Beer Stereotypes
[Note from Scott: This is a guest post by Allison Gamble of psychologydegree.net. Being a lover of good beer, I thought this was an interesting area to explore.]
Who Drinks What Beers? It’s Not As Simple As You Think!
Like it or not, America is a society of beer drinkers. The French have their wine, Russians have their vodka, and Americans have their (oft-maligned) beer. Beer has become such a part of the national zeitgeist that anticipation of the entertaining beer commercials during the Super Bowl has almost come to equal that of the game itself.
Many have criticized the American beer culture for participating in the mass-produced consumerist mentality of much of the rest of our economy. Although this criticism has some merit, it has become outdated, as evidenced by the thriving microbrew industry and the recent development of a number of quality, innovative brands. This has led the industry to try to discover the market for particular types of beer.
While big brands like Budweiser and Miller have broad appeal, the stereotypes associated with other kinds of beer are just now becoming defined, and it doesn’t take a psychology degree to see how effectively they’re managing. We’ve got imported, difficult-to-find Belgians for the foodies, PBR for the foodies, craft beers for young men with something to prove. Read on to see where you fit in.
Friday Links: Kelly Kapowski, Is Change Coming?, Food Lies, And A Great Pork Recipe
Michael Pollan’s New Article
The Nation – How Change Is Going to Come in the Food System
To date, however, the food movement can claim more success in changing popular consciousness than in shifting, in any fundamental way, the political and economic forces shaping the food system or, for that matter, in changing the “standard American diet”—which has only gotten worse since the 1970s.
I have to say, I’m not even convinced the food movement has made great strides in changing popular consciousness, at least not enough to change actions. Most people are more concerned with keeping their grocery bills as low as possible than they are that they eat the highest quality food.
Most people could care less about GMOs or grass-fed beef or erosion of the freedom to eat what they choose. Any discussion of what’s really going on in the food system gets far less attention than when something truly important happens…y’know, things like who should be kicked off of Dancing With The Stars or Facebook changing their layout.
That doesn’t mean we should stop trying to make strides, but let’s not pretend we’ve made huge moves.
Eat Humane PSA with Tiffani Thiessen
A friend sent me this and I thought it was cool to see a female celebrity telling people they can eat humane without giving us a vegan lecture.
And for those of you old …
How To Make Peperonata
Peperonata is a classic Italian recipe. It’s really easy. All it takes is a load of sweet peppers, a good bit of fat for stewing them, and any other ingredients you fancy. I like to throw in onions and you can also add tomatoes. Check out the video and PDF below for my peperonata recipe.
Peperonata Recipe
Here’s a PDF of the recipe I used, along with some optional ideas for jazzing things up. Sorry about the poor lighting at the end of the video. I’ll have to remedy the lighting situation with where I record the non-cooking parts of the videos for you.
Friday Links: Chemicals In Your Food + Can You Cook?
Delish – 28% of Americans can’t cook
All you have to do is learn to cook to fix three of these reasons for not cooking.
…took 1,087 men and women aged 25 and older and asked them questions about their cooking or non-cooking habits and the reasons behind them. When asked those who didn’t cook chose not to, researchers found that 28% cited not knowing how to cook, 25% said that “not wanting to clean up afterward” was the reason, 21% said that they didn’t have enough time too cook, and 51% said that they did not cook because their spouse or partner does the cooking.
Civil Eats – Our Deadly, Daily Chemical Cocktail
Here’s a primary reason to learn to cook Real Food: fresh food doesn’t contain additives and preservatives. Of course, no one knows how these chemicals interact in the body and you can be sure the FDA isn’t too concerned with forcing manufacturers to give you the low down.
The term GRAS refers to “generally regarded as safe,”… a voluntary process — instead of being required to register food additives, companies can notify the FDA about their product, but only if they so choose.
….
But according to the Body Burden Web site, there are 80,000 chemicals in commerce and the site says that, “No one is ever exposed to a single chemical, but to a chemical soup, the ingredients of which …
Farmageddon
Image credit: nuaHs
“Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.”
– Thomas Jefferson
I just finished watching Farmageddon by Kristin Canty. This is a great movie about the food fight in the United States (and likely other places, as well). It’s different from other recent films of this genre like Food, Inc. and Fresh. Those movies look more at the market side of food. Farmageddon, on the other hand, looks directly at the fight between local food and the government.
Instead of just telling you what’s happening, Kristin Canty takes you straight to the farm house and lets the families that have been raided and harassed by the government for everything from sheep to raw milk tell their stories. There are some pretty ridiculous things in here, like:
A farming family whose herd of sheep was killed for a non-existent disease. Better yet, the USDA tried to bury and lie about the fact that the test results came back negative.
Pouring out perfectly good raw milk when no one had been sickened.
A farmer at a farmer’s market given a ticket for selling “a processed food”: washed and bagged lettuce.
