Why Junk Food Really Is Addictive

Ice cream and chocolate bars are addictive because the mix of ingredients in them activates our "bliss point", according to Professor David Kessler, a leading scientist.

Snacks, cereals and ready meals can trigger the brain in the same way as tobacco, according to the former head of America's food standards watchdog.

Professor Kessler, ex-commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), claims that manufacturers have created combinations of fat, sugar and salt that are so tasty many people cannot stop eating them even when full.

He argues that manufacturers are seeking to trigger a "bliss point" when people eat certain products, leaving them hungry for more.

"It is time to stop blaming individuals for being overweight or obese," he said. "The real problem is we have created a world where food is always available and where that food is designed to make you want to eat more of it. For millions of people, modern food is simply impossible to resist." Source

Kobayashi beats Chestnut in Pizza Eating Rematch

In a chewy chow-lenge, Takeru Kobayashi outlasted Joey Chestnut when the eating titans faced off to see who could devour the most pizzas.

Kobayashi, a six-time world hot dog eating champion from Japan, consumed 5 3/4 P'zones in a six-minute span of chaotic consumption Saturday to edge Chestnut. The 25-year-old from San Jose, Calif., wolfed down 5 1/2 P'zones on Stage 15 at Sony Studios.

"I'm a little bummed," Chestnut said. "There's nobody I like beating more than him, he pushes me harder than anybody."

The arch rivals are best known for their annual Fourth of July hot dog eating showdowns on New York's Coney Island. Chestnut has beaten his Japanese competitor the last two years, winning last year in a five-dog eat-off after they tied at 59 frankfurters in 10 minutes. Source

Seven Ways to Waste Less Food

Tips on how to make your shopping go further for longer without slavishly following use-by dates — or poisoning yourself. Source

London Restaurant Uses Touchpads for Orders, Projectors for Mood Alteration

The Inamo restaurant in London’s fashionable SoHo district isn’t known for its splendid food or outstandingly accommodating waitresses.

Instead, the new Asian fusion eatery is getting raves for its use of a touch pad-projection system that allows diners to send food orders directly to the chefs and makes the dining experience fully interactive. Source

Robot Chef Cooks Okonomiaki

What's cooking at Tokyo's International Food Machinery and Technology Expo? For this robo-chef, it's Okonomiaki, Japanese pancakes. Source

How Soup Can Help You Lose Weight

In the battle to lose weight, hunger is the dieter's worst enemy. But research has revealed a simple aid to taming the appetite: soup. Imagine a typical lunchtime meal - say, chicken and vegetables with a glass of water. If you eat the food and drink the water, you will feel full for a couple of hours before hunger kicks in. But if you blend the food with the water - to make soup - you will stay hunger-free for much longer, and less likely to snack through the afternoon. How can blending the food into soup make such a difference? The answer lies in the stomach. When you eat the same meal as a soup, the whole mixture remains in the stomach, because the water and food are blended together. The scientists' scans confirm that the stomach stays fuller for longer, staving off those hunger pangs. Source

New York's First Mobile Cupcake Shoppe

New York is about to get a new street vendor with a sweet twist. "This is a perfect addition to New York City's mobile vendors," said Lev Ekster, Cupcake Stop's founder. Ekster said the long lines outside the West Village's Magnolia Bakery drove home the fact that cupcakes are in high demand in New York. "This is a mobile city where everyone's always on the go," Ekster said. "I thought, 'Let's come to them.' " Along with a variety of cupcakes on different days -- such as strawberry shortcake, peanut butter and jelly and one described as psychedelic tie dye -- the truck will deliver gourmet coffee and other drinks. After obtaining vendor permits and taste-testing nearly 1,000 cupcakes, Ekster bought a truck, hired a chef and set up shop. Source

The Woman Who Gave Up Doctorate To Become A Food Blogger

Seattle's finest Molly Wizenberg gave up a doctorate to become a humble home-cooking scribe. "When I started Orangette I had just decided to quit a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and didn't know what to do with myself. The only thing I knew was that, whatever I did, it had to involve food and writing. " Source

What's Wrong With Orange Juice?

