Krish Ashok Profile picture
Aug 25, 2019 5 tweets 1 min read Read on X
#TIL the organic molecule Geosmin is responsible for the strong earthy/muddy smell of petrichor (the smell of rain on dry earth) and our noses are so sensitive to it that we can detect 5 parts per trillion! It is produced by soil bacteria
A fun fact: when these soil bacteria die in large numbers, their geosmin gets into the ground water, making it taste really muddy. We love its smell in the air and dislike its taste in our water.
And geosmin's presence in freshwater fish (and snails) give them that distinct earthy flavour. And since acids break down geosmin, squeezing lime on freshwater fish is quite common.
At 5 parts per trillion, that's almost as much as the human nose's sensitivity to Ethyl Mercaptan, that is used in LPG gas cylinders to help us detect leaks.
Fascinating story of how this use of Ethyl Mercaptan came to be discovered. Apparently, engineers in California noticed that vultures tended to gather around gas leaks and it was because of the presence of trace amounts of this gas, so they decided to deliberately add it

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More from @krishashok

May 31
There is no single word in the world of food that elicits more fear and loathing than FAT. It doesn't help that the scientific establishment has thoroughly confused the layperson over the last 70 years with conflicting messages about dietary fats 🧵
For starters, the sugar lobby shifted the blame to fats in the 1960s nytimes.com/2016/09/13/wel…
Then the food industry got reckless with partial hydrogenation that resulted in trans fats, and interestingly enough, "trans fats are bad" is pretty much the only thing almost everyone agrees on when it comes to fat. Funnily enough: most people don't realise that the actual level of the problem is quite small now pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34342900/
Read 6 tweets
Mar 20
A few protein facts to cut through the Influenza led Infogeddon 🧵
Most gymbros are overthinking protein and most old folks are not getting enough for basic body maintenance. Surveys regularly reveal that more than 80% of Indians do not get enough protein in their diet. Older women are often the worst affected
Many people overestimate the amount of protein in dal while also not realising that a balanced vegetarian meal can get you all the protein you need.
Read 10 tweets
Mar 3, 2023
What did people eat before European colonisation?

Here is one specific vegetarian example from Tamil Nadu. This meal is typically made once a year as part of a religious celebration to remember ancestors Image
Unsurprisingly, none of these dishes contain the following ingredients: Chillies 🌶️ , Tomato 🍅, Potato 🥔 , Cabbage, cauliflower, beans, carrot 🥕 etc. Because all of them arrived post-colonisation.
Interestingly, no coriander as well. It is estimated that coriander arrived with the Greeks (circa Alexander), so while it is tempting to believe that these dishes pre-date that, there is no corroborating evidence.
Read 12 tweets
Sep 27, 2022
The #TSATU rabbit hole has always been one of the less appreciated things about @amitvarma's podcast. The links he shares in each episode's show notes are an incredibly rich source of pointers to build a nuanced and wide understanding of the subjects being discussed.
That said, any listener of the podcast will also know that Amit tends to reference a few ideas more regularly than others. So I thought I might do a quick and dirty analysis of all links shared in every episode's show notes
So, I crawled every one of the 297 episodes' individual pages and grabbed all outgoing links in the show notes. There are 7591 links (4727 unique links). The episodes with the most number of links are
Read 11 tweets
Sep 8, 2022
The Anatomy of Onam Sadhya (in collaboration with @dataheartist, who did the illustrations and visual design)
The dishes span a range of flavour profiles, and we have captured the taste profile (sweet, salt, sour etc), aroma profile (bold, floral etc) and texture/mouthfeel (gravy, creamy, crunchy etc)
And a single line generalised recipe for each dish category (needless to say, there are many variations across Kerala)
Read 4 tweets
Sep 7, 2022
A thread to aggregate all the food related misinformation mythbusting posts of mine in collaboration with various nutrition, fitness and medicine experts on Instagram 👇🏼
Food misinformation on social media - part 1. This covers the most egregious examples instagram.com/p/Ca4kZI9PDsA/…
My chat with nutritionist @amitagadre that elaborates on the previous post and answers more questions and doubts from folks who sent them in instagram.com/tv/CewMzbSl9Ls…
Read 8 tweets

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