Everything About Wood: 03/23/16

Wednesday, 23 March 2016

How to Roast & Bake a Smoked Ham Hock

A smoked ham hock is a cut of meat taken from between the foot and leg that has been smoked to add flavor. Ham hocks are generally tough but flavorful cuts of meat because they contain muscle and tendon as well as a fair amount of fat, which means they need to be cooked fairly slowly at a lower temperature to make the meat tender. Ham hocks are often braised in liquid, and you can use leftovers for soups and stews.

Smoked ham hocks are a flavorful and tender when cooked slowly. Photo Credit AlexRaths/iStock/Getty Images

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Line a medium baking dish with aluminum foil and place the ham hock inside.

Combine the honey and mustard in a small saucepan and heat it over low heat, stirring it constantly with a wooden spoon until combined, about one minute.

Brush the top of the ham hock with the honey and mustard mixture. Season the ham hock with kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper to taste.

Cook the ham hock in the oven for 40 minutes.

Check the internal temperature of the ham hock with an instant-read thermometer. When the ham hock is finished the internal temperature should be 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

Remove the ham hock from the oven. Place it on a cutting board and allow it to rest for 10 minutes before slicing it and serving.

Medium baking dish
Aluminum foil
Ham hock, approximately 2 lbs.
4 tbsp. honey
1 tbsp. mustard
Small saucepan
Wooden spoon
Food brush
Kosher salt, to taste
Coarse ground black pepper, to taste
Instant-read thermometer
Cutting board

www.livestrong.com

What Are the Benefits of Beet & Apple Juice?

Freshly made juices let you drink in the many health benefits of fruits and vegetables. Raw beets and apples are two of the more popular fresh juices. Because of their sweet taste and rich flavor, they're tasty as well as nutritious. It takes 1 1/2 cups of fresh, chopped, raw beets to make a 1/2-cup serving of fresh beet juice, and 4 cups of chopped apples to make 1 cup of fresh apple juice. You can drink beet and apple juice together, separately or mixed with other fresh fruit or vegetable juices.

Apple and beet juices are rich in potassium, with 1/2 cup of beet juice containing 663 milligrams of potassium and a 1-cup serving of apple juice having 535 milligrams of potassium. The recommended dietary intake of potassium is 4,700 milligrams for adult men and women. This means that a single serving of beet juice has 14 percent of the RDI of potassium, while a single serving of apple juice has approximately 11 percent of the RDI. Potassium is an electrolyte that helps build proteins and control your heart’s electrical activity. It also helps maintain your body’s acid-base balance.

Fresh beet and apple juice are both a source of vitamin C. A 1/2 cup of beet juice has 10 milligrams of vitamin C per serving, and a 1-cup serving of fresh apple juice has 23 milligrams. The recommended dietary intake of vitamin C is 75 milligrams for adult women and 90 milligrams for adult men, so beet juice provides 11 to 13 percent of the RDI for vitamin C, while apple juice provides 25 to 30 percent of the RDI. As a natural antioxidant, vitamin C protects your body’s cells from damage caused by free radicals. It also helps your body in the production of collagen, keeping your ligaments, blood vessels, skin and tendons strong and helping your body repair wounds.

Folate, also known as vitamin B-9, is present in high quantities in beet juice. A 1/2-cup serving of beet juice has 222 milligrams of folate, or 56 percent of the adequate intake of folate for adult men and women. As a B vitamin, folate supports your immune and nervous systems, helping your body better tolerate stress, as well as aiding in the breakdown of carbs into usable energy. Folate is also essential for helping your body grow and is necessary for the production of DNA, making it very important during periods of rapid body development, such as during pregnancy.

Fresh apple juice is a good source of vitamin K. A single, 1-cup serving has 11 micrograms. The daily adequate intake for adult men is 120 micrograms of vitamin K, while for adult women, it's 90 micrograms. This means a serving of fresh apple juice has 12.2 percent of the daily AI of vitamin K for women, and a little over 9 percent of the daily AI for adult men. Vitamin K helps your blood coagulate, so it is sometimes called the clotting vitamin. It also helps your body use calcium, so it aids with maintaining strong bones and teeth.

www.livestrong.com

How to Steam Chicken for Healthy Eating

Chicken can be a low-fat, good source of protein, but when it's prepared in unhealthy ways, the fat content is increased due to fried coatings and creamy sauces. To retain the healthy nature of chicken, it's important that you cook it in a way that does not use extra fat. Steaming chicken is ideal when you're adding the chicken to other recipes, like salads and pasta. It cooks the chicken thoroughly without adding extra fat and allows the true taste of the chicken to shine through.

