Where To Place Your Router To Get The Absolute Best WiFi Connection

Where To Place Your Router

To Get The Absolute

Best WiFi Connection

 By Sara Boboltz

We've all felt that agonizing moment of WiFi-lessness when the connection drops out unexpectedly. Turns out, there's a right and wrong way to set up a WiFi router, and the wrong way can leave you waiting longer for pages to load or Netflix to buffer. 

Jason Cole, a PhD student in physics at Imperial College London, used math to figure out the best spot to place a wireless router. Cole solved the Helmholtz equation -- which is used to map electromagnetic fields like the ones your router emits -- for his apartment. What he discovered was that tucking a router away in an inconspicuous corner is not ideal for a good connection, even though that's the way most of us do it. 

Speaking with The Huffington Post, Cole offered a number of tips to help your WiFi router send a strong signal all over your home or apartment and reduce the amount of Netflix buffering you have to sit through. 


1. Place the router in a central location.
We know the wires you plug into the router are probably set up in the corner of the room, but it's better to run them over to a more central spot. Ideally, it'll be within sight of wherever you sit and use the Internet most. 

Here's what your WiFi setup is probably like right now:

In this illustration, the WiFi signals are actually traveling from the router throughout the entire apartment in about one ten-millionth of a second. You can see how the signal bounces off walls to fill a room with delicious Internet. Dead zones, where the signal doesn't quite reach, are also visible and become more common further from the source, as walls and other obstacles absorb more signal energy.

2. Avoid surrounding it with metal objects.
"Metal dissipates electromagnetic energy quite efficiently," Cole told HuffPost in an email. So the kitchen is not the best place for your router to live.

3. Concrete or brick walls are the enemy, too.
"All materials reflect a portion of radiation. Some absorb it quite strongly, especially concrete," Cole said. Enclosing the router with concrete or brick on a couple sides won't help your signal reach the furthest corners of your home. 

Additionally, floors and ceilings tend to be more transmissive than walls, Cole noted.

4. Don't keep the router near a microwave.
If you've noticed the Internet slowing down whenever you're heating something up in the microwave, it's not just you. Microwaves operate around the same frequency as wireless routers, and even the tiny bit of radiation that escapes the microwave can disrupt your signal.

5. Set it up high.
WiFi routers emit radio waves, which spread out and down from their source. Mounting the router to a wall or setting it on a high shelf can give you a better signal, especially if you live in a two-story house and want a good connection on both floors.

6. Position the antenna upward for a better horizontal reach, or sideways for vertical reach.
In a multi-story home, positioning a router's antenna sideways can help you get a better signal upstairs. Pointing an antenna up helps the router reach farther laterally.
If your router has two antennas, though, take care of all possibilities by pointing one antenna up and the other to the side. And if you've got a router without any antennas, make sure you stand it the way it's made to go. That is, don't lay a vertical router on its side.

7. Think twice about putting a router somewhere with a lot of people.
Water inhibits WiFi signals. Since humans are mostly water, a bunch of us hanging out in a room together can interfere with the signal. You may have noticed getting worse Internet connections in crowded spaces. And yes, you probably want a good WiFi signal in the room where people like to gather, but all those bodies might slow it down in other parts of the house.

BONUS: Use Cole's app, which lets you visualize the WiFi connection in your own house.
If you're so inclined, Cole created an app for Android phones that lets you upload a floorplan to see how electromagnetic waves propagate throughout your own home. (Some math required. Sorry.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/27/wifi-router-placement-tips_n_6943024.html

Signs You Shouldn’t Buy👎Those Groceries

4 Signs You Shouldn’t Buy Those Groceries 

Don’t waste your money:

Here’s how to know when something isn’t a good deal.

By Lynn Andriani

Sign #1: You Think, “Oh, the Bakery Did Some Work for Me!” 

Whenever we walk into a pastry shop and breathe in the scent of loaves fresh from the oven, we have trouble thinking clearly. But if the mission is "buy sandwich bread," it's worth remembering this: A loaf of already-sliced whole wheat is not the goal. "Every minute that fresh bread is exposed to air, it becomes more stale and less delicious," writes Dan Pashman in his book Eat More Better. 

 So while a professional-grade machine may do a bang-up job turning out uniform slices, unless you're planning to eat them all within an hour, you're better off buying a loaf intact. It will increase the life span by reducing what Pashman calls "SATVOR" (surface-area-to-volume ratio). 

Once you're home, wrap the bread tightly in plastic, place it in a resealable plastic bag and store it in the freezer. 

