Guacamole animation

This is my new favorite guacamole recipe. I particularly love the diced onions.

The FDA speaks

The Onion News Network has a video about health recommendations from the Federal Government on their "Daily Briefing" channel. I sometimes wonder if the people at the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services ever actually think things like this, while they're making politically acceptable pronouncements.

Warning: contains vulgar language.

Taking Down WW

One of the funniest writers on the internet signs up for Weight Watchers.

Do you remember Cracked magazine? Back in the '60s, it was just a cheap imitation of Mad, but things have changed. Cracked made the jump to the Internet, and just keeps getting better. Mad is pretty much defunct. Anyway, enjoy.

"Health" Food Smackdown

The wonderful people (ok, the overeducated, sarcastic, know-it-alls) at Cracked have published an article entitled "Eight Health Foods that are Bad for your Health". Highly recommended for anybody who took too many science classes in school. Very funny, for anybody else.

Shrub Monkeys

KT Shy has a good comic strip over at Girlamatic.com, called "Shrub Monkeys". This week, she takes her little sister to a veggie restaurant.

The Lighter Side of Processed Food

The guys over at cracked.com have a great article about processed foods, and why you'll wish you'd never touched the stuff. Warning -- their sense of humor is a bit coarse. (In the sense that volcanoes are a bit warm.)

Michelangelo

Ok, I know I shouldn't be, but I'm laughing so hard I can't type straight. BeanDiet: it's so true
(In the interest of providing a responsible opposing viewpoint, I had a friend who got a job in Germany, and gained 25 pounds in the first year he was there. His apartment was just above a pastry shop...)

For the Fourth of July

From Benjamin Franklin's "Letter to a Royal Academy":

GENTLEMEN,

I have perused your late mathematical Prize Question, proposed in lieu of one in Natural Philosophy, for the ensuing year, viz. "Une figure quelconque donnee, on demande d’y inscrire le plus grand nombre de fois possible une autre figure plus-petite quelconque, qui est aussi donnee". I was glad to find by these following Words, "l’Academie a jugee que cette deecouverte, en eetendant les bornes de nos connoissances, ne seroit pas sans UTILITE", that you esteem Utility an essential Point in your Enquiries, which has not always been the case with all Academies; and I conclude therefore that you have given this Question instead of a philosophical, or as the Learned express it, a physical one, because you could not at the time think of a physical one that promis’d greater Utility.

Permit me then humbly to propose one of that sort for your consideration, and through you, if you approve it, for the serious Enquiry of learned Physicians, Chemists, &c. of this enlightened Age. It is universally well known, That in digesting our common Food, there is created or produced in the Bowels of human Creatures, a great Quantity of Wind.

That the permitting this Air to escape and mix with the Atmosphere, is usually offensive to the Company, from the fetid Smell that accompanies it.

That all well-bred People therefore, to avoid giving such Offence, forcibly restrain the Efforts of Nature to discharge that Wind.

That so retain’d contrary to Nature, it not only gives frequently great present Pain, but occasions future Diseases, such as habitual Cholics, Ruptures, Tympanies, &c. often destructive of the Constitution, & sometimes of Life itself.

Were it not for the odiously offensive Smell accompanying such Escapes, polite People would probably be under no more Restraint in discharging such Wind in Company, than they are in spitting, or in blowing their Noses.

My Prize Question therefore should be, To discover some Drug wholesome & not disagreable, to be mix’d with our common Food, or Sauces, that shall render the natural Discharges of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as Perfumes.

That this is not a chimerical Project, and altogether impossible, may appear from these Considerations. That we already have some Knowledge of Means capable of Varying that Smell. He that dines on stale Flesh, especially with much Addition of Onions, shall be able to afford a Stink that no Company can tolerate; while he that has lived for some Time on Vegetables only, shall have that Breath so pure as to be insensible to the most delicate Noses; and if he can manage so as to avoid the Report, he may any where give Vent to his Griefs, unnoticed...

Pet Estate Planning

Over at SFvegan, they have coverage of a lecture at the SPCA about including your pets in your estate planning. If you die unexpectedly, you want your pets to be taken care of, right?

We love cats here at Zizania, but let's face facts. If I die unexpectedly, the odds are ten to one that the cats will be standing over my corpse, giving each other high-fours and gloating, "Dude, it worked!" No way would I write them into my will. I want them to be sad at my funeral.

Epigram

"You health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing." -- Redd Foxx

Veggie Uprising

Rebecca Clement has a warning for us. How long do you think we can get away with eating plants, before they catch on?