#you know that watery taste low fat milk has?

[greaseonmymouth]

tried putting milk in my tea for the first time. disgusting

[1trending]

Indulge in guilt-free pleasure with Apsara Ice Creams' zero added sugar flavours

Ice cream is one of the most beloved desserts worldwide, and for good reason. Its creamy, sweet, and refreshing taste appeals to people of all ages and backgrounds. However, as much as we love ice cream, we also know that it can be high in calories, sugar, and fat, which can compromise our health and fitness goals. That's why Apsara Ice Creams, a Mumbai-based company that specialises in artisanal ice creams, has come up with a range of zero added sugar flavours that allow you to enjoy your favourite treat without any guilt or compromise. These flavours are made with a base of real and organic ingredients such as milk, nuts, fruits, and spices, and sweetened with FOS, an alternative sweetener. FOS is a Low-calorie sweetener. What sets Apsara Ice Creams' zero added sugar flavours apart from other ice creams is not only their health benefits, but also their taste and texture. Despite not containing any added sugar or artificial sweeteners, these ice creams are rich, creamy, and full of flavour, thanks to the high-quality ingredients and the artisanal process used to make them.Apsara Ice Creams' slow-churning method enables the flavours to emerge gradually and organically. This results in ice creams that are dense, smooth, and satisfying, without any icy or watery texture that is often found in mass-produced ice creams. In conclusion, Apsara Ice Creams' zero added sugar flavours are a healthy and delicious option for ice cream lovers who want to enjoy their favourite dessert without any guilt or compromise. These ice creams are made with natural and organic ingredients.

They offer a range of flavours that cater to different tastes and preferences, and can be enjoyed in various ways and occasions. If you haven't tried Apsara Ice Creams' zero added sugar flavours yet, it's time to indulge in guilt-free pleasure and treat yourself too.

[littlewalken]

So fellow neurodivergents know you can get low fat powdered milk in a canister. It's watery thin and doesn't taste like anything but has vitamins and minerals.

Read the label because Nido brand has quite a bit of fat incase you don't do whole milk.

[aminahadjila]

SUMMER WEIGHT LOSS CHALLENGE

Winter has been merciless. What better way to spend a cold winter day than to curl up on the couch and munch on some treats while staying cozy and warm?

 It seems like only yesterday that you were struggling to shed your winter coat; before you know it, summer has arrived in full force. 

The moment you felt warm enough to wear shorts, you realized something: the beach is calling, and you are not physically prepared for it! 

As a summer weight loss solution, you panic and consider stapling your mouth for a week or two until you look good in your swimwear.

How to lose weight in summer

It can be difficult to lose excess fat, and most people face a summer weight loss dilemma every year.  

Wacky diets, starvation, and diet pills entice you with the promise of slimming down for that swimsuit. Summer weight loss does not have to imply deprivation in order to look your best in shorts or a swimsuit. 

The key to losing weight is to eat healthy foods; food choices are actually easier to make during the summer because high-calorie dishes are less appealing in the heat. Use fresh fruits and vegetables while they are at their peak and at their best in the summer. There are plenty of light and refreshing foods to keep you out of the hot kitchen.

According to experts, the best summer weight loss diet is to load up on natural produce. Fruits and vegetables are low in calories but high in essential vitamins and minerals, as well as antioxidants and fiber, which help your body flush out toxins and fats. Apart from their health benefits, they are also delicious, juicy, and satisfy the taste buds. 

Farmers' markets and grocery stores sell berries, tomatoes, zucchini, melons, cucumbers, peas, and other greens. Forget about portion control and eat as many fruits and vegetables as you can get your hands on. Summer weight loss with nature's bounty will not harm your waistline.

f you're wondering what the healthiest summer weight loss foods are, here's a list of recommendations from dieticians and experts:

Berries are delicious and sweet, but there's more to them than meets the eye. They are known to increase antioxidant levels and aid in the reduction of the effects of aging. Berries are also high in nutrients that aid in cholesterol reduction.

Watermelons are popular because they are watery, juicy, and crisp, making them ideal for quenching thirst during the hot season. Mix watermelon slices with milk, water, and ice cubes for a refreshing summer weight loss drink. In a blender, combine all of the ingredients and blend until smooth.

Garden salads are the best option for a quick and low-cost summer meal. They're easy to make and a great way to get more vegetables into your diet. Dress your salad with extra virgin olive oil, walnut oil, or your favorite healthy oil. Salads are a great way to get away from the hot kitchen.

 Conclusion

 Healthy eating is the best way to lose weight in the summer. Enjoy a satisfying meal while reaping the benefits of weight loss, fitness, and a healthy lifestyle. Start your summer weight loss with fruits and vegetables to get in shape for your favorite swimsuit.

[aiweirdness]

A big neural net reviews a smaller neural net's recipes

I’ve used various neural networks to generate recipes, to varying degrees of success. My earliest recipes were generated with char-rnn, which had to learn everything - spelling, punctuation, words - entirely from scratch. Its recipes were terrible (Swamp Peef and Cheese, anyone? Or Chocolate Chicken Chicken Cake?). Later when I started using GPT-2, I was using a neural net that had already seen a lot of recipes online during internet pre-training, and its recipes looked a lot more realistic (although not entirely realistic - there was that recipe for Black Forest Cake that suggested pouring the batter into a toaster, or the jello recipe that starts with “remove all internal rinds”).

GPT-3, an even more powerful text-generating neural net, has seen so many recipes during its internet pre-training that its recipes are boringly plausible. Bake its Black Forest Cake recipe and you’d probably actually get cake at the end, even if it’s not the best cake in the world. Its recipes aren’t funny at a glance, which is why I haven’t posted any of them - until internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch suggested that, rather than have GPT-3 generate its own recipes, I have it rate char-rnn’s recipes. Readers, it worked.