Rinse defrosted or fresh chicken under cool water and pat the pieces dry with paper towels. Discard the paper towels. Cut the chicken into smaller pieces, if desired, which will speed the steaming process.

In a medium-size pot, place a steamer basket to use as a guide to the amount of water to use in the pot. Put enough water into the pot until it is just below the steamer basket. Remove the basket. If desired, add savory herbs and lemon slices to the water, which will help create a fragrant steam and flavor the chicken.

Bring the water to a boil using high heat on your stove.

Lay the chicken pieces in a single layer in the bottom of the basket. Place the basket into the pot carefully and cover tightly for 8 to 10 minutes. Avoid opening the lid to check the chicken, as it will release the steam and prolong the cooking process, as well as lead to drier chicken.

Remove the chicken once a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest piece reads at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sprinkle the chicken breasts with fresh lemon juice and your favorite herbs -- rosemary and oregano pair well with lemon. The chicken will be unseasoned when finished, but adding creamy sauces can increase the fat content.

Serve chicken with other low-fat, low-calorie foods to round out a healthy meal. Steamed vegetables are packed with color and flavor, not to mention essential vitamins. Then, add a healthy starch, like a baked sweet potato.

Save the leftover chicken. Store it in an airtight container in your fridge for three to four days. You can add the chicken to salads, soups and use it on sandwiches and wraps in order to enjoy protein that has no added fat.

Never cook fresh chicken that has a pungent, unpleasant smell or grayish color. It's likely been sitting in a fridge too long and is no longer safe to eat.

Freeze cooked chicken to extend its shelf life to four to six months. This way, you can purchase bulk quantities and steam large batches of chicken at once, then freeze the meat to use in recipes over the course of several months.

Boneless skinless chicken breast
Pot
Steamer basket
Water
Herbs

www.livestrong.com

How to Cook Corn on the Cob on a Stovetop

Fresh ears of corn provide a slightly sweet vegetable side dish for summer meals. Corn on the cob begins turning up in supermarkets in late spring, but the summer months are prime corn season. The later ears of corn are often more tender and sweet. Cooking the corn on the stove top is a simple preparation method that anyone can handle. The most difficult aspect of boiling ears of corn is knowing when to remove them from the water to prevent overcooking.

Fill a pot about three-fourths full of water. Add a few pinches of salt. Bring the water to a full boil.

Peel away the husks of the ears of corn. Remove the corn silk that stays on the corn. Break off or cut off the stem if it is still attached to the cob.

Lower the ears of corn into the salted, boiling water, being careful not to splash. Place the lid onto the pan of corn. Wait for the water to being boiling again.

Set the timer for between three and five minutes. Check the corn to see if the kernels are tender. Continue cooking if they aren't tender enough, but avoiding overcooking, which can make the corn tough.

Pull out the ears of corn you will serve right away with a pair of tongs. Allow some of the water to drip off of the corn on the cob before placing it on the serving platter. Spread butter on the corn before serving.

Add a pinch of sugar or a pat of butter to the water as you cook the corn for additional flavor.
You may need to cook the corn longer if it wasn't recently picked.

Pot
Salt
Tongs

- Wikipedia

MYCOREMEDIATION

Mycoremediation is a form of bioremediation, the process of using fungi to degrade or sequester contaminants in the environment. Stimulating microbial and enzyme activity, mycelium reduces toxins in-situ. Some fungi are hyperaccumulators, capable of absorbing and concentrating heavy metals in the mushroom fruit bodies.

One of the primary roles of fungi in the ecosystem is decomposition, which is performed by the mycelium. The mycelium secretes extracellular enzymes and acids that break down lignin and cellulose, the two main building blocks of plant fiber. These are organic compounds composed of long chains of carbon and hydrogen, structurally similar to many organic pollutants. The key to mycoremediation is determining the right fungal species to target a specific pollutant. Certain strains have been reported to successfully degrade the nerve gases VX and sarin.

