animation by Judy Wilken/Evan Thompson

Mango Seeds May Protect Against Deadly Food Bacteria

mango curd

Smitten Kitchen hides this curd between layers of a wedding cake. But there are many more uses of mango curd than that. I have used it in ice cream toppings, and between pancakes or inside of parmesan shells with other fruit. It's great when you mix this curd with fresh strawberries and blueberries too.

Crab, Mango, and Avocado Salad with Citrus Dressing

With this recipe you can use chicken, tofu, or other proteins sources.

Cashew Seed Extract an Effective Anti-Diabetic, Study Shows

The goal of the study was to examine the impact of leaves, bark, seeds and apples from cashew trees, native to northeastern Brazil and other countries of the southern hemisphere, on cells that respond to insulin.

mango slaw with cashews and mint

So many reasons to make this dish---Cashews and mint and mango are some of the most healthy foods you can eat. This salad keeps well in the refrigerator so you can have it for lunch the next day.

"The best Meditteranean food restaurant in town."

Carmel, California 831-622-7766

"The best French Country cuisine around. "

Carmel, California

831-624-8977

It takes only 26 calories to lift an SUV

Michael Bauer of Between Meals column in the San Francisco Chronicle writes about energy in food in 2007.

Back in 2007 we sent an article about the energy in food to the Between Meals columnist Michael Bauer at the San Francisco Chronicle. He found it so interesting and surprising he wrote about our efforts to increase the awareness of calories in food. Some readers understood it, some did not.

Now, in 2010 it appears our legislative bodies, our schools, our restaurants, our grocery stores are beginning to understand the process that creates energy from burning matter, food. The ninety billion dollar a year medical tab for our obesity problem in this country is bound to lower significantly if we only stick with it and make sure our children eat more fresh veggies and fruit and get plenty of exercise at school and at home.

Sniffing Out Local Gems

Mr. Willetts. "Every restaurant uses micro herbs as garnish these days. Why buy them in when you can use local, unusual produce that no one thinks about using?'

Picking green gardens: personal backyard farmers grow popular

It's more like farming by the foot. And the 6-foot-4 ex-Marine, skinny as a snap bean, says he can barely keep up with demand.

Radishes with Arugula Scallion Pesto

Can a Vegetable Garden Save You Money?

“yes” – if done correctly.

Carmel Farmers Markets

Ed Bruske is responsible for popularizing the political movement in Washington DC for school gardens and healthier school food. We are indebted to this one individual for helping advertise healthy school lunches for our children.

During the past 15 years, the global cocoa industry has confronted a trio of devastating fungal diseases that cost growers an estimated $700 million in losses annually.

Science picks through the chocolate nuggets

Julia Zumpano, a clinical dietician in the department of preventive cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, recommends no more than an ounce of 70% dark chocolate per day — or half that for those trying to lose or control their weight. (Dark, not milk or white chocolate, is dense in flavonoids.)

Sequencing The Cacao Genome To Safeguard Chocolate

The global chocolate market is worth $75 billion annually. Scientists report that the three most important and damaging cacao diseases are black pod, frosty pod, and witches' broom. Black pod occurs worldwide and has the largest impact, while frosty pod and witches' broom are restricted to tropical America.

Fat is where it's at

"We should apologize for making people think about ‘percentage of calories,’" says the AHA’s Eckel, adding that the focus should be on total calories. "You want to eat steak? That’s fine. Just make it six ounces rather than 16."

Cocoa-Crazy

My civic-minded side came through towards the end as I stopped at the Divine Chocolate table.

Chocolate, Wine And Tea Improve Brain Performance

All that chocolate might actually help finish the bumper Christmas crossword over the seasonal period.

New Cocoa Varieties Needed to Secure World’s Chocolate Supply

Our project aims to devise long term strategies that will be required to breed new cocoa varieties which are better suited to climates likely to exist in the future."

Bahama Billy's Island Steakhouse

Carmel, California

831-626-0430

Early Childhood Diet May Influence Future Health

Green beans give your child essential antioxidants. Don't boil them; instead, grill them, microwave them, griddle them, fry them or bake them.

Cookbooks offer eats kids are sure to love

A new group of books offers advice and recipes for cultivating a genuine love of good food — not hiding the broccoli in the brownies.

Let Them Eat Sugar: A New Guide For Feeding Kids

Matthew Amster-Burton, the author of the new memoir-style cookbook Hungry Monkey, says there's no reason a baby shouldn't eat sushi, bacon-jalapeno pizza or chocolate malt milkshakes.

