Late night munchies and holiday gorging: sleep deprivation effects beyond the baggy eyes

Hello everyone,

Hope everyone's holidays went well and that things are winding down before we all hit the work grind.

I just came back from spending the Christmas break with my family and had the chance to spend New Year's with MOH. Though the time with my family was short, I had a great time catching up with everyone and eating great food.

The holidays, though fun-filled, also come at a cost. For me, it has been indulging on favorite childhood eats and tons of sweet treats.

Homemade brittle for the holidays!

Sure, I tried to combat all the eating with getting in some exercise, but you can only run so many miles before the endless nights of snacking finally catch up to you. During the holidays, my body just goes into overdrive with eating, snacking, munching, chewing, you name it - it also doesn't help my case much that I don't sleep too much while I'm on break (trying to make the most of my time with family you know!). I don't know why the holidays prompt so many of us to stuff ourselves, but after seeing a recent article in Nature Communications, I'm thinking my overindulgence for extra fatty foods may be linked to my lack of sleep.

If only we all looked this cute sleeping (courtesy of J. Pockele)

In the article, Greer and colleagues wanted to determine if sleep deprivation affects food intake. Using human imaging studies, they found that sleep deprived individuals had different brain regions being activated while subjects looked at different types of foods. The different brain regions activated or inactivated during this task have been well documented to be important for food decision choices and food regulation. *

Furthermore, they found that sleep deprived individuals consumed higher fat content foods and preferred higher fat foods than well-rested individuals. Though it's no surprise that higher fat foods tend to look and smell more appealing in general (who can argue with a burger as delicious looking as the one below?), being sleep deprived must make all us foodies lose total control over how much fatty food we should be consuming, like a kid running loose in a candy store.

MOH's infamous Slater's burger: The DOOT - a force to be reckoned with

In addition to increases in food intake, a more recent report shows that the sleep deprived also tend to spend more money on food (Chapman et al., 2013). Recalling back to my undergraduate years, I remember staying up late to study and making late night runs to the grocery store during midterms/finals week to stock up on my study essentials: ramen and Cheetos (I know they're unhealthy, but I still think they're delicious). I'm not sure if it's a compensatory mechanism, but there's just something about giving in to the "munchies" more when you're running on low energy, low sleep.

Cheetos in all their glory - my favorite: mix and match regular / flamin' hot Cheetos

Needless to say, I had a great holiday break. Yes, I was sleep deprived. Yes, I ate enough for three of me's to survive, and yes, I'm sporting a little more baggage than usual, but I had a great time doing so. Spending time with family is always a bonus, but having good company AND good food is a definite blessing.

And what better way to end the year than with a celebratory nature hike around one of Orange County's scenic trails?

We went to Aliso and Woods Canyon Park in Laguna Niguel - this trail is full of caves, rocky cliffs (scale at your own risk!), and beautiful little creeks. If you're into hiking and live around Orange County, definitely try this place.

For everyone who's reading, happy new year to all! May 2014 be a year full of new beginnings, rich memories, and delicious food.

Until next time, happy eating all!


*
Sleep deprived individuals showed increased activity in the amygdala while decreased activity was seen in the frontal lobe and insular cortex when viewing different food choices.

While it has been shown previously by many groups that sleep deprivation causes increase in food intake, this study points to the specific brain regions activated/deactivated following sleep deprivation, and shows that fat-rich foods in particular are preferably consumed by the sleep-deprived. The amygdala is known to contain different molecules (neuropeptides) that can modulate food intake, while the downregulated regions are more associated with regulation of appetite.

References:

1. Greer S.M. et al., 2013. The impact of sleep deprivation on food desire in the human brain. Nature Communications. 4:2259.

2. Chapman, C.D. et al., 2013. Acute sleep deprivation increases food purchasing in men. Obesity. 21(12)

Holiday happiness - infusing science into your holiday baked delights!

Happy holidays everyone -

The year is winding down slowly and there are many great things to look forward to:

1. More time to spend with loved ones. I'm taking a short vacation away from lab to hang out with my family up in Stockton and couldn't be more excited. I'm planning to stalk my mom around the kitchen and learn how to cook more Vietnamese style dishes (my goal: mam va rau - we'll see if it's possible).

2. More winter in southern California - or "fall" for those who actually experience snow and rain frequently during this time of the year. Some great things about December/January: piping hot tea, curling up under a throw, and doing night runs.

3. A new year happening - new resolutions, new beginnings, new goals. This summer, I made a goal for myself to get back into running. MOH decided to up the ante and make me create a concrete mile goal, so I decided to do 300 miles within 6 months. I'm two weeks away from finishing the year and less than 15 miles left, so I'm pretty excited. I think next year, I'm going to aim for 600 miles. Speaking of which, I need new shoes. I've been eying the Brooks Adrenaline GTS - I saw a review on them on Runner's World and drooled a little. I had the GTS11 and loved it for its lightness.

4. Indulgence at its best! This time of the year there are a ton of holiday parties, get-togethers, and that always means good food, good desserts.

And if you're particularly lucky, you have some friends who make great desserts that appeal to both your eyes AND mouth! Case in point - my friend Jaimie Ngo's wonderful gingerbread treats that would brighten up anyone's day. Jaimie loves to infuse playful designs into her baked creations at a bakery in San Diego where she comes up with the cutest designs for any season!

Photo courtesy of J. Ngo

Did I mention she can also make brains look tasty, too?

Photo courtesy of J Ngo

Gingerbread cookies are a common staple during the holidays. This year, brighten your treats by decorating them using a simple royal icing (basically powdered sugar and egg whites, or meringue powder and water). Make sure to decorate once your cookies are fully cooled, or be prepared for a hot mess of melting icing (unless you're trying to get that visual effect).

