The new shopping cart.

America's becoming obese! No kidding. One of the last hopes of getting exercise for many people, grocery shopping, is slowly coming to an end for many Americans. Sadly I heard this news from my aunt's two year old who does all the families shopping through an iphone. The mixture of technology in the new generation and food is pretty saddening. Is the food handled well as it gets shipped to your house? How fast is the service? And why can't some people take the 10 minute drive or 15 minute walk to their close grocery store? These questions will be answered with this blog.

How did this revolutionary shopping come aboard? Well I looked into the history of online shopping to tell you. You see, this big step started with the baby step of the world wide web which became popular sometime around 1980. The second step was online banking, when people started to make transactions online instead of walking to the bank. (Apparently food history doesn't have much to do with food at first). In 1995, both Ebay and Amazon arrived, Amazon offering books and Ebay being the first online auctioning site. Now why is online shopping favored more? How about comparing prices so you get a better deal on one product or possibly making friends with the seller on Ebay or the oh so now popular Craigs List. Even at my moms work, a retirement center in San Leandro, the residents are ordering food from Safeway online. Where will food travel next?

Interesting Facts:
Pizza Hut was the first online retailer in Santa Cruz, California in 1994

sources-
http://www.online-food-order.com/

http://www.life123.com/beauty/style/online-shopping/history-of-online-shopping.shtml

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01561/sainsbury_1561459c.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/7020524/Online-food-shopping-expected-to-double-in-five-years.html&usg=__byxpA1Ir1x6i_nSLbl9ZyNPI9I8=&h=287&w=460&sz=21&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=hNi3hI3uJSaalM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=161&prev=/images%3Fq%3Donline%2Bfood%2Bshopping%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1226%26bih%3D593%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=389&vpy=179&dur=1471&hovh=177&hovw=284&tx=154&ty=77&ei=u6WrTPKOG4qHswbvoMTJAw&oei=u6WrTPKOG4qHswbvoMTJAw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0

The Forever Changing Food.

Flat Bread, sauce, cheese, and toppings the basics of a widely known food : pizza. Where did this tasty treat come from? Not Italy where people first think so, but from Greece. Apparently instead of using tomato sauce, they used to use oil then topped stuff on top. But people did not stop changing this treat with just pasta sauce, there are much more additions to making them into sandwiches, putting on candy, making them wheat free, and much more.

So when did the tomatoe sauce on pizza come from? Even though pizza was a food for peasants, a chef made pizza for Queen Magherita of Italy adding tomato, basil, and mozzarella cheese to symbolize the colors of the Italian flag. Gradually, people kept adding new touches to the pizza for instance Bologna added meat, and Neopolitan pizza had garlic and other vegetables added to it. Pizza became known in the Americas after World War II.

In my cities public library, I was reading the book "This is why you're fat," and I saw an interesting picture of a sandwich made of pizza called the pizza burger which consists of pizza serving as the buns, slices of bacon, three types of cheese other than the cheese on the pizza, and a thick slab of sausage in the middle. Another interesting transformation of pizza is the "pizza cone"not a calzone (pizza folded over into a half moon shape) but an actual pizza dough in the shape of an ice cream cone with the pizza toppings in the middle.

Interesting Pizza Facts:
The largest pizza was made in Florida (100 feet and one inch across)
The average American and Canadian eats 23 pounds of pizza a year
Pizzerias are 17 percents of America's restaurants

http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/FOOD_IS_ART/pizzahistory.html

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/fresh-ideas/dinner-food-facts/12-facts-about-pizza.htm

http://notwhileiameating.com/2009/05/24/bacon-and-cheese-stuffed-pizza-burger/

http://www.crispycones.com/

Berry Mania

How many of you like me have tried weight loss plan after weight loss plan? Whether it is going to 24 hour fitness, buying weights, running a mile every day, cutting down on carbs, becoming vegetarian, and so many other plans that I have tried I always find that it is hard to stay commited. What way is next? Well if you too keep up with the news and Oprah, the easiest way out of body fat is the Acai Berry. At first, I believed in this tiny grape-like berry, but right before I asked my mom to buy me Acai maximum, she showed me an article in the newspaper to stay away from this berry. So I spent this week looking for articles that will give me good berries and bad berries to stay away from.

Let me start with the berries that everyone knows before I give the "good" and "bad" acai berries. After reading on about nurition I found some interesting facts that everyone might not know. For instance, a cup of strawberries gives as much calcium as a cup of orange juice. Cranberries and blueberries can prevent bladder infection. If you have a balanced diet of berries, it is believe that you can prevent several types of cancer. My personal favorite ways to eat berries:
Strawberry Milkshakes
Strawberries cut up with bananas
Blueberries and Lemon Loaf
Black Berries on top of red velvet cake
Raspberries with yogurt and walnuts
Blueberry Scones

Acai Berries are the "revolutionary berry" that are said to increase your energy, speed up weight loss, and clean your insides but is all of this true? The best weight loss result reported so far is 31 pounds in a month. Wow. Now that is alot. But consider, with rapid weight loss you can loose hair, break out, and have stretch marks or cellulite showing oh no. What everyone should watch out for when they try this diet is buying on an online site. You should also try a small sample or see a doctor before trying this diet because some people can get serious reactions like breaking into hives, itching, or breaking out. Now thinking about this berry and rapid weight loss you might still want to try it, I admit I would like to take the risk to, later on I might and let you know how it goes. Some approved brands are:

LeanSpa Acai
Acai Weight loss
Acai Maximum
Acai berry select (for men)
"


http://nutrition.about.com/od/healthyfood1/a/berries.htm

http://www.usahealthreportsnews.org/reports/dieting/acai-berry-products-reviewed.html

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Hepatitis-Social/Allergic-Reaction-to-acai-berry-supplement/show/594244

Food Carving

How many people have heard their guardian say "don't play with your food!" Well my cousin Polendoy introduced me to this new idea of carving food. Some chefs have taken catering and presentation to a whole new level by carving birds from onions and flowers from beets. Where has this idea grown from? Possibly ice sculpture or the carving of pumpkins for halloween?

