Top 10 Most Bizarre Fraternity Hazing Incidents

When I first starting researching this list, I thought it would be funny. Pledges being made to dress as Bugs Bunny and say “I’m a naughty rabbit” all day- that kind of thing. But a few minutes, a few court cases and a few lost appendages in and I realized just how dark these rituals were. This is no schoolboy pranking – people have lost their lives in ridiculous hazing rituals (over 50, according to research by Hank Nuwer in 1990) so be prepared for the dark, disturbing and downright inhumane in our Top 10 Most Bizarre Fraternity Hazing Incidents. Not suitable for children and probably not suitable for college students either.

The Pi Alpha Kappa fraternity of Tulane University (known as “PIKE”) had something of a bad reputation for a long time, with claims by several girls that they had been drugged at a frat party there. But the fraternity’s lowest point came in 2009, when allegations about their “Hell Night” ritual led to the fraternity being shut down, and several members being arrested (no charges were brought – prosecutors are often ex-Frat boys themselves). The ritual involved pouring boiling water onto Pledges, which sounds bad enough until you hear that it was mixed with wasabi, crab boil and vinegar. Two Pledges were hospitalized with severe burns and the university stepped in to shut it down. It doesn’t seem to be missed much – a message on one forum said “This frat was notorious for starting fights, causing major trouble with the university in regards to damages and graffitti, and gave bad people everywhere a clique to expand with. I will shed no tears at its disappearance.”

9. Klan Alpine, Alfred, and The Kidnap

Now, this is a tragic story of a hazing gone wrong. In 1978, Chuck Stenzel was a young athlete just starting out at Alfred University, Western New York. But one night, he was kidnapped from his dorm in the middle of the night, stashed in a car trunk with the other Pledges and lot of alcohol and forced to drink it all. Suffering from exposure to the cold and alcohol poisoning, Chuck was left on a mattress by his “brothers” and died overnight. His mother, Eileen Stevens, made it her life’s mission to campaign against hazing, and has set up C.H.U.C.K. (Committee to Halt Useless College Killings) which allowed her to tour colleges and speak to students about the dangers of hazing. Alfred University continued to allow fraternities until another death in 2002 shut them down for good.

8. Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Dartmouth, and the Kiddie Pool

What could be more innocent than a kiddie pool? A lovely toy for children to splash around in…but not if it’s filled with rotting food and bodily fluids. That’s the charming welcome ritual performed by Sigma Alpha Epsilon, one of many fraternities held sacred at Dartmouth University. The practice was exposed byAndrew Lohse, a frat member who detailed his Pledge experience in the student paper “The Dartmouth”, where he concluded “One of the things I’ve learned at Dartmouth – one thing that sets a psychological precedent for many Dartmouth men – is that good people can do awful things to one another for absolutely no reason”. Other hazing rituals at SAE included making Pledges chug down vinegar, causing one to cough up blood, and the cooking up of vomit omelettes.

Naturally, Lohse’s accusations didn’t go down well with the fraternities of Dartmouth, which make up 66% of the student body. Some called him a liar, others compared him with a person who’d made up false allegations. But at least one of his frat brothers confirmed most of it was true – but the kiddy pool was actually just full of rotten food, made to look like bodily fluids. That’s OK then.

7. Kappa Alpha Psi, Florida, and The Paddling

Paddling is among the most well-known and parodied of fraternity rituals. In common with another secret society – the Freemasons – fraternities have a reputation for hitting new recruits with a paddle until they leave a mark. But even this most traditional pursuit is getting frat boys into trouble – last year, alone two separate fraternities at the University of Florida were charged with hazing offences related to paddling. One of those was Kappa Alpha Psi, a traditionally black fraternity, who faced 13 misdemeanor sworn complaints. It came to light because another black fraternity - Alpha Phi Alpha – was also being investigated, although the university insists that they are not specifically targeting the black student community, just the act of hitting other students with paddles.

6. Pi Kappa Alpha, Tennessee, and The Rubber Tubing

Now, this will almost certainly make you wince, so prepare yourself – A student at the University of Tennessee was hospitalized with a near-fatal level of alcohol in his blood. So far, not too unusual. But when doctors queried just how how managed to consume so much (0.448 per cent, six times the drink-driving level), the answer took them aback. It was a creative solution involving a length of rubber tubing, inserted in entirely the wrong end for drinking. The practice, known as “butt chugging” is quite widespread and extremely dangerous. As a result, the university suspended the fraternity until 2015 and 12 people were cited for underage drinking. Whether or not it was the conventional drinking method is unclear.

