Food Delusion

It is claimed if you put a frog in water and slowly raise the heat, it will soon be the end of the frog. For the record, the frog tale is a myth. Maybe the same is true of alternate fake foods.

Alt-Foods — These seem to be all the trend. As a guy who has changed his diet, I STILL LOVE meat and am the first to admit there is a world of difference when we try to make alternates. Today is LIGHT-HEARTED though

I don’t get too engaged over the alternate foods. It seems the calculus is pretty simple for me. We need protein to live. There are lots of sources whether you prefer plants or animals. I am partial to the plants since that is what all the other animals we might eat prefer anyhow.

CORRECTION & OBSERVATION

My last post was titled “Stay Calm and Carrion” One of my subscribers, a retired pharmacist, flagged something I got wrong. I editted the original post to correct the error but wanted to recap. While aspirin is TECHNICALLY an NSAID it has been around for a LONG TIME. All modern NSAIDs starting with ibuprofen work to relieve inflammation by a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT chemical mechanism. While aspirin is technically an NSAID, it is more accurately an old way of treating inflammation which works by a completely different mechanism. Thanks John!

An intrepid reader was shocked by the unusual creature the pangolin. They shared their research about the pangolin noting the scales on the animal are made from the same stuff as our fingernails. One of these weeks I am going to explore biomimicry. That will be a fun place to talk about this sort of nonsense. Thanks Anne K who you can visit at

CAFÉ ANNE

The Setup & Inspiration

I recently had a fun chat with one of my sons. Our conversation whether in person, by phone, or by chat is always a blast. This is true of all three of my sons. I have been blessed in the children's lottery. This far-reaching chat was running out of steam as the Denver Nuggets were moving one step closer to a victory against the Los Angeles Lakers. I spent a little time on the trend of non-meat substitute proteins. A while back I wrote a post about the efforts of science to make it seem like meat. That post was titled “Heme”. While a fun read, and a once in a while substitute, an Impossible Burger is not quite a burger.

All of us have been in a texting interchange and the conversation is closed by a clever comment, photo, or meme. My son offered this photo with a great caption. It was immediately clear it was time to change the subject :)

“Hard to believe they will ever make something quite like this in a lab”

Hype Versus Reality

I am not particularly nostalgic. I am a firm believer that things are true until they are not. I am not expecting a steak to be made in a bioreactor anytime soon that eliminates the resource intensity and perhaps even the animal from the process. There just are a lot of steps from A to Z and we are quite early in the alphabet for now.

Inspiration Arrives!

The rise of TV like The Food Channel, and myriad websites focused on food and its preparation eventually led to one of my favorite yet off-color expressions — food porn. It is a silly expression but those photos of the impossible glistening turkey on Facebook fit the bill. While it wasn’t staged, my son’s photo of his steak sure looks great! So the theme today is delusion and it is brought on by that steak photo. The challenge of course is one nice picture of a steak does not a post make! Never fear, a bit of inquiry led to lots of examples of delusion!

How Do You Start Your Day?

I did a fun post a while back titled “Breakfastaganza”. While I was confident I had presented a wonderful “most important meal of the day”, my poll asked my readers what is the most important part of breakfast. Coffee managed to win in a landslide! So now it is time for another example of food delusion.

Life is Short, Don’t Drink Mushroom Coffee

I do not mind an Impossible Burger. I am not delusional and don’t claim it is the same as a great burger. It can scratch the itch though on an occasional basis. Example #2 is a completely different matter. When I polled my readers regarding breakfast, coffee was the essential item in the eyes of 88% of you. My educated guess is none of you are drinking mushroom coffee. Furthermore, I hope that for most of you, it is not a thing. I wonder what the challenge of coffee is that has caused the best and brightest to seek an option. We already have all grades of milk (skim, 1%, 2%, whole, half-and-half, and heavy cream). Alternative kinds of milk such as soy, almond, and oat are more newish options. All of this against the backdrop of light roast, medium roast, dark roast, espresso, shots, and whatnot. While I admit to liking almond milk, I am sympathetic to the dairy industry denying it is milk at all. For many years, the dairy industry pursued a strategy to ban the use of the milk name and sought the more palatable nut juice. Truth in advertising for the bovine lactation advocates. All of this is silly of course. On the other hand, I consider the term mushroom coffee to be absurd. I guess no matter how preposterous, we can get some insight from well-reasoned reviews.

I must admit, a wonder drink that yields focus, attitude, and energy seems an impressive trifecta. I may have missed the marketing campaign but I do not recall a warm beverage able to deliver attitude.

