01Aug 2020 by Vincent Summers No Comments

What is Umami? What Food Does It Bring to Mind?

Biology, Food
[caption id="attachment_28768" align="alignright" width="480"] Chinese foods are famous for being umami rich.[/caption]During my early years, the tongue was believed to have a variety of taste receptors nicknamed taste buds located or "mapped out" at different parts of the tongue. There were four: sweet and sour, salt and bitter. These basic tastes can be compared to the primary colors, red, yellow and blue. Any color we can come up with can be derived from some combination of red, yellow and blue. But with regard to the basic tastes, could it be there are actually more than four? Enter Umami A new variety of taste bud is postulated. From the Japanese word umami, roughly equivalent to the English savory, this new taste bud has been associated with the flavor of meat and…
Read More
11Jul 2020 by Vincent Summers No Comments

The Curious Brazil Nut and Brazil Nut Tree

Food, Plants
Buy a can of mixed nuts, and what large nut catches your attention because of its large size? Undoubtedly, it is a Brazil nut, perhaps an excellent indicator by its quantity of how good a quality your can of mixed nuts will be. It is not merely size that sets the Brazil nut apart. There are many factors that make this nut unique among nuts. Let's consider a few of them. The Brazil Nut Tree The Bertholletia excelsa, or Brazil Nut tree, is very imposing to look at. With its very large trunk, it towers above buildings. Atop the trunk is a crown of leaves and branches. Bertholletia's fruits resemble coconuts. In fact, Brazil nuts are not nuts, but seeds from within the fruits. [caption id="attachment_28657" align="alignright" width="400"] Bertholletia escelsa,…
Read More
16Jun 2020 by Vincent Summers 2 Comments

Is Much of the Nutrition Just Under the Potato Skin?

Food, Health
The part of the potato just below the outer skin is the cortex. Just below the cortex is the vascular system. People claim just under the potato skin is its most nutritious part. Yet, the average consumer discards the skin and part of the cortex when he or she prepares the starchy tubers. To counter this, some choose not to peel their potatoes, but to wash and eat the entire potato. Anatomy of a Potato A naive viewpoint would assume the potato is simply a brown skin covering an ellipsoid of uniform, white starchy material. The potato has a number of distinguishable anatomical features, in fact. First there is the skin of a potato. It is called the periderm. Moving into the interior, we next encounter the cortex. Next is…
Read More
28Apr 2020 by Vincent Summers 2 Comments

The Indian Strawberry Vs. The Wild Strawberry

Food, Plants
[caption id="attachment_27024" align="alignright" width="480"] Indian Strawberry - Image by Kurt Stuber[/caption]The Indian strawberry, also known as the mock strawberry (Duchesnea indica) with its small yellow flowers and red fruits is often seen in lawns. It resembles a tiny strawberry, but the seed to pulp ratio is high and, despite its name, affords the eater little in the way of flavor. The Wild or Woodlands Strawberry There is another fruit that is often seen in similar terrain as the Indian strawberry. It is the Wild or Woodlands strawberry (Fragaria vesca). Differing from the Indian strawberry, the Wild strawberry offers lovely fragrance and rich flavor. [caption id="attachment_27020" align="alignright" width="380"] Wild Strawberries - Image by Ural-66[/caption] Additional differences include its small white flowers. And its seeds are not on top of the pulp,…
Read More
24Apr 2020 by Vincent Summers 1 Comment

Poke Salad: Popular, Free and Tasty: Is It Good for You?

Food, Health
[caption id="attachment_26999" align="alignright" width="480"] Phytolacca americana berry cluster. - Image Courtesy Kyle Hamar.[/caption]In the U.S., especially in the southern states, a popular "soul food" is poke salad (also called poke sallet). Perhaps you are unfamiliar with it. What is poke salad? It is a cooked preparation of the leaves of the common Pokeweed, or Phytolacca americana. How to Pinch Your Poke Ask most anyone and they'll tell you to collect only very small leaves. It is traditional to return to the spots where it's been seen growing before. The leaves are washed, and sometimes cooked in a skillet with some onion. It may then be eaten with scrambled eggs or used in an omelet. Did I say traditional? Why there's even a song about poke salad – Poke Salad Annie...…
Read More
30Mar 2020 by Vincent Summers No Comments

The Wild Potato or Indian Potato Vine – Desirable or a Pesky Weed?

