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James

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Bugs in a kitchen are usually something to be squashed or swatted. But at Le Cordon Bleu, the French cooking school, chefs and food scientists spent a week simmering, sauteing and grilling insects. The chefs wanted to extract innovative flavors. They say it could open a new frontier for eating.

As a finale to their research, the school's Bangkok branch held a seminar. It was called "Edible Insects in a Gastronomic Context." It was booked up weeks in advance. The event in Thailand included lectures and a tasting menu for 60 open-minded participants. They were a mix of student chefs, scientists, professors and insect farmers.

First came a vial of ant-infused gin. That was followed by a shot glass of warm cricket consomme. Next came an hors d'oeuvre of cockchafer butter and herb crisp. A cockchafer could be mistaken for a water bug but is in fact a giant beetle.

The insects were not visible in the final products but artfully hidden. The bugs were pureed into batters, their juices extracted for essence.

"We didn't want to just put a bug on a salad and say, 'Voila!' We wanted to know, can we extract interesting flavors, new textures, aromas and turn it into something delicious?" said Christophe Mercier. He helped organize the event in the Thai capital.

Before anyone else could crack a joke about bugs in fine French food, the chefs made their own.

"This is the first time that insects have been granted access to the Cordon Bleu," Mercier said with a smile. He added that the 120-year-old Paris-based school had never to his knowledge held a workshop quite like this.

At the school's entrance, a welcome table was decorated with tropical flowers and bowls of bugs. There were crickets, silk worms, bamboo worms and live water bugs as big as a toddler's hand.

The idea for the event was inspired by local eating habits in Southeast Asia. In Thailand and neighboring countries, many people eat fried insects as snacks. That led Mercier and colleagues to wonder if they could learn from the locals.

It was the gin that helped win over the chefs.

"Some things were very impressive, and some things were very bizarre," said Fabrice Danniel, master chef at Bangkok's Cordon Bleu. "The taste of the alcohol was amazing. It's more than alcohol. The taste was unique."

A Cordon Bleu chef, Christian May, admitted that he was initially repulsed by the intense aroma of the grilled crickets for the broth. He encouraged his colleagues not to demonstrate for the seminar how the consomme was made. Just serve it elegantly on trays, which they did.

"It tasted good. You just have to remove the image of the insect from your mind," he said.

He noted that this will be the biggest challenge if and when insects go mainstream in Western cuisine. Before that happens, more research is needed. It's not clear if serving insects is legal in all Western countries. Proper hygiene needs to be ensured at insect farms. There are also safety concerns.

According to the U.N., insects have long been part of human diets in nearly 100 countries. It's particularly true in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

In Thailand alone, there are 200 species of insects eaten as food, said Patrick Durst. He is a senior official with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. He co-authored a study on Thailand's edible insect industry.

To people who frown on eating bugs, he says this: "Take a look at shrimp. What an ugly creature. Is it any more attractive than a grasshopper?"

After the seminar, the chefs congratulated themselves on a good start.

"This is not the end of the story," said Danniel, the master chef. "We want to develop more recipes."

"And maybe even write a cookbook."
Critical thinking challenge: Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/tween56/would-you-eat-soup-made-crickets/Why did Christian May discourage colleagues from demonstrating how the bug-based consomme was made?

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Bugs in a kitchen are usually something to be squashed or swatted. But at Le Cordon Bleu, the French cooking school, chefs and food scientists spent a week simmering, sauteing and grilling insects. The chefs wanted to extract innovative flavors. They say it could open a new frontier for eating.

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A Christmas Carol is more than a timeless Christmas story. Its author hoped that its lessons would be remembered all through the year.

A Christmas Carol was published in 1843. It ensured that Charles Dickens' name would forever be linked with Christmas. In some ways, it's a very Victorian story of urban circumstances. The extremes include wealth. They include poverty. They include industry. And they include inability. But it also helped change Victorian society. That's according to historian Catherine Golden. She writes for the National Postal Museum blog. And that's why Dickens wrote it.

It boosted people's awareness of the plight of the poor in Victorian England. But Dickens also had a more immediate need. He needed cash. He'd spent too much on his 1842 American tour, Golden writes. He needed to support his large family. "Thinking creatively, he wrote himself out of his dilemma," she reports.