I prompted GPT-3 with two example recipes from allrecipes, each followed by 3 of their human-written reviews. Then, for the third recipe I inserted one of char-rnn’s recipes:

Chocolate Chocolate Cake

1 cup sugar 1/4 cup butter 1 cup margarine 1 cup cocoa 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup margarine 1/2 cup pecans, chopped 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 egg yolk 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup chopped pecans 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup cocoa 1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, salt, and salt in a large bowl. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils and stiff peaks form. Add milk and cook until mixture is completely melted. Remove from heat and stir in sugar and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Spread in batter. Sprinkle with pecans.

Yield: 1 servings

And then I let GPT-3 add reviews. Would it mention the excessive lakes of vanilla? The complete lack of flour? The foolhardy reliance on the heroic efforts of a single egg yolk to hold things together?

oxtailsandturnovers Rating: 5 stars 03/04/2007 delicious chocolate recipe!!! and the perfect balance between cocoa and chocolate. and they sure were LONGNECKS! big time rave here. lazy w birthdays w friends and family, try this recipe for something chocolate sweet the ppl will talk about over and over.

AKEMIYUNA Rating: 5 stars appraisal 12/03/2008 Excellent for the kids Halloween party. Everyone got so thrilled by seeing something new on Chocolate in sponge. He even likes nuts separately but it will taste good..

BYOMFYABF Rating: 2 stars 10/01/2008 I could only give it a 2 as I had to make changes to it due to ingredients I had. First, I used Dove Dark Chocolate cocoa instead of Hershey's, no nuts, and the mashed bananas and caramel topping were a must. I did use coffee instead of the hot water, and dark margarine instead of regular, therefore I could not use light whipped cream, but I made homemade whipped cream. It had WAY too much flour in it, but i guess it could have been me measuring heavier than I should have. I also only used 2 cups of flour. it was my first bundt cake, so it was huge!!!

Here’s another batch of reviews, this time of a more chaotic char-rnn recipe:

Simple Soup Alaborate Soup Pie

6 each chopped white perserves; ** (optional but ring) 1/2 cup chopped fresh marjoram 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme 1/3 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup thinly sliced onion 1/4 cup onion (chopped) 1/2 teaspoon garlic; minced 2 small carrots 6 can dry white wine 1 tabasco sauce 1 tablespoon sugar 1/2 cup flour, whipped topping 2 tablespoon chili powder

Marinate: Serves 4. Whip and short under boiling. Add the sliced mushrooms and peppers and stir to coat. Stir the sugar and carrots. In large bowl, beat the egg to make a 1 1/2 tablespoons of the flour. Add shanks and stir it well. Spoon into a frying pan before serving.

Recipe By : DonajehLi Koubmanda

Yield: 8 servings

JEFFREY97389 Rating: 2 stars 03/03/2006 Even though everyone said this was great, I thought it was just 'OK!' The perserves gave a strange flavor to the sauce.

MATTJANDTRACER Rating: 2 stars 01/02/2009 This recipe sounded good. When it came out it tasted a bit like a casserole and not a stew. I used venison instead of deer and pork. I liked the way it turned out, but it wasnt very French.

Hammy Rating: 5 stars The g iving this as a gift as it takes about 10 less minutes but using American cheese and not blended with parsley flakes, lime-flavored gelatin, which is my husband's favorite dish from SuperValu. Just happens to be the creamy sauce. Don't worry about a pie crust.

In fact, the more chaotic the char-rnn recipe, the more chaotic the reviews tend to be, as if GPT-3 has picked up on the chaos and is trying to somehow produce reviews that could plausibly be written by whatever weird humans are visiting this mangled recipe website.

Geilded Peanuts & Crabmeat Basil

3 beef, boneless chops, or thyme, 1 lamber and flince of fresh diced in diagonal 1 parsley 2 large leeks (for garnish) 3/4 teaspoon sesame oil, seeded and peeled 1 any jeans'l-tortilla 1 pepper or cinnamon 1/4 cup baesly pinto beans. (Crushed and thawed; minced fine you recipe) 1 tomato base 1 fat in the last 5 inch plates 1 garlic clove; crushed 1/4 cup dijon mustard

In a large bowl set aside. Remove the sides from the heat and saute with a fork and cover and cook on Low for 6 to 6 hours.

Yield: 6 servings

Morales Rating: 0 stars 03/30/2008 I had high expectations for this recipe, but it was an outright flop. I don't know if the measurements were somehow incorrect or what, but I ended up with a watery mess that certainly wasn't crab salad. My girlfriend, who is a new chef liked it fine, but I really wish that the recipe didn't claim that it made six servings when it really made enough for one, if that's what we were going to call it.

Carole Rating: 5 stars Glorious sobs! This recipe will be delicious for a minumum of 1½ Hours to maximum 2½ hours Time to bring lots of fresh sized potatoes in the house or grow in the age may become quite famous

Amanda Rating: 3 stars 11/13/2009 My friend is having a birthday party and will celebrate with Camping. She's in charge of the dishes and wanted to serve food at the campfire. I'll 10th grade, my easy information for her party. It will not sound strange anyway test this task with a note to work rationally.What to take trees, portable tables for chairs, the main meal, food. I personally love the taste of it but has anyone seen a shepherd (wasn't any spices), oysters. It is sufficient

It does kind of make sense that GPT-3’s recipe reviews aren’t directly complaining about the utter weirdness of char-rnn’s recipes. Probably very few of the recipe reviews in GPT-3’s training data involved baffled complaints about nonexistent or repeated ingredients, or apocalyptic levels of recipe failure. So GPT-3 has learned that even the critical reviews tend to fall within a certain sentiment range. It’s interesting that it tries to emulate char-rnn’s primitive neural net glitchiness - I’ve noticed before that GPT-3 seems to be capable of pretending to be a much simpler neural net.

