After three years of declining sales, shipments of domestically sold beer are up by more than 1% in the United States this year. Sales of light beer and specialty beer, such as Budweiser Light Platinum, Shock Top, and Blue Moon, have been the driving force in the resurgence of U.S. breweries.
While sales of specialty, craft, and small-market beers have improved dramatically, many of the traditional, full-calorie beers that were once the staples of most breweries have fallen behind. In the five years ending in 2011, sales of Budweiser, which was once the top-selling beer in the country for years, have fallen by 7 million barrels. Sales of Michelob are down more than 70%. Based on data provided by Beer Marketer’s INSIGHTS, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the nine large — or once-large — beer brands with a five-year decline in sales of 30% or more.
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(AP Photo/Miller Brewing Company, HO)While regular, full-calorie beer was once the mainstream, now light has become the primary beer of choice. Budweiser, once by far the most popular beer, has now fallen to third place in domestic sales, with 17.2 million barrels shipped in 2011, compared to Coors Light’s 17.4 million. The U.S. beer leader is, by a long shot, Bud Light, with 39.15 million barrels sold last year.
Budweiser did not quite make the 30% decline in sales cutoff for our list, but many other traditional brews did. Old Milwaukee, Milwaukee’s Best and Miller Genuine Draft have all lost 50% of their sales since 2006. Michelob shipped 500,000 barrels domestically in 2006, but sold just 140,000 in 2011.
While light beer has supplanted full-calorie beer in popularity, sales of most leading light brands have been flat over the past several years. In fact, many of the beers on our list with the biggest declines are light beers that either didn’t catch on or faded out of popularity. In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Beer Marketer’s INSIGHTS executive editor Eric Shepard explained that it is specialty beers and craft beers — not light beer — that have eaten into sales of traditional full-calorie beer in the past year.
Shepard explained that like most major brand-centered industries, the beer industry has entered a period of aggressively marketing new brands and flavors. “I think that part of the reason that brewers felt we had three down years was primarily the economy… but it was also a lack of innovation, and so now you’re seeing [the beer industry] rev up these things,” he said. “The buzzword for this year was innovation.”
To combat the growing popularity of craft brews, major breweries such as Anheuser-Busch Inbev (NYSE: BUD) and MillerCoors have aggressively marketed their own specialty beer. Bud Light Platinum, which debuted during the Super Bowl, has been very successful, beating most expectations. Shock Top, also produced by Anheuser-Busch, sold 600,000 barrels last year, more than double the previous year’s sales. Another Belgian white beer, Blue Moon, which is sold by MillerCoors, was the 18th-most popular beer sold last year. Shepard expects the focus on nontraditional brews to continue at least through next year. This will likely further reduce sales of the declining brands on our list.
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24/7 Wall St. identified the nine beers Americans no longer drink based on INSIGHTS top 50 beer brands with at least 500,000 barrels in sales in either 2006 or 2011 with sales declines of 30% or more over the same period. Sales for flavored malt beverages and craft beers were excluded from the analysis.
These are the nine beers Americans no longer drink.
9. Milwaukee’s Best Light
> Sales loss (2006-2011): 35.5%
> Brewer: MillerCoors
> Barrels sold (2011): 1.2 million
Milwaukee’s Best Light, according to SABMiller, one half of MillerCoors, is a “leading low-calorie beer in the near-premium segment.” Although the brand has been on shelves since 1986, in recent years customers have abandoned the beer. Sales volume dropped by more than a third between 2006 and 2011, versus a decline of just 4% for all top brands. Last year, Milwaukee’s Best Light sold 750,000 barrels, 5.8% less than in 2010. Meanwhile, sales for the top brands fell by just 1.7% during that time.
8. Miller High Life Light
> Sales loss (2006-2011): 37.6%
> Brewer: MillerCoors
> Barrels sold (2011): 390,000
Miller High Life Light was first sold in 1994 as the low-calorie version of Miller High Life, often referred to as “the champagne of beers.” But while customers have continued buying the original Miller High Life — sales declined just 3.6% between 2006 and 2011 — they have deserted the light version — which saw sales decline by more than ten times that number. In 2011, sales fell by 80,000 barrels, or 17%, from 2010.
