The Salt What's On Your Plate

A worker at Moo Cluck Moo, a fast-casual burger and chicken chain in suburban Detroit, prepares a meal. Workers at Moo Cluck Moo all make $15 an hour. Zachary Rosen for NPR hide caption

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Mattheos Koffas (left), a biochemical engineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Andrew Jones, a graduate student in his lab, with a flask of microbe-produced antioxidants. Dan Charles/NPR hide caption

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Vani Hari, known as the "Food Babe," speaks at the Green Festival in Los Angeles on Sept. 12. Hari has made a name for herself by investigating ingredients in Big Food products that she deems potentially harmful. But critics accuse her of stoking unfounded fears. Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

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Nicholas Komninos (from left), Anthony Pernisi and Ashlee Doele are among the 25 students who signed up for the first suds-specific class in Paul Smith's College's new minor in craft beers. It's a three-credit course in brewing, replete with labs and lectures. Joe Conto/Courtesy Paul Smith's College hide caption

itoggle caption Joe Conto/Courtesy Paul Smith's College

Rotten, fermented fruit has some nutritional value, and may have looked pretty good to our hungry ancient ancestors. Evolving the ability to metabolize the alcohol in fermented fruit may have helped us adapt to a changing climate 10 million years ago, research suggests. iStockphoto hide caption

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George Hastings shucks oysters at the Oyster Riot 2014 in Washington, D.C. He's been traveling the country on the shucking circuit for four decades. Meredith Rizzo/NPR hide caption

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A look inside the kitchen of the Whoa Nellie Deli, in Lee Vining, Calif. The casual eatery, which operates out of a Mobil gas station, turns out everything from vegetarian chili to wild buffalo meatloaf and fish tacos. Courtesy of Tioga Gas Mart hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Tioga Gas Mart

Samples of carrots cooked three ways are placed on a table for the kids at Walker-Jones Educational Campus, in Washington, D.C., to sample after they have finished lunch. The crowd favorite will later end up on the school lunch menu. Claire Eggers/NPR hide caption

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With over 700 pages and 600 recipes, Mexico: The Cookbook, attempts to document exhaustively the country's varied regional cuisines. Recipes in the book include (from left): potato and chorizo tacos; divorced eggs with tomatillo sauce; and tikin-xik fish, a grouper dish from the Yucatan Peninsula. Courtesy of Fiamma Piacentini-Huff and Phaidon hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fiamma Piacentini-Huff and Phaidon

Free-range chickens stand in a pen at an organic-accredited poultry farm in Germany. Joern Pollex/Getty Images hide caption

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Smoke and mirrors: Dave Arnold plays around with liquid nitrogen in a cocktail glass during his interview with NPR's Ari Shapiro. Claire Eggers/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Claire Eggers/NPR

A 40-pound tom turkey flaps his wing as Chris Conley carries him to a pen at Raymond's Turkey Farm in Methuen, Mass., on Friday. The farm raises approximately 20,000 broad-breasted white turkeys per year. Elise Amendola/AP hide caption

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An apiary on the outskirts of Chengdu, China, produces about 440 pounds of honey a day. American honey importers say they suspect the uptick in honey coming from Turkey actually originated in China. Liu Jin /AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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Akutaq or agutak — also known as Eskimo ice cream — is a favorite dessert in western Alaska. It's made with berries and frothed with fat, like Crisco. Al Grillo/AP hide caption

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Baked Squash Kibbeh: Middle-Eastern kibbeh is a finely ground combination of beef or lamb, bulgur and onions either formed into balls and deep-fried or pressed into a pan and baked. For a vegetarian version of this flavorful dish, why not pair butternut squash with the warm spices? Steve Klise/Courtesy of America's Test Kitchen hide caption

itoggle caption Steve Klise/Courtesy of America's Test Kitchen