For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

This week the new “Dirty Dozen” list of foods with the most pesticides was released, as did the new sunscreen guidelines (which may or may not be useful, depending on how you interpret the data). We also have a double dose of BS this week, one from KFC and one from Buenos Aires of all places.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Digg. I also share links at Twitter (@summertomato) and the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• Apples may top pesticide list, but everyone agrees on one point <<Pesticides are really scary, but if you can’t afford organic or don’t have access, not eating fruits and vegetables should scare you even more. (Los Angeles Times)
• Is There an Optimal Ratio of PUFAs, MUFAs, and Saturated Fats? <<I love this analysis on how you should choose fats in your diet. (Nutrition Over Easy)
• Buy a half-gallon of sugar water at KFC, give a dollar to diabetes research <<BS of the week. This is one of the most epic marketing FAILs ever. KFC appears to have no idea what causes diabetes. (Grist)
• Salt shakers disappear from Buenos Aires tables <<BS of the week II. It’s an interesting decision to do an experiment on an entire country. We’ll see how it turns out, but I suspect there will be a little if any benefit. (CNN)
• New sunscreen labels not just for the beach, as skin cancer rates show <<The sunniest states have some of the lowest rates of melanoma. Some argue that people there use more sunscreen, but I think it’s more likely that vitamin D is playing a protective role. Thoughts? (Los Angeles Times)
• I Don’t Want to Get Big and Bulky: Fitness Marketing and its Effect on Women <<I love this article on the myths of women and weight lifting. My physique completely changed for the better when I added free weights and cut down on cardio. (JCD Fitness)
• U.S. food politics in action <<If you’re interested in the politics of why we eat so poorly, this map makes it pretty clear where the money is flowing and why change is hard. (Food Politics)
• Life expectancy for women is slipping overall; your results may vary <<Great source of information on health in the U.S. Data geeks, enjoy. (Los Angeles Times)
• No-Cook Recipes <<New to cooking? Scared of the stove? Recipes that don’t require any actual cooking are a great way to start in the kitchen. (Food52)
• New Potato & Pea Salad from Melissa Clark <<A celebration of the spring pea. Enjoy! (White On Rice)

What inspired you this week?

Wild Alaskan Salmon

Natalie Mann is the founder of Ambrolio Foods, a website dedicated to delicious and healthy foods. A nutritionist with a degree from Cornell University, Natalie has spent decades working in the food industry. As a parent with two sons, she also has firsthand experience with finicky eaters, dairy allergies, and gluten intolerance.

5 Tips for Buying the Freshest & Most Sustainable Salmon

by Natalie Mann

Buying salmon used to be easy.

Fresh-fished salmon was abundant, prices were reasonable, and warnings about overfishing, water pollution, and PCBs weren’t making headlines.

In 2011, all that has changed.

More than half of the salmon purchased in the United States comes from fish raised in man-made farms. Prices are much higher, and sustainability and safety are pressing concerns.

To lend insight into your next salmon purchase, here’s a quick guide for buying the freshest and most sustainable salmon possible.

5 Tips For Buying The Best Salmon

1. Fresh fish, including salmon, should NOT smell.

If the fish counter and surrounding area smells ‘fishy,’ walk away and don’t make a purchase.

If you don’t detect any odors at the counter, but your salmon smells fishy when you open the package at home, return it.

2. Fresh salmon should glisten, not look dull.

Salmon should look bright and shiny. Its flesh should be firm, clean, and evenly colored. Natural white marbling on the fish is an indicator of good omega-3 fatty acids. (See photo)

3. Wild Alaskan salmon is the most eco-friendly.

Many resources, including the Environmental Defense Fund, cite wild Alaskan salmon as the most sustainable choice. Fresh, frozen at sea, and canned salmon from Alaska are all good options.

4. Fresh, wild Alaskan salmon is a seasonal item.

In Alaska, the salmon fishing season starts in May and ends by late-October. Outside of this time you will only find good smoked or canned salmon.

5. Farmed Atlantic salmon should be avoided.

Farmed salmon are raised in large, densely packed pens that pollute surrounding waters with waste and chemicals. In addition, farmed salmon are more prone to illness in crowded net-pens, and antibiotics are often used to treat disease.

Farmed salmon have elevated levels of PCBs. The Environmental Defense Fund has issued a warning to limit the consumption of Atlantic salmon. This warning pertains to everyone, but is particularly important for young children. See the EDF site for specific details.

