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Tag: food and drink

  • The Best Coffee Subscriptions to Keep You Wired

    The Best Coffee Subscriptions to Keep You Wired

    A cup of coffee in the morning is not just about the caffeine. It’s a ceremony to start your day. There’s the whir of beans grinding, the rich smell as it brews—even waiting for your finished cup is a part of the fun. Until you run out of coffee. That’s when you remember the caffeine. Coffee. Coffee now.

    To avoid ending up in line at the grocery store in your pajamas, get a coffee subscription. The internet is awash in services that will bring coffee to your door. You can choose how often, select your favorite roasts, or go with the roaster’s choice to experiment with new blends and expand your coffee palette. I’ve been testing dozens of coffee subscription services since 2020, these are the best I’ve tried.

    Be sure to check our other coffee buying guides, including the Best Espresso Machines, Best Cold-Brew Coffee Makers, Best Latte and Cappuccino Machines, and Best Coffee Grinders.

    Updated October 2024: We’ve updated our experiences with several subscriptions and added some more details on how we test.

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    There are two kinds of coffee subscription providers: roasters and retailers.

    Roasters are cafés, coffee roasteries, and small-batch producers who buy the raw beans from farmers and roast them to perfection. By buying from a roaster, you’re directly supporting the people who make your favorite coffees; there’s no middleman between you and your coffee. The downside is you won’t have as broad a selection available. Roasters sell only their own coffee, but that often means special blends and single origins are available from a roaster that you can’t get from a retailer.

    Retailers are coffee subscription providers who buy their beans from roasters then ship them to you. That means they will often have a much broader selection of coffees available (from multiple brands) to ship to your doorstep. The downside is that since you’re not buying directly from a roaster, which means the coffee may not be as fresh (this is where this guide comes in, we can tell you how fresh they are)

    Both roasters and retailers sell great coffee. This guide contains a mix of both.

    Subscription Beans Vs. Locally Roasted Beans

    These subscription services all produce killer coffee beans, and they all taste great. But if you can get great coffee roasted locally delivered to you, do it. Look up your local coffee roasters, or visit your favorite coffee shop and ask where they get their beans. Ordering locally helps minimizes the environmental impact of coffee, which, let’s be honest, is pretty big. It’s a fun way to explore when you’re traveling too. The best coffee I’ve ever had came from small roasters in towns I was visiting. Even if you don’t live on the road, it’s fun to explore different shops when you do travel.

    To test these subscriptions, we tried a variety of beans from each service, both our own picks and any curated options. We brewed each bag in different ways to see which beans were best suited to which brewing method. I tend to brew espresso, mokapot, french press, pour over, and Turkish or cowboy coffee to get a sense of how each coffee performs at different grinds. These five cover the spectrum of grinds well. It’s worth doing the same if you have access to different brewing methods, especially if you opt for a subscription that offers a lot of variety. A roast that makes a great shot of espresso does not necessarily make the best pour-over coffee and vice versa. Remember to take notes as well. Some of these services offer a way to do this on the site, which is handy, though a paper notebook works well for me. If you’d like some more pointers on brewing, be sure to read our guide to brewing better coffee at home.

    Scott Gilbertson

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  • The Best Food Dehydrators to Level Up Your Snack Game

    The Best Food Dehydrators to Level Up Your Snack Game

    All dehydrators were tested with the same ingredients with similar results in drying times, mouthfeel, and taste. And all but the Sahara required at least 30 minutes of “smoke out” prior to the first use to rid the dehydrator of factory fumes. The manufacturer manuals suggested doing this in a well-ventilated space. I ended up using my deck for several of the models, as I didn’t want those fumes in the house.

    I was most excited to make beef jerky in the dehydrators, but be aware that USDA safe food handling rules include cooking the meat to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit before dehydrating, a process to avoid foodborne illness. I used this method for my first foray into making beef jerky. And it’s that extra safety step that produced a less-than-appealing mouthfeel. While I’m not advocating that anyone skip that initial cooking step, this recipe from Brod & Taylor does the cooking in the brand’s dehydrators at 165 degrees Fahrenheit; most recipes I’ve looked at online or in the vast world of dehydrator TikTok skip the precooking step. The best beef jerky hack I learned was from a creator who bought presliced meat meant for Korean barbecue and dry-cured it with a rub. The very online world of dehydrator cooking has endless recipes and tips.

    Manage your expectations: Consumer dehydrators cannot always produce the results achieved by commercial freeze-drying. Some of the end products of dehydrator “cooking” surprised me. Some fruits and veggies stayed pliable, while others were brittle, with a satisfying crunch. There is a bit of trial and error with slice size and timing. Each time I use the dehydrator, I get better at prep and timing.

    Lastly, as you enter the crisp world of dehydration, know that ambient humidity and the amount of water in your food will impact drying times. In other words, what took eight hours in August in Maine might take less time in Brooklyn in September.

    Lisa Wood Shapiro

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  • The Best Coffee Grinders to Amp Up Your Morning Brew

    The Best Coffee Grinders to Amp Up Your Morning Brew

    It’s all in the beans. Nothing will improve your morning coffee like grinding the beans right before you brew. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rocking a fancy liquid-cooled-quantum-AI-powered espresso machine or a $25 Mr. Coffee—making the switch to whole beans will transform your coffee-drinking experience. We have advice at the end of this article on finding good whole beans (you might want to read our Best Coffee Subscriptions guide). Once you have your beans, it’s time to grind ’em up fresh each day. These are the best coffee grinders we’ve tested.

    Be sure to check out our other coffee-related buying guides, like the Best Latte and Cappuccino Machines, Best Portable Coffee Makers, Best Espresso Machines, and Best Portable Espresso Makers.

    Updated September 2024: We’ve added the Baratza Virtuoso+ and Bodum Bistro Electric Blade Grinder, updated our review of the Baratza ESP, and checked links and prices throughout.

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    What Is a Conical, Flat, or Blade Grinder?

    Photograph: Iryna Veklich/Getty Images

    Our list consists mostly of conical-burr grinders. In a conical grinder, coffee beans are crushed and ground between two rings of burrs. They deliver a finer, much more consistent grind than you’d get with a traditional blade grinder, even the nicest ones.

    Flat-burr grinders are similar, but they’re typically more expensive. In these, the burrs are laid on top of each other, and the beans pass through them as they grind. The grinder action pushes the grounds out of one end, instead of relying on gravity like a conical-burr grinder, and the beans spend more time in contact with the burrs. This results in a more consistent grind, but for home brewers, conical-burr grinders are just as good—even if they require more maintenance and don’t result in consistent down-to-the-micron-scale grounds.

    Blade grinders have a chopping blade that spins around like a food processor. But blades don’t produce even results. Some of your coffee will be fine powder at the bottom, and at the top you’ll have bits too large for even French press. The result is an inconsistent, unpredictable brew. These grinders are cheap, and yes, using fresh beans in a blade grinder is far better than buying ground coffee. (You can learn how to shake the beans to even your grind just a little. See world barista champion James Hoffmann’s video for some more blade grinder hacks.)

    If you can afford it, we highly recommend going with one of the burr grinders we’ve listed. There’s a reason why they cost a little more than a budget burr grinder. The machinery in a high-quality burr grinder is a bit more complicated, and it’s built to withstand greater wear and tear. In cheap burr grinders, the burrs will typically get blunt from regular use, and the flimsier motors may burn out in a matter of months.

    PSA: Do not put pre-ground coffee into a burr grinder. Logically, it makes sense. It’s too coarse, so you put it through again, right? No! With a burr grinder, the preground coffee gets stuck inside the burrs, and you’ll have to do some disassembly to set them to rights again.

    Jaina Grey, Tyler Shane

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  • Pomegranate seeds add flair and tradition to a Rosh Hashanah salad

    Pomegranate seeds add flair and tradition to a Rosh Hashanah salad

    Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, has many wonderful foods associated with it. Apples, honey, beef brisket, noodle kugel — and shining on this list are pomegranates, that one-of-a-kind beautiful, mythical, symbolic and even Biblical fruit.

    In the Sephardic tradition, pomegranates are celebrated as part of the Rosh Hashanah meal as a symbol of abundance, knowledge and righteousness. The fruit’s numerous seeds led some to say that the seeds corresponded to the 613 commandments of the Torah. (In fact, most pomegranates have somewhere between 400 and 800 seeds, but it’s a lovely allegorical notion).

    On the table, a pomegranate-shaped dish might hold honey for apples to be dipped in. Yemenite Jews in Israel might have a pile of pomegranates as a centerpiece during the holiday meal.

