A study from Seoul National University indicates that the famous and (sometimes, when it’s good) delicious Korean dish kimchee helps fight off bird flu. Now all I need is to find some (or a recipe!)

It’s time for another installment of DCFUD’s wacky and unexpected search results.
1. Props to maw for landing us a top 10 MSN hit for transvestites with this post.
2. Fud is #7 on MSN for grate white shark, a long-overdue topic which needs to be explored further in some sort of instructional post. One might want to freeze the shark first, to make for easier grating, wouldn’t you say?
3. Breading on greyhound. Ick. Do you think they meant breeding on Greyhound? God we hope not. Maybe it was how to breed greyhounds. We are prepared to accept that.
4. Brown leather sofas. Mmmkay.
5. Hairy breast photographs. We can’t find the post that allegedly contained these words, but that doesn’t make it any less alarming. Nightmares, anyone? You’re welcome! Please come again.

My word-a-day e-mails follow a different theme each week, and last week’s concerned eating and drinking:
Ebrious
1. Inclined to excessive drinking.
2. Tipsy.
[From Latin ebrius (drunk). Two cousins of this word are inebriated and sobriety.]
[Blogger’s speculation: possibly related to Arabic word ibrik?]
Sitophobia
A morbid aversion to food
[From Greek sito- (food) + -phobia (fear, aversion).]
The word is also spelled as sitiophobia. Two related words are sitomania
(abnormal craving for food), and sitology (the study of nutrition).
Polyphagia
1. Excessive appetite or eating.
2. The habit of feeding on many kinds of food.
[From Modern Latin, from Greek polyphagia, from polyphagos, from poly- (much, many) + phagy (eating).]
Bibacious
Overly fond of drinking.
[From Latin bibere (to drink).]
Postprandial
After a meal, especially dinner.
[From Latin post- (after) + prandium (meal). Ultimately from Indo-European root ed- (to eat or to bite) that has given other words such as edible, comestible, obese, etch, and fret.]
Two siblings of this word are preprandial (before a meal) and prandial (relating to a meal).

Being a semi-journalist-wannabe type, I can’t resist a scoop. Especially when it’s free. For today only, Yahoo! is kindly fronting you a free scoop of ice cream at your local Baskin Robbins. Log in, print out your coupon and the only decision you have to make is what flavor you want. My favorite? Pralines and Cream. (Special thanks to my coworker, Y, who is always has the best email forwards!)

You knew someone was going to do it- Here it is, the Alton Brown ‘Good Eats’ Drinking Game.
Favorites:

Talke one drink if

• Alton appears in a location outside of Georgia.
  
• Alton says, “I’m not a nutritional anthropologist” or something close to that.
  Take two drinks if:
  
• You can see the David dress-up magnet on the refrigerator.
  
• Alton mentions he likes to grind herbs/spices in a coffee grinder.
  
• Alton appears as Roman (solder/emperor/whatever).

Today’s Haiku:
Slim thighs are not worth
This scary toxic powder
No creamer for me
Yestarday’s Menu:
A cheeseburger sans bun, half a green pepper, a slice of my awesome no-sugar cheesecake, A chipotle burrito bol, stuffed mushrooms, and a small salad.
I feel
Well, its my last day on South Beach. Results: mixed. Weight loss was rapid at first but I haven’t budged in a week despite pretty strict adherence. O’ course, men loose weight faster than chicks, but even so it

We all know about nutritional fads and trendy diets. Some of them may be less atrocious than others, but they all have one thing in common: they tell you that you must eat less ingredient Y and more ingredient X (which the diet expert/celebrity in question will happily sell you). Vitamin and mineral supplementation has been around quite a while, and probably is, at the most basic levels, a Good Thing. Goiters and Rickets are exceedingly rare in the US today, where they were epidemic a generation ago. However, today’s frenzied pace of nutritional fads, coupled with the new US Government Dietary Guidelines, make for some seriously worrying food supplementation.
Vitamin C is in everything, vitamin A (Beta Carotene) too. The former in excess quantities can lead to kidney stones, the latter to liver problems and jaundice. The latest thing about to be added to foods are Omega-3-fatty-acids, famous for their protective effects on the heart and vascular system. Now, aside from my general aversion to overly processed and modified foods, there is a serious problem here: omega-3’s only have a positive effect in very limited amounts. I used to work in a biochemistry lab doing research on just this topic: how much of what types of lipids (including omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9 fatty acids) were good for you, and how much of what types were bad. Omega-3’s are very good for your heart, up to moderate doses, but with more than low-moderate doses, they begin to wreak havoc on the liver and kidneys. I can see this trend going so well.
So how do you eat healthy and stay fit and thin? Eat more! That’s right, I said it: “Eat. More.” It’s just a matter of what you eat. Low-calorie-density foods, like soups and fruits and veggies, fill you up their high volume, but still have fewer calories. One apple is more filling than one cookie, but has probably half to a third as many calories. This is a theme of those new dietary guidelines, and the heart of what may be the next dieting trend. Not that I’m promoting any sort of fad diet at all…they tend to have a second feature in common, as well as the one stated above: as soon as you stop being 100% on them, you gain all the weight back. Which is worse for you than never having lost it (true fact – studies have shown that “yo-yo dieting” is extremely rough on your cardiovascular and digestive (read: insulin regulation) systems. So, you best bet is to eat all kinds of foods in healthy balance and moderate amounts.

DCFUD-staffer NM of Seeking Irony and Bluestate is now a rock star in her own right. Or at least, an iPod DJ-star.
Check out the front page article in today’s Washington Post.