Wow, it took me a long time to find an article about this in a scientific journal. The best I could find was from 2005 out of Thailand. No mention of the blue. If something new has come out, I haven't found it. That is one of the many problems with blogs, especially these nutty blogs and pseudo health sites--no citations. Bamboo, I agree that that website is wacko and probably the people there are leftwing, but there are plenty of wacko fake health sites on both sides of the political spectrum. Many times, you get fringe people from both ends of the spectrum agreeing on the same wacko things. The article I found is "Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of modified antifreeze protein gene in strawberry" by Khammuang et al. in Songklanakarin J. Sci. Technol., 2005, 27(4) : 693-703. There is no mention of the blue, however they do use a plasmid as part of the cloning of the antifreeze gene (AFP) called pT7blue. If this is where the idea of the blue strawberry is from it is totally off base. The 'blue' used here is to indicate that the plasmid contains a common gene used in cloning. The gene does cause things to turn blue (only when a specific chemical is added), however the act of cloning disrupts the gene and it is no longer functional at that point. One thing that I wanted to point out is that in this article, they use Agrobacterium tumefaciens (a common plant bacterium) to deliver the AFP gene to the strawberry plant. As I mentioned in the previous GMO thread, viruses are not the only method of transferring genes (not that there is anything inherently bad about using viruses.) Agrobacterium is an example of nature doing its own GMO sort of thing. In nature, the bacterium transfers its own genes to the plant in order to make the plant produce nutrients for the bacterium. My point here is that humans are not the only ones swapping genes around (that is in no way meant to imply that it is either good or bad--it all depends on the context.) Drew, unfortunately because Monsanto focuses on plants, most of their technology doesn't have much relevance to human (or any animal) genetic disease; but you do make a good point that biotechnology has the potential to help a lot of people with a variety of diseases. I'm no Monsanto fan, but advancing technology gives us more tools at our disposal to fix problems (even if we created them in the first place) if use them responsibly. Here is an article in the NYT from 13 years ago mentioning the antifreeze strawberries. Here is a link that might be useful: NYT article from 2000

I have added recipes to my website as well. Bass Here is a link that might be useful: fig recipes

I have said for years..way before MRSA was a common problem, the antibiotics are over used/prescribed and it starts with INFANTS! People run their kids to the Dr. at the 1st sign of a sniffle. They almost always leave with a few prescriptions..one of them being an antibiotic! Most sniffles will last 3-7 days with or without meds! Honestly, I can count on 1 hand the times I took my kids to the Drs. Both of them are healthy as can be now. If and when they have to have an antibiotic now, it starts working almost immediately! It's scary to think we start medicating our kids almost from birth, then they grown up with immune systems that can't fight off even a minor infection. I also never gave my kids anything for a "fever" until it got to 102* or higher. A fever is the body's way of naturally fighting infections.

I wonder if the "kitchens no one cooks in" trend is tied to the "kitchens no cook would design" trend. Imagine young marrieds, scrimping to get a toehold in the housing market. No funds, nor time, to change the kitchen around. It has nice enough cabinets, all the requisite appliances, pretty counters. Even though it would cost less, be healthier and more satisfying, to cook at home, they never really get into it, and buy a lot of prepared foods plus eat out a lot. Then a baby or two come and they have even less perceived time, but mom wants to be a good mom and, having received that fancy orange and green babyfood making set-up as a shower present, really tries to make nutritious food for the baby, but it's just too danged hard. By the time she has all the equipment she needs out, and the food assembled, the baby wakes up and demands her attention. There's nowhere safe for baby in the kitchen at all. Compare that to someone who has lucked into a well laid out, functional kitchen, who isn't much into cooking when they first get married, but soon finds out that making a chicken and a salad, or some chops and steamed vegetables, takes a lot less time than going out, and is easier, because it doesn't involve all the negotiations, driving, parking, etc., when they're both tired and hungry. So she learns to make her mother's potroast and he learns to bake a cake and pretty soon they're making most of their food. They're paying attention to nutrition and spending what they save by not going out on beautiful produce. They start looking forward to the farmers' market. It's their weekly "date". They're used to preparing good food at home, and just mince it up fine for baby. What do you think? I hated my old kitchen so much that I avoided a lot of complicated cooking except for company. In my new kitchen I cook all kinds of things just for fun. I wonder how many people buy nice new houses with pretty but poorly designed kitchens, who never realize that their kitchens are preventing them from wanting to cook???