Is bottled water better than tap water?

Nov. 6, 2004

If you think bottled water is safer than tap water, you need to read the following.

A Dutch study presented at a recent meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Washington, DC. found that 40% of bottled water is contaminated with bacteria and or fungi.

Chemical or biological contamination of bottled water has been already found for many years. Some readers might already have known that some so called spring water is actually tap water without any purification. Many brands of bottled water are indeed inferior to tap water in regard to their safety.

The package per se can be a problem. Years ago when I was in graduate school, we did a sensory evaluation on th Bottled Water Is Better Than Tap Water? Recipe

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Food Retailing or Food Entertainment?

by John Stanley

Food retailing is going through a global revolution. On one side of the equation companies such as Walmart, Aldi and Liedl are gaining market share as local commodity food retailers.

Where does this leave the independent food retailer and does he have a future? If you ask Pete Luckett of Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada, the answer is a definite yes. As the food giants move the industry in one direction, the independent retailer has no choice but to move in the opposite direction and to make food shopping an entertaining experience.

Pete started his retail life as a “barrow boy” selling fruit and vegetables in the English town of Nottingham. Having toured the world he ended up residing in the Atlantic provinces of Canada where he opened his Food Retailing or Food Entertainment? Recipe

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Coffee Roasting De-mystified

by Andy White

How many different names have you run across for different types of coffee roasts? Light, Medium, Dark? Espresso? Continental? Vienna, French, Italian, Spanish? City? Full-City? C'mon, who's thinking up these things?

Well, the dark secret (pardon the pun) of the coffee industry is that, well, there really isn't full agreement on which roast is which. So basically, we all pretty much get to hunt around, try different coffees from different sources and pick the one(s) we like. In this article, I'll try to use the standard nomenclature, and map it to the color and texture anyone can judge for himself.

The roasting adventure begins with green coffee beans. These are stored at room temperatures, at 12-15% moisture content. Roasting is done at tem Coffee Roasting De-mystified Recipe

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