Clover Noob

Baby bunny. So cute. Second pic including a young Knockout Rose bush is for scale but not sure it accomplishes that. Regardless, we shall call him/her Peter. Obviously.

"What's so fab about it?"

Willy Wonka: Don't you know what this is?
Violet Beauregarde: By gum, it's gum.
Willy Wonka: [happily, but sarcastically] Wrong! It's the most amazing, fabulous, sensational gum in the whole world.
Violet Beauregarde: What's so fab about it?
Willy Wonka: This little piece of gum is a three-course dinner.
Mr. Salt: Bull.
Willy Wonka: No, roast beef. But I haven't got it quite right yet.

So Scientists at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich are using microcapsules (originally developed to provide a way of delivering drugs to specific parts of the digestive system) to make the idea born in Roald Dahl's fantastic imagination a reality. For realz, folks. What's so fab about it? The kid in me says: EVERYTHING. But the critic in me fears that Slugworth is involved. It's probably his kind of corruption that's landed Boston Creme Pie flavored, low-calorie yogurt on the supermarket shelves. Ugh.

Science correspondent Richard Gray for The Telegraph reports:

Some of the capsules could be filled with flavouring for tomato soup that would break open on contact with saliva, while tougher capsules would contain the flavour for roast beef that would break open as the gum is chewed. A final flavour for blueberry pie could be packaged in capsules that require vigorous chewing to burst. Professor Dave Hart, a food scientist at the Institute has already developed a boiled sweet that uses different layers to provide changes in flavour, but he hopes the new technology could help produce more dramatic results.

He said: "There are a number of groups here at the Institute who have been working with these capsules to provide a new way of delivering drugs to the colon, which means they have to be able to survive passing through the rest of the digestive system. Researchers in America have been looking at using these capsules as a way of delivering flavour in food. So using it in this way would allow us to provide new experiences for people when eating. Wonka's fantasy concoction has been nothing but a dream for millions of kids across the world. But science and technology is changing the future of food, and these nanoparticles may hold the answer to creating a three course gourmet gum. Tiny nanostructures within the gum would contain each of the different flavours. These would be broken up and released upon contact with saliva or after a certain amount of chewing – providing a sequential taste explosion as you chew harder."

Microscopic capsules, which measure less than a few millionths of millimetre in size, containing flavours have been pioneered by Professor Tony Dinsmore, from the department of physics at the University of Massachusetts. He developed a technique that allows molecules of particular flavours, vitamins or even living cells to be captured inside the capsules before they can be incorporated into the ingredients for food.

The capsules produce an oily shell around the molecules, preventing them from mixing with other ingredients and so allowing the flavours to be kept separate. Professor Hart, who has been working with the National Science and Engineering Competition to develop new ways of providing different flavours in sweets, hopes this can be adapted to recreate Willy Wonka's famous chewing gum.

And now, a some words of wisdom from the Oompa Loompas:

"Gum chewing's fine when it's once in a while -
It stops you from smoking and brightens your smile.
But it's repulsive, revolting and wrong -
Chewing and chewing alllll daaaaay long!
The wa-ay that a co-oww does!
Oompa. Loompa. Doo-pa-dee da -
Given good manners, you will go far."

"You'd never eat 16 packs of sugar"

Once again, the New York City Health Department does a nice job of reminding us how unhealthy certain "food like substances" are. Blehhh.

Win a Copy of The Food Matters Cookbook

Grub Street is giving away a copy of The Food Matters Cookbook by one of our fave foodies: Mark Bittman. Enter to win by emailing 200 (creative and articulate) words or less about which dish or favorite food matters the most to you by 5:00 P.M. on October 11th, 2010. Official rules here.

Toxic Sludge Reaches the Danube

After completely devastating life in the Marcel River, the toxic red sludge (a waste product of making aluminum) that burst out of a metals plant reservoir in Ajka, a town 100 miles southwest of Budapest, has now reached the western branch of the second longest river in Europe - where it will devastate more life and lives than we can possibly imagine as it continues towards the Black Sea.

Read the latest updates on pH levels and other awfulness here.

Soda Cup + Chicken Caddy = Ultimate Convenience??

If you thought inventions like the Candwich and crispycones were the ultimate convenience foods, think again. This "all-in-one" creation has been around since 2008 but we here at JustSaying only got wind of it today so... Eww. Read more here.

Now THIS is Brilliant

Have you ever walked by an old gumball machine and thought: Why is that machine filled up with useless cr*p made in factories in China instead of little seed and compost grenades that I could toss into that vacant lot over there to diversify the plants around here??

Me neither. But I wish I had. Am and thrilled that someone did.

Greenaid, a landscape beautification project started by the Commonstudio design firm, is doing it. They call the little eco-grenades "Seedbombs." They are packed with compost and regionally tailored seeds for wildflowers and grasses. Creators suggest chucking them into a vacant lot or cramming them into a crack in the sidewalk. Learn more here.

(Thnx again, Singleton)

"One kid at a time"

Received this video from my source extraordinaire, Tim Singleton, within the same hour that my Sustainable Agriculture teacher played it for us during a lecture. When forces this powerful collide, I have no choice but to post. Enjoy the refreshing clarity with which this eleven year old discusses the American food system.

Creative

'Green Box' Product Promo (Pizza Box) from Green Box on Vimeo.

Unemployed Americans Not Interested in Farm Work

Last week, I was speaking to an unemployed friend about a now-unconventional work option: farming. Friend elect wasn't super interested in the idea. We spoke specifically about WWOOFing, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, but it seems that the whole nation is talking about the topic - the lack of interest or willingness Americans have in farm work.

The AP reports:

As the economy tanked during the past two years, a debate has raged over whether immigrants are taking jobs that Americans want. Here, amid the sweltering vineyards of the largest farm state, the answer is no.

And the few unemployed Americans who apply through official channels usually don't stay on in the fields, a point comedian Stephen Colbert — dressed as a field hand — has alluded to in recent broadcasts on Comedy Central.

"It's just not something that most Americans are going to pack up their bags and move here to do," said farmer Steve Fortin, who pays $10.25 an hour to foreign workers to trim strawberry plants for six weeks each summer at his nursery near the Nevada border. He has spent $3,000 this year ensuring domestic workers have first dibs on his jobs in the sparsely populated stretch of the state, advertising in newspapers and on an electronic job registry.

But he hasn't had any takers, and only one farmer in the state hired anyone using a little-known, little-used program to hire foreign farmworkers the legal way — by applying for guest worker visas.

Since January, California farmers have posted ads for 1,160 farmworker positions open to U.S. citizens and legal residents seeking work.

Only 233 people applied after being linked with the jobs through unemployment offices in California, Texas, Nevada and Arizona. One grower brought on 36 U.S citizens or legal permanent residents. No one else hired any.

Hmph. Here's Colbert's address to Congress:

Most Americans simply don't apply for jobs harvesting fruits and vegetables in California, where one of every eight people is out of work, according to government data for a federal seasonal farmworker program analyzed by The Associated Press.