    Pomegranates are used in savory and sweet dishes, and are popular in Israeli and other Middle Eastern cooking, as well as in Mediterranean, Indian and African food. Pomegranate juice is also popular, used in cooking and available bottled for straight-up drinking and use in cocktails and mocktails.

    The seeds and juice are both sweet and tart in flavor. Like citrus fruit, they taste refreshing and can be bold in flavor. And pomegranates are packed with nutrients.

    You can add them into salads, rice and grain dishes, or stir them into yogurt. Sprinkle them on baked eggplant and other roasted vegetable dishes. Or incorporate them into tarts, cakes, scones and chocolate desserts.

    This Rosh Hashana, use pomegranate seeds to provide a little flair and color to the holiday dinner by adding them to a simple salad, like the one below.

    How to remove pomegranate seeds from the fruit

    The biggest obstacle to enjoying them on the regular during their cold-weather season is getting those bountiful seeds from the leathery skin and clingy white internal membranes. You need to do a little work cutting through the thick exterior and extracting the seeds without letting any of the juice stain your clothes, countertop or dish towels.

    Some supermarkets or specialty markets sell containers of just the seeds. If you are buying the seeds already removed from the fruit, make sure the little arils are bright red and firm, not shriveled, soft, or brownish in color.

    If you’re buying whole pomegranates, choose ones that are firm and bright in color. Firm and heavy indicates that the arils/seeds are filled with lots of juice. Make sure the fruit is free of brown spots and bruises.

    Before beginning, grab an apron to protect your clothes (or wear an old, unloved shirt) and, if possible, a plastic (not wood) cutting board to prevent the juice from staining your cutting surface. If you want to prevent any temporary staining of your hands, wear some cooking-compatible plastic or rubber gloves.

    Start by cutting off a thin slice of the fruit’s bottom so it can stand securely. Then cut around the crown (the end with the “blossom” sticking out) at a slight angle into the top of the fruit so that the top comes off and there is a slight dip into the pomegranate. Use your knife and from top to bottom cut just through the thick skin but not into the seeds. Make five more cuts at fairly equal segments so there are a total of six cuts/sections. Pry open the pomegranate with your fingers; it should fall into six open sections.

    Fill a large bowl with cold water. Submerge the sections and gently separate the seeds from the white membranes. As the seeds separate from the fruit, they will sink to the bottom, while the white membranes will float to the top. Then simply toss the skin, skim the membranes from the water, drain seeds in a strainer, and you are ready to roll.

    Arugula, Orange and Pomegranate Salad

    Ingredients

    For the lemon vinaigrette:

    1 large shallot, thinly sliced

    2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

    1 tablespoon rice or white wine vinegar

    3 tablespoons olive oil

    Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

    For the Salad:

    8 cups baby arugula

    1 small red onion halved and very thinly sliced

    2 oranges, preferably cara cara or blood oranges

    1 cup pomegranate seeds

    Directions

    Make the vinaigrette. In a small container, combine the shallots, lemon juice, rice vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Shake to blend.

    Place the arugula in a large serving bowl with the onion. Peel the oranges, and use a paring knife to remove all of the white pith from the outside of the fruit. Separate the orange slices, and cut each slice into 4 pieces. Add these to the bowl.

    Pour the dressing on the salad, and toss to combine. Scatter the pomegranate seeds over the top and serve.

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    Katie Workman writes regularly about food for The Associated Press. She has written two cookbooks focused on family-friendly cooking, “Dinner Solved!” and “The Mom 100 Cookbook.” She blogs at https://themom100.com/. She can be reached at [email protected].

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    For more AP food stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/recipes

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  • The Best Meal Kit Delivery Services for Every Kind of Cook

    The Best Meal Kit Delivery Services for Every Kind of Cook

    PRICE: Despite any marketing claims to the contrary meal kits cost more than buying groceries. However, they usually cost less than take-out and are healthier. If you want to gauge whether the trade-off is worth it the good news is that much like mattress-in-a-box companies, meal kit companies usually have some running promotions. Most meal kit pricing models offer bulk discounts: The more meals you purchase per week, the lower each serving’s price will be. We go into detail on dietary restrictions and subscription costs below. If you ever want to skip a week or cancel, you can find that information in the account section on your chosen service’s website.

    WIRED: Meal kits are convenient; I didn’t have to worry about planning dinner or panic-eating junk food after forgetting to eat a proper meal during the day. Learning to cook with one of these services can instill confidence and impart basic knowledge. If you’re busy, or can’t be bothered, meal kits may be just what you need to get cookin’, and cooking at home is never a bad thing. Meal kits may be right for you if you’re cooking for a small household, if you work nontraditional hours, if you hate figuring out what to make for dinner, if you want to stop ordering out all the time, or if you are trying to develop your cooking skills.

    TIRED: Nothing beats learning how to cook the old-fashioned way, so be sure to try that, too. It’s cheaper and you learn more if you pick out fruit yourself or break down a whole chicken for $5. You simply don’t get that experience if everything arrives at your door and the chicken parts come prepackaged. Planning and shopping is an integral part of the art of cooking. Meal kits are also generally more wasteful than traditional home cooking, and often more expensive. Meal kits may be the wrong choice for you if you are on a tight budget, if you’re cooking for a large household, or if you want tighter control over the specific ingredients you’ll be using.

    Louryn Strampe

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  • America’s Dairy Farms Have Vanished

    America’s Dairy Farms Have Vanished

    Does it become bottled milk? That’s Class 1 price. Yogurt? Class 2 price. Cheddar cheese? Class 3 price. Butter or powdered dry milk? Class 4. Traditionally, Class 1 receives the highest price.

    Do you know where your milk comes from?Photograph: Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

    There are 11 FMMOs that divide up the country. The Florida, Southeast, and Appalachian FMMOs focus heavily on Class 1, or bottled, milk. The other FMMOs, such as Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest, have more manufactured products such as cheese and butter.

    For the past several decades, farmers have generally received the minimum price. Improvements in milk quality, milk production, transportation, refrigeration, and processing all led to greater quantities of milk, greater shelf life, and greater access to products across the US. Growing supply reduced competition among processing plants and reduced overall prices.

    Along with these improvements in production came increased costs of production, such as cattle feed, farm labor, veterinary care, fuel, and equipment costs.

    Researchers at the University of Tennessee in 2022 compared the price received for milk across regions against the primary costs of production: feed and labor. The results show why farms are struggling.

    From 2005 to 2020, milk sales income per 100 pounds of milk produced ranged from $11.54 to $29.80, with an average price of $18.57. For that same period, the total costs to produce 100 pounds of milk ranged from $11.27 to $43.88, with an average cost of $25.80.

    On average, that meant a single cow that produced 24,000 pounds of milk brought in about $4,457. Yet, it cost $6,192 to produce that milk, meaning a loss for the dairy farmer.

    More efficient farms are able to reduce their costs of production by improving cow health, reproductive performance, and feed-to-milk conversion ratios. Larger farms or groups of farmers—cooperatives such as Dairy Farmers of America—may also be able to take advantage of forward contracting on grain and future milk prices. Investments in precision technologies such as robotic milking systems, rotary parlors, and wearable health and reproductive technologies can help reduce labor costs across farms.

    Regardless of size, surviving in the dairy industry takes passion, dedication, and careful business management.

    Some regions have had greater losses than others, which largely ties back to how farmers are paid, meaning the classes of milk, and the rising costs of production in their area. There are some insurance and hedging programs that can help farmers offset high costs of production or unexpected drops in price. If farmers take advantage of them, data shows they can functions as a safety net, but they don’t fix the underlying problem of costs exceeding income.

    Passing the Torch to Future Farmers

    Why do some dairy farmers still persist, despite low milk prices and high costs of production?

    For many farmers, the answer is because it is a family business and a part of their heritage. Ninety-seven percent of US dairy farms are family owned and operated.

    Elizabeth Eckelkamp

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  • Fortified bouillon cubes are seen as a way to curb malnutrition in Africa

    Fortified bouillon cubes are seen as a way to curb malnutrition in Africa

    IBADAN, Nigeria (AP) — In her cramped, dimly lit kitchen, Idowu Bello leans over a gas cooker while stirring a pot of eba, the thick starchy West African staple made from cassava root. Kidney problems and chronic exhaustion forced the 56-year-old Nigerian woman to retire from teaching, and she switches between cooking with gas or over a wood fire depending on the fuel she can afford.

