Savvy Eating and Lifestyles, 2/19/20: 3D Printed Burgers, Koji-based Bacon, Healthy-Habits Well Challenge, World’s Worst Smell … and Coffee!

Israeli burger chain plans vegan 3D-printed burgers was reviewed by Abigail Klein Laichman for Israel21c.org, 8 February 2020. Burgus Burger Bar partners with SavorEat on a system that ‘prints’ plant-based burgers on demand, to be piloted at some of the chain’s branches.

HUH?????

Israeli hamburger restaurant group Burgus Burger Bar has partnered with SavorEat to finish developing the “digital chef” system ahead of a beta pilot at some of the group’s 100 BBB, Mozes and Burgerim restaurants within two years.

“Their specialty is burgers so they know how a burger should feel and taste,” says Racheli Vizman, cofounder and CEO of SavorEat. “They will help us with every aspect of the formulation of the product.”

SavorEat’s 3D printing platform can bake, grill or fry a personalized plant-based burger using ingredient cartridges. The key ingredient is shelf-stable submicron crystalline cellulose, a zero-calorie derivative of plant fiber, as a self-assembling binder in place of starch, egg whites, gluten or gelatin.

“Today we print one burger at a time,” Vizman tells ISRAEL21c. “We wish to print up to eight at a time within about six minutes.”

This bacon looks like the real thing as it sizzles—but it’s made from fungus was reported by Adele Peters for FastCompany.com, 14 February 2020.

A new Bay area, CA startup relies on fungus instead—specifically, koji, the fungus used to make sake. The startup, called Prime Roots, launched limited sales of its first product—a fungi-based bacon—online today. Bacon “is a very underserved meat alternative,” says Prime Roots cofounder Kimberly Le. “There’s a lot of ground beef out there. But there isn’t as much in the way of whole-muscle meat or a more formed product like bacon or chicken breast, which is something that koji does really well at replicating.”

In its Berkeley headquarters, the company grows the fungi in fermentation vats, in the same type of process as brewing beer or sake. When nutrients are added to koji “seeds,” they grow into long fibers within a few days. “We form it into essentially what is a pork belly,” she says. “It’s a block with natural fats and flavors. We actually smoke that block in a smoker, just as you would smoke a pork belly to make bacon. And then after it’s smoked and it has the flavor imparted into it, we’ll use a meat slicer to slice it just like you would bacon.”

Koji or Aspergillus oryzae, an ingredient that isn’t well known in the U.S. but is so commonly used in Japan to make sake and foods such as miso that “Fungus Day” is a national holiday.

In a pan, the product sizzles and cooks like the real thing. “It actually shrinks like actual bacon in the pan—the strip starts pretty large and shrinks just like a real bacon strip does when it renders,” Le says. It can be cooked to the desired amount of crispiness. When Fast Company tasted a sample, though, we didn’t think it came that close to the mouthfeel or taste—probably in part because the company wanted to develop a healthier alternative, so it doesn’t have the delicious, melting fat you find in actual bacon. (It also has more protein, and the company says it’s trying to line up more with turkey bacon than pork bacon.) The company is taking orders for a limited offering of the product now and will continue developing it as it gets feedback from customers.

I tried to order some but they are currently all sold out! I’ll let you know when I can sizzle up some and try it!

The Healthy-Habits Well Challenge is a 28-day plan to nourish your body, mind and spirit, one daily challenge at a time, thanks to The New York Times. All you need is a free TheNewYorkTimes.com account … and they will deliver a daily plan plus tips. I’m going to give it a try … let me know how it’s going for you.

Each day, New York Times Well columnist Tara Parker-Pope gives a simple, fun challenge that will put you on the path toward greater well-being. Learn techniques to improve your diet, your fitness routine, your relationships and your mind. In just a few minutes each day, you’ll feel better inside and out. It is also available via a Flash Briefing on Alexa: My Well Minute by The New York Times

Go to the challenge: The Healthy-Habits Well Challenge

What’s the World’s Worst Smell? asks Randall Munroe for Science, The New York Times, 17 February 2020. Well, have you ever smelled insulin? Yuck … although I hear that cats love it and love to chew on tubing!!!

Smells can be pretty subjective.

