Bad news: bread, wine and beer are not the new Botox. Wil Punt (Getty Images)
Aló, Comidista is an office in which everything goes: culinary doubts, gastronomic enigmas, psychological problems, metaphysical issues and dramas of contemporary life. You just have to send me an email to elcomidista@gmail.com. I will respond to your concerns on the first Friday of every month, except holidays, bridges, serious illness or death.
JFK: Although you and other referents such as your friends Julio Basulto, Miguel Ángel Lurueña or JM Mulet insist that alcohol is a toxic substance, I, as a good riverside man in exile (of denomination of origin) cling to any study to continue uncorking a bottle of wine more or drink a barrel of beer without feeling apprehensive about it. Now I've come face to face with an interesting post claiming that yeast in bread, wine, and beer can slow down aging. I would like to know what you think. I have prepared a Pago de Carraovejas to taste it while I read your answer.
Dear JFK, I detect in your mail a certain tone of provocation, as if I or "my friends" were going to be angry that you taste a Pago de Carraovejas, Carracabras or Carracucas. Personally, what you drink or stop drinking matters to me as much as the drama of Tamara Falcó's wedding dress: zero, null, niente. If you want to drink alcohol and take the risk that comes with it, it's your problem.
The publication of which you speak to me makes a very common journalistic exercise with scientific studies, which could be called "take the radish by the leaves with traces of bringing the ember to your sardine". That is, to understand in that way what scientists say and draw pilgrim conclusions but with a hook for the readers.
In the experiment cited in the article, researchers from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) managed to increase the life span of the fungus Saccharomyces cerevisiae by 80%. They used synthetic biology techniques to slow aging in this yeast, which is commonly responsible for the fermentation of bread, wine and beer. The discovery may be a first step to extend life in other more complex beings, although the application in humans still seems very distant, as pointed out by some experts in aging who commented on the finding.
This is the reality, and from here, the invention begins: "Bread, wine and beer are keys to longevity and can extend the duration of life." Do the UCSD scientists say anything remotely resembling that claim? Are you going to stay young longer by eating sandwiches, drinking Ribera del Duero and going blind to beers with colleagues? LESS. If you want to keep your body in good condition, the best thing you can do is not pimplar: wine and beer have alcohol, and alcohol is a powerful neurotoxic, carcinogenic and harmful to the cardiovascular system. What you drink, no matter how little, will put you on the path to deterioration.
Blanca: A query about expert tastings, such as chickpeas from the boat. When you take note, do you take into account preservatives and/or products that may not be healthy?
Dear Blanca, absolutely not. The expert tastings are designed to assess the gastronomic quality of the products, not their nutritional virtues or defects. For that we make other types of videos with dietitians-nutritionists such as Azahara Nieto, Raquel Bernácer, Lucía Martínez, Julio Basulto or Beatriz Robles, in which we analyze food from that perspective. We believe that it is better not to mix the two perspectives, because experts in flavors and textures do not have to control nutrition and vice versa.
05:09
What is the best brand of chickpeas boat? | THE COMIDIST
The famous chickpea tasting. Video: MIKEL LÓPEZ ITURRIAGA / UNTO
Ada: About one of the last articles of El Comidista about risotto I could write an email of 15 pages, but then you do not read it, so I summarize. You have to imagine the face of my mother, 89 years old and a laude diploma at the Cordon Bleu school, who says: "Of course you have to move the rice all the time: risotto is not rice boiled in broth!", with a disgusted face and a raised eyebrow.
I have eaten risotto once a week since I was born and I have heard this phrase since I have the ability to hold a wooden spoon in my hand. In risotto the rice is not soaked in the broth, but it is the steam of the same that cooks it. Do not see liquid in the pot as in the paella. Never. It is forbidden to throw more than half a saucepan at once. This is the only way to reach that unique consistency of the rice grain, both mellow and a little crunchy. I can't argue anymore, I've stuck to dogma all my life and for me that's how risotto is made. Amen. I do not want to be the lonely Italian tiquismiqui, and for the record that I have been able to live with a German who on top of the macaroni threw a yogurt ... of PINEAPPLE! And we're still friends. But with the risotto thing you have given me in all the baby.
Dear Ada, I congratulate you on your tolerance for the German who salted the macaroni and pineapple yogurt: I do not know if I could have maintained that friendship. I also thank you that your email (which I have allowed myself to summarize) only has two pages and not 15, because in fact I would not have read them. I find it phenomenal that you have your rice dogmas, and even more so that you follow the dictates of your holy mother, but the theory that risotto is cooked with steam is more than debatable. If you took the trouble to do the test you would discover that the method proposed by Diego Domínguez in his article, the Adam Ragusea or J. Kenji López-Alt work phenomenally, and are much less laborious than the one you defend.