There are many factors that affect the rate and ability for mushrooms to break down toxins, the first of which is the physical nature of the hydrocarbons. Generally, contaminants that are molecularly simpler are easier to break down than more complicated ones. Temperature also controls the rate at which contaminants are broken down. Low temperatures slow the process and warm temperatures speed it up. Fungi prefer a pH of 4 to 5, that is they prefer a pH which is slightly more acid than a neutral pH which is 7. Oxygen is also essential to fungal metabolism. The initial step of hydrocarbon degrading involves adding oxygen to the hydrocarbon, and so a lack of oxygen in the environment slows the process.

Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus).

In an experiment conducted in conjunction with Dr. S. A. Thomas a major contributor in the bioremediation industry, a plot of soil contaminated with diesel was inoculated with mycelia of oyster mushrooms; traditional bioremediation techniques (bacteria) were used on control plots. After four weeks, more than 95% of many of the PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons had been reduced to non-toxic components in the mycelial-inoculated plots. It appears that the natural microbial community participates with the fungi to break down contaminants, eventually into carbon dioxide and water. Wood-decay fungi are particularly effective in breaking down aromatic pollutants (toxic components of petroleum), as well as chlorinated compounds (certain persistent pesticides).

In 2007 a similar method was used in San Francisco. Oil had contaminated the shoreline after a cargo ship spilled 58,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil. Hair mats, the size of a doormat, acted as sponges to soak up spilled oil. An experiment was designed that collected and layered with oyster mushrooms and straw: the mushrooms broke down the oil and after several weeks the resulting soil was clean enough to be used for roadside landscaping.

The concept of mycoremediation was explored in the 1984 film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, where vast tracts of fungal forest rehabilitate the planet after catastrophic human polluting and apocalypse.

Mycofiltration is a similar process, using fungal mycelia to filter toxic waste and microorganisms from water in soil.

According to Paul Stamets, the future of mycoremediation lies in Mycological Response Teams. These teams would consist of knowledgeable and trained people who would set up centers that would use mycoremediation techniques to recycle and rebuild healthy soil in the area. This begins by spreading awareness and information in regards to the benefits of mycoremediation.

References

^ Stamets, Paul. undated. "Helping the Ecosystem through Mushroom Cultivation." Adapted from Stamets, P. 1998. "Earth's Natural Internet." Whole Earth Magazine, Fall 1999.
^ Stamets, Paul (2004). "Magic Mushrooms: Planetary Healing with Deep Biology". In Kenny Ausubel & J.P. Harpignies. Nature's Operating Instructions: The True Biotechnologies. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. p. 39. ISBN 1578050995.
^ Singh, Harbhajan (2006). Mycoremediation: fungal bioremediation. New York: Wiley-Interscience. ISBN 0-471-75501-X.
^ Thomas, S.A. 2000. "Mushrooms: Higher Macrofungi to Clean Up the Environment". Battelle Environmental Issues, Fall 2000
^ "Mycoremediation (Bioremediation with Fungi) – Growing Mushrooms to Clean the Earth. A mini-review".
^ May, Meredith (14 November 2007). "Hair and mushrooms create a recipe for cleaning up oily beaches". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
^ "The Petroleum Problem. Fungi Perfecti. 3 June 2010. Retrieved 8 May 2013.

External Links

Mycotransformation of organic and inorganic substrates (Gadd 2004)
Field Demonstrations of Mycoremediation for Removal of Fecal Coliform Bacteria and Nutrients in the Dungeness Watershed, Washington (Thomas, S. et al. 2009)
Evaluation of Isolated Fungal Strain from e-waste Recycling Facility for Effective Sorption of Toxic Heavy Metal Pb (II) Ions and Fungal Protein Molecular Characterization- a Mycoremediation Approach (Rajeshkumar, 2011)
[1 Toxic cadmium ions removal by isolated fungal strain from e-waste recycling facility (Kumar et al., 2012)

- Wikipedia

MAGNAPORTHE GRISEA

Magnaporthe grisea, also known as rice blast fungus, rice rotten neck, rice seedling blight, blast of rice, oval leaf spot of graminea, pitting disease, ryegrass blast, and Johnson spot, is a plant-pathogenic fungus that causes a serious disease affecting rice. It is now known that M. grisea consists of a cryptic species complex containing at least two biological species that have clear genetic differences and do not interbreed. Complex members isolated from Digitaria have been more narrowly defined as M. grisea. The remaining members of the complex isolated from rice and a variety of other hosts have been renamed Magnaporthe oryzae. Confusion on which of these two names to use for the rice blast pathogen remains, as both are now used by different authors.