7. Amstel Light
> Sales loss (2006-2011): 47.7%
> Brewer: Heineken
> Barrels sold (2011): 340,000
Debuting in 1980, Amstel Light claims to have been the first imported light beer available in the U.S. The brand, brewed by Heineken, is the only imported beer, as well as the only beer not brewed by Anheuser-Busch InBev or MillerCoors, on this list. Neither of these brewers experienced a sales decline as large as that of Heineken between 2010 and 2011, when U.S. sales volume fell by 3.9%. One cause was Amstel Light sales, which fell by 13.9% — more than any other major Heineken brand.
6. Miller Genuine Draft
> Sales loss (2006-2011): 52.3%
> Brewer: MillerCoors
> Barrels sold (2011): 1.6 million
Miller Genuine Draft, marketed as having “the fresh taste of draft beer in a bottle,” has lost consumers’ attention in recent years. It was one of just six beers that had sales volume fall by half between 2006 and 2011. During this time, the total number of Miller Genuine Draft barrels sold fell by 1.7 million, more than any other beer on this list. Only one other brand bottled by MillerCoors — Miller Lite — had a larger decline in barrels sold over this time span.
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5. Old Milwaukee
> Sales loss (2006-2011): 52.8%
> Brewer: Pabst Brewing Company
> Barrels sold (2011): 460,000
Old Milwaukee is brewed by the Pabst Brewing Company, which sold itself to C. Dean Metropoulos — described by The New York Times as “a veteran food executive known for corporate turnarounds” — in 2010. Last year, the Chicago Tribune reported that employees felt Metropoulos’ marketing plans were moving the company away from the philosophies and practices that made it successful. From 2010 to 2011 alone, sales decreased by 12.4% — worse than 80% of top brands.
4. Milwaukee’s Best
> Sales loss (2006-2011): 57.1%
> Brewer: MillerCoors
> Barrels sold (2011): 750,000
MillerCoors claims that Milwaukee’s Best is “brewed for a man’s taste,” and is “highly drinkable [and] highly affordable.” However customers have stopped buying — and drinking — the brand. Between 2006 and 2011, no major brand made by MillerCoors had a larger percentage decrease in sales. The beer is one of the worst-ranked brews on BeerAdvocate.com.
3. Budweiser Select
> Sales loss (2006-2011): 60.8%
> Brewer: Anheuser-Busch InBev
> Barrels sold (2011): 775,000
Budweiser Select, introduced in 2005, claims to offer a “distinctively full flavor,” with just 99 calories per 12-ounces — roughly the same as Michelob Ultra. The brand has not sold well since its introduction, with sales declining by 1.2 million barrels between 2006 and 2011 — more than all but a few top brands. In 2009, Anheuser-Busch InBev also introduced Budweiser Select 55, which the company describes as “the lightest beer in the world with fewer calories than any other beer option currently available.”
2. Michelob Light
> Sales loss (2006-2011): 66.3%
> Brewer: Anheuser-Busch InBev
> Barrels sold (2011): 425,000
From 2006 to 2011 shipments of Michelob Light fell by 66.3%, more than any other major light beer in the U.S. While sales of Michelob Light declined, sales of Michelob Ultra — introduced in 2002, with just 95 calories per 12 ounces — rose by 10.3% from 2006 to 2011. Anheuser-Busch InBev no longer prominently markets the beers on its websites alongside the better-selling Michelob Ultra. Between 2010-2011, sales of Michelob light fell by 19%, more than all but two of the top brands we reviewed.
1. Michelob
> Sales loss (2006-2011): 72.0%
> Brewer: Anheuser-Busch InBev
> Barrels sold (2011): 140,000
American consumers have abandoned Michelob — a lager brewed since 1896 — at a faster rate than any other beer. From 2006 to 2011, sales declined from 500,000 barrels to 140,000, with a 20% drop between 2010 and 2011 alone. No other beer on this list sold less than Michelob. The next-lowest selling beer, Amstel Light, still sold 200,000 barrels more than Michelob last year. The brand has not always struggled. According to Beer Marketer’s INSIGHTS’ Eric Shepard, “the superpremium category — basically between Budweiser and the imports — Michelob pretty much had that to itself for many years.”
Imitation Calamari ~ Is That Calamari You're Eating Or Is It *shudders* Deep Fried Pig Rectum?
‘Imitation Calamari’ Investigated By ‘This American Life,’ Suggested To Have Dubious, Pork-Based Origin
via HuffPost
Plenty of foods come surrounded by urban legends. Hot dogs and genetically-modified organisms, for instance, come with a cadre of rumors — some true, some patently false. But if a recent segment on “This American Life” is to be believed, it may be time to add calamari to the list.
