He slices, he dices fruit and vegetables with plastic playing cards

Ye Tongxin has quite the talent, he has the ability to makedeep cuts in fruit and vegetables with plastic playing cards.

Tongxin, a 48-year-old Chinese man who is attempting to set a Guinness record as the best in the world. 

By day Tongxin is a manager of school buses in his  home city of Nanjing in east China's Jiangsu Province.

By night he practises two hours throwing cards as fast as he can.

Cucumbers, apples and watermelons don't stand a chance with

Tongzin.

He throws those cards 50 meters in a half second, so that means his plastic projectiles fly out of his hand at 360kmh.

Study says, eating carrots makes you more attractive

Eating strongly colored vegetables and fruit like carrots and plums makes people more attractive, well, that's according to a new British study.

Researchers at St Andrews and Bristol universities examined the relationship between skin color and attractiveness, and decided that people with a yellow skin hue were perceived as particularly healthy and attractive. To us, that would mean a jaundice look, but what do we know?

It was also determined that yellow pigments, or carotenoids, from certain fruit and vegetables played a key role in producing yellowness in skin.

The results came from a study where 40 volunteers rated 51 Scottish Caucasian faces for healthiness and attractiveness.

The results will be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour in March. 

Ian Stephen, one of the scientists involved in the project, said the link between yellowness and carotenoids opened up new strategies for encouraging young people to eat more fruit and vegetables, especially as it took just two months of increased consumption to produce visible results.

We hope the study doesn't include yellow teeth as well.

Japanese Fruit Company Plays Mozart to Bananas

We really love the Japanese culture, we really do.
Now we learn of a Japanese fruit company that Mozart to its ripening bananas, saying it produces a sweeter banana.

We have wondered all along about  the feelings of fruits and vegetables, and the cruelty of vegetarians who are murdering them.

But it appears there is a a wide variety of food and beverages in Japan that are listening to classical music, including soy sauce, udon noodles, miso and even sake.

Over at Ohara Shuzo brewery, senior managing director, Fumiko Ohara said the classical musical experiment began over 20 years ago when the president, Kosuke Ohara, came across a book about brewing with music.
They tried jazz, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, but "We found Mozart works best for sake," Mr Ohara said, "and that's why we use only his music."

So, the Mozart-loving bananas are shipped as ordinary unripe fruit from the Philippines,but that's when their journey really begins.
Mozart's String Quartet 17 and Piano Concerto 5 in D major, among other works, play continuously for one week over speakers in their ripening chamber.
The fruit company, Isamu Okuda, said it makes the fruit sweeter.
Who's to argue, because consumers agree - the "Mozart bananas", are sold for $3.60 a bunch and sales are up over last year's non-musical bananas.

Dorothy Retallack, in her 1973 book, "The Sound of Music and Plants says, "After playing various kinds of music to plants for three hours daily, she found they "preferred" soothing classical, which made them flourish. Rock and country, on the other hand, had either a debilitating effect or none at all.

While there are nonbelievers, Hiroko Harada, the manager of Harada konows better.
The yield of her Mozart-infused tomatoes, called Star Drops, says it all.

15 years ago Harada heard about cows whose milk production went up after listening to Mozart. (A farmer in Spain claims his Mozart-listening bovines produce 1 to 6 liters more milk per day than other cows, and a farm in Aichi called Dairy Paradise uses the same method to boost production.)

At the Hiroko Harada farm, speakers are located in nine greenhouses playing Mozart for about 10 hours a day.

Harada says that Star Drops are tastier and sweeter, and according to the Tokushima Kogyou Shikenjyo, a public research institute, they have three times more iron and vitamin C than regular tomatoes, and Harada feels Mozart plays a role.

The Japanese public seem accept the idea that Mozart can improve food and beverages, and the concept of the Mozart Effect, as it impacts on fruits and vegetables seems more popular than ever.

We ran a post July 13, 2009 on the "The Silent Scream of Plants and Vegetables", and it's a related story to the emotions of fruits listening to Mozart.

We’re Still Not Eating Our Veggies

With all the talk about veggies and fruits and fighting obesity you would think eating vegetables and fruits would be on the rise.

According to a new government report, that's not the case, the majority of Americans just say no to vegetables.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that last year about one-third of U.S. adults consumed fruit or fruit juice at least twice a day. That's down slightly from more than 34 percent in 2000.