Not that great of a decorator or not that creative? No worries - inspiration and creativity can stem from anything! Whether it's modeled after a piece of art or a photograph, or a cool show you watch, or something you see in nature, creativity can stem from anything. First time decorator? Don't fret - Jaimie cannot stress the importance of taking your time - decorating is a form of art, and requires patience and time. If you're willing to put in the time to thoughtfully decorate your desserts, everything will fall into place. Having the right baking and decorating tools help, too.

Hope everyone's holidays goes great! May everyone enjoy great memories and happy eating!

Green goodness: herbs at their finest

I never understood how some people just don't like herbs or greens, for that matter. I know a handful of people who just can't eat pho with the cilantro/green onion garnish, or don't like the natural taste of a simple spinach salad, or even the taste of fresh mint and perilla in a spring roll. Maybe it's the taste, but I can't imagine a world where herbs didn't exist.

They're delicious AND healthy - who can refuse them? Sure, there's that slight bitterness to it, but isn't that what the good stuff's made of?

Herbs come in all varieties, shapes and sizes... and surprise, surprise, as anything green and pseudo-bitter, they come with a heaping amount of good health kicks. In relation to cognitive health, certain herbs have been found to promote recovery following memory loss. A recently paper in Plos One written by Zhang and colleagues used a memory-loss rat model* and treated these rats with a chemical cocktail of herbal medicine (extracts came from different herbs including an herb that's in the mint family). What they found was memory function was improved and several genes were activated that promoted brain recovery and function.

Yes, herbs are healthy and that's all great, but how do you reap the full benefits of something? Oftentimes, eating fruits and vegetables in their raw form offers you the most nutrients (cooking sometimes kills proteins and essential nutrients). For herbs, one of my favorite recipes is to do a variation on a thai salad, known as larb.

Larb plays on sour and salty and spotlights different herbs and greens at their finest - when they're prepared fresh, with no fuss. This is probably my go-to dish when I'm heading out to the potluck event or hosting a girls' night. It's simple to make and can be done within half an hour (including prep time!).

Ingredients:
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes (or one large tomato)
- 1 bundle of green onions, chopped
- 1 bundle of cilantro, chopped
- half a head of napa cabbage, shredded
- 1-2 bundles of mint leaves, chopped coarsely
- Three bundles of dried vermicelli
- 2 limes or 3 lemons (more sour, the better)
- 1/2 of dried red pepper (or fresh peppers) - used to add spiciness
- 1/3 cup Fish sauce, use more to taste
- optional: ground meat or mashed tofu for protein punch (I didn't add it into this particular batch, but I like to sometimes boil tofu and mash it up into tiny pieces and infuse into the dish, similar to adding gorgonzola onto spinach salad). Alternatively, you can do ground meat.

Protocol:
1. Toss vermicelli into boiling water for 1 minute - immediately remove and toss the noodles into cold water. Let the noodles sit in cold water until ready to use
2. Chop up greens and throw them into a large mixing bowl - the bigger the bowl, the more flexibility you have to mix ingredients together

3. Once all greens, tomatoes and garlic have been chopped, add in vermicelli. The noodles should be cold and expanded. Toss the noodles in and mix the ingredients all together.
4. Squeeze lime/lemon juice and start with 1/3 cup of fish sauce - mix everything together.
5. Depending on how sour/salty you want your larb to be, adjust the amount of lime juice or fish sauce
6. If in a spicy mood, garnish with red pepper flakes or fresh chilis!
7. Serve immediately, or keep chilled - larb stays good in the fridge for a few days, but you may need to adjust the flavor since lime juicy becomes less potent over time.

Hopefully you guys like this dish - it's a great light dish to have and packs a lot of flavor, making for a great dish to bring to holiday parties!

Until next time, happy eating all!




***Supplemental information regarding the cited paper:
Rats were treated with Ibotenic Acid (IBO), a drug that causes severe injury to site of injection and leads to neuronal loss. In this paper, they tested memory function using Morris Water Maze (a platform is submerged under water and rats have to learn where the platform is in order to avoid getting wet for a long period of time) and differential gene regulation was observed using DNA microarray.

References:

Zhang J et al., 2013. Ameliorative effects of a combination of Baicalin, Jasminoidin and Cholic Acid on Iobetenic Acid-induced dementia model in Rats. Plos One.

Guest post: An unlikely pair - banana and parsley

Hey everyone, this week, I'm featuring a guest post from a fellow kitchen experimenter, none other than my sister. Some background - she's currently based on the east coast working at an International Development company. In her spare time, she enjoys hot yoga, playing with babies, and cooking up a storm in the kitchen. Hope everyone enjoys this post - more to come in the future!

Until next time, happy eating all!

~

Hey y'all, it's The culineuroscientist's lil' sister the Wankstronomist. I'm the wanksta of gastronomy. If that still doesn't make sense, watch this and instead of 50 Cent rollin' up in a hummer, imagine Morimoto with the honey Ina Garten next to him chucking deuces like a boss. Or simply put, I'm the Ja Rule of the ballin' food world (no offense to Ja Rule, I love the man's music). 

That being said, I am particularly obsessed with the world of Foodpairings. Foodpairings is a SCIENCE, it's not as easy as taking citrus to a random piece of fish and going, "wowza, pops in my mouth". Foodpairings go together because these two noms share the same chemical compound.

This can lead to some interesting combinations with foods you never would have thought go well together (ie. passion fruit and oysters). Check out unusual foodpairings here, and keep your eye out on this blog for some fancy molecular gastronomy.