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Top 10 Failed Products

Every now and then, a product comes along that makes you think “Yes!!! This is the things that has been missing from my life up till this point!” And it truly does change your life (the internet and the George Foreman grill are the two that spring to my mind). But more often than not, product launches are mediocre and the new thing being launched is just a slightly different version of something else.

Then, once every so often, a product comes along that is far from mediocre – it’s such an enormous, mind-blowing failure that everyone who sees it can only gasp. And that’s what we’re celebrating today- products so poorly-conceived, so hopeful in their launch and so disastrous in their fall that they qualify as one of our Top 10 Failed Products.

10. New Coke

One of the most famous examples was New Coke, a launch by Coca-Cola in 1985. Obviously oblivious to the phrase “never mess with a winning formula”, they decided to change the recipe of Coke that had served them so well, and relaunch it with a fanfare of trumpets. The Chief Executive at the time, Roberto Goizueta, described the new taste as ” smoother, uh, uh, rounder yet, uh, yet bolder…a more harmonious flavor” and, initially, consumers agreed and kept buying Coke as normal. Then there came the backlash – mainly from loyalists in the South, who saw it as some kind of continuation of the Civil War. Eventually, the vocal minority won out and the old formula was restored, although many said it was never quite the same again.

9. Bic Pantyhose

I’d love to have been in the meeting where this product was first discussed…”So, what should we develop to go alongside our best-selling pens and disposable razors?” “Errr…underwear?” “Yes!” Unlikely as it seems, a conversation along those lines must have happened, as Bic decided to launch “disposable” pantyhose to go alongside its other disposable lines.

But production problems ensued – apparently you can’t make pantyhouse in an injection mould like you can with cigarette lighters – and the brand name wasn’t strong enough to convince people to buy. The “disposable” theme didn’t really carry through either, as it’s actually possible to get more than one wear out of a garment like this, provided you avoid sharp nails.  It requires a strong suspension of disbelief to see pens and underwear in the same range, but someone at Bic must have believed they could get away with it!

8. Jell-o for Salads

Some of these ideas sound basically good, but there are a few which just make you feel faintly nauseous. Like the idea of savory Jell-o. In the first half of the 20th century, there was a trend for congealed salads – vegetables encased in gelatine products – and cooks were having to use lime Jell-o, as the most savory-friendly flavor. So, Jell-o responded by introducing a line of Jell-o for salads in tomato, mixed vegetable and celery. Weirdly, it never caught on and the line was discontinued. But good old lime flavor is still out there if you fancy giving thecongealed salad recipe a go yourself.

Weirdly, Jell-o is also the official snack of Utah, as it’s popular with the Mormon community. But even they would shy away from mixed vegetable flavor, I suspect!

7. Multi-Colored Ketchup

There’s more food meddling in this next entry, as, in 2000, Heinz ignored the lesson of Coke and messed with a winning formula, in this case tomato-colored ketchup, which had been selling quietly and consistently for the company for over 100 years.

Wanting to appeal to the kids, Heinz launched a new range of ketchups in  wacky colors, like electric blue, and “funky purple”. The whole thing was slightly mystifying, given that any self-respecting 4-year-old slathers their food in ketchup anyway, and it certainly didn’t appeal to parents. Strangely enough, parents prefer their children’s food to resemble the base ingredient, where possible, rather than resembling something that fell out of an alien’s nose. Needless to say, it didn’t last long.

6. Levi’s Type 1 Jeans

Now, there’s no discernible reason why this particular product failed so badly – after all, Levi’s haven’t had many misfires in their blue-jean-producing history. But that’s often the way with products – the greater the fanfare, the more likely it is to disappoint. The Type 1 jeans had all the Levi’s hallmarks, such as the red tab, oversized buttons and obvious stitching. But even an expensive Superbowlcommercial didn’t shift the jeans, partly because of the crazy pricing strategy that saw some retailers selling them for $100, while others priced them at $30. The air of general confusion added nothing to the sale of the product and Levi’s discontinued the line, in order to focus on known best sellers. It seems that consumers prefer their jeans to be understated, both in terms of “features” and product launches…

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Top 10 Public Health Scares

There’s never been a better time for creating public hysteria. The internet allows anyone with a phone or a laptop to come up with a theory and it can spread around the globe in seconds. So, when governments announce that there might be a new disease to look out for, it can spiral out of control quickly. The public health scare is nothing new, but the over-inflated hysteria is. In the 17th century, when the public were told that they might just die of plague, it was a very rational fear that was created. And a lot of them did die from plague. But now, some of these fears become irrational very quickly, and that’s where we find our Top 10 Public Health Scares.