My personal experience tells me that risotto is good if you stir it from time to time, because this way you favor that the rice releases its starch, and that adding the broth in not very large quantities makes sense not to go over liquid. So far, full of tradition. But you don't need to be wiggling it for 20 minutes for a while like you were the Polish lady making butter at Eurovision.
Every time the Italian passes through the green room #Eurovision pic.twitter.com/ZN0lJBCCoX
— Miguel (@Empedoclex) May 13, 2023
Alex: In the article The true message of the WHO on sweeteners by Mr. Revenga talks about artificial sweeteners and "the so-called natural ones (really, extracted and purified through industrial processes)". If we use home-infused stevia leaf as a sweetener, what category would it fall into? Is it still inadvisable to use it in this way?
Dear Alex, I really like that you ask things about articles of El Comidista that I have not written, because that way I can saddle the doubt to the collaborator on duty while I do what corresponds to me: lie down to the bartola. The "Mr. Revenga" states verbatim that Stevia rebaudiana is "a pig mess" that is barely understood.
"The plant as such (fresh or dried) only has authorization in the European Union for food purposes to be used in infusion," explains the dietitian-nutritionist. "So that you understand me: in the typical tea bags or in preparations. All other food uses are prohibited, and the plant or parts of it may not be served as a sweetener. Yes, it sounds very crazy, because let's see who controls that in the privacy of your kitchen you make sarmale or croquettes with stevia".
For more information, Revenga refers us to an article by Beatriz Robles, in which our collaborator also gives all the explanations and legal justifications on the subject. With some caveats: Consuming stevia (the plant, not the sweetener sold in powder form or used in edibles) has effects on glucose control and blood pressure that can be negative for some people, and its continued use can also impact fertility.
Juan Revenga, investigating other possible uses of 'Stevia rebaudiana'. The Starchist
Jota: Very good, gentlemen, ladies and old lady of El Comidista. My wife and I disagree about freezing cooked chickpeas. I believe they can be frozen with the broth, thawed and consumed in the next three days. And she says you have to freeze them without the cooking broth and well dried. I come to you to resolve this family dispute, if it can be in my favor, of course.
Dear Jota, the proof of how cooked chickpeas are better frozen could have been done by you at home without much effort: it was enough to put some dry and others in broth in the freezer, defrost and compare. But why take that tiny job when you can give me the task, right?
Encouraged by the possibility of proving your wife right and silencing you, I carried out the test in the ultra-secret laboratories of El Comidista. Result: there are no substantial differences in texture, consistency or flavor between frozen chickpeas alone or floating in their caldichi, as long as you use an airtight container for both, of course. Otherwise, "dried" cooked chickpeas may dry out or suffer more freezer burn than submerged ones.
Those frozen by hair and frozen in their liquid. Mikel Lopez Iturriaga
Disappointed Subscriber: Why haven't they republished the practice?
Noah: And the April menstrual appointment? I look forward to my consultation.
Luis: Congratulations, the first Friday of April was Good Friday and as explained in the bases of the office of El Comidista that exempts him from responding to the / concerns of his consultants. The office could respond on Monday or, if Friday has something necessary (or magical), the following Friday. But no, when falling on a holiday on the first Friday of April, this means the pure and simple elimination of response for the office for this month and pass that commitment to the following month. That said, a month without giving or blow.
Dear Luis, Disappointed Subscriber and Noe, I am glad that you live without living in you waiting for the office, although I suspect that your existences must be quite gray if this section nonsense is such an important event for you. Luis deserves special mention, very sulking because at Easter I decided to touch the figa instead of providing him with his shot of Aló. Cariñes, you have to understand that if I did not rest from time to time, I would have been admitted to the López-Ibor for a long time inside a padded room with my straitjacket on, because attending to your/worries leaves your brain more churrumado than a month listening to Carlos Herrera and watching El programa de Ana Rosa.
Mikel López Iturriaga, after 10 years of Aló Comidista.
María: A few months ago I joined a consumer group and it's great. The vegetables are great, and the people, very nice. But for three weeks now I have been given a bunch of turnips in every basket; That's six per week. I don't know what to do with so much turnip. Could you give me some recipes?
Dear Maria, I love the phrase "I don't know what to do with so much turnip": you can say the same in a guarrichill as in some gastronomic awards. What happens to you with this vegetable happened to me years ago with cabbage. I received it in industrial quantities in a cooperative basket to which I signed up, and in the end I had no choice but to erase myself because my tolerance with this vegetable has a limit.
The turnip, let's not fool ourselves, is quite soda, but there are ways to deal with it: you can incorporate it into any vegetable cream, fry it in shavings as in this recipe or roast it on sticks in the oven or in the air fryer previously smeared with oil, herbs or spices. It also works very well fermented or pickled: here is a guide for the former and another for the latter. Finally, the Korean kimchi technique is perfect for this vegetable: replace the usual Chinese cabbage with turnip, and that's it.
