Caloric Sweeteners

Ingredients added to foods and beverages for the sweetness they impart also add functionality. From altering the mouth feel and viscosity to enhancing flavor and humectant properties, sweeteners offer a range of function for every conceivable food or beverage product. Sweetness is something people crave and seek out, and manufacturers are more than willing to supply it.

While probably not many consumers spend much time contemplating their intake of sucrose versus other caloric sweeteners, there are many technical differences and functional considerations regarding the various types of sweeteners available for food and beverage use. We’ll break it down three ways: caloric, sugar substitutes and polyols (better known as sugar alcohols).

Thirty years ago, sugar was the primary sweetener in America’s kitchens and in the products that lined the pantry. This week, we look at caloric sweeteners.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies." - Daisy Lee Gatson Bates (American civil rights leader, journalist, publisher, and author, 1914 - 1999)

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An Inconvenient Bag

The green giveaway of the moment -- the reusable shopping bag -- is a case study in how tricky it is to make products environmentally friendly. Just as digital music downloads were the giveaway of choice last year, reusable shopping bags are the new "it" freebie. The Sundance Institute gave out 12,000 fabric bags at its annual film festival earlier this year. Elisa Camahort Page, cofounder of BlogHer, an online community for women bloggers, says she even gave away 150 reusable bags to guests at her wedding last year.

But where do these bags come from? And are they as good for us as they seem? This week, we look at reusable shopping bags.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo da Vinci (an Italian polymath, having been a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer, 1452 – 1519)

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The Smell of Coffee

It's amusing to discover that coffee was once touted as a ground-breaking treatment for the Plague in 18th century Europe. Okay, so it didn't work, but look at what it can do.

Its been nothing but roses over the last year for us coffee drinkers needing a scientific reason to validate our habit. The past 365 days have yielded no less than four separate studies on the beneficial health effects of drinking coffee: reducing the risk of liver cancer, protection from age-related memory decline, cutting the risk of colon cancer in half, and caffeine plus exercise might contribute to lower risk of skin cancer.

This week, we look at a study that shows even just the smell of freshly brewed coffee can help relieve stress, something I've known all along.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative." - H. G. Wells (English author, historian, & utopian, 1866 - 1946)

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Early Frozen Food History

The almost limitless forms of frozen foods are a part of our daily diet. Little thought is generally given to the complexities involved in their processing and marketing or to the difficulties that beset the industry during its developmental years.

Successful launching of the frozen food industry required not only the development of appropriate freezing equipment and processing procedures, but also the development of varieties of raw products specifically suited to freezing, packaging materials, facilities for handling, storing, transporting, and displaying frozen foods, a product line of sufficient depth to meet the desires of most consumers, and finally, favorable consumer attitudes, all of which had to happen at the same time.

Hard to believe it even happened, but it did. This week a look at the early history of frozen food.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." - G. K. Chesterton (English writer whose prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography and fantasy, well noted for his "Father Brown" stories, 1874 - 1936)

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Chemistry of Autumn Colors

Summer is waining, although with the typical warm September weather you wouldn't know it. In a few days we'll celebrate the Autumnal Equinox, the first day of fall. Last year at this time we looked at why leaves fall from trees and how once the trees decide to go dormant, the foliage fireworks

This week, we look at the chemistry of those blazing autumn colors.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life." - Rachel Louise Carson (American marine biologist and nature writer whose writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement, 1907 - 1964)

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Kitchen Science 101

Time consumed on a beautiful Saturday morning at the muffler shop: 2 hours.

Cost of the work done to an aging Ford Explorer: $144.38.

Finding a nearly year-old issue of Popular Science that contained an article on food...priceless.

This week, we look at some Kitchen Science advice.

TTFN, Fred.


Quote of the week: "Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious." - Saint Thomas Aquinas (scholar, theologian and philosopher, 1225 – 1274)

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September is National Food Safety Education Month

Normally the attachments are limited to one or two pages, but I just couldn't pass up the entire activity booklet. Remember, do these on your own time!

TTFN, Fred.


Quote of the week: "A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ." - John Steinbeck (one of the best-known and most widely read American writers of the 20th century, 1902 - 1968)

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