Instead of getting into the whole catering idea, I think since its reaching October the pumpkin carving idea will be  better so when we take a tools on the pumpkin we can understand why we do this. I am sure that many people are not aware that the name pumpkin came from the greek word pepon which means large melon. The idea of carving pumpkins came from the Irish myth "Stringy Jack." In Ireland and Scotland people began carving faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them on windows and door steps. This tradition eventually came to America where colonists found that pumpkins made perfect jack-o-lanterns.

read about "Stinky Jack":
http://www.halloween-ideas.net/halloween-history-legends/halloween-history-jackolatern.html

Other stories that have pumpkin in them:
Cinderella
The Tale of Sleepy Hollow
Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

sources:
http://www.halloween-ideas.net/halloween-history-legends/halloween-history-jackolatern.html
cosmeticcandy.com
http://www.halloween-ideas.net/halloween-history-legends/halloween-history-jackolatern.html

A meatless life

           For the past week and a half, I was trying to be vegetarian for one of my classes in school. Diatricians seem to have come up with a variety of ways to have fake or soy meat in cans, boxes, and other packages. Some of these foods weren't so tasty. I know alot of people that decided to change their life style strictly to vegetarian, I am not one of them, so for anyone else that is thinking about becoming vegetarian I have a few guidelines of what to eat and what to stay away from thats advertised as vegetarian.

Try :                                                                                              
yves jumbo dog
morning star sausages


Don't try:
Tofurky Franks
Veggie patch meatless meatballs


         Mainly, if your vegetarian and you want to try the fake meats theirs not many great options. I found that in canned vegetarian meats theres was alot more sodium and unlike many vegetarians claim I did not feel very energized from my change of diet. What became my best friend during this hardship? Tofu. If there are any vegetarians out there please leave a comment letting me know how you are able to survive. Anyone who had a hard time trying to be vegetarian like me why don't you share your own experience.


Sources:
Food Mill
Safeway
Yves packages
Morning star Packages
Veggie patch Packages
Tofurky franks packages
shsbarbi.blogspot.com

Frozen Treats on Demand

         If you are like me and take a weekly visit to Westfield or Stoneridge mall after church, you will notice that they have a new vending machine. But this machine is not your ordinary drink or snack machine. After inserting the right amount of money you get ice cream in a cup, now how cool is that? Ice cream has grown alot through the years beginning with ice flavored with honey and fruit, to waffle cones, circular ice cream dots, cubed ice cream, soft serve ice cream and now ice cream vending machines. Ok, I admit that ice cream vending machines are not all so new, I remember on my seventh birthday in Chuckie Cheese there was an ice cream vending machine for popsicles but opposed to the new ones, it did not have ice cream dropped into a cup.

        One of the ice cream vending machines I will tell you about is MooBella, founded by Paul Kateman. When a flavor or mix in runs out, the machine automatically contacts the supplier for a refill. The machine has 96 varieties of flavors in it ranging from pistachio with cookies and cream to butter pecan with chocolate chunks, two combinations anyone can create that most likely won't be found in stores and come out 45 seconds after the push of a few buttons. If you see an ice cream vending machine you should try it out and compare it to the ice cream in your freezer see if you like the new modern way or the old fashioned way. Thank you

sources:
www.moobella.com
www.yelp.com/biz/moobella-machine-boston
www.robotadvice.com/moobella-ice-cream_robot.html
inventors.about.com/od/.../a/ice_cream.html
webinstituteforteachers.org/~cbmallare/History1.html
www.foodtimeline.org/foodicecream.html

Tiny cakes go a long way

There are many new "fads" in snack food ranging from frozen yogurt to tapioca. Simple foods that get the spotlight and are consumed as much as our favorite burger chains daily. One new "trend" is the cupcake. As cupcakes climb to the top of the food chain people are becoming more creative making cupcake burgers on april fools, cupcake cakes that seem to slowly be replacing birthday cakes, and even cupcake boutiques. The cupcake craze is even starting to spread onto our clothing like socks, necklaces, shirts, etc. Wherever you go you are surrounded by cupcakes, buying groceries theres a whole section just for the treat, when you jog you run into a cupcake shop, cupcake clubs, books dedicated to cupcakes, and even cupcake competitions on t.v.

The art of baking cupcakes generated in  in the late 18th century when people found it was faster to bake the delicious treats in little cups rather than big cakes. Also, it was alot easier to make the batter for cupcakes because the simple recipe was easy to remember.

So whats so amazing about cupcakes?
-portable
-custom piece instead of having a slice to everyones cake
-fast to cook
-easier to decorate
-you can fill them with candied fruit, cream, etc.

Fun Facts:
Old recipe- the 1,2,3,4 cupcake recipe was a simple recipe easy to memorize because people couldn't read in the late 1800's
Most popular snack cupcake is the Hostess chocolate cupcake which was created in 1919 but added the creamy filling in 1950

To finish off: a joke I hear a long time ago

There were two cupcakes in an oven
One cupcake turned to the other and said
"man is it hot in here or is it just me?"
the other one said "Geewillickers, its a talking cupcake!"


Some cupcake places to try out:
Sprinkles
Two Little Red Hens
Kara's Cupcakes
                                                                         Sugarland
                                                                         Dots Cupcakes

sources:
flikr
iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/spring07/ayers/history.html
www.crazyaboutcupcakes.com/learning.html
www.squidoo.com/cupcake-history.html
cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/2007/04/cupcake-jokes.html