When you want to eat it, remove the loaf, unwrap it and microwave it on a regular setting just long enough to defrost the outermost portions. 

Use a serrated bread knife and saw through (partially frozen bread = more even slices).

Sign #2: When You Tap on an Apple and You Hear Something

A gorgeous yet mealy apple is one of life's greatest small disappointments -- and puzzles: How can something so perfect-looking taste so awful? While it's impossible to guarantee a crisp, juicy fruit (you can forget looks; misshapen apples can taste just fine), there's one indicator you can usually rely on: The sound you hear when you tap the side of the apple with a finger. Good apples should sound hollow; bad ones will often sound dense. But if you do wind up with a mealy apple, one way to rescue it is to turn it into applesauce.

Sign #3: The Label On The Meat Doesn't Give You Any Details

When you shop for beef at the supermarket, you're probably choosing between "prime" (lots of marbling, aka fat), "choice" (somewhat less marbling) and "select" (leaner, so not as juicy). All of these grades are perfectly acceptable, provided you cook them in a suitable way. However, if you see a package of beef simply labeled "USDA graded," steer clear. This description tells you nothing about the meat's quality (and actually applies to 94 percent of beef sold in the U.S.).

Sign #4: The Sale On Red Snapper Is Ridiculous 

We're all for seeking out bargains, but slashed prices on certain items can raise a red flag. One biggie is seafood; the FDA has received numerous reports lately of fish fraud, where a store will substitute a less expensive fish for a more expensive kind (e.g., tilapia for red snapper, farmed salmon for wild or Vietnamese catfish for grouper). It can be tricky to spot fake seafood, especially if you don't buy it often. The best tactic is to know ahead of time about how much the fish you want should cost (walk past the seafood counter every time you're in the store, even if you're not buying, to eyeball the prices).

Also, have some idea of different fishes' high seasons (e.g., wild salmon from Alaska can't be fresh in the winter);

Here's a Handy Chart:   

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/articles/detail/seafood-seasons-chart

Our United States Seafood Availability Chart is a listing of various sea foods available in the U.S. and when they are in season. In addition to seafood seasons we provide some tips for buying, handling and preparing fresh seafood.

Most Commonly Recalled Foods (And How To Buy Them Safely)

4 Of The Most Commonly Recalled Foods

(And How To Buy Them Safely)

By Lynn Andriani
Posted: 03/17/2015

We talked to former professor of food safety, Douglas Powell, about the safest ways to eat the things we love.

• Baked Goods
  
  
   
  The Concern: While it's been more than 10 years since the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act went into effect, unlabeled allergens—most often peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, dairy, fish, shellfish and eggs—are still the number one cause of recalls for FDA-regulated foods. And they often crop up unannounced in bakery products. 
  
  Small Thing to Keep in Mind: If you have an allergy, check the label each time you buy a product, because manufacturers sometimes change recipes and a trigger food may have been added. Here's a helpful list of unexpected words to watch out for, broken down by the type of diet you're following. 
  
  

  
  
• Cantaloupe
  
  The Concern: These orange-fleshed melons are different from honeydew and watermelon, since their "netted" exterior is more porous, so contaminants from soil, water, animals (and their manure) can get trapped in the rind. Plus, unlike other fruits, they're not acidic, so pathogens can grow more easily once you cut the melon open. 
  
  Small Thing to Keep in Mind: As many of us already do, avoid buying cantaloupes that look bruised; and, if you purchase precut cantaloupe, make sure it's refrigerated or on ice. Finally, don't let the sliced fruit sit out at room temperature for more than two hours.
  
  

  
  

  

  
  
• Chicken
  
  
  
  The Concern: This popular meat (we buy about 86 pounds per capita annually) is one of the most common causes of foodborne illness.
  
  Small Thing to Keep in Mind: A good recommendation is to buy chicken last when you're grocery shopping, since keeping it cold can prevent bacteria overgrowth. Also, be sure to defrost frozen chicken safely and cook it to 165 degrees (use a meat thermometer).
  
  
  

  
• Sprouts
  
  
  
  The Concern: Alfalfa, clover, radish and mung bean sprouts, which add crunch to salads and sandwiches, score well nutritionally. But since 1996, there have been at least 30 food-related illness outbreaks linked to raw and lightly cooked sprouts. FoodSafety.gov has an entire page devoted to awareness about these tiny vegetables.
  