10. Bird Flu

Avian flu is one of those diseases that has popped up a couple of times in recent history. The first concerned the H5N1 strain, which has proved to be both infectious and deadly to humans. Since it broke out, there have been 633 cases reported and 377 deaths, mainly in Indonesia, Vietnam and Egypt. So when another strain emerged in 2013 – H7N9 – there was panic and reports from China that 43 people had died. However, with one exception, it does not seem to have spread outside of China and there was a distinct drop-off in the number of cases reported after April 2013, suggesting that it’s either a seasonal virus or that the Chinese have taken effective precautions against it (i.e.  by banning live bird markets). That doesn’t stop the media still predicting that it might be the next Spanish Influenza though..

9. Foot and Mouth

Another agriculture-themed one now, and it’s the UK Foot and Mouth outbreak of  2001, which saw 6 million cows being culled, leading to devastation and bankruptcy for farmers. The outbreak was first detected on a pig farm in Essex and was thought to have been caused by the pigs eating illegally imported, infected meat. In 2007, there was another outbreak with the EU banning British beef imports immediately and the Prime Minister returning from holidays to take immediate action, including ordering protective cordons around infected areas. Thankfully, that outbreak was contained before it led to the destruction of 2001, but there was intense interest from the media, hoping to capitalize on the sense of panic. That’s why the only people to break the cordon were photographers, who were later fined and sentenced to community service. That’s what happens when you try and create a public health scare…

8. Salmonella

Of course, not all public health scandals are internet-era. Before the world wide web, the newspapers did a fine job of spreading the panic. And that’s what happened in the UK in 1988, when then-Health Minister Edwina Currie declared that eggs may contain the deadly bacteria salmonella. Her statement was as follows: “most of the egg production in this country, sadly, is now affected with salmonella” and it caused both panic and outcry. The minister was famous for her controversial statements, such as saying that Christians don’t get AIDS, and this seemed as unfounded as the rest of them. The affair died down eventually, but Currie was forced to resign and her reputation never recovered.

7. High-Fructose Corn Syrup

This is a controversy which is still rumbling on. HFCS is a cheap sweetener added to a scarily wide range of foods, including savory staples like bread. Some people are passionately opposed to HFCS, saying it is fuelling the obesity crisis and that the amount of HFCS found in an average soda is equivalent to a dose of poison. The scare started in 2004, when a research paper  in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that consumption of HFCS went up 1000% between 1970 and 1990. However, later studies in 2012 suggested that the effects of HFCS have been overstated, with the Journal of Obesity  suggesting that fructose is no worse than sucrose, also known as sucrose.  So is HFCS to blame for the rise in obesity and diabetes? I think the answer is that no-one knows yet…

6. Carciogens

Now, this particular scare came from a respected source – the President’s Cancer Panel. In 2010, they released a report on the danger of carciogens (i.e. toxins that increase the risk of cancer) and said that the danger had been “grossly underestimated”. Suddenly, carciogens were all around us – in household products, in barbecued food and even in a colorant in Pepsi. But the hysteria caused by the 2010 report may have been a bit of an overreaction – the American Cancer Society have published stats showing that the cause of cancer is only rarely to do with environmental carciogens, and that the President’s Cancer Panel report “does not represent scientific consensus.” So, another thing we don’t need to worry about? Again, one that might just run and run…

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Top 10 Most Momentous Protests

What do you do when you don’t like the way things are run in your country? Well, if it’s a democracy you can vote. But suppose all the people you could vote for are basically saying the same thing? Then it might be time for more decisive action, in the form of a protest. In every free country, protesting is a legal right and in countries that aren’t free it’s even more important to make your voice heard. Not every protest works, but some can change the world. Find out the events that made the politicians  listen, in our Top 10 Most Momentous Protests.