    Financial constraints also limit the food Bello has on hand even though doctors have recommended a nutrient-rich diet both to improve her weakening health and to help her teenage daughter, Fatima, grow. Along with eba, on the menu today is melon soup with ponmo, an inexpensive condiment made from dried cowhide.

    “Fish, meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables and even milk are costly these days,” Bello, 56, said, her lean face etched with worry.

    If public health advocates and the Nigerian government have their way, malnourished households in the West African nation soon will have a simple ingredient available to improve their intake of key vitamins and minerals. Government regulators on Tuesday are launching a code of standards for adding iron, zinc, folic acid and vitamin B12 to bouillon cubes at minimum levels recommended by experts.

    While the standards will be voluntary for manufacturers for now, their adoption could help accelerate progress against diets deficient in essential micronutrients, or what is known in nutrition and public health circles as “hidden hunger.” Fortified bouillon cubes could avert up to 16.6 million cases of anemia and up to 11,000 deaths from neural tube defects in Nigeria, according to a new report from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

    “Regardless of economic situation or income level, everyone uses seasoning cubes,” Bello said as she unwrapped and dropped one in her melon soup.

    A growing and multipronged problem

    Making do with smaller portions and less nutritious foods is common among many Nigerian households, according to a recent government survey on dietary intake and micronutrients. The survey estimated that 79% of Nigerian households are food insecure.

    The climate crisis, which has seen extreme heat and unpredictable rainfall patterns hobble agriculture in Africa’s troubled Sahel region, will worsen the problem, with several million children expected to experience growth problems due to malnutrition between now and 2050, according to the Gates Foundation report released Tuesday.

    “Farmlands are destroyed, you have a shortage of food, the system is strained, leading to inflation making it difficult for the people to access foods, including animal-based proteins,” Augustine Okoruwa, a regional program manager at Helen Keller Intl, said, highlighting the link between malnutrition and climate change.

    Dietary deficiencies of the micronutrients the government wants added to bouillon cubes already have caused a public health crisis in Nigeria, including a high prevalence of anemia in women of child-bearing age, neural tube defects in newborn babies and stunted growth among children, according to Okoruwa.

    Helen Keller Intl, a New York-based nonprofit that works to address the causes of blindness and malnutrition, has partnered with the Gates Foundation and businesses and government agencies in Africa to promote food fortification.

    In Nigeria, recent economic policies such as the cancellation of gasoline subsidies are driving the country’s worst cost-of-living crisis in generations, further deepening food hardship for the low-income earners who form the majority of the country’s working population.

    Globally, nearly 3 billion people are unable to access healthy diets, 71% of them in developing countries, according to the World Health Organization.

    The large-scale production of fortified foods would unlock a new way to “increase micronutrients in the food staples of low-income countries to create resilience for vulnerable families,” the Gates Foundation said.

    Bouillon cubes as the vehicle

    Bouillon cubes — those small blocks of evaporated meat or vegetable extracts and seasonings that typically are used to flavor soups and stews — are widely consumed in many African countries, nearing 100% household penetration in countries like Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon, according to a study by Helen Keller Intl.

    That makes the cubes the “most cost-effective way” to add minerals and vitamins to the diets of millions of people, Okoruwa said.

    No Nigerian manufacturers already include the four micronutrients at the recommended levels, but there is industry interest.

    Sweet Nutrition, located in Ota, near Lagos in Nigeria’s southwest, started adding iron to some of its products in 2017. Marketing manager Roop Kumar told The Associated Press it was a “voluntary exercise” to contribute to public health.

    “But we are taking trials and looking at further fortification” with the launch of the new regulatory framework, Kumar said.

    Although NASCON Allied Industries, a Nigerian company that produces table salt and seasoning cubes, currently does not make products with any of the four micronutrients, quality control manager Josephine Afolayan said fortification is a priority.

    “If we’re successful, that would mean that the fortified bouillon seasoning cubes in so many Nigerian dishes would also contribute to improving the micronutrient content of the dishes in my country,” Ladidi Bako-Aiyegbusi, the director of nutrition at Nigeria’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, wrote in the Gates Foundation report.

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    The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and for news coverage of women in the workforce and in statehouses from Melinda French Gates’ organization, Pivotal Ventures.

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    Compliance and science

    Despite the promise of enriching a product that most people have in their pantries, some challenges need to be addressed. One is the “campaign of calumny” in a region where science-led interventions in the food sector have sometimes faced resistance from interest groups, Okoruwa said.

    Educating people about the benefits of fortified products may help counter any possible disinformation campaign, said Yunusa Mohammed, the head of the food group at the Standards Organization of Nigeria, the government regulator for consumer products.

    There is also the need to make fortified cubes affordable for struggling households like Bello’s, where a pile of firewood she uses to cook outdoors on an open flame is stacked against a wall.

    “What we can do is to influence the government and industry on rebates on the importation of raw materials as a public health intervention,” Mohammed said.

    Food fortification is not new in Nigeria. Most of the salt consumed in the country is iodized, and products such as wheat flour, cooking oil and sugar are fortified with vitamin A by law. But the requirement for adding the four vitamins and minerals to bouillon is the most comprehensive fortification regulation to date.

    Although Nigerian companies do not have to enrich their seasoning cubes yet, experts think setting standards that producers must follow if they choose to will make a difference.

    A working group involving representatives from companies, regulatory agencies, research groups and development organizations is in place to accelerate voluntary compliance.

    “Ultimately, we will make the bouillon fortification mandatory after seeing the acceptance of the voluntary regulations in the industry,” Mohammed said.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • An ancient African tree is providing a new ‘superfood’ but local harvesters are barely surviving

    An ancient African tree is providing a new ‘superfood’ but local harvesters are barely surviving

    Since childhood, Loveness Bhitoni has collected fruit from the gigantic baobab trees surrounding her homestead in Zimbabwe to add variety to the family’s staple corn and millet diet. The 50-year-old Bhitoni never saw them as a source of cash, until now.

    Climate change-induced droughts have decimated her crops. Meanwhile, the world has a growing appetite for the fruit of the drought-resistant baobab as a natural health food.

    Bhitoni wakes before dawn to go foraging for baobab fruit, sometimes walking barefoot though hot, thorny landscapes with the risk of wildlife attacks. She gathers sacks of the hard-shelled fruit from the ancient trees and sells them on to industrial food processors or individual buyers from the city.

    The baobab trade, which took root in her area in 2018, would previously supplement things like children’s school fees and clothing for locals of the small town of Kotwa in northeastern Zimbabwe. Now, it’s a matter of survival following the latest devastating drought in southern Africa, worsened by the El Niño weather phenomenon.

    “We are only able to buy corn and salt,” Bhitoni said after a long day’s harvest. “Cooking oil is a luxury because the money is simply not enough. Sometimes I spend a month without buying a bar of soap. I can’t even talk of school fees or children’s clothes.”

    The global market for baobab products has spiked, turning rural African areas with an abundance of the trees into source markets. The trees, known for surviving even under severe conditions like drought or fire, need more than 20 years to start producing fruit and aren’t cultivated but foraged.

    Tens of thousands of rural people like Bhitoni have emerged to feed the need. The African Baobab Alliance, with members across the continent’s baobab producing countries, projects that more than 1 million rural African women could reap economic benefits from the fruit, which remains fresh for long periods because of its thick shell.

    The alliance’s members train locals on food safety. They also encourage people to collect the fruit, which can grow to 8 inches (20 centimeters) wide and 21 inches (53 centimeters) long, from the ground rather than the hazardous work of climbing the enormous, thick-trunked trees. Many, especially men, still do, however.

    Native to the African continent, the baobab is known as the “tree of life” for its resilience and is found from South Africa to Kenya to Sudan and Senegal. Zimbabwe has about 5 million of the trees, according to Zimtrade, a government export agency.

    But the baobab’s health benefits long went unnoticed elsewhere.

    Gus Le Breton, a pioneer of the industry, remembers the early days.

    “Baobab did not develop into a globally traded and known superfood by accident,” said Le Breton, recalling years of regulatory, safety and toxicology testing to convince authorities in the European Union and United States to approve it.

    “It was ridiculous because the baobab fruit has been consumed in Africa safely for thousands and thousands of years,” said Le Breton, an ethnobotanist specializing in African plants used for food and medicine.

    Studies have shown that the baobab fruit has several health benefits as an antioxidant, and a source of vitamin C and essential minerals such as zinc, potassium and magnesium.

    The U.S. legalized the import of baobab powder as a food and beverage ingredient in 2009, a year after the EU. But getting foreign taste buds to accept the sharp, tart-like taste took repeated trips to Western and Asian countries.