Magnaporthe grisea

A conidium and conidiogenous cell of M. grisea
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Fungi
Phylum:	Ascomycota
Class:	Sordariomycetes
Order:	Magnaporthales
Family:	Magnaporthaceae
Genus:	Magnaporthe
Species:	M. grisea
Binomial name
*Magnaporthe grisea* (T.T. Hebert) M.E. Barr
Synonyms
Ceratosphaeria grisea T.T. Hebert, (1971) Dactylaria grisea (Cooke) Shirai, (1910) Dactylaria oryzae (Cavara) Sawada, (1917) Phragmoporthe grisea (T.T. Hebert) M. Monod, (1983) Pyricularia grisea Sacc., (1880) (anamorph) Pyricularia grisea (Cooke) Sacc., (1880) Pyricularia oryzae Cavara, (1891) Trichothecium griseum Cooke, Trichothecium griseum Speg., (1882)

Members of the Magnaporthe griseacomplex can also infect other agriculturally important cereals including wheat, rye, barley, and pearl millet causing diseases called blast disease or blight disease. Rice blast causes economically significant crop losses annually. Each year it is estimated to destroy enough rice to feed more than 60 million people. The fungus is known to occur in 85 countries worldwide.

Hosts and Symptoms

Lesions on rice leaves caused by infection with M. grisea

M. grisea is an ascomycete fungus. It is an extremely effective plant pathogen as it can reproduce both sexually and asexually to produce specialized infectious structures known as appressoria that infect aerial tissues and hyphae that can infect root tissues.

Rice blast has been observed on rice strains M-201, M-202, M-204, M-205, M-103, M-104, S-102, L-204, Calmochi-101, with M-201 being the most vulnerable. Initial symptoms are white to gray-green lesions or spots with darker borders produced on all parts of the shoot, while older lesions are elliptical or spindle-shaped and whitish to gray with necrotic borders. Lesions may enlarge and coalesce to kill the entire leaf. Symptoms are observed on all above-ground parts of the plant. Lesions can be seen on the leaf collar, culm, culm nodes, and panicle neck node. Internodal infection of the culm occurs in a banded pattern. Nodal infection causes the culm to break at the infected node (rotten neck). It also affects reproduction by causing the host to produce fewer seeds. This is caused by the disease preventing maturation of the actual grain.

Rice blast lesions on plant nodes

Disease Cycle

Spores of M. grisea

The pathogen infects as a spore that produces lesions or spots on parts of the rice plant such as the leaf, leaf collar, panicle, culm and culm nodes. Using a structure called an appressorium, the pathogen penetrates the plant. M. griseathen sporulates from the diseased rice tissue to be dispersed as conidiospores. After overwintering in sources such as rice straw and stubble, the cycle repeats.

A single cycle can be completed in about a week under favorable conditions where one lesion can generate up to thousands of spores in a single night. With the ability to continue to produce the spores for over 20 days, rice blast lesions can be devastating to susceptible rice crops.

Environment

Rice blast is a significant problem in temperate regions and can be found in areas such as irrigated lowland and upland. Conditions conducive for rice blast include long periods of free moisture where leaf wetness is required for infection and high humidity is common. Sporulation increases with high relative humidity and at 77-82 degrees F, spore germination, lesion formation, and sporulation are at optimum levels.

In terms of control, excessive use of nitrogen fertilization as well as drought stress increase rice susceptibility to the pathogen as the plant is placed in a weakened state and its defenses are low. Extended drain periods also favor infection as they aerate the soil, converting ammonium to nitrate and thus causing stress to rice crops, as well.