10. Occupy Wall Street

A recent one to start with, from September 2011. The protest was anti-consumerist and calling for politics to be free from the corrupting influences of big business. It started when around 200 people set up camp in Zuccotti Park, Manhattan and didn’t leave until they were evicted on November 15. As part of the movement, there was a protest march involving around 15,000 people bearing the slogan “we are the 99%”, which refers to the fact the the wealth in America is disproportionately spread, with most going to the top 1% of the population. The movement has been criticised for not having clear aims, and being full of “professional protesters” who will jump on any bandwagon, but it was certainly an effective way of getting attention, with worldwide coverage of the occupation and offshoots in other major cities, like London.

9. Iraq War Protests

8 years before Occupy, there was another huge protest that gained worldwide publicity. It was co-ordinated between 600 cities around the world and the cause was the impending Iraq War. On February 15th 2003, 3 million people marched in Rome, in the biggest anti-war rally ever seen, another million marched in London and 1.5 million in Madrid. The message was clear – the ordinary men, women and children who marched (as opposed to professional protesters) didn’t want war. They didn’t trust the claims the government were making about Iraq’s military capacity (this would later prove to be justified) and they suspected that the war was all about the oil in the region (this too may have been justified). The protests were huge but the war went ahead anyway, and the repercussions are still being felt.

8. Vietnam War Protests

Of course, the Iraq War Protests were influenced by an older generation of protesters, who took to the streets to make a stand against the war in Vietnam, and the draft that saw young American men being forced to fight and die for a cause they didn’t even understand. The protests started in December 1964,  folk singer Joan Baez leading a demonstration of 600 people. The next year saw students organizing rallies on campuses and it spiralled from there. The movement coincided with the growth of peace-loving hippie culture and “flower power” and so it captured the imagination of both the young people and the press. Musicians such as John Lennon sympathized and got involved, with his “bed-in for peace”. The protests went on as long as the war did, both tailing off in the 70s. They may not have stopped thousands of Americans dying, but they did create a generation of activists.

7. The Miners’ Strike

Talking of futile protests, here’s a heart-breaking example from 1980s Britain. Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was taking radical action to shake the country out of recession, and part of her action was to start closing coal mines. Miners who had done this job their entire lives now faced redundancy and poverty and so called a strike to protest against the closures. They held out for a year, from March 1984 to March 1985 but the notoriously hard leader was not going to back down and eventually they were forced to return to work. It was merciless. The strike was also characterized by the brutal treatment of the miners by the police during the blockade, with 51 miners injured at Rotherham in June 1984. An ugly episode in the history of industrial relations.

6. Salt Satyagraha

When your country is being oppressed in so many different ways by the British Raj, how do you choose what to protest against? Non-violent protester Mahatma Gandhi chose salt. The British in India had forbade the Indians from collecting or making salt themselves, and subsequently they all had to buy it from the British, at a premium price. With such a hot climate, salt was a necessity to replace the salts lost in sweat and Gandhi knew that it would be a cause every Indian could identify with. He protested by marching 240 miles to the coast and producing his own salt, in defiance of the British rules. It was a breakthrough in the struggle for independence and showed the population (still in shock over the bloody end to a previous protest) that it was possible to defy the British in a peaceful manner. A landmark protest.

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Top 10 Pieces of History That the English Try to Forget

History is nothing if not biased. It’s a well-known fact that accounts of wars are generally written from the victor’s point of view, and some of the nastier bits get overlooked. And one of the great victors – and great overlookers – of history has to be England. Its history is tainted with imperialistic arrogance, genocide and cruelty. Yet, it tends to get skimmed over when anyone’s talking about the golden days of the British Empire. But it doesn’t take much digging to find the grimmer bits. So, here are the Top 10 Pieces of History That the English Try to Forget.

(For accuracy’s sake, I should point out that some of these events were perpetrated by the British as a whole, some by the English against other bits of Britain and the U.K….but the English tend to feature in them all. As Hollywood knows, villains always have a British accent)

10. The Mau Mau Uprising

Also known as “The Kenya Emergency”, this conflict took place between 1952 and 1960 and there were numerous atrocities on both sides. Kenya was under British rule at the time and the Mau Mau were a group of anti-colonial rebels, who expressed their hatred of the regime in the most vicious way possible, attacking Africans as well as British forces. The rebels may have been vicious, but they were matched by the actions of the British, who killed around 20,000 of them in combat and dispensed capital punishment to a further 1,090 Mau Mau suspects. When the Mau Mau killed 74 men, women and children at Lari the British retaliated by killing 150 of their people. Even more disturbing was theChuka massacre, where British-led troops killed 20 African citizens, and the subsequent torture of suspected rebels. A blood-stained and shameful chapter of British history.