Food, Plants
[caption id="attachment_26946" align="alignright" width="480"] Ipomoea pandurata on fence. Image by Kevin Ternes[/caption]Also called the wild sweet potato or the man-root, this tuber-producing vine is viewed by some as the free source of tubers that smell like sweet potatoes and have a tasty, unique flavor. By others, it is viewed as a pesky, invasive weed. Which will it be for you? Although these "potatoes" are free, it takes a little work to gather them. Many hands make the work light. One thing about these natural treats is, they are certainly easy to identify. [caption id="attachment_26951" align="alignright" width="200"] Ipomoea pandurata root. Image by Kevin Robertson, Pebble Hill Plantation, 2015[/caption] The wild potato can grow quite large, one lone potato weighing as much as an entire 20-lb. bag of grocery-store potatoes. But, as…
Read More
20Mar 2020 by Vincent Summers 1 Comment

War, France, and Chicory – The Little Blue Flower Along the Road

Food, History
Perhaps you've seen along the roadside, some plants rising above their surroundings with pert little blue flowers that look like the cross of a dandelion with an aster. This is the common chicory, Latin name Cichorium intybus. They are considered weeds, and to be honest, the stalk that supports the flowers does little to improve their appearance. Yet, this unobtrusive plant is of positive interest historically. France! In France for instance, chicory, for the coffee drinker, was welcome. In his conflict with England, Napoleon wanted to wreak havoc on their economic system. He, with the cooperation of some other countries, enacted a blockade. There were ramifications that led to a shortage of coffee. [caption id="attachment_26921" align="alignright" width="400"] Amazingly large roots![/caption] It was already known that properly processed root of the…
Read More
22Feb 2020 by Vincent Summers No Comments

Iodized Table Salt – How Is Iodizing Salt Beneficial?

Food, Health
[caption id="attachment_26701" align="alignright" width="480"] "Is tasteless food eaten without salt?" - Job 6:6a[/caption]Iodized table salt, for me, it is a pleasant memory... When I was a youngster, we'd all sit together at the dinner table to enjoy a home-cooked meal. Oddly, we salted the food before tasting it to see if it was salty enough already. In those days, the word "salt" referred to Morton salt just as the word "tissue" always meant a Kleenex tissue. Morton salt came in a midnight-blue cylindrical cardboard box. There was a little girl in a short yellow dress walking in the rain with a somewhat oversized umbrella, spilling the salt as she walked. The motto beneath was "When it rains, it pours." I always wondered as a kid why the girl was carrying…
Read More
23Nov 2019 by Vincent Summers No Comments

Garlic Dietary “Spokesperson” Allicin Speaks Out

Food, Health
[caption id="attachment_26504" align="alignright" width="480"] Basket of Garlic Bulbs[/caption]Garlic is considered by the majority as a healthful food. By nearly every person, it is recognized for its pungent, odor. Most will humbly admit the odor is disagreeable. Garlic Question Since the odor of a clove of garlic is pretty nearly non-existent, it must be wondered: Why does garlic produce so noticeable an odor when it is crushed? It is because the odor is produced by a chemical reaction, the combining of two substances within the garlic. The Two Substances The two substances are alliin and alliinase. Whenever the suffix part of a compound name ends in -ase, suspect an enzyme. Perhaps you've heard of laundry detergents that are said to be "enzyme cleaners". What is an enzyme? An enzyme is a…
Read More
25Jul 2019 by Vincent Summers No Comments

Xylitol – A Natural Artificial Sweetener

Food, Health
Most of us are familiar with xylitol because the label on our chewing gum boasts it is sugar-free¹, using xylitol in its place. This so-called artificial sweetener is prepared industrially by the catalytic hydrogenation of xylose. Xylose itself is a sugar. It may be isolated from wood. Xylitol is not decomposed in the mouth by bacteria. It is not well-absorbed in the small intestine. Hence, it is less of a threat to the diabetic and does not add to the dentist's paycheck. In the Mouth [caption id="attachment_26073" align="alignright" width="238"] Streptococcus mutans[/caption] In a person's mouth, Streptococcus mutans bacteria consumes reactive sugar (usually sucrose or table sugar), releasing in its place, carboxylic acids. Over time, the acid environment damages teeth. Xylitol is not a reactive sugar, meaning the acids are not…
Read More