While watching various matches of the Australian Open, we were bombarded by those videos from the Corn Refiner's Association claiming that your body can't tell the difference between cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) - so they must be the same. But consider that your body can't tell the difference between air and carbon monoxide, either, and low concentrations of CO will kill you. [Read more]

In January 2011, Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, predicted The Great Food Crisis of 2011, and followed up in May 2011 with The New Geopolitics of Food.
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In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the difference between a $2 loaf of bread and a loaf costing maybe $2.10. If, however, you live in New Delhi, those skyrocketing costs really matter: A doubling in the world price of wheat actually means that the wheat you carry home from the market to hand-grind into flour for chapatis costs twice as much. And the same is true with rice. If the world price of rice doubles, so does the price of rice in your neighborhood market in Jakarta. And so does the cost of the bowl of boiled rice on an Indonesian family's dinner table.

Welcome to the new food economics of 2011: Prices are climbing, but the impact is not at all being felt equally. For Americans, who spend less than one-tenth of their income in the supermarket, the soaring food prices we've seen so far this year are an annoyance, not a calamity. But for the planet's poorest 2 billion people, who spend 50 to 70 percent of their income on food, these soaring prices may mean going from two meals a day to one. Those who are barely hanging on to the lower rungs of the global economic ladder risk losing their grip entirely. This can contribute -- and it has -- to revolutions and upheaval.

It is an article of faith for some, both on the evangelical right and the secular left, that we live in the end times.  For every millennialist who is reading Nostradamus or prophecies of the end of days in the Bible, there is a secularist waiting for aliens to take their "container" from the Earth, or a Dmitry Orlov prophesying the apocalyptic end of modern culture from the end of our free recourse to oil.  Lost in these more grand hypotheses of abrupt ends to the world we know is a deeper, darker truth with more grounding in science than any of them.  It is this.  With supplies of arable land declining, and the number of dairy cows that can be sustained static or falling, our diets are threatened with chaos.  The science doesn't lie.  The numbers are there.  Dairy wanes, while the planet's gluttony for cheeseburgers and pizzas increases exponentially.  This post tears the roof off of the coming culinary catastrophe our complacent consumption conceals:  Peak Cheese. [Read more]

In the Wall Street Journal article, Can the World Still Feed Itself?, Austrian Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman and former CEO of Nestlé, portrays genetically-modified (GMO or GM) crops as the hero, and food-for-fuel as the villain in the effort to feed six, seven, or even nine billion planetizens:
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Above is a summary of the soon-to-be-released documentary American Meat. [Read more]

Chocolate is essential to human life.  Not because it contains healthy antioxidants, though it does, and not because it can be good for your heart's health, though it can be.  Nor is chocolate essential because of its supposedly quasipheromonal effects.  For those who have learned to love and appreciate it, there is simply no more satisfying food than chocolate.  Like wine, it comes in nearly infinite varieties and qualities, featuring wide differences of cacao content, and thus bitterness, bu [Read more]

In this 90 minute video, Sugar: The Bitter Truth, Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by the fructose that comprises roughly half of high fructose corn syrup and exactly half of common sucrose. Our consumption of too much fructose and not enough fiber, from infant formula through big gulps, have led to the obesity & diabetes epidemic. Ninety minutes is a long time, but it is well worth watching. [Read more]

Don’t be sad, Paul saw this coming.

News/Politics

Paul the Octopus: Famed psychic cephalopod is dead. Luckily, he’s also delicious.

Iran: Loading fuel into a nuclear reactor for the first time, Iran takes another step toward getting bombed. [Read more]

1,000,000,000 human beings were hungry around the globe in 2010.

News/Politics

Hunger: A billion people are hungry. You can't understand that. It's too enormous. Stop, think. Again - A billion people are hungry. Get it, yet?   [Read more]

Aging Mussels dine on Raw fish in Las Vegas.

Your turn.