9. The Irish Oppression

English imperialism didn’t just happen miles away from Britain’s shore. It also happened closer to home, with the actions of Elizabeth I’s army in Ireland. Known as one of the greatest monarchs of all time for the cultural leaps that occurred during her reign, Elizabeth was feared and hated in Ireland, or “that rude and barbarous nation”, as she referred to it. Fearful of the Irish making a pact with her enemies, and giving them a base close to England, she sent troops in to quell the more rebellious elements, scorch the earth and kill anyone who tried to resist them. Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, was particularly known for his ruthlessness, putting down the Desmond rebellions with brutal force and lining the path to his tent with the heads of his enemies. Ireland has never forgiven England for these actions, and there is still tension today.

8. The Concentration Camps

It’s often said that the British invented the concentration camp. It’s not true, but they were pioneers of them. The first use of the term was by the Spanish, as they used “reconcentrados” in Cuba during the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878) and the British didn’t use them until the Second Boer War, which started in 1899. But it’s an undeniable fact that the British had their enemies in detention camps long before the Nazis did, with 45 camps built for Boer prisoners and 64 for Black African prisoners. And that included women and children, 26,000 of whom died in the camps thanks to the poor hygiene, lack of food and prevalence of infectious diseases. They didn’t invent them, but they certainly weren’t afraid to use them.

7. The Baralong Incident

The British pride themselves on a sense of fair play and this applies even in times of war – if you capture an enemy, you imprison rather than kill them. So it was shocking news when the German submarine U-27 was sunk by HMS Baralong and all the survivors were shot without mercy. The incident happened on August 19th 1915, in the middle of the First World War, 100 miles south of Ireland. The German U-Boats had sunk a passenger ship earlier that same day and so tempers were already raised. There are varying accounts of what happened, but some say that U-27′s commander Bernard Wegener was shot while he had his hands up in surrender. Definitely not the British way, is it?

6. The Massacre of Amritsar

There were many British atrocities committed while India was under their rule, but most notorious was the Massacre of Amritsar. On April 13th, 1919 Indians had gathered to protest peacefully against the Rowlatt Acts, laws which allowed the British to detain prisoners indefinitely and to sentence them without trial. Around 10,000 protesters were gathered in a park called Jallianwalla Bagh, which only had one way of getting in or out. Unarmed and with nowhere to go, the protestors were helpless as the British opened fire on them, killing 379 and injuring around 1,200. This sparked Mahatma Gandhi’s political movement, which continued the peaceful method of protest against British imperialism in India.

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What Happens in the Short-Term?

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THC gets movin’ quickly. Within seconds, the drug hits the brain and goes to town on the brain’s cells, called neurons. To understand how this works, let’s pause for a brief biology lesson. Neurons are long, dangly cells that don’t actually touch one another. The gap between brain cells is called a synapse, and the brain uses chemicals calledneurotransmitters to pass messages across these gaps — think of these chemicals as an operator on a phone call. You’ve probably heard of a few neurotransmitters, like serotonin, epinephrine, and dopamine. While most neurotransmitters are made in the glands, some man-made drugs (both legal and illegal) can mimic the same effects as natural neurotransmitters. Natural or not so much, a neurotransmitter binds to a neuron, which signals the body to do (or not do) something. When a neurotransmitter fits into the correct receptor—like a key in a lock—it chemically turns that neuron off or on.

This is where our friend THC comes in. The active chemical in marijuana mimics a natural neurotransmitter called anandamide. Anandamide is often referred to as the “bliss molecule” because of its role in boosting memory and learning, dulling pain, and stimulating the appetite  . Anandamide normally buddies up with dopamine, and together these neurotransmitters turn on and turn off different chemical pathways as needed.

THC may mimic anandamide, but they don't produce the exact same effects. After a person takes a hit of Mary Jane, THC binds to cannabinoid CB1 and CB2 receptors, which are located in several parts of the brain (namely, the hippocampus, cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and basal ganglia) . These brain areas are responsible for short-term memory, coordination, learning, problem solving, and unconscious muscle movements. When THC gets its groove on in the cannabinoid receptors, it gets in the way of natural neurotransmitters (like anandamide) that need to bind to those sites to make all of the functions listed above work properly.

