Gigabiting

Funny, you don’t look Jewish…

There are roughly 6.5 million Jews in the U.S., just about 2% of the population, according to the Census Bureau. Maybe a million of them keep kosher. So why is it that nearly half of all the food in American supermarkets is kosher-certified?

Pivotal kosher moments. Read entire article.

Halal is to Muslims what kosher is to Jews.

Like the Jewish system of kashrut, halal has its roots in scripture. The Koran defines the Muslim system of dining, proscribing what and can not be eaten (most notably pork and alcohol) and the ritual slaughter of animals for consumption.

After years of ignoring the halal sector, there is a surge of interest from mainstream food producers and chefs.

The world’s Muslim population numbers 1.6 billion, and they are a younger and (in some places) wealthier group than ever before. The market for halal food is estimated to be more than $600 billion annually. This buying power has transformed a formerly small-scale local and regional network into one that has captured the attention of non-Muslim multinationals. The food manufacturer Nestlé, international supermarket chain Tesco, and fast food giant McDonald’s are now the biggest players in the halal economy. Read entire article.

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Today’s post was was going to be about chicken soup.

I had it all planned. I was going to show you a graph from the Centers for Disease Control illustrating the way the flu season peaks in the month of February. I had collected entertaining anecdotes about Jewish penicillin and a charming photograph of someone’s grandmother ladling it up from a steaming soup kettle. I had the results from a University of Nebraska Medical Center study documenting chicken soup’s ability to reduce neutrophils cells, which trigger the inflammatory responses that make cold sufferers feel so rotten.

Then  J.D. Salinger died. Read entire article.

There’s fair trade and organic coffee, shade-grown, and even bird-friendly. You can drink it in a recycled cup with organic soy milk and sugar from plants that haven’t been genetically altered.

But still… carbon neutral coffee? Read entire article.

We saw it happen to food trucks. Those street corner fixtures, branded colloquially as “roach coaches,” became food world darlings in 2009. Instead of withered hot dogs of questionable origins, suddenly you could find pastured-beef burgers on brioche buns, duck-filled dumplings, goat cheese cheesecake, and sustainably-harvested fish tacos. The jangly tune of a Mr. Softee truck was replaced by Twitter tweets announcing truck locations and daily specials. Combining food-savvy, tech-savvy, and political correctness, a new breed of entrepreneurs elevated humble and much-maligned street food into a full-fledged culinary phenomenon. Read entire article.