Did you hear about Earth Hour, which happened last week? Everyone was supposed to turn out all their lights for one hour on March 29 in an effort to bring attention to global warming, and reduce their energy consumption a little. This is your chance to do a cooking version of Earth Hour, and join a blog event that can be fun and good for the planet.

Really, it doesn't even have to be about Earth Hour. This could be really fun. The blog event is called "Lights Out, Knives Out". The premise is that you turn off all non essential appliances, equipment, and lights to cook a meal, and to do this at least once a month. You can still cook with the oven/stove, of course, and anything you think is necessary.

The point is to prepare the meal using as little energy as necessary, then to share your experience with everyone else. You can get all the details here. It sounds like a lot of fun: cooking by candlelight and preparing food by hand.
It would be an adventure for those of us who are dependent on the food processor!

[Via Is My Blog Burning]

Energy Fiend has a great caffeine content database that can give you the exact amount of caffeine in just about any drink you could want to know about. It is a great resource because, although drinks containing caffeine make it clear in the ingredients list, they don't list the actual amount of caffeine that they contain. Coca-Cola, perhaps taking a cue from E.F. is hoping to make getting this information easier for consumers by adding labels to all of their products indicating their exact caffeine content.

Such labels are already found on Enviga (8.33 mg/oz.) and Full Throttle (8.81 mg/oz.) and Coca-Cola Classic (2.83mg/oz.) cans will have it by May, with the rest of the beverage lineup - including Diet Coke (3.75mg/oz.) to follow over the rest of the year, though the labels will not be put onto the bottles and cans of Coca-Cola products sold outside of the US.

For comparison, drip coffee (black) has 18.13mg caffeine/oz., Red Bull has 9.64mg/oz. and regular black tea has 5.88mg/oz.

A new energy drink called Liquid Experience, inspired by Jimi Hendrix, is being released this spring by Beverage Concepts. The drink, which is named after Hendrix's breakthrough album, "Are You Experienced?" is nonalcoholic and uses the guitarist's image as part of its promotional materials. While the Jimi Hendrix vodka didn't seem to excite much controversy, the energy drink is not going over too well with fans, who feel that "his image and the beautiful feelings it has created during my lifetime cheapened by base advertising." Hopefully, those somewhat disgruntled fans can take comfort in the fact that Beverage Concepts Chief Executive Josh Glass has promised to donated a portion of the royalties from the sale of the drink will go to educational causes, as many other products that have use Hendrix's image in the past have done. According to Glass, the company will probably choose a music education foundation.

So how much energy is in a kiss? I guess it depends upon the kiss. Is it a kiss by Helen of Troy? Or a Hershey's kiss? Well Helen's days of kissing are long gone, but scientists have calculated the energy in a Hershey's kiss (and any other food) and you would be amazed. They use something called a bomb calorimeter which is designed to hold small food explosions and then measure the heat produced by the explosion.

A Hershey's kiss has 26 calories. Now that's not much, but if you look at calories from a scientific viewpoint, and the energy they measure, then that tiny little kiss can provide enough energy to lift a 8,600 lb. SUV over six feet into the air. There's a heck of a lot more energy in our food than you think. If you want to learn more about this check out the article at www.NPR.org.

The controversial energy drink, Cocaine, has been banned by 7-Eleven convenience stores, after the company received numerous complaints from parents about the drink. The drug-like effects promised to teens by a drink named after a drug crossed the line with them, especially considering that the beverage is marketed to teens. A spokeswoman said "the product's name promotes an image which we didn't want to be associated with." And 7-Eleven isn't the only company that feels this way. Many other stores in Chicago and New York have pulled the drink from shelves.

Representatives from the drink company said that "the company wasn't glorifying an illegal drug" - even though it seems that way to just about everyone. They also say that Cocaine will be available through Amazon soon, so teens in areas that don't sell it can get their fix that way.

I mentioned Zygo Energy Vodka a few weeks ago, when it first came to my attention. Recently, I had a chance to taste it and experiment with a few drinks. The vodka has all the appealing energy-boosters that are in drinks like Red Bull, such as guarana, taurine and yerba matte in the form of a 70-proof spirit, which sounds like the perfect drink for party-goers.

Zygo isn't quite as smooth as 44°North was, but it is very, very close and certainly more so than many vodkas. It smells and tastes like peaches, and underneath the peach, there is a hint of vanilla and orange that really rounds the flavor. It tastes great on its own. Really great. In fact, I think that Zygo is an excellent choice just to sip chilled or over ice. I can't say that I felt a big rush of energy from the drink, and I'm fairly certain that what I did feel was from the alcohol, but I won't deny that the feeling was a good one, wherever it came from.