Only about 26 percent ate vegetables three or more times a day, the same as in 2000. The statistics come from a national telephone survey of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

No state met federal goals of three-quarters of Americans eating enough fruit, and half eating enough vegetables. California ate the most fruit and Tennessee was best with vegetables. Oklahoma was at the bottom for fruit and South Dakota had the lowest vegetable consumption.

The most popular vegetable is the potatoes. (one of our favorites)

The first lady and health officials have been trying to promote fruits and vegetables but the data is discouraging, said Dr. Jennifer Foltz, one of the study's authors.

"We aren't making progress, that's for sure," said Foltz, a CDC epidemiologist.

Reminds us of the old saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can make it drink."
Same goes for fruits and veggies, you can't force it down our throats...

Pumpkins - Vegetable or Fruit?

With Halloween just around the corner it's time we once again ask the important question:

Is your Halloween pumpkin is a vegetable or a fruit?

We went over this last year, but for those of you that weren't around, let's explore once again.

The answer is the same as a tomato, and that's because pumpkins and tomatoes have something in common?

Here's a hint, it's in the above photo.

They both have seeds, right?

This, of course, makes pumpkins and tomatoes both fruit.

But wait there's more...

It also makes cucumbers, squash, green beans and walnuts all fruits as well. Right?

The answer is also based on the parts of the plant involved.

Besides the seeds, basically, fruits are developed from flowers, vegetables are not.

Vegetables are not made from flowers; instead, they are the plant's roots (carrots), stems (celery), leaves (cabbage) and other edible parts of a plant.

It's common to refer to these fruits as vegetables:

* Pumpkin

* Squash

* Tomato

* Cucumbers

* Green beans

* Hot peppers

* Bell peppers

If you are speaking in culinary terms, you can call these fruits vegetables, even though  they are actually fruits.

The United States Supreme Court back in 1883 had some extra time on their hands and entered a legal verdict on whether a tomato should be classified as a vegetable or a fruit.

They decided unanimously, in Nix versus Hedden, that a tomato is a vegetable, even though it is still a fruit.

Another way to determine whether it is a vegetable or a fruit is after being picked a Fruit will ripen, and a vegetable will rot.

Eating Fruits and Vegetables has little effect on cancer prevention

Eating lots of fruit and vegetables has only a small effect fighting cancer, a new study suggests.

Doctors led by Paolo Boffetta at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, studied eight years of data  between cancer risk and food, involving 470,000 volunteers
Between 1992 and 2000, more than 30,000 of the participants were diagnosed with cancer.
Boffetta's team found that high consumption of fruit and vegetables had little effect against cancer.
While researchers found some benefit against cancer, it was much smaller  than previously thought.
The UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a recommendation in 1990 suggesting that five servings of fruit and vegetables per day helped prevent cancer and other diseases.
"Worldwide, low intake of fruits and vegetables is estimated to cause about 19 per cent of gastrointestinal cancer, about 31 per cent of ischaemic heart disease and 11 per cent stroke," the WHO says on its website.

The new study appears online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, published by Britain's Oxford University Press.

Pumpkins - Vegetable or Fruit?

So, is your Halloween pumpkin is a vegetable or a fruit?

We've decided the knowledge of such things have the utmost importance, so let's explore.

First, here's a short quiz,  how about a tomato, is it a fruit or a vegetable?
The answer is because pumpkins and tomatoes have something in common?
What could they possibly have in common?

Here's a hint, it's in the above photo.
Here's another hint, do they both have seeds?

If the answer is yes, then  we are talking about fruit.

This, of course, makes pumpkins and tomatoes both fruit.

But wait there's more...

It also makes cucumbers, squash, green beans and walnuts all fruits as well. Right?

The answer is based on the parts of the plant involved.
Besides the seeds, basically, fruits are developed from flowers, vegetables aren't.
Vegetables are not made from flowers; instead, they are the plant's roots (carrots), stems (celery), leaves (cabbage) and other edible parts of a plant.

It's common to refer to these fruits as vegetables:

• Pumpkin
• Squash
• Tomato
• Cucumbers
• Green beans
• Hot peppers
• Bell peppers 

If you are speaking in culinary terms, you can call these fruits vegetables, even though in the truest form they are still fruits.

The United States Supreme Court back in 1883 had some extra time on their hands and entered a legal verdict on whether a tomato should be classified as a vegetable or a fruit.
They decided unanimously, in Nix versus Hedden, that a tomato is a vegetable, even though it is really a fruit.

Another way to determine whether it is a vegetable or a fruit is after being picked a Fruit will ripen, and a vegetable will rot.