Dessert Blog

Therapists in Tamil Nadu say chocolate has anti-ageing properties and it works wonders when it's smeared on face, feet or just about any where else you care to put it. This beauty therapy centre in Tamil Nadu has become a chocoholics' paradise.

Clients are getting a taste for the technique of being smeared liberally in the stuff. And while eating chocolate to excess can have an unwelcome effect on the skin, beauty experts here say external application can work wonders. The locals call it chocolate therapy, a treatment if you like. It brings fantastic results.

The secret, the experts say, is in the purported anti-ageing properties of the chocolate. It's said to be particularly good for conditions like dry skin. Tanvi, chocolate therapy client, saying: "I love chocolate. What better could I ask for than a chocolate pedicure. I think everyone should have a chocolate pedicure because at the end of the day it feels awesome, as in, before my skin feels like it was really dry and now I can feel the difference already."

The big question is - what happens to the chocolate once it's been used. You never know, there could be quite an appetite for recycling.

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Judging from the barrage of offerings at this year's Fancy Food Show, an annual specialty food convention in New York City, Americans are craving more and more eats that are part sweet and part sassy.

It's a hot trend in both cooking and in food products. It's a taste Americans have gotten used to and they're now enjoying that combination. Among the many renditions of the fad: Earth & Vine Provisions' $7 papaya orange habanero preserves; fruity salsas like D.L. Jardine's peach-, pineapple-, raspberry- and mango-flavored varieties for $6 a pop; Dufour Pastry Kitchens' crispy pomegranate pastry with roasted red peppers; and savory peanut snacks with a sweet touch, like Buffalo Bill's sweet Cajun peanut mix and The Peanut Roaster's lemon lime almonds .

The gourmet chocolate industry began tapping into the very same idea with fervor at least two years ago and continues to do so, infusing chocolates dark and light with fiery spices like chili, pepper, wasabi, cardamom and cumin. It probably satisfies people a little bit more. Sometimes when you want something to snack on, you don't know if you're [craving] sweet or spicy. This way both urges are fulfilled in one shot. Along similar lines are products like jams, dressings, cookies and sorbets incorporating exotic citrus fruits that are sugary and sour at the same time. Among the favorite flavors: blood orange, key lime and clementine.

This year's NASFT winner for outstanding dessert was a blood-orange sorbet by Ciao Bella Gelato Co. Key lime has popped up not only in cookies, cakes and chocolates but in dessert sauces and even salad dressing. Another sexy taste that has proven its staying power, in part because of all the buzz about its high-antioxidant content and heart-health benefits: pomegranate — in everything from juices and flavored waters to dressings and grilling sauces.

Also big: sparkling juices made from the fruit, like a new one from Kristian Regale, as well as other drinks and eats.
Nabisco may have introduced Fig Newton cookies decades ago and gourmet restaurants have been experimenting with the fruit for years, but now interest in other "fig"-ments of the imagination is spiking. Bonne Maman's latest offering to the jam-and-jelly world is fig preserves, and the company says people are using it enthusiastically, in more than just Christmas pudding.

The company says fig jams are the fastest-growing segment of the preserves market, and attributes the upswing to exposure in restaurants and on cooking shows like those on the Food Network. Still ballooning is the organic and all-natural market. Supermarket chains like Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe's and Wild Oats are booming, as are smaller, regional gourmet groceries — driving more mainstream chains like Safeway to launch a set of organic "Lifestyle" stores to compete. Other businesses — including Wal-Mart, Costco, drugstores, card shops and even gas-station convenience stores — are investing more in organic and other specialty food product lines too.

A new grain that's been isolated and trademarked as Salba to make Salba Smart chips that taste a lot like the regular tortilla sort but are touted as having healthier elements like Omega-3 and flax.