I decided to take on the two noms banana and parsley for some vegan banana parsley bread. SAY WHAAA?

Yeah, check it. Awesome foodpairing blogger Martin Lersch wrote this post on banana and parsley. After homie searched on The good scents company, he found out (Z)-3-hexen-1-yl formate and linalool are present in both banana and parsley. Basically, try cooking with parsley--if you have a gifted nose from the Gastronomy Gods, you can smell a waft of banana. 

Because my big sis is all hip and tries things vegan now, I decided to make a vegan dish as a nod to her healthy life style.

And I semi-failed.

Recipe IF YOU DARE:

Three ripe bananas (I used four...BIG MISTAKE)

1 cup of rice flour (I would adjust and do 1 and 1/2 cup)

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup of chopped parsley leaves (no stems)

1 teaspoon of baking powder (apparently not all baking powders are vegan)

2 tablespoons of oil -- 1 for the batter, one to cover your baking loaf

1 tablespoon of chia seed (substitute for egg)

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 415 degrees F
• Take 1 tablespoon of chia seed and mix with 3 table spoons of water. Put aside - in five minutes, it'll turn into a tapioca-like thick mix
• Wash parsley and take only the top stems and leaves.Finely chop. Set aside.
• Mash the bananas well. You can even blend them if you want.
• Mix all ingredients together with remaining items: chia seed, parsley, banana, vanilla extract, baking powder, oil.
• Cook in the oven for 45 minutes. Depending on your oven, I'd watch closely until it gets golden brown.

Notes:

1. If batter is too dry, add a little bit of water. If batter is too wet, add more vegan flour. My bananas were super juicy that it didn't need additional liquid.
2. If your banana bread is golden brown (close to burnt edges), but still a bit wet on the inside--take it out and let it rest. After it cools (it should flatten considerably), cut into squares and cook at 350 degrees F in a toaster oven. DON'T JUDGE, I don't have 1379373 bananas and parsley to find the right heat balance.
3. Don't overdue bananas. Three ripe bananas are perfect. Doing four is overkill and makes the batter too wet.
4. I wouldn't recommend going with rice flour, unless you like gelatinous results. Should have read this post about vegan baking from the Gluten-Free Goddess.

If there's anything you can reap from this post, it's this:

1. Foodpairings are awesome. Who cares if the last page you witnessed was an atrocity to baking.
2. Banana and parsley tastes great together. Try it raw, make it into a smoothie, whatever...don't let this post ruin it for you. I just can't bake. 'Cuz I'm a wankstronomist.
3. My sister is doing an awesome job sticking to her vegan diet. My support is measured through my LOVE not my vegan baking, OK?

Alright, I'm out heading into the mean streets of Arlington-Yuppie Virginia. If this post gets enough likes, maybe my big sis will invite me again to do a post that isn't a big mess up like this one.

NEXT FUTURE POST: Dried apricots and harissa. 

PEACE

The Wankstronomist.

Thanksgiving blessings and thanks to readers!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hopefully everyone is enjoying the long weekend and spending lots of time just relaxing, eating good food, being with good company. It's the time of the year when you think of family constantly and can't wait until the next time you're able to see everyone. For me, the next time will be during the December holidays - I'm super excited because I'll see my sisters again (one of them lives on the East Coast now, so every time with her is precious), and get to catch up with the rest of my family!

Family comes in all forms and shapes. They can consist of those related to you, or even those who you've come to share life's moments with. That said, I just wanted to do a special thanks post for the readers, my extended virtual family - I've hit 1000 page views meaning that I've managed to interest some of you into tuning in to my regular postings. I can't say how grateful I am to everyone for supporting this blog! This blog began with a small thought I had while out on a hike with MOH months ago. I had expressed a desire to start a writing portfolio of fusing two of my passions in life (science and food) but just couldn't find the motivation or catchy enough title to start. MOH finally gave me the push (and name of blog's title) and it's been half a year and the blog is still up and running, thanks to all my continued support from you all. I can't say it enough, but thanks for hanging around and reading my ramblings!

This Thanksgiving, MOH and I decided to branch out and switch up some of our usual dishes for new items. We usually do green beans, ham (for MOH), wild rice stuffing, yams and corn. This year, we kept the ham and wild rice as our oldies-but-goodies, and added on sweet potato and MOH's first ever pumpkin pie (gluten free crust baby!). Everything was so delicious and even without having turkey, we have fallen victim to the dreaded food coma. It's 10 PM and we're still feeling the effects. You'd think that a Thanksgiving without turkey would avoid the food coma, but even after taking a long 6 mile hike, MOH and I still couldn't escape the food coma.

I first made this wild rice dish last year after seeing it featured in the Bon apetit magazine. I cut the recipe in half since it was my first time making it and I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. One hour later and a scorched pot fulled browned through, I had this dish that tasted so hearty and had this great depth of flavor full of fresh thyme. This year, I made some slight modifications, mostly due to me not wanting to deal with washing a burnt pot. I used a rice cooker to cook the wild rice/white rice blend in broth and sauteed garlic/onions. Then, once the rice was finished in the rice cooker, I scooped it all out and finished off the rice with a touch of lemon, thyme, and chives. This rice dish is an amazing substitute for the traditional go-to bread stuffing, especially for those who want to try a gluten-free alternative.