When THC prevents anadamide from doing its job, the delicate balance between anadamide and dopamine is thrown off. The result: We’re suddenly euphoric, off-balance, ravenous, seemingly impervious to pain, and unable to retain information. Think about theclassic stoner clichés for a minute…yep, all the signs and symptoms are there.

What Happens in the Long-Term?

How long THC affects the brain and stays in the body depends onmany factors, including the potency of the marijuana, the smoker’s experience with the drug, how the drug is ingested (via joint, bowl, bong, vaporizer, etc), and if it’s used in conjunction with other drugs or alcohol  . Immediate effects of THC kick in after a few seconds and last for an hour or two, but the chemicals can stay in the body for much longer. THC is fat-soluble, so even though it doesn’t continue to affect the brain, it can hang out in body tissues for several weeks or, in the case of habitual smokers, even months .

So are those wild ‘n’ crazy nights going to ruin your brain forever?Some studies have shown that frequent adolescent marijuana use—especially when use begins at a younger age—can reduce IQ by middle age. Further research argues that smoking like a chimney causes overuse of the CB1 receptors, which can lead to a sloth-like brain. But more recently, a boatload of researchers have proven that puffing the magic dragon won’t actually zap your brain cells in the long-term.    .

But Then I Got High: The Takeaway

If you stuck through the chemistry lessons until this part, you’re probably expecting a thumbs-up or thumbs-down judgment. But, as with many biological processes, the overall effect of marijuana on brain chemistry isn’t crystal clear. For the most part, current research is disproving earlier studies that claimed that marijuana damaged the body long-term, but so far nothing’s really set in stone. Feel free to take this information on the brain’s reaction to marijuana and smoke it (or not).

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Thai Noodle Soup

Enjoy the rich flavors of your favorite Thai takeout at home—no cooking skills necessary! A pro tip from the recipe creator: If you love a strong onion flavor, leave some of the diced spring onion uncooked and sprinkle on top of the soup.

12 Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons garlic-infused oil or olive oil, divided
• 1.5 red peppers, chunked, divided
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes
• 4 spring onions, green parts only, diced
• 1/2 cup diced root ginger
• 1 lemongrass stalk, diced
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 5 ounces rice noodles

Directions

1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a pan over high heat. Add 1 chunked pepper and cook for 3 minutes. Add tomatoes and heat through. Place mixture in a food processor or use an immersion blender to puree until smooth. Remove from pan and set aside. 
2. Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil over high heat. Add remaining 1/2 pepper, spring onion, ginger, lemongrass, cumin, and turmeric, and cook for 3 minutes. 
3. Add water, almond milk, and pepper-tomato puree. Bring mixture to a boil, keeping it there and stirring frequently. 
4. Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a boil. Add rice noodles, remove from the heat, and allow noodles to soften for 5 minutes. 
5. To serve, dish broth into bowls and top with noodles.

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Beet and Carrot Salad With Mint Yogurt

Even though we’re heading into summer, I like to think of ways to add a seasonal touch to vegetables we’ve come to enjoy over the colder months. Adding a cooling and refreshing yogurt dressing to these crispy root veggies is the perfect way to welcome the sun. With the final addition of dry-roasted pine nuts, there's no question that you’ve taken this salad to the next level.

9 Ingredients

• 5 carrots, roughly chopped
• 4 beets, peeled and cut into eighths
• 3 thyme sprigs
• Pinch salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon pine nuts
• 1/2 cup whole-fat Greek yogurt
• 3 mint leaves, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Spread carrots and beets evenly on a roasting pan. Tuck thyme sprigs among them. Sprinkle with salt, drizzle with oil, and toss vegetables with your hands to coat.
3. Place in the oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until veggies are easily pierced with a knife.
4. Bring a small frying pan to medium-high heat and dry-roast (without oil) pine nuts for 2 minutes until golden.
5. In a small bowl, combine yogurt, mint, and lemon juice.
6. Arrange roasted veggies out on a platter or cutting board and liberally dollop with yogurt sauce. Top with pine nuts.

Recipe reprinted with permission from Dude Food: A Guy's Guide to Cooking Kick-Ass Food (Simon & Schuster) by Daniel Churchill.

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