Cheeses continue to be a burgeoning area, with market growth at 27 percent between 2003 and 2005. Sheep's milk and blue are in the cheesy popular crowd at the moment. Others imported from Egypt and across the Middle East are edging their way into dairy aisles and onto restaurant menus, too, particularly the creamy or mild types. To go with your cheese, you might want to brew a cuppa instead of pouring a glass-a, because there are almost as many exotic teas out there as there are cheeses.

Indian food also keeps gaining ground year after year, again because of the E word ... exposure. The fascination with Indian culture and Bollywood doesn't hurt either. And Middle Eastern eats are becoming a bit more mainstream, beyond hummus and falafel. Indian is a very big, growing category because it's a healthy cuisine, particularly for people who are vegetarian, that still gives you a lot of flavor and taste.

All this fancy schmancy stuff is fine, but does the average American really buy into it or care? There is some research suggesting that in fact "Joe" does, at least moderately: Specialty food — defined by the industry as that of high quality and limited quantity — comprises 8.2 percent of all food sold in the U.S. and is currently a $34.77 billion industry, according to NASFT.

Large urban markets aren't the only regions to snap up sophisticated treats. Smaller affluent cities like Austin, Texas, and Des Moines, Iowa, as well as plenty of suburban neighborhoods, have jumped aboard too.

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POM Wonderful, which introduced a line of 100 percent pomegranate juice products three years ago, has taken a new turn with POM Tea. The iced tea product is simply sumptuous. The teas are available in pomegranate black tea, pomegranate lychee green tea, pomegranate blackberry black tea and pomegranate peach passion white tea.

If you don't like drinking your tea out of a bottle, there's good news. POM's iced teas are not only refreshing and delicious, but come packaged in 13.5-ounce glass tumblers, which are reusable. They also have secure snap-on lids so they are ready to enjoy anywhere. Add that to the antioxidant factor and you have a real winner.

And while the product is completely portable, the selection of exotic blends are just as impressive. There wasn't a miss in the bunch. These teas are a real treat. POM Pomegranate teas can be found in most grocery stores as well as in Whole Food Markets and Wild Oats, along with some area convenience stores.

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A deep sea fish is being used to create ice-cream low in fat and calories. A protein from the blood of the pout fish can lower the temperature at which ice-crystals form, meaning less cream or fat is needed in the final product.

Unilever, the company behind Wall's, Magnum and Carte Dor, has submitted an application to produce the protein using GM technology. The Food Standards Agency is consulting on whether to allow the technology, which is already approved in the US. The eel-like pout fish lives at the bottom of the North Atlantic and is able to survive extremely low temperatures, due to a naturally occurring protein in its blood called an ice-structuring protein.

These proteins which can be found in fish, plants and insects protect organisms from tissue damage in very cold conditions by lowering the temperature at which ice crystals grow and by changing the size and shape of the ice crystals. But rather than extracting the protein from the fish - which Unilever said would be "not sustainable or economically feasible" - the company has developed a way of making the protein in the factory.

The process uses genetically modified yeast to make the protein in large sealed vats. The genetically modifed yeast is already used in the production of some other foods including cheese. No genetically modified material would be present in the final product, Unilever stresses in its application to the FSA and the level of the ice-structuring protein in the ice-cream will not account for more than 0.01% of the weight.

The manufacturing process has already been approved in some other countries including the US where it has been used to make ice-cream which has half the fat and 30% fewer calories than normal. Low-fat ice-cream could be made using GM technology An application to use the new technology has been lodged with the Food Standards Agency which is inviting comment. The FSA said the consultation period was open until 10 July.

"Before any new food product can be introduced on the European market, it must be rigorously assessed for safety. "In the UK, the assessment of novel foods is carried out by an independent committee of scientists appointed by the Food Standards Agency, the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP)." Reprinted from the BBC

The ocean pout lives at the bottom of the sea

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The big red one: Pomegranate juice. It's antioxidant-rich. It's also hype- and calorie-rich. First it was red wine. Then green tea. Now pomegranate juice is making the rounds as the latest good-for-you drink.