  
  Small Thing to Keep in Mind: If you enjoy sprouts in salads, buy only ones with fresh, clean, white stems and roots that have been kept properly refrigerated. Douglas Powell, who blogs about food safety, says the best way to prepare sprouts is to cook them thoroughly before eating (so, stir-fries and pad Thai are fine).
  

  
  

  
  

  Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/17/most-common-recalled-foods_n_6866574.html
  
  
  

  
  

  

  Major Food Recalls

  
  

  Eggs

  In August 2010, two Iowa farms recalled 550 million eggs as a result of 1,500 cases of illness associated with salmonella, according to the CDC. The FDA said the contamination was possibly due to the cleanliness and size of the farms' chicken cages.

   

  Spinach

  In September 2006, the FDA issued a statement warning of E. Coli bacteria in spinach. The outbreak originated on a central California farm. It eventually claimed five lives and caused 205 illnesses across 26 states, with most cases occurring in the Midwest. Ultimately, the spinach industry reported a $350 million loss as a result of the outbreak.

   

  Beef

  In February 2008, the USDA conducted the largest beef recall in U.S. history. This recall resulted from the wide circulation of an undercover video from the Humane Society, which revealed workers in a California meat plant abusing "downer cows" -- unhealthy cows that are banned from the food supply. As a result, a record 143 million pounds of meat was recalled.

  
  

  Peanut Products

  In January of 2009, a U.S. peanut company issued a recall of its products after discovering possible salmonella contamination. The recall expanded to include 2,100 products from over 200 companies nationwide that contained its peanut products. According to the CDC the salmonella contamination spread through 46 states claiming eight lives and sickening over 700 people.

  

  Alcohol And Caffeinated Beverages

  In November 2010, beverages with high alcohol and caffeine content sparked national concern after nine college students in Washington state were sent to the emergency room for dangerous levels of intoxication. Certain colleges and eventually four U.S. states -- New York, Michigan, Washington and Massachusetts -- banned the culprit, Four Loko, which contains 12 percent alcohol and roughly the amount of caffeine found in two cups of coffee. In the same month the FDA deemed seven alcoholic/caffeinated products unsafe: Four Loko, Joose, Max, Lemon Lime Core Spiked, Core High Gravity HG, Core High Gravity Orange and Moonshot.

  

   

   Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein

  In March 2010, the FDA recalled 178 products containing Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein, a flavor enhancer found in processed foods such as salad dressings, soups, stews and various other snack foods. The FDA began an ongoing investigation of salmonella findings in a Las Vegas plant where the ingredient is manufactured.

   

  

  Romaine Lettuce

  In May 2010, two food companies in Ohio and Oklahoma recalled their romaine lettuce after the FDA discovered possible traces of E. Coli bacteria. The lettuce, which shipped to 23 states, was tied to a possible E. Coli outbreak. People were sickened in New York, Ohio and Michigan with E. Coli O145-related illnesses. 

   

  Instant Milk Ingredient

  In June 2009, a Minnesota company recalled its instant milk ingredient due to potential salmonella contamination. The generic ingredient is found in a slew of store-bought food products ranging from yogurt to drink mixes, causing a widespread recall of 287 product brands.

  
  

  Pistachio Products

  In June 2009, a California company recalled their pistachio nuts and products due to a possible salmonella contamination. Pistachio nuts, packaged ice creams, cakes, snack bars and candy containing this company's pistachio products were recalled by the FDA.

   
  

  

   

   

Orbit of the planets in our solar system

Orbit of the planets in our solar system

Pi

Build Your Own Cloud !

Build Your Own Cloud!

Hard Drives Get a Second Life

Getting the convenience of the cloud with the value of external hard drives

By Joanna Stern
March 3, 2015

My life has become a series of low-storage warnings.

My laptop scolds me that it’s out of free space; my smartphone refuses to let me take another photo. It’s 2015, and where are all the darn terabytes I was promised?

Right at a time when we’re amassing more photos, videos and other files than ever before, we’ve gone from having computers with beefy internal hard drives to ultrathin laptops and phones with puny amounts of flash storage. Our consolation prize? Terabytes of subscription storage found on tech companies’ invisible servers in the cloud.

But can you blame me for not entrusting my entire digital life—from wedding photos to tax documents—to Google,Apple or Microsoft ’s servers? Trust aside, their monthly fees add up, and uploading big files on my poky home Internet connection can take hours.

So instead, I have been keeping my precious files on an old external USB hard drive that I shuttle between my desk drawer and bag. But that’s the digital equivalent of stashing money in a mattress. If something were to happen to it, I’d lose everything. And unless the drive is plugged into my computer, I can’t access my files, which is always a problem since, as my mom says, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached.