Subscribers get bonus content: After generating a few reviews, GPT-3 would sometimes go on to generate new recipes (such as “BBQ Cheeseburger Salad” which contains lime jello, whipped topping, and sliced black beans). It may have been deliberately trying to make them terrible to fit in with char-rnn’s recipes.

Speaking of AI-generated recipes: there are some absolute disasters in my book on AI, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s - Boulder Bookstore

[beels-burger-babe]

I finally finished my dish for the day! Soooo..

Fellow members of the Hive, may I present to you: Sautéed Moose with mashed potatoes and crushed lingonberries

(Not the perfect picture and dish, but I did what I could with the very limited tools my dad has)

I promised a recipe, so that can be found under the cut😁

A heads up, there will be a picture of a piece of raw meat as a reference to how the meat is supposed to be cut

Let's start with the ingredients!

600g round of moose (reindeer works as well)

50g of butter

1tsp of black pepper

2tsp of salt

½ bottle of beer, preferably maximum of 2,8% of alcohol so the taste isn't too strong

Note: The beer is for taste, the alcohol itself will evaporate during the cooking process, so there's no need to worry about that, but if you don't want to use beer at all, you can replace it with water, some bouillon powder/cubes, and herbs and spices that work well with game such as black pepper, rosemary, etc. Google is your friend with this

2-3dl/about one cup of water

1tbsp of juniper berries

You'll need to have the meat frozen before beginning, it'll make things a whole lot easier

1. Take the meat onto the counter for an hour, or into the fridge overnight before beginning. Carve the meat into thin slices (this is where the temperature of the meat comes into play, melted meat is way too soft for this)

This is how the meat should be cut:

2. Sauté the meat in the butter on a pan until it has a nice brown color (the best option would be a cast iron pan, but any pan works)

3. Add salt and pepper, and move the meat into a pot

4. Pour in the beer, and enough water so the meat is covered. Add the juniper berries and let it simmer on low under a lid for about 2 hours, making sure the meat doesn't dry by adding water if the level gets too low

The longer you simmer the meat, the more tender it becomes. The idea is to get extremely tender meat that is pleasant to eat

I'll give a few tips that I've learned from my mom and grandma for the best mashed potatoes I've eaten:

First: Add butter in. It doesn't have to be full-on butter. My mom has always used a spread that has both butter and canola oil, and her key is to use it rather generously. It makes the flavor a lot richer if not overdone

Second: Milk. I don't really know how almond milk etc. will work since we've always only used regular cow's milk in everything, but I can say that for cow's milk, fat-free just makes the potatoes watery without really contributing to the flavor itself

For the crushed lingonberries, simply take the desired amount of lingonberries and crush them using a hand blender (a regular blender works just fine as well, but make sure that the berries aren't perfectly smoothly blended)