The already well-known writer's solution worked. To a degree. He sold out the first print run in a week. That was 6,000 copies. By the end of the next year the book had sold more than 15,000 copies. That's according to Brandon Ambrosino. He was writing for Vox.

The book had lavish bindings. And it had a relatively low price. That's according to Michael Varese. He was writing for The Guardian. So much of that money didn't make it back to the author. He was hoping to make at least $1000 from the book. "What a wonderful thing it is that such a great success should occasion me such intolerable anxiety and disappointment!" he wrote.

The book did have the cultural impact Dickens was hoping for. The writer came from a poor family. He is remembered as a friend to the poor throughout his life. In the fall of that year the author had visited a Samuel Starey's Field Land Ragged School. That's according to writes Ambrosino. The school taught poor children.

"Dickens easily empathized with such children living in poverty, coming, as he did, from a poor childhood himself. This is a fact that set him apart from many other English authors," writes Ambrosino.

"Even if economics motivated Dickens to write A Christmas Carol, his story stimulated charity," writes Golden.

Characters like Bob Cratchitt's family paint a vivid picture. Scrooge's lost love also paints a vivid picture. And of course Scrooge himself does, too. It was of a time and place where need was everywhere. This was especially true in London.

Scrooge's redemption arc anchors the story. It is an important voice to potential middle-class givers, writes Ambrosino.

"Though he doesn't give away any of his money [at the beginning of the story], and though he feels no sympathy for those less fortunate than he, Scrooge, as Dickens makes clear, is no criminal. He works hard for his money, day in and day out."

Scrooge becomes a sympathetic character. This happens at the end of the story. He believed that prisons and workhouses were enough social aid for those in poverty. This was a common enough belief in Victorian times. It is overwhelmed only when he realizes that the city needs something more. It needs empathy. It needs it in the form of charity.

Dickens himself was a charitable man. This is similar to Scrooge at the end of the story. Scrooge becomes "as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew."

Dickens made a good living, writes Ambrosino. "He used his wealth and influence to help those less fortunate."

Dickens may not have gotten rich off of the publication of A Christmas Carol. But he did make the world a little richer.
Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/junior/why-charles-dickens-wrote-christmas-carol/

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Why Charles Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol"

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A Christmas Carol is more than a timeless Christmas story. Its author hoped that its lessons would be remembered all through the year. A Christmas Carol was published in 1843. It ensured that Charles Dickens' name would forever be linked with Christmas. In some ways, it's a very Victorian story of urban circumstances.

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Noel

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Here's a food wrapper you can eat

Here's a food wrapper you can eat

Assign to Google Classroom

Consider the cheese stick. It is not a beautiful food and it also isn't particularly healthy. It's about as commonplace as snack food gets.

Yet in the packaged version that ends up in so many kids' lunch boxes, each cylinder of mozzarella or cheddar is individually wrapped, like a high-end truffle. And, every day, thousands of those little pieces of plastic wrap are thrown in the trash.

But that may not be the case for long.

Two researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have developed a film made from a milk protein that can be eaten with the cheese. Which means that it may not be too long before we have a wrapper we can eat, one that's also healthy. Edible plastic exists, but it's largely made of starch, not protein.

"The benefit," says Peggy Tomasula, one of the lead researchers, "is that it can be consumed with the food so it gets rid of one layer of packaging, like with individually wrapped cheese sticks. It also gives you the opportunity to add vitamins or minerals or ways to block light damage to the food. And, you can add flavors. If you wanted to add a strawberry flavor to something, you can embed that in the film."

The key component in the innovative packaging is casein, a group of milk proteins with high nutritional value. Tomasula has been researching casein since 2000, and actually created a new version of the protein using carbon dioxide. She noticed that it wasn't very soluble in water, and that made her believe it might be used to make a film coating that could extend the shelf life of dairy foods.

Tomasula kept exploring the potential of this research and when another scientist, Laetitia Bonnaillie, joined the USDA team, Tomasula asked her to see if dry milk could be used to produce the film. That would also allow them to make use of surplus milk powder during times when dairy farms are producing too much milk. Bonnaillie also focused on refining the product by making it less sensitive to moisture and improving the process by which the film was made so it could be more uniform and commercial.