Conclusions

• In 2011, our salmon choices impact our oceans as well as our bodies.
• At the seafood counter, ask questions. Farmed or wild? Previously frozen? How fresh – delivered when?
• At restaurants, ask if the salmon is delivered daily and whether it’s wild or farmed.

What do you consider when buying salmon?

I held office hours last week to discuss the USDA’s new replacement for the food pyramid, MyPlate. I also answer several reader’s questions about food and nutrition.

To learn more about participating in future broadcasts check out Summer Tomato Live.

Go here to see previous episodes.

Questions and comments are welcome below.

For The Love of Food

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

All in all, today’s links are really depressing. Industrial food will be the death of us. Luckily Stephen Colbert is around to make it funny.

Want to see all my favorite links? Be sure to follow me on on Digg. I also share links at Twitter (@summertomato) and the Summer Tomato Facebook fan page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Links of the week

• How we ruined the tomato <<I knew there was a reason my first taste of a real summer tomato had such a huge impact on me. I’m looking forward to reading this book. (Salon)
• Fish Oil and Depression: Beyond the Headlines <<Great scientific sleuthing here showing that there is a potential role of omega-3 fatty acids in your diet and depression. (Nutrition Over Easy)
• Sedentary work and obesity: another view <<While we’re calling out bad headlines, here Marion Nestle explains why it is food, not our jobs that is making us fat. (Food Politics)
• Roundup Birth Defects: Regulators Knew World’s Best-Selling Herbicide Causes Problems, New Report Finds <<BS of the week. This makes me angry. Oh how industrial food is bad for you, let me count the ways. One… (Huffington Post)
• Chicken May Contain Some Arsenic <<Two… (New York Times)
• Random USDA Testing Finds 34 Unapproved Pesticides on Cilantro <<Three… (TreeHugger)
• BPA: Confused about bisphenol A? Here’s why <<Four…. (Los Angeles Times)
• Rise of the Superbacteria <<Five… this one is really scary. Are you depressed yet? (Newsweek)
• Tabbouleh <<I love tabbouleh, and this recipe looks very authentic. (David Lebovitz)
• Colbert Objects to MyPlate: ‘Americans Don’t Use Plates!’ <<And always here to cheer you up again, is Stephen Colbert (Eater)

What inspired you this week?

Sweetest Strawberries Ever

I don’t usually buy a lot of fruit. It’s not that I don’t like it, I think it’s wonderful. But it tends to be much more expensive than vegetables. And it’s also hard to get soft fruit home without smashing it.

But today, I couldn’t help myself.

Similar to last week, the cherries were just way too good to pass up.

Ranier Cherries

But I also realized that I hadn’t even tried any of the newer fruit in the market, like these amazing blueberries. I sampled a few, and knew some would be coming home with me.

Delicious Blueberries

Then there were the plums. I love plums, but like tomatoes they are one of those fruits that are so rarely good that you forget what real ones taste like. Until you try one.

Fruits

I thought it was a bit early in the season for plums to be good, but I was wrong. These were as sweet and luscious as I’d ever tasted, and of course I had to get some.

Virctoria Heirloom Rhubarb

Amazingly, I still had to restrict myself from buying strawberries, even more cherries, and also some peaches I found that were unseasonably delicious. But I did have to save some of my money to get vegetables.

Radishes

I’m mostly enjoying salads these days. I like them with French radishes, carrots, sugar peas, spring onions and usually some quinoa or lentils.

Beautiful Treviso

I’m not ready to buy them yet, but summer vegetables are becoming more common as well.

Early Summer Squash

The strangest thing I found at the market this week was fresh Japanese ume plums, which I’ve only ever seen pickled. I might pick some up next week so if any of you have a recipe I’d love to hear it.

Ume Plums

Today’s purchases (~$50):

• Cherries (Bella Viva Farms)
• Blueberries (Triple Delight)
• Flavorosa plums (Twin Girls Farm)
• Spring salad mix (Star Route Farms)
• French radishes (Heirloom Organic Gardens)
• Asparagus – last week! (Zuckerman’s Farm)
• New potatoes (Zuckerman’s Farm)
• Red Russian kale (Dirty Girl Produce)
• Green shallots (Dirty Girl Produce)
• Mediterranean cucumbers (Happy Quail Farms)
• Whole chicken (Marin Sun Farms)