This is the first time I’ve seen ‘Irradiated beef’ advertised.

Michael Pollan has an easy to digest definition of irradiated beef in this excerpt of an article he wrote for The New York Times Magazine (March 31, 2002):

Rather than try to alter that diet or keep the animals from living in their waste or slow the line speed—all changes regarded as impractical—the industry focuses on disinfecting the manure that will inevitably find its way into the meat. This is the purpose of irradiation (which the industry prefers to call “cold pasteurization”). It is also the reason that carcasses pass through a hot steam cabinet and get sprayed with an antimicrobial solution before being hung in the cooler at the National Beef plant.

Delicious!

Wow. What’s next? Matt McClellan posted some pretty impressive numbers eating a healthy slice of pizza every 3 hours and nothing else but water. Read on for video and details.

In just thirty days here were Matt’s results;

• Weight- 203 pounds to 179 pounds
• Bloood Pressure- 140/90 to 118/80
• Cholesterol- 243 to 157
• Biceps- 15 inches to 14 inches
• Chest- 42 inches to 43 inches
• Waist- 38 inches to 33 1?2 inches
• Hips- 42 inches to 39 inches
• Body Fat -19 percent to 9 percent
• BMI- 26.9 percent to 23.6 percent

Pizza Diet Essentials

Matt ate nothing but pizza for 30 days which consisted of 8 slices consumed over a 12 hour period. His first slice was at 9am and his last slice was at 9pm for a total of 2500 Calories from the pizza.

The pizza that he ate was made with skim milk cheese and included healthy toppings such as chicken, broccoli, avocado, pineapple, onions, peppers, and mushrooms. Sorry, meat lovers wasn’t on the menu.

Matt also increased his exercise level to 60 minutes a day alternating between cardio and weight training. Also, Matt didn’t change his habit of having some soda, energy drinks, or alcohol each day because he wanted to prove that pizza alone could be the healthy factor not cutting out unhealthy beverages.

Summary

With the pizza diet Matt proved that pizza can be part of a healthy diet if moderation and wise topping choices are selected. He believes that the key to any diet is portion control and that’s basically what his pizza diet is, a way to enjoy a great food, but not eat the whole pie in one go.

I suspect even greater health benefits could be achieved by cutting out the soda or energy drinks and making the pizza with whole wheat crust.

You can read about his whole journey at Tourdepizza.com

They’re baack…Those  mad scientists at EepyBird who shocked the world with those majestic Coca-Cola and Mentos fountains are at it again. They’ve moved on to much more functional projects, namely a Coke Zero & Mentos Rocket Car. Check the video after the jump.

This has been around for some time but I just was introduced to it today. From HuffPo:

In the late 1960s, psychologist Walter Mischel performed a series of tests on preschoolers referred to as The Marshmallow Tests. Mischel would give a child a single marshmallow, then leave him or her alone in the room with it. Before he departed, he’d make each kid an offer: if they wanted to, they could eat it immediately — but if they waited for him to return, they’d get two marshmallows. The tests were designed to examine willpower and the mental processes behind delayed gratification. Watching kids go through the experiment can be poignant… and adorable. See the video below.

Remember those guys who a couple years ago paired Mentos with various versions of Coca-Cola to create some beautiful geysers? They’re at it again. Check out the trailer video below.

Heidi Kenney’s downloadable Dirty Dozen Cheat Sheet gives a quick at-a-glance look at whether or not to buy organic. There are some fruits and vegetables that have higher treatments with pesticides and this cheat shet will help you decide what is worth/not worth spending the extra $ on.

From her site:

We have been trying to buy as many organic fruits and vegetables as we can, but the area we live in sometimes makes it a bit of a challenge. Our local grocery store has just started to carry a few organic items like strawberries and potatoes, so I almost always drive the 15-20 miles outside our town to get groceries elsewhere. Please keep in mind I do try and limit this trip to every other week, run other errands that are in the same area etc. It is not as if I say “oh we need organic strawberries, let me drive 15 miles for them”

That being said I wanted a handy way to remember the “dirty dozen” (or foods with the highest pesticide residue which was measured after washing and or peeling) and the “clean fifteen” (or foods with the lowest or no pesticide residue) Because sometimes I can’t find something organically and need to decide if I am still going to buy an onion or not You can find lots of info on the tests etc by googling “dirty dozen organic”.

I know this won’t pertain to everyone, but personally it is something I really care about when I am going to buy produce. So I made this handy little card to keep in my wallet. It is about the size of a business card. I just printed it out, cut the card out of the gray area, folded it in half, and had it laminated. I also realize that organic foods can be more expensive, but some times they are not, or its a small amount like .25 You can look for sales, etc. Plus with this list you can maybe just focus on the produce with higher pesticide residue All in all I just hope this little card can be handy for some of my readers too. And just another thought too is to try and find/support a local organic CSA.

