What's It Called?

Every time that I have tried to have a conversation about one certain food I find that it is nearly impossible to talk about due to the confusion over its name. This breakfast dish is made by cutting a hole in a piece of bread and frying an egg in the hole. Usually then it is flipped and it makes a nice little breakfast treat. The thing that I find fascinating about this food is that almost every person that I talk to about it tells me that there family had a different name for it than any other I have heard before. On Wikipedia the page is called "Egg in a Basket" but here is the list of names they give for it:

egg in a the basket
bird's nest
bull's eye eggs
cowboy eggs
egg-in-the-hole
egg(s) in a frame
eggs in a blanket
elephant egg bagel (when made using a bagel rather than bread)
frog in a hole
toad in a hole
gas house eggs
moon eggs
Sunshine Toast
Alabama eggs
Rocky Mountain toast
Magic Egg

To this I could even add other names that I have heard, particularly "Spit in the eye," and "One eyed toast."

I don't know why there are so many names for this food. I couldn't really even figure it out from googling many of these names. However, I think that even if we don't know why, it is fun to imagine how this relatively wide-spread food has changed and adapted so many different names over time.

Sexy Food Mascots

So here's the link to the article I mentioned in class today: The Top 5 Sexiest Food Mascots. Sadly, the Jolly Green Giant does not make the list. In fact, no male mascots do. Each image in the slide show provides a picture of the mascot, along with a story of how that mascot came to be and why she is so sexy.

Seeing these images made me realize how objectification of the female body reaches even to animated women and inanimate objects. For instance, follow the link to see the mascot for Sunmaid Raisins. She is fairly voluptuous and walks in such a way that her hips sway sexily from side to side. The mascots also fulfill a potential desire for different cultures or ethnicity with the Chiquita Banana girl and the Land o' Lakes girl. Finally, I don't know if I'll ever be able to bite the candy coating off a green M&M again without thinking that I'm stripping their sexiest mascot.

I guess this further shows that sex sells - especially when it comes to food.

http://foodbeast.com/content/2011/04/21/top-5-sexiest-food-mascots/6/

California, Here I Come!

It's the last week of classes, and I will be home in ten days! One of the first things that come to mind when I think about going home to California is In-N-Out, the California chain of fast food burgers. In-N-Out is known for its simple menu of burgers, fries, shakes, and fountain drinks. But the best worst kept secret about In-N-Out is the Secret Menu.

The Secret Menu offers options such as the Protein Style burger, in which buns are replaced for lettuce. It's a much healthier alternative to a regular burger, though not nearly as filling, or satisfying. I'll be honest, one time my sister and I ordered regular cheeseburgers, and then went back for seconds with a Protein Style burger.

In addition to burger alternatives, the Secret Menu also has French Fries options. A popular menu item are the Animal Style fries. The sauce that is used for the fries is poured on top of the golden fries, and grilled onions are also topped on. I've never tried the Animal fries (they look like a heart attack in paper boat), but I've heard great things about them.

Check out the Secret Menu below. There are even pictures!

http://www.badmouth.net/in-n-outs-secret-menu/

More Fun with Food and Science

During lunchtime on Wednesday of this week, the Chemistry Department will be having their annual Freeze-Off. During this event, teams of chemistry students create their own ice cream flavors and make the ice cream using liquid nitrogen. (This works because liquid nitrogen is extremely cold.) The flavors are tasted by a panel of judges and the team with the best ice cream wins. Making the ice cream is a lot of fun. It involves mixing cream, sugar, and whatever flavorings you choose into a big bowl and pouring liquid nitrogen over it. After a lot of stirring, you've made ice cream. They also serve hot dogs and hamburgers along with samples of the ice cream. I and the other students from my chemistry class this semester have a team this year and our ice cream is going to be amazing. I don't want to reveal our secrets so I can't say what our flavor is going to be; however, after tasting the ice cream that we made during our trial run, I can promise that it's going to be delicious. This end of the year party for chemistry students, professors, and anyone else who is interested in chemistry (and ice cream) is a great way to end the semester. It will take place in the science quad during lunch on Wednesday (4/27) and is going to be a lot of fun. If you have time, stop by and try some ice cream!

Kitchen-Sick

While I definitely miss my family sometimes I think I miss my kitchen even more. Whenever I go home I go through the entire contents of the fridge and pantry marveling at all the different foods I can eat. It's so nice to be able to make my own meals instead of relying on the dining halls! Since it's Easter Weekend I thought I'd share one of my favorite Easter recipes with you guys.

