Dry January and New Pizza Slicing Techniques

Here’s what’s happening this week in Food News.

Five years ago “Dry January ” made its debut with arguably one of the world’s most alcohol loving nations – the UK. Alcohol Concern in England and Wales, a charity, came up with the plan to raise awareness and funds to curb alcoholism. The result? According to a professor at Liverpool University, Ian Gillmore, two-thirds of those who joined the campaign continued to drink less for the next six months. The University of Sussex also found that 70% saved money, 62% slept better and almost half lost weight. Our question is whether the abstinence led to other replacement habits, the study doesn’t offer any answers.

New Pizza Slicing Technique

Now, from the same university but a different research team who tested mathematical models to cut a round pizza into 20 “more interesting” slices. Take a look, and while not each slice has the end crust, they're equal in size, and you might say, interesting? Joel Haddley and Stephen Worsley of the University of Liverpool used what is called the monohedral disc tiling formula. For those not familiar, as I was not, it means all tiles that are congruent to each other. Sorry guys, I just want to eat my pizza, not play with it. Top line for me? Still love the fold-over triangular slices from Star Tavern in Orange New Jersey.