I often dream of cheese but I never knew that cheese would make me dream.

We at Meat Neutral, recently came across a study commissioned by the British Cheese Board that investigated the phenomenon of cheese dreams, and more importantly cheese nightmares!.

While it should be taken with a grain of salt (and a glass of wine for that matter) the study followed 200 volunteers who, over the course of 1 week, ate 20g of cheese before going to sleep. The study found that cheese before bed increased the likelihood of remembering your dreams.

“ One of the amino acids in cheese – tryptophan – has been shown to reduce stress and induce sleep so cheese may actually help you have a good night’s sleep,” says Dr Judith Bryans, Nutrition Scientist at The Dairy Council.

The most curious finding is that different cheeses caused different types of dreams (none of which were nightmares thank goodness). Our personal favorite was the likeliness of women to have “nice” dreams, such as Jamie Oliver cooking dinner in their kitchens after eating British Brie.

Hmmmmm… I can’t wait to hear about the dreams all our female readers will have once they try Meat Neutral’s Baked Crab Meat and Brie — a vision of the beefy hunks of the Woodstock Collective bringing them breakfast in bed perhaps?

Which brings up another question, what about meat dreams? Are there any specific meat dreams our readers would like to share?

That’s all for tonight. Meat Dreams. 

[digg=http://digg.com/food_drink/Bacon_Chocolate_m_the_sweet_sweet_savoury_marriage]One night last December in Tofino, the Woodstock Collective was sitting around a fire, drinking wine and laying the groundwork for the Meat Neutral cookbook when an interesting question arouse: What about desert?

Staying true to our roots of expanding our culinary consciousness, we instantly thought of our some favorite deserts such as vegan cayenne chocolate cake, and carrot cake with cream cheese icing — deserts which clearly paid homage to the “vegetarian”in all of us. With a little more thought, we came were reminded of the meat based gelatin dishes from our childhood, just like grandma used to make. But how to combine the two, that was the question. Then, finally after searching high and low, we came across an innovative chocolatier who trailblazed the meat neutral desert world with the creation of the Applewood Smoked Bacon Chocolate Bar.

Award winning Vosges Haut-Chocolates, based out of Chicago, introduced the world to the bacon/chocolate creation with Mo’s Bacon Bar, designed by owner Katrina Markoff. Hand picking exceptional ingredients of the highest quality she has created the piece-de-resistance:

The bacon bar is pure brilliance, a joy to the senses — the smells, textures, and tastes all combine harmoniously to create a chocolate experience like no other. Merging savoury with sweet, the fusion wisps the palette away in a lusty promenade, remnant of a geisha tangoing with Astor Piazzolla.

And it was proven… dessert can be meat neutral. What a sweet sweet victory we savour. The doors have been blown wide open.

Meat Neutral Tip: Try with wasabi peas to take Mo’s Bacon Bar to the next level for a spicy-savoury-sweet trifecto.

PS. Vosges also gets extra points for sourcing 100% of their energy from renewable sources, and for being certified organic.

[digg=http://digg.com/comedy/We_are_all_meat_eaters]In past posts, we have mentioned how from a political perspective, Meat Neutral is about reclaiming the word “vegetarian.” Continuing in this thread,today, we are going look into the origin of the word meat.

The first meaning of the word Meat was solid food in general, in contrast to drink. This was the meaning in the first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary ~900. It was not until ~1300 that meat was used to denote the flesh of animals and not until even later the definition in the dictionary was changed.

So there you have it. We are all meat eaters, whether you like it or not.

Leave your preconceptions behind, or take them with you, and join the Meat Neutral movement.