Weird Eats

Caffeine Mania

By all rights, Americans should be getting very twitchy by now, with all the emphasis on caffeinated beverages and whatnot over the past few years. But caffeine isn't just for drinks anymore, as you surely must already have known.

Read more about some recent caffeinated developments in this article from the Davis Enterprise. Among the revved up items it covers - caffeinated soap, stockings (!), sunflower seeds, and mints.

Not surprisingly, the article also touches on the notion that perhaps the caffeine thing is getting a bit out of hand. Which is as good a time as any to mention the Caffeine Awareness Alliance, "a non-profit organization, has created a new online forum that addresses the concerns and issues regarding caffeine addiction."

More about the Alliance here.

Deep Fried Weirdness

I can't say that I have any particular weakness for deep-fried stuff. In fact, nowadays I pretty much steer clear of it altogether.

If you're keen on this sort of thing, here's a pair of Web pages you might find to your liking. First up is a pretty detailed step-by-step guide to making Fried Oreo Cookies. Which sounds really appalling to me, but what do I know?

Speaking of appalling, here's a page that features a photographic guide to the various stages of concocting a Beer Battered Deep Fried Bacon Double Quarter Pounder.

If you need some additional deep-fried inspiration, check out this article from ABC News about "Chicken Charlie" Boghosian, who has made something of a reputation for himself by deep-frying nearly everything imaginable.

Weird Drinks Roundup III

With all the zillions of energy drinks flooding the market these days, it was probably a foregone conclusion that someone would come out with an organic variety. That someone is the Organic Beverage Company. They make Syzmo, which is available in Original and Prickly Pear flavors. Check their Web site here and a review from BevNET here.

A little while back, Chow featured an article called Art of the Shock-tail. It deals with what you might call - for lack of better terminology - meat cocktails. Oh dear.

If you're looking for a beverage without so much meat in it, perhaps cucumber Pepsi will do the trick. Actually, you may have already missed Pepsi Ice Cucumber, which was a limited edition flavor that was apparently only available in Japan this summer. But if you really need to get your hands on some I'm sure there must be a way. More at CBS News.

Battling Bottled Water

(Update)
The fuss over bottled water continues. The fact that The Water Shoppe, a bottled water store, recently opened in Toronto, is likely to keep things stirred up. Read more about The Water Shoppe here, at the quite fine water site, Fine Waters.

(Original Post)
You wouldn't think the issue of bottled water was really an issue at all, now would you? I sure didn't. Which just goes to show what I know. Over at Fine Waters a while back, they passed on this news report about a church that's "advising its 590,000 members to stop buying bottled water, and expressing concern at a number of levels around the issue of water consumption."

Along the same lines, here's a report from Beverage Daily about a group called Sustain, who have "reignited debate on the environmental harm caused by soaring bottled water sales, criticising government departments for adding to the problem and urging consumers to re-embrace tap water."

Suddenly I'm feeling quite morally superior for not really drinking much bottled water. Then again, I use a Brita filter, so maybe I'm not so upstanding as I'd like to be.