Food
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Eating in Japan with a gluten intolerance
My husband and I recently came back from our first trip to Japan. We didn’t plan it this way but it turned out to be a Buddhist/food trip. It was perfect! However, eating in Japan with a gluten intolerance can be challenging. The only thing that always worries me a little every time I travel is the gluten. I don’t need to avoid it completely because I don’t have Coeliac Disease (CD), but I am intolerant to gluten. Like every intolerance (e.g. lactose, histamines), symptoms may occur when a certain threshold is passed. In my case, I can get away with eating some fermented gluten-containing foods (e.g. soy sauce, sourdough)…
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How to reduce food waste
Food waste is a massive problem worldwide, particularly in the industrialised world. This happens in all steps of the food chain, so to speak, from production to consumption. While there is little you can do about agriculture and manufacture you can learn how to reduce food waste in your household. Food waste in Australia According to the Department of the Environment and Energy, “In 2016-17… Australia produced 7.3 million tonnes of food waste across the supply and consumption chain. Of this, 2.5 million (34 per cent) was created in our homes, 2.3 million tonnes (31 per cent) in primary production and 1.8 million tonnes (25 per cent) in the manufacturing…
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Product review: We Feed You ready meals
We Feed You ready meals are a new(ish) option for those seeking healthy and nutritious meals delivered to their home or work. We Feed You ready meals We Feed You meals are developed and cooked by a chef and a dietitian. The company is based in Melbourne and the meals are delivered to several cities in Australia, including Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. The meals As mentioned above, the meals are frozen, which guarantees that the meals will keep for longer and that nutrients are preserved until you eat them. Yes, this also means that the texture of some meals will suffer a little, but for the most part they have…
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Can you get food allergies as an adult?
Can you get food allergies as an adult? In short, yes. Up to 5% of adults suffer from food allergy, and approximately 15% of them developed the allergy in adulthood (1). What is food allergy? Food allergy is an abnormal reaction of the immune system to an ingested food. The most common types of allergens are cow’s milk, egg, peanut, tree nut, wheat, soy, sesame, fish, shellfish and lupin (2). You can read more about food allergy, intolerance and preference in this article. Common food allergies in adults The foods most likely to cause allergic reactions in adults are seafood, peanuts, tree nuts (1, 2) and sesame seeds (2). The…
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5 mispronounced Spanish food words
As a native Spanish speaker, I often get annoyed by people mispronouncing words, particularly food words. This is especially irritating when the person at fault is a waiter/waitress, restaurateur or food podcaster. Please don’t take this post as a rant, as its purpose is mainly to educate those who want to say things right. These are my top 5 mispronounced Spanish food words. 1. Tortilla This word can refer to: Flour or corn flat breads used for wrapping tacos, burritos, fajitas and other Mexican dishes Tortilla española (Spanish omelette), a very popular dish made, in its simplest iteration, with eggs and potatoes A plain omelette in Peruvian Spanish Note that…
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Book review: Culinary reactions (Simon Quellen Field)
Culinary Reactions: The Everyday Chemistry Of Cooking is a book for the scientists who love cooking or the cooks who love science. If you are neither of those, you might find this book frustrating. Consider yourself warned. The author Simon Quellen Field is the CEO of Kinetic MicroScience, a company that designs and sells science toys. The book Culinary Reactions is an exploration of food and cooking from a scientific point of view. Throughout the book, there are chemical lessons, recipes and some nutrition-related topics. I listened to the audiobook because that’s my preferred medium these days but keep in mind the following: The audiobook is not narrated by the…
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Food photos: the good, the bad, the ugly
No, this is not an article about good/bad/ugly photos on social media. Rather, it’s a brief analysis of potential pros and cons of what’s happening with food photos in social media. My food photography story I was born in the pre-digital camera era. My first camera was a black and white film Kodak. I was 8 or 9 and would take photos of me and my sisters, the dog, etc. Back then, it didn’t even occur to me about taking pictures of meals, even though I’ve always loved food. In retrospect, that’s a good thing, considering what I used to eat until well into my 20s. My first blog, which…
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Recipe: Tallarines blancos con atún (pasta with white sauce and tuna)
Tallarines blancos con atún is one of the dishes that were in rotation at my aunties’ but I never got sick of it. In fact, it was one of my favourites. Sadly, I never got the original recipe from auntie Sumi. This is my best attempt to approximate the dish using my taste memory and the current family recipe.
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Recipe: Tallarín saltado de pollo (Peruvian stir-fried noodles with chicken)
Let me introduce you to lomo saltado‘s cousin, tallarín saltado de pollo. Both dishes came to life thanks to the fusion that happened due to the large influx of Cantonese people in Perú between mid 1800s and early 1900s. They share the same core ingredients: beef, tomato, red onion, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, with the main difference being the starch: rice and potato chips in the case of lomo saltado and noodles in the case of tallarín saltado. Yes, I know I said one of the core ingredients of tallarín saltado is beef, but this recipe has chicken in it. This is a fairly common variant and is the one…
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Product review: Maggie recipe bases
Before you declare I have sold my soul to Big Food, let me throw in a disclaimer: I have received multiple free samples of these recipe bases in a couple of events and I’m an advocate of making good use of free food. Not all Maggie’s recipe bases are gluten free, but of course I tried the ones that are. All of them make 4 servings and need a few basic ingredients added in. Once again, gluten free does not automatically makes a food product healthy. Some of the bases have ingredients I normally avoid such as “vegetable fat (vegetable fat, rosemary extract, sunflower lecithin)”, “flavours” and sugar. All of…