The popular radio show’s Jan. 11 episode focuses on doppelgangers — people and things that appear extremely similar on the surface but are actually totally different.
Among the doppelgangers? Calamari’s modest cousin, “imitation calamari.”
Though it has a shape and texture similar to the real thing, its component parts are decidedly different. While calamari comes from squid, the replica is supposedly made of hog rectum, otherwise known as “bung.”
The irony is not lost on Ben Calhoun, one of the show’s producers, and ring-leader of the segment, who notes:
In restaurants everywhere, right this second, people are squeezing lemon wedges over crispy, golden, rings, dipping the rings into marinara sauce, and they’re eating hog rectum. Now they’re chewing — satisfied and deeply clueless. It’s payback for our blissful ignorance about where our food comes from and how it gets to us.
Mark Wheeler, a spokesman for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) — the department tasked with ensuring the correct labeling and packaging of our nation’s meat products — told The Huffington Post he wasn’t aware of any products specifically labeled as “imitation calamari.” If it does exist, and is derived from a hog’s rectum, he said it would have to be clearly identified as such.
However, Wheeler did note that pig intestines are edible and are more commonly referred to as “pork chitterlings,” a product the USDA notes has a “pungent odor” when boiled and a texture similar to (you guessed it) calamari.
What’s more, Steve Haruch, a journalist for the Nashville Scene, claims to have chowed down on pork bung and concluded, “prepared the right way, it could pass for calamari.”
So is hog rectum getting passed off as calamari at restaurants across the United States? It’s unlikely (not to mention illegal), but there really isn’t any proof one way or another. Thankfully, “This American Life” didn’t uncover any anecdotes of bung-based bait-and-switch practices in America’s restaurants.
“We found compelling belief within the American meat industry that this is a practice,” said Calhoun in an email to The Huffington Post, “but we weren’t able to prove or disprove that belief. Because of that, we decided we’d take the story in a funny direction, and focus on a question we could still answer — whether it was possible — whether fried bung would taste and feel like calamari.”
That said, a disconcerting report from Oceana, an ocean conservation watchdog, notes that seafood fraud occurs at shocking levels in major metropolitan areas, including Boston (48 percent), Los Angeles (55 percent), Miami (31 percent), and New York City (39 percent).
The group concluded that seafood fraud can happen at any step of a product’s supply chain — the restaurant, the distributor, or the processing and packaging phase.
Listen to the entire “This American Life” segment for a blind taste-test of fried calamari and fried pork rectum. The results are certain to entertain.
Clarification: This story has been updated to emphasize “This American Life” didn’t uncover any instances of pork-based imitation calamari being passed off as real calamari in a U.S. restaurant.
Correction: An earlier version of this piece mistakenly referred to the Nashville Scene journalist as Steve Karuch. His name is Steve Haruch.
9 Beers Americans No Longer Drink
Michael B. Sauter and Alexander E.M. Hess | Yahoo Finance
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Yahoo! Finance/Thinkstock -
11 Foods and Drinks Banned In the United States
- Absinthe.
Absinthe has been banned in the U.S. forever. A few years back they sorta lifted the ban… but the absinthe that’s legal in the U.S. now can only contain a small amount of wormwood. And absinthe without the wormwood isn’t really absinthe; it doesn’t make you hallucinate — all you’re doing is drinking something that’s green and contains a little alcohol. Might as well drink Pucker. Or Hi-C Ecto Cooler and rum. - Pig’s Blood Cake.
Pig’s Blood Cake is a Taiwanese delicacy; it’s a mix of pig’s blood and rice on a stick. Even though those ingredients are probably healthier than whatever goes into a hot dog on a stick, pig’s blood cake still gets the ban in the U.S. for being unsanitary. - Sassafras oil.
This used to flavor root beer (among other things) but was eventually banned because it was found to cause cancer in lab rats. (And cancer really slows down their plans to do the same thing they do every night: Try to take over the world.) I never really think of “sassafras” as an oil — to me, it’s primarily an expression used by old Southern women who are trying to avoid cussin’ — but what do I know? - Haggis.
Haggis has been banned in the U.S. for more than four decades because one of its key ingredients is sheep’s lungs, and our government doesn’t want us eating those. It also contains a sheep’s heart and liver, and is cooked in a sheep’s stomach, but those are all, apparently, cool for us to eat. So your Scottish relatives here could cook you up some haggis without the sheep’s lungs, but there’s really no point in eating it without one of its key ingredients… but that’s kind of like drinking non-alcoholic beer, or watching the final seasons of “Scrubs”, “That ’70s Show”, “90210” or “American Idol”. - Fugu.