Scalloped Pineapple

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup milk
• 4 cups white bread cubes
• 1 can (20 ounces) crushed pineapple

Preparation:

Cream together butter, sugar, and eggs. Stir in remaining ingredients and blend well. Place in a buttered 11x7-inch baking dish; bake at 375° for 15 minutes, then at 350° for about 50 to 60 minutes.
Serves 6 to 8.


My mom has made this every Easter since I can remember and it's always my favorite side dish. I think my mom first had it at a church potluck and since then it has long been a family favorite. It may sound like a strange combination of flavors, but, it's delicious! The closest thing I can compare it to is a sweeter, less savory bread pudding. We've always had it with ham but it'd also be delicious with ice cream!

VegNews Is In Trouble

On the New York Times website, I stumbled upon this article about a Vegan magazine called “VegNews” that used pictures of meat. As I was reading the New York Times article, I was chuckling a little because I was confused as to why a Vegan magazine would ever use pictures of meat? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a VEGAN magazine? In one of the pictures a slab of ribs was made to appear meatless by airbrushing out the bones. Also, hamburgers, hotdogs and ice cream appeared as meatless or diary free.

Once the news leaked about what VegNews was doing, readers used Facebook, twitter, blogs and other online forums to express their anger. Even though I am not a vegetarian or vegan, I understand their anger. One reader expressed her/his feelings pretty well, she/he said “to have craved any of the foods featured here, because now I feel I was craving animals.” The magazine company is hoping this will not hurt their image or turn readers away but how could it not? If I were a vegan, who had just heard about this, I would think twice before purchasing one of these magazines again

Here is the link to the Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/science/earth/19vegan.html?ref=nutrition

Juice

When I was a kid my mom always had this weird thing about juice. I was allowed to eat candy and chocolate, but juice was one of the few things that could not be found in our house. I decided to do a little bit of research on this matter and I found that juice is actually a controversial topic for many people.

The first article I came across was this one. This is an article written by the editor of a newspaper in Virginia about how juice is actually just as bad for us as soda. Here is a chart that was in the article that pretty much says it all.

Basically, the chart shows that most juices have as much sugar, carbohydrates, and calories as sugary soda. And the interesting thing here is that the author is not just talking about high fructose corn syrup welches juice. Even 100% juices that are "all natural" and have "no sugar added" have this much sugar in them.

Here is an article I found that shows the other side of the controversy. Interestingly, although this site goes through the benefits of 100% juice, it is sponsored by the Juice Products Association. According to them Juice is not associated with being overweight and some juice in a child's diet is good for them.

So it seems like there is a lot of information out there on this subject. Obviously, I just picked two articles that I found first and there is a lot more information out there than just this. Initially I think that I agree with the first article, and my mom, but, as we all know, sometimes it is hard to disagree with our mothers, so I think it is also important to understand both sides of the controversy.

health promotion through fear mongering - PCRM's anti-McDonalds advertisement

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine released a rather jarring ad, criticizing McDonalds high-fat foodstuffs by depicting a corpse in a morgue holding a Big Mac. Check out the video here. Shock value? Indubitably high. Quality of information? Distinctively mediocre. After super-imposing McDonalds' trademark golden arches on the corpse's feet, the commercial proclaim, “High cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart attacks. Tonight, make it vegetarian.” Indeed, excessive consumption of fast food do cause the aforementioned symptoms. But I think that the commercial is ineffective for several reasons, the first of which is that vegetarian diets sometimes consist of dressing-laden McSalads, milkshakes, and french fries - thus, simply avoiding meat isn't an effective strategy for healthy eating. Additionally, as Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity points out, the advertisement reinforces social biases against overweight and obese people:

"[The ad] is consistent with recent Rudd Center research that examined on-line pictures and documented overweight/obese individuals as more likely to be shown in stigmatizing ways (e.g., overemphasis on body parts, eating or drinking unhealthy food/drink, not fully clothed, and less likely to be wearing professional attire). These types of images are problematic because they increase negative attitudes toward overweight/obese people, even when paired with a neutral story."

Despite its good intentions, this ad may fail to discourage viewers from unhealthy eating. Instead, it stokes our already abundant anxiety about eating.