Normally, I like to make a coconut, sweet yam dish and mashed potatoes. You can't go wrong with delicious starches on Thanksgiving, but when there's such a great variety of squash/yam/sweet potato dishes, why not branch out? Gluten free goddess recently posted a Thanksgiving recipes post which featured this great recipe for a sweet potato black bean enchiladas that just looked amazing! It was great timing because MOH was hounding me about the numerous canned beans I had in the pantry. The enchiladas were so delicious. Using corn tortillas as a base, the enchiladas have a black bean/sweet potato lime stuffing that goes great with green enchilada sauce. Not your typical yams and marshmallow that are mostly featured during the fall, but good nonetheless. For added texture, I added onions and bell peppers and topped my serving with some tapatio sauce, yum.

I won't say too much about the honey glazed ham since this was more in MOH's realm, but MOH has been munching on his little ham pieces all night. He'll bring a piece at a time and just munch on them while we watch our TV marathon. Then, he'll saunter over to the kitchen and grab another piece - call me lazy, but I prefer to just stack my plate with a hefty helping and just gorge. I haven't tried it, but the glazed top looks amazing and it sure smells good.

And then the final touch to end our feast - pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie is my favorite pie, hands down. People can attest to the apple pie, pecan, or blueberry pie, but pumpkin pie is just too special to compare. Simple in nature, the filling is so simple, but has this great spice combination. We went to Mother's Market, this awesome organic, natural foods grocery market to check out their Thanksgiving items. This store offers a wide variety of gluten-free options such as pie crusts! We bought pie crusts and dairy free chocolate chips (if you're lactose intolerant, TRY THESE, they are so delicious and melt great after baking) and MOH baked a pumpkin pie that tasted so good!

Overall, another year, another Thanksgiving of good food. Hopefully everyone's start of the holidays have gone well!

Until next time, happy holidays, and happy eating all!

Pre-Thanksgiving thanks and noodle-mania

It's Thanksgiving week, which means I can take a second to just breathe and count my blessings.

Whether it's enjoying the year-round beauty of Southern California weather, my supportive family who gets my hectic school schedule, my culture that has helped ignite my passion for food, or even you for browsing through this blog of my raw subconscious, this year has much to be thankful for. 

This past weekend I was craving noodles and vegetables and thought to make a dish that's super easy and called bun tom va dau phu xao (vermicelli with sauteed tofu and shrimp). Now I know what you're thinking - what? No Thanksgiving centric dishes?!?! Trust me though, this dish would serve as a great intermediate between Thanksgiving snacking. You can sandwich this meal between Turkey day Thanksgiving and Saturday leftovers. On top of that, this dish is simple to make and is super flavorful. Another added bonus - this dish can be customized to please any eater's palate. Although I made this dish with tofu and shrimp, the dish would be just as delicious with tofu only, shrimp only, pork, or even beef.

Ingredients for nuoc mam (dipping sauce), modified from Ravenous Couple:

- 1/2 cup of water

- 1/8 cup of fish sauce 

- 2.5 tablespoon white sugar

- 2.5 tablespoon lime juice

- 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped or mashed

- 4 chilis chopped

Ingredients for vermicelli tom dau phu xao:

- 1/2 pack of extra firm tofu, cubed

- 6 pieces of tiger prawns (or shrimp of your choice), deveined and cut into 1 inch length pieces, or kept whole

- 4 garlic cloves, chopped

- 3 tablespoons of oyster sauce

- 1 tablespoon of sesame oil

- 2 stalks of lemongrass, chopped

- 1 onion chopped longways

- Bundle of noodles

- 1/2 red or green lettuce washed and chopped 

- 2 cups bean sprouts washed

- 1/2 bundle of cilantro washed

- Your choice of herbs (mint, basil, perilla)

Protocol:

1. Boil vermicelli noodles until cooked through - drain and set aside

2. Combine ingredients for fish sauce (ingredient list 1) and set aside - adjust accordingly to how sour or sweet you want the sauce

3. In a bowl, combine garlic, tofu, lemongrass, oyster sauce and sesame oil - let sit for at least 20 minutes or in fridge to let marinade sink in

4. Heat skillet and add a dash of vegetable oil

5. When hot, put in ingredients from (1) and stir fry until tofu browned

6. Once tofu browned, add in shrimp and onions

7. Sautee until onions and shrimp are cooked through - set aside

8. Create your dish using your favorite fixings (if you like more green, pile on the herbs and vegetables, followed by noodles and sauteed tofu/shrimp; if you want a more paleo treat, omit rice noodles)

Happy eating all!

When cooks try to bake

Some of us are blessed to be considered good cooks AND bakers.

This week, I realized I cannot bake for my life. I used to bake pretty frequently when I first started college. Food was an outlet that I found out was a great stress reliever. Whether it was exam grades, looming deadlines, or just the blues, cooking and baking was this time that I had for myself which was totally in my control. I couldn't control how a curve would be set in my statistics class (ugh ANOVAs how you KILL ME!), nor could I control how my experimental result would pan out, but I could plan out what I wanted to eat, or how I wanted to flavor it.

Photo courtesy of Infrogmation

We're in the middle of fall, which means pumpkin recipes are floating around the internet and being featured in magazines galore. I love pumpkin. In general I'm a fan of most squashes (I love making a great squash bake). But this week, I was craving some pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread. I followed a seemingly simple recipe, but in my haste, forgot one key ingredient - brown sugar. HA. The pumpkin pie filling smelled great baking in the oven - the taste on the other hand, it had this awful aftertaste of too much cinnamon that would have been ignored had I put in some sugar. It was so sad. Some people are just not fit to be bakers. Myself in particular, I lack the structure or discipline to follow the strict recipe - I usually end up eye-balling measurements, throwing things here and there, hoping it will turn out okay. I think after today, I'm going to leave the baking to MOH (he makes the best gluten free, vegan, oatmeal raisin cookies!) In cooking, there's much more flexibility. You can work off the backbone of a recipe and add your particular flair without being too concerned about something turning out badly.

