One of the issues I have with non alcoholic products is that because they are meant to be a drop in replacement for alcoholic they wind up being comparable in price sometimes even more expensive.
For what is effectively a softdrink you wind up paying almost 14-$20 a 6pack and a mocktail at a bar can cost $10+ a cup. Compared to something like soda, flavored seltzers, or a malty brewed softdrink like malta the prices are so high. You can get 12-24 packs for what theyre asking. Some mocktails actually take quite a lot of effort to put together to justify the pricetag, but most Ive seen in the wild tend to be simple to make and in terms of labor not much more than a late or milkshake despite being priced way above them.
That said there’s nothing wrong with giving people more options to drink while out and about and if you do enjoy the taste of beer to be able to enjoy it without having to get buzzed(even if for some even a mild kick is part of the point)
I think some of the reasoning is that because it’s taken the same ingredients/processes/time etc. then commodores can charge the same as conventional beer. Where this falls down is here in UK the stronger the alcohol, the higher the tax. Companies probably will justify higher price despite less alcohol because of the expense of research or extra equipment.
Most breweries use one of just a few basic options for production, each of which comes with its own set of considerations. There’s dealcoholization through evaporation, aka vacuum distillation, in which beer is heated and distilled to remove the ethanol. Dealcoholization via reverse osmosis, meanwhile, uses membranes to separate the alcohol from the rest of the liquid. The former method can strip some desirable flavor compounds, and both options are a financial stretch for smaller craft breweries.
Emphasis on the last line. So yeah it does add some significant cost. Which is why they resort to cold-contact brewing which can result in worty/bready taste as the article notes. So if you want good NA beer yeah, it’s more expensive probably because they’re using all the same ingredients and then doing the extra process. Obviously there won’t be the alcohol tax though.
The pricing is infuriating in Canada, since nearly half the price of real beer is alcohol-related excise duties and taxes, which do not apply to non-alcoholic beers. So when companies charge the same or more they are just keeping the difference, it is not “sin tax” related like we’ve been conditioned to accept up here…
This study isn’t really about kinds of protein, it’s more about different protein products and the amount of micro plastic in relation to the amount of processing. If it was just about kinds of protein, then the chart would just say “chicken” or “soybeans” instead of “plant based nugget” or “chicken breast”. Very eye opening about breaded shrimp. I would have assumed those were no worse off than a fish stick, but apparently they’re worse than chicken nuggets. In the end this just goes to reiterate that the more processed something is, the more sus it is to eat :/
If it’s already breaded, then it’s processed. In my opinion, anyways. Chicken nuggets are number 3, and although I’m not an expert on chicken anatomy, I’ve yet to find someone that can point out where the nugget is on a live chicken.
Also is “minimally processed” more or less processed than “fresh caught”? I would assume more, but both pollack and Key West shrimp have the minimally processed version below the fresh caught version on this graph. (While White Gulf shrimp is the other way around and a much wider spread.)
I like it in small amounts in sushi, plus in a few other dishes (like my “undead raising” lamen. It gets wasabi, black pepper, red pepper and ginger. If whatever you have ends killing you, don’t worry - the mix will make your body move again!)
Now the question is, has anyone here actually had wasabi?
But here’s the rub: That tangy paste served up at nearly all sushi bars — even the ones in Japan — is almost certainly an impostor. Far more common than the real thing is a convincing fraud, usually made of ordinary white horseradish, dyed green.
Japan doesn’t even produce enough to fulfill their own demand, I’m almost certain all Wasabi I’ve ever had was fake.
GMO isn’t bad. Everything is genetically modified.
Patented foods already exist. Have for years.
Monsanto has corn plants that don’t grow at a consistent height if you try to replant the seeds, making them profit by getting you to buy more seeds next year.
Like most things, the real problem behind GMO is greed. Creating rice strains that grow in impoverished areas, where little else will grow, is hard to see as a bad thing. We could be, and to some degree are, creating strains to solve world hunger, improve nutrition, improve durability of produce without sacrificing flavor. Tomatoes, I’m looking at you.