A Royal Menu for a Royal Wedding

Since the announcement of Kate Middleton and Price William's wedding, my first and most important question was, "what will they be eating?" I was not alone in my curiosity. As the big day looms ever-closer, there has been an explosion of articles all over the internet -- no one site is safe. The Huffington Post answered several questions in a piece they posted on April 22, which in turn was borrowed from slashfood.com. Apparently the guest list extends to 650 people, yet Buckingham's 21 chefs are ill-equipped to handle such a number. The solution: canapés all around for the wedding proper. However, a 3 course dinner will be hosted later in the evening for the close, intimate circle of 300 friends and relatives. Somehow this wedding is both intriguing and 1000% out of control ridiculous.

For more royal research click HERE

Wahlbergs' aren't just known for acting. . .

I LOVE Mark Wahlberg. He's had several amazing performances such as in "The Departed", but he is also quite lovely to look at. However, there is more than just Marky Mark in the Wahlberg family, and his siblings are equally talented, albeit in different areas.

This weekend, I went to Hingham, MA to celebrate my sister's 26th birthday. She just recently moved to Brookline, and after hearing great things about Paul Wahlberg's restaurant Alma Nove, we decided to make the trek to try it out.

The restaurant is upscale Italian food, with decor to match. Situated right on the Hingham harbor, large stone fire pits surround the exterior of the restaurant so patrons can keep warm while drinking wine and watching the sunset. The inside is extremely sleek, with high windows and dimly lit modern light fixtures. But of course this is the South Shore, so the Celtics game was still being played behind the bar and top 40 hits "oonced" through the speakers. Leave it to a Wahlberg to mix classy sophistication with hometown pride.

Chef Wahlberg is decidedly not as good looking as his brother, but his food is incredibly sexy and delicious. Wood-grilled calamari with arugula, oven-dried tomato, and a lemon-caper vinaigrette looked like an abstract work of art and had an ocean of flavors. The salumi platter included all different types of cured Italian meats, accompanied with handmade compotes, biting cheeses, and addicting homemade crackers.

As for entrees, my mom and I both had a real winner, a wood-grilled veal tenderloin, sliced and layered with truffle raviolis, a bitter green known as erbette, pine nuts, and foie gras butter, just in case it wasn't decadent enough. My sister chose a pasta for her entree, and was not disappointed. Homemade basil linguini was tossed with an obscene amount of sautéed lobster, Tuscan kale, and a creamy carbonara sauce. With great Vesper martinis and a bottle of Sancerre to share, indulgence was the word of the evening.

The funny thing is, for what you get the food is extremely well-priced. All entrees fell in the $20 range while appetizers mostly ran below $12. It felt as though we were having the ultimate blow out dinner in a place like Manhattan, complete with amazing ambiance, service, food and drinks, but paying less than half of what the total would be in the Big Apple. This is not a place of celebrity snobbery, in fact, it is the exact opposite. It is a place where anyone, even on a budget, could go to splurge and have a great time in a beautiful, but laid by atmosphere. It was one of the best meals out I have had in a long time, and I might have a new favorite Wahlberg.

As long as he keeps feeding me.

which wahlberg is your favorite? :P

More About HFCS

We get a lot of contradictory information about high fructose corn syrup. On the one hand, it has the same calories as sugar. On the other hand, it is thought to be connected with obesity and a variety of health problems. So what's the deal with HFCS anyways? Basically, the food processors love it since it's extremely cheap and Americans love the way it tastes. In fact, it's in almost every processed food we buy from cookies and candy to bread and cereal. So what's so bad about fructose? Even though it has the same number of calories as glucose, it is by no means the same. Here's a picture of the two sugars:

Can you see the difference? Glucose is a six-membered ring, while fructose is a five-membered ring? Our bodies notice this difference, too. While glucose is easily taken up and used by our cells as energy, fructose must be processed through a complicated metabolic pathway in order for the body to use it. Unfortunately, some scientists believe that the byproducts of this pathway are responsible for obesity and diabetes.

Another potential problem with fructose is that it doesn't satisfy hunger as well as glucose. The human body has a complex system of hormones that regulate hunger and satiety. For example, ghrelin is a hormone that is produced in the stomach that stimulates hunger. Normally when you eat, ghrelin is supressed and you stop being hungry. Fructose does not suppress ghrelin as well as glucose does, so it you're still hungry even after eating plenty of fructose.

