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paladin
2009-01-29 12:57 am UTC (link)

My German is pretty rusty, but she appears to be saying that, at temperatures higher than body temp, the fats in butter will break down and react with the vitamins to make them nutritionally worthless; and that any butter thus treated will be indistinguishable from water with fat mixed in. Therefore, one should always let butter warm more slowly at room temp. She wants to show us links that would back her up on this, but can't find any right now.

Let's run this through online translation software and see how I did!

"Butter is, as we know an animal product, which consists mainly of saturated, but also unsaturated fatty acids and water. Similarly, numerous vitamins and many trace elements. Now, heat or heat in the microwave leads to breakage of these fatty acid chains and destroy the vitamins and they also cut water. Though this change in structure isn't visible, the consistency loses its creaminess when beaten and the dessert, isn't as fluffy as it would be if prepared with room temperature butter. I wanted an image search, but unfortunately can't currently find one. The temperature ((presumably in a microwave)) may not seem high, but put a metal bowl inside ((!!!)) and you won't be able to remove it without a cloth or a glove. Even brief warming leads to severe dehydration and chain break, changes or the destruction of enzymes and vitamins. Now given that the melting point of butter is lower than the body temperature of a human being, you can think of the rest."

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	kadath 2009-01-29 01:01 am UTC (link)
	she appears to be saying that, at temperatures higher than body temp, the fats in butter will break down and react with the vitamins to make them nutritionally worthless I'm a bit curious as to her secret method of baking things without bringing them above body temperature. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	paladin 2009-01-29 01:05 am UTC (link)
	You laugh now, but her cookies have won the coveted Ptomaine Trophy two years running. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kadath 2009-01-29 01:16 am UTC (link)
	Truth be told, I had not considered the leavening properties of putrefaction. Mme is truly a genius for all seasons. (Reply to this)(Parent)

ashenmote
2009-01-29 01:48 am UTC (link)

It is a German thing to be suspicious of your microwave. Microwaves belong into the world of hadron colliders and adamantium skeletons, not into kitchens. We don't extend the same suspicions to the oven and other kitchen appliances we already had before we heard of microwaves. Bringing things over body temperature will not change their molecular chains if you do it in a way that feels old-fashioned and familiar to you.

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	dragonfangirl 2009-01-29 01:56 am UTC (link)
	Sort of like how South Koreans are immensely suspicious of electrical fans. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ashenmote 2009-01-29 02:14 am UTC (link)
	They are also immensely suspicious of the occasional defrosting of fridges and they believe a cooking pot needs to be disctinctly smaller than the hob so that the sides of the pot will get hot too! Or maybe that's just my roommate. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kadath 2009-01-29 02:24 am UTC (link)
	a cooking pot needs to be disctinctly smaller than the hob so that the sides of the pot will get hot too! But...conduction is a more efficient means of heat transfer than convection. :( (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ashenmote 2009-01-29 03:06 am UTC (link)
	But conduction plus convection must be even more efficient then, can't you see? My roomie can. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kadath 2009-01-29 03:08 am UTC (link)
	The burner is only generating a finite amount of heat! Your roomie is making me sad. :( (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ashenmote 2009-01-29 03:23 am UTC (link)
	You just exceeded the number of variables processable by roommate. Yeah, me too. :( (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rachelmap 2009-01-29 07:31 am UTC (link)
	Another fan death was reported here just this last summer--not that I believe that was the actual cause of death. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	risha 2009-01-29 07:55 am UTC (link)
	"fan death"? I'm assuming we're not talking soccer hooligans or Harmonians? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rachelmap 2009-01-29 08:44 am UTC (link)
	We're not. There's an urban legend here in Korea that if you sleep in an enclosed room with your electric fan running, it can kill you. They've been saying this since before I got here back in '94, and nothing anybody says seems to be able to persuade them otherwise. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	dragonfangirl 2009-01-29 08:46 am UTC (link)
	Apparently they defend themselves from skepticism by saying that there's something unique to the Korean constitution that makes them vulnerable to the evil fan spirits. But then, they also say that electric fans destroy the air in a room by chopping up the oxygen molecules, so. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rachelmap 2009-01-29 08:59 am UTC (link)
	The most ridiculous one I heard was that it pushes all the oxygen to the other side of the room. ¯⁔¯; (Reply to this)(Parent)

	phosfate 2009-01-29 03:52 pm UTC (link)
	they also say that electric fans destroy the air in a room by chopping up the oxygen molecules I kind of love Korea now. At work, when the system slows down, I tell people that, depending on the weather, it's because the electrons have either swollen in the heat and jammed the wires, or are too cold to move efficiently. "Really?" "No." (Reply to this)(Parent)

	issendai 2009-01-29 05:29 pm UTC (link)
	A friend who taught in Korea ran into this myth too. She also says doctors have told her it's a coverup for deaths from alcoholism--if a guy dies alone with a sky-high blood alcohol level and there was a fan somewhere in the room, clearly the fan was to blame. Damn fans. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ellensmithee 2009-01-29 08:59 am UTC (link)
	Thanks for point this out. I (an American who's lived in Germany for over 20 years) didn't think I could get away with it without being accused of German bashing. ;-) Some Germans are very suspicious about modern technology and find pseudoscientific reasons to back themselves up. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ashenmote 2009-01-29 09:57 am UTC (link)
	You're welcome. I'm hopelessly suspicious about modern technology myself, but I despise pseudo-scientific blather even more, which puts me in an awkward position. So I refuse to use new gadgets just because a lot. :D (Reply to this)(Parent)

chikane
2009-01-30 11:09 am UTC (link)

Actually, this exactly is german bashing - which is especially hilarious when a US-American is doing it. Hey, pray tell, which nation had the pseudoscience-loving president for eight years? :D

Hint, for the future: Some humans are very suspicious about modern technology and find pseudoscientific reasons to back themselves up. Got little to do with them being german. But then, if we aknowledge that we couldn't stereotype, could we? :>

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	deviantdesade 2009-01-30 06:15 pm UTC (link)
	shrug I see it more as pointing out something that was noticed. For example, South Koreans and fans (see above). (Reply to this)(Parent)

ellensmithee
2009-01-31 12:08 pm UTC (link)

OK, I started out with another comment but it turned into a huge discourse about pseudoscience and homeopathy that went off topic, so I'll leave it. ;-)

I used "some" consciously to avoid stereotyping and German bashing, and the statement is 100% true for some Germans, just as it's 100% true for some Americans. It just bugs me more when Germans do it since I've lived here for my entire adult life and will probably be getting German citizenship a few years down the road. But I'm sorry if I offended you. :-)

Ironically, Germans don't really have an international stereotype as being afraid of technology to the extent I've observed in SOME of my friends and in-laws - on the contrary. In the U.S., they're usually seen as being humorless, self-opinionated, and judgemental on the negative side and hard-working and good with technology on the positive side.

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