Healing Foods Pyramid is sickmaking

December 17, 2005

Never say never, but I never get sick. And according to the University of Michigan’s Healing Foods Pyramid, the reason I never get sick is that it seems I primarily eat ‘healing foods’. That, in and of itself is sickmaking.

The smart folks at the Uni emphasize:

* Healing Foods
- Only foods known to have healing benefits or essential nutrients are included
* Plant-based choices
- Plant foods create the base and may be accented by animal foods
* Variety & balance
- Balance and variety of color, nutrients, and portion size celebrate abundance
* Support of a healthful environment
- Our food, and we in turn, reflect the health of our earth
* Mindful eating
- Truly savor, enjoy and focus on what you are eating

(spotted on: Slashfood)

technorati tags: health, nutrition, food, food pyramids,

debra at 15:34 | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us

Chaat Pack for street nibbles

December 16, 2005

Here is a chaat array being sold on the streets of Delhi. Check out the packaging stuffed in between the sacks of chaat.

You buy some chaat, the vendor mixes it up with some piquante sauce, and you’re good to go.

This is an example of how a food manufacturer together with a forward-thinking food designer used street food to inspire a new product for its street food-appreciative market in India. The chips are flavoured and (loosely) styled to reference ‘chaat’, a term describing all manner of street food snacks. If you look closely on the packaging, you’ll see an image of the traditional street chaat packaging on the left side. Within 10 metres of the stand where I photographed this package, there were five different traditional chaat vendors selling proper chaat.

Packaging for chaat is usually a bag made from old newspaper, a neatly cut piece of recycled paper, or a leaf plate. This bag was made from some terribly interesting literature about bonds, you can see the imprint of the peas (and the grease in which they were deep-fried) absorbed through the paper. Grease shadows, or oily pea portraits, if you will.

In this image you see a stack of paper left on the street as an offering to the gods of the recycled chaat-bag-makers.

debra at 9:16 | Comments (4) | post to del.icio.us

Chaat Street, Indian chips mimic street food golgappa

December 13, 2005

Nine months ago I was in Delhi and not in the Polar Circle at midwinter, and it was there that I was introduced to golgappa, one of the top ten amazing things you could ever hope to put into your mouth. The more I re-peruse the images of food from ElBulliFatDuckAlineaMoto and the likes, the more I can’t get this unpretentious street food out of my mind.

Golgappa is a deep-fried pastry pillow, neither sweet nor savoury, which is served up in a most intimate way. The street vendor pokes a hole in the deep-fried puff, gives you a metal or leafenware bowl and then asks you if you are ‘ready’.

Ready? you say, *lifting one eyebrow.

And he takes that as a ‘yes’.

The vendor proceeds to ladle a liquid into the golgappa that quite strongly resembles brackish pond water. In actuality it is a tasty, thirst-quenching tamarind drink with crispy puffs and bits of melon or turnip floating around in it. Neither sweet nor savoury, this soupy mixture is best described as ‘refreshing’.

The vendor then hands you an about-to-drip-and-disintegrate golgappa filled with the liquid and you have to pop the entire thing into your mouth where it implodes instantly, crunch and rinse, and you can do nothing but laugh and sop up the dribble on the shoulder of your friend’s blouse.

By this time the vendor has already started to dish up another one, (pop, crush, rinse and swallow) and another one, and another one. The idea is that you are popping golgappa into your mouth as fast as you can until you beg him to stop by motioning with your tamarindily dripping fingers. A recent study on street food has proved that ninety-four percent of first-time eaters of golgappa say ‘wowwy’ in response to the experience.

How wise it is then that Frito-Lay should be inspired by golgappa for their Street Chaat line of chips in India. Poke-free. Drip-free.

* - Poetic license. I can’t lift only one eyebrow.

debra at 18:04 | Comments (8) | post to del.icio.us