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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • I live on top of a hill that drains directly into the ocean. If my house floods I have different problems.

    I also won’t live on the side of hills without a very clear understanding of the local watershed, soil stability, nearby land rights… I took a lot of Earth science classes and honestly it’s kinda traumatizing to peek behind the curtain. Shit is fucked.










  • They sell that. They also sell tea and milkshakes, but you can go into any Starbucks and get a cup of drip coffee, or an espresso, or cold brew, or a mocha. But people like the sweet drinks and Starbucks is happy to oblige.

    They roast their beans too dark because they care more about consistency than subtlety or complexity, their anti-union pushes are bad for workers, they displaced a load of small coffee shops (I have seen significant rebound, but that might just be my region), there’s this new “supercommuter” nonsense.

    Pointing at a Frappuccino and saying “they don’t even sell coffee!” has no negative impact on their brand or business, it’s a transparently pointless claim to the general public, and it distracts from the very real problems Starbucks has. (I think it mostly sounds like “popular thing bad” with a sprinkling of “America bad” Eurosupremecy)








  • Splitting, or breaking, is the separation of sauce, cheese, or other emulsion. As a milk product, cheese is a mixture of water, oil, and protein (and some sugars, fungus, coloring agents, details vary). Heat causes those elements to “split” and is the reason you can’t make a cheese sauce without some kind of emulsifier.

    Premium American cheese, labeled “pasteurized process American cheese”, is mostly traditional cheese by weight (usually cheddar, often with Colby or others mixed in) with salt, color, emulsifier, citric acid, and up to 5% added dairy fat. That’s all the same stuff traditional cheese has except for the emulsifier (commonly sodium citrate or phosphate) which keeps it from separating as it melts.

    Also all cheese is a “processed food” before anyone gets riled up about the terminology.



  • Fine, I’ll bite.

    Salt mining is a human invention, though not at all a recent one. Seeking out natural salt deposits to directly consume is essential herbivore behavior because vegetation alone is an insufficient source of key minerals. Adding animal products, especially seafood, to a diet should be sufficient for minimum healthy intake of not just sodium but all trace minerals and vitamins but concentrated supplements are obviously also available and careful meal planning can get it done with just plant products. That is of course a truth for the modern, developed world and not at all indicative of our biological heritage.

    The downsides of slight-to-moderate overindulgence of salt, mostly high blood pressure through water retention, can be offset by a more active lifestyle. (Sweat more, hydrate more, flush the excess out.)

    And it’s cue. A queue is a waiting line.