This week Cooking Issues gets sticky and wierd. Dave and Nastassia answer your questions about using gums such carrageenan and guar in your cooking as well as giving you eating and traveling tips for those traveling to to New York with kids (hint our very own Roberta's is perfect for kids!). Tune in to learn how to make Dave's special Neapolitan pizza recipe as well as Jim Lahey's no-knead, no stress bread and how to cook a whole goat head!
This episode is sponsored again by The Modernist Pantry which is giving away a free sample of the pre-hydrogenated gum when you listen for the code inside this weeks episode of Cooking Issues.

Jean Halloran rejoins Katy Keiffer on this week's installment of Straight, No Chaser. Jean has worked on food safety and sustainability issues at in the Yonkers Office of Consumers Union for the last 25 years, and also works with consumer organizations globally. She helped develop international standards for safety assessment of genetically engineered food at the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Once again, Katy and Jean are talking about antibiotic usage in meat production. Recently, Consumers Union has urged Trader Joe's to stop selling antibiotic-laden meat with a petition of 557,772 signatures from consumers. Learn more about the campaign and its outcome on this episode. Later, Katy and Jean talk about MRSA in pork, and other forms of resistant bacteria. How do antibiotics in meat affect antibiotic resistance in hospitals and medical treatment? Find out on this week's Straight, No Chaser! This episode has been sponsored by Hearst Ranch.

"MRSA has become disturbingly common in hog production and among hog workers. How it got there, we're not exactly sure...but there is evidence of Staph Aureus at a very low level in about half of the samples they [Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy] looked at. About 6 percent was antibiotic-resistant MRSA."

"The treatment of sick animals accounts for only 5% of antibiotic use as indicated by how many animals are injected with antibiotics. The remaining percentage of usage has been traditionally thought to be for growth promotion, although now they are calling it disease prevention..."

"'Natural' has nothing to do with how the animal was raised. 'Natural' only means that there was no coloring added to the meat after slaughter." -- Jean Halloran on Straight, No Chaser

This week on Cooking Issues Dave and Nastassia call-in from London's Heathrow Airport for a special lay-over edition of Cooking Issues. They take calls regarding quinine: the phosphorescent, mildly dangerous, highly versatile bittering agent; sous-vide BBQ, and whether or not it will taste "smokey"; and making bitters, and what the best alcohol to use is. Finally Dave recounts a blood-soaked incident in a high-end London eatery involving birds, bullets, and brains. This episode was sponsored by Whole Foods Market.

Photo: London Heathrow Airport - Where Dave and Nastassia likely were during the recording of this episode.