This article describes how not all sugars are the same and what the implications for the obesity epidemic are: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=1.

Delicious Food Blog Discovery

Passover is nearly upon us, and in preparation I began perusing the internet for delicious new recipes. My journey brought me to a delicious looking food blog called "101 Cookbooks" which focuses on the ambiguous genre of natural/whole food recipes. The photography is beautiful and I enjoy how the writing meshes with the author's travel experience, which in turn, provides a diverse range of content.

If interested, check it out HERE

Food prices up- is corn the solution?

Hey all! I bet you thought I had forgotten about this blog. Nope, I just didn't have anything that I thought was post-worthy for a few weeks. However this story is well worth all our consideration.

We've talked a lot on this blog about how the food in this country is making us Americans fat. We can't help that perspective- it's been drilled into us for the past few years in various forms (books, magazine articles, and most recently segments of televised news). We also know that a large portion of our food comes from other countries (Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Costa Rica, etc.) What we haven't considered is the food that we, as a nation, export to the rest of the world, and how it effects them.

This link takes you to the EPA's agriculture webpage that lists the major agricultural crops for the year 2000. Corn, soybeans, wheat and rice were all exported then, and probably are now. Surprisingly, we grow and export roughly 50% of the world's soybeans. Additionally we are responsible for 25% of the world's export market for wheat, 18% for rice, and we supply corn to 80% the world's livestock, fish and poultry productions for feed (domestic and foreign combined). I'll assume that the totals for the 2010 census are still being tallied, but I think it's fair to guess that these amounts haven't changed much in the past decade.

This link takes you to a recently published article (thank you BBC) about food prices around the world having increased by 36% in the past year. The World Bank estimates that 44 million people around the world have been "pushed into poverty" by these price increases. Citing the "problems" in the Middle East and North Africa as the driving force behind the increases the World Bank is urging food producing countries ease export controls and divert production away from biofuels production "when food prices exceed certain limits".

Wheat and soybeans went up 69% and 36% respectively. Now guess which crop has increased in cost the most in the past year. Give up? Corn.

Corn: that mutated grass which appears on our grocery shelves in multitude of disguises; the crop that our government still pays a subsidy for so it's overproduced; the crop with the 10 billion bushel harvest in 2000, amounting to just about 43% of the world's total; the crop that gets fed to the animals on factory farms, and in turn to us; the crop we love to hate, went up 76% in cost this past year alone.

Here's an idea: how about we stop feeding corn to animals that were never meant to eat it (i.e. fish, cattle, and poultry), and plant the kind that people can eat instead, and keep the rest of the people in the world from starving? Maybe we can admit that the super pollution of both water and atmosphere by factory farms isn't worth eating the meat that comes out of it. How about, while we're at it, we stop finding new and different ways to trick ourselves into eating corn super- processed. Maybe that way we can avoid this epidemic of impending starvation around the world, and all of us can get back to eating food that will keep us healthy.

If anyone wants me, I'm at the farmer's market.

Food Poisoning Blues :(

This weekend I fell victim to food poisoning after attending a surf n' turf-esque party on Saturday. The culprit: the lobster, and I'll leave it at that. Not in my usual mood too look up food blogs and succulent pictures of dessert, I remembered this article that I read for a class last semester. It's titled "Consider the Lobster" written by the late David Foster Wallace. It's a pretty philosophical piece, given that it was published in Gourmet Magazine. I particularly enjoy the writing style, and I love seeing food writing pursued a different way than the strong imagery and details, that we are accustomed to reading.

http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster

Who is Eating All the Twinkies?

This is from an interesting article I found on the discovery channel website about mass produced foods. It gives ten little known facts about food that is produced in huge quantities. One of the facts that I thought was really interesting was that 16 twinkies are produced every second at the hostess factory. That means that they produce 960 a minute and 57,600 an hour, which adds up to more than a million twinkies every single day. For me, twinkies were the kind of food when I was a kid that I always wanted but I was never provided with. Something about them just seemed so perfect and unattainable. However, now that I am an adult I can truly say that I have very little desire to eat a twinkie. This makes me ask myself the question: who is eating all of those twinkies? I just can't really figure it out. Maybe I just don't realize how many people eat them, or how many people there are in general, but this just seems like a lot of something that many people don't eat.

This is the link to the entire article.