At the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, they announced the results of their efforts. It is edible, biodegradable packaging. The casein film could either come in sheets, not unlike plastic wrap, or be sprayed on as a coating. And, it's been found to be significantly more effective at blocking oxygen than ordinary plastic wrap, so it can protect food from spoiling for a much longer period of time.

There would be some limitations, at least initially.

"This would mostly be for dairy products or foods that would likely be used with dairy, like cereal," says Tomasula. "We wouldn't put this on fruits and vegetables in a market. You couldn't do that because of milk allergies. There would have to be labeling to let people know it's milk protein."

Also, this wouldn't mean that all packaging would be eliminated for cheese and other dairy products. They would still need to be covered in some way, in a box or packet to keep the food from getting dirty or exposed to too much moisture, but dispensing with the individual wrapping around each food item could mean a lot less plastic would end up in landfills. By some estimates, it can take as long as 1,000 years for plastic to degrade. And, unfortunately, less than a third of the plastic Americans throw away actually gets recycled.

The idea, said Bonnaillie, is to create different versions of the casein film. One might be very soluble, making it better suited for a product you dissolve in water. Another could be considerably less soluble so it would be more resistant to moisture and work better as protective packaging.

"We are trying things with the extremes," she says. "We've just started exploring applications. There are many more things we can do."

Say so long to sugar?

For instance, instead of tearing open a paper container to make instant coffee or soup, you could just drop a casein packet of the ingredients into water where everything would dissolve. Plus, extra protein would be added.

But food companies might actually prefer a spray version of the product. "That way they could store a mixture of the particular milk proteins in water, and then make the coatings and spray them on when they're processing the food," says Tomasula.

One possibility would be to spray the protein film on cereal, which generally is coated with sugar to keep it crunchy.

"It could be fat-free, a healthier way to replace a process that's now largely done with sugar," says Bonnaillie.

Tomasula adds: "We're hoping that for something like meal replacement bars we can make the edible wrapping taste like chocolate. We could combine the ingredients together and provide a little more nutrition."

Tomasula and Bonnaillie say they've already been working with some companies, and believe their edible packaging could be on the market within three years.

Another good sign: Since their August announcement, they've been contacted by what they describe as "two major companies."
Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/teen/heres-food-wrapper-you-can-eat/
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTION

Why isn't this a "perfect" solution?

Write your answers in the comments section below

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Here's a food wrapper you can eat Here's a food wrapper you can eat Assign to Google Classroom Consider the cheese stick. It is not a beautiful food and it also isn't particularly healthy. It's about as commonplace as snack food gets.

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Kids who don’t drink water consume more sweetened beverages

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Kids who don’t drink water consume more sweetened beverages

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Stanford (Chin-Lin Cheng)
I need more Coke!

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The American Academy of Pediatrics has called for taxes to be put in place. The taxes are on sugary drinks. It was a sign of growing concern over the amount of sugar kids are drinking. They are getting them via sodas and sweetened juices. And they get them from other beverages.

It is a worrying indicator of the nation's sugary drink fixation. A new study has found that one in five children reported not drinking any water. That's on any given day. It also showed that those kids drink more calories from sweetened beverages than kids who did drink water. That's according to Reuters' Lisa Rapaport.

The report was published in JAMA Pediatrics. It looked at nationally representative data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. It offered information on 8,400 children between the ages of two and 19. Included in the survey were data on kids' water and sweetened beverage consumption. It also included information about caloric intake. These came from sugary drinks. And it showed the percent of total calories that came from these drinks.

Researchers found that around 20 percent of children reported drinking no water throughout the day. They consumed almost twice as many calories. That's compared to kids who did drink some water. Overall, the young study participants drank 132 calories of sodas and other sugary beverages. That's per day. That number dropped to 112 calories with any intake of water. Kids who didn't drink any water took in an average of 210 calories. These came from sweetened drinks.

"Adjusting for sociodemographic variables," the study authors write, "no water intake was associated with intake of 92.9 ... more calories from [sugar-sweetened beverages] among participants aged 2 to 19 years."

Those extra calories don't provide much in the way of nutritional value and they can add up. That's according to Asher Rosinger. He is the lead study author and director of the Water, Health, and Nutrition Lab at Penn State.

"What you have to remember is that an extra 3,500 calories equals one pound of weight gain," Rosinger says. "So, if you're not compensating for those extra calories, then over a month, you can potentially gain a pound."