The bunch of turnips from Maria's basket.Ismael Herrero (EFE)
María: First of all I wanted to tell you that you seem to me the most salao "influencer" (if you want to call yourself that) in the national sphere. Recently a babysitter is working in my house who comes to take care of my children for a few hours after school. One day he told me that I had to try his meatballs. Well, I gave it a try, because my kids love them, and they were really good. What was my surprise when I asked for the recipe and discovered that one of the ingredients was Bovril. This worries me because my daughter is only one year old, and you know that pediatricians now recommend moderating with salt with children so young. How healthy is Bovril? Is the devil in the form of a red tag boat? Can it be used if its consumption is occasional?
Dear Maria, calling me an "influencer" is not what I most want in the world, because I am a journalist, but hey, worse would be "content creator". The Bovril is a kind of super-concentrated meat broth with more than 150 years of history, created by the Scottish butcher based in Canada John Lawson Johnston to feed the troops of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War. It was very popular in the twentieth century, but its use, like that of other similar products, has been declining.
Nutritionally it is not the devil, but neither is it a little angel: the main drawback is its high salt content, 11% of the product. Now, it is not something that you are going to take by spoonfuls: if you do not put it in cascoporro and replace with it all or a good part of the salt that you would add to the dish, I would not lash out too much for using it in some meatballs from time to time. The problem is with younger children: the WHO does not see with very good eyes that they take added salt before the age of two.
"Some cows in the electric chair? Good idea for a campaign!" The Starchist
Mar-eada: I love fruit and vegetables; Apart from the taste, for the obvious health benefits. But, just as the fruit in juices or smoothies seems to be the devil (that if the sugars are released, that if the fiber is broken ...). I wonder if the same thing happens with vegetables. Am I getting a bomb of sugars with zero nutritional value if I take a vegetable cream? Is a plate of pasta carbonara comparable to one with crushed vegetable sauce?
Dear Mar-eada, I really liked the fiber that breaks, as if in the smoothies we drink a crushed shirt or something. The quick answer to your two questions is NO. Vegetables have much less sugar than fruits, so their crushing does not present the problems of releasing them. You can calmly take creams or gazpachos, but remember that a little chewing of whole vegetables, raw or cooked, does not hurt the body. Come on, don't always take them crushed, and that's it.
Alfonso: An article in El País Semanal a few days ago talks about the need for food supplements, when your nutritionists always say that with a varied, healthy and balanced diet no type of supplementation is necessary. What are we left with?
Dear Alfonso, thank you for pointing out our contradictions as a means. Indeed, in El Comidista we have said a few times that supplements are not necessary for the general population (although there are exceptions: vegans, for example, should take vitamin B12), and in the article cited by the doctor Ángel Durántez argues just the opposite: "That you can make a healthy and balanced diet and do not need anything, I don't believe it. The nutrient density of food has been lost over time. The amount of certain nutrients in a tomato tested in the forties and fifties has nothing to do with today's tomato." Durántez assures that we need omega 3, B vitamins, probiotics, coenzyme Q10 and vitamin D, but points out that it is important to have an analysis before to know what your levels of each are.
As the matter has crumbs, we raised it with some scientists in the field of food, and none agrees with this gentleman. "I do not believe it' as an argument already leaves much to be desired," says pharmacist and food safety expert Gemma del Caño. "We eat a LOT and more varied than before. That tomatoes have fewer nutrients? Well, we have hundreds and hundreds of other vegetables and fruits that they will 'correct' (if they had to). It is not necessary to supplement except in pathologies and under the indication of a professional. We have romanticized the past in a terrible way: you have to make good food choices, that's more than enough."
Beatriz Robles seconded Del Caño: "If there were a problem of nutritional deficit, if that supposed drop in nutrient content were real and significant, we could talk about general supplementation. In our context and with 'I believe' as evidence, no." The dietitian-nutritionist Julio Basulto cites this study to categorically deny that the "nutritional density" of foods has decreased, and also recalls that the law expressly prohibits "statements that declare or suggest that a balanced and varied diet does not provide adequate amounts of nutrients in general."
Julio Basulto and Beatriz Robles, taking Dr. Durántez.García Coronado into custody. Alvaro
Griselda Herrero, also a nutritionist, goes in the same line: "In the case of food, we have to personalize and adapt to each person individually. However, and generically, it is not necessary to take supplements (with exceptions such as, for example, folic acid in pregnant women). Aging is a physiological process, part of life, in which you must be somewhat more aware of some nutrients (calcium, magnesium, fiber, zinc, vitamin D, phosphorus, etc.) although this does not have to imply the need to supplement. A complete, adequate and adapted diet can provide us with all the necessary nutrients that the body needs at each stage of life."