But so much of GMO is an effort to dominate the market, instead of to make the market better.
Dominate the market instead of make the market better? I don’t quite follow.
A seed that can be planted in more areas, and consistently grow more abundantly, seems favorable for all.
Yet I can still go to the farmer’s market and get my 60+ types of apples, honey, etc. If I want something special.
Or are you saying that once one seed is produced, companies will stick with that instead of continuing to improve the seed? Because that’s not the case either, there’s hundreds of varieties of corn, each able to tolerate slightly different conditions.
Monocultures are a real problem, not just when looking at the produce at the supermarket (which most people buy, if at all), but even more so when looking at the manufactured foods.
But I’m talking more about business practices of big players in the GMO game. For example, see the litigation history of Bayer, formerly Monsanto.
For me what made a huge difference was adding acid, specially for stews. A hearty splash of vinegar or soy sauce while stewing, or even a dash of lime just before serving takes it from “meh” to “seconds please!”.
Prep ingredients before you cook, and clean as you go. Makes the whole process more focused and more enjoyable. And if you clean as you go, after meal clean up is a breeze.
I’d like to offer a counter point to mise en place. If you are experienced enough, you probably know when the recipe has downtime, and what ingredients are needed when. I prepare what I need until the next time when the cooking becomes passive.
Cleaning as I go would be great, but our two person household electricity usage is already at 4 person household levels, and hot water is electric… so I do that after eating all at once.
Another upside to this is that it ensures you stay focused and don’t wander off and forget that you were cooking when there’s downtime. That’s assuming this is a problem you’re prone to.
Sesame oil in ramen definitely takes it to the next level. Another fun addition is liquid dashi concentrate, which lends a nice deep umami flavor.
The other umami adder that’s worth playing with is fish sauce. I find that as it cooks it loses its aroma, making it easy to use in a wide variety of recipes.
Please elaborate. I have a vegetarian here and have not found a vegan dashi. The best I can do is use kombu in my ramen/Asian/miso-based soups (but not in Euro-centric soups, like Senate Bean Soup or Cauliflower-Potato). I’ve got a decent vegan Worcestershire sauce, and would love a link for a good vegan dashi base to add to my cooking toolkit.
Once he started doing collabs with Josh Weissman, I think that took it from a bit into something serious. After that, I started seeing a bunch of YouTube cooking channels start using it.
I prefer using things with high glutamate content instead of straight MSG, but I do keep a jar on hand for when food is lacking that something.
Just got the wild thought in my head that I should tell you how to do this. Get yourself an appropriate sized pan and a can of two of garbanzo beans or chickpeas, whatever they’re called where you’re buying them. Get pan hot with your favored oil, mine’s pure olive oil. Then add the DRAINED beans (shake as much liquid as you can out of them) and fry to the desired crisp.
First off, it is 100% ok to not like beer. That being said, you might want to try some other styles. If you like roasted coffee/chocolate flavors, try stouts or porters. Belgians are also one of my favorites. Tend to be more caramely, and a little yeasty. Delirium Tremens and Le Chouffe are a couple of my favorites that tend to be easy to get. If those are not around, Unibrowe brewing from Canada does Belgian style beers. Sours can also be pretty fun, and can approach juice like flavors.
I could probably go on for a bit, but there are a lot of options out there.
Add MSG. Another meaning of MSG besides Monosodium glutamate is “Makes Stuff Good”, because besides normal salt and fat, it’s another great flavor enhancer for anything savory. And no, it almost certainly doesn’t give you headaches, that was racist bullshit and has long since been disproven.
Baking soda and the Maillard reaction are friends. You know how they tell you, you can’t caramelize onions in 5 minutes? With baking soda, you can. Add a knife’s tip and bam. Just be careful, it also makes them burn far more easily. This also works with meat, where the meat keeps water better and browns more beautifully. One of my favorite uses is for roasting cauliflower, which gets a deeper brown and tastes so much better in cauli mash.