With peach, orange and vanilla, there are a plethora of mixers that would do well with Zygo if you're not inclined to sip it straight, so if and when you have a chance to pick up a bottle, don't hesitate to experiment. I decided to use the peach flavor to its full advantage by keeping the other ingredients to a minimum.

Peachy Sunrise
5oz orange juice
2 oz Zygo
splash grenadine

Combine all orange juice and Zygo in a tall glass over ice. Stir together, then top with a splash of grenadine.

Teen consumption of energy drinks is way up and the reason for their popularity is primarily their caffeine content. A Red Bull has 9.64mg of caffeine per ounce, while a Coke only has 2.83 mg per ounce (Pepsi has 3.17mg). The extra caffeine can help to keep the chronically sleep-deprived awake, but more interesting to the students this time of year is the fact that caffeine can potentially help them concentrate slightly better in class or on exams by making them more alert.  Columnists at the Mercury News - judged to be amateur, moderate or pro caffeine consumers - tested three popular drinks: Red Bull, Rockstar (9.38mg/oz.) and Monster (8.75mg/oz.). They rated them on taste and how long it took the boost to kick in. Not completely scientific, perhaps, but an interesting look at the drinks and certainly a good start for anyone looking to get through finals. 

 

After lamenting the sweetness of the energy drink + vodka combination over drinks at a Los Angeles bar in 2004, David Mandell wondered whether he could caffeinate vodka itself. It turns out that you can caffeinate it, as Mandell has just introduced p.i.n.k., a plain vodka infused with caffeine and guarana. The trick in developing it was not just to mask the flavor of the guarana and eliminate its color, but to remove all flavor from the vodka. The end product is intended to produce the same energizing affect as a drink like Vodka Red Bull without any of the extra sugars. One drink of p.i.n.k. contains the same amount of caffeine as a 3/4 full cup of coffee, or about 80 mg. By way of comparison, one can of Red Bull contains that much caffeine as well, so it is easy to see how much more concentrated p.i.n.k. is.

The vodka, which sells at a $40 per bottle price that puts it in the same range as ultra-premium vodkas like Grey Goose, has been available in New York State for several months, but Mandell is hoping to a national release soon.

[Image NYT]

Energy drinks are an explosive market, especially popular among young people, including teenagers and college students. Coffee has always been the morning pick-me-up of choice, but the producers of energy drinks are trying to muscle into the morning market. Monster Khaos is an energy drink that contains 70% juice – more than many processed juice drinks. It is lightly carbonated and lower in carbs than some other ultra-sugary drinks, with flavors of orange, peach and pineapple. Monster Energy drinks have a “natural” energy formula, which includes ginseng and guarana, not caffeine. Will the fruity energy drinks be able to compete with good, old-fashioned coffee? Perhaps a better question, since they are already popular in the youth market, is whether they will be able to complete with specialty coffee drinks, like mocha lattes and caramel-hazelnut cappuccinos.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District is researching how leftover foods can be turned into electricity, transforming the scraps left from restaurants and other institutions into renewable energy. Basically, certain types of bacteria are used to convert the food to gases that can be used to produce electricity. Not only would the energy source be endlessly renewable, but, the conversion would also decrease the use of landfills.

But I have to wonder--wouldn't it be more valuable to collect large quantities of leftover foods and donate them to the needy? Or perhaps open a charity kitchen that collects unused foods from restaurants? I think that would probably be a better use than to produce a little more electricity.

I know that I drink a lot of coffee. I probably have a bit of a tolerance to caffeine at the moment, so the possibility of death by caffeine overdose never really occurred to me. But Energy Fiend's Death by Caffeine Calculator has actually put my mind at ease, because I know that I could not possibly consume the 58 cups of drip coffee required to kill me in the few hours it would take the caffeine to pass through my system. Nor could I finish 185 diet Cokes. I might consider trying the 595 mugs of cocoa if I had a plentiful enough supply of marshmallows, though.

A more recent Death by Penguin Mint Calculator lets you choose your poison from a variety of caffeinated candies. 8,327 Hershey's kisses? Given the fact that a pile of kisses that size would weigh a little more than 80 pounds (36 kg), I think I would have issues other than the caffeine to worry about.

How much caffeine would it take to take you out?