No, actually it's from professors and PhD candidates who have studied this stuff as a career, both in Food Science and Animal Science. It's from years of food science and chemistry education.

If NH4OH was present in your meat when you buy it, the pH would be higher than normal meat. That's just science, dude.

-chef

" Don't you think there's a massive difference between eating a cockscomb, or chicken feet, and eating a chicken McNugget."

Not really. The chicken McNugget is a great scientific accomplishment. Not only is the mechanically separated meat extreme efficient, the binders and additives are primarily derivatives of corn. They can turn corn in fuel to drive the trucks, sweeteners for the nugget (and soda) and highly branched starches that allow you to stick it all together.

Also, chicken McNuggets actually taste good!

-chef

4 chicken mcnuggets have 12 grams of fat (18% of the recommended daily amount), and that is without the dipping sauce.

I wonder how many people eat just 4.

Made me think about a big thick slice of fatty pork on a bun called a Pig Mac.

Want tacos?

<http://www.ksl.com/?sid=19748145&nid=1014&title=tacocopter-would-deliver-tacos-via-unmanned-drone&s_cid=featured-4/

I haven't seen King Corn, but I've followed a lot of the information about the modern corn industry. Starting with Omnivore's Dilemma, I became really interested in that whole world.

As much as I'm fully supportive of advances in Food Science, the agricultural side of things has some major issues in regards to long-term environmental health. The water-intensive farming practices on agronomic crops is troublesome. The impact of GMOs on native flora and fauna and the migration of genes to natural fields is bothersome. And the unknown health implications are a little unsettling. Read up on the StarLink Corn story from the 90s. Basically one of the transgenetic genes creates a protein (Cry) and a bunch of people had allergic reactions to the products. But further testing was inconclusive. To me, just the chance of something like that hitting the consumer market should have stalled approval for a decade.

What I love to see is companies like Annie's Organics who basically apply modern food safety to products grown organically. IMO, if you're buying organic for the health aspects, you're not really spending your money wisely. The data is all over the place for detectable pesticide residues and nutrient content. Even if there is less Vitamin C in a conventional orange, you can just buy another orange for the same price of one organic orange! I think buying organic (or natural, sustainable, etc) is more a statement about how you want the earth to be treated in growing your food.

-chef

"Statistically, I would bet food allergies, gluten and lactose intolerance and that kind of thing are through the roof."

Or just more people *think* they have allergies more than they ever had. How many kids did you go to school with that couldn't eat gluten? Now how many schools are packed full of gluten-free kids? Did the genetic makeup of a population change over one generation? Or has a medical issue simply become a fad?

It's like when I read anti-dairy people saying that "we aren't meant to breakdown lactose." When that is completely untrue. Unless you are seriously lactose intolerant, you possess the necessary genes in your DNA to code for the lactase enzyme. That's evolution, baby. And I know from first hand experience working in a dairy plant with unlimited access to milk that EVERYONE has a specific tolerance for dairy. Mine is about four servings of milk and then its BOOM! Fart Master!

"Food has also become fashion, which means the days of indiscriminate consumers eating anything marked "cheese", or "beef" are over."

Oh cheese. It's is funny to me how the "fashion" of artisan cheese is booming from the "foodie" contingent, especially here in Oregon. Yet the science and technology that goes into cheese making makes Pink Slime seem like child's play! The coolest and most interesting food processing process out there because it essentially involves purposely making food rancid!

-chef

"Aren't we taught as kids that the Native Americans were responsible stewards of the earth because they left no part of the buffalo behind?"

Lol, I used that exact same comparison! Greats minds and all that, right? :o)

" Not just for taste, but a distrust of your own municipal water sources additives."

Last I heard there's pretty much no regulations on what goes into bottled water. Apparently one company collects their "spring water" from next to a superfund site.