Eideard

Magically Delicious!  Unicorns may manage their elusiveness but they left behind some fanciful evidence of their existence and I was able to recreate their leavings.  

This unicorn poop, in reality, has a funny story.  I told my mom that I was making some “Unicorn Sneezes” and she said “when are you going to make your unicorn sh*t?”  And then it hit me…Great idea, Mom!  It will take a dirty spin and become unicorn poop, instead!  She doesn’t want the credit for encouraging me,  but I still thank her…

The real deal – it’s made of sugar cookies, rainbow dragees, rainbow star sprinkles, white sparkle gel, and rainbow disco dust.

Thanks, Ursarodina – who, AFAIK, has never made or consumed any of these.

Sugarcane grown to power Brazil’s cars and trucks as an alternative to climate-warming fossil fuels has a beneficial side effect: it also cools the local air temperature…

Researchers warned that this does not mean replacing Amazon forest or other natural vegetation with sugarcane fields. The benefit comes when sugarcane is introduced into existing agriculture, replacing pasture land or crops like soybeans.

Sugarcane manages this win-win feat by its ability to reflect sunlight and to “sweat” out cooling moisture into the air, said lead researcher Scott Loarie of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Plants draw moisture from the soil and emit it into the air in the process of photosynthesis…”We showed that with sugarcane, it was these evaporative cooling effects that were much more significant than the albedo (reflectivity),” he said, speaking of research published online in Nature Climate Change.

Sugarcane is used in biofuel that powers about a quarter of the motor vehicles in Brazil, and in that way, it helps to keep some of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, which affects global climate.

However, because of its efficiency at emitting cool moisture, it also can push down local temperatures by 1.67 degrees F (0.93 degrees C) compared to other crops or pasture.

Now, if we could only figure out how to do this with kudzu?

 
On May 26, 2009, Robert Lustig gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which was posted on YouTube the following July. Since then, it has been viewed well over 800,000 times, gaining new viewers at a rate of about 50,000 per month, fairly remarkable numbers for a 90-minute discussion of the nuances of fructose biochemistry and human physiology.

Lustig is a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, which is one of the best medical schools in the country. He published his first paper on childhood obesity a dozen years ago, and he has been treating patients and doing research on the disorder ever since.

The viral success of his lecture, though, has little to do with Lustig’s impressive credentials and far more with the persuasive case he makes that sugar is a “toxin” or a “poison,” terms he uses together 13 times through the course of the lecture, in addition to the five references to sugar as merely “evil.” And by “sugar,” Lustig means not only the white granulated stuff that we put in coffee and sprinkle on cereal — technically known as sucrose — but also high-fructose corn syrup, which has already become without Lustig’s help what he calls “the most demonized additive known to man.”

It doesn’t hurt Lustig’s cause that he is a compelling public speaker. His critics argue that what makes him compelling is his practice of taking suggestive evidence and insisting that it’s incontrovertible. Lustig certainly doesn’t dabble in shades of gray. Sugar is not just an empty calorie, he says; its effect on us is much more insidious. “It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.”

If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them…

This brings us to the salient question: Can sugar possibly be as bad as Lustig says it is?

RTFA. It is several pages in length, packed with content. If you care to research further, there are suggestions. Set aside some time to watch Lustig’s lecture.

Read further. The lives of people who listen to you are part of your consideration, you know.

The federal government plans to unveil new dietary guidelines…that urge people to eat less salt…

The guidelines, which are updated every five years, recommended that those over age 51, African-Americans and people with a history of hypertension, diabetes or kidney problems limit their salt intake to a little over a half-teaspoon. For everyone else, the daily recommendation remains at 2,300 milligrams — about one teaspoon of salt.

The guidelines form the basis for the food pyramid, which [supposedly] guides Americans in their daily eating habits.

The guidelines also recommended that Americans consume less than 10% of calories from saturated fatty acids, replacing them with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. And they also suggested people limit their dietary cholesterol to 300 mg or less.

The guidelines also recommended that people should reduce their intake of calories from solid fats and added sugars and cut down on foods that contain refined grains, especially refined grain foods that contain solid fats, added sugars, and sodium.

And if people drink, the guidelines state that alcohol should be kept to one drink a day [disagree]…

“The policy document assists policy makers, nutrition professionals, food-assistance program administrators, the food industry, scientists and academics and the nutrition-focused media with a consistent, science-based foundation for their nutrition efforts.”

It is ignored by virtually all American citizens other than that small portion of parents of young children who read English above a 6th-grade level. The parents, that is.

Despite efforts to limit their availability, public elementary school students in the United States have more outlets to buy unhealthy beverages at school…

Over a three-year period ending in 2009, more students could buy sweetened beverages like sodas, higher-fat milk and sports beverages from vending machines and school stores… Such drinks are a major source of calories, and removing them from schools could help curb the nation’s obesity epidemic.

“Elementary school students are still surrounded by a variety of unhealthy beverages while at school,” said Lindsey Turner of the University of Illinois at Chicago…

Although U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines say schools should not provide sweetened beverages in government supported cafeteria meals, students can buy these items in vending machines or school stores — known as competitive venues because they compete with the government meals…

During the three years of the study, they said the number of vending machines remained stable, but access to stores or snack bars or a la carte cafeteria lines rose significantly.