    “No one had ever heard of it, they didn’t know how to pronounce its name. It took us a long time,” Le Breton said. The tree is pronounced BAY-uh-bab.

    Together with China, the U.S. and Europe now account for baobab powder’s biggest markets. The Dutch government’s Center for the Promotion of Imports says the global market could reach $10 billion by 2027. Le Breton says his association projects a 200% growth in global demand between 2025 and 2030, and is also looking at increasing consumption among Africa’s increasingly health-conscious urbanites.

    Companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi have opened product lines promoting baobab ingredients. In Europe, the powder is hyped by some as having “real star qualities” and is used to flavor beverages, cereals, yogurt, snack bars and other items.

    A packet of a kilogram (2.2 pound) of baobab powder sells for around 27 euros (about $30) in Germany. In the United Kingdom, a 100-milliliter (3.38-ounce) bottle of baobab beauty oil can fetch 25 pounds (about $33).

    The growing industry is on display at a processing plant in Zimbabwe, where baobab pulp is bagged separately from the seeds. Each bag has a tag tracing it to the harvester who sold it. Outside the factory, the hard shells are turned into biochar, an ash given to farmers for free to make organic compost.

    Harvesters like Bhitoni say they can only dream of affording the commercial products the fruit becomes. She earns 17 cents for every kilogram of the fruit and she can spend up to eight hours a day walking through the sunbaked savanna. She has exhausted the trees nearby.

    “The fruit is in demand, but the trees did not produce much this year, so sometimes I return without filling up a single sack,” Bhitoni said. “I need five sacks to get enough money to buy a 10-kilogram (22-pound) packet of cornmeal.”

    Some individual buyers who feed a growing market for the powder in Zimbabwe’s urban areas prey on residents’ drought-induced hunger, offering cornmeal in exchange for seven 20-liter (around 4-gallon) buckets of cracked fruit, she said.

    “People have no choice because they have nothing,” said Kingstone Shero, the local councilor. “The buyers are imposing prices on us and we don’t have the capacity to resist because of hunger.”

    Le Breton sees better prices ahead as the market expands.

    “I think that the market has grown significantly, (but) I don’t think it has grown exponentially. It’s been fairly steady growth,” he said. “I believe at some point that it will increase in value as well. And at that point, then I think that the harvesters will really start to be earning some serious income from the harvesting and sale of this really truly remarkable fruit.”.

    Zimtrade, the government export agency, has lamented the low prices paid to baobab pickers and says it’s looking at partnering with rural women to set up processing plants.

    The difficult situation is likely to continue due to a lack of negotiating power by fruit pickers, some of them children, said Prosper Chitambara, a development economist based in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

    On a recent day, Bhitoni walked from one baobab tree to the next. She carefully examined each fruit before leaving the smaller ones for wild animals such as baboons and elephants to eat — an age-old tradition.

    “It is tough work, but the buyers don’t even understand this when we ask them to increase prices,” she said.

    ___

    For more news on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

    ___

    The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • How to Make a Protein Popsicle, Your New Favorite Post-Workout Snack

    How to Make a Protein Popsicle, Your New Favorite Post-Workout Snack

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    Popsicles always remind me of childhood. During summers spent at the neighborhood pool, I ate orange creamsicles between jumps off of the diving board. At home, the freezer was fully stocked with tubes of brightly colored Pop-Ice sticks that I tore open with my teeth. Sticky fingers, discolored tongue, full heart—you know the vibes.

    But I’m learning that popsicles are for adults too. Homemade protein popsicles are a fun, low-lift snack that can refuel you after a workout or just add an extra boost of energy (and childlike wonder) to your day, says Christine Byrne, a registered dietitian and the owner of Ruby Oak Nutrition in Raleigh, North Carolina.

    Whipping up protein popsicles is similar to making smoothies, with the added step of freezing them for four to six hours. On TikTok, you can find nutrient-packed popsicle recipes using Greek yogurt, peanut butter, and even blended cottage cheese (it tastes better than it sounds). The possibilities for the delicious frozen treats are almost endless, so we asked nutritionists about which ingredients make the best protein popsicles. Plus, we rounded up some of the best popular recipes on TikTok.

    The Best Ingredients for Protein Popsicles

    Start with a creamy base like cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, or milk (out of all the dairy-free options, soy milk has the highest protein content). Add in everything you like in your smoothies—spinach, peanut butter, fruit, honey, chia seeds—then pour it into popsicle molds and freeze. You can buy silicone molds online for less than $10. You could also try making “lazy” protein popsicles by skipping all the fancy add-ons and simply combining protein powder and water

    If you want to avoid the taste of protein powder, Byrne recommends a simple three-ingredient recipe. In a mixing bowl or blender, add one banana, a cup of Greek yogurt, and a tablespoon of peanut butter (or an alternative nut or seed butter), then mix or blend until smooth. Since this may be too thick to pour directly into a popsicle mold, add some water or milk to thin it out.

    “It’s sweet enough without adding extra sweetener as long as you’re using a ripe banana,” Byrne says. “And it does have a really good mix of protein, carbs, and fat.”

    As for what not to put in your popsicles, Byrne says it’s best to avoid raw eggs, even though they’re high in protein, due to the risk of bacterial infection. Kristin Kirkpatrick, a registered dietitian nutritionist at the Cleveland Clinic and author of Regenerative Health, adds, “I’d avoid added sugars and any ingredients you don’t like the taste of—after all, we should enjoy the food we eat while consuming the nutrients our body needs.”

    If you don’t have popsicle molds handy, you can pour your mixture into an ice cube tray, cover it with aluminum foil, and poke toothpicks or popsicle sticks through the top. The foil will help the sticks stay upright.

    How Much Protein Can You Pop into a Popsicle?

    Depending on your base and if you’re adding protein powder, Kirkpatrick estimates you could max out at about 25 grams of protein per popsicle. But to preserve a desirable taste and consistency, you might end up closer to ten grams, Byrne says.

    The Recommended Dietary Allowance for protein is 0.36 grams per pound of body weight, although athletes and other active individuals may need more than the general population. You can use this calculator to try to figure out a good starting point.

    “Protein needs vary based on many factors such as gender, activity level, health status, and age, so it’s not always a one-number-fits-all approach,” Kirkpatrick says.

    While it’s best to get your protein from natural food sources, Byrne says, there’s nothing wrong with adding protein powder to your popsicles as long as you’re getting enough carbohydrates and fats from other parts of your diet.

    “On the one hand, protein is protein, whether it’s from whey or from meat or from milk—although there is a little bit of a difference between ‘complete’ and ‘incomplete’ proteins,” Byrne says. “All animal proteins are complete. The main difference is with minimally processed food, you’re getting more nutrients than just the protein. So if you’re making these popsicles with a higher protein milk or Greek yogurt or even blended cottage cheese, you’re probably getting more nutrients than you would with protein powder alone.”

    Byrne also says protein intake will be limited by the size of your mold. For example, if a popsicle mold holds four ounces of liquid, you should probably only put in half a scoop of protein powder.

    When Should You Eat Protein Popsicles?

    These can be a fun pre- or post-workout snack, Byrne says, and could even replace a protein shake if that’s part of your post-gym ritual.

    “You also could eat them whenever,” she adds. “If you’re including some carbs from the fruit and maybe some fat from peanut butter, it’s a pretty well-rounded snack. You’ve got all your macronutrients in there.”

    One thing Byrne emphasizes: “A protein pop could be part of a meal, but these are not big enough to be a meal replacement.”

    Our Favorite Recipes for Protein Popsicles

    As we delved into the nutritional value of protein popsicles, we scoured TikTok to find some of the best recipes worth trying. Here are a few.