Not to be confused with FUBU. Fugu, the mostly-poisonous Japanese puffer fish, is neither for us, nor (bought) by us. - Kinder Eggs.
Kinder Eggs are a German candy egg. They have a milk chocolate shell, a white chocolate layer below the shell… and then a hollow center where there’s a little toy. Kind of like fortune cookies, if they were more delicious, less preachy and way more of a choking hazard.
It’s that whole “choking hazard” part that keeps them out of the U.S. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says they’re not safe for kids and, therefore, not allowed here. - Pommac.
Pommac was a champagne-flavored soft drink, manufactured by Dr. Pepper in the ’60s. It didn’t sell well… I’ve never had it, but I’m guessing the fact that it was a champagne-flavored soft drink had something to do with that. (The fact the Dr. Pepper has succeeded while tasting like carbonated prune juice was already enough of a miracle, they couldn’t go to the well a second time.) The U.S. ended up banning the chemical that was used as its sweetner, sodium cyclamate, and that was the end of Pommac forever. - Authentic Italian meats.
We can eat salami, prosciutto and headcheese (which, of course, isn’t cheese) here in the U.S. But it has to be slaughtered and produced here. Your uncle in the old country (any old country will do) can’t export any to you. So focus your importing/exporting business elsewhere (like on long matches). - Horse and human meat.
Dog and cat meat are frowned upon, but there’s no nationwide ban on them. Can’t say the same for horse or human meat. A few years ago, it became illegal to slaughter horses for food in the U.S. (Before that, there were actually factories here that would slaughter horses for their meat. But since we don’t really eat it, it was usually exported. Makes the glue factory look tame in comparison. Or, I suppose, equal.)
As for human meat, for some reason, cannibalism is illegal across the board in this country. Typical big government. It’s my body, it should be my choice to let someone gnaw on it or not. - Vegemite.
This one has treaded into urban legend realms. Vegemite contains folate, which is a food additive that the FDA isn’t too sweet on. So while there’s no official Vegemite ban, it’s murky enough that people are reluctant to import it.
So… uh… it may be tricky for you to find a horrid Australian flavored black paste to spread on your baked goods. How ever will you go on? - Four Loko (the original).
The FDA decided to ban Four Loko because the mix of alcohol and caffeine is so dangerous. Man, I hope they don’t find out about Red Bull vodkas, whiskey-Cokes, rum and cokes, Jagerbombs, Irish coffees, SuperDews, 5 Hour Everclear, and the 85 million other ways people have been mixing alcohol and caffeine forever.
Why Is Ketchup Is America’s Favorite Vegetable? *Deep Sigh*
What is your brand of ketchup? Let us know @FeedingBigSexy #ketchup
Ketchup. We love it. But do we really know it?
An estimated 97 percent of American households have a bottle in their fridges right now. Most people like Heinz’ original recipe, which consists of tomatoes, vinegar, high fructose corn syrup, salt, spice, onion powder and some other “natural flavorings” the company isn’t required to list. Heinz recently re-introduced its limited edition ketchup with balsamic vinegar in time for burger season for all you fancy types. But before Heinz, ketchup, or even catsup, there was katchop. The Chinese condiment, from which the burger topping originated, was nothing more than shellfish brine.
A mixture of sea creatures, soaked for days in pickling vinegar and spices, was the basis for the french fry dip we know and love. When British explorers caught wind of it in Singapore in the 1700s, they brought it back to their own Western European kitchens. The result was the first ketchup recipe: a mixture of vinegar, shallots, spices, horseradish, and get this, ANCHOVIES.
Gizmodo’s Rachel Swaby dug up the first English recipe on record published in the 1727 cookbook, Compleat Housewife, which called for 12 to 14 anchovies and zero tomatoes.
“Way back it was more like a fish sauce than our condiment today… and maybe really gross,” writes Swaby. “But apparently people didn’t think so, because cookbook authors were reprinting the above recipe well into the 19th century.”
Ketchup made from pickled oyster juice was another popular dipping sauce. It wasn’t until the 1820s that tomatoes got involved in the mix, and slowly muscled out sea creatures. Thank Heinz, which brought the bottled version to homes in the 1870s.