Trader Joe's

I am a huge Trader Joe's fan. I love their unique, yet reasonably priced products. This article, published in Fortune takes a look at the business model behind this one of a kind store. It's really interesting to see where Trader Joe's gets their products from and how they manage to grow while maintaining their appeal as a neighborhood store.

Food Fight

I found this really interesting video about child hood obesity by the New York Times. 30 years ago, 1 in 15 children were obese. But today, 1 in 5 children are considered to be very overweight. Food companies acknowledge the vulnerability of children and mainly target them when advertising unhealthy foods. But the food companies aren’t the only ones to blame. New York Times interviewed various people, who discuss that childhood obesity also results from a lack of education, resources and finances. This is an issue that is hard to find a solution to because there are multiple factors that cause it. I do believe that we can reduce the rate of obesity among children, but it will not be easy.

Here is the link to the video:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/playlist/health/1194811622283/index.html

High Fructose Corn Syrup news

A new study from Princeton indicates that a diet including HFCS causes on average a 48% greater weight gain than a normal diet.  Take that, marketers who say it's "just like sugar."


I read about this first in "the Consumerist," a blog run by the Consumer's Union (the same folks who publish Consumer's Report).  Here's a link to the story.  They provided a nice link to the actual study here.

Feeding Kids Meat is Child Abuse

The newest advertisement from the controversial organization PETA is claiming that feeding children meat is child abuse. It's popping up all over the UK and causing outrage from some parents and the public. It not only trivializes the very serious issue of child abuse, but also implies that feeding kids a well rounded diet including meat is detrimental and abusive to them. PETA argues that meat-eating kids are more likely to be obese, develop diabetes, and become addicted to meat. PETA is known for the shock value in its ads, but is this taking it too far?

Clever Salad Bar Concoctions

It's that night. The night you can't figure out what dinner is. Sure, they've said on the menu, but your nose and your eyes can't quite discern the brownish, warmish, foodish item eyeing you from the tray. In these moments I turn to the salad bar. And you may be mistaken, dear reader, in thinking that the salad bar is only for salad. Oh, no. It is a shining beacon, an oasis in a desert, if you will. There you can find a garden of leafy greens, crunchy cucumbers, perfect peppers--a plethora of ripe, raw ingredients for magical food wonders. With just a little elbow grease and ingenuity, you can whip up a healthy and tasty meal that isn't just foodish, it's food!

Now, I'm a maverick of lunchtime grilled sandwiches, but dinner perplexes me. So the other night I turned to my roommate, a fantastic cook, to make me something delicious. Boy did she deliver! In no time she had me melting over perfectly flavored deviled eggs.

The yolks are mixed with mayonnaise, mustard, tabasco, salt, and pepper. A simple combination, but in just the right amounts. The mayo creates the smooth texture, mingling with the firm, smooth white bowl of the egg. The mustard and tabasco work in tandem, dancing across the tongue in alternating sweet and sour. The salt and pepper add just that little bit of familiar flavor after the bang of the tabasco.

So next time you find your food staring back in your local dining hall, take a look around and experiment...or as Ms. Frizzle would say "Take chances, make mistakes!" And, to add a little of my own flavor: Invent, play!

Almost Easter!

It's almost Easter! The shelves of stores are stocked with Easter candy like peeps, chocolate covered marshmallows and jelly beans. Like valentine's day, it's a holiday that allows you to stuff your face without judgment. But sometimes after eating so much candy your stomach starts to hurt, and your teeth feel like they are going to fall out. I found this really good recipe for a sweet, healthier treat: fresh fruit salad with honey vanilla yogurt.

Ingredients

nocoupons

• 2 cups plain yogurt
• 2 tablespoons good honey
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Seeds scraped from 1/2 vanilla bean, optional
• 1/2 orange, juiced
• 1 banana, sliced
• 1/2 pint fresh blueberries
• 1/2 pint fresh raspberries
• 1 pint fresh strawberries, hulled and cut in half
• 1 bunch seedless green grapes, halved
  

Directions

Combine the yogurt, honey, vanilla, and vanilla bean seeds in a bowl and set aside. Combine the orange juice and banana slices in a separate bowl. Add the berries and grapes and gently mix the fruit mixture together. Spoon the fruit into serving bowls and top with the yogurt.

In addition, I would add granola to the fruit salad.

