Snacks have become our fourth meal.  A new study conducted at Purdue University revealed that, on average, Americans consume about 580 calories a day in the combined items they eat between meals.  As you might suspect, snacking has greatly accelerated in recent years.  Combine these facts with this one: more than 15 million school-aged children are home alone after school.  Now, what have you got?  An opportunity for nutritionless eating and injury.

The expression "cool as a cucumber" is both figurative and literal.  On a warm day, the inside of a field cucumber may be as much as 20°F cooler than the surrounding air.  Perhaps that's the reason dishes made with cucumbers are so appealing on warm summer days. Now is a good time to find out all about cukes--how to select a good one, store it properly, and serve it deliciously.  We'll also answer these questions:  Is the cucumber a fruit or a vegetable?  Will it really reduce puffiness under the eyes? Is it actually used to make facial masks?

At the  Institute of Food Technologists' 2013 convention and food expo, I drank a smoothie laced with powdered chicken. Ancient grains high in protein--for example, amaranth, millet, quinoa, sorghum, and teff --were used in recipes I  sampled, as were peanut flours with 40-50% protein.  At one of the scientific sessions, this question  was discussed: "Will protein be the next big thing?"

Finding better ways to help consumers figure out how long their edible purchases will last is an ongoing priority.  Recently, the U.S. government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been working together on the matter, and they've come up with an app called Foodkeeper with shelf life information on some 400 products including meat, poultry, seafood, dairy products, and produce. Also for shelf-life answers, chemists at MIT have developed an inexpensive portable sensor that can detect gases produced by decaying meat; it tells consumers whether to eat that chicken or discard it.  Let's learn more about both of these projects.