FriendsEAT.com

We had our 7th Meet-up event in New York. This time we picked Churrascaria Plataforma (Uptown) as our venue. It just so happens to be one of our favorite places in town. The service is superb and the food is fresh, delicious and plentiful. The restaurant has a great reputation for cleanliness, it has won the Golden Apple award 4 years in a row for “maintaining excellent food safety practices”.

We started off the night with caipirinhas, it’s Brazil’s national drink. It’s similar to a Mojito, but in this case it is made with Cachaca (sugar cane liquor), limes, sugar and ice. They are refreshing and dangerous. Take it easy on this cocktail.

We also had some Brahmas, it’s a very popular beer in Brazil and just like the country, it is gorgeous. The bottle is curvaceous like the women of Brazil and fits great in the hand. It’s light, refreshing and tasty. It is a great summer beer (Brahma was just recently aqcuired by InBev).

The basic premise behind a Churrascaria is Brazil’s version of a steakhouse. Plataforma features a huge salad bar serving everything from sushi, feijoada, russian salad, hearts of palm, tons of vegetables, shrimp, the selection is incredible. We recommend to anyone going to Plataforma to take it easy on the salad bar and leave room for the main course.

Once you have had your fill of the salad bar, you are presented with a little disk, red on one side and green on the other. This means the second course is about to start. Typical Brazilian dishes are brought to the table. First, farofa: it is manioc (yuca) flour with bits of bacon inside. This is sprinkled over your meat to cut through the fat and add a little texture (highly recommended).  Brazilian Vinegar, another topping for your  meats, the acid will enhance the flavor of the meats. Fried Bananas, mashed potatoes, broccoli, fried white cheese, white rice and Pao de queijo (these amazing cheese breads that are almost impossible to resist).

Then the feast begins.  The premise is pretty simple. If you want meat, flip to green. If you need a break, flip to red. You can do this as many times as you want. The meats include suckling pig, beef, pork, chicken and the one everyone fell in love with lamb.

We enjoyed two lovely Chilean wines from Vina Santa Carolina, their 2007 Reserva Chardonnay and their 2006 Reserva Carmenere. The wines perfectly complimented our meals. The chardonnay was lighter than most with a citrusy beginning and a pear finish. The carmenere was very good with all the assortments of meats.

Incredible as it is, some of us still had room for dessert. Creme Brulees, Flans and Fruit Tarts came out on the table. Needless to say, the plates ended up empty.

We’d like to thank everyone that attended and look forward to seeing everyone again at the next event.

We had our 6th meet-up event. This time we had Desiree (the assistant store manager of Whole Foods) walk us through the store at the Bowery. We started off with a light snack upstairs so everyone cold get to know each other. Then we headed downstairs for the tour.

Desiree explained that Whole Foods was the first store to carry natural products. She explained that all the meats at the store come from humane companies such as Bell and Evans who provides Whole Foods with chickens raised on an all natural diet, with no antibiotics, growth hormones or preservatives.

We also discussed “bird friendly coffee”, which left an un-answered question, so here goes: shade groen coffee is good for birds who live in those areas. It also lowers the need for fertilizers and herbicides. The majority of coffee grown is usually 2/3 of a farm. Shade grown coffee can host about 150 species of birds as opposed to non-shade coffee which only keeps from 20-50. The bird population has decreased significantly, for example there are 70% less Cape May Warbles. So after doing a little research, I’d say its worth it to purchase Bird friendly coffee.

Right after that we hit up the pet food section, Desiree explained the benefits of feeding dogs a raw diet. This is something we truly believe in. Petey (the mascot of FriendsEAT) has been on a raw meat diet for the past 3 years. He eats Stella and Chewy’s, it’s an all natural, raw pet food made from human grade free range meats and organic veggies. That’s better than most people eat, but we have noticed a significant change in his health and attitude when we switched. I remember when my vet kept telling me to give Petey kibble, and I made the analogy of Total. According to the advertisement, Total has 100% of all vitamins and minerals needed by a human, so in theory, if I eat Total at every meal, I should not need to eat anything else. We all know this is not true and it is the same for animals, so I urge everyone to really watch what they feed their pets.

We also talked about sodium content and what we should be consuming daily. The US Department of Health and Human Services says we should have no more than 2,300 mg per day (1 tsp of salt). The average American has an average of 5,000 (twice the recommended amount). Where does this come from? Most likely prepared foods, I went onto http://www.nutritiondata.com/ and checked out a couple prepared items:

A plain hot dog has 710 mg of sodium

A beef and cheddar hot pocket has 960 mg sodium

Lean cuisine chicken and vegetables with Vermicelli has 633 mg sodium

This is where we get in trouble. Also, we have to make sure to see how many servings per package. Sometimes companies will list 250 mg of sodium, but there may be 3 servings per packet making the true sodium content 750 mg. So I guess the thing we come away with is keep your consumption of prepared foods low.

We learned a bunch more stuff, but the best part was getting to know everyone. I’d like to thank everyone that made it out (battling the pouring rain) and special thanks to our host Desiree.

The most interesting thing I learned about was Vegan sugar. So it turns out that sugar utilizes cow bone char to whiten sugar. Brown sugar is NOT considered Vegan; it is made by adding molasses to refined sugar (which was made with bone char). If this is an issue for you, one way to ascertain that you are going Vegan is to stay away from ALL refined sugar and utilizing turbinado sugar or beet sugar. Just in case you are interested, We’ve added on the bottoms some companies (via vegfamily.com) that are Vegan friendly.

In all, the walk through Whole Foods was educational and fun.  We thank Desiree and will definitly be modifying/enhancing our supermarket shopping.

List of Vegan Friendly Sugar Companies

Florida Crystals Refinery
P.O. Box 86
South Bay, FL 33493
407-996-9072
Labels: Florida Crystals

Refined Sugars Incorporated
One Federal St.
Yonkers, NY 10702
914-963-2400
Labels: Jack Frost, Country Cane, 4# Flow-Sweet, Pillsbury, Makes powdered brown sugar

Supreme Sugar Company (subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland)
P.O. Box 56009
New Orleans, LA 70156
504-831-0901
Labels: Supreme, Southern Bell, Rouse’s Markets