Video: France bids adieu to ketchup
Not that the brand has had a perfect record. Remember not too long ago, when Heinz introduced ‘funky purple’ and ‘blastin’ green’ EZ Squirts ketchup? I’ll take ground anchovies over Blue No. 1 and Red No. 3 any day.
Tomato Jam Is A Wonderful Alternative To Ketchup
Image And Recipe via Food In Jars
Tomato Jam Recipe
2010 yield: 4 1/2 pints
2011 yield: 3 pints
2012 yield: 2 1/2 pints
The finished yield on this recipe varies depending on the kind of tomato you use, the width of your pan and the finished thickness to which you cook it.
5 pounds tomatoes, finely chopped
3 1/2 cups sugar
8 tablespoons lime juice
2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon red chili flakes
Combine all ingredients in a large, non-reactive pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce temperature to a simmer. Stirring regularly, simmer* the jam until it reduces to a sticky, jammy mess. This will take between 1 and 1 1/2 hours, depending on how high you keep your heat.
When the jam has cooked down sufficiently, remove from heat and fill jars, leaving 1/4 inch of head space. Wipe rims, apply lids and twist on rings. Process in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes.
When time is up, remove jars from water bath and allow them to cool. When jars are cool enough to handle, test seals. Store jars in a cool, dark place for up to one year.
*In my kitchen, the word simmer means to cook just below a boil. There should still be a few bubbles, but it shouldn’t be splashing all over your cooktop. If you cook at lower temperatures, the cooking time will increase.
Hired Killer Falls in Love With Target, Fakes Her Death With Ketchup
Max Eddy | Geekosystem
Maria Nilza Simoes, of Bahia, Brazil, suspected that her husband was cheating on her, so she did what anyone would do: Hire someone to kill Iranildes Aguiar Araujo, the woman she believed had stolen her husband’s affection. To accomplish this grisly task, she paid Carlos Roberto de Jesus £345 ($533). Unfortunately, de Jesus fell madly in love with Araujo and confessed the whole scheme to her.
Instead of trying to find some legal means of escaping their situation, de Jesus and Araujo decided to keep the money and fake Araujo’s death. After buying two bottles of ketchup, de Jesus tied up and smeared Araujo with the popular tomato-based condiment. He then wedged a machete under Araujo’s armpit, took a photograph, and showed the “evidence” to Simoes who took the story hook, line, and sinker.
Unfortunately it seems that Araujo and de Jesus aren’t too familiar with film tropes, because instead of skipping town the pair were spotted kissing by Simoes.
But where do you go when you realize that the hitman you hired is making out with his intended target? Deciding to skip the Better Business Bureau, Simoes went to the police and told them de Jesus stole the money from her. When questioned by police, de Jesus confessed to the whole scheme — including the part where he was hired to kill Araujo. This surprised the police, to say the least.
As it stands right now, the three parties involved in this bizarre triangle are out on bail. Araujo and de Jesus face charges of extortion, and Simoes has been charged with “making threats to kill.” This is a pretty positive, albeit strange, note to end on, so here’s hoping that these three have got their murder-for-hire and will settle down for here on out.
Is Your Ketchup Worth the Money? (It Might Not Be)
Lylah M. Alphonse | Shine
Aftermath of a counterfeit ketchup explosion at warehouse in N.J. (Photo: Dover Code Enforcement Department)A ketchup counterfeiting operation in New Jersey is making consumers think twice about what they’re putting on their food.
Related: Ketchup’s unsavory secret history
Officials discovered the fake ketchup factory after tenants complained about flies and rotten odors coming from another part of the 7,000-square-foot warehouse in Dover, N.J. They found thousands of plastic bottles labeled Heinz ketchup, many of which had exploded after being abandoned in the hot building.
Related: 5 common food counterfeits
Heinz representatives say that they think someone bought large containers of regular Heinz Ketchup and poured it into bottles labeled “Simply Heinz,” a higher-priced product made with cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. Late Friday, they reached out to reassure consumers, saying that it was unlikely the counterfeit condiment ended up on store shelves.
“We have not discovered any information that leads us to believe that the illegally repackaged product is on the market. However, you can reach out to your store manager to confirm the product was purchased from Heinz,” Heinz representatives told Yahoo! Shine via Facebook. “We can assure you that product purchased directly from us is authentic and safe to purchase and consume. Our quality assurance systems also ensure traceability to the factories where Heinz Ketchup is manufactured and packaged.”