Add sugar to taste when serving

~~~~~~~~~~~~

That looks so good!!!! 🤤🤤🤤 Thank you for this amazing treat!

[cookwithbudgett]

Punjabi Kadhi With Onion Pakora | Cook with Budgett

Cook with Budgett here comes again with simply best yet tasty recipes which are Punjabi Kadhi recipes which is a family legacy recipe. 

This fantastic Punjabi Kadhi Pakora Recipe is my mother's treasured or secret recipe of making the Punjabi Kadhi with onion pakora and now I would like to break this secrecy open and love to share with you happiness in order to multiply it. It is one of the recipes she has been making for ages and cherished by all of us till now.

About The Recipe

For this recipe of Punjabi Kadhi Pakora, the Hindi word “Kadhi” denotes a yogurt sauce that has been slow-cooked for quite some time. The word “pakora” means fritters made from gram flour (besan). 

In this recipe, the fritters are made with onions and gram flour.We all love kadhi, the craving of it never ends that sour taste with some tinge of spice comes our taste buds get activated by that to have it in our belly be it with or without pakora.

How to make Punjabi Kadhi Pakora

We will first begin with making the curd slurry which we can say gravy part as well, then coming over to the onion pakora and then finally joining up the two and making the kadhi pakora.

Making curd slurry or gravy of Punjabi Kadhi

1. In a bowl take around 2 cups sour curd or about 400 grams of curd max. Whisk it well till it gets smooth enough.

2. Add 9 tbsp gram flour (besan), Half tsp of red chili powder, half tsp of turmeric powder, Half tsp garam masala powder, and 2 tsp salt to the whisked curd.

3. Stir up and mix everything well again.

4. Add 3.5 cups water and stir it again.

5. Stir it very well to make a smooth mixture make sure that lumps are not visible. If there are lumps, then break them with a wired whisk or we say hand blender or a spatula and last we can do with fingers as well. Set the curd slurry aside.

Making now Onion pakora for our Punjabi Kadhi

1. Take 2 cup gram flour (besan) into a bowl and then add half tsp of ajwain/carom seeds, Half tsp of red chili powder, Half tsp of garam masala powder, and 1 tsp salt or as required according to your taste.

2. Add 2 cups of thinly sliced onions. About 3 medium to large onions, sliced, approx 160 grams of onions.

3. Now mix everything well and keep aside make sure it's covered for around approximately 35 minutes.

4. Due to this the onions will get time to release their water into the mixture. It also depends on the water content in the onions, but anyhow we gonna do it as necessity need to be done that's how Cook with Budgett simply best yet tasty recipe will be achieved, due to it the mixture will become very moist or just about moist.

5. Then accordingly add water as per your requirement that you want to make a thick batter out of it or not. Add a quarter cup of water. You can also skip adding water if the mixture is too moist.

6. Heat up the oil for deep frying in a pan or kadhai. with a spoon or by your hands and drop the pakora batter into the fully heated oil.

7. When the pakora is starting to fry partly, turn around and fry it from the other side.

8. Fry till the pakora are crisp and golden in color.

9. Now remove the fried pakora and place them over a kitchen paper towel so that extra oil gets absorbed.

Fry the pakora into the batches this way. When done with keeping all of them aside on a plate.

Making kadhi recipe, We Believe in best spices to make our recipes, So Everest is the one that hits our shore.

1. In another pan or kadhai, heat 3 tbsp mustard oil. Make sure to use a large bottomed pot(which has a flat surface, not like the upward parabola) so that while cooking, the kadhi does not spills out.

2. Add 2 tsp cumin seeds, 9 to 11 fenugreek seeds/methi seeds, and a sweet pinch of asafoetida (hing)/ not too much, just a little. Allow the cumin seeds to dance into the pan and the fenugreek seeds as well till the change in their color visible. Fry on a low-medium flame, so that these spices do not get burnt as well, be very cautious about it.

3. Add a quarter cup of chopped onion. Stir and saute it up for 4 minutes on a low-medium flame.

4. Then add 2 tbsp chopped ginger, 1 tbsp chopped garlic, and 3 green chilies, chopped. Stir and sauté for a minute.

5. Now add 9 to 11 curry leaves, 3 dry red chilies (halved or broken).

6. Stir and sauté for a minute on a low-medium flame.

7. Then add the curd slurry/gravy we made according to the above instructions.

8. Stir very well.

9. Increase the flame to medium-high and bring the kadhi to a boil comes. Keep on stirring often so that our Punjabi Kadhi doesn't get burned at the bottom. Time taken to cook kadhi will be around 15 to 17 minutes.

10. After the kadhi comes to a boil, then lower down the flame and simmer it for again 7 to 8 minutes. Do stir at frequent times. The kadhi will automatically thicken up. If it becomes too thick, then add some hot water into it.

Making kadhi pakora

12. Now add the onion pakora which we have already made to our Punjabi Kadhi. Stir gently.

13. Cover it with a lid and let the onion pakora be soaked in it for around 9 to 11 minutes.

14. Lastly, sprinkle some garam masala powder over the top of Punjabi Kadhi.

15. Garnish it with coriander leaves & serve Punjabi Kadhi Pakora hot with any of maybe it's steamed rice or jeera rice, topped with teaspoonfuls of ghee.We can also serve it with roti or paratha as well.

However, the combination of Kadhi Chawal is amazing and very popular which tastes very good as well.

Tips by Cook with Budgett

Curd (yogurt): Use fully fatty sour curd or sour yogurt made out of whole milk. If the curd is not sour, then our Punjabi Kadhi will not be sour and it will result in losing up of its charm. To make the curd sour, you can add 1 teaspoon amchur powder (dry mango powder) or a bit of lemon juice into it.

Fats: Use mustard oil if it's possible to fry the onion pakora. Mustard oil leaves out a pungent sharp taste and adds irresistible flavor to the kadhi. If you do not have mustard oil, then use a neutral oil like if we say it's sunflower oil.

Baking Pakora instead of frying: You could also bake the onion pakora instead of deep-frying it.

Make sure the oven is preheated at 180 degrees Celsius before baking the onion pakora and bake it until the pakora is crisp and golden in color. For baking, pakora adds 2 to 3 tablespoons of oil into the batter and does not make the batter very moist but keeps it a bit wet and watery.

Curry leaves: Don’t skip the curry leaves part, as you will feel something is the missing vibe from your Punjabi Kadhi Pakora Recipe.

Besan: Use good quality gram flour (besan).Like TATA Sampann which we used in making.

Hope you would have liked the recipe comment down below and let us know and don't forget to subscribe to us. Join our Instagram handle @cookwithbudgett. Learn more as we have our Grocery Store as well where you can purchase.

[notbecauseofvictories]

