Archive for the ‘basics’ Category

Can’t you hear me mispronouncin’

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

If there’s one thing we love, it’s goofy stuff on the Web. If there are two things we love, they’d be goofy stuff and useful stuff. But when you combine them, suddenly we have more room on our list of top two things to love! So we could just love:

  1. Goofy and useful stuff
  2. Something else

See, it affords us more love to give. Pretty incredible. Why, you could even be the beneficiary!

Point is, we found something useful and goofy: a pronunciation guide to beer terms, complete with audio files on the Belgian Beer Escort site. Comes in English, French and Flemish. So far, framboise is my favorite. I want to make it my ringtone.

Drinking to your health

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Eating an organic banana rather than one of those regular old pesticide-ridden bananas carries with it the conscious act of making a responsible health choice. And that goes for pretty much any food carrying the USDA Certified Organic seal of approval.

But, is beer healthy? The simple answer: Yes.

Now hold on. Don’t go rushing to do a keg stand just yet. The health benefits of beer assume moderation in drinking (up to two drinks a day for guys, one for girls). Binge drinking will just leave you fat and with a better chance of cancer, liver failure and stroke. To learn more about the overindulgence of libations, visit the website of the Health Promotion Agency of Northern Ireland.

First off, the information below pertains to your average beer, say Budweiser.

Just like wine, beer has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease. On August 13, 2002, the Wall Street Journal published an article extolling the healthy virtues of beer.

(more…)

So what is organic, you smug so-and-so’s?

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

What is organic?

See, we were hoping you wouldn’t ask that. There’s this document, right? It’s over 500 pages long — long enough that when the government links to it, they use the words “View Entire Standards” — and it’s how the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Organic Program (NOP) determines whether producers like farmers can call their crops organic.

So here’s the short version:

From the USDA:

Organic farming systems rely on ecologically based practices such as cultural and biological pest management, exclusion of all synthetic chemicals, antibiotics, and hormones in crop and livestock production.

(more…)