You can download the printable file here. Please remember this is for personal use only

Edited to add: Hey guys I have some great links from Amy
Heidi, that’s a super cute interpretation of our guide. I’m from Environmental Working Group — the organization that makes the original Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 lists — and just wanted to give the link to the original version (www.foodnews.org) where you can see the full list (we rank 47 different types of produce) and get answered any questions you might have. And we do have an iphone app, which you can download there. Cheers, Amy

Unless you live in parts of the US where mining or manufacturing has tainted your water supply, you don’t need to buy bottled water. The stuff should be outlawed and people who purchase it should be jailed. If you’re really that concerned, get a Brita or Binchotan. Just think about Garbage Island and if that doesn’t turn you off from the plastic junk, you need to be evaluated. Go get a Nalgene or Klean Kanteen or CamelBak because the recycling argument doesn’t work – practically no one recycles anyway (only 10% of plastic water bottles are  recycled—90% end up as either garbage or litter – PDF from New York State Department of  ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION). All hail the Australian city of Bundanoon (the first to outlaw bottled water).

Here’s a nice article on the subject from National Geographic as part of National Geographic’s Green Guide:

Solvie Karlstrom and Christine Dell’Amore

Published March 10, 2010

Bottled water is a drain on the environment: The U.S. public goes through about 50 billion water bottles a year, and most of those plastic containers are not recycled, according to Elizabeth Royte’s 2008 book Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It.

Transporting the bottles and keeping them cold also burns fossil fuels, which give off greenhouse gases. And groundwater pumping by bottled-water companies draws heavily on underground aquifers and harms watersheds, according to the Sierra Club, an environmental nonprofit. And according to some estimates, it takes up to three liters of water to produce one liter of bottled water.

Yet more than U.S. $100 billion is spent every year on bottled water globally. In many cities in developing countries where there is not a safe source of tap water, bottled water becomes a somewhat trusted option.

But in the U.S., where tap water is federally regulated and often screened for dangerous pollutants, the public drinks 21 gallons (79 liters) of bottled water per capita per year on average, according to the Columbia Water Center at Columbia University’s Earth Institute in New York. The bottled-water industry is so successful, it has outpaced milk, coffee, and juice in number of gallons of drinks sold—putting it behind only beer and soda.

Water Bottle Bans

Though the sale and consumption of bottled water is still on the rise, certain policymakers and activists have taken steps to reduce it and encourage people to drink tap. In September 2009, the Australian city of Bundanoon became the first city in the world to completely ban bottled water from its stores’ shelves, installing water fountains around the city instead.

Among U.S. cities that have taken action are San Francisco and Seattle, which no longer buy water for city use, and Chicago, which added a five-cent tax on each bottle. Several restaurants in those cities have also given up bottled for filtered tap. Other cities are also considering taking action.

The tide toward tap has boosted businesses that make reusable water bottles, especially aluminum and stainless steel varieties. Many reusable bottles are made of polycarbonate plastic, but those often contain bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical linked to reproductive problems and heart disease. In response, some polycarbonate-bottle makers have phased out BPA and advertise “BPA-free” products.

(Related: “Chemical BPA Linked to Heart Disease, Study Confirms.”)

Health Costs

Not only does bottled water contribute to excessive waste, but it costs us a thousand times more than water from our faucet at home, and it’s likely no safer or cleaner, experts say. A 2008 investigation by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group found some bottled water is sullied with untested industrial chemicals and may not necessarily be cleaner than tap water.

(Related: “What’s Best for Kids: Bottled Water or Fountains?“)

Water aside, the plastic used in single-use bottles can pose more of a contamination threat than the water. A safe plastic if used only once, #1 polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) is the most common resin used in disposable bottles. However, as #1 bottles are reused, as they commonly are, they can leach chemicals such as DEHA, a possible human carcinogen, and benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP), a potential hormone disruptor. And because the plastic is porous you’ll likely get a swill of harmful bacteria with each gulp if you reuse the bottles.

Bottled Tap Water

More than 80 percent of recyclable plastic bottles end up in landfills each year. They do not break down naturally and release toxic chemicals when they finally do decompose, according to the Columbia Water Center.

Another major problem with bottled water, according to Columbia, is that a traditionally public good has been privatized. Bottled water companies gain high profits by drawing water from public water sources, putting it in plastic containers, and reselling it at 2,900 times the price of regular tap. Some experts contend that the profits from bottled water companies could go toward improving public water supplies and infrastructure—making better water for everyone.

My super sister Emily had her company, I Heart Pies, featured on NBC Los Angeles’ Food Blog.

Way to go Emily!

A very cool image (click on it for a full size version) from Information is Beautiful. Baiscally shows which vitamins/supplements have legit studies backing them and ones to stay away from. Their site has a bigger image and an interactive graph. From their site:

This image is a “balloon race”. The higher a bubble, the greater the evidence for its effectiveness. But the supplements are only effective for the conditions listed inside the bubble.

You might also see multiple bubbles for certain supps. These is because some supps affect a range of conditions, but the evidence quality varies from condition to condition. For example, there’s strong evidence that Green Tea is good for cholesterol levels. But evidence for its anti-cancer effects is conflicting. In these cases, we give a supp another bubble.

This visualisation generates itself from this Google Doc. So when new research comes out, we can quickly update the data and regenerate the image. (How cool is that??)

As ever, we welcome your thoughts, crits, comments, corrections, compliments, tweaks, new evidence, missing supps, and general feedback. Thank you!

Feel comforted knowing that there is a National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. Really. From their site:

The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council is a project of the American Meat Institute and is funded by contributions from hot dog and sausage manufacturers and those who supply them with equipment, ingredients and services.

Established in 1994, the Council conducts scientific research to benefit hot dog and sausage manufacturers. The Council also serves as an information resource to consumers and media on questions related to quality, safety, nutrition and preparation of hot dogs and sausages.