Hi Sarah! You seem to be quite enthusiastic and well informed about cooking, and I was wondering if you had any tips for students at uni? I feel it's so difficult to keep a healthy diet and cook for yourself on a low budget. Do you have any good recipes you could share? Or ideas? Thank you so much if you are able to answer, no worries if you don't feel like it.

This is...kind of a difficult question to answer, given that I approach cooking as a decadent, pleasurable thing, rather than something functional. (Some people shop online when they want to splurge. I make 48 coconut macaroons hand-shaped and dipped in chocolate, and a parmesan-garlic cream sauce to drizzle over my steamed brussel sprouts.) If all I need to do is consume calories, I’m much more likely to cut corners---seriously, store-bought sauces, simmer pastes, and salad dressings are a godsend---or buy something convenient. I could probably survive on deli sandwiches, if I really put my mind to it.

However, I do want to suggest a couple tips I think are helpful:

1) Know what you like, know what you need.

What it says, because food is always a balancing act between getting the kinds of nutrients your physical, calorie-consuming body needs and the sugar/salt/fats you want. Personally, I will eat literally anything if there’s bread or cheese or both involved. (This is not a joke---I have eaten a lot of creamed spinach and deli sandwiches.) However, having discussed my diet with healthcare professionals, I know what I need is proteins and vitamin d. So when I’m preparing my schedule for the week, I force myself to think about both: what will I eat, what should I eat, what can I make that satisfies the difference? And then, what’s my timing? (i.e., do I need to stay late at work? do I have other plans that night?) 

Like everything with my life, I review it vaguely sometime Monday and plan out my week. Though I do know enough about myself to build in some flexibility, because sometimes a bitch is walking home desperate for a burger, and shouldn’t have to apologize.

2) Google with abandon.

I do not have any private store of family recipes. My mother was a functional cook, and my grandmothers were either of the “hors d'oeuvres and martinis” generation or the “jello(tm) with colorful sprinkles is an actual dessert” generation. (The difference there, by the way, is class. But that’s a whole other tumblr post.) The point is that at the end of the day, there’s no secret treasure trove of recipes for me to delve into.

Which means I google everything. Every recipe I post here, every time I have spare ingredients I’m looking to get rid of. “Unsweetened chocolate recipes” is one of my latest searches, because I accidentally bought 4 oz of it instead of semi-sweet and don’t know what to do. (I’ll probably end up make brownies.) I have also googled in the last few months:

Reduced milk recipe

Quinoa recipe

Bean recipe

Dark corn syrup recipe

Pie crust recipe 

Apple pie recipe

Scallion pancake recipe

The point is, just because you don’t know what to do shouldn’t keep you from making good food! Personally, I love Epicurious, and always check their suggestions first, but the internet is wide and deep and full of people who will suggest cooking times, oven temperature, and spices you can add to stuff to make it taste good. Don’t be afraid to scroll through 4 different recipes on different domains, even if it’s the same dish; or to add “simple” to you search terms. You have more cookery knowledge at your clumsy fingertips than anyone before us ever has---use it.

3) Store it, freeze it, stick it in a tupperware.

As someone who’s now been cooking for herself for at least 5 years, I am here to tell you that there’s no “cooking for one.” Cooking for one is a lie. What you do is cook for 3-4 people, and then freeze or refrigerate the leftovers. So it’s important to consider how well your various ingredients freeze and how you’ll reheat them when the time comes.

Meat and seafood freeze well when you get them from the grocery store! Unfortunately, if you cook something or marinate it, and leave it to sit in the fridge, it will get very tough or break down entirely. (This is especially true if you use a particularly acidic marinade.) Unless you get them already frozen, fruits and vegetables do not freeze well at all—water expands as it freezes, and your fresh fruit & veg are so watery that the ice completely ruins the cellulose structure and defrosting will make them mushy. If you have leftover cooked vegetables, those should be used in scrambled eggs or eaten with a sauce within the week. Cream-based soups and sauces freeze pretty nicely, you just have to be careful not to leave them long enough to get freezer burn. Freezing bread arrests the yeast and mold processes, so if you’re looking to keep your loaf from turning, stick it in the freezer in an airtight bag.

(I haven’t had a microwave in two years, so most of what I make is the kind of stuff I can reheat on the stove—or eat cold!)

Also, most food isn’t ruined by temperature---you can leave a lot of stuff out on the counter after cooking without fear of bacteria. However, too much exposure to the air will ruin just about any dish: creams curdle, meat toughens, vegetables soften, starches harden. If you’re going to store something at room temperature, stick it in a ziploc bag, plastic wrap, or aluminum foil quickly, and it’ll last longer even without the refrigerator.

4) Occasionally, try something new.

Obviously, as a uni student you should try lots of new things---but as a uni student cooking for yourself, I encourage you to occasionally experiment. Make bread, if you’ve never made bread before; try a desert if you’ve been focused on single-serving chicken breasts. Once every few months, try cooking or baking something you’ve absolutely never tried. (For hard mode, pick something completely out of the ballpark---for example, a couple months ago I tried to make a meringue and failed miserably. But I think I understand why I failed and that’s made me a better cook in the interim.)

It is, of course, very important that we eat in a way that serves our body and its needs. But at the same time, making food has always struck me as serving more than just need---we make food to show our love and appreciation for others (isn’t feeding an act of service?), to articulate desires we can’t verbalize, to satisfy unreasonable cravings, to demonstrate capability, to prove our worthiness, to offer something that isn’t-sex-but-is, etc. etc. etc. Food is very rarely ever just food. Which means that sometimes, we should sequester ourselves in the kitchen and see if we can make that....thing from the Great British Bakeoff.

As a footnote, I hope my coworkers enjoy haphazardly baked alaska.

[nutraboxindia]

How to choose whey protein for muscle gain?

Navigating the vast world of training supplements is not an easy task when looking for whey protein. The choice of supplements and whey protein for routine, training, or sports depends on various factors, including budget, goals, taste, mixability, safety, ingredients, certification, nutrition, and critical nutrients.