–WKW

Crossposted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

KENTUCKY – Following its hyper-successful “KFC Famous Bowls” and “Double-Down Sandwich” campaigns, KFC has announced its newest promotion – “KFC’s Eat It Off The Floor, Bitch!” combo.
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LOUISVILLE – Billy-Bob Wolfrum was pleased that Dr. McBride had removed the tick from the bottom of his foot, that had given him so much trouble. Wolfrum was much less pleased when Dr. McBride refused the KFC Double-Down Sandwich for treatment.

“I mean, it has no bread,” said Wolfrum. “All Chicken. And bacon, even.” [Read more]

I know, I know. Daglog is not Twitter. And as Joe Biden would say, big F-ing deal. It's just that I'm over 60 years old (there, I said it) and to the best of my recollection I have never before bought a toaster.

I've owned a toaster -- like, forever. Of course. Everyone owns a toaster. But when my toaster broke this week, I asked myself, "When did I buy this thing?" And I drew a complete blank. Maybe it was a hand-me-down from my dear departed mother, or an ex-girlfriend. Or maybe it was left behind in an apartment I once rented. All I know is I've had it longer than I've had children, and they are in their late 30s. So when it stopped working, it surprised the hell out of me. It had always worked. Why would it stop now? [Read more]

OK, there's this nagging problem I have. Sort of an obsession. I push it to the back of my mind, where it stays quiescent for months, causing me no grief. Then it re-emerges, always re-emerges. Help me, dagblog community. HELP ME!

I blame Genghis for this latest relapse. In a comment to a post by Orlando (below), he wrote:

"A lying Mrs. Tebow would have no significance on the abortion debate. But nor would an honest Mrs. Tebow." [Read more]

Having spent more time lately in the U.S., one thing has become abundantly clear - Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi is the nastiest beverage ever created. If ever there was a product that proved that American ingenuity is dead, it's Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi.

My theory on how Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi was created is that someone was wandering the desert in the Southwest, stumbled across an ancient spittoon, took the ingredients from said spittoon, re-liquefied it, added a tiny amount of carbonation, and then started selling it.

If Rocky 6 was a carbonated beverage, it would be Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi -- all preachy yet hard to understand, stupid and in bad taste.
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Oh man. I used to love weddings. I really did. I thought they were fun affairs where you got to see family and friends, drink and dance, and just have a good ole time. Plus, when I was single, I almost always got lucky at weddings - something in the air lends itself to sex and romance I guess.

So i always thought I wanted a big wedding because then it's all the good things about weddings but you're the center of attention and getting all the gifts!! What's not to love? [Read more]

CNBC has a bad rap. It began with Rick Santelli's made-for-youtube tirade in which he blamed home-buying "losers" for causing the mortgage the crisis. Then Jon Stewart skewered the CNBC journalists who promoted the banks that most analysts blame for the mortgage crisis, sparking a minor media war with Jim Cramer that left Cramer appearing petulant and self-important. A few weeks later, Cramer exploded at blogger Dan Solin and stormed off the set of the CNBC's Power Lunch. Then just last week, CNBC Reports host Dennis Kneale rampaged against "bloggers" calling them "digital dickweeds" and accusing them of living in their mothers' basements, among other clever gibes. [Read more]

Food is a huge part of my life.  I make lots of sauces from scratch, cook with game, and vacation around trips to nice restaurants like Alan Wong's in Honolulu, Wild Ginger in Seattle, and Alinea in Chicago.  So I don't know how I have waited this long to go to what is emerging in the national food press as one of the premier ice cream joints in America, the artisanal, high-cuisine Sweet Republic in Scottsdale.  Now that I have gone, I may need to lease an apartment across the street.  This is certainly one of the very finest dessert restaurants

Every Tuesday night after my weekly basketball game, I pick up some Mickey D's for me and Ms. Deadman (or Deadwoman, if you prefer) to eat at home. It's a classy tradition in the Deadman household, one that we both totally look forward to, with the main source of our enjoyment being the Filet-O-Fish sandwich that always makes up the entree portion of our meals. [Read more]