By 2009, 61 percent of students could buy high-calorie drinks from vending machines or school stores compared with 49 percent just two years prior…

Too much sugar not only makes people fatter, but is also a key culprit in diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to the American Heart Association…

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health advocacy group based in Washington, urged Congress to pass the U.S. lawmakers to pass the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act when it returns for the lame duck session.

Sounds way too principled for Congress – lame duck or otherwise.

Faced with a choice between aiding kids to have a healthier diet vs. optimizing profits for crap-drink corporations, which side do you think our politicians will choose, eh?

If this is your goal…?

A milkshake containing 2,010 calories — equivalent to eating 68 strips of bacon or 30 chocolate chip cookies — has topped a list of the 20 worst drinks in America compiled by Men’s Health magazine.

The Cold Stone PB&C milkshake, made with peanut butter, chocolate icecream and milk, contains 68 grams of saturated fat and 153 grams of sugar, according to nutritional details on the company’s website.

“In terms of saturated fat, drinking this Cold Stone catastrophe is like slurping up 68 strips of bacon,” the magazine said.

The second worst drink in America was listed as the Peanut Power Plus Grape from Smoothie King with a large cup packing 1,498 calories and the same amount of sugar as 20 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups chocolate and peanut butter snacks.

McDonald’s large Triple Thick Chocolate Shake came in third with 1,160 calories or the equivalent of 13 of the fast food chain’s hot apple pies.

I can feel my arteries clogging up just reading about this.

Scientists have found that it is possible to alter the genetic makeup of the bacterium E. coli to and induce it to produce biodiesel. Most microbes, including E. coli, make and process fatty acids, one of the ingredients of biodiesel; however, what they do with it often leaves something to be desired when it comes to fuel production. By modifying E. coli, scientists are able to make it produce fatty esters, which are the primary components of biodiesel.

Engineering bacteria to do a scientist’s bidding is a good way to obtain desired materials, such as natural compounds for drugs, or in this case, fuels. Since E. coli is a well known and often-studied microorganism, and is able to produce fatty acids before any alteration, it is an excellent workhorse for synthetic biology…

The altered E. coli can receive various inputs, including partially processed material like glucose and ethanol, and produce fatty acid methyl esters, or biodiesel. The bacteria also produce some fatty alcohols, waxes, and simple sugars that may be harvested and used for other purposes. The authors of the paper argue that the process has advantages over corn ethanol and other plant oil-derived biodiesels, as its production doesn’t require the use of anything that could be a food source, which means no issues with higher prices or questionable land use practices.

There is no shortage of agri-business giants capable of supplying us with all the e.coli test materials we would ever need.

If Americans cut their salt intake by just half a teaspoon per day, it would produce public health benefits on par with reducing high cholesterol, smoking, or obesity, a new study has found.

The number of heart attacks in the U.S. could decline by up to 13 percent if adults could just slash their daily salt intake by 3 grams, or about 1,200 milligrams of sodium, according to the study, which was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. New cases of heart disease and the number of strokes could also be expected to decline, by up to 11 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

To achieve a similar reduction in heart attacks and other heart-related problems, the researchers estimate, nationwide tobacco use would need to be halved. Alternatively, obese adults would need to reduce their body mass index by 5 percent, or all adults at low-to-medium risk for heart disease would need to take cholesterol-lowering statins.

Even a reduction in daily salt intake of just 1 gram (or about 400 milligrams of sodium) would produce “large declines” in the rates of cardiovascular events, according to the study.

“Just targeting slightly lower salt [intake] would have some benefit for everyone in the U.S.,” says the study’s lead author, Dr. Kirsten

RTFA. Tons of detail, kilos of life-changing results – simply by removing grams of salt from your diet.

I grew up in a family of heavy salt users. I have a favorite salt that sometimes has to be ordered in because I can’t count on getting locally [it's from Malden, England]. But, with a reasonable amount of friendly herbs and spices – no overcompensation – I have to say the decline in salt consumption has equalled the results from a similar decision I made about sugar a few years further back.

A Dubai-based company is opening what it says will be the world’s largest confectionary store in Dubai as it looks to tap demand from the Gulf Arab region’s hunger for candy.

Candylicious, which initially opens in one of the world’s largest shopping centers, The Dubai Mall, is also planning a second store in Singapore early next year, Sunaina Gill, director of Retail Is Detail, a Singaporean family business in Dubai…

“We are planning 10-15 stores in the Gulf Arab region over the next 3-5 years, with additional stores to open in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the next 12 months,” said Gill…

Dubai is an ideal place for the store, said Gill, adding there was a gap and sufficient demand in the market for a confectionary store of this type, especially with 30 million visitors a year expected to visit the Dubai Mall…

In addition to its sweets, the 10,000 square foot store features a huge 10-meter singing chocolate tree decorated with lollipops.

Uh, OK. If we can’t defeat the Oil Patch Boys in Congress, maybe we can get them to do themselves in with sweets?