There are so many protein products available in the market to choose from. It’s easy to rupture in the bemusing world of sports nutrition, especially when finding the best whey protein powder is best. However, if you are doing solid training, plunging to a meticulous diet plan, and viewing your macros, then make sure that your go-to whey protein builds muscle faster and more proficiently.

What are whey protein powders put in use.?

Protein powder is a speedy way to nourish and satisfy your body. People use them for so many reasons to reduce weight, improve athletic performance, gain muscle mass, and general well-being. Whey protein is one of the most widely used proteins and is ideal for everyday use. Also, it contains all the significant amino acids and is simply digestible.

Whey is a rich source of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs). Ain ss. It’s the highest quality protein for vegetarians. Still, it’s a good supplement for non-vegetarians who can’t meet their daily protein needs. Moreover, it also helps muscle recovery and is one of the best proteins for lean body mass.

Moreover, it helps in increasing energy and reducing stress. Whey is most often used after a workout as it separates and is Centralized.

How to Choose Whey Protein Powder for Muscle Growth ?

It’s essential to understand what you’re purchasing because you can’t just purchase anything with your hard-earned cash. And most importantly, what do you need to look for when buying whey protein powder online.?

However, if you’re not sure what you’re investing in, then what’s the use of scrutinizing through the digital path of your sports retailers. As per the research, whey protein, when combined with regular resistance training, helps users control lean mass, increasing overall body strength. Here in this article, everything is given which you need to know when purchasing whey protein powder online.

Whey Proteins

Milk consists of two proteins, Whey and casein. Here, Whey is in the watery part of the milk. Whey protein is a blend of proteins separated from Whey and is regarded as absolute protein. Moreover, it contains all nine significant amino acids.

We know that the body cannot bring out these amino acids alone. Therefore, a balanced diet (or supplement) is essential for building muscle. Whey protein is generally low in fat and carbohydrates (lactose) and helps minimize intestinal discomfort. Studies have even shown that it can play a decisive role in weight loss.

There are three types of Whey Protein that you need for muscle growth:

Whey Protein Concentrate

Whey Protein Concentrates contain more nutrients than any other species; because of their manufacturing process.

Whey Protein Isolate

Protein isolate is generally faster to digest than WPC or WPH and is essential for lactose intolerant individuals. Most of the fat and carbohydrate content has been taken out.

Whey Protein Hydrolysate

Some “hydro whey” is designed so that WPH breaks down proteins to make them more accessible for the body to absorb.

In addition to ethical considerations such as whether you prefer plants or animals, you should also consider food intolerance and hypersensitivity; when looking for whey protein powder.

Factor 1: Quality of the Protein

Factor 2: Plant-based VS Animal-based

Factor 3:Processing process & quality

Factor 4:Intolerances and Sensitivities

Here are a few points that you need to consider while deciding the best Whey protein powder:

Mixability

Plant-based protein powders tend to have a grainy or whitish texture. It means that it often tastes better when mixed with an electric mixer. Mixing with creamy liquids like plant-based milk or adding high-fat items like yoghurt or nut butter to the shake can also help smooth out protein powders like chalk. More highly treated powders, such as isolates and hydrolysates, are more likely to have a smoother texture.

Flavor

Most people are susceptible to the taste of artificial flavors and non-nutritive sweeteners. Therefore, if you’re the one should look for protein powders made with nutritious sweeteners and natural flavors. Unflavored protein powder is also suitable if you don’t like artificial flavors or like Whole Foods’ taste.

Flavor protein powder also works with many of the non-shake options. Therefore, you should get a sample pack of protein powder before committing to a large pack. Large supplement companies generally offer these samples. You might need to try several different flavors and brands before finding the suitable protein powder for you.

So, if the powder you want to try isn’t available in a single-serving package, you may be able to get a sample at your local supplement store if you ask.

Ingredients to avoid

Some protein powders have refined sugar, artificial sweeteners, colors, fats, oils, etc. Therefore, it is best to steer clear of such ingredients.

Protein Content

The serving proportions of every protein powder are not the same, and the amount of protein per gram is not the same. Therefore, it is good to read and research these points or details.

Your Requirements

The important thing is to find out what your requirements are. As we know that everybody’s needs are different; therefore, you should select protein powder as per your requirement. Protein powder intake differs from person to person, so you should consult a nutritionist first before deciding on anything or any protein powder.

How much whey protein powder do you need.?

Your age, goals, and weight are several factors that determine the amount of whey protein powder needed to build muscle.

Not sure how much is enough?

You’ll get a complete protein guide that will help you out on our website. You’ll get to know which whey protein you should choose for building your muscle. However, it is worth noting that most of the protein intake and major nutrients generally need to be taken from the diet. For example, natural foods contain more nutrients, fiber and minerals and are easier to digest.

To find the proper details of the whey protein powder online visit our website Nutrabox. Here you can get information about whey protein powder and all others. Every data is there, like protein per gram, cost, etc.

Source:[medium.com]

[liu-lang]

I made palak paneer (amongst other things, post w/ tiny kitty coming up !) yesterday ! I thought I’d share some photos documenting the process as I find it actually lends itself to a wonderfully flavoured final product. And I have my own method of cooking it. By no means am I a cooking expert. I cook from memory of my childhood, things close to my heart tt make me feel at home. The measurements I’m using are for food for a week for my boyfriend to share w/ his Dad too. I save some for myself as well throughout the week.  It makes quite a large batch by my standards. I also like things spicy so feel free to omit any of the chili I include.