    Strawberry Shortcake Pops

    @alhelis.table High Protein Strawberry shortcake popsicles If you’re looking for a Sunday, reset inspiration check out this recipe. These Popsicles are made with simple and clean ingredients and they make the perfect sweet treat. Check out my LTK account for the popsicle mold link. To make 12-15 popsicles: 8 oz of low fat cottage cheese 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder 1 very ripe banana 2 cups of frozen strawberries, chopped. 1 tablespoon of honey 1-2 crushed graham crackers Optional: 1/2 cup of chopped frozen strawberries to add to the blended mixture. 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips 1 teaspoon of coconut oil Steps: 1. To a blender, add the cottage cheese, banana, strawberries, protein powder, and honey. Blend on until fully combined. 2. Once to make sure it’s completely blended add the optional half a cup of chopped strawberries. 3. Add the mixture to the mold Leaving about 1/3 of an inch to add the crushed graham crackers. Add a few drops of the mixture on top of the graham crackers to seal. 4. Cover the mold with the lid and add the popsicle sticks. Place them in the freezer for at least 3 to 4 hours until they are completely solid. 5. They are completely frozen, remove them from the freezer and allow them to sit room temperature for at least five minutes or run them under the water to help removing them from the mold. 6. In a bowl at the chocolate chips or melting chocolate with the coconut oil and melt them slowly in the microwave, accordingto the instructions. 7. Place the chocolate in the Ziploc bag cut the corner and drizzle the popsicles on top. #highprotein #highproteinmeal #strawberries #frozentreat #icecreambar #icecreamrecipes #dinnerhack #clean #cleaningredients #healthydesserts #healthytreats #healthyrecipes #healthyfoods #mediterraneandiet #whole30 #wholeingredients #foodreel #foodandbeverage #foodcontentcreator #foodcontent #ugfoodcontent ♬ Apple – Charli xcx

    This recipe requires blending cottage cheese, protein powder, banana, frozen strawberries, and honey. To add some crunch, the creator also suggests topping them with crushed graham crackers.

    Supercharged Protein Pops

    @anita.herbert My go-to “cool down” post workout snack 🤤 Details 👇🏻 Ingredients: -1 cup Greek yogurt -1/2 banana -2 scoops protein powder -1/2 cup almond milk -honey (adjust to taste) -1 cup dark chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate (optional) Instructions: -Blend all ingredients together -Pour the mixture into popsicle molds -Freeze 4-6 hours -Dip in melted chocolate and crushed walnuts (optional, but highly recommended!) #healthy #healthysnacks #healthydessert #lowcalorie #lowcalorierecipe #lowcaloriedessert #healthyrecipes #healthyliving ♬ original sound – summer audios

    If you have a sweet tooth and want to fit in some extra protein powder, you can blend Greek yogurt, a banana, your powder of choice, almond milk, and honey, this creator suggests. Dip it in chocolate and nuts or chopped-up pieces of fruit for extra pizzazz.

    It’s PB&J Time (Popsicle Edition)

    @stayathomedad Kids PB&J Protien Popsicles! #sahd #dad #mom #sahm #popsicle #Recipe #EasyRecipe #warmweather #quickrecipes #food #cooking #parent #parenting #chaos #yum #kids #Love #inspo #DIY #happy #fun #fypシ゚viral #fypage ♬ original sound – Stayathomedad

    This creator blended up raspberries, Greek yogurt, peanut butter, milk, and honey for PB&J-inspired popsicles. These are bound to be a kid-favorite.

    For the Candy Bar Lovers

    @thebigleybasics frozen reese’s peanut butter pops! they’re gluten free, dairy free, and refined sugar free, and can even be made sugar free and high protein! for the popsicles: •1 cup unsweetened yogurt (i used dairy free) •1/4 cup peanut butter (or other nut butter) •1-2 tbsp sweetener of choice or 1 scoop vanilla protein powder (i like raw honey or pure maple syrup) •peanuts and dark chocolate chips/chunks for the chocolate coating: •5oz dark chocolate (i used dairy free) •2 tsp coconut oil instructions: 1. add the yogurt, peanut butter and sweetener to a bowl and mix until smooth. 2. place 6 dollops of yogurt on a tray lined with parchment paper and place a popsicle stick in each yogurt dollop, being sure to cover the tips of the popsicle sticks with yogurt. top the yogurt with chocolate chips/chunks or peanuts. 3. place in the freezer until the yogurt is frozen. once frozen, melt the chocolate with the coconut oil. 4. remove the popsicles from the tray and dip in the melted chocolate. place back in the freezer until the chocolate is hardened. 5. once the chocolate is hardened, remove the popsicles from the freezer and enjoy (i like to let them sit out for 5-10 minutes before eating so the yogurt filling is soft!). notes: •to make them sugar free use vanilla protein powder or monk fruit for the filling and sugar free dark chocolate for the coating •to make them refined sugar free use refined sugar free dark chocolate or make your own chocolate coating with unsweetened chocolate (simply melt 2oz unsweetened chocolate with 1 tbs coconut oil and then stir in 1/4 cup honey or maple syrup) enjoy!🍫🥜 #reesespeanutbuttercups #reesespeanutbutter #peanutbutterchocolate #popsicles #frozenyogurt #homemadepopsicles #healthypopsicles #frozendessert #healthydessert #dairyfreedessert #ketodessert #refinedsugarfree #lowcarbdessert #proteindessert #proteinyogurt #vegandessert #nobakedessert #easyhealthyrecipes #easydessert #reeses #kidfriendlyrecipe ♬ love nwantinti (ah ah ah) – CKay

    These popsicles are nice because you don’t need a mold—you can just add dollops of the mixture to a pan lined with parchment paper, then stick popsicle sticks on top before freezing.  The recipe includes yogurt, peanut butter, peanuts, a natural sweetener like honey, and melted chocolate. You could probably sneak in some protein powder, too, as you could with any of these recipes. Cheers!

    irosario

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  • I don’t trust these pizzas no matter how hungry I am (35 Photos)

    I don’t trust these pizzas no matter how hungry I am (35 Photos)

    Camry

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  • This Is How Johnnie Walker Made the World’s Lightest Whisky Bottle

    This Is How Johnnie Walker Made the World’s Lightest Whisky Bottle

    Tradition dictates that to properly enjoy a premium whisky you pour it from an elaborately chunky crystal decanter into an unfeasibly heavy tumbler.

    Weight has long been an outward signifier of quality in the whisky industry, and the luxury industry in general, but this week, Johnnie Walker launched the world’s lightest glass whisky bottle, suggesting that the future might be more about cutting emissions that cut glass.

    At 180 grams (6.35 ounces), the teardrop shaped 70-centiliter glass bottle is considerably lighter than the 850 grams of the current Johnnie Walker Blue Label bottle (without the liquid and the stopper), coming in at one-fifth of the conventional weight. It contains a limited-edition Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ultra whisky. The design has been five years in the making, and it breaks with the brand’s traditional square bottle for the first time.

    Designed with the help of Turkish glassmakers Şişecam—a company in the top five of glass producers globally—the new lightweight bottle has the potential to impact both transport and production emissions. Parent company Diageo suggests that for every gram of glass reduced, around half a gram of carbon is saved in production. This doesn’t sound all that impressive, but given Johnnie Walker sells an estimated 130 million bottles annually, the carbon savings could, if upscaled, be considerable.

    As it cannot stand upright on its own, the record-breaking teardrop bottle is housed in a bamboo cage.

    For now, however, only 888 bottles of the record-breaking Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ultra whisky will be released, costing $1,250 each—which, as eco-statements go, feels a little tokenistic. Limited-edition spirit releases are commonplace in the premium sector, but for this innovation to make a meaningful impact it will need to be implemented across more Diageo brands.

    At present, the lightweight bottles cannot be scaled up, but Jeremy Lindley, global design director at Diageo, tells WIRED that the company is already applying the newfound light-weighting knowledge to other bottles. “We have brought down the weight of the Johnnie Walker 18-year-old by 35 percent, and we’re working on reducing the weight of our standard Johnnie Walker Blue Label bottle by over 25 percent,” Lindley says.

    In the development process for the Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ultra, Diageo was granted four UK patents, and, in a laudable move, the license has been made available on a royalty-free basis to help encourage other drinks brands to innovate.

    Chris Haslam

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  • From Chinese to Italians and beyond, maligning a culture via its foods is a longtime American habit

    From Chinese to Italians and beyond, maligning a culture via its foods is a longtime American habit

    NEW YORK — It’s a practice that’s about as American as apple pie — accusing immigrant and minority communities of engaging in bizarre or disgusting behaviors when it comes to what and how they eat and drink, a kind of shorthand for saying they don’t belong.

    The latest iteration came at Tuesday’s presidential debate, when former President Donald Trump spotlighted a false online tempest around the Haitian immigrant community of Springfield, Ohio. He repeated the groundless claim previously spread by his running mate, JD Vance, that the immigrants were stealing dogs and cats, the precious pets belonging to their American neighbors, and eating them. The furor got enough attention that officials had to step in to refute it, saying there was no credible evidence of any such thing.

    But while it might be enough to turn your stomach, such food-based accusations are not new. Far from it.

    Food-related scorn and insults were hurled at immigrant Chinese communities on the West Coast in the late 1800s as they started coming to the United States in larger numbers, and in later decades spread to other Asian and Pacific Islander communities like Thai or Vietnamese. As recently as last year, a Thai restaurant in California was hit with the stereotype, which caused such an outpouring of undeserved vitriol that the owner had to close and move to another location.

