Category: Cooking

Fermentation

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Fermentation is in general food processing by micro-organisms. Pasteur defined it as ‘respiration without air’. In a way fermentation is the opposite of respiration. Your muscles ‘ferment’ when exercising!

Fermentation consumes carbohydrates without air into organic acids. Instead of going into the Krebs-Cycle and reacting with oxygen, it goes a different pathway. The low pH protects the food against pathogens, disease-causing bacteria. So this is why it was utilized so often before the refrigerator in ancient times.

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The relevant micro-organisms are:

  1. Yeasts, they produce ethanol. (Bread, beer, wine)
  2. Lactic acid bacteria produces lactic acid. (Milk, cheese, soy)
  3. Acetic acid bacteria produce acetic acid. (Vinegar)
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Towards the Krebs: Respiration, Towards the pot: Fermentation

Short list of fermented foods:

  1. Alcoholic beverages (Beer, wine, whiskey)
  2. Bread
  3. Milk products like cheese, yogurt and creme fraiche
  4. Vinegar
  5. Bean-based products like soy sauce
  6. Fish sauce
  7. Sauerkraut
  8. Chocolate
  9. Olives
  10. Pickles
  11. Chorizo, salami, pepperoni

List of types of foods you can ferment: Beans, Grains, Vegetables, Fruit, Honey, Dairy, Fish, meat and even tea.

Main chemical products of fermentation: acids, alcohol, carbohydrate, dissolved carbon dioxide.

Somehow it blows my mind that so much stuff is fermented. It is nice to understand food better!

Cheese is made by denaturalisation of proteins by acid produced by fermentation!

 

Great movie explaining stuff about fermentation

 

The BigMac metric system

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A BigMac

By comparing the cost of BigMac’s around the world, you can get a fun way to compare economies of countries. This is called the BigMac-index. You use the BigMac as a standard to compare stuff too.

According to this webpage, the sun radiates heat energy equal to 170133333333333333333 Big Macs. That is 0,17 thousand trillion Big Macs!

If you fuck around with the units, you can get ridiculous sentences like, it takes 2,25 microBigMacs per meter to lift your car keys. Very clarifying. You can still make a bit sense of it if you picture that you need to consume a bit more than two microBigmacs to lift a car key over one meter.

Even more ridiculous is that the Eiffel tower is 44 nanoBig Macs kilogramseconds squared/per meter tall. What the fuck? It is correct scientific terminology though.

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Seeing the world through hamburger glasses

 

 

Cooking: 20 tips to eat cheap

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eat-for-cheap

  1. Buy in bulk.
  2. Buy at cheap supermarkets.
  3. Buy when the product is in sales.
  4. Keep dishes simple.
  5. Make condiments yourself (tastes even better!).
  6. Buy canned and frozen products.
  7. Chicken with bones, use the bones for stock.
  8. Use eggs and beans as cheaper meat replacements, meat is expensive.
  9. Use the freezer to your advantage, never let something spoil!
  10. Keep the supermarketwebsites in your bookmarks to easily check what is in sales.
  11. Have a good set of containers to keep leftovers in.
  12. It is rarely necessary to buy the expensive versions of products. Budgetversions are not that bad.
  13. Plan a weekly menu.
  14. Don’t go hungry, it lowers your willpower.
  15. Have a nice stock of products in the fridge, freezer and cabin.
  16. Keep receipts to check what prices were.
  17. Never buy lunch at your work, make it at home.
  18. Regularly clean the fridge, freezer and cabin to check your stock and keep things tidy.
  19. Read a basic cooking book to utilize ingredients better.
  20. Know how to store food properly.

Basics of a dish follow this: Meat, Carbs, Vegetables, Condiment, Spices. Use this to make your own simple recipes, it is fun and cheap!