#foodfact - a Twitter food reference for @foodchat and beyond.

For those that wish to follow all things food, @foodchat is a great place to start on Twitter. Every Tuesday night from 8pm-10pm Eastern, #agchat engages people in the issues of farming and commercial ag. Every 3rd of those Tuesday evenings are dedicated to food by tagging #foodchat on the end of your statements. Keep both of these as saved searches in Twitter to see what the latest musings are. Twitter has started to become a faster source of news than the rest of the internet. Where people used to see what searches were popular on Yahoo! and Google, they now can simply look at the top trending topics. Twitter, love it or loathe it, has become an invaluable marketing and public relations tool. Every Thursday is #foodfact Thursday on Twitter for followers of #foodchat. I thought I would put my food facts in blog form...

The perfect diet beverage, Unsweetened Iced Tea has zero calories, is chock full of antioxidants, and has a little caffeine as well. I suggest using Lipton's Cold Brew, which is available in both pint and 2 quart pitcher sized pouches.

Eggs are the perfect protein, containing every essential amino acid. This is important, because our body doesn't stockpile amino acids and won't synthesize new proteins unless all required amino acids are available. So if you eat a combination of foods that is missing one or two, then you get zero protein benefit. In developing countries, this leads to a protein deficiency called, kwashiorkor.

One gram of protein = 3kcal. One gram of fat = 9kcal.

The most efficient forms of protein are as follows; 1. milk proteins (Caseins) 2. eggs, 3. beef, 4. soy, 5. chicken

Spam stands for SPiced hAM and consists of the ham and picnic shoulder cuts of pork.

The original flavor of Twinkies was banana. This all changed during WWII when bananas were hard to come by due to fighting in the Pacific theater.

Mountain Dew was originally intended to be a dry whiskey mixer when they discovered that it was pretty good when mixed with club soda.

Daily recommended amounts for proteins are actually overestimated by a third, counting on some of that protein being passed through the body as waste.

3500 calories = 1 pound. Therefore, someone who cuts 500 calories a day from their diets will lose about 1 pound a week until their weight corresponds to the number of calories they consume. For instance, a 200lb man needs about 2400 calories a day to maintain that weight. A 120lb woman needs 1320calories to stay at 120lbs. This all changes though, with increases in activity. If you run, lift weights, compete in sports, then you need considerably more calories.

An egg has 6-8 grams of protein while a glass of milk has 8, and a slice of bread has 4. A can of tuna has half the daily recommended allowance of protein and only 110 calories.

Clostridium Botulinum spores are very hardy. samples taken from a honey bee that was encased in tree sap contained these spores and they were successfully reactivated. The bee was estimated to be 40,000 years old. These are the same spores that can form during improper hoime canning. It takes temperatures of 251 degrees for more than 19 minutes to kill them. which is why the FDA standard for canning in food plants is 251 for 20 minutes.

Speaking of honey, it has the odd quality of never spoiling. If you have honey, it is still good.

All of this food talk has made me hungry. I think I'll have me some steak and eggs.

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