1. SILVER & GOLD: Spray Paint Your Food! “Silver pretzels anyone? Or perhaps a golden apple? There’s a new paint spray in town (well in Germany) and it’s totally edible! Called Food Finish, this apparently harmless (and tasteless) edible food varnish spray can make sparkling silver muffins to gold-coated steaks in seconds!”

2. MYSTERIOUS CIRCLES: Up first, Devour by Christopher Jonassen. Can you guess what these are? Look first and of you can’t figure it out the answer is at the bottom of this post.

3. INFLUENCE PEDDLING: How Whole Foods “Primes” You To Shop:

Have you ever been primed? I mean has anyone ever deliberately influenced your subconscious mind and altered your perception of reality without your knowing it? Whole Foods Market, and others, are doing it to you right now.

4. BAR CODING: A History of the Supermarket Barcode:

Thirty-seven years ago… a strange new computer technology entered the supermarket. On June 26, 1974, a white male by the name of Clyde Dawson entered Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. He loaded up his cart with groceries and approached the checkout line. The cashier that day was Sharon Buchanan. At 8:01 a.m., she picked a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum out of his cart and scanned it. The gum has now been immortalized at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. That first scan signified a radical transformation of the supermarket, ushering in the era of the Universal Product Code (U.P.C.)—the nondescript, monochrome rectangle that adorns nearly every retail item we purchase. Today, it’s become a standard for consumer products in the electronic age.

5. UMBRELLAS!! “My new hobby is making creepy shopping lists and dropping them in random peoples’ baskets at Costco.” (Not me, btw.)

6. FOOD SUBSIDIES: A couple informative articles about food subsidies: A. The Inconvenient Truth About Cheap Food and Obesity (It’s Not Farm Subsidies) And B. Surprise! Subsidizing Healthy Food Helps Kids Lose Weight.

7. FEATS OF DARING: Returning Shopping Carts Like a Boss

8. QUITE OLD FOOD: Best Before: A man documents his 90-year-old grandmother’s pantry.

9. MAGNETIC LISTS: Shopping list magnets:

…magnets by Harrington and Squires allow a refrigerator to become one big grocery list while adding pops of colour to your kitchen. A fantastic London letterpress workshop, Harrington and Squires have recently added a set of Spice Magnets to their collection.

9. SELF-CHECKOUTS: Many groceries are rethinking self-checkout lanes:

Ten years after self-checkout lanes debuted in many American supermarkets, some chains are beginning to rethink the option. Beginning this month, Albertsons LLC is removing the self-checkout lanes in all of its 217 stores in seven states. As it remodels stores, Kroger has decided to consider the metro or Euro style of checkout lanes, with one customer line for multiple staffed express lanes vs. self-checkouts.

10. YUMMY DISHES: This recipe aggregator site is great: Check out Punchfork.

11. TASTY INFOVIZ: Finally… taste buds and complementary flavors (a visualization).

Couldn’t figure out what those moonlike circles were in #2? They’re frying pans.

Specimen #1: A completely insane apple dumpling recipe
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/02/apple_dumplings/
I made these New Year’s Eve. Even though I had some champagne that night, I ended up having a butter hangover instead. Awesome. Photo above ©Ree Drummond (Via Fluid Pudding)

Specimen #2: Match & Munch Sandwich Cutters (Set of 4 Puzzle Shapes)
http://www.spoonsisters.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=100&Product_Code=67401
Even though I hate to encourage the cutting off of crusts, these sandwich slicers are pretty cool.

Specimen #3: 7 Foods That Should Never Cross Your Lips
http://www.prevention.com/7foodsthatshouldnever/
Is your food loaded with toxins and chemicals? Prevention magazine has some simple swaps to protect yourself.

Specimen #4: Salinger Grocery Lists to be Published
http://glossynews.com/entertainment/books-newspapers-misc/201001291226/salinger-grocery-lists-to-be-published/
Well, not everyone can be The Onion, but this might give you a chuckle.

Specimen #5: Tacos Exploding In Slow Motion
http://www.youtube.com/v/uyKFKdAREcE
You’re welcome.

Specimen #6: A Collection a Day, 2010
http://collectionaday2010.blogspot.com/
This is just fantastic.

Specimen #7: Hunt for shop nut who smelled staff member’s bum
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2779253/Hunt-for-shop-nut-who-smelled-staff-members-bum.html
I’m about as opposed to The Sun newspaper as I am cutting the crusts off sandwiches, but how can you pass on this story?

That is all.

The French Agency for Food Safety (AFSSA) released a study last week that outlines a number of health benefits to eating organic food.

Photo by www.flickr.com/photos/jdickert/

This comes on the heels of a UK study that said just the opposite. According to the AFSSA study, organic foods are not only more nutritious, but they’re safer. Here are the study’s main findings:

• Organic fruits and veggies contain more iron, magnesium, antioxidants and micronutrients.
• Organic animal products are higher in heart-healthy polyunsaturated fatty acids, and cows raised on grass have a higher muscle mass, which means leaner meat.
• This was the most interesting finding, in my opinion: “94–100% of organic food does not contain any pesticide residues.” This is huge. Not only are pesticides hard on the environment, certain pesticides are linked to cancer and other health issues.

The study itself can be read viewed by downloading this PDF: ASD_Lairon_2009.pdf.

Want to learn more about organic?

• Organic food topic at The New York Times
• How Stuff Works: Organic food
• Organic foods: Are they safer? More nutritious? — from The Mayo Clinic
• The organic food entry at Wikipedia
• OrganicFoodee.com: An organic food and organic lifestyle magazine
• Agricultural Marketing Service: National Organic Program

‘The mental effort that you’re using is mental effort you do not have to keep yourself in check — controlling your desire for chocolate cake rather than fruit salad, for example,’ explained lead researcher Yuval Rottenstreich, an associate professor of management at Duke University.

Rottenstreich stressed, however, that it was still smarter to head to the supermarket with a list in hand than without — just read it back and cross out any sugary or fatty items that may have snuck in.”