Laia: We went on vacation for 15 days and when we came back the power was gone and we don't know how long the freezer was stopped. We deduced that not much: there were things that had been thawed (bread, homemade burgers, some portion of pesto sauce, baked vegetables) and glass jars that did not seem thawed with bolognese sauce, curry, homemade broths ... We decided to do as if nothing had happened and this week we have eaten everything we had frozen to "reset" the freezer. Are we going to die soon? Do I deserve an award for being the 1,000,000th person who asks about breaking the cold chain?
Dear Laia, as far as I remember, you are the number 1 person to ask about this, which is quite surprising considering the 500 million nonsense that I have answered in this office in its decade of existence. I do not know if you are still alive or you are reading me from the beyond, and I do not understand very well if you re-froze the thawed or if you have been eating it. If it is the former, recklessness: as we have already explained here choporrohundreds of times, thawed foods should not be refrozen, unless they are fresh and cooked. If it is the latter, too: the food spent an indeterminate time without cold, and as the famous biologists Sonia and Selena said, when the heat arrives the bacteria fall in love. You may have been lucky and nothing happened to you, but you have absurdly risked poisoning.
Death, giving Laia his comeuppance for refreezing the thawed.
Annoying Midist: I don't like the new interface or that I have to subscribe to see food news, food news!!! Sad but you lose one who has been watching your website for years but not THE COUNTRY that I am not interested in the good thing that if you take me out in the office I will not be able to read it because I have not subscribed. Greetings Mikel, see you forever!!!
Dear Annoyed Comidista, I see that the myth continues to circulate that you have to pay to see our recipes and articles, when it is only necessary to register for FREE after seeing a certain amount of them. I am also fascinated by this contradiction in which you live: what we publish interests you a lot, because you have been following us for years, but you are scandalized by having to subscribe to see food news (food!!!), as if gastronomy were second-rate information and in other types of content you saw it more understandable.
On the other hand, I do not know what you will do, but since you demand us to have free access to our work, I imagine that you will give yours to anyone who wants it. If you are not a rich heir or a cayetano who parasitizes mom and dad, you will tell us the secret to live on the air and sunlight, which interests us.
Comidista Annoyed, sulking that food journalists are paid for their work. HBO Max
Gabi (a Menorcan in El Clot): I understand that cooked rice, if you let it cool to room temperature without further ado, may end up giving you a patatús. Sometimes it contains spores of B. cereus, which when cooled, can mount an interesting guateque. That's why sushi rice has vinegar, salt and rice to keep bacteria at bay. Now then! Why don't Japanese onigiris, the stuffed rice ball, carry vinegar? On top of that, they take it as a snack in Japan! Are they immune to everything? Or is today's rice already so "polished" that it no longer carries spores?
Dear Gabi (a Menorcan in El Clot), I see that we live in the same neighborhood of Barcelona, and with the cuckoo people who write here I do not know whether to rejoice or worry. Bacillus cereus is a very nice bacterium with which we live without knowing it: it and its spores are present not only in a wide variety of raw foods (vegetables, meats, cereals, spices, dairy products), but also in the environment (soils, dust, water and vegetation). It can also inhabit rice, whose cooking process encourages them to grow.
Do we have to get hysterical about it? "Only some strains of the bacteria in sufficient quantity can constitute a danger, because they are the ones that generate toxins", clarify from the Sevillian company Brétema Seguridad Alimentaria. "To multiply and generate toxins, the determining factors are the temperature and the time in which they remain at that temperature, and the pH of the medium in which they are found. In rice cooked and cooled at room temperature there are two circumstances that facilitate and almost invite its growth: the cooling time to reach temperatures where the bacteria does not develop (4-5 degrees) and the pH of the cooked rice itself (6-7, neutral)".
There are several ways to stop Bacillus cereus: "Cool the rice quickly in the refrigerator, and/or modify the pH to levels below 5. The latter can be achieved by acidification with vinegar. Another solution is to eat the rice shortly after cooking. At temperatures above 65 degrees, if kept warm, there is little risk of toxin proliferation."
So what about the onigiri? "If you have cooled the rice quickly in the refrigerator it does not favor the growth to dangerous numbers of the bacteria and its toxins, so it may not be necessary to acidify it with vinegar. But if the rice is taken out of the refrigerator and kept at room temperature (and taking into account that it is not the same to be in Seville than in Santander), time always runs against its harmlessness. If onigiri is prepared at home for eating 2-4 hours later the danger is minimal. If it is consumed for dinner, then you may have a problem. But with rice and with any prepared food."
From Brétema they make a final point to take into account: "The greatest food hazards are usually caused by simple hygienic practices that are not carried out: washing food before cooking it, washing hands thoroughly on a regular basis and disinfecting kitchen utensils regularly."
Documentation: Carlos Doncel.
Follow El Comidista on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or Youtube.