"Food for Thought" news and stories

Here at Slashfood, we tend to post a lot about food art. Like, a lot.

So, obviously, I didn't hesitate when I found these crazy creations. Made primarily out of produce and baguettes, these ain't your grandmomma's food sculptures.

The images have that creative, slightly eerie feeling of those in Joost Elffers' books, like Food for Thought.

For more, go here.

One of my Food Network guilty pleasures is Dinner: Impossible. I like the challenges, I really enjoy the creativity required to pull it off and I love Robert Irvine. The accent combined with those intense food skills really set my heart afluttering. Knowing all this, you'll understand just how tickled I was when I discovered earlier today that Food for Thought, the behind-the-scenes blog over at Food Network Canada currently has a post up about Chef Irvine, along with a brief interview. Fun fact I learned from the post? Chef Irvine is excited about stone-ground mustard and rice wine vinegar these days. A man who can get excited about mustard is definitely a man after my own heart.

Here's an interesting item for the next time all you hepcats and kittens host a dinner party: retro plastic dinnerware emblazoned with carcass maps. For the noncarnivores out there, a carcass map is one of those endlessy fascinating diagrams that hangs in butcher shops.

My meat and fire-loving alter ego Joey Deckle tipped me off to Food for Thought plates, which are the brainchild of designer Charles S. Anderson. You probably can't read the text, but the piggy plate shown here is labeled swine.

If you have an inkling that the word "swine" implies some sort of tongue-in-cheek value judgment about meat eaters you're not far off the mark. The other three plates in the set are steer, lamb and mutt, which in this case is not short for mutton, but simply denotes dog. Sure they're a far cry from Williams-Sonoma's elegant Je demande du boeuf carcass map platter, but I still wouldn't mine having a set in my cupboard.

Even though earlier reports said that junk food boosted productivity in the office, it now appears that a healthy diet is they key to a busy, productive employee. The availability of sugary snacks did cause employees to work longer hours, but the same foods also made employees sluggish. Longer hours might have been necessary to compensate for a loss of productivity due to inattention or lack of energy.  In addition, a diet high in fat and sugar can potentially increase the risk of obesity and diabetes, leading to an increased risk for other diseases and missed work time. Overweight workers are twice as likely to miss work as their fitter colleagues. Companies that have implemented a program of offering healthy snacks and subsidizing gym memberships have healthier employees. The employees, along with good health, also receive a big boost to morale. After 6 months of access to healthy snacks and activities, workers experienced a drop in cholesterol as well as a drop in the proteins that are indicators of possible heart disease. Happier and healthier employees work more efficiently and accomplish more and it starts with offering apples and oranges instead of donuts in the morning. That's definitely food for thought for employers.

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