Related: That honey you just bought might not really be honey
“The site of this operation was abandoned and had produced only a small quantity of bottles, much of which was still on site,” Michael Mullen, vice president of corporate & government affairs for Heinz, told the Star-Ledger in an e-mail
Needless to say, the warehouse was not the most sanitary of places, and there’s no way to know if anything else was added to the ketchup. The Warehouse was leased by Wholesome Foods, LLC; they could not be reached for comment.
“If you’re opening ketchup containers and pouring ketchup into other bottles, God knows what you’re diluting it with,” Don Schaffner, a food scientist at Rutgers University, told the Star-Ledger. “Ketchup is thick, so it’s possible you would not use a food-grade ingredient to replicate that texture. I can’t begin to imagine how bad it could be.”
The counterfeiters apparently didn’t know much about chemistry. Sugary liquid can ferment when left unattended in a heated area; a sealed bottle filled with fermented ketchup can explode if not stored properly.
Which is exactly what happened in the privately owned warehouse. The sweet, vinegary, tomatoey mess oozed and splattered everywhere, attracting a swarm of flies and creating a rotten smell that alerted other warehouse tenants, according to Dover Public Safety Director Richard Rosell.
Sanitation issues aside, why try to counterfeit ketchup in the first place? According to online grocer Peapod.com, regular Heinz ketchup costs about 6 cents per ounce; corn syrup-free Simply Heinz is 8 cents per ounce. (Maybe they meant to rip off organic food buyers instead? Heinz’s certified organic ketchup retails for about 20 cents an ounce.)
While such schemes are unusual for Heinz — they told Yahoo! Shine that “This is a rare and isolated incident, and not something we have faced in the U.S. in the past” — the company is concerned enough about the attempted counterfeiting that they’re working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigation to clear up the problem.
“We are working closely with health and law enforcement agencies to investigate this unauthorized repackaging operation,” Heinz representatives posted on Yahoo! Shine’s Facebook page. “As a company dedicated to food safety and quality, we will not tolerate illegal repackaging of our products. We have stringent manufacturing and packaging practices in place to ensure the safety of consumers. Our quality assurance systems also ensure traceability to the factories where Heinz Ketchup is manufactured and packaged.”
The ketchup caper is just the latest in food-related fakery. Olive oil, for example, is a kitchen staple that’s not always what it appears to be.
“It may just be a high-priced oil that’s diluted or mixed with inferior oil and passed off as the real thing,” explains Farnoosh Torabi of Yahoo! Finance.
Same with Balsamic vinegar, which may say “Made in Italy” on the label when it’s actually made with low-quality ingredients and then shipped to Italy for bottling. (Another tip: fake balsamic vinegar may contain caramel coloring, but the real stuff does not.)
An investigation last year by The Boston Globe found that most of the fish you find in restaurants and grocery stores are mislabeled, with cheap tilapia subbing for pricier red snapper and escolar (which is banned in Japan for making people sick) being sold as “white tuna.” And super-expensive Kobe beef isn’t legally available in the United States, so if you paid extra for a pricy Kobe steak, you got ripped off.
THE MINIMALIST; A Condiment Gets to Shine
THIS is a perfectly contemporary dish: Manchurian in origin, inspired by an Indian chef who lives in New York and based on an ingredient that is in almost every refrigerator.
It’s stir-fried chicken with ketchup, and before you turn your nose up, think of hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, salsa and all the other condiments that somehow are often considered inferior in haute cuisine circles.
Then think how good ketchup can taste.
I learned about the genesis of this dish from Suvir Saran, an Indian chef in New York. In the version he cooked for me, Mr. Saran tossed cauliflower in a slurry of cornstarch and egg, then deep-fried it. The crust was exquisite, and the cauliflower perfectly cooked. But it was what happened next that really got my attention: He finished the cauliflower in a sauce, made in about three minutes, containing nothing more than ketchup, garlic and cayenne pepper.
The garlic and cayenne gave the ketchup a significant leg up, and the brief cooking time caramelized the sugars. In all, the ordinary ingredient we all grew up with was transformed into a glistening, almost exotic sauce, one that latched on to that cauliflower as if the molecules had fused.
***NOTE- If you take to this dish, you might start to play with it: cook some peanuts and deep-fried cauliflower with the chicken, toss some slivered scallions or cilantro in at the end (the color is brilliant, as you can imagine), substitute soy sauce for the salt, or start with squid or shrimp. It’s all pretty flexible, and just think, you already have the main ingredient.