Longer Life Linked To Specific Foods In Mediterranean Diet

While several studies have concluded that the Mediterranean diet improves chances of living longer, this is the first to investigate the importance of individual components of the diet.

'Food Beware': Vive La (Local Food) Revolution!

"It's bizarre that the prduce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician." Meryl Streep

Food Beware review

Bringing it all back home

Five servings of fruits and vegetables a day? That's what the nutritionists tell us our children need. This is much easier to fill when a group of young passionate entrepreneurs are working hard to deliver all those veggies and fruits to our homes. Planet Organic's fresh locally grown sweet potatoes and acorn squash, fuyu persimmons (the other orange) are a few of the seasonal picks this month Planet Organics can deliver to your door . Try them.

How Fish Is Cooked Affects Heart-Health Benefits of Omega-3 Fatty Acids

"Our findings can help educate people on how much fish to eat and how to cook it to prevent heart disease," Meng said.

Identifying sustainable seafood can be a fishing expedition

Seafood is the most direct way consumers connect to the life of the ocean. Conservation groups such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium encourage the consumption of sustainable seafood - meaning seafood caught in a way that doesn't harm the ocean or deplete the supply.

Blue Ocean Institute

This wallet sized card helps consumers educate themselves. When I go out to eat I take this little card with me. The key that is used separates the various kinds of fish according to its abundance and damages caused by the way it is farmed.

Soft-Shell Crabs Created On Demand?

National Geographic video is excellent!

To read more on molting go to:

Clues that the miracle of molting is near

Sustainable Fisheries Needed for Global Food Security

Eco-lableing raises the price for some seafood but this only causespeople to look for lower price seafood that the poorer people are eating. Then the lower priced seafood goes up in price. What would you do?

Is it red snapper? What's red snapper? Palumbi lab checks the DNA

Join Dr. Steve Palumbi of Stanford University and Lynne Rossetto Kaspar, host of "The Splendid Table", as they use DNA to solve the Case of the Counterfeit Fish.

Boosting Coastal Economics With Crustacean Molting On Demand

Ever go to the fish market for crab and there isn't one to be found? "They are molting," you are told. Now, scientists are discovering how to manipulate that process and generate new jobs and insure profits in the blue crab fishing industry, an industry that is valued at nearly $50 million a year in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Soon we will be able to buy blue crab all year round with its soft, easy to eat exoskeleton!

Palumbi Lab

Better to Be Fat and Fit Than Skinny and Unfit

This article will surprise you!

This one activity can start your child understanding fractions, food science and more.

Energy is in a kiss

Twenty-Six Calories Can Lift an SUV

If this is so, no wonder many children in this age of high tech are suffering from obesity. They aren't 'walking the walk', literally!

This is a furnace, just like your body. It burns matter and releases energy from the chemical bonds in that matter. When you eat, you break molecules apart and release their energy to do work for you. You use this energy to walk around, run, jump, sleep, digest, play — just get through each day. In order to appreciate how much energy is in food, some scientists have decided to link the idea of how many calories it takes to lift an SUV off the ground with the number of calories in a food. This is called the concept of equivalence. This equivalence goes like this: There are 26 calories in one chocolate kiss. This is equivalent to the amount of energy it takes to lift 1 SUV off the ground.

As you read the number of calories in each of McDonald's foods, or any food, you can get an idea of the vast amount of energy in food by making an equivalence between the number of calories in the food and the number of SUVs you can lift with that amount of calories. For example, once you know that 26 calories is equivalent to lifting 1 SUV above the ground, then you can figure out how many SUVs you can lift by eating 1 260 calorie hamburger from McDonald's. 260/26 = 10 SUVs can be lifted off the ground.

As StarChild Science teaches, 'There is nothing between us and nature but energy and information'. Unfortunately, the amount of energy in food is huge. That is why it is important for us to exercise often to get rid of the extra energy in the food that we have eaten that we don't use. If we don't run it off, then we store it as fat. And that is where obesity comes from.

Throughout this site you will often see the expression 'energy conservation'. It is an expression that is currently everywhere in the news, connected to many different arenas. We read it in articles about ethanol production, alternative fuel research, heating costs, food science, dieting, obesity, agriculture, fashion, airline industry, housing industry, forestry, ocean health, just to name a few.

The graphic above showing the temperature of water inside the box rising as heat is released from food should be on all science sites and in all classrooms, no matter what grade level. This is a fundamental depiction of the conservation of energy. Energy in nature is conserved meaning it is kept in some form or other, work or heat. Energy does not just vanish in nature like your money in your bank account can do. It is kept in some form at all times, in all circumstances. Most importantly, this conservation law is what keeps us living systems alive.

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