Seagate’s Personal Cloud systems and Western Digital’s My Cloud systems. Photo: Drew Evans/The Wall Street Journal 

 

Seagate’s Personal Cloud systems and Western Digital’s My Cloud systems.

I’ve finally decided to take some responsibility for my sad storage situation: I built my own cloud. Nope, I haven’t outfitted a hot-air balloon with a bunch of servers or anything. Rather, I set up Western Digital ’s My Cloud website and Seagate ’s brand new Personal Cloud—a pair of giant hard drives that live in your home but are accessible from anywhere. You open and save files through apps, just as you would through a cloud storage service, like Google Drive or Dropbox.

They blend the convenience of cloud storage with the speed, space and affordability of an external hard drive. Both start at just $170 for a whopping three terabytes of space. That’s nearly 24 times the amount of storage in my laptop! By comparison, it costs about $120 a year to get just one terabyte on Google Drive. (If you just want to back up your files, there are much cheaper cloud options.)

Network-attached storage drives—which real nerds call NAS—certainly aren’t new. But the big advantage of these two user-friendly solutions is that you no longer have to be a real nerd to reap their benefits.

Easy Setup and Access

Both boxes are extremely easy to set up. Power them on, plug them into one of your Wi-Fi router’s Ethernet ports, hit their setup guide websites, follow a few instructions and then, just like that, your drive is wirelessly accessible from your laptop, phone or tablet. Using the companies’ apps, there’s no reason you couldn’t access it while on the other side of the world; you just need a good Internet connection.

Seagate’s Android app is more stable than its iOS app.

Western Digital’s iOS app is easier to navigate than Seagate’s.

From a coffee shop, I could browse photos, videos and files stored in my apartment 5 miles away. I was also able to save a document remotely. With multiple user accounts, anyone in the family can have the same access. And if you don’t want the young’uns to have access to your private folders, you can define what’s shared and what isn’t.

Whether on Mac or PC, Seagate lets you access the drive on your home network right through the operating system’s file managers. WD, on the other hand, requires a special program. When you aren’t on your home network, you have to be logged into the company’s apps with a username and password.

On both the Seagate and WD, all activity is encrypted, but having that much stored on your wireless network means it’s more important than ever to make sure your wireless router is password protected, with WPA2 encryption enabled.

Overall WD’s My Cloud apps were faster, cleaner and more stable. But the Seagate Media apps have more features, like instantly backing up my phone’s photos as soon as I’m on my home Wi-Fi. (I found the Seagate Media app for Android to be ahead of the cluttered and crashy iPhone app. Seagate says they are looking into the issues I experienced and plan to continue to improve the app.) 

Safe and Speedy

It’s bananas how cheap storage is now. But I actually recommend you spend a little more on your personal cloud drive. Both Seagate and WD have “two-bay” models, which house a second hard drive that out-of-the-box keeps a perfect copy of the first drive. If one drive crashes, you don’t lose a thing. Both Seagate and WD are using hard drives meant to spin all day long without incident, but you should always anticipate drive failures.

Seagate’s Personal Cloud 2-Bay has two hard drives, the second one keeps a perfect copy of the first.

Seagate’s Personal Cloud 2-Bay starts at $270 for a 4TB version (meaning 2TB of usable space); WD’s My Cloud Mirror starts at $300.. 

When you’re in your home network, both drives work with computer backup software such as Apple’s Time Machine. However, neither of these drives is impervious to fire or theft. And that’s why you may want to consider backing up your drive (or just specific important files) to a cloud service, too. WD’s My Cloud app integrates Dropbox, Google Drive and others. We actually recommend these more affordable cloud backup services.

Speed is another benefit of a home storage drive—they’re far quicker than the cloud. It took me just 25 seconds to transfer a 1GB file from my laptop to the Seagate Personal Cloud over my home wireless network. (Part of that was sped up by the fact that I have a new, faster router.) That same file took me an hour and 12 minutes to upload to Google Drive.

Of course, when you aren’t at home, connecting to your drive will be much slower. On Starbucks’s slow, crowded Wi-Fi it took three minutes just to load the beginning of a two-minute video.

Multimedia Extras

Seagate’s Roku app allows you to stream videos, photos and music stored on your drive. 

Both of these drives also play a unique role in the home, setting themselves apart from regular hard drives and cloud storage services by becoming your home’s multimedia jukebox.