A long time ago, I did a post making light of 5-star reviews at Domino’s, McDonalds, and Burger King. It was lighthearted. After reading some reviews of this product I FINALLY REALIZED it is ACTUALLY COFFEE with some mushroom powder in it. So what we have here is coffee with mushrooms. So I now conclude this product is like methadone for the heroin addict. I had to read some of the 30K reviews that came in with an average review of 4.9 stars. Makes me want to try mushroom coffee — kidding.

Read the review. Emily L. (1) is not Willy Wonka (2) doesn’t believe in BS and (3) is a RYZE girl for life

Finally, for those of you on the fence, I will leave you with this yummy recipe for mushroom coffee pancakes. Look close — it appears oat milk is a handy substitute for buttermilk.

All of these profile pictures of the reviewers feel like Instagram influencers. I wonder if, within the next six months we can get to these sorts of profile photos on Substack Notes. Hooray for social media. Not many people look this fresh when grabbing a cup of joe. It’s not the end of the world — but you can see it from here :) I am guessing Jess has an apron for when she makes mushroom coffee pancakes so that white dress can stay pristine.

Fake Milk

For the record, I don’t necessarily care what each of you drink or what you use to change the tint of your coffee. I know from polling my audience not to get in between their morning commitment to caffeine loading. I happen to be in the almond milk camp. I buy it unsweetened with a bit of vanilla flavoring. Unlike regular milk, these alternate kinds of milk need to be shaken. I have friends who drink oat milk but it is not a good option for me and my diabetic tendency. Oat milk is far and away the highest in carbohydrates of the alt-milks. I think good old-fashioned cow udder milk has about 6X the carbs and oat milk has about 3X the carbs as almond milk. I think the thing I miss the most in my food journey is probably cheese. I used to be a regular at the cheese bar. I still have it in moderation, mostly wet feta in brine these days. My food habits have not traveled yet to fake cheese and probably never will. I hope no one starts making cheese out of oat or almond milk. If you really want almonds with your cheese buy one of those ultra-processed cheese balls. I remember my Mom buying these things when people were coming over. This one I found a “family” recipe for.

“Mama’s Christmas Cheese Ball” is made with Velveeta, cream cheese, extra sharp cheddar, and chopped pecans. While I try to follow punctuation guidelines, capitalizing Velveeta doesn’t seem worthwhile. Maybe the mothers of the 50s thru 70s realized milk-based and nut-based stuff go together so there is no need to get uptight about almond milk after all.

Drop The Mic

This mystery photo is up to my readers to resolve. The delusional substitution is on the readers to resolve in the comments. My only hint is it would be inconceivable to me to order this sausage under any circumstance. Yes, for the record we are talking about sausage (channeling Allen Iverson).

My Opinion

Chemistry is still in its early history. We have labored to make all sorts of synthetic versions of things. Ikea furniture certainly has some wood in it but lots of other stuff also! There is a lot of angst about sugar so the solution is to formulate alternate sweeteners like Splenda. Perhaps moderating consumption is a good answer? A little more water and a lot less Diet Coke or Mountain Dew. There seems to be breaking science that portends that Splenda breaks down DNA. Now THAT is an unfortunate side-effect! Life evolved on this planet and the plants had a nearly 2 billion-year head start on the animals. Even the animals we have largely constructed (cattle, port, and poultry) are built on plants. The distortion, of course, is we need purpose-built plants to keep up with their appetites (and ours). My sense is there is little consequence healthwise in eating a mixture of things. I would imagine the problem begins and end with the extremes of behavior. Raising a newborn chick to a frozen fryer in about five weeks seems extreme. Removing cattle from a ranch and essentially force-feeding them 3600 pounds of grain on a feedlot to speed up the last 600 pounds of weight gain sounds extreme. I imagine if someone develops a process to grow a head of cauliflower in a weekend I will feel the same way. There will always be a fine line between progress and extreme and we all get to decide where the line lies for us.

The Poll & Music

Instead of a poll today, I have some questions for you. Pick one or all or just sound off with your own rant.

1. Are all of the alternate foods something you ignore, embrace, or get worked up about? — I embrace the options and hope they bother someone :)

2. I love talking about food. Do you (a) love food (b) just see it as nutritional or (c) something in between — I love food

3. I like to focus in regards to food on (a) the planet (b) my health (c) my enjoyment — I’m a simultaneous a, b & c

I’m not sure this song is exactly about food but it is definitely a head-banger.