Four clusters had established food consumption patterns ("Beef only", "Beef and beans", "Beef, beans, and soy products", and "No beef"), one was undergoing a change, and one had attempted a change earlier.
The "Authentic Afghan Pasta Dishes" are homemade flat noodles with yogurt sauces that include delicious combinations of garlic, mint, butter, onion, and tomato, topped with kidney beans, beef, or shrimp.
His parents were born in Zacatecas, in the mountainous center of Mexico, where potatoes, beans, beef and cheese are plentiful; chiles rellenos, stuffed with aged cheese nicknamed queso de pata (foot cheese) are a family favorite.
By this time we had discovered that food in Costa Rica is noticeably good, and the home-cooked meal (rice and beans, beef, hearts of palm, with coconut rice pudding for dessert) was even better.
Kick-start with tejate, a fermented drink made from corn, fruit, flowers and cacao, with a bagful of crunchy chapulines (grasshoppers), then indulge in a quesadilla de flor de cabaza (a folded tortilla stuffed with silky yellow squash blossoms) or a tlayuda, a huge, fried tortilla smothered with beans, beef and cheese.
For example, a traditional Brazilian lunch called feijoada (a stew of beans, beef, pork, rice, and vegetables) is served by the pool every Saturday afternoon.
Other foods likely to provoke antibody responses included soya bean, beef, lamb and pork.
So we play it "safe" with braised black bean beef short rib lo mein (basic wheat noodles) which confounds expectations by delivering splendid, slow-cooked beef with a good, salty-punchy sauce.
We splashed back glugs of Labatt 50 as we slurred out our order for crispy squid, razor clams with XO sauce, and black bean beef over crispy noodles.
Steamed sea bass (soup and entree); sautéed steak kew (chunks) with vegetables; steamed chicken with ham and Chinese mushrooms; fish and bean curd casserole; scallop and bean curd with black bean sauce; beef with snow peas and oyster sauce; stuffed bean curd or bean curd skin; roast duck.
"Of course for the environment it's better to eat beans than beef, but if you want to eat beef for New Year's, you'll know which beef is best to buy," said Claes Johansson, chief of sustainability at the Swedish agricultural group Lantmannen.
