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‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

theguardian.com

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Re: ‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

#121

Post by pvaldes »

JimBlackwood wrote: post #5

A bit sad that they confuse umami with salt in the opener but this does sound like a great invention. An acquaintance suffers from kidney disease and due to the zero salt intake has lost much appetite for food. A lot is still possible when cooking with tomato or mushroom rich foods but it’s hard. Something like this would be welcomed!

I suspect that eating every day with this chopsticks could made people to eat more salt than before

They are shocking with electricity their own taste buds... maybe destroying them, or reducing their density?. After some time people with a numb scorched tongue could find the food bland, and would start adding more and more salt to reach the same level of tastiness again.

So I wonder if this would be sustainable in the long term (but is just an opinion, and I could be wrong).

Re: ‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

#122

Post by cassianoleal »

OJFord wrote: post #66
cassianoleal wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can an University ever stop being unfamiliar if its name is omitted in favour of the country its in?

It's the job of foreign media organisations to manage a university's PR/marketing?

No but if they promote some but not others, then they're implicitly taking up that job.

Re: ‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

#123

Post by srvmshr »

porknubbins wrote: post #119
srvmshr wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to hear she's doing fine for her age. Surely we understand there are statistical variations, and she's on the healthier side luckily. But fried & smoked diets have very strong correlation to cancers in general, and these are validated by studies over last 2 decades. If I remember correctly, after prostrate, stomach cancer is the next common carcinoma in East Asia. (I could be a bit wrong on relative orders as th…

Given the difficulties with these types of nutrition studies I don’t think its clear at all that fried or smoked foods cause most of the excess cancers in East Asia. It could just as well be the sodium or something about the pickling process or something else. I’m from the Southern US where people eat a lot of smoked BBQ and fried foods and get obesity and heart disease but not as much stomach cancer.

A lot of it has to also do with genetics. Some population groups are more resilient to certain kind of chronic ailments.

Anecdotally, in NE India, there is a midsize city Aizawal which is known as the cancer capital of India. Stomach cancer is pervasive in that community. Their diet is mostly smoked pork. The part of population which consumes less smoked meat, remarkably showed a lesser prevalence of abdominal cancer. It is heuristically known. An empirical fact, if you might call it - as no one has systematically measured the cause-effect. The conclusion may even be flawed, but so far it looks like the observation supports the hypothesis.

Re: ‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

#124

Post by [deleted] »

mmastrac wrote: post #74
srvmshr wrote: post #41

I am a Japanese resident. I am not sure how the local people will react to it commercially. So much of the homestyled food goes with traditional cookware. People always are curious to try out things like this - but fall back to age-old practices. I won't be surprised if people continue using their wooden or ceramic chopsticks and this thing becomes a novelty item in upscale department stores. Consider smoked and deep…

> sashimi I'm cherry picking one thing from your great comment, but is it really risky? If properly frozen, fish is perfectly safe to consume.

[deleted]

Re: ‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

#125

Post by cyphar »

yellow_lead wrote: post #70

> They said participants given reduced-salt miso soup had commented on the improved “richness, sweetness and overall tastiness” of the dish. Maybe I misunderstand, but how did participants eat miso soup using these chopsticks?

Miso soup is not drunk with a spoon in Japan. Here's a cooking channel video which shows the host eating the soup using chopsticks (but if you watch any media where Japanese people eat miso soup, you'll see the same thing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0cnsQHHK94&t=469.

Re: ‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

#126

Post by cyphar »

durpkingOP wrote: post #104

It's more impressive that they can eat miso soup with chop sticks, in their example.

This is how Japanese people eat miso soup[1]. They don't use spoons, they use the bowl like a cup.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0cnsQHHK94&t=469

Re: ‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

#127

Post by suction »

djrogers wrote: post #68
OJFord wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Briton, I see an awful lot more of America on TV than Japan. As a result then it's surely inherently more (likely to be) balanced/matching up with reality? Compared to Japan; the only show I can think of that I've seen that's even sort of set there was The Man in the High Castle !

> As a result then it's surely inherently more (likely to be) balanced/matching up with reality? I see almost nothing on TV that matches up with the actual daily life in America, so no - seeing more US TV doesn't help in that respect.

That's a very subcomplex idea of how media works. Of course, everybody understands that there is a difference between fiction and reality. And "reality TV" is fiction as well, even if some people might still be fooled by that.

Still the reality of US life does reveal itself simply by the "what" and "how" Americans create their media, like TV, movies, radio, podcasts, web video, and so on.

Or put in terms an American with a tech background would understand: Everybody knows Walter White is not a real person, and Breaking Bad isn't a documentary. Yet the reality of American-style healthcare and personal financial ruin for many people who are misfortunate enough to get cancer and have it treated, is not fiction.

Re: ‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

#128

Post by suction »

ineedasername wrote: post #78
OJFord wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Briton, I see an awful lot more of America on TV than Japan. As a result then it's surely inherently more (likely to be) balanced/matching up with reality? Compared to Japan; the only show I can think of that I've seen that's even sort of set there was The Man in the High Castle !

it's surely inherently more (likely to be) balanced/matching up with reality? Not really. TV/Movies are stereotypes & caricatures. News media shows mostly the extremes, or anything violent. Think of native British shows you might watch: are they accurate portrayals of day to day life? (Besides Dr. Who, which I'm pretty sure is a documentary.)

You can't be this naive.

Re: ‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

#129

Post by suction »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #53
suction wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant "Dweeb". "Weeb" is just a subcategory of it.

> "Weeb" is just a subcategory of it. I wouldn't say so, no. Dweeb is a pretty wide insult, but it still implies things that aren't part of what "weeb" means.

No post body was provided.

Re: ‘Electric’ chopsticks that make food seem more salty

#130

Post by suction »

ineedasername wrote: post #79
flobosg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dweeb is an actual slang word that predates weeaboo by several decades.

It doesn't appear to have roots with tied to Japanese culture though: https://www.etymonline.com/word/dweeb

Dweeb = general term for a nerd / loser / opposite of "jock".

Weeb = a dweeb whose particular interest is Japan

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