    Behind it is the idea that “you’re engaging in something that is not just a matter of taste, but a violation of what it is to be human,” says Paul Freedman, a professor of history at Yale University. By tarring Chinese immigrants as those who would eat things Americans would refuse to, it made them the “other.”

    Other communities, while not being accused of eating pets, have been criticized for the perceived strangeness of what they were cooking when they were new arrivals, such as Italians using too much garlic or Indians too much curry powder. Minority groups with a longer presence in the country were and are still not exempt from racist stereotypes — think derogatory references to Mexicans and beans or insulting African Americans with remarks about fried chicken and watermelon.

    “There’s a slur for every almost every ethnicity based on some kind of food that they eat,” says Amy Bentley, professor of nutrition and food Studies at New York University. “And so that’s a very good way of disparaging people.”

    That’s because food isn’t just sustenance. Embedded in human eating habits are some of the very building blocks of culture — things that make different peoples distinct and can be commandeered as fodder for ethnic hatred or political polemics.

    “We need it to survive, but it’s also highly ritualized and highly symbolic. So the birthday cake, the anniversary, the things are commemorated and celebrated with food and drink,” Bentley says. “It’s just so highly integrated in all parts of our lives.”

    And because “there’s specific variations of how humans do those rituals, how they eat, how they have shaped their cuisines, how they eat their food,” she adds, “It can be as a theme of commonality … or it can be a form of distinct division.”

    It’s not just the what. Insults can come from the how as well — eating with hands or chopsticks instead of forks and knives, for example. It can be seen in class-based bias against poorer people who didn’t have the same access to elaborate table settings or couldn’t afford to eat the same way the rich did — and used different, perhaps unfamiliar ingredients out of necessity.

    Such disparagement can extend directly into current events. During the Second Gulf War, for example, Americans angry at France’s opposition of the U.S. invasion of Iraq started calling french fries “freedom fries.” And a much-used insulting term in the United States for Germans during the first two world wars was “krauts” — a slam on a culture where sauerkraut was a traditional food.

    “Just what was wrong with the way urban immigrants ate?” Donna R. Gabaccia wrote in her 1998 book, “We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans.” In reviewing attitudes of the early 20th century and its demands for “100% Americanism,” she noted that “sauerkraut became ‘victory cabbage’” and one account complained of an Italian family “still eating spaghetti, not yet assimilated.”

    Such stereotypes have persisted despite the fact that the American palate has significantly expanded in recent decades, thanks in part to the influx of those immigrant communities, with grocery stories carrying a wealth of ingredients that would baffle previous generations. The rise of restaurant culture has introduced many diners to authentic examples of cuisines they might have needed a passport to access in other eras.

    After all, Bentley says, “when immigrants migrate to a different country, they bring their foodways with them and maintain them as they can. … It’s so reminiscent of family, community, home. They’re just really material, multisensory manifestations of who we are.”

    Haitian food is just one example of that. Communities like those found in New York City have added to the culinary landscape, using ingredients like goat, plantains and cassava.

    So when Trump said that immigrants in Springfield — whom he called “the people that came in” — were eating dogs and cats and “the pets of the people that live there,” the echoes of his remarks played into not just food but culture itself.

    And even though the American palate has broadened in recent decades, the persistence of food stereotypes — and outright insults, whether based in fact or completely made up — shows that just because Americans eat more broadly, it doesn’t mean that carries over into tolerance or nuance about other groups.

    “It’s a fallacy to think that,” Freedman says. “It’s like the tourism fallacy that travel makes us more understanding of diversity. The best example right now is Mexican food. Lots and lots of people like Mexican food AND think that immigration needs to be stopped. There’s no link between enjoyment of a foreigner’s cuisine and that openness.”

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  • Bank stock woes hold back the overall market, but Starbucks’ new CEO is full steam ahead

    Bank stock woes hold back the overall market, but Starbucks’ new CEO is full steam ahead

    Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street.

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  • Electric Grilling Is Still a Little Raw in the Middle

    Electric Grilling Is Still a Little Raw in the Middle

    I left the Current where it was and made a loop around the exterior of the house, frequently doubling back to the main breaker box to see which outlets were connected to beefy-enough breakers and found a plug on the side of the house that gets extra hot at the end of the day, aka grilling time. I wheeled the grill noisily down to it.

    At this point I started texting with my Seattle electrician, Will Gebenini, to figure out how likely it would be that other people with porches and plugs and breaker boxes would have similar issues.

    “Well, it’s almost 100 percent likely that they’ll have a 15-amp outlet if the construction is newer build,” he said, “but it’s very hard to predict if the outlet will be on a 15- or 20-amp circuit. Newer codes require an outlet on patios/decks. No code specifies the ampacity of that circuit.”

    “So,” I asked, “it’s a crapshoot whether or not your porch will have the right setup?”

    “Correct.”

    Since you can’t just swap breakers around willy-nilly, this means you might not be able to put a grill like this in the spot you want it, or you might need to call someone like Will to make it happen, at which point your new electric grill goes from expensive to very expensive.

    Advanced Degrees

    I fired up the Current again, threw those sausages on there again, and it felt like they came out fine, but I had a lot to pay attention to. There is a digital readout on the grill and a bit of a touchscreen, as well as a single knob. (Yay knobs!) There are two grilling zones, so you can also set the temperature for each side of the grill and do a little sizzle sizzle on one side and a little coasting to the finish on the other.

    There’s the to-the-degree cooking feature, and that mobile app that connects your phone to the grill—and normally I’d tell you more, but problems started blooming like wildflowers, stealing all of my attention.

    Even by moving the grill somewhere inconvenient to meet its electrical needs, heating it up took a long time. Impressively, you can set both sides to heat up to 700 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet on a hot summer’s day in New England, I turned the right burner up to 600 degrees, and after 20 minutes it had barely cleared 450. Even with more patience, it struggled to hit those higher temperatures, and turning it up or down a few notches lacked a propane grill’s nimble responsiveness.

    The big problem here is that the larger the grilling surface is on an electric grill, the harder it is to get enough juice to it. On a propane grill, you just turn on another burner. On charcoal, you can add coals or increase airflow. On electric at this size or larger, you can cheat a little, but unless you want to hard-wire it and do some electrical work, you’re mostly just stuck with how it’s designed.

    Joe Ray

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  • Funny bar chalkboard signs that keep the people stumblin’ in (30 Photos)

    Funny bar chalkboard signs that keep the people stumblin’ in (30 Photos)

    Camry

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  • Party of one: Restaurants are catering to a growing number of solo diners

    Party of one: Restaurants are catering to a growing number of solo diners

    NEW YORK — Parisa Imanirad, a scientist and cancer researcher from San Francisco, is married and has a wide circle of friends. But once or twice a week, she goes to a restaurant by herself.

    Imanirad said dining alone gives her time to think or read. She tries not to touch her phone and relishes the silence. “It’s like a spa, but a different type,” Imanirad said during a recent solo lunch at Spruce, an upscale restaurant in San Francisco.

    Imanirad isn’t alone in her desire to be alone. In the U.S., solo dining reservations have risen 29% over the last two years, according to OpenTable, the restaurant reservation site. They’re up 18% this year in Germany and 14% in the United Kingdom.

    Japan even has a special term for solo dining: “ohitorisama,” which means “alone” but with honorifics spoken both before and after the word to make parties of one feel less hesitant. In a recent survey, Japan’s Hot Pepper Gourmet Eating Out Research Institute found that 23% of Japanese people eat out alone, up from 18% in 2018.

    As a result, many restaurants in Japan and elsewhere are redoing their seating, changing their menus and adding other special touches to appeal to solo diners.

    “Even so-called family restaurants are increasing counter seats for solitary diners, and restaurants are offering courses with smaller servings so a person eating alone gets a variety of dishes,” said Masahiro Inagaki, a senior researcher at the institute.

    OpenTable CEO Debby Soo thinks remote work is one reason for the increase, with diners seeking respites from their home offices. But she thinks there are deeper reasons, too.

    “I think there’s a broader movement of self-love and self-care and really… enjoying your own company,” Soo said.

    The pandemic also made social interactions less feasible and therefore less important while eating out, said Anna Mattila, a professor of lodging management at Penn State University who has studied solo dining. And smartphones help some restaurant patrons feel connected to others even when they’re by themselves, she said.

    “The social norms have changed. People don’t look at solo diners anymore and think, ‘You must be a loner,’” Mattila said.