Experts say it may help lower blood pressure and even fight certain cancers, although the research is still preliminary. But beware those extra calories if you're swilling a daily dose. The near blood-red drink is cropping up all over, from chic cocktail lounges to humble neighborhood delis.

Sales of refrigerated pomegranate juice soared from zero in 2001 to more than $63 million in 2005, according to A.C. Nielsen, the market research firm. Moving beyond the martinis that appeared a few years back, the tart juice is now sold in blends, combined with everything from mango to lychee green tea.

At the Latimer Delicatessen near Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, four pomegranate blends rub bottles with lowbrow colas and sports drinks. Running from $2 to $4 a bottle, the pom is not cheap. The mover behind the juicy surge is Pom Wonderful, which helped create the U.S. market for the drink when its 6,000 acres of pomegranates started bearing fruit in 2002. Stewart and Lynda Resnick, owners of the Philadelphia area's Franklin Mint, also manage Pom Wonderful through their parent company, Roll International, based in Los Angeles.

Apparently, everyone already knows about antioxidants and wants to imbibe as much as possible, or at least Pom Wonderful's ad campaign makes it seem that way. For those feeling left out, antioxidants are natural substances in plants and foods that protect cells from marauding oxygen molecules called free radicals. Antioxidants stop free radicals from attacking LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, and combining with cells to form plaque that hardens arteries. By

Research has shown that people whose diets are rich in fruits and vegetables have a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. A small, 19-person study by scientists at Israel's Rambam Medical Center in Haifa showed that pomegranate juice lowered systolic blood pressure, the upper reading, by 21 percent and prevented thickening of the arteries for the 10 subjects who drank about two ounces of pomegranate juice daily for up to three years. At least half a dozen other studies by the Israeli group and others show similar effects in mice and humans. Some were funded by a foundation run by the Resnicks, owners of Pom Wonderful.

Several studies also show that antioxidants in food may help prevent prostate cancer. One study of pomegranate juice, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2005, found that it reduced tumor size by as much as half in mice. More research is needed to gauge the effects on humans.

Pomegranates pack more than five times the antioxidants of green tea, and are especially loaded with a potent type called polyphenols. Long-term studies of antioxidants also suggest that taking antioxidants in pill form is less effective than eating them in whole foods. "It's worth incorporating pomegranate juice into the diet on a regular basis as part of your armament to prevent chronic disease, and it's good for both men and women," said Lisa Hark, director of nutrition education at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Hark said pomegranate juice and other antioxidant-rich foods should be part of a prevention arsenal, but they're not a cure. "I can't see pomegranate juice reversing heart disease - it's not going to break up plaque." And not all pom drinks pack the same antioxidant punch. For the biggest wallop, look for pomegranate high in the ingredient list or mixed with other antioxidant brews, such as green tea.

Hark also cautions that consumers should balance the healthful benefits of pomegranate juice against the calories it contains. One 16-ounce bottle of Pom Wonderful contains 320 calories - more than a Hershey's bar. Hark said drinking one bottle gives you the same calories you would get in more than five servings of fresh fruit. She recommends diluting the pure juice and drinking four ounces a day to save on cost and calories. Sparkling water makes a refreshing spritzer and won't add calories.

Pomegranates have a fabled history. In Greek mythology, when Persephone was tricked into eating six pomegranate seeds during a stint in Hades, she condemned Earth to six months of infertility each year, explaining the seasons. Many ancient foods now are getting reviewed. "We've rediscovered that food has medicinal qualities," said Ara DerMarderosian, a professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia who has studied folk remedies for nearly half a century.

His group has studied medicinal effects of cranberries and blueberries and has turned to pomegranate juice. The scientist, who is first-generation Armenian, said he had been eating pomegranates for years and recommended eating the seeds whole from fresh fruit.

"My mother would labor over these for a long time when I was a kid, and then we kids would devour them in a minute," DerMarderosian said. Reprinted from Philly.com By Erika Engelhaupt For The Inquirer

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