Re: Geoffrey - Gilbert Ling (was _The Science of Cooking_)

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/13/04 9:52:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

gtolle@... writes:

I picked up this book two years ago and just haven't gotten into

it as much as I had hoped. It really is cookbook chemistry. That's fine

in its place (I am a chemist, after all) but it's not as interesting a

read as I had hoped. More interestingly written books on a related topic

are " Cookwise " by Shirley Corriher and " How to Read a French Fry " by ?.

I believe that both of these are written by journalists rather than

chemists. Still, it's kind of interesting, knowing what's going on in

the food as it cooks and the more you know, the better you can adapt it

to your needs.

_____

Personally, I don't really care to increase my cooking ability through

chemical knowledge, but I just like chemistry. So I'd probably find the book by

the

chemist more enjoyable (I'd have to see, of course, but I generally can't

stand reading science written by journalists.)

On a completely unrelated topic, I just finished _Life at the Cell and Below

Cell Level: The Hidden History of a Fundamental Revolution in Biology_ by

Gilbert Link. I imagine as a chemist you'd enjoy it. He's been putting

together

his Association-Induction Hypothesis since the 50s, which conflicts with many

of the basic concepts I've learnt about cell biology, and he presents a

compelling set of evidence for it. The level of explanatory power lies at the

chemical level, and he shows that nutrient flow into cells is determined by

statistical mechanics and not osmotics. He even discovered how the

electronegativity

balance of an amino acid determines its potential to form secondary protein

structures. That's a bit more than _Molecular Biology of the Cell_ (Alberts,

et al) can do. They show how specific amino acids can be correlated with

secondary structure, but offer no clue as to *why*.

Sally asked me to write a review of it for Wise Traditions, and hopefully it

will be in the Fall issue. I'm going to see if I can interview Ling too. His

theory seems to me to have implications for why structured water could

actually work (I'd previously thought it was bunk, when I was familiar only with

the

osmotic theory of trans-membrane transport), and why nutrient-dense diets

could protect against heavy metals (which could answer the question of how the

Inuit could eat whale and be healthy, which would be loaded with mercury at any

point in history.)

Chris

[Guest guest]

Thanks, I'll see if I can borrow a copy of this book from one of the

local libraries.

Geoffrey Tolle

ChrisMasterjohn@... wrote:

> On a completely unrelated topic, I just finished _Life at the Cell and

> Below

> Cell Level: The Hidden History of a Fundamental Revolution in Biology_ by

> Gilbert Link. I imagine as a chemist you'd enjoy it.