In cooking, the process of clarification entails straining out extraneous muck from liquids so that they might be pure, clear and ideal for consumption. With this series on food terminology we're attempting to do the same.

The word “gluten” is being bandied about quite a bit lately on our site and in the news.

We mentioned gluten heavily in our explainer on high fructose corn syrup; commenters kvetched about restaurants’ insensitivity to issues surrounding it in a recent lunchtime poll; Gwyneth Paltrow publicly nixed it from her diet; and there are slews of cookbooks and product lines that come out every day to cater to those living a "gluten-free" lifestyle.

Such attention doesn't go without merit. A recent study indicates that one out of 133 people in the United States is affected by Celiac disease or gluten intolerance – and that number continues to grow steadily.

Chatter about gluten is clearly on the rise - so what exactly is it?
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In cooking, the process of clarification entails straining out extraneous muck from liquids so that they might be pure, clear and ideal for consumption. With this series on food terminology we're attempting to do the same. No politics - just the facts about what the words mean.

There's major debate swirling about the allegedly adverse effects that high fructose corn syrup may having on Americans' diets. Opponents say it's a big factor in the US population's increasing levels of obesity. Advocates claim that it's just a natural, corn-based sweetener, and that it's being unfairly maligned.

But what exactly is it, and how is it made?
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In cooking, the process of clarification entails straining out extraneous muck from liquids so that they might be pure, clear and ideal for consumption. With this series on food terminology and trends we're attempting to do the same.

As food writers and reporters, we toss out a lot of terms - sustainable, pescetarian, free-range - and just assume that everyone's on the same page. If they're not, the conversation suffers, and we can't have that, now can we?

Here's a round-up of concepts and words we've explained thus far.
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In cooking, the process of clarification entails straining out extraneous muck from liquids so that they might be pure, clear and ideal for consumption. With this series on food terminology we're attempting to do the same.

If you pay attention to food labels, you might have to read between the lines when it comes to genetically engineered ingredients.

When Eatocracy polled readers yesterday if they would eat genetically modified salmon, approximately 45.1 percent of respondents answered: “not on your life.”

The irony of the results is that, according to the Center for Food Safety, it has been estimated that 70 to 75 percent of processed foods in supermarkets contain genetically engineered ingredients - they just aren’t required by the Food and Drug Administration to be labeled as such.
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Photo: AquAdvantage® Salmon in the background; a non-GMO Atlantic salmon of the same age in the foreground.

In cooking, the process of clarification entails straining out extraneous muck from liquids so that they might be pure, clear and ideal for consumption. With this series on food terminology we're attempting to do the same.

The United States' Food and Drug Administration is in the midst of public hearings to determine if it will approve AquaBounty Technologies' application for fish spawned from genetically engineered salmon eggs to be allowed for use as food. These "AquAdvantage® Salmon" grow into full-sized fish in half the time that it would take a regular salmon, and if approved, would become the first "transgenic" or genetically engineered animals to be approved for human consumption.

It's a deeply fraught issue for both fans and foes of the technology, but stripping politics and propriety aside, here's what "genetically modified" actually means in the context of fish farming.
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In cooking, the process of clarification entails straining out extraneous muck from liquids so that they might be pure, clear and ideal for consumption. With this series on food terminology we're attempting to do the same.

At our sister site CNN Opinion, author, journalist and underwater filmmaker Claire Nouvian expresses her thoughts on the havoc the international deep sea fishing industry is wreaking on the millennia-old deepwater coral reefs and sponge beds at the bottom of the worlds' oceans. An "oceanocide," she calls deep-sea bottom trawling, as well as "the largest and fastest ecological crime of all time."

She writes,

"Fish are typically the last wild items on our dinner menu, along with a few mushroom species. Harvesting wild resources means being in tune with what nature can give, as opposed to what we have planned to get from it. So what can the deep sea give us? A scientist has calculated that 'sustainable' fishing in the deep Central Pacific would mean each ship would catch one fish a day. This encourages investors to 'mine' fish populations rather than to exploit them sustainably."

Again, there's that word, "sustainable." We invoked it yesterday when we reported that Whole Foods has launched a sustainability ratings labeling program for the seafood sold at its stores across the country, along with a pledge to stop selling "red rated" - or severely threatened - fish by 2013.

Then we ran a poll, asking readers, "If someone were to ask you what "sustainable" means in the context of food, could you confidently explain the concept?"
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The CNN Wire staff reports, "Fresh eggs being produced by farms at the heart of a massive recall are making their way to consumers via facilities that pasteurize the eggs, process them and rid them of any possible salmonella."

"The fresh eggs from the recalled farms are being diverted to USDA-approved facilities for pasteurization," Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Patricia El-Hinnawy said Wednesday."

But what does pasteurization actually entail? In the case of eggs, it simply means heating them, in the shell - usually in a water bath - to a temperature that kills any potential salmonella bacteria, but without actually cooking the eggs.
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Got eggs on the brain? In light of the salmonella-based recall of 380 million eggs from Iowa's Wright County Egg, we've hatched up a primer on a few common terms.

Free-range: The USDA does not specify the quality or size of the outside range nor the duration of time an animal must have access to the outside or the amount of space available to them, and there is no mandate that the chickens are fed organically or are hormone and antibiotic-free.

For a chicken - and their eggs - to be labeled "free-range" or "free-roaming" the USDA regulations state, "Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside." According to the Egg Safety Board, outside the United States, free-range "denotes a method of farming husbandry where the animals are allowed to roam freely instead of being contained in any manner."
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Food writers - myself definitely included - are frequently guilty of being so far inside our precious little world of edibles that we can't see the arugula for the amaranth. This hit home last weekend as I was trawling my local farmers market, found a stand selling heirloom tomatoes for $2.99 a pound and started fist pumping like I'd hit the Powerball.

It's not too much of a stretch to say that it's been nearly two years since I had a really smashing tomato. Last year, my own garden succumbed to the blight that wiped out major portions of the Northeast's heirloom tomato crop, and the few available for purchase were priced to gouge. This isn't to say I have led a tomato-free existence since 2008. It's just that, as I noted to a nearby shopper, once you eat a Wapsipinicon Peach, a Black from Tula or a Cherokee Purple, there ain't no going back to the grocery store.
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In cooking, the process of clarification entails straining out extraneous muck from liquids so that they might be pure, clear and ideal for consumption. With this series on the world's dietary tribes, customs and foodways we're attempting to do the same.

Also on the topic of community supported agriculture, watch Fresh farm food to consumers and 100 miles to meet their food
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