I think to be a great baker, you need to have the eye for creativity, but the knowledge of chemistry in order to create something wonderful. The correct measurements and ratio of flour: eggs: sugar are so key and often mean the difference between something tasting too "eggy" versus "airy," "dense" versus "light," or in my case, "good" versus "gross."

Carrot cupcakes courtesy of Jaimie N - these cupcakes taste as good as they look!

Luckily for most of us non-bakers, we often surround ourselves with friends and family who are AMAZING bakers! I'm fortunate to have friends who bake some of the most beautiful and tasteful desserts. The photo above is from Jaimie N., a friend from San Diego who does some of the most creative desserts. Like what you see? If so, you're in luck because Jaimie will be featured in a December post spotlighting some of her favorite desserts!

I decided to redeem myself and tried to make a pumpkin bread this time. I had blown through a can of pumpkin puree, didn't satisfy my pumpkin craving, and needed a pick-me-up after a long week. I used the backbone of a recipe but decided to make modifications of my own because I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of using 4 eggs and 4 cups of flour for a bread recipe - seriously? The end result was a hybrid between a pumpkin bread/pumpkin bread pudding that tasted pretty good! It reminded me of a pumpkin version of Vietnamese souffle cake, this soft, moist cake. Happy mistake on my part for the extra surprise, and I'll take it!

Ingredients:
- 15 ounce pumpkin puree
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup oil
- 1/6 cup of water
- 3/4 cup of gluten free all purpose flour
- 1 tsp of baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger

Protocol:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Celsius
2. Mix pumpkin puree, eggs, water, oil and sugar
3. Add in rest of dry ingredients, making sure evenly distributed
4. Pour onto a greased loaf pan
5. Bake for 50 minutes or until cooked through
6. Let cool - bread tastes even better if left out overnight.


Hopefully you guys like this rendition of pumpkin bread! If you like your bread not as moist, I'd suggest halving the amount of pumpkin since I actually doubled the normative amount of pumpkin.

Until next time, happy eating all!

Follow your gut: how slime molds map railways more efficient than most people

Whether a friend is asking for your thoughts on a career change, or maybe you hear a radio caller questioning their partner's faithfulness, or perhaps you have your own MOH asking those life altering decisions ("Hey, should I have oreos, nachos... or BOTH?!") a common phrase tossed around is "what does your gut tell you?"

What does that even mean? My gut talks to me all day. It's not anything philosophical and more tummy rumblings than anything, but sometimes the gut speaks the truth. Like how some breakfasts should start off with hot cereal!

Sometimes breakfast just needs something other than yogurt!

MOH is taking core graduate courses which suck for him, but are great for me because he tells me about really cool science-y stuff happening around the world. I don't know about other grad students, but I often get stuck in my little bubble of research, that I miss some interesting finds.

Slime mold - isn't it beautiful? (Photo courtesy of frankenstoen)

Case in point: slime molds, when following their gut, are pretty smart. Scratch that, slime molds are GENIUS. This is an oldie, but real goodie. 

Science published an article in 2010 (Tero, A. et al.) in which they looked at how organisms establish biological networks through computing their energy input, food source, and environmental obstacles - in particular, how does slime mold map out the most efficient way to get to all their food sources? If you think about trying to get to multiple places (say you are running errands on a Saturday), you ideally want to map out the most efficient route. To do so, you take in consideration different things: how far do you need to travel (should you hit Costco first, or do it on the way home?), how much gas it will cost you, and what physical barriers stand in your way (maybe there is more traffic on University at 5PM because it links to the freeway). It is a constant struggle of balancing everything in order to find the most feasible, least stressful solution to getting to your endpoint.

Even one of the most basic organism, slime mold, does this mental calculation. Slime mold naturally will seek out food sources by sending out tons of feelers into their environment (see photo below). The slime mold sends out giant nets, almost. Eventually, the slime will trim down its numerous feelers in order to direct most of its energy towards the high food sources. This redirection is a result of using the least amount of energy in order to hit all its food hot spots. 

Figure 1 from Tero paper showing slime mold calculating best trajectory to get to food sources

The slime mold is so efficient at making this calculation, that the researchers decided to put the mold to the ultimate test - if given a representative complex food source map, such as the city of Tokyo, could the slime mold map out an efficient way to hit all its food sources?

Figure 2 from Tero paper

What researchers actually saw was crazy - the slime mold was able to map out its projections to an almost spot-on map of the Tokyo rail network. In the photo above, the slime mold initially mapped out a trajectory shown in A, which doesn't quite match up to D (the actual Tokyo rail line). To simulate Tokyo's dynamic landscape (combination of high and low altitude), researchers shined a light on the areas of high altitude and put dim light on areas of low altitude, and found that the mold rerouted its trajectory to a spot-on layout to the Tokyo rail line.

Slime mold is super basic. It has no actual brain or nervous system, and is a large, single cellular ameboid organism. Its main goal in life is to troll around and find a food source. Yet, given the opportunity, slime mold can perform a complex computation solely driven by its gut response. Imagine if our guts were that smart. We should be so lucky.

This weekend I'm heading to San Diego for the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting! Planning to post some cool findings from there if I make it out alive!

Until next time, happy eating!

References:

Tero, A., et al., 2010. Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design. Science. 327(5964): 439-442

Turmeric vegetarian fried rice - beat the monotony

Hello!

