Belgium’s Chocolate Stamps

Belgium has introduced stamps with chocolate flavor and needless to say is a hit.

“According to the BBC, more than 500,000 stamps are being printed out on special paper that gives off the aroma of chocolate. The glue melts on the tip of your tongue just like a piece of chocolate. The secret of Bpost’s tasty stamps lies in their varnish: It contains 40 percent of a cocoa product and was developed by an international team of fragrance and taste experts after a thorough research on scratch-and-sniff technologies.

The special stamps feature famous Belgian chocolate in its various delicious forms: sprinkles, chocolate, nutella, rough pieces and chocolate bars. This series of five stamps, intended for overseas mail, will cost about $8 when it goes on sale on March 25, according to Agence France-Presse.

“It is not the first scented stamp … but this time it has been combined with a flavor,” the Belgian postal service said, according to AFP.

newsfeed.time.com/2013/02/13/chocolate-love-belgiums-new-stamps-taste-like-confection-when-licked/#ixzz2KmBs7DLD

Ice-Cream Causes Head Aches,Brain Freeze

日本語: 黒ゴマソフトクリーム。秋田県角館市にて。 English: Black sesame soft ice cream. in Kakunodate, Akita, Japan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Despite knowing and experiencing this, I can not resist ice-cream(minimum Three Scoops)

To remind you,I am 61!

And I love spoiling my Grandson with Sweets ,Chocolates and Ice-cream, despite my Daughters’ protest.

No wonder my Grandson, aged three years, likes me!

“Everyone’s experienced that sharp, shooting headache as a result of stuffing their face with ice cream. Previously, scientists have suggested it’s just a result of the rapid cooling and rewarming of blood vessels in the sinuses—but a new study shows that the cause is actually buried much deeper.

 

The research, carried out in part by Harvard Medical School, used trans-cranial Doppler imaging to study blood flow in the brains of patients while they had ice cream headaches—sometimes referred to as brain freeze—induced using iced water. They also performed the experiment with normal water as a control.

The results, which are being presented at the Experimental Biology 2012 conference, show that brain freeze is accompanied by a rapid dilation of the anterior cerebral artery, which floods the brain with blood and in turn causes pain. When the vessel constricts, patients report that the pain disappears. The researchers speculate that it’s a form of self-defense for the brain:

“The brain is one of the relatively important organs in the body, and it needs to be working all the time,… It’s fairly sensitive to temperature, so vasodilation might be moving warm blood inside tissue to make sure the brain stays warm.”

They also explain that, because the skull is rigid, an increase in blood volume in the brain causes an increase in pressure, which is what induces the pain.

While it’s neat to get a better understanding of what causes those nasty ice cream headaches, the findings could prove far more useful than that. The researchers point out that similar blood flow alterations could be behind migraines and other types of headaches. If that’s the case, targeting headaches with drugs that can specifically affect dilation of blood vessels could bring a lot of relief to an awful lot of people. [Medical Daily]

http://gizmodo.com/5904298/we-finally-know-the-real-cause-of-ice-cream-headaches

Weird Tastes- Eating Scorpions, crickets and bees.

How weird can one be?

Scorpion.

Chocolate covered scorpion: roasted for 20-30 minutes at 180-200C, cooled and dipped in dark chocolate. Served on its own rock.

My scorpion, I am assured, enjoyed a happy life – they are ethically farmed in China, with plenty of stones to hide under.

It just doesn’t seem that happy as I raise it to my mouth, tail curled as if to sting, pincers open ready to nip.

Presentation somewhat unsettling then, especially as it comes with a warning to chew thoroughly. Otherwise the sting can stick in the oesophagus, “which can hurt”.

At least the venom has been removed to comply with UK safety rules. Elsewhere, says Graham Belcher, the restaurant manager, they keep the venom and when the sting nips your throat “that’s when you die. Bon appétit.”

As I crunch in, I’m not getting much taste, just a quick lick of chocolate. But I am getting texture, a lot of texture. I am getting thin, spindly legs (eight of them, since scorpions are arachnids, not insects), hard, unidentifiable fragments of exoskeleton.

I am getting so much texture that hours later, I am still finding scorpion ‘bits’ in my mouth. (But perhaps that’s because I had three extra helpings to get the chocolate.)

At least the warning to chew seems unnecessary – how else could you get the thing down?

A nice dessert wine would go well with this. Because you’ll need something to wash the ‘bits’ from your mouth. God knows where the pincers went. Slightly worried they’re still stuck under my tongue.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8739299/Scorpions-crickets-and-bees-the-creepy-crawly-taste-test.html

Chocolates work ‘like anti-depressants’

What about other side effects like tooth decay,increase cholesterol and tendency to become obese.?
Story:
AUSTRALIAN scientists have confirmed what chocoholics have been praying is true – their favourite comfort food can reduce stress.

Food rich in fat and sugar can alter chemical composition in the brain to reduce anxiety, professor Margaret Morris said.

In a study of rats, Professor Morris, from the University of NSW’s School of Medical Sciences, found effects of past trauma could be erased by “unlimited access to yummy food”.

“Implementing that diet reversed anxiety … it took an animal back to the non-stressed state,” Professor Morris said.

“We really don’t know why, but there seems to be a biochemical link.”

Using two groups of baby rats, one with normal contact with mothers, the other with lengthy separations and higher stress hormones, scientists found they became less stressed with comfort foods.

“The control group had no effect from the diet really, but the stressed animals had a deficit … which was restored by the diet.”

“(The) food seems to affect neurogenesis similar to the way anti-depressants promote nerve growth in the brain.”
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26398290-5003426,00.html