And of course, Joel Salatin makes an appearance, talking about lovely bills winding their way through the government that will allow warrantless searches to find …
My Three Favorite Beers
I’m a big fan of good beer. I don’t drink a lot of beer, but when I do, I like to try new craft beers. There’s a little liquor store just up the street from me that stocks a huge selection of beer, especially California and Oregon brews, so I can always find something new. I do have a few old stand-bys though, beers that I turn to when I want something familiar and incredible. I have a list of probably 10 that I can pick-up and know what I’m getting myself into, but here are my three favorite beers.
First though, a break for one of the best advertising campaigns in history. I’m not a fan of Dos Equis beer (the Amber is alright in a pinch), but their advertising with The World’s Most Interesting Man is hilarious.
Young’s Double Chocolate Stout
This could quite possibly be my favorite beer. I love stouts and porters and this one just knocks it out of the park. It’s chocolatey and smooth and all in all is just one of the most delicious beers I’ve ever set my lips to. If you like nitrogen beers, look for the nitrogen can.
For me, it’s not an all-day drinker. It’s more of a …
Three Tips For Better Meals
Let’s talk about three simple things you can do to improve the food you’re cooking. The first two are really ways that diets have been ruining food for decades. And the third is a mistake that I made for a looooong time before realizing that it was a mistake.
Cook With Butter And Other Flavorful Fats
The first thing you can do to make your food taste better: use more butter. Or palm oil. Or coconut oil. Or some other fat with some flavor.
A few decades ago, nutritionists put their heads together and decided that butter and lard and the other traditional fats that people have used since the dawn of civilization are the very things that are killing us.
So instead of using fat with some flavor, people have turned to flavorless vegetable oils and things like margarine. Or they’ve cut out most of the fat completely.
I’ve even seen the recommendation to saute in broth instead of oil (called “Healthy Saute” by the one recommending it), which pretty much eliminates adding any flavor to your veggies with fat and forces you to keep the temperature low (since water turns to steam at 212 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s a double whammy in the taste category, which leads me to believe that most “healthy eating” advice accidentally becomes …
Braised Cabbage Recipe
I was in need of a side dish and wasn’t sure what sounded good. Then I realized I had a cabbage that needed to be used. I decided to throw together a quick braised cabbage recipe with some onions, a carrot, butter, broth, balsamic vinegar, and blue cheese. It takes a couple hours to cook, but you’ll only be in the kitchen for about 10 minutes.
So let’s talk about braising cabbage.
Braising Cabbage
This was a spur-of-the-moment type of recipe where I look around and see what’s available, then come up with something real fast. That’s actually how I do most of my cooking and hopefully where you’ll end up, if you’re not already there. The PDF isn’t an exact recipe, but gives you an idea of approximately how much of each ingredient I used.
What else could you do with this that would be delicious? Here are a few ideas:
Add diced apples or pears
Use savory spices like cumin and turmeric
Braise in red or white wine instead of broth
Here’s a short video demonstration…and here’s a downloadable PDF with an approximate recipe so you don’t need to worry about writing anything down.
Let me know what changes you make to this when you try it!
Two New Ways To Cook
Hey y’all, I wanted to let you know about two great products I’ve just launched that will make the results of your time in the kitchen rock so much harder.
The Introduction To Real Food Cooking Course
First, I created a cooking course designed to get you up and running quickly with the major cooking methods. I designed this course for people that are just getting started in the kitchen, as well as for those that know enough to be dangerous, but aren’t quite getting the results they want.
Check it out here: Introduction To Real Food Cooking Course
The Real Food Cookbook
Just last week, I launched my new cookbook. It covers 128 different recipes of all types: beef, pork, lamb, eggs, side dishes, soups, and a few other categories. Along with that, I have a couple of bonuses for fun appetizers and desserts.
Check it out here: The Real Food Cooking Course
Dear Food Obsessed People…
I have to get something off my chest. I want to address several examples of food obsession that I saw recently. I see this kind of thing rear its ugly head quite often, but a couple have crossed my radar this week and I just can’t let them pass without comment.
Are You Obsessed With Food?
Rest assured, just because you aren’t binge eating and drowning your pain in Twinkies doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. Here are a few of the things that tip me off that people need to just eat real food and relax.
Doing math on your food – As I write this, I just read a girl’s post on Facebook that she’s decided to go 100% Paleo because 90% was just too hard. She found herself multiplying days and meals by 0.9 to figure out when she could have a piece of chocolate. Yes…you read that right. She craved something so much that she did math on her meals and then decided to go even harder-core and cut it all out! (I won’t name names. If you read this, I’m sorry to call you out about it, but it’s more than a bit obsessive.)
Worrying about ratios of Polyunsaturated/Monounsaturated (PUFA/MUFA) fats in food – I saw this one recently too. A discussion of food devolved into a discussion of why this or that was better because of PUFA to MUFA ratios. …
