’s best to play it safe and undersalt—you can always add more but it is deucedly difficult to take it back! For dishes that are difficult or impossible to salt later, such as terrines, sausages, and meatloaf, it’s worth the trouble to cook a TB or so of the mixture to taste for seasoning before completing the process, and then adding salt if needed.

We all know that fish must be kept cold at all times before it is cooked or it will deteriorate quickly. Some people think the fridge is the best place for this, but in fact it’s better to keep the fish on ice. Why? Ice melts at 32 degrees, so a pile of crushed ice that is slowly melting is at that temperature. In contrast, a fridge is typically kept at 35 to 40 degrees. This may seem like a minor difference, but with high quality fresh fish – which is always pretty expensive – it can make a difference. The fish must never directly contact the ice, so in a plastic bag and covered with ice is best. The same goes for other seafood such as shrimp and scallops.