A few more additionally things to address. I prefer to use whole spices when I can. Growing up, your family blended their own spices and rempah then stored it for later use in various dishes. This allowed you to control the flavour you wanted and you could create any blend you wanted. And families developed their own recipes and blends to pass down and share. But I know spices are expensive. To simplify the list of ingredients and reduce the steps, you can use pre-made garam masala spice blend. Essentially you can boil the ingredients down to : spinach, onion / tomato paste, yoghurt, garam masala and paneer. 

Also I have the privilege of time, transport and the existence of Asian grocery stores to get these ingredients. Food is a lot cheaper there but also a lot of it comes w/o packaging and is not pre-prepared. So it does take time, effort and energy to prepare the ingredients even before cooking them. I cook once a week on weekends. I go to the grocery store on Saturday morning and spend pretty much the whole Saturday afternoon cooking. The cooking involves cleaning in between esp. if I’m using the food processor for multiple things. Then there’s the final kitchen clean up. If you guys have any questions or suggestions, feel free to reach out !

Ingredients for palak puree (spinach puree)

4 bunches of spinach

1 bunch of coriander 

1 bunch of mint

6 bird’s eye chili (you can de-seed if you want to reduce spiciness - I just split it down the middle then I use scissors to snip them into tiny bits straight into the food processor)

Half a garlic bulb (more to taste if you’d like)

2 cm of ginger (I peel the ginger then slice on the thinnest setting on my mandolin then I roughly chop the slices)

Water and ice for the ice bath

Ingredients for the onion / tomato paste

2 to 3 chopped tomatoes (I used roma tomatoes bc they’re cheaper @ the store, any tomatoes would do, you can even use tin tomatoes if tt’s easier for you. Make sure to drain excess liquid from tinned tomatoes. If using fresh tomatoes and you want to ensure the paste is not too watery, you can omit the seeds and more mushy chunks)

1 small to medium onion (I quartered them then sliced the quarters w/ my mandolin then chopped the slices, white or yellow onion is fine)

Ghee or oil or butter to fry tomatoes and onion

150 ml of tomato sauce or paste from a tin

2 tablespoons sambal pedas (this is more spicy stuff so omit if you’d prefer. you can use from a bottle or prepare from scratch which is another recipe for another time. I always had some prepared from scratch growing up from my mum’s side of the family)

1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate 

More garlic cloves sliced thinly if you’d like

1 or 2 bay leaves

½ teaspoon of cumin powder

½ teaspoon fenugreek powder

¼ teaspoon of tumeric powder

¼ teaspoon galangal powder

¼ teaspoon cardamom 

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

1 to 2 teaspoons of chili powder (I used lal mirch but don’t worry if it’s not available to you)

1 tablespoon caraway seeds 

1 teaspoon black pepper 

50 ml water or broth (you can add more if you’d like to thin it out more)

Ingredients for yoghurt

64 g of whole milk, full fat yoghurt (greek yoghurt is good and seems to be the most accessible. I like to use goat milk yoghurt. not a yoghurt but you can use dahi too)

60 grams cashews (dry roasted or raw)

Zest from 1 lemon

1 tablespoon honey

Some heavy cream if you’d like to thin it out more

Ingredients for paneer

450 g of paneer (cubed)

Ghee or oil or butter to fry paneer in

Paper towel and plate to soak up excess oil

Method

Spinach puree

Rinse the spinach, coriander, mint. Chop off the stems from the bottom. Roughly chop the leaves so they fit in the pot better

Fill up your pot about ½ way w/ water. Bring to a boil, add a pinch of salt if you’d like. 

Add the leaves in stages if you don’t have a big enough pot. The leaves cook down and become smaller. I did everything in 2 batches. Add more water if necessary.

 Cover w/ lid and periodically check on it and smoosh it down more to make space for more leaves. Boil for 3 to 5 minutes or until blanched (not too soggy but not raw either)

Strain the leaves and immediately add them to the ice bath you prepared in a big enough bowl. Let them chill out for a few minutes. A mixing bowl works well. The ice water helps them keep their bright green colour. 

Drain the leaves and put them in a food processor or blender with the chili, garlic and ginger. Process until smooth and well blended. Make sure to scrape the sides. If it’s not blending well enough, add some water but not too much or the end product could be runnier than intended. 

Onion tomato paste

Dry fry the bay leaf and all the spices. Then take the spices and grind them together into a fine powder. (My roommate has a mini coffee grinder thing she uses for whole coffee beans. It works well for spices, just be sure not to put too much in at once which could jam the blades and affect how finely ground your spice mix will be)

In the same pan, heat oil or ghee or butter and fry the chopped tomatoes and sliced onions. Add in the sliced garlic.

Once everything is softened and you see tiny bubbles popping up and the fat is separating (as in the above picture) add the ground spice mix. 

Dump the tomatoes / onion / spices into the food processor. Don’t forget to take out the bay leaf. Add the sambal and tamarind. Add the water / broth to the consistency you’d prefer. Blend everything together. 

Yoghurt

Soak the cashews in small bowl of hot water until soft (usually 30 minutes is good)

Spoon yoghurt into food processor. Add lemon zest, honey and cashews

Blend until the cashews are in tiny bits. Add heavy cream to thin out and blend again. 

Paneer (if you want it to be healthier or you’re scared of oil, you can skip the frying. just cube the paneer to the size you’d like and continue to “putting everything together”. when you buy paneer I think it’s ready to use)

Cube the paneer (some places do big chunks but I like smaller cubes)

Heat the ghee or butter or oil to fry the paneer until lightly browned or golden brown (I love a super crispy exterior and a soft, chewy interior) You can put a lid on the paneer and reduce the heat to let it fry w/o splattering hot oil everywhere. Make sure to move the paneer cubes around so tt one side doesn’t become too burnt. But don’t move them so much tt they don’t brown

Once it’s fried to your preferences, the paneer will be super hot so carefully remove it onto a plate w/ a paper towel. (I used a slotted spoon thing to scoop them out in batches. You can also dump it into a strainer but hot oil is scary)

Putting everything together 

In a big enough pan start by adding spinach puree. Push it around until it’s heated up

Then add in the tomato / onion paste. Cook together for about 5 to 7 minutes on low to medium heat.

Lower the heat and add the cashew yoghurt mixture (you don’t want it to be too hot, risking the dairy curdling, also add in small amounts, don’t dump the whole thing in. I think I did it in 2 steps here). Depending how much yoghurt you’re adding, the colour will change. 

Slowly stir until fully blended on low heat

Add in the paneer cubes

Stir together a final time and enjoy !