Sugary drinks have been linked to a number of issues. These include childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes. It also includes dental problems and high cholesterol.

"I've seen 2-year-olds with fatty liver disease and teenagers with Type 2 diabetes," said Natalie Muth. She is a California-based pediatrician. She spoke to the New York Times' Andrew Jacobs. "These are diseases we used to see in their grandparents."

The new study doesn't definitively prove that drinking less water prompts kids to drink more soda. It also doesn't prove the opposite. That's what Gizmodo's Ed Cara notes. It does suggest that there may be an inverse relationship. It suggests that adults should encourage kids to drink water so they don't swap it for something less healthful.

"Kids should consume water every single day. And the first beverage option for kids should be water," according to Rosinger. "Because if they're not drinking water, they're probably going to replace it with other beverages, like sugar-sweetened beverages, that are less healthy and have more calories."

The study authors note that the research does not account for the complex reasons why some children may not be drinking enough water. Sera Young reported for Scientific American. She said that reports of water contamination from lead or copper are on the rise in the United States. Runoff from fertilizer is contaminating wells in rural parts of the country. Some families have their water shut off. That's because they struggle to pay the bills.

Boosting water intake among children may reduce their consumption of sweetened beverages. But it isn't just about promoting water over sugary drinks.

"Increasing access to safe, free water," the study authors write, "is critical for childhood health."
Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/tween56/kids-who-dont-drink-water-consume-more-sweetened-beverages/

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Kids who don't drink water consume more sweetened beverages

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The American Academy of Pediatrics has called for taxes to be put in place. The taxes are on sugary drinks. It was a sign of growing concern over the amount of sugar kids are drinking. They are getting them via sodas and sweetened juices. And they get them from other beverages.

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Mahdi

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Why do flamingos stand on one leg?

(Thinkstock)

Why do flamingos stand on one leg?

Assign to Google Classroom

You asked us, why do flamingos stand on one leg?

Although they're not the only birds to balance delicately on a single limb, flamingos are probably the best known for this yoga-like pose.

Researchers have been scratching their heads trying to figure out the reason behind this soloed stance. And now they think they have an answer . . . thermoregulation.

What they found is that flamingos tend to do a lot more one-legged lounging when they are standing in water. And when the temperatures are on the colder side. Which makes sense if the birds are trying to maintain their body temperature.

You see, a long naked leg exposes lots of skin to cool temps and water. That sucks away heat faster than air. But, if flamingos tuck that same leg up into their down parka of a body, it stays toasty warm.

It's likely the behavior also reduces the birds' exposure to things like fungus and parasites in the water.

Nice! I mean, Namaste.
Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/tween56/why-do-flamingos-stand-one-leg/
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTION

What's one reason that flamingos stand on one leg?

Write your answers in the comments section below

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Why do flamingos stand on one leg? (Thinkstock) Why do flamingos stand on one leg? Assign to Google Classroom You asked us, why do flamingos stand on one leg? Although they're not the only birds to balance delicately on a single limb, flamingos are probably the best known for this yoga-like pose.

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Masoumeh

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How do colors affect our moods?

(Thinkstock)

How do colors affect our moods?

Assign to Google Classroom

You asked us, how do colors affect our moods?

Oh, man, I'm green with envy. I'm so angry I'm seeing red. Oh guys, I'm feeling really blue today.

We definitely tend to link colors with emotions. There's been plenty of psychological and social research on how specific colors actually influence our moods and actions.

But, the effects of color aren't written into our DNA. They're set by personal experience. I mean, you could imagine some universal associations between say, a feeling of tranquility and the calm blue of the sky. But for Joe Schmoe, blue might also trigger anger and fear because it reminds him of the jacket on the playground bully.

The cultures we live in also tend to dictate how we read certain colors. Like in the west, we think of white as representing purity and innocence. But in some eastern cultures, it's the color of mourning.

The lack of agreement hasn't stopped advertisers from using those cultural differences. They try and influence our buying decisions or office managers from relying on color information theory to increase productivity in the workplace.

Whether these colorful tricks work or not is up for debate.
Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/tween56/how-do-colors-affect-our-moods/
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTION

Why does white have more than one meaning?