Sodium Citrate for cheese sauce. You want creamy cheese sauce? Like for Nachos? Add a teaspoon of sodium citrate to your cheese when melting, and it will all combine without any of the fat separating. It’s best for dips, but it can be used for something like mac & cheese in a pinch, but you’ll get better results there if you make a proper roux.
For #3 and for people that might not have sodium citrate handy, adding a slice of American cheese to cheese sauces will do the same thing as there’s plenty of sodium citrate in there to go around.
I don’t have any tips that most don’t already know. I cook with simple ingredients. I save and freeze a bit of stock and cook with stock where I can. It adds a bit of depth that oil/butter doesn’t.
For my stock, I’ll save vegetable scraps and freeze it until I have enough. Then boil it down for a few hours. Vegetable is fun to play with. You can add different flavors, and different elements depending on the vegetables you use. Mushrooms will have a unique umami.
Same with seafood stock, I’ll save shrimp shells and fish heads and boil (simmer?) it down. Chicken stock I just boil the bones down after I roast a chicken. For beef, same thing, I’ll roast the bones for more flavor and boil it down. Also I’ll add carrots and celery to the boil for more flavor.
In a similar thought, I love to use coconut oil when cooking when I want a sweeter taste. And finishing a dish with some sesame oil can add a really good flavor. (Sometimes I’ll lightly toss noodles in sesame oil after they’re cooked, or do the same with roasted veggies)
Great ideas with stock. Alas, I don’t have enough leftovers for it as I tend to use everything (and for meat, I’m weird and don’t like bones or anything, so it’s always ground or filet. Only sometimes when beef shanks are on sale I eat leftovers and cook them for my wife, but that doesn’t leave many bones)
edits:
And finishing a dish with some sesame oil can add a really good flavor
Toasted sesame oil. I use it on pretty much anything somewhat Asian :D
For the stock, when you roast something, chicken or whatever, if you have space in the oven add another pan and roast the bones or vegetables, careful not burn them, you keep for stock before boiling them, you get deeper flavour and a nice colour.
Eh, I got this once, too. It was specially face-palming because OP of that thread requested advice about a beef and vegs dish, and I suggested him to sub MSG with soy sauce. Typical witch hunting mentality, that’s what happens when you don’t kick out assumptive and context-ignoring people.
Thanks! It’s a really interesting topic and I was excited to learn more. But I’m not sure the writer offered much to support their explanation for why these tropical spices are so closely associated with winter time in the north.
For example, I was underwhelmed by the “cinnamon is an antidiabetic, so it’ll help process all those sugary treats you’re eating over the holidays” fact. Does that really explain why cinnamon is associated with this season from a historical perspective? I can’t say for sure that past generations weren’t adding cinnamon to holiday foods because they knew it was an antidiabetic. But I’m going to continue doubting it until I see something persuasive.
The author could have supported their statements a little better, but scattered throughout the articles are reasons like:
Ginger is harvested in winter and will decline in quality over time, so it may be best to harvest and use sooner rather than later. It will help with the side effects of meat stored for harsh and long times
Nutmeg is harvested in August and then proceeds through processing routes that may take enough time to complete and be ready for use by winter
Cinnamon is largely harvested after monsoon season June-December, so will be available for use in time for fall and winter time
I don’t think the author was trying to say that these spices are harvested in the fall and enjoyed in the winter. In fact, I think they are clearly saying the opposite.
Just as cranberries’ fall harvest makes them a natural choice for Thanksgiving, I thought that perhaps the seasonality of spice harvest had something to do with their use during the winter months. However, this doesn’t appear to be the case.
And
Take ginger…The plants can be harvested at any time of year if they are mature and haven’t been exposed to cold or wind.
Or, if they are trying to make that point, they are doing so in a way that includes contradictory details.
I’m not an aficionado on those specific sandwiches but you should try setting your microwave to half power and cooking for twice the time. I get much better results on most things when I cook like that - food will be more evenly heated and won’t be so brutally overcooked.
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