In 1998, Pamela Dalton, a cognitive psychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, was tasked with developing a stink bomb for the Department of Defense. Her experiments found that people from different backgrounds and different parts of the world, who grew up smelling and eating different things, often completely disagreed about which smells were good or bad.

The best candidate Dr. Dalton found for a universally distasteful smell was something called “U.S. Government Standard Bathroom Malodor,” a substance that was designed to mimic the scent of military field latrines, in order to test cleaning products. She chose the aromatic liquid as the base of her stink-bomb recipe. The resulting formula, which she called “Stench Soup,” may well be the worst smell ever created.

Dr. Derek Lowe, an industrial chemist, said that the worst thing he’d ever smelled in his career as a chemist arose when he inadvertently combined dimethyl sulfide (think farts) with some silicon he was putting through a reaction called a Peterson olefination. Neither odor would smell great on its own, but combined they produced something transcendently foul. “It smelled like what you’d imagine the exhaust of a U.F.O. to smell like,” he said. “It was spectacularly weird and horrible.” In the infinite universe of chemistry, who knows what smells are waiting to be discovered?

By the way, wonder what causes the strong smell of insulin? Insulin smells the way it does because manufacturers add phenol to it. Once added, the compound helps to stabilize it and it also acts as both an antiseptic and disinfectant in the liquid, which most of us use over the course of numerous injections. If you think it smells like creosote, that’s actually a form of phenol used to preserve and waterproof telephone poles.

Read more:

Is Coffee Good for You? was revisited by Dawn Mackeen for the Self-care section of The New York Times, 13 November 2020. The qualified answer: Yes! But it depends on the kind of coffee and the quantity.

In moderation, coffee seems to be good for most people — that’s 3 to 5 cups, or up to 400 milligrams of caffeine. “The evidence is pretty consistent that coffee is associated with a lower risk of mortality,” said Erikka Loftfield, a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute who has studied the beverage.

For years, coffee was believed to be a possible carcinogen, but the 2015 Dietary Guidelines helped to change perception. For the first time, moderate coffee drinking was included as part of a healthy diet. When researchers controlled for lifestyle factors, like how many heavy coffee drinkers also smoked, the data tipped in coffee’s favor.

A large 2017 review on coffee consumption and human health in the British Medical Journal also found that most of the time, coffee was associated with a benefit, rather than a harm. In examining more than 200 reviews of previous studies, the authors observed that moderate coffee drinkers had less cardiovascular disease, and premature death from all causes, including heart attacks and stroke, than those skipping the beverage. In addition, experts say some of the strongest protective effects may be with Type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and liver conditions such as cirrhosis, liver cancer and chronic liver disease.

The potential benefit from coffee might be from the polyphenols, which are plant compounds that have antioxidant properties, according to Dr. Giuseppe Grosso, an assistant professor in human nutrition at University of Catania in Italy and the lead author of an umbrella review in the Annual Review of Nutrition.

Does the way coffee is prepared matter? Yes. Do you prefer a dark or light roast? Coarse grinding or fine? Arabica or robusta? “All of these different aspects affect the taste, but also affect the compounds within the coffees,” said Neal Freedman, a senior investigator with the National Cancer Institute. “But it’s not clear at all how these different levels of compounds may be related to health.”

Roasting, for example, reduces the amount of chlorogenic acids, but other antioxidant compounds are formed. Espresso has the highest concentration of many compounds because it has less water than drip coffee.

A study in JAMA Internal Medicine found that it didn’t matter if subjects drank one cup or chain-drank eight — regular or decaf — or whether they were fast metabolizers of coffee or slow. They were linked to a lower risk of death from all causes, except with instant coffee, the evidence was weaker. The way you prepare your cup of joe may influence your cholesterol levels, too. “The one coffee we know not suitable to be drinking is the boiled coffee,” said Marilyn C. Cornelis, an assistant professor in preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and co-author of the JAMA Internal Medicine study.

Do all kinds of coffee have the same amount of caffeine? No. Espresso has the highest concentration of caffeine, packing about 70 milligrams into a one-ounce shot, but is consumed in less quantities.

Is coffee addictive? Evidence suggests there can be a reliance on the drink, and tolerance builds over time. Withdrawal symptoms include a headache, fatigue, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and depressed mood. Indeed, caffeine is a psychoactive drug, and coffee is its biggest dietary source.

Read more: Is Coffee Good for You?