The spotlight ingredient for this week is turmeric! I did a previous post on lemongrass about a month ago, but it's time to branch out and try something new.

MOH and I were walking through our local farmer's market looking for new things to try when we saw a bunch of people crowded around a particular stand with their heads deeply immersed into picking things into their plastic bags. When I stepped closer, I noticed it was fresh turmeric! If your only experience of seeing turmeric is in a spice jar, turmeric in its raw form looks like little tiny nubbins. It normally comes in two flavors, white turmeric and yellow turmeric (the yellow being the one most people are familiar with). Depending on how strong of a turmeric flavor you want, the white turmeric is much more tame.

Turmeric is in the same family as ginger, and is often cited as having beneficial health effects similar to its sister counterpart in promoting wellness and warding off the progression of diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's (try typing in "turmeric health benefits" on Google or the National Institutes of Health website Pubmed and you'll get a wide array of scientific articles). Turmeric is widely used in Indian cooking, where it originated, and is often a main ingredient in curry. What some people don't know is that turmeric is sometimes substituted in place of saffron. What exactly does turmeric taste like? Some would say it has an earthy, spicy mustard-y taste with a subtle heat at the end (similar to what happens when you eat ginger).

I was really excited to see turmeric in its raw form and decided to do something different with it other than make curry. How about FRIED RICE?!?! Who can say no to fried rice? Especially after a long day of doing nothing but veg out in front of the TV (there was an Alien marathon as well as Modern Family, so we couldn't resist).

I like to make kimchi ginger fried rice usually, but decided to branch off and substitute turmeric with ginger instead. The results were a success (at least between MOH and I). The key to this dish is dicing the turmeric such that in every bite of the dish, you get a good helping of turmeric that packs a punch at the end.

Ingredients:
- 1 cup of diced fresh yellow turmeric
- 4 garlic cloves, diced
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- Half a bag of frozen vegetables (alternatively, you can dice 1 cup each of carrots, peas, corn and broccoli)
- 3 eggs
- 3 cups of cooked rice (brown or white, your choice)
- 1 cup of chopped green onions and cilantro
- 1 tbsp of soy sauce (season with fish sauce if you want a saltier bite)
- Salt and pepper to season

Protocol:

1. Heat a wok with 1 tsp of oil
2. Scramble eggs and set aside (can either cut the eggs into cubes or just take a spoon and mash crudely to get several pieces)
3. Add 1 tsp of oil and once hot, sautee the garlic and turmeric until garlic turns light brown
4. Add in vegetables, or if using frozen vegetable pack, first add in onions
5. Once onions translucent, add in frozen vegetables and sautee mixture until frozen vegetables are heated through
6. Add in rice, soy sauce and seasoning - mix thoroughly
7. Add in eggs and fold into the fried rice mixture
8. Garnish with green onions and cilantro
9. Scarf down like a zombie while you enjoy your last few hours of the weekend

A super simple dish that packs quite the punch thanks to the turmeric. If you're into this comfort food, spicing it up with turmeric will definitely lift the predictability of this dish and add a great heat at the end!

Until next time, happy eating all!

Changing my senses to take the bitterness in stride

I've been upping my consumption of tea and coffee lately - mostly due to the weather changes (it's starting to look like fall here in Orange County!), but also due to looming deadlines that keep on piling up.

Photo courtesy of Onpuichunsen

I used to have to drink my coffee with loads of cream and sugar, and I'd normally take my tea with a generous helping of honey (trust me, green tea and honey > airborne in warding off a cold). Now, I can get away with coffee with some sugar, and even some black tea without honey (though honey's always welcome).

Your body has a great way of adapting to bitter tastes if necessary. Take bittermelon, or even chinese brocolli (Gai Lan) - I used to hate eating these as a kid, but my mom would make me eat a bowl of these veggies in soup form before leaving the dining table. Now, when I see these items at the farmer's market, I try to have these vegetables circulate my kitchen a couple times a month. I mean, who could resist stuffed bittermelon soup?! Most people have had gai lan while out eating dimsum - it's normally generously lathered/masked in this sumptuous oyster sauce and tastes so sweet. Gai lan in its natural form is actually the complete opposite - in the same family as brocolli, this leafy green is packed with a bitter punch. I actually prefer to steam my gai lan, or use it in a very simple shrimp soup broth over rice.

Gai lan as most people enjoy it (photo courtesy of Stu)

While it's been long established that we adapt to eating certain things for the sake of reaping the nutrients of the food, the actual "sciency" rationale behind how our brain allows us to overcome this is something more of a black box of mystery.

Recently, researchers published a cool study in Science that looked at how animals may be adapting to bitter tastes over time using.... FLIES! Okay, don't stop reading from here. Flies are pretty awesome. If you look at early developmental work, there's a ton of crazy stuff that has been discovered using flies as the animal model (such as the discovery of hox genes - these genes are important for determining how to organize body segmentation).

