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Caboc and Crowdie: Traditional cheeses of Scotland
Originating in the Western highlands Caboc is one of Scotlands oldest cheeses. Dating back to the 15th Century it was known as a chieftain’s cheese, due to its rich double cream ingredients and high...
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Eating DNA: Dietary Nucleotides in Nutrition
Nucleotides are biological molecules that are essential to almost all biological processes in the human body. Probably best known as the components that make up DNA and RNA they are also involved in...
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Himalayan Rock Salt
Photo credit: julajp. A relatively recent addition to our British shops, and once restricted to health food shops, it now seems that pink Himalayan salt can be found almost everywhere even appearing...
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Experimental mead making: Wild fermentations
I have wanted to try brewing something for sometime, and as both mead and honey are particular interests of mine, mead seemed the obvious thing to try for myself. However, the usual methods employed...
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Oat Avenanthramides
Oats are one of the quintessential foods of the traditional Scottish diet. In terms of health benefits they are best known for their fibre content, particularly their beta-glucan content. Less well...
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Bourbon, Brandy and Armagnac: Phenolics and antioxidant capacity
In a recent post I looked into the science behind the phenolic compounds found in my favorite Scottish malt whiskies, and extracted into said water of life via the action of alcohol and water on the...
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The origins of semi-dwarf wheat
John Linnell, Wheat (1860) The late summer landscape of 19th Century England, such as painted by John Linnell, was filled with fields of tall golden wheat ripening in the sun. Across the Atlantic the...
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Adventures in sourdough bread.
Wholemeal spelt sourdough bread with oxtail stew. I have never baked my own bread. This is despite having had a go at cooking many different things over the years and so recently I decided to rectify...
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Minty Pea Purée on Sourdough Toast
Pea purée on buttered wholemeal spelt sourdough bread. Few foods can match the vivid green of puréed frozen peas. The fresh taste of the peas combines beautifully with the mint an lemon to produce a...
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Victorian Flour Sourdough Bread
Victorian flour sourdough bread – first attempt. My previous experiments with sourdough bread sparked my interest in what other old varieties of wheat flour were available to try. Particularly those...
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Bone Broth, Gelatine, Oxalate, and Kidney Stones
Bone broth, also known as stock, is recently back in fashion with many purported health benefits. I will admit my own bias in being rather a fan of some good bone broth and suspect it is a beneficial...
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One week of food: Part 1. Monday – Thursday.
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” – Brillat-Savarin. So said Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, famed epicure and gastronome. What he would think of me from my food I do not know,...
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One week of food: Part 2. Friday – Sunday.
<<<For the first post of this weeks food see here. The weekend usually involves more cooking for me and it is when I do my main shopping. This includes a visit to the supermarket, which is...
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Oranges and Grapes: More on insulin and glucose after fruit or juice
The effects of eating whole fruit or drinking fruit juice on blood glucose and insulin appears to be of some interest to people. As my last post on a study comparing apples, smoothies, and juice...
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Aboriginal Taiwan – Food and Forests. Part 1.
The island of Taiwan is perhaps best known to Europeans, if they know about it at all, for its great capital Taipei with its towering Taipei 101, spotless metro system, and bustling night markets. But...
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Aboriginal Taiwan – Fruit and Tea. Part 2.
Our second day in the mountains of central Taiwan dawned sunnier than the previous day with views across the village of Huanshan across the forested mountains. Our night was spent at the lovely Happy...
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A bread too far: Food structure and insulin responses
That the structure of food can influence its effects on our body is an underappreciated area of research and evidence is limited on this subject. The structure of food, sometimes called the food matrix...
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In the Name of the Fat.
The names of fatty acids that make up the fats in the world around us can be so familiar that we rarely consider where these names came from. While fatty acids now have systematic names and precise...
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On the Pulse of Insulin
Insulin is not simply pumped out of the pancreas in a constant stream or, at least, it shouldn’t be. Like many other hormones, insulin is secreted in short bursts, or pulses, by the beta-cells in the...
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Diet and Nutrition of the Lion
Do lions eat the organs of their prey, or can a lion survive only on muscle meat? I’ve seen this question asked online but clear answers are hard to find, at least not answers with sources backing them...
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