The iPhone and iPad apps for Seagate and WD work with Apple TV. Using AirPlay, I was able to send videos stored on my drive to the TV in my bedroom, a few rooms away. Streaming was smooth for the most part, with occasional buffering.

But Seagate has the edge over WD with streaming capabilities. If you have a Roku media streamer or a smart TV from LG or Samsung , you can get a Seagate app that lists your drive’s videos and photos right on the TV screen. Using Roku’s remote, I selected my wedding video and watched it stream flawlessly in 1080p on my living room’s HDTV.

Seagate says you can plug your GoPro or other camera into its Personal Cloud’s USB 3.0 port to dump all of your photos and videos. When I tried it, I had no luck with the GoPro Hero4 and a Canon EOS Rebel T2i. The company says a camera must be capable of “mass storage” mode to work.

WD doesn’t promise that sort of easy-access camera functionality, but with both boxes I was able to plug in another external hard drive or USB drive and access that remotely as well.

I’ve ultimately decided I’d like Seagate’s Personal Cloud 2-Bay in my home. I prefer it for the photo backup and multimedia benefits. I would recommend, though, that people who aren’t interested in those perks should choose WD’s more stable My Cloud Mirror.

With a tiny server in my living room, I’ve finally shut up those low-storage warnings—at least until I fill it up with 4K llama videos.

Write to Joanna Stern at joanna.stern@wsj.com 

and on Twitter at @joannastern.

 

Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users. It's 100% free, no registration required.

http://superuser.com/questions/447970/sync-different-folders-with-owncloud?rq=1

Being a techie I've set this sort of thing up in various ways over the years. Only thing to watch for is that most of these boxes are Linux based. If you're an Outlook user you'll find the compatibility not so good

 

I'm leaning toward Seagate's system if I decide to move on from mainly Time Machine/Time Capsule backup.  (I also have the same WD portable hard drive Joanna is using in the video, but have found it less reliable than the Time Capsule.)  We have a Roku and an Apple TV, so being able to use the NAS as a media server would be ideal.My earlier experiences with Network Attached Storage, as recently as two years ago, were disappointing.  The software was very clunky, the interface ugly (dumping a multitude of folders on your desktop) and the speed for getting things out of the cloud glacial beyond network limitations.  Those that promised to serve multimedia largely failed to.My Time Capsule, though aging, is chugging along just fine.  But, when I'm ready to move on I will try a NAS again.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/build-your-own-cloud-hard-drives-get-a-second-life-1425406658

Indian Recipes Reveals New Food Pairing Phenomenon

Scientists Figure out Why

Indian Cuisine Tastes so Amazing

And it's the complete opposite of what they predicted. 

Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur have come up with a reason, according to science, for why Indian food tastes so good. And strangely enough, it actually goes against the principle that made British chef Heston Blumenthal so famous, known as ‘food pairing’. 

The basis of food pairing is that foods, whether they’re sweet and savoury, can work together in a recipe if they contain the same types of flavours. So while white chocolate and caviar might not seem like the best choice to throw toughener in a dish, Blumenthal tried it out with the food pairing theory in mind, and it worked beautifully. Writing for The Guardian in 2002, Blumenthal said he went to his friend, François Benzi, who works for flavourings and perfumes company Firmenich, for answers.

"The response was that both the chocolate and caviar contain high levels of amines," Blumenthal said. "These are a group of proteins that have broken down from their amino acid state but not so far as to become ammonia. Amines contribute to the desirable flavours that we find in cooked meats and cheeses, among other things."

The same principle is at play in Blumenthal’s recipe for beetroot and green peppercorn jelly with mango and pine purée.

But when a team of Indian scientists specialising in biomedical text mining examined the molecular structure of thousands of Indian recipes, they found that the flavours in the ingredients most commonly used together really didn’t match up at all. In fact, in some dishes, the spices that make them what they are actually strengthened this 'negative food pairing’ effect. 

They looked at 2,543 dishes in eight different sub-cuisines - Bengali, Gujarati, Jain, Maharashtrian, Mughlai, Punjabi, Rajasthani and South Indian - and found that together they contained a total of 194 unique ingredients, which they separated into 15 categories: spice, vegetable, fruit, plant derivative, nut/seed, cereal/crop, dairy, plant, pulse, herb, meat, fish/seafood, beverage, animal product, and flower. While some dishes contained a whopping 40 different ingredients, the average number was seven.

The data scientists then came up with a ‘flavour network’ to figure out which ingredients were linked on a molecular level, and where they appear in the different dishes. 

