We haven’t seen one yet, but found this review and wanted to pass this on for those that "need" a new grill!  Saucy might just be able to justify this one…..although it does seem that it’s not built as well as it should be for the price ($700 @ Home Depot!!!!)

Char-Broil RED 3-Zone Infrared Grill (Model# 463250108)

Guide Rating -

Heavenly scents and divine tastes will invade Cañon City this June during the inaugural Royal Gorge Holy Smoke Barbeque Showdown on the former Abbey football field.

(WebMD) 

Curcumin, an ingredient in the curry spice turmeric, may help prevent heart failure.

That’s according to two new studies done on rats, not people.

In both studies, researchers gave curcumin to rats. The rats then got surgery or drugs designed to put them at risk of heart failure.

The rats that got curcumin showed more resistance to heart failure and inflammation than comparison groups of rats that didn’t get curcumin.

Also, in one of the studies, the researchers saw signs that curcumin treatment reversed heart enlargement. The other study didn’t include that experiment.

Together, the studies suggest that curcumin short-circuited the heart enlargement process, though it’s not clear how it did that.

Both studies showed no sign of side effects from curcumin.

The researchers included Tatsuya Morimoto, MD, PhD, of the National Hospital Organization in Kyoto, Japan, and Hong-Liang Li, MD, PhD, of the University of Toronto’s cardiology division.

The studies "came to nearly identical conclusions," says an editorial published with the studies in February’s edition of The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

But editorialist Jonathan Epstein, MD, cautions against counting on curcumin to prevent heart failure in people, since the findings in rodents may not apply to people.

Epstein works at University of Pennsylvania’s cell and developmental biology department, Cardiovascular Institute, and Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

A recent study found that 75 percent of headache patients felt relief when they rubbed capsaicin (the component that makes chile peppers hot) on their nose.

from our friends at eatbetteramerica.com…..  some great tips on how to cut some of the fat out of traditional BBQ!

With a few fun additions and some subtle changes to how you cook, your backyard can become an open-air entertainment and fitness center.

On the Grill Unbeef the Burgers. Reduce the meat in burgers and spare yourself some of the fat without noticing the difference. Simply replace about an eighth of the meat with veggies. Finely chop and sauté onions, peppers, shredded carrots, or zucchini, and blend into the patties. To go completely vegetarian, throw a portobello mushroom on the grill. The mushroom’s texture is similar to steak and tastes good with all the regular burger condiments.

Check the Oil. To reduce fat in foods grilled with marinades, swap oil for mild fruit or vegetable juices, canned broth, or plain yogurt. However, leave in 1 tablespoon of oil to help prevent the food from sticking to the grill.

Get Game. Instead of the traditional ground beef, turkey, or chicken burgers, get some game—game meats, that is. They may contain less fat than commercially produced meats. A couple good examples to look for: venison chops, buffalo burgers, and elk steaks.

Trim Chicken. While cooking, leave the skin on the chicken breast to retain moisture, and then remove it before serving. This will reduce the number of calories and fat.

Costs squeeze New Mexico’s peppers

Chile breeders at New Mexico State University have developed a gem of a new chile variety that produces the reddest pigment commercially available. “NuMex Garnet,” a paprika chile for natural food coloring, was unveiled today at the 20th Annual 2002 Chile Conference in Las Cruces.

“It could be a big step forward for the industry,” said Louis Biad, the founder of Biad Chili Co., a 40-year-old chile processing facility 10 miles north of Las Cruces.

Throughout the world, red coloring is commonly extracted from paprika powder and used in a stunning range of consumer products from cosmetics to processed meats.

“Just about any type of product that needs to be red can be colored with chile,” said Stephanie Walker, an NMSU research specialist who conducted most of the new variety’s field trials. “It’s used in lipsticks, bologna, even mayonnaise.”

Use of chile as a natural coloring agent began almost two decades ago, when the federal government banned a widely used red dye because of cancer risks. In 1990, an NMSU research team began a chile breeding program aimed at developing a chile variety better suited for the color extraction industry.

“Color extractors need high-color paprika to make their production process more efficient,” said Paul Bosland, a professor and the director of Chile Pepper Institute at NMSU. “The higher the color, the more cost-effective it is for them.”

The NuMex Garnet program began by taking a locally grown chile with high red color and crossing it with a variety with better growing traits. Seven more years were spent refining the selection, and the last three years involved improving color, yield and growth viability in different growing environments.

Field research was at NMSU’s Agricultural Science Center at Artesia, and near Las Cruces at the Fabian Garcia Research Center and Leyendecker Plant Science Research Center.

While the new chile is deep red, it packs no tongue-burning heat.

Capsaicinoids, those natural substances that produce watery eyes, runny nose and a burning sensation in the mouth, are at undetectable levels.

Pungency is unwanted for colorings.

“Oh, sure the peppers are edible,” Bosland said with a smile. “They’re just not going to burn you very much.”

A common way to test pungency is the ‘bite the chile’ taste test. While quick and cost effective, the method can leave testers in some pain, Bosland said. NMSU’s chile researchers prefer a more scientific approach, high performance liquid chromatography, a process that extracts the chemicals responsible for pungency from a dried ground sample, he said.

Another feature of the new variety is its adaptability to machine harvesting, a characteristic that is increasingly important in New Mexico as labor costs and shortages continue to pound the state’s $200 million chile industry. When red chile is machine harvested, it is critical that pods detach from the rest of the plant, which stays in the field.

“If it’s hard to get off the plant, you’re going to get more trash, and a messy, sticky, leafy product,” Walker said. “At this point, it looks like Garnet will harvest very well.” One point favoring the new chile is a dispersed pod set, which spreads the peppers throughout the canopy, making them easier for the machine to reach, she said.

While NuMex Garnet has been officially released, it won’t be in growers’ hands for another two years. This year, breeders’ seed will be grown to build a foundation seed supply for distribution through the New Mexico Crop Improvement Association. The association provides seed to producers.

New Mexico, America’s chile capital, has plenty of competition worldwide among paprika producers, especially from India, China, Africa and South America.

“There is so much paprika produced in other areas of the world that we felt the need to increase the value of the crop grown here,” Walker said. This value-added approach of increasing red color content and dry matter saves color processors cash because they don’t have to spend as much money drying peppers and extracting the color, she said.

“Numex Garnet is impressive,” said Vince Hernandez, who has studied the variety in the field and acts as a consultant for Radium Springsbased Rezolex, one of the nation’s only two chile color processing plants, located 12 miles north of Las Cruces. “It should make us a little more competitive.”

Reprinted from southwestfarmpress.com

Saucy wishes all a very Happy New Year filled with lots of peppery adventures!

We would like to welcome you all to our new online community! Within the next few days, we’ll start posting blogs, and we encourage you all to join and be a reviewer! We also have debuted our new forum, which is still under development. It is fully functioning, just not looking so pretty yet…..

Be sure to check out our new ONLINE SHOPPING AREA, where you can find all you hot needs…..including some great holiday gift ideas such as our Monthly Hot Sauce Clubs, where the happy receipent will receive 2 hot sauces each month personally selected by Saucy herself. These can be customized to meet every taste bud.