STIR-FRIED CHICKEN WITH KETCHUP
Time: 20 minutes
1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken, preferably dark meat, in 1/2- to 1-inch chunks
1/2 cup flour, more as needed
4 tablespoons neutral oil, like corn or canola
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons slivered garlic
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
1 cup ketchup.
1. Toss chicken with flour so that it is lightly dusted. Put 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet, preferably nonstick, and turn heat to high. When oil smokes, add chicken in one layer. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2. When chicken browns on one side, toss it and cook until just about done: smaller pieces will take 5 minutes total, larger pieces about 10. Remove to a plate. Turn off heat and let pan cool for a moment.
3. Add remaining oil to pan and turn heat to medium high. Add garlic and cayenne pepper and cook, stirring, about 2 minutes. Add ketchup and stir; cook until ketchup bubbles, then darkens slightly. Return chicken to pan and stir to coat with sauce. Taste and adjust seasoning, then serve.
Yield: 4 servings.
Slashfood: Heinz Ketchup Packets Get a Makeover
At the end of the day, it’s just a ketchup packet. But this redesign is so long-overdue and such a seemingly huge improvement over the old that it might be worth celebrating.
(Obligatory nod to the fact that disposable ketchup packets aren’t ideal from an environmental perspective.)
Source: slashfood.com
Exploding Ketchup Bottle Prank - CollegeHumor Video
… french fry for the rest of his life. And he works at McDonald’s. Watch “Exploding Ketchup Bottle Prank …
Taste test: Best ketchup isn’t the one you think
Kim Conte | The Stir
Ketchup is always serious business. But in the summer — when we’re putting it on anything and everything from burgers and hot dogs to brats and grilled chicken — it’s particularly crucial that we’re eating the best-tasting condiment on the market.
That’s why here at The Stir we embarked on a blind taste test of 10 ketchup brands to determine which ones had superior tomato flavor and consistency, and which ones were disappointingly watery and bland. The winners and losers will definitely surprise you. Let’s dip into the results.
For our official ketchup taste test, we blindly sampled the following 10 brands (using McDonald’s French Fries for dipping) and chose the two best and two worst based on flavor and consistency:
- Whole Foods 365 Organic Tomato Ketchup
- Whole Foods 365 Ketchup
- Generic Tomato Ketchup (Best Yet)
- Heinz Tomato Ketchup
- Heinz Organic Tomato Ketchup
- No Salt Added Heinz
- Reduced Sugar Heinz
- Sir Kensington Gourmet Scooping Ketchup
- Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup
- Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup (no salt)
Admittedly, the majority of our tasters went into the test thinking that best-selling ketchup brand, Heinz, would be the clear winner (and that Hunt’s would come in dead last). But guess what: They were wrong. It looks like Heinz has some definite competition, as all of its products ended up somewhere in the middle.
Best Ketchup: Whole Foods 365 Organic Tomato Ketchup
This was, hands down, the favorite of the bunch. Tasters said it tasted like fresh pasta sauce but with perfect ketchup consistency. Other descriptors used included: “really nice,” “slightly sweet,” “perfect consistency,” “thick and smooth,” “exactly like what I expect ketchup to taste like,” and, most tellingly, “yummy.”
Runner-up for Best Ketchup: Generic Tomato Ketchup (Best Yet Brand from D’Agostino Grocery Store)
The only ketchup in the bunch that contained high fructose corn syrup, the generic ketchup had a lot of fans, too, for its bright tomato flavor. Other reactions included: “medium-thick consistency,” “really tasty,” “tastes exactly like McDonald’s ketchup (this was a good thing),” and, “Is this my beloved Heinz?”
Worst Ketchup: Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup (No Salt)
This ketchup disappointed across the board because of its watery consistency and strong, too sweet vinegar taste. Tasters described it as “bland,” “way sweet,” “thin,” “bleh,” “yuck,” “It reminds me of bad sweet and sour sauce,” “tastes artificial,” and “bad, as if something had gone bad.”
Runner-up for Worst Ketchup: Whole Foods 365 Tomato Ketchup
It’s interesting that Whole Foods organic brand topped our list, but the regular ketchup was at the bottom. Tasters mostly complained about its strong, smokey flavor. Here were some other comments: “Gross!” “artificial tomato taste,” “watery,” “yuck,” “too sugary,” “not thick enough,” “vinegary,” “tastes like barbecue sauce.”