The first thing they discovered was that the cuisine as a whole was characterised by strong negative food pairing - so the complete opposite of what Blumenthal is doing. "They also found that specific ingredients dramatically effect food pairing,” MIT’s Technology Review reports. "For example, the presence of cayenne pepper strongly biases the flavour sharing pattern of Indian cuisine towards negative pairing. Other ingredients that have a similar effect include green bell pepper, coriander, garam masala, tamarind, ginger, cinnamon and so on.”

“Our study reveals that spices occupy a unique position in the ingredient composition of Indian cuisine and play a major role in defining its characteristic profile,” the team writes in a pre-published version of their study on arXiv.org.

The differentiating factor that could have made Indian cuisine so different from other cuisines around the world is that some of the ingredients began as medicinal, rather than flavour, additives. “We conclude that the evolution of cooking driven by medicinal beliefs would have left its signature on traditional Indian recipes,” the researchers say.

Not that we need science to tell us that Indian food is amazing, but it's always fun when it does.

Source: Technology Review

Data Mining

Indian Recipes

Reveals New Food Pairing Phenomenon

By studying the network of links between Indian recipes, computer scientists have discovered that the presence of certain spices makes a meal much less likely to contain ingredients with flavors in common. 

The food pairing hypothesis is the idea that ingredients that share the same flavors ought to combine well in recipes. For example, the English chef Heston Blumenthal discovered that white chocolate and caviar share many flavors and turn out to be a good combination. Other unusual combinations that seem to confirm the hypothesis include strawberries and peas, asparagus and butter, and chocolate and blue cheese.
But in recent years researchers have begun to question how well this hypothesis holds in different cuisines. For example, food pairing seems to be common in North American and Western European cuisines but absent in cuisines from southern Europe and East Asia.

Today, Anupam Jain and pals at the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur say the opposite effect occurs in Indian cuisine. In this part of the world, foods with common flavors are less likely to appear together in the same recipe. And the presence of certain spices make the negative food pairing effect even stronger.
 
Jain and co began their work by downloading more than 2,500 recipes from an online cooking database called TarlaDalal.com. These recipes come from eight sub-cuisines, including Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, and South Indian, which together span vast geographies, climates, and cultures in the Indian subcontinent.

Together, these recipes contain 194 different ingredients. The average recipe contains seven ingredients but some can contain up to 40. In particular, the Mughlai sub-cuisine has many recipes with exceptionally large numbers of ingredients, probably because of its royal heritage.

Jain and co then created a flavor network in which ingredients are linked if they appear together in the same recipe. The network can then be studied for interesting phenomenon such as clustering effects.

The question that the team set out to answer was to what extent food pairing is positive or negative. In other words, do ingredients sharing flavor compounds occur in the same recipe more often than if the ingredients were chosen at random.

The results make for interesting reading. Jain and co conclude that Indian cuisine is characterized by strong negative food pairing. Not only that, but the strength of this negative correlation is much higher than anything previously reported.

They also found that specific ingredients dramatically effect food pairing. For example, the presence of cayenne pepper strongly biases the flavor sharing pattern of Indian cuisine towards negative pairing. Other ingredients that have a similar effect include green bell pepper, coriander, garam masala, tamarind, ginger, cinnamon and so on.

In other words, spices make the negative food pairing effect more powerful, a phenomenon never seen before. “Our study reveals that spices occupy a unique position in the ingredient composition of Indian cuisine and play a major role in defining its characteristic profile,” say Jain and co.

That result has some interesting corollaries. In many cuisines, spices add flavor but also prevent food spoilage by killing certain types of bacteria. Jain and co say this medicinal role must have had a significant effect on the way recipes evolved since removing these ingredients would have had health impacts. “We conclude that the evolution of cooking driven by medicinal beliefs would have left its signature on traditional Indian recipes,” they say.

The result also has implications for the future of food. In the same way that Western chefs search for unusual ingredients that share the same flavors, negative food pairing may also drive the development of new flavor combinations and recipes in Indian food. “Our study could potentially lead to methods for creating novel Indian signature recipes, healthy recipe alterations and recipe recommender systems,” conclude Jain and co.

Beyond that, this work shows how powerful network science has become in analyzing disparate aspects of everyday life. Treating recipes as networks has turned out to be a powerful tool that is changing the way we think about food and how we consume it.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1502.03815  Spices Form The Basis Of Food Pairing In Indian Cuisine

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/535451/data-mining-indian-recipes-reveals-new-food-pairing-phenomenon/#comments

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