    The growth comes as more people are living alone. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 38% of U.S. adults ages 25 to 54 were living without a partner, up from 29% in 1990. In Japan, single households now make up one-third of the total; that’s expected to climb to 40% by 2040, according to government data.

    Increasing interest in solo travel – particularly among travelers ages 55 and over – is also leading to more meals alone.

    On a recent solo trip to Lucerne, Switzerland, Carolyn Ray was stunned when the hostess led her to a beautiful lake-view table set for one, complete with a small vase of flowers. Ray, the CEO and editor of JourneyWoman, a website for solo women travelers over 50, said other restaurants have tried to seat her toward the back or pointedly asked if someone will be joining her.

    Ray counsels women planning to dine alone to go somewhere else if they’re treated rudely or given a bad table.

    “It’s almost like the world hasn’t caught up with this idea that we are on our own because we want to be on our own and we’re independent and empowered,” she said. “We can go into any restaurant we want and have a table for one and feel good about it.”

    Shawn Singh, a Houston-based content creator and restaurant reviewer, said he eats alone about 70% of the time. If the idea of venturing out for a solitary meal is intimidating, he suggests going to lunch instead of dinner – when tables are usually more crowded with groups – or going early on a weekday.

    “The best way to see a restaurant you’ve been wanting to see for a long time is definitely going solo,” Singh said. “If I go at 5 p.m. and alone, I haven’t been denied at one place ever.”

    Restaurants aren’t always thrilled to seat a single diner at a table that could fit more. A Michelin-starred London restaurant, Alex Dilling at Hotel Café Royal, caused a stir last year when it started charging solo patrons the same price as two customers. Its eight-course dinner tasting menu, which includes caviar and Cornish squid, costs 215 pounds ($280) per person.

    The restaurant, which has only 34 seats, didn’t respond to a request for comment. But its website doesn’t allow reservations for less than two people.

    Other restaurants say it’s worth seating one person at a table made for two because solo diners tend to be loyal, repeat customers.

    “While there may be a short-term loss there, I think we’re kind of playing the long game and establishing ourselves as a place that’s truly special,” said Drew Brady, chief operating officer at Overthrow Hospitality, which operates 11 vegan restaurant concepts in New York.

    Brady has seen an increase in solo diners since the pandemic, and says they’re evenly split between men and women. At the company’s flagship restaurant, Avant Garden, they make up as much as 8% of patrons.

    In response, the restaurant teamed up with Lightspeed, a restaurant tech and consulting company, to develop a solo dining program. Avant Garden now has a spacious table designed for solo diners, with a $65 four-course menu fashioned like a passport to enhance the sense of adventure. If solo diners order a cocktail, a bartender mixes it tableside.

    Mattila, at Penn State, said restaurants might want to consider additional changes. Her research has found that solo diners prefer angular shapes – in lights, tables or plates, for example – to round ones, which are more associated with the connectedness of groups. They also prefer slow-tempo music.

    Jill Weber, the founder of Sojourn Philly, a Philadelphia company that owns two restaurants and a wine bar, said she adds a communal table at special events like wine tastings so individuals have a place to gather. She also doesn’t offer specials designed for two.

    Weber, who is also an archaeologist, loves dining alone when she’s traveling.

    “There’s something about not having to agree on where to go and everything that goes with that. You have the freedom to stay as long as you want, order what you want and sit with those things,” she said. “It also feels brave sometimes.”

    ___

    Durbin reported from Detroit. Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo, Kelvin Chan in London and Haven Daley in San Francisco contributed.

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  • Companies are crafting new ways to grow cocoa, and chocolate alternatives, to keep up with demand

    Companies are crafting new ways to grow cocoa, and chocolate alternatives, to keep up with demand

    WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Climate change is stressing rainforests where the highly sensitive cocoa bean grows, but chocolate lovers need not despair, say companies that are researching other ways to grow cocoa or develop cocoa substitutes.

    Scientists and entrepreneurs are working on ways to make more cocoa that stretch well beyond the tropics, from Northern California to Israel.

    California Cultured, a plant cell culture company, is growing cocoa from cell cultures at a facility in West Sacramento, California, with plans to start selling its products next year. It puts cocoa bean cells in a vat with sugar water so they reproduce quickly and reach maturity in a week rather than the six to eight months a traditional harvest takes, said Alan Perlstein, the company’s chief executive. The process also no longer requires as much water or arduous labor.

    “We see just the demand of chocolate monstrously outstripping what is going to be available,” Perlstein said. “There’s really no other way that we see that the world could significantly increase the supply of cocoa or still keep it at affordable levels without extensive either environmental degradation or some significant other cost.”

    Cocoa trees grow about 20 degrees north and south of the equator in regions with warm weather and abundant rain, including West Africa and South America. Climate change is expected to dry out the land under the additional heat. So scientists, entrepreneurs and chocolate-lovers are coming up with ways to grow cocoa and make the crop more resilient and more resistant to pests — as well as craft chocolatey-tasting cocoa alternatives to meet demand.

    The market for chocolate is massive with sales in the United States surpassing $25 billion in 2023, according to the National Confectioners Association. Many entrepreneurs are betting on demand growing faster than the supply of cocoa. Companies are looking at either bolstering the supply with cell-based cocoa or offering alternatives made from products ranging from oats to carob that are roasted and flavored to produce a chocolatey taste for chips or filling.

    The price of cocoa soared earlier this year because of demand and troubles with the crop in West Africa due to plant disease and changes in weather. The region produces the bulk of the world’s cocoa.

    “All of this contributes to a potential instability in supply, so it is attractive to these lab-grown or cocoa substitute companies to think of ways to replace that ingredient that we know of as chocolatey-flavored,” said Carla D. Martin, executive director of the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute and a lecturer in African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

    The innovation is largely driven by demand for chocolate in the U.S. and Europe, Martin said. While three-quarters of the world’s cocoa is grown in West and Central Africa, only 4% is consumed there, she said.

    The push to produce cocoa indoors in the U.S. comes after other products, such as chicken meat, have already been grown in labs. It also comes as supermarket shelves fill with evolving snack options — something that developers of cocoa alternatives say shows people are ready to try what looks and tastes like a chocolate chip cookie even if the chip contains a cocoa substitute.

    They said they also are hoping to tap into rising consciousness among consumers about where their food comes from and what it takes to grow it, particularly the use of child labor in the cocoa industry.

    Planet A Foods in Planegg, Germany, contends the taste of mass market chocolate is derived largely from the fermentation and roasting in making it, not the cocoa bean itself. The company’s founders tested out ingredients ranging from olives to seaweed and settled on a mix of oats and sunflower seeds as the best tasting chocolate alternative, said Jessica Karch, a company spokesperson. They called it “ChoViva” and it can be subbed into baked goods, she said.

    “The idea is not to replace the high quality, 80% dark chocolate, but really to have a lot of different products in the mass market,” Karch said.

    Yet while some are seeking to create alternative cocoa sources and substitutes, others are trying to bolster the supply of cocoa where it naturally grows. Mars, which makes M&Ms and Snickers, has a research facility at University of California, Davis aimed at making cocoa plants more resilient, said Joanna Hwu, the company’s senior director of cocoa plant science. The facility hosts a living collection of cocoa trees so scientists can study what makes them disease-resistant to help farmers in producing countries and ensure a stable supply of beans.

    “We see it as an opportunity, and our responsibility,” Hwu said.

    In Israel, efforts to expand the supply of cocoa are also under way. Celleste Bio is taking cocoa bean cells and growing them indoors to produce cocoa powder and cocoa butter, said co-founder Hanne Volpin. In a few years, the company expects to be able to produce cocoa regardless of the impact of climate change and disease — an effort that has drawn interest from Mondelez, the maker of Cadbury chocolate.

    “We only have a small field, but eventually, we will have a farm of bioreactors,” Volpin said.

    That’s similar to the effort under way at California Cultured, which plans to seek permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to call its product chocolate, because, according to Perlstein, that’s what it is.

    It might wind up being called brewery chocolate, or local chocolate, but chocolate no less, he said, because it’s genetically identical though not harvested from a tree.

    “We basically see that we’re growing cocoa — just in a different way,” Perlstein said.

    ___

    Taxin reported from Santa Ana, California.

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  • Give In to Temperature-Controlling Tech and Unlock a New Kitchen Zen

    Give In to Temperature-Controlling Tech and Unlock a New Kitchen Zen

    Recent advances in countertop induction burners give home cooks more control over their meals, freeing up their minds to get creative in other ways.

