Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-29

Filed under:Commentary — posted by cehwiedel on August 29, 2010 @ 5:51 pm

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-22

Filed under:Commentary — posted by cehwiedel on August 22, 2010 @ 5:51 pm

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The Local Food Movement Goes Too Far

Filed under:Commentary — posted by cehwiedel on August 20, 2010 @ 11:24 am

I’m all for eating fresh food, but the “locavores” have gone over the top to silliness.

Russ Roberts at Café Hayek quotes Stephen Budiansky — from two different articles — but I’ll snip just a bit:

The larger point is that not only is it not really bad to eat non-local food: eating food from a long way off is often the single best thing you can do for the environment, as counterintuitive as that sounds. The relative pittance of energy we expend on “industrial” agriculture (agricultural production consumes just 2% of total U.S. energy use) pays huge environmental dividends which the organic and local gurus always ignore: intensive farming via chemical fertilizer and machinery have spared literally hundreds of millions of acres for nature that would otherwise have come under the plow.

The comments, of course, ignore home gardens, often nurtured at extravagant cost in time, energy, fertilizer and bug spray.

I defend my own home garden based on its annual production of tomatoes and crook-neck squash. Nobody can convince me that store-bought tomatoes taste as good, nor that home-grown tomatoes are too expensive an effort.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-15

Filed under:Commentary — posted by cehwiedel on August 15, 2010 @ 5:51 pm

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Gluten-Free High-Fiber Waffles

Filed under:Gluten Free,High Fiber,Recipes — posted by cehwiedel on August 10, 2010 @ 8:39 am

After a recent diagnosis of mile diverticulosis, I started reviewing recipes that I tweaked to be gluten-free to tweak them further to increase the dietary fiber content.

Here is a tweaked recipe for gluten-free higher-fiber waffles:

¼ C rice flour
¼ C wheat flour
2 Tb old-fashioned rolled oats (not the instant variety)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp xanthan gum

1 egg
2 Tb corn oil
½ C 2% reduced-fat milk

1. Whisk together dry ingredients.

2. Whisk together wet ingredients in separate bowl.

3. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Whisk together but don’t overmix.

4. Bake on waffle iron according to manufacturer’s directions.

Yield: about 1½ full-sized waffles.

UPDATE 2010-08-12: Big goof! I left out the xanthan gum! The above version of the recipe now lists xanthan gum. If you try the recipe without adding xanthan gum, the waffles will fall apart…

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-08

Filed under:Commentary — posted by cehwiedel on August 8, 2010 @ 5:51 pm

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High Fiber Wheat-Free Muffins

Filed under:Gluten Free,High Fiber,Recipes — posted by cehwiedel on @ 9:17 am

This is an adaptation of a recipe for whole-grain muffins on page 630 of Joy of Cooking (1975 edition).

I’m going to test it today.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Combine:
2/3 C rice flour
1-1/3 C oat flour
¼ C old-fashioned rolled oats (not the instant variety)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp xanthan gum

Beat in a separate bowl:
1 large egg
2 Tb molasses
1 C 2% milk
3 Tb corn oil

Bake in greased muffin tin for 20 to 25 minutes. (Put water in any empty sections of the muffin tin.)

As always, the xanthan gum replaces the glue-like function of wheat gluten — in casual kitchen patter, I joke that it’s my magic rubber bands.

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Annie’s Homegrown Totally Natural Honey Bunnies

Filed under:Commentary,Food & Nutrition,Gluten Free,High Fiber,Shopping — posted by cehwiedel on August 7, 2010 @ 9:42 am

“Toasted Whole Oat & Corn Cereal Made with Real Honey”

After Trader Joe’s suspended sale of its organic corn flakes due to a supplier issue, I glumly chose a bunch of other wheat-free cereals to taste-test.

Annie’s Homegrown Totally Natural Honey Bunnies failed the taste-test.

It crunches okay, but smashes down to unsatisfactory dust.

It’s too sweet. Maybe I should look for Annie’s Homegrown Totally Au Naturel Bunnies.

What about my post-colonoscopic emphasis on a high-fiber as well as a wheat-free diet?

Honey Bunnies clocks in at 2 grams of dietary fiber per ¾ cup serving — about the same as rice flour but ½ of oat flour or flax seed meal.

Maybe I should develop a wheat-free bran muffin using oat flour and flax seed meal so I can eat one for breakfast.

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Gluten-Free Brownie Mix From Hodgson Mill

Filed under:Gluten Free,High Fiber,Shopping — posted by cehwiedel on August 2, 2010 @ 8:52 am

Walking through the organic food section of our local grocery store, my daughter noticed a new selection of gluten-free products — including Gluten Free Brownie Mix from Hodgson Mill.

I did not squeal in delight (audibly).

I did snatch a box hastily from the shelf.

The first problem presented itself when I got ready to bake the mix: no suitable baking pan. My 8-inch square Pyrex baking dish cracked in half years ago, and I have never replaced it. My 8×13-inch Pyrex baking dish would result in brownies thin enough to qualify as baked pancakes.

What to do?

Improvise: I set a Pyrex loaf pan in aluminum foil at one end of the too-big baking dish. Filled with an inch or so of water, it removed enough volume to disqualify the brownies as exotic crêpes.

The instructions on the back of the box presented a second (trivial) problem: they called for chopped nuts. Barbaric. I ignored them.

Everything else (mix, corn oil margarine, egg, vanilla, water) was dumped in a mixing bowl and combined with an electric hand mixer.

Hm: the batter was really thick. I had worried that it might sneak around the edges of the aluminum foil. No worry: this stuff wasn’t going anywhere it wasn’t shoved into.

No matter. They baked up fine.

The taste test: adequate. The mouth feel was a bit off, but not enough to grouse about, except uncharitably.

The largest drawback: a lack of chocolate conviction. They aren’t eye-squinchingly choco-lotty.

If you like brownies, they’re much better than nothing at all.

If you like choco-lotty brownies, these will leave you underwhelmed.

Back to developing my own recipe!

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-01

Filed under:Commentary — posted by cehwiedel on August 1, 2010 @ 5:51 pm

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image: oatbread by cehwiedel

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