Write your answers in the comments section below

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How do colors affect our moods? @AskSmithsonian

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How do colors affect our moods? (Thinkstock) How do colors affect our moods? Assign to Google Classroom You asked us, how do colors affect our moods? Oh, man, I'm green with envy. I'm so angry I'm seeing red. Oh guys, I'm feeling really blue today. We definitely tend to link colors with emotions.

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🌸Mina🌸

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You asked us to debunk some "facts" about the human body. Let's science this!

So here are five popular myths that just are not true.

First, we have five senses. Right? Wrong. It depends on how you define a sense. We actually have between 5 and 33 of them.

Beyond the classics, we have a sense of balance. We also have the ability to sense heat and time. Along with those, we also have all kinds of other cool spidey senses.

Second, what about the idea that giving kids sugar makes them bounce-off-the-walls hyperactive?

Nope. The evidence for that cause-and-effect link is surprisingly slim. It's apparently more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than fact.

Myth number three. We only use 10% of our brains. This one drives me insane. It's totally bogus. We use virtually every part of our brain. And most of it is active almost all of the time.

Myth number four. Despite all the heavy lifting going on up there, it's totally false that we lose most of our body heat through our heads.

The amount of heat we lose depends on how much skin surface area is exposed to the cold. So, yes, you'll lose more heat through a bald head than a gloved hand. But the opposite is just as true.

And finally, I know what your mom said. But you can trust me. I'm a scientist. It doesn't take seven years to digest swallowed gum.

The base element of gum is pretty much indigestible. But it'll still pass through our system within a week if not faster.
Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/junior/five-false-facts-about-human-body/

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You asked us to debunk some "facts" about the human body. Let's science this! So here are five popular myths that just are not true. First, we have five senses. Right? Wrong. It depends on how you define a sense. We actually have between 5 and 33 of them.

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Why do we love junk food?

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Rei

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Food waste is a big deal. That's according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. They found that 28 percent of the world's agriculture area is used to produce food. That food ultimately goes to waste. This happens each year. A new supermarket is tackling the problem. It is stocked only with wasted food. That's according to Feargus O'Sullivan. He was writing for CityLab.

The project is an outgrowth of a British non-profit. It's called the Real Junk Food Project. That's according to O'Sullivan. The group has long collected wasted food. It collected the food for pay-as-you-can cafÇs. These are located around the world.

Its supermarket is in Pudsey. It takes the idea one step further. The market takes food. Local restaurants make donations. Grocery stores also make donations. It puts it on shelves. It sells it to customers. They pay what they can.

Hazel Sheffield reports for The Independent. She said the store is already serving as a lifeline. It is helping families. They are down on their luck. It's kind of like a food pantry. But it has no restrictions. Anyone can get the food. The concept is not new. Sheffield wrote another report. The idea has taken off in Denmark. That's due to a government initiative. They want to reduce the country's volume of wasted food.

The USDA launched its first-ever food waste reduction goal. That was in 2015. It aims to reduce the amount of wasted food. It aims to reduce it by 50 percent. It aims to do so by 2030. The agency estimates that cutting just 15 percent of this waste in the United States would provide enough food for more than 25 million Americans. That's per year.

Hunger isn't the only reason to reduce food waste. Ben Schiller reported for FastCo. He found that wasted food has a carbon dioxide impact. It is equal to the output of one in four cars on the road worldwide. It also consumes a quarter of the world's freshwater. And it consumes 300 million barrels of oil. That's every year.

So why do grocery stores toss up to ten percent of all wasted food? The USDA cites dented packaging. It cites damaged packaging. It cites products that haven't been stored properly. And it cites holiday specialties that are never purchased. Overstocked foods also account for the waste. Foods that are weird-looking or misshapen also play a part. In some countries it's illegal for grocery stores to throw out food. Instead, they must donate their wasted goods. They must give them to charity or to the poor.

Food waste supermarkets aren't the only weapon in the fight against waste. There are activists. They are working to improve the cachet of strange-looking fruits and veggies.

There are plenty of creative ways to buy and eat food that would otherwise be thrown out. Maybe it's time to bring the food waste supermarket concept to the United States. It's a delicious addition to the many ways not to trash perfectly good meals.

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Food waste is a big deal. That's according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. They found that 28 percent of the world's agriculture area is used to produce food. That food ultimately goes to waste. This happens each year. A new supermarket is tackling the problem.