That glass of sunshine sitting on the breakfast table isn't as pure and simple as you think it is, according to an exposé of the orange juice industry. In her new book Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice, author Alissa Hamilton examines the "rift that exists between the reality of processed orange juice and retail rhetoric." Although orange juice "has come to symbolise purity in a glass," she writes, it may be heat processed, watered down, sugared up, doctored by flavour engineers and stored for a year. Hamilton, 36, lives in Toronto. She has a doctorate in environmental studies from Yale University and a law degree from the University of Toronto. She is a fellow with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, based in Minneapolis. The fellows are a diverse group working to change U.S. food policies and advance the idea of healthy, green and affordable food for all. She says making the food system more transparent is her particular area of interest. Source

The Great Canadian Heinz Ketchup Cake

To commemorate its Canadian centennial and thank Canadians for 100 years of support, Heinz has created The Great Canadian Heinz Ketchup Cake -- an ideal dessert for any celebration. It's red, perfectly spiced and delicious. Think carrot cake without all the work. Source

A WHOLE chicken in a CAN

A WHOLE chicken in a CAN

Buy 1 and Get 1 Free Voucher - BAB Noodle @Millenia Walk

Buy 1 and Get 1 Free
Just print the voucher & present it, you will enjoy great tasting Asian food at BAB Noodle @ Millenia Walk

Featuring an extensive menu of Korean, Japanese and Thai; rice and noodle specialties. If this is the first time you patronize BAB Noodle, you cannot miss their Ginseng Chicken Soup, Kimchi Chicken Chicken Ramen, as well as their BiBimBAB Bulgogi Beef. The familiar joys of Asian food culture paired with amicable ambience, BAB is the ideal locale for valuable meal and a casual dine in experience as the day draws to an end.

BAB is located at:
9 Raffles Boulevard
Millenia Walk
#01-20/21/22
Singapore 039596
Tel: 63366770
Fax: 63366771

Operating hours:
11am to 1030pm daily

New Dishes at Persimmon

By popular demand, Persimmon is expanding the Main Courses to include dishes such as:

* chargrilled sotong with tomato-lemongrass sauce (smoky chargrill flavour contrasts deliciously with zingy spicy sauce)

* crispy pork belly with mustard sauce (what can we say, we love pork...)

* beef goulash with buttered linguine (in Persimmon style, we've spiced up our stew with chilli, galangal, cinnamon and star anise)

Of course, their signature dishes such as Chicken Rice Salad, Linguine Laska-Leaf Pesto, Spaghetti Aglio Olio Porchetta, and Fisherman's Pie remain.

Introductory Offer: From now through Sunday May 3rd, 1 dines for FREE with every 3 paying adults. This offer is by reservation only. Please mention this promotion when you make the booking.

Gordon Ramsay Crashes Out Of World's Top 50 Restaurants

Gordon Ramsay's flagship restaurant has fallen out of an influential list of the top 50 restaurants in the world, denting the chef’s once unimpeachable reputation.

Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, a small venue in the heart of Chelsea, has long been considered one of Britain’s finest, if not its best.

However, it would appear that dishes such as quail and foie gras pithivier with wild mushrooms, confit leg and celeriac remoulade, no longer impress the critics as they once did.

For the first time since Restaurant magazine started publishing its annual survey of the top restaurants in the world, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay has failed to make the top 50. In fact, the restaurant, last year ranked 13th, dropped out of the longer top 100 list altogether.

A spokesperson for Gordon Ramsay Holdings said: "Gordon takes all these sort of surveys with a pinch of salt. As always, Gordon regards his thousands of customers as his most valued critics. They are his judge and jury." Source

Gordon Ramsay Defends 'Meals On Wheels' Scandal

Gordon Ramsay maintained that the food in his gastro-pubs was fresh yesterday, despite admitting it was prepared in a backstreet kitchen in south London. Gordon Ramsay maintained that the food in his gastro-pubs was fresh yesterday, despite admitting it was prepared in a backstreet kitchen in south London.

Staff in a Ramsay kitchen in Clapham prepared up to half the dishes for his three pubs in the capital – the Warrington in Maida Vale, the Narrow in Limehouse, the Devonshire in Chiswick – and for his Chelsea bistro, Foxtrot Oscar. Preparing food off-site for warming-up is common in mid-market restaurants but is less frequent in establishments run by Michelin-starred chefs.

Ramsay, who has 10 Michelin stars, more than any other British chef, has often spoken out against ready meals and praises fresh ingredients on his TV show Kitchen Nightmares.

A spokeswoman for his company, Gordon Ramsay Holdings, said prepping was "very common" in the restaurant business and insisted the food was fresh. "It's all sealed and delivered to the pubs and cooked freshly that day," she said. "So being cooked in one Gordon Ramsay premises and delivered to another is not going to make a difference." Two of the pubs, the Warrington and the Narrow, were in the top 10 pubs in the 2009 Michelin Guide, she added. Source