KETCHUP ART
Speed Painting with Ketchup and French Fries - YouTube
Speed Painting with Ketchup and French Fries … Ketchup as paint and french fries as a paint brush. … It …
Photo: A.J. Mast for The New York Times
Amateur filmmaker Dan Burke recreates a scene where he brushed his teeth with ketchup for a Heinz ketchup commercial contest at his home in Dayton, Ohio
What is your brand of ketchup? Let us know @FeedingBigSexy #ketchup
The Sugar and Alzheimer's Connection
The Vita-Memory Card Game (Credit: Melissa Finkelstein)
image via BA Daily
Tom Philpott | Mother Jones
Tom Philpott
Egged on by massive food-industry marketing budgets, Americans eat a lot of sugary foods. We know the habit is quite probably wrecking our bodies, triggering high rates of overweight and diabetes. Is it also wrecking our brains?
That’s the disturbing conclusion emerging in a body of research linking Alzheimer’s disease to insulin resistance—which is in turn linked to excess sweetener consumption. A blockbuster story in the Sept. 3 issue of the UK magazine The New Scientist teases out the connections.
Scientists have known for a while that insulin regulates blood sugar, “giving the cue for muscles, liver and fat cells to extract sugar from the blood and either use it for energy or store it as fat,” New Scientist reports. Trouble begins when our muscle, fat, and liver cells stop responding properly to insulin—that is, they stop taking in glucose. This condition, known as insulin resistance and also pre-diabetes, causes the pancreas to produce excess amounts of insulin even as excess glucose builds up in the blood. Type 2 diabetes, in essence, is the chronic condition of excess blood glucose—its symptoms include frequent bladder, kidney, and skin infections, fatigue, excess hunger, and erectile dysfunction.
Here in the US, Type 2 diabetes rates have tripled since 1980, New Scientist reports.
What’s emerging, the magazine shows, is that insulin “also regulates neurotransmitters, like acetylcholine, which are crucial for memory and learning.” That’s not all: “And it is important for the function and growth of blood vessels, which supply the brain with oxygen and glucose. As a result, reducing the level of insulin in the brain can immediately impair cognition.”
So when people develop insulin resistance, New Scientist reports, insulin spikes “begin to overwhelm the brain, which can’t constantly be on high alert,” And then bad things happen: “Either alongside the other changes associated with type 2 diabetes, or separately, the brain may then begin to turn down its insulin signalling, impairing your ability to think and form memories before leading to permanent neural damage”—and eventually, Alzheimer’s.
Chillingly, scientists have been able to induce these conditions in lab animals. At her lab at Brown, scientist Suzanne de la Monte blocked insulin inflow to the brains of mice—and essentially induced Alzheimer’s. When she examined their brains, here’s what she found, as described by New Scientist:
Areas associated with memory were studded with bright pink plaques, like rocks in a climbing wall, while many neurons, full to bursting point with a toxic protein, were collapsing and crumbling. As they disintegrated, they lost their shape and their connections with other neurons, teetering on the brink of death.
For a paper published this year, Rutgers researchers got a similar result on rabbits with induced diabetes.
There’s also research tying brain dysfunction directly to excess sugar consumption. In a 2012 study, UCLA scientists fed rats a heavy ration of fructose (which makes up roughly a half of both table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup) and noted both insulin resistance and impaired brain function within six weeks. Interestingly, they found both insulin function and brain performance to improve in the sugar-fed rats when they were also fed omega-3 fatty acids. In other words, another quirk of the American diet, deficiency in omega-3 fatty acids, seems to make us more vulnerable to the onslaught of sweets.
Another facet of our diets, lots of cheap added fats, may also trigger insulin problems and brain dysfunction. New Scientist flags yet another recent study, this one from University of Washington researchers, finding that rats fed a high-fat diet for a year lost their ability to regulate insulin, developed diabetes, and showed signs of brain deterioration.
Altogether, the New Scientist story makes a powerful case that the standard American diet is as devastating for our brains as it is for our bodies. The situation is tragic:
In the US alone, 19 million people have now been diagnosed with the condition, while a further 79 million are considered “prediabetic”, showing some of the early signs of insulin resistance. If Alzheimer’s and type 2 diabetes do share a similar mechanism, levels of dementia may follow a similar trajectory as these people age.
Yet another reason to load up on fruit and veggies—and work to wrest federal farm policy (which encourages the production of cheap sweeteners and fats)—from the grip of agribusiness.
