From the category archives:

Food

A reason to lose weight even though it’s really bad

January 30, 2012 Food

The One Million Kilo Challenge is not something I would normally be involved in, in fact I am going to give you a whole list of reasons why I think it’s a really bad idea. There’s even some science in there. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done diets in the past. Both under a doctor’s supervision, [...]

Baked Icecream (that, um, melted. Help?)

November 3, 2011 Activities

I‘ve tried to make meringue a couple of times and it hasn’t worked, so that was probably a sign that I shouldn’t have done this. Or at least that I should have tried it several times before putting it in the blogging schedule. But given trips to Melbourne and husband travel and another trip to [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Weird and Wonderful egg

November 2, 2011 Food

I hope I’m not going too far overboard with all the chicken stuff, but I am finding them rather fascinating. Most people connect to nature through their gardens but I’m an abject failure at anything to do with plants. So the chickens are my chance to breed and grow and show where food comes from. [...]

Cooking with Solar

October 27, 2011 Activities

In the brief weeks between freezing and pouring, I thought we’d try a solar oven. I’ve made them before with mixed success so I wanted to see if I could modify them for little ones, and there isn’t going to be a better place to do it than central Australia in hot weather. In the [...]

Cooking Answers

October 7, 2011 Energy and Change

How scientific a cook are you? Close your eyes and click back for the questions. 1. Meat goes brown because of reactions in the proteins caused by heat or sometimes chemicals. That’s why some marinades will make meat look ‘cooked.’ The main protein in meat is called myoglobin which has a heme ring [...]

13 Food Plants People Have Modified

June 9, 2011 Food

People have been gardeners for thousands of years. In that time we have modified plants to meet our needs, whether that be good storage, easy harvest, or ripening at the same time. It’s usually a win/win, we get food, the plants get looked after. However some of the changes have been so drastic the plants [...]

13 Ideas for Cooking with Kids

June 2, 2011 Food

I have mentioned cooking a few times, I think it’s something every kid loves. It’s a chance to really get their hands dirty and create, then do something with the results! And cooking is probably the area where most of us use science as part of our everyday life – not only the chemistry of [...]

Sacred Cows – Organic food

March 21, 2011 Food

This is a guest post from Terrie Torgersen Peterson, the Anthropologist Underground. She is at home raising two laughing children and likes to write about her life as ethnography. Organic food is one of my sacred cows: (Wikipedia): “[...] an object or practice which is considered immune from criticism, especially unreasonably so.” It seems to [...]

Is a Vegetarian diet healthier?

February 14, 2011 Food

A couple of ground rules first. Here I am only talking about science, not ethics. I know a lot of people choose to be vegetarian for ethical reasons. While science can help inform ethical questions, only your own conscience can decide where you stand, so good luck with that. Secondly, this is not about the [...]

Kitchen Problem Solving

January 21, 2011 Activities

Science is really all about solving problems. It’s a set of techniques to try to make sure that the solution you come up with will work all or most of the time, rather than hoping to be lucky. But problem solving is the basis of science. Tonight we were supposed to be making pancakes. But [...]