Cattle 401k 🐮
Un-ruin your meals, hallucinant in your pantry and teatime with a food journalist.
Good morning. It's that time of the year when you wish you could snap your fingers and fast forward two months. But until Elon Musk invents time travel...we'll have to get through these cold days, figuring out ChatGPT together.
On a lighter note, according to one person, “the first Batman film was in 1960, the first reboot was in 1989, the second reboot in 2005, the third in 2016, and the fourth in 2022, which, given sufficient extrapolation, suggests that by 2050 or so there will be a new Batman reboot every 15 microseconds.”
Math majors, please help us math up the math here!
In the food world
🥚 Eggs-orbitant
Three egg omelets are on the horizon as egg prices are finally starting to come down after hitting a record-high average of $5.46 (currently $4.63) per dozen in December. A double whammy caused by inflation and the worst Avian flu outbreak in US history led to eggs becoming the new caviar. However, till the flu is completely under control, prices won’t be low enough to vandalize property with eggs.
🍣 Eye can-dy
After being rejected by millennials just a few years ago, canned fish like tuna and sardines are having their day in the sun. Sales of canned seafood shot up by 10% (to $2.7 billion) in the US in 2022. The main driver — TikTok, where people are preparing pretty tinned fish charcuterie boards while highlighting their sustainability benefits (long shelf life, no refrigeration and recyclable packaging).
😭 Bad blood
Valentine’s Day is coming. And if you’re moping over a breakup or find the day too cringy, then this is for you! The events company Bucket Listers is putting on Bad Blood: a Taylor Swift themed Break-Up Bar, named after her 2014 hit “Bad Blood" in Chicago. From January 27 to February 26, this bar aims to be a haven for lovers to spend V-day “getting over their ex’s and plotting their comeback.”
☕️Teatime with Larissa Zimberoff
As part of an ongoing series and a means to publish an edition without doing any work, we reached out to food journalist and author Larissa. She currently writes the newsletter Technically Food (based on a book with the same name) — the answer to what a food sci-fi movie would look like.
Being at the intersection of science and food, Technically Food covers topics like sonar probes for winemaking, lab-grown meat, milk made without cows, and eggs that aren’t laid by chickens. Subscribe here and never feel clueless again!
What’s the most embarrassing guilty pleasure food you’ll admit to liking?
Oh, this one is easy: Funyuns!
What’s the worst cooking tip you have ever received?
Long ago, my mom showed me how she made hard-boiled eggs. It involved placing eggs in a pot to boil, once boiling she said to turn the gas off and put the lid on. But she never told me how long to wait.
What recipe do you wish to be known for?
I don’t like to follow recipes. I’m good at using random things from my fridge. My most recent win was a zucchini and sweet potato lasagna, minus the lasagna noodles but heavy on the crushed tomatoes, ricotta and basil.
What viral food trend did you actually try and it worked?
I’ve made the salmon + leftover rice sushi bites from TikTok again and again. It’s sooo easy and tasty, but I use cauliflower rice instead of white rice.
Lab meat culture
Approximately 70 billion land animals are used for human consumption each year. A majority of these animals are raised in factory farms, where they experience terrible forms of abuse in overcrowded and inhumane conditions. So is there a fix to this?
Cultivated meat is one such solution that’s rapidly gaining popularity from investors and scientists. Given that our knowledge on this topic is as empty as the shelves in a grocery store prior to a storm, we asked Larissa to step in and help us better understand this new trend — What exactly is it? How’s it made? And what’s its future?
What is it?
Cultivated meat or lab-grown meat is made by harvesting a small sample of cells from a living animal and cultivating it to grow outside of the animal's body. The fully formed sample can be Play-Doh’ed into various shapes and cuts. Beef, fish fillets, hamburgers, and bacon can be made using this process.
How’s it made?
It’s like the IVF of meat production. According to Larissa, the harvested animal cells proliferate in large bioreactors. These cells are put on a strict diet of carbs, proteins, vitamins and amino acids, which help keep their six-pack intact.
Is it really meat and why do we need it?
Yes! It has essentially the same animal cell composition as what we traditionally consider “meat”(not truly exact, but virtually indistinguishable). The only difference is how it gets to the plate. While conventional meat comes from an animal that’s raised and killed, cultivated meat comes from a lab.
Animals can now easily plan for their retirement due to this newfound 401k, where they can put their cells to work without worrying about a painful death. In turn, providing us with a cruelty-free means for our protein intake. Moreover, the harmful effects of industrial animal agriculture on the climate would also be eliminated.
How does it taste?
The question on every foodie’s mind — does it taste like the real thing or airline food? In Larissa’s words, “my sampling is not for the faint of heart. I’ve eaten lab-grown chicken, bison, lamb, steak, burgers, and wagyu. Only the chicken had the right texture.” But, she said, it was missing the fat!
Where is it headed?
According to Larissa, there are around 110 startups working on making lab-grown meat a reality. Many are in the US, but a surprising amount is in China, Singapore, and Israel. While Singapore is the only country with regulatory approval for sale, the FDA recently agreed that Upside Foods chicken is safe to eat.
But who’s gonna eat it? According to a small survey of 2,001 household shoppers, 67% of them said they would try cultured meat. However, this technology is still new and like the 401k, animals too may have to wait till they’re 60 to reap their rewards.
Quiz
We’re all feeling the pinch on our wallets during our grocery hauls due to the current inflation. But not everything is so grim. Can you guess whether the prices of these household items have gone up or down over the last month?
Strawberries
Oranges
American cheese
Tomatoes
Wine
*Answers at the bottom.
Cooking tips
Biting into a lemon pith is a great way to ruin a meal. To avoid this, squeeze the lemon into your hand and let the juice flow through, catching the seeds.
The ginger-garlic combo is a common addition to Indian recipes. Minced ginger and garlic can directly be added to the hot oil, but the paste needs to be added after the onions to prevent it from burning.
Save the liquid from canned chickpeas. It’s called aquafaba and can be used as an egg white replacement while baking.
Did you know?
A little bit of nutmeg is tasty. But in large doses, it can have mind-altering effects due to a natural compound called myristicin.
Fun science experiment… Drop a lemon and lime in water. The lemon will float but the lime will sink.
What do raspberries, strawberries, apples, pears, plums, cherries, apricot, and peach have in common? Apart from going great with vodka, they’re all part of the rose family.
High protein (no egg) breakfast
Cottage cheese toast: This satisfying no-cook avocado toast breakfast is packed with protein, fiber, and healthy fats.
Tofu scramble: If you miss scrambled eggs, this one's for you. All that’s requires is a few ingredients, 10 minutes and one pan!
Vegan omelette: An easy vegan omelet for first-timers. Simple ingredients, loads of veggies, easy preparation. Hearty, savory, fluffy, and delicious.
While this simmers…
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Answers
Strawberries - Increased
Oranges - Decreased
American cheese - Decreased
Tomatoes - Increased
Wine - Decreased