Despite the prevalence of a majority of neuroscience work in mice and rats, flies haven't dropped off just yet (haha, get it?). With regards to sensing food, flies are great to use for taste research since they have multiple receptors on their body that can sense different flavors - they have a ton of tiny hairlike fibers called gustatory sensilla that have different food receptors. In this study, researchers looked at the flys' ability to adapt to consuming camphor, a bitter compound that tastes like a cross between a menthol cough drop and spoonful of cinnamon (yum). What they found was that over time, flies adapted to eating camphor, but it was a result of having less of a receptor that detected that bitter compound, in this case TRPL. So did the receptor disappear forever, go on a temporary hiatus, or what? As it turns out, the amount of receptor present was being controlled - depending on consumption of the bitter compound, there would either be more or less of the receptor present. So depending on your diet, the particular receptors can be ever changing helping you blunt or heighten your responses to detecting a particular taste. This study was only done with camphor, and they found that other bitter compounds had no effect on the receptor levels, suggesting that the actual regulation of flavor detection varies considerably on what receptor you have in the sensing environment.*

This study is fairly new, and not much has been done on the human forefront, but it would be interesting to see if regulation of your tasting environment is as dynamic as the fly's. Whether it's a mind over matter type situation for humans, or if there's actually chemical regulation to control how much bitter, sweet, or salty we can handle, it's still something to keep in mind. MOH can serve as a great example to this - when we first met, he declared a few things that he'd never stand for:

1. Swimming (he'd taken tons of lessons and could never float)
2. Doing high intensity cardiovascular activity
and
3. Eating bittermelon / durian in any form, whether it's soup-ified or in ice cream form

It's been a long journey with him and there's considerable progress on his end - he will eat bittermelon if it's sauteed with some onions and eggs, and enjoys spinning to loud EDM music. I can't say much about the exercise, but I think the gradual acceptance of bittermelon has something potentially to do with a rewiring or remodeling of the chemical environment in his mouth. No status on the durian - he still thinks it smells too much like feet to enjoy.

So much hate for durians - even they need love!

Until next time, happy eating all!


***The actual molecular mechanism behind regulation of the TRPL channel is through a Ube3a mediated ubiquitination and degradation of TRPL.

References:

Zhang YZ et al., 2013. Food experience - induced taste desensitization modulated by the Drosophila TRPL channel. Nature Neuroscience. 1468-1476

Humanese cuisine, vegan Sunday fun

These past two weeks have been hectic.

The academic quarter has started, meaning there's tons of undergraduates on campus walking everywhere, including in the bike path (thanks cell phone talker for making me veer quickly to the left!). With the fall quarter starting, that also means I'm starting to teach again. I have a love/hate relationship with teaching - I love science education / community outreach, but HATE the grading that it entails.

Needless to say, I fell off the bandwagon of my once a week postings, but I'm back! This weekend was jam packed with going into lab, working on teaching material, blowing and repairing my car battery, heading to the comic shop, to finally, getting to try a great vegan restaurant in Fountain Valley that has been on my "must-eats" for awhile now.

Au Lac is a cozy restaurant that showcases Vietnamese dishes with a vegan flair. They promote "humanese" cuisine, an idea coined by the chef there, which is the idea that humans and animals are all the same deep down. Hence, in order to fully appreciate life, humans need to appreciate others around them (humans, animals, and plants alike). *Note, I'm not advocating veganism to anyone, for what anyone eat is a personal choice, but just wanted to give some background on what "humanese" means.

One thing that really drew me to the restaurant was their specialty item "mam va rau" - an eggplant hot pot or seafood gumbo. This dish is so pungent. I think one reason why the dish isn't showcased in restaurants too often is because of the smell - it is very garlicky and fishy. I think you need an acquired taste to fully appreciate this dish - ask any Vietnamese person and they'll often say how much they like it, and comment on how stanky it can get. Despite the funky smell, it's so delicious. It's a very salty broth that you pour over rice noodles and vegetables and squeeze lime over to top it off - so tasty, and a great contrast of salty/sour in your mouth. The texture difference really plays well too - you have the soft sumptuous eggplant and fish that goes great with soft noodles and a medley of crunchy vegetables to top it.

I was really eager to try Au Lac's rendition of mam va rau and when I tried the dish, it did not disappoint at all. Though tame in the funky smell, the broth was very flavorful and tasted exactly like the traditional mam dish that I grew up eating. Instead of meats and fishes, this dish had faux fish and tofu. The tofu and fish soaked up the broth flavor and had this intense umami taste to them.

Really great food here. I'm sad that I don't live close enough to go here more frequently! Hope everyone's meals this weekend are as good as the one I just had!

Happy eating all!

Peanut butter indulgence - eating beyond the breaking point

In honor of the Breaking Bad finale (boo), MOH and I made a special dinner of mushroom risotto and decided to indulge in one of our favorite things to snack on: peanut butter. MOH made peanut butter cookies with little cacao nibs inside - so delicious. We were worried about the cookies being too rich or dry, but these cookies were moist, had the right amount of peanut butter, and best part: were tasty! Most peanut butter cookies can be made without any flour and consist primarily of three ingredients: peanut butter, sugar, and an egg. MOH's rendition of these cookies have a slight modification of sugar, cacao nibs (for a crunchy texture), and baking soda.

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup truvia 

1 egg

1/4 cup cacao nibs

1 tsp baking soda

Protocol:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper

2. In a mixing bowl, mix all ingredients until smooth. Chill dough in refrigerator for 30min

3. Using hands, roll dough into 1" balls and space ~1" apart on the parchment paper. Flatten with a fork

4. Bake for 8min in the oven. Cool on the baking sheet (not a cooling rack).

5. Eat them all! 

These cookies are addicting. The recipe makes 36, but now, there's only 9 sad cookies left on the rack. I'm full, yet I'll eat a cookie nonetheless. I'll sport my cookie belly, run for a few more minutes, just to console myself that eating that extra cookie is worth it.

Rat that's had one too many crackers! (Photo courtesy of J. Servaes)

This week in Science, researchers published some really cool stuff on what motivates feeding behavior, whether an animal is starved or satiated. In a nutshell, researchers manipulated a pathway in the brain that is responsible for mediating feeding and observed how activation or inactivation of the pathway affected whether a rat would go for food. What they found was activation of the pathway led the rat to eat more, even when the rat was full . Conversely, inactivating the pathway led rats to eat less, even if rats were starved. For more science, scroll down to *.

