Read Online When Do Fish Sleep? by David Feldman - Free Book Online
Authors: David Feldman
Tags: Reference, Curiosities & Wonders
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airline meals are prepared aloft. The salad, bread, and dessert are placed on trays that are usually refrigerated or packed in ice. Entrees are loaded onto separate baking sheets. When it is time to start the meal service, the flight attendant who prepares the meals simply sticks the trays of entrees into ovens (not, by the way, microwaves).
The rolls are cold because they have been sitting all along with the salad and cake. Most airlines offer customers a choice of entrees. The flight attendant who is serving the meal simply selects the entree from the sheets they were cooked in and places it alongside the rest of the meal. Except for the entree choice, every flier’s tray will look identical. Note that although most airlines vary the vegetable according to the entree, the vegetable is always cooked on the same plate as the main course because the entree plate will be the only heated element on the tray.
If the bread and salad taste cold, why doesn’t the dessert? Airlines, almost without exception, serve cake for dessert. Michael Marchant, vice president of Ogden Allied Aviation Services and the president of the Inflight Food Service Association, told Imponderables that the softness of cake fools us into thinking it is being served at room temperature. The gustatory illusion is maintained because in contrast to the roll’s hard crust, which locks in the coldness, the soft frosting of a cake dissipates the cold.
The folks in first class, meanwhile, are munching warm rolls, which have been heated. Certainly it is worth an extra five hundred dollars or so to get heated rolls, isn’t it?
Why Do Chickens and Turkeys, Unlike Other Fowl, Have White Meat and Dark Meat?
Other birds that we eat, such as quail, duck, or pigeon, have all dark meat. Chickens and turkeys are among a small group of birds with white flesh on the breasts and wings.
Birds have two types of muscle fibers: red and white. Red muscle fibers contain more myoglobin, a muscle protein with a red pigment. Muscles with a high amount of myoglobin are capable of much longer periods of work and stress than white fibers. Thus, you can guess which birds are likely to have light fibers by studying their feeding and migration patterns.
Most birds have to fly long distances to migrate or to find food, and they need the endurance that myoglobin provides. All birds that appear to have all white flesh actually have some red fibers, and with one exception, all birds that appear to be all dark have white fibers. But the hummingbird, which rarely stops flying, has pectoral muscles consisting entirely of red fibers because the pectoral muscles enable the wings to flap continuously.
The domestic chicken or turkey, on the other hand, lives the life of Riley. Even in their native habitat, according to Dr. Phil Hudspeth, vice president of Quality and Research at Holly Farms, chickens are ground feeders and fly only when nesting. Ordinarily, chickens move around by walking or running, which is why only their legs and thighs are dark. They fly so little that their wings and breasts don’t need myoglobin. In fact, the lack of myoglobin in the wing and breast are an anatomical advantage. Janet Hinshaw, of the Wilson Ornithological Society, explains why chicken and turkey musculature is perfectly appropriate:
They spend most of their time walking. When danger threatens they fly in a burst of speed for a short distance and then land. Thus they need flight muscles which deliver a lot of power quickly but for a short time.
Next time you fork up an extra fifty cents for that order of all-white meat chicken, remember that you are likely paying to eat a bird that racked up fewer trips in the air than you have in an airplane.
Submitted by Margaret Sloane of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Thanks also to Sara Sickle of Perryopolis, Pennsylvania; and Annalisa Weaver of Davis, California .
Why Haven’t Vending Machines Ever Accepted Pennies?
In the second
The rolls are cold because they have been sitting all along with the salad and cake. Most airlines offer customers a choice of entrees. The flight attendant who is serving the meal simply selects the entree from the sheets they were cooked in and places it alongside the rest of the meal. Except for the entree choice, every flier’s tray will look identical. Note that although most airlines vary the vegetable according to the entree, the vegetable is always cooked on the same plate as the main course because the entree plate will be the only heated element on the tray.
If the bread and salad taste cold, why doesn’t the dessert? Airlines, almost without exception, serve cake for dessert. Michael Marchant, vice president of Ogden Allied Aviation Services and the president of the Inflight Food Service Association, told Imponderables that the softness of cake fools us into thinking it is being served at room temperature. The gustatory illusion is maintained because in contrast to the roll’s hard crust, which locks in the coldness, the soft frosting of a cake dissipates the cold.
The folks in first class, meanwhile, are munching warm rolls, which have been heated. Certainly it is worth an extra five hundred dollars or so to get heated rolls, isn’t it?
Why Do Chickens and Turkeys, Unlike Other Fowl, Have White Meat and Dark Meat?
Other birds that we eat, such as quail, duck, or pigeon, have all dark meat. Chickens and turkeys are among a small group of birds with white flesh on the breasts and wings.
Birds have two types of muscle fibers: red and white. Red muscle fibers contain more myoglobin, a muscle protein with a red pigment. Muscles with a high amount of myoglobin are capable of much longer periods of work and stress than white fibers. Thus, you can guess which birds are likely to have light fibers by studying their feeding and migration patterns.
Most birds have to fly long distances to migrate or to find food, and they need the endurance that myoglobin provides. All birds that appear to have all white flesh actually have some red fibers, and with one exception, all birds that appear to be all dark have white fibers. But the hummingbird, which rarely stops flying, has pectoral muscles consisting entirely of red fibers because the pectoral muscles enable the wings to flap continuously.
The domestic chicken or turkey, on the other hand, lives the life of Riley. Even in their native habitat, according to Dr. Phil Hudspeth, vice president of Quality and Research at Holly Farms, chickens are ground feeders and fly only when nesting. Ordinarily, chickens move around by walking or running, which is why only their legs and thighs are dark. They fly so little that their wings and breasts don’t need myoglobin. In fact, the lack of myoglobin in the wing and breast are an anatomical advantage. Janet Hinshaw, of the Wilson Ornithological Society, explains why chicken and turkey musculature is perfectly appropriate:
They spend most of their time walking. When danger threatens they fly in a burst of speed for a short distance and then land. Thus they need flight muscles which deliver a lot of power quickly but for a short time.
Next time you fork up an extra fifty cents for that order of all-white meat chicken, remember that you are likely paying to eat a bird that racked up fewer trips in the air than you have in an airplane.
Submitted by Margaret Sloane of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Thanks also to Sara Sickle of Perryopolis, Pennsylvania; and Annalisa Weaver of Davis, California .
Why Haven’t Vending Machines Ever Accepted Pennies?
In the second
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