Pelmeni

I looked at a presentation of 2 classmates about a food tradition. Abdellah and Berkant talked about a food tradition that Russians celebrate. It’s called Pelmeni. Pelmeni is a tradition and it means Ear bread. So the name of this food tradition is given to the food self. Pelmeni is a type of dumpling filled with meat and wrapped in thin, uneven dough. It’s very spicy but it depends on the amount of herbs and pepper that they put in it. Because of that, Pelmeni bread can last a few days. That is what they eat that day. Pelmeni may not look very tasty but it’s important in the Russian culture and a very popular dish. They haven’t got a particular reason for making Pelmeni, it’s just a tradition. This bread is accompanied with vodka and a lot of sour cream. They only celebrate it in Russia but they actually said that this tradition has been copied of Chinese people. This food tradition is celebrated the day after New Year.

This presentation was generally good and informative but there were some mistakes. When they talked, it was like they weren’t sure about themselves. They were hesitating and that gives a bad visual of the presentation. What I also noticed is that they just give a lot of information about the food. Of course it is the purpose of the presentation but it’s better to give more information to the tradition itself. It’s a pity that their Powerpoint contains a lot of text. It would have been better to show more pictures because like that you can get the attention of the classmates. The information about the food was good and detailed, I learned a lot.

Pelmeni was a food tradition that I didn’t know. Thanks to Abdellah and Berkant I learned what is is and what they do on this day. I think it is a special day, because it’s the only tradition that eats something like that bread. I would like to eat that bread one day. It seems tasty.

Eating more (un)healthy. What should I do?

Did you ever notice that our food culture changed? Nowadays people don’t pay too much attention to it, but I want to remind you of how our eating habits have changed. I can certainly not tell you how people ate many years ago because I wasn’t born. That’s why I asked my parents and grandparents. I think that the food culture certainly changed. Many years ago, food was more natural and fresh. If we look at it now, our eating habits are bad, not everything of course but most of our eating habits unfortunately changed.

Before, everything was homemade: bread, meals, cakes,… People were sure that there weren’t any chemical products in their food. In everything that we buy nowadays; there are chemical products, that can possibly be dangerous for our health. There are even chemical products that they add without mentioning it on the food label.

When I asked my parents about what changed in our eating habits they told me, without hesitation, that they always ate together for dinner before. Now we rarely eat with the whole family because everyone has something to do or just doesn’t want to eat together. They find it such a pity!

Nowadays people eat less healthy than many years ago, especially the teenagers. A big consequence of it, is obesity. There are more fast food restaurants, all the unhealthy food is not that expensive; fries, candies,… These things didn’t exist before that’s why people were healthier. But I can understand them, it’s too difficult to resist to all these delicious, unhealthy foods.

I think you all understand my opinion. Everything was natural, healthy, and fresh. We are distracted because of the publicity. But if everyone would do something, pay more attention to it, we could change the food culture and eating habits. So I think we all know what to do!

Varieties of tomatoes.

There are over 10 000 varieties of tomatoes! There are big tomatoes, little cherry tomatoes and in between sizes. Not all the tomatoes are red. The tomato is a fruit not a vegetable! More than 60 million tons of tomatoes are produced every year, that’s 16 million more than the second most popular fruit, the banana. Like I mentionned in my previous post, tomatoes contain lycopene that prevents cancers and hart diseases. The scientific term for a tomato is lycopersicon lycopersicum which means “wolf peach”. It is a cousin of the eggplant, red pepper, ground cherry, potato, and the highly toxic belladonna, also known as the nightshade or solanaccae.

Ketchup was sold as medicine.

Believe it or not, but in the 1830’s ketchup was sold as medicine. They called it “Dr. Miles Compound Extract of Tomato”. Apparently it was very good for your health. Dr. John Cook Bennett was an American doctor and he invented the ketchup as medicine. Because tomatoes contain a lot of vitamins, people believed that it could cure them so it became popular. The ingredients were the same as the ketchup that we eat nowadays.
Now we know a lot more about ketchup. Is it really good for our health? A research shows that Dr. John Cook Bennett was right. There aren’t just many vitamins in tomatoes but thanks to the pigment lycopene it can protect us for example against hart diseases and cancers. When tomatoes get cooked it increases the lycopene concentrati so it’s better than fresh tomatoes.

 

Dynamite is made from peanuts.

Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerine and was invented by a Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel. Nitroglycerine is an oily explosive liquid made from glycerol. That’s why dynamites are made from peanuts. Peanut oil can be processed to produce glycerol, because glycerol is necessary for the production of dynamites.
There are other industrial processes that also produce glycerol like the production of biodiesel and soap. Raw materials used to make glycerol like vegetable oils such as peanut oil, coconut and soybean.
So dynamite can be made of peanuts, coconuts, soap and soybeans. That’s because glycerol can be produced by many sources.

Chicken today contains more fat and less protein.

If someone asks you which is the healthiest type of meat, you would obviously answer chicken. Among all the different meat types the chicken contains less fat than any of them.
That isn’t always true. A research proves that nowadays chicken meat contains 266% more fat and 33% less protein than it did 40 years ago. This is caused by our modern farming methods. Instead of feeding them with natural, healthy food, they give them all sorts of supplements.
The problem is that we, consumers, can’t do anything to avoid this. The only thing that we could do is to spend less on unhealthy fat-rich meat and more on natural products.

Honey is the only food that will never rot.

Have you ever noticed that your honey never rots? Actually, it can last 3000 years. Archaeologists excavated old Egyptian tombs and found something unexpected amongst the tombs: pots of honey, thousands years old, and yet still preserved. There are other examples of food that keep indefinitely in their raw state like salt, sugar, dried rice,… Now you’re probably wondering how it’s possible that honey can stay preserved for 3000 years. Well, honey in it’s natural form is a very low moisture. Very few bacteria or microorganisms can survive in an environment like this, they just die. So if organisms can’t survive long enough in the honey, it doesn’t have the chance to spoil.
Honey is also extremely acidic. It has a pH between 3 and 4,5 and that acid will kill almost everything that wants to grow there. The life expectancy inside of honey is just too low.

About

Welcome to my blog Foodaddict! I’m not really addicted to food but maybe you are! Being a food addict isn’t only eating unhealthy things, you can also be addicted to healthy food.

I’m El Barnousi Yousra and I’m 16 years old. I am a student of ‘Het Koninklijk Atheneum Vilvoorde’ and I’m writing this blog because I want my readers to learn things. Of course things that they didn’t know yet.

When people hear ‘food addict’ they immediatly think of people who are overweight. That’s not true. Eating a lot of things isn’t so bad but you need to have a balance in what you’re eating and you have to make sure you are eating the right things.

So, maybe you can’t follow what I’m saying. Don’t panic! You will understand everything, just read my posts!!