Pretty crazy stuff, considering activation of a particular pathway in the brain can induce eating beyond satiation in an animal. According to this article, this is the first identified pathway that can modulate feeding behavior.

One thing that comes to mind is how many of us will reach for those extra cookies or chips even though we're way full off dinner. I think an interesting direction to go would be if this pathway mediates all types of feeding behavior or if there's a differential pathway for fatty foods, salty foods, sweet foods.

*
In this article, researchers investigated the pathway that has been implicated towards dictating feeding behavior. This pathway of the brain is called the the bed nuclei of the stria terminalis (BNST) and the lateral hypothalamus (LH). The cells in the BNST that connect to the lateral hypothalamus are primarily gabaergic inhibitory cells.

In this study, researchers used optogenetics (a method to modulate brain activation or deactivation by stimulating light on the brain region) to activate or block the pathway from the BNST to the LH. Specifically, they targeted the cells that projected from the BNST to the LH and looked to see whether rats would preferentially go to the corner of a room that either had food or was empty. Upon stimulation of this pathway, rats would preferentially go to the food corner.

In a separate test, they wanted to see if behavioral output would be changed if the rats were either full or starved. Even when rats were full, stimulation of this pathway caused the rats to continue consuming the food. In contrast, rats that were starved would not consume food if they inactivated the BNST-LH connections.



Reference:
Jennings JH et al., 2013. The inhibitory circuit architecture of the lateral hypothalamus orchestrates feeding. Science. 341(6153): 1517-21.

Bitter grilled cheese sadness, woes of the supertaster

So my Saturday evening wrapped up with MOH spitting out something I made.

MOH has this super affinity for anything cheesy. As a kid, he took full advantage of his karate days and would blow off his caloric burn by frying up cheese in a pan. It sounds really gross, but I've actually tried it and it's a pretty good cheesy crisp. He's not one to say no to a good Mozzarella stick and every night likes to have either a cheese quesadilla or grilled cheese sandwich. Neither of these is truly legit though - I like to make quesadillas by melting the cheese in a microwave, and make the "grilled" cheese by placing the sandwich in an oven until the cheese melts.

So come Saturday, and MOH just finished dinner but was still hungry. He asked for a grilled cheese and I decided to get all "fancy" and use some of my caramelized onions to place inside of his sandwich. We have some Port Salut cheese and it's a great melting cheese. It's really soft and has this great salt taste to it. It's not as salty as Manchego, and reminds me of Mozzarella in texture, but has a much milder flavor than Mozzarella.

Port Salut is probably MOH's favorite cheese. I prefer my cheeses to be more salted and hard (like a good Cheddar or Parmesan), but for MOH, Port Salut is it.

So I did this informal grilled cheese using wheat multigrain with a thin layer of cheese, caramelized onions, and thinly sliced raw yellow onions. I threw the sandwich in the oven on top of a makeshift foil boat and waited until the cheese had melted. 

MOH took one bite, and immediately was all "Whew, that is BITTER!" Anyways, he continued to eat the sandwich after removing the bits of raw onion. 

Some people are just extremely sensitive to bitter tastes, or other tastes for that matter. You sometimes hear or read about people who have heightened senses (either they were born with it, or had some sort of overcompensation from losing another sense), but is there any scientific basis for this? 

I actually came across the idea of a "supertaster," the ultimate connoisseur. It's a real thing scientifically, too (Reed DR, 2008). Supertasters were first identified as having the ability to detect a bitter chemical, 6-n-propylthiouracil (otherwise known as PROP) at a particular concentration. Subjects either were unable to detect this bitter taste, while others found it extremely bitter and offputting - researchers designated the subjects who could detect the bitter compound as "supertasters." Besides heightened bitter taste perception, supertasters are also able to detect subthreshold levels of other taste compounds. 

Besides a heightened response for detecting such chemical compounds like the bitter taste, supertasters are also able to discriminate minutia changes in ingredient levels (Hayes JE and Keast R, 2011).  

While the actual genetics behind what makes supertasters detect subthreshold levels of food chemicals is still under question, there are some possible mechanisms that may account for this super ability:

- Mutations in channels responsible for sensing flavors - interesting idea, especially considering an older article that spotlighted "supersmeller" mice that had mutations in a potassium channel that caused them to have a heightened sense of smell (Fadool DA et al., 2004).

- A heightened gain or amplification of the neural signal that sends chemical information to the brain 

Whatever the actual reason, it's still a pretty cool idea. Another interesting idea is how learning/memory can play a role in becoming a supertaster. I'm sure being a supertaster goes far beyond genetics (I mean, science has shown that genetics are really only a starting point for how our bodies develop). Not everyone is designated the coveted title of "supertaster," but I'm sure that after repeated bouts in the kitchen, almost every home cook should have some sort of super threshold ability to detect when their special dumpling soup needs an extra dash of spice.

***Redemption came through Sunday - I made another grilled cheese, this time upping the ante by sauteing mushrooms and yellow onions together, and slabbing some good ol' cheese on top - success!

References: 

Fadool DA et al., 2004. Kv1.3 channel gene-targeted deletion produces "Super-smeller mice" with altered glomeruli, interacting scaffolding proteins, and biophysics. Neuron. 41(3): 389-404.

Hayes KE and Keast J,  2011. Two decades of supertasting: where do we stand? Physiology and Behavior. 104(5): 1072-74.

Reed DR, 2008. Birth of a new breed of supertasters. Chemical Senses. 33(6): 489-91.