Management

J. Sendra rice affected by Magnaporthe grisea

The fungus has been able to establish resistance to both chemical treatments and genetic resistance in some types of rice developed by plant breeders. It is thought that the fungus can achieve this by genetic change through mutation. In order to most effectively control infection by M. grisea, an integrated management program should be implemented to avoid overuse of a single control method and fight against genetic resistance. For example, eliminating crop residue could reduce the occurrence of overwintering and discourage inoculation in subsequent seasons. Another strategy would be to plant resistant rice varieties that are not as susceptible to infection by M. grisea. Knowledge of the pathogenicity of M. grisea and its need for free moisture suggest other control strategies such as regulated irrigation and a combination of chemical treatments with different modes of action. Managing the amount of water supplied to the crops limits spore mobility thus dampening the opportunity for infection. Chemical controls such as Carpropamid have been shown to prevent penetration of the appressoria into rice epidermal cells, leaving the grain unaffected.

Importance

Rice blast is the most important disease concerning the rice crop in the world. Since rice is an important food source for much of the world, its effects have a broad range. It has been found in over 85 countries across the world and reached the United States in 1996. Every year the amount of crops lost to rice blast could feed 60 million people. Although there are some resistant strains of rice, the disease persists wherever rice is grown. The disease has never been eradicated from a region.

References

^ Talbot, N. J. (2003). "ON THE TRAIL OF A CEREAL KILLER: Exploring the Biology of Magnaporthe grisea". Annual Review of Microbiology 57: 177–202. doi:10.1146/annurev.micro.57.030502.090957. PMID 14527276.
^ Zeigler, RS; Leong, SA; Teeng, PS (1994). "Rice Blast Disease." Wallingford: CAB International.
^ Wilson, R. A.; Talbot, N. J. (2009). "Under pressure: Investigating the biology of plant infection by Magnaporthe oryzae". Nature Reviews Microbiology 7 (3): 185–95. doi:10.1038/nrmicro2032. PMID19219052.
^ Sesma, A.; Osbourn, A. E. (2004). "The rice leaf blast pathogen undergoes developmental processes typical of root-infecting fungi". Nature 431 (7008): 582. doi:10.1038/nature02880. PMID 15457264.
^ Dean, R. A.; Talbot, N. J.; Ebbole, D. J.; Farman, M. L.; Mitchell, T. K.; Orbach, M. J.; Thon, M; Kulkarni, R; Xu, J. R.; Pan, H; Read, N. D.; Lee, Y. H.; Carbone, I; Brown, D; Oh, Y. Y.; Donofrio, N; Jeong, J. S.; Soanes, D. M.; Djonovic, S; Kolomiets, E; Rehmeyer, C; Li, W; Harding, M; Kim, S; Lebrun, M. H.; Bohnert, H; Coughlan, S; Butler, J; Calvo, S; et al. (2005). "The genome sequence of the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea". Nature 434 (7036): 980–6. doi:10.1038/nature03449. PMID 15846337.
^ Couch, B. C.; Kohn, L. M. (2002). "A multilocus gene genealogy concordant with host preference indicates segregation of a new species, Magnaporthe oryzae, from M. Grisea". Mycologia 94 (4): 683–93. doi:10.2307/3761719. PMID 21156541.
^ Magnaporthe grisea at Crop Protection Compendium, CAB International.
^ Couch, B. C.; Fudal, I; Lebrun, M. H.; Tharreau, D; Valent, B; Van Kim, P; Nottéghem, J. L.; Kohn, L. M. (2005). "Origins of host-specific populations of the blast pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae in crop domestication with subsequent expansion of pandemic clones on rice and weeds of rice". Genetics 170 (2): 613–30. doi:10.1534/genetics.105.041780.PMC 1450392. PMID 15802503.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h S.C. Scardaci; et al. (2003). "Rice Blast: A New Disease in California. University of California-Davis: Agronomy Fact Sheet Series 1997-2. Archived from the original on 2006-09-11. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
^ Rice Blast at University of California Integrated Pest Management
^ Rice Blast at the Online Information Service for Non-Chemical Pest Management in the Tropics

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Wednesday, 23 March 2016

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Potassium Content

Rich in Vitamin C

Folate Content

High in Vitamin K

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