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How To Stay Healthy In a Salty World
Whenever a human is eating, a salt shaker is never too far away. For six thousand years we’ve relied on salt to improve our food. To make the uninteresting interesting and the bland, well, less bland. Though our ancestors often found it hard to get enough salt, in the modern world we are awash with… Continue reading
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A requiem for bacon
On October 26, 2015 the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) broke my heart. I know this sounds dramatic and maybe even a little silly. International research agencies don’t go around breaking peoples’ hearts. How can I justify this outrageous statement? Well it was on this day that the IARC issued a press release… Continue reading
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The Science of Beer Fermentation: Biochemistry, Malting & Brewing Chemistry
Discover the science of beer fermentation. Learn how yeast converts sugar into ethanol, the biochemistry of ATP and malting, and how brewing turns starch into beer. Continue reading
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The Science of Chilli Burn: Why We Love the Pain of Capsaicin
Ever wondered why eating chillies hurts so good? Discover the neuroscience behind capsaicin, the TRPV1 heat receptor, and why humans love spicy food. Continue reading
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Quick bite: The secret life of vegetables
As Harold McGee points out in his book, On Food and Cooking, plants are essentially chemical factories. Plants are famously stationary and lacking any motive power must interact with the external world, for the most part, through a dazzling array of chemicals that they synthesise from basic chemical elements. The same plant will simultaneously produce… Continue reading