    Joe Ray

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  • Embrace the smoke, and other tips for grilling vegetables at a Labor Day barbecue

    Embrace the smoke, and other tips for grilling vegetables at a Labor Day barbecue

    When barbecue expert Steven Raichlen traveled the world searching for novel grilling traditions, he marveled at the commonalities across 60 countries.

    The way live fire brings people together. The universal embrace of smoky flavors. The theatrical nature of what could otherwise just be a family getting food on the table.

    “If you simmer a pot of soup on the stove, nobody’s going to gather around and watch the show,” said Raichlen, author of “The Barbecue Bible” and 32 other books.

    He wasn’t searching for grilled vegetables. He found them everywhere anyway.

    Grilled mushrooms, peppers and even artichokes in Italy. Planks of asparagus laced onto wire-thin skewers in Japan. Corn and chilies served in countless ways in Latin America.

    Much of what he found ended up in “ How to Grill Vegetables,” which also is a nod to his wife, daughter and cousin, all vegetarians. “So it’s sort of self-defense.”

    But he notes that nearly all his books devote a substantial section to vegetables.

    “There’s nothing like the high, dry heat of the grill that intensifies a vegetable’s sweetness,” he said. “In so many cultures, grilled vegetables really have a very important place.”

    How to get the most out of vegetables on the grill

    The first thing to consider is the structure of the vegetable, Raichlen said, and then select the appropriate method.

    As a general rule, high-moisture vegetables like zucchini, peppers and mushrooms are best served by direct grilling, meaning cooking over a high-heat fire with the lid open. He recommended bringing the temperature to 500 F to 600 F.

    Denser vegetables like turnips, cauliflower or leeks are better served by indirect grilling, or cooking next to the fire, with the lid closed, at 350 F to 400 F.

    Closing the lid presents another opportunity to inject the vegetables with smoky flavor by adding wood chips or chunks to the fire or smoker vault of a gas grill, he said.

    “Then you can smoke as well as roast, so you wind up with very incredible flavors,” he said.

    Or try ‘caveman grilling’

    Many cultures char certain vegetables directly on hot coals, which Raichlen calls “caveman grilling.”

    Baba ganoush, the Middle East’s smoky eggplant dip, is the best-known example.

    “It’s an absolutely magical dish, because the eggplant has a smoking device built right into it,” he said, referring to its thick skin. “All you do is char the skin and it permeates the flesh.”

    Tomatoes, onions, squash and zucchini work, too. Just fan the embers with newspaper to blow away excess ash. Sear the vegetables on all sides, turning frequently, and scrape away the most-burnt parts.

    Don’t limit yourself to the obvious

    Beyond corn, peppers and other usual suspects, Raichlen also has grilling recipes for potatoes, beets, carrots, avocados and even lettuce.

    He makes a grilled version of the steakhouse classic wedge salad with a quick homemade dressing spiked with chipotle peppers. Simply cut a head of iceberg lettuce into quarters and briefly sear the cut sides. The edges get sweeter and pick up smoky notes while the center stays cool and crisp.

    Before grilling, it’s best to scrub the grill grate and coat it with vegetable oil — good advice for all types of grilling. And it’s usually a good idea to first season vegetables with an olive oil-based marinade.

    Then it’s a matter of “doing a dance on a razor’s edge” between pleasantly charred and outright burnt, Raichlen said. “You try and get as close to burnt as possible without actually burning.”

    Two recipes from Raichlen’s “How to Grill Vegetables”:

    Armenian Charred Eggplant Dip with Tomatoes and Onions

    Serves: 4 to 6, about 2 cups

    Time: 10 minutes to prep, 6 to 10 on the grill

    2 small or 1 medium eggplant, about 1 pound

    2 large plum (Roma) tomatoes

    1 sweet onion (unpeeled)

    1 large clove garlic, peeled, loosely wrapped in aluminum foil

    1⁄2 teaspoon freshly and finely grated lemon zest

    2 tablespoons lemon juice

    3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

    2 tablespoons chopped dill or parsley

    Directions

    Set up your grill for ember, or “caveman,” grilling. Rake out the coals in an even layer and fan off loose ash. (Alternatively, this recipe can be made with high-heat, direct grilling.)

    Lay the vegetables on the coals and grill, turning often with tongs, until the skins are charred and flesh is easily pierced with a skewer, about 2 minutes for the garlic, 4 minutes for the tomatoes, and 6 to 10 minutes for the eggplants and onions.

    Transfer the veggies to a wire rack set over a rimmed sheet pan to cool. Scrape and discard the really burnt parts. Roughly chop the vegetables.

    Place them in a food processor and pulse to a coarse puree. Work in the zest and juice and enough extra-virgin olive oil to obtain a loose puree. Add the dill, season to taste with coarse salt and black pepper. Serve with pita bread or chips.

    Grilled Wedge Salad with Smoky Ranch Dressing

    Serves 4

    Time: 15 minutes to prep, 3 to 4 minutes on the grill

    1⁄3 cup mayonnaise

    1⁄3 cup buttermilk

    1 tablespoon rice vinegar

    1 teaspoon minced canned chipotles in adobo

    1⁄2 teaspoon lime zest

    1 tablespoon lime juice

    3 tablespoons chopped cilantro or dill

    1 head iceberg lettuce, cut into quarters through the core

    1⁄4 cup chopped smoked almonds

    Directions

    In a small bowl, whisk the mayonnaise, buttermilk, vinegar, chipotle, and lime zest and juice. Salt and pepper to taste. Wait to stir in the cilantro until just before serving.

    Set up your grill for high-heat, direct grilling. Scrape the grill grate clean and coat with vegetable oil.

    Brush the cut sides with olive oil. Arrange the wedges cut sides down on the grill on a diagonal. Grill until lightly singed, 1 to 2 minutes, giving each wedge a quarter turn after 30 to 60 seconds to lay on a crosshatch of grill marks. Grill the other cut side, working quickly so the lettuce remains raw in the center.

    Transfer the wedges to a platter, spoon over the dressing and sprinkle with almonds.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about food, travel and wellness. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

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  • The Klaris Clear Ice Maker Can Up Your Home Bartending Game

    The Klaris Clear Ice Maker Can Up Your Home Bartending Game

    The machine comes with the mold for four cubes; you can also separately buy a Collins mold that makes three prisms of ice for a taller glass. The molds are made of a thick silicone—much thicker than most standard ice molds. Once you fill the mold up with water, you just place it in the compartment inside, close the lid, push the knob, and let it do its thing. You don’t need to use filtered water. The faucet will work for your water source just fine because all of the impurities in the water, like minerals and gas, are going to get cleared out. I tested cycles with both filtered and tap water and the end result was the same.

    Each cycle takes between eight and 12 hours to complete. That’s kind of a big window. It partially depends on how cold the water you fill your mold with is, and the temperature of the surrounding environment. It would be ideal for the Klaris to have a more concise timeframe for completing the cycle. There is a timer that shows how much time has elapsed but not how much time is remaining.

    In my apartment with an air temperature hovering around 70 degrees Fahrenheit, the Collins rocks took around 10 hours, and the standard cubes took around eight. I’ve heard anecdotes that during the winter in cold regions, it can take as little as five hours.

    Since it takes so long, I forgot to harvest my ice right away a few times; the feature
    that allows you to keep it cold for up to five additional hours is helpful here. The one time I
    completely forgot to check on it even after the delay, everything was back to being liquid water,
    so I just started it over. You obviously need to plan a bit if you have a specific event you want to
    use the ice for. The delay functions overall are a great touch and help you time out your ice
    harvest, since sometimes it will finish overnight.

    Making Things Clear

    But since the machine plugs into the wall, I’m not sure why there can’t be a feature just to keep it cold until you open it back up. How does it work? The water is frozen layer by layer from the bottom up, which is known as directional freezing. (You don’t get this with a mold in your standard freezer because the cold air comes from all directions.) Simultaneously, an impeller-type fixture on the inside of the cover spins the water, which circulates the impurities up and out of the cube. This motion provides the necessary constant agitation, ridding the chance for the impurities to settle to the bottom.

    The impeller needs to be submerged in the water, so you need to fill up the water in the mold to the fill line, which is higher than where the ice will ultimately reach. When the cycle is complete and you open the cover, it almost looks as if nothing happened because there’s a layer of liquid water above the clear ice. This water contains the impurities. You then pull the mold out and dump that water into the sink. You turn the mold upside down and twist and push a little and the rocks pop out. You need to pull them apart from each other with the plastic dividers that are in the mold. These can be a little flimsy and you don’t get extra, so I try carefully not to break them.

    Andrew Watman

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