Slashfood

• What is the nation's biggest kosher market?
  

  Filed under: Trends, Stores & Shopping, America, Artisan Foods, Food News

  
  As of now, it's Pomegranate located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. The 20,000 square feet of shopping space includes aisles full kosher gourmet foods. An article from New York magazine calls Pomegranate a "kosher gourmet megastore." The supermarket seems to be a cross between Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.
  
  Unlike other specialty markets, Pomegranate caters to the thousands of Orthodox Jewish families living in New York City. The store has three kitchens: dairy, meat, and parve (fish, vegetables, fruit and grains). Each has its own...
  



• Fun fruit beer facts
  

  Filed under: Beer, Fruit, Trends, Summer

  
  It's been 16 days since I suggested we declare August "Fruit Beer Month" and it finally looks like the print press is catching up with me. I recently saw on the wire that "Light, refreshing fruit-based beers are way hot for summer." Duh! That's what I've been trying to tell you.
  
  But in her article, Lauren Chapin points out some interesting facts:
  
  1) "In 2007, fruit beer sales grew a stunning 37 percent, making it the fastest-growing segment of the beer industry, according to Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association." This figure is in comparison to...
  



• Fighting overfishing: Stop & Shop stops selling three threatened fishes
  

  Filed under: Fish, Trends, America, Food News

  I love seafood. Growing up, my family used to spend summers on Cape Cod, and we regularly grilled swordfish, tuna, and salmon on the back porch. When I got a little older, I discovered sushi, and I recently began eating raw oysters, a delicacy that I'd avoided for years. There are some weird items, like sea cucumber and cuttlefish that still give me the heebie-jeebies, but I will try pretty much any denizen of the deep, as long as it is properly prepared and relatively fresh.
  
  As I've gotten older, though, the fish market has become like a...
  



• The REAL reason that your groceries are so expensive: You're paying for them twice!
  

  Filed under: Farming, Trends, Food News

  In spite of all the articles, all the op-ed pieces, and all the tables of comparison, I've found it remarkably easy to forget that the cost of groceries has steadily risen over the last couple of years. Part of this is the fact that I moved to New York about a year ago. Prior to the move, most of my family's food came from regional groceries and the friendly, neighborhood Wal-Mart. Moving into the Bronx, I was so stunned by food prices price of food that a few pennies here and there were pretty much irrelevant. Recently, however, I was buying a box...
  



• Is flavored water healthy?
  

  Filed under: Water, Business, Trends, Health & Medical

  Wow, the confusion when buying water! These days, when you enter a grocery store and look on the shelf, you can view about 10 different flavored waters, each promising to be the perfect antidote to a specific ailment. There's Vitaminwater, Propel Fitness Water, Function Drinks, Sobe Life Water, Snapple Antioxident water, 24c Vitamin enhanced water, and much more.
  
  Yesterday, I read an article from New York magazine about the entrepreneurs that started Function Drinks. And, for a brief moment, I thought that perhaps all these drinks were not bogus. Dr. Alex Hughes, one...
  



• Fire up your workplace with a little friendly food competition
  

  Filed under: Trends, Summer

  
  As we head into the end of August, things are slowly grinding to a halt in my office. Half of my department is out on vacation and the halls are eerily silent most of the day as people wilt from the heat or the desire to be sitting by a pool. However, one office in Philadelphia is beating off the summer doldrums with a little friendly competition. Food competition that is.
  
  Red Tettemer, a Philly-based advertising agency (they're the ones who got so excited about the premiere of Mad Men that half the office dressed up and posed for...
  



• Central America turns to genetically modified crops
  

  Filed under: South America, Farming, Trends, Food News

  Last week, I listened to a story on NPR about countries in Central America, notably Honduras, that are turning to genetically modified crops as the global food crisis worsens. Honduras is the only country in Central America that has embraced genetically engineered corn.
  
  Genetically engineered corn is against the law in most of Central America where the crop has been grown for thousands of years. They ban genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to protect their many diverse varieties of corn from contamination. But with the price of corn doubling, Honduras has recently...
  



• When apricots collide: Pyramid Breweries purchased by Magic Hat owners
  

  Filed under: Beer, Business, Fruit, Trends, America

  Was it a merger over a decade in the making? A case of admiration run to its financial endgame? Maybe it's just a coincidence or purely about numbers. Regardless, it's a fitting tale of intrigue for "Fruit Beer Month" none-the-less as we dig in to discover how an oft forgotten cousin of the plum -- the apricot -- has shaped the modern beer market...
  
  As reported by both companies, it's now official: Independent Brewers United, parent company of Vermont-based brewery Magic Hat, is acquiring west coaster Pyramid Breweries, thus merging not...
  



• Is it rude to bring a laptop to the dinner table?
  

  Filed under: Dinner, Trends

  
  With entertaining and often addictive websites, such as YouTube, it has become common to find computers at the dinner table. It seems that over the past few years, dinners with friends have involved gathering around and looking at videos online. The computer is clearly changing social dynamics around the dinner table. A few weekends ago, while eating at a friend's house, my friend commented that she would not mind if she never saw a computer at the dinner table again. I wondered: is it poor etiquette to bring a laptop to dinner?
  
  Is there something inherently wrong about a group...
  



• Let's designate August "Fruit Beer Month"
  

  Filed under: Beer, Fruit, Trends, Summer

  If you purchase beer on a regular basis, you've probably noticed an uptick in the number of fruity beers (and I'm not talking about Schmitts Gay). Fruit flavors such as lime, blueberry and strawberry have been invading the suds on our shelves at an alarming rate, and even the big boys are getting in on the action: this summer America's #1 selling beer, Bud Light, introduced Bud Light Lime and Warsteinner (who takes great pride in brewing according to the German Purity of Law of 1516) introduced "Premium Mixes" consisting of 60% beer...