Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.

Since brewed coffee is more than 90 percent water, it only makes sense to use the perfect H20 for the job, right?

But what is the "perfect" water for coffee? Are we talking about highfalutin fountains that'll bleed you dry, or straight-from-the creek agua with turtles still in it? Will a Brita filter suffice? Read more after the jump.

Combining Mentos and Coca-Cola can lead to a fountain effect of soda pop, but do you know why it happens?

Last year, New Scientist published this video on the whys behind Mentos and Coke explosions. Turns out that mint Mentos just have the right surface area to do the carbonated experiment.

The party trick of sorts is so popular, companies like EepyBird.com sell Mentos and Coke kits to make your own eruptions. Diet Coke works best.

Photo: thebittenword.com, Flickr.

Purdue University scientists have created a healthier alternative to frying with an oil-free fryer that, they claim, still manages to achieve a deep-fried flavor. Their radiant fryer eschews oil for elevated temperatures to create "fried" food with fewer calories and lower fat content.

A demo of the prototype will be performed Wednesday at the Indiana campus by associate professor Kevin Keener, who will be cooking up chicken patties and hash browns in the invention as well as in a traditional fryer for comparison.

In the vein of Shakespeare's rose adage, foodies are left to wonder if no-fry "fried" food will taste as sweet -- and many argue that deep-fried food cannot be dubbed "deep-fried" at all without the fundamental addition of oil.

What do you think about the concept of a no-fry fryer? Spill it in the comments.

[Via Associated Press]

Photo: Marco Veringa, Flickr.

Does no-kill caviar sound fishy to you? It doesn't have to.

A pricey indulgence that once required killing the sturgeon from which the eggs were harvested, may now be a sustainable delicacy. According to an article in Thursday's Independent, Mottra, a new caviar producer, has come up with a way to harvest the eggs without killing the fish: "The eggs are massaged out of each sturgeon through an incision in its lower abdomen." The company farms the sturgeon in Riga, Latvia. Once the eggs are extracted, the fish are allowed to heal and then produce the next year's harvest, while breeding normally.

One small step for your soirees; one giant leap for sustainable fishery.

[Via The Independent]

New laser labels. Photo: ARS/USDA.

Goodbye sticky labels, hello tattooed fruit.

The FDA is expected to approve laser-etching of fruits and vegetables in the next month or so, paving the way for produce "tattooed" with product information to hit store shelves, an official with the USDA tells Slashfood.

"We figure maybe next month or the month after it will get FDA approval," says Jan Narciso, a research microbiologist with the USDA's Citrus and Subtropical Products Laboratory in Winter Haven, Fla.

But will these new labels affect the taste of your fruits and vegetables?

Porgy. Photo: jasonlam, flickr

A fish better known for its contribution to the American songbook than the American dinner plate is being touted as a sustainable alternative to grouper and red snapper. Southern conservationists are now championing red porgy, the fish that was once so ubiquitous on low-country docks that it lent its name to the hero of George Gershwin's opera, "Porgy and Bess."

While the effort has been slightly hampered by chefs' reluctance to tinker with unfamiliar proteins and the lingering social stigma associated with eating red porgy, backers believe the fish's taste and history make it an excellent candidate to diversify coastal diets.

It's practically impossible for me to decide what I like best about this video: The fact that it features both cloth coffee filters (sustainable!) and a hand coffee grinder (retro!), that the robot appears to let the coffee bloom before starting the proper brew, our little friend's deadpan expression, or the two-second outtake where the poor gal pours coffee all over the counter before a set of friendly human hands sets it right.

Actually, this little automated lady looks like she seriously knows what she's doing -- storing coffee in an air-tight container, grinding fresh, making coffee to order... She's a barista-bot after my own heart -- even if she's more likely to rust than over-caffeinate.

NYU chemistry professor Kent Kirshenbaum. Photo: Jeff Potter

Like many inquisitive scientists, Kent Kirshenbaum regularly scans the ingredient list of prepared foods to uncover the chemical composites lurking within. The substance that most recently piqued the New York University chemistry professor's curiosity is liquid smoke. "My immediate thought was that it was a horrible mix of chemicals," he told us.

After distilling the concentrated smoke and liquid mix (often sold at the grocery store by the bottle to enhance barbecue) down to its roots of water and more than 400 chemical compounds, the scientist (who in person comes across as one part Einstein, one part Malcolm Gladwell) learned that liquid smoke is actually "safer [for human ingestion] than untreated wood smoke."

Kirshenbaum discussed his discovery last week during a monthly gathering of the Experimental Cuisine Collective -- food nerds who love to make things like edible foam. We caught up with him to chat smoke, bongs and homemade liquid smoke.

What is liquid smoke?
Liquid smoke is very simply smoke in water. Smoke usually comes as a vapor, but there are ways to condense it and turn it into liquid and that liquid can then be carried in water.

Meet Chef Robot. It's the latest invention in food service, showcased on Tuesday at the International Food Machinery and Technology Exhibition in Tokyo. According to the Associated Press, Chef Robot can gently grip fragile items like sushi and move them from Point A to Point B without ripping them to shreds.

One small movement for Chef Robot, one giant leap for sashimi? Who knows? But it did get us thinking about kitchen gadgets. Got a favorite?

[Via Tokyo Mango]

Scientists like to play with their food, too, as evidenced by this hot new video of Theo Gray demonstrating his "flaming bacon lance of death." The author of "Mad Science" crafts his lance with tubes made of bacon that -- when hooked up to oxygen and set aflame -- can cut through steel.

"It turns out that ordinary American bacon does not have the structural integrity that's necessary for this application," he says. "So I'm using an engineering grade of bacon which is known as prosciutto."

Gray has you vegans covered too. His "Vegan Thermic Lance" -- made of cucumber and breadsticks -- is a great destroyer too.

What do you think -- delicious fun or waste of precious prosciutto?

[via Boing Boing]

Ever learn about a food recall half an hour too late? There's nothing worse than finding out that there's been an e. Coli outbreak in the tomato crop right after finishing a nice, big plate of tomatoes and basil or discovering that the pistachio crop is tainted while in the midst of devouring a giant bag of the tasty little morsels.

Thanks to FoodRecalls, a new Twitter site, the latest food alerts can be delivered to your computer or cell phone in the blink of an eye. From the recent pull of Lian How brand spices to Sconza Candy Company's recall of its trail mix, you won't have to wait for the five o'clock news to tell you what you needed to know at noon!

The FDA itself has a Twitter page. However, while their recalls often come a half hour to an hour faster than Food Recall's, they do not seem to be as comprehensive as the private site. Furthermore, they aren't accompanied by Food Recall's endearing image of Winston, the "kitten with a paw over its eyes."

While we're on the topic, which recall do you reckon Winston is related to?

As anybody who's ever gone camping can attest, cooking in an unfamiliar environment can be a real chore. Pre-planning meals, carefully choosing ingredients based on weight and convenience, and foraging for fresh ingredients can tax anyone's patience. Add in a forgotten spice or a broken cooking implement, and you have a recipe for misery.

Still, as hard as it can be to find oneself on the trail with insufficient foodstuffs, these miseries are nothing compared to the total annoyance of floating thousands of miles above the surface of the earth, trying to cadge together a palatable cuisine out of preserved Russian and American meats and veggies. While the space program brought us delicacies like freeze-dried ice cream and Tang, it is also responsible for sausage in a tube and irradiated bread!

But, as Astronaut Sandy Magnus demonstrates in this blog, the possibilities of space cuisine are limitless ... as long as one packs enough dehydrated sausage and sun-dried tomatoes!

While organic food producers must follow certification standards, fraud is on the rise. After all, organic foods can cost up to two or three times more than conventionally grown products, meaning some unscrupulous producers are bound to be looking to line their pockets.

Now, the New York Times reports that scientists are investigating the feasibility of lab testing organic foods to keep companies honest.

German scientists have found that organic milk has higher levels of a certain fatty acid than regular milk, a result of different cattle feeding practices. Labs can reliably discern which milk is organic by testing for this fatty acid. And we've already seen that it's possible to test for the presence of non-organic, synthetic fertilizers in fruits and vegetables, but the high cost of testing means the practice is unlikely to be implemented on a large scale.

While this is all preliminary stuff, it will be interesting to see whether we eventually find more "organic markers" to test food, and whether buyers will find this worthwhile.

Your fridge consumes about 8 percent of a home's electricity, reports Planet Green, but there are plenty of ways to keep its energy use down - cleaning the coils, covering food, etc.

Here's a new one: install carpeting. A new book, Carbon-Free Home, suggests covering the fridge with insulation boards which are in turn covered with carpet or corkboard. Apparently this can reduce energy use by about 50 percent.

Check out the Planet Green site for the (very simple) four-step instructions. Or take a look at the Chelsea Green site for much more detailed directions. Neither site, however, suggest whether shag or pile would look better next to your ketchup bottle and Chinese takeout cartons.

Have any of you tried this?

In case you didn't already have enough to worry about, a recent article by the Journal of Horticultural Science and Biotechnology asserts that today's vegetables have fewer nutrients than the ones produced 50 years ago. While today's broccoli, tomatoes, and other produce tend to be larger and more beautiful than the puny specimens of the late 1950's, they allegedly contain between 5% and 40% fewer vitamins and minerals.

One reason for this drop is the so-called "dilution effect." Today's veggies, although bigger than in those of the 1950's, contain roughly the same amount of nutrients. Consequently, their vitamins and minerals are combined with a lot more cellulose and carbohydrates, leading to far fewer nutrients per serving. As larger vegetables are selectively bred to maximize size, this dilution effect grows more and more pronounced.

Another cause that some researchers cite is the industrialization of agriculture. Apparently, monoculture and accelerated growing cycles deplete soil nutrients and ensure that produce spends less time absorbing the nutrients that do exist. Ultimately, these practices further dilute the nutrients in produce.

While dilution is endemic to most forms of agriculture, the industrialization effect can be mitigated by organic and local farming. Organics spend more time in the ground and are exposed to more nutrient-rich soil. While this results in lower yields and higher prices, it also produces vegetables that are more nutritious. In other words, while you might not be able to feed your kids the same high-quality Brussels sprouts that grossed out poor Beaver Cleaver, organic produce might just offer a comparable experience!