[agoodflyting]

Cleanup in Aisle Five - Kylux, housewife!au

Another bit of housewife!AU. I’m still deciding if I want to post this on AO3 as-is or continue it, so I’ll leave it here in the meantime.

2100 words / light M / kylux modern AU

Hux always feels like a prey animal at the grocery store.

He pauses in picking through a colorful display of starfruit and papayas to do a casual scan of the produce section. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Richard Attenborough is narrating.

The male uses his superior height to evade detection by the females of the species while foraging.

Adding a couple of mangoes to the hand basket at his elbow, he snorts quietly to himself.

It wasn’t that he was antisocial. He generally liked being around people, especially when he could be in charge of group activities. But something seemed to happen to women his age who had moved to a rich suburb and produced the obligatory 2.5 children. It came with the territory, like one of those awful minivans with the televisions in them, or an affinity for kale smoothies. They would corner him with effusively friendly offers; invitations to play tennis, to join book club, to go shopping -  help me pick out a swim suit, you always have such good taste- or to come over for girls night.

We’re going to watch Magic Mike, Susan’s bringing the wine so we might get a little crazy, and I’m making these cute little fat free chocolate rice balls I saw on pinterest-

Meanwhile, Hux couldn’t escape the feeling that he was being hunted and bagged and mounted for display- the rare and elusive gay best friend to complete the appearance of the picture-perfect life for some aging California housewife.

That was better than the alternative, of course- that they were just being friendly because he was one of them. The thought makes him feel cold in a way that has nothing to do with the chilly air in the produce section.

Hux suddenly wishes that he could text Ben. Just a little hello. He was running errands with his mother today, but even just a little hi back had the power to make him smile, despite the fact that Ben couldn’t spell for shit and he put those stupid emoji things in everything.

Much as he wants it, Hux isn’t a complete idiot. His iPhone is in his husband’s name, it would be far too easy for Devon to have those records pulled if he ever found out about Ben. Phone records were easier to brush off so long as they weren’t excessive, but any contact he has with Ben through text needed to be strictly professional.

He completes his circuit of the grocery store, grabbing coconut milk and whole-grain cereal for himself, and grinding coffee for Devon. Bread and yogurt. Multivitamins and that fancy pineapple juice they both liked. Devon’s flight was supposed to come in at 7:45 that night, so he supposes he’ll need to make something for a proper dinner, although after staring blankly at a wall of organic dried pasta for several minutes without seeing it, he finally just decides fuck it, they can order Chinese.

When he heads for the checkout, he passes a little display of cheap pre-paid phones. The kind you activate by calling an 800-number and pay by the minute. He’s used them before, doing security.

He’s in line at the register, his mind half-blank, when the sound of his first name startles him out of his sulk.

“Hello, Armitage.”

“Senator Organa,” he says, turning. “How are you?”

“Good, mainly because I haven’t been a senator for three years. Unless there was an election no one told me about.”

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “There was, actually. Last week. You didn’t hear?”

“I must have missed it. Well, damn,” she says lightly. “I guess I have to go get my hair done.”

Hux has always respected his neighbor for her sharp wit and brash attitude, even if they found themselves frequently, vocally, at odds during her stint as head of the homeowner’s association. More than once, Hux had considered staging a coup.

“How’s Devon?” Leia asks, as she reaches past him to begin unloading her hand-basket onto the conveyor belt. “I haven’t seen him around lately.”

Another reason he liked Leia Organa. She was the only woman in their neighborhood who had never once patted him on the arm and giggled about what a ‘waste’ of a good man he was.

“In and out of Chicago supervising some corporate merger business. I haven’t been kept in the loop on the details,” he says, trying for uncaring and only barely missing.

She huffs a laugh. “That sounds familiar. It’s the secret of a long marriage, you know,” she adds.

“What, ignorance?”

“No. ...well, okay, that seems to work for some people, but not our type.”

There is something flattering in being lumped as the same ‘type’ as a woman like Leia Organa, but he cannot quite encapsulate what. Still, it makes him smile.

“I meant travel,” she continues easily as Hux moves up in line. “It’s much easier to miss some people than to live with them. The only reason my marriage has survived as long as it has is because we’re only in the same state two months out of the year. We’ve learned how to leave right when the other one is getting irritating.”

“And when is that?”

“About ten minutes after he opens his mouth, in my case,” she says, but there’s a fondness in her voice that belies the words.

“A whole ten minutes?”

“Used to be five. I’m getting soft on him.”

Having gotten him to laugh, she gives a satisfied pat to Hux’s elbow, the one still holding the grocery basket. “There. There’s your motherly advice for the day.”

“Thank you, I’ll keep it in mind. It’s not often I get good advice, motherly or otherwise.”

He moves up to the front of the line and waits with muted impatience, his card already in the pin reader and waiting for cashier authorization while the boy scans.

“Mom-” Hux turns.

“There you are, I was starting to think you’d gotten lost,” Leia says.

“They only had the twenty-four packs, so I just got two. Is that okay?” Ben edges his way around the  people who have lined up being Leia. He’s easily holding two large cases of artisanal bottled water stacked on top of each in his long arms. “Sorry, excuse me-” The plastic containers creak in his grip.

“That’s fine, thank you baby. Watch out, don’t hit anybody-”

“Hello, Ben,” Hux says, looking at the chip machine and focusing on punching in his pin to keep the unseemly smile off his face.

The last time he’d seen Ben had been yesterday evening. Lying beside Hux’s pool had turned to skinny-dipping once the sun had gone down. His hands remember the feel of Ben’s bare skin under the water, the delicious heat of his cock pressing eagerly up between Hux’s thighs. Kisses that tasted like chlorine. Stroking each other off under the water.

When it got late, Hux hadn’t wanted to let him go. Had dragged him down on the couch as he tried to leave through the front door and blown him again, swallowing down Ben’s cock and his needy little whimpers like he was starving for them.

“Oh, hey, uh- mister Hux.” From the sound of it, Ben’s doing his best not to smile too.

And just like that, the tension that had knotted in Hux’