Karma's raw vegan banana cream pie

Last weekend, two of my friends and I indulged in an extravagant luncheon at Karma, the new vegan and raw foods restaurant on Main Street in Northampton. (A full-length restaurant review is soon to come.) We ended with two desserts, one of which was a slice of perhaps the most successful vegan banana cream pie in the area (although, I’ll admit, I don’t have much exposure to its competitors, so I can’t guarantee an accurate ranking). We asked our waitress if the pastry chef was around, and she modestly revealed that she was, in fact, the baker. She happily shared the recipe.

Crust:

3.5 cups walnuts

2 tbsp. agave nectar

2 tsp. vanilla

2 tbsp. salt

Pulverize these ingredients and press them into a pie tin.

Filling: (This actually makes enough for 3 pies, so adjust accordingly.)

3 cups mashed banana

2 cups soaked cashew

1 cup agave nectar

2 tbsp. lemon juice

2 tbsp. vanilla

1.5 cup coconut oil

Mix together and pour into piecrust. Sprinkle a layer of coconut flakes on top and refrigerate until set.

(My dining companion and friend, a raw foods enthusiast, informed me that professional kitchens like that at Karma probably use a tool called a Vita-Mix, an extremely high-powered blender that sells for $500. Worth it for an amateur? No. And a regular food processor would probably be fine. But I do strongly recommend Karma’s pie.)

Britain's Big Three Team Up

Sometimes I forget that sustainable production of food extends beyond plants and livestock. Moreover, it includes the creatures of the sea. Personally, seafood is certainly incorporated into my diet, and only sometimes do I have the presence of mind to remember that salmon, for example, is extraordinarily overfished, and that it would be reckless and irresponsible to buy it.

As it turns out, the top three most famous chefs in Britain -- Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, and Heston Blumenthal -- have decided not to forget the reality of unsustainable fishing. In fact, there are taking a strong stance on awareness of seafood practices. The power of their combined celebrity could turn out to be a powerful force for swaying public opinion toward responsible consumption.

To read more about their mission, click HERE

Mound o' Cheese

Saturday night was Senior Ball, and I had a blast. It was so much fun to get all dressed up, and see everyone in their finest. I couldn't get over how beautiful we all looked! It was a wonderful way to celebrate our time at Smith together.

There was a cash bar at the event, as well as passed appetizers and desserts. The food was actually quite tasty, I was especially partial to the spinach artichoke dip. Then again, anything fatty or cheesy would taste good after a few glasses of champagne. However, there was one aspect of the catering which I thought was absolutely hysterical: the mound o' cheese.

Right in the middle of the campus center, there was this huge round table completely covered with different types of cheese. I don't even think there were any platters under it, it was just literally piles of dairy product. I had never seen that much cut up cheese before in my entire life. It was quite the sight to see!

So for those of you who are not Seniors, now you know that not only do you have great outfits and dancing to look forward to, but also enough cheese to feed tipsy students 100 times over.

Food Experiments

Have you ever kept a piece of bread in your mouth for a very long time? If you have, you know that the bread gets sweeter the longer it is in your mouth. The reason this happens is because your body is digesting the bread even before you swallow it. The starch molecules in bread are actually made up of long chains of glucose, a simple sugar. An enzyme in your saliva called amylase is able to break apart the starch molecules into glucose. Unlike with the starch, your tongue perceives glucose as sweet. Cool, huh?

For those of you who like to look at cool pictures of enzymes, this is what amylase looks like.

If you'd like to learn more about this experiment: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/kitchenscience/exp/white-bread-and-the-wonder-of-enzymes/

Food and Stress

At a stressful time in the semester it is important to remember that food choices make a difference in your stress levels. I don't know about everyone, but I personally notice a difference in my ability to take on my to-do list depending on what I have been eating. There is tons of information about this on the web, but most the articles on "stress busting foods" seemed to just list foods that would be good to eat all the time. Oranges, broccoli, nuts, salmon, and turkey were all specifically mentioned as boosting energy and curbing stress. Also, relatively obviously, foods to avoid were things with caffeine, too much sugar, and alcohol. Unfortunately, I find that things with caffine and sugar are often times what people think will make them feel the best when they are stressed and tired. So next time you need to pull an all-nighter should you go for broccoli instead of coffee? I think that the coffee might be more immediately successful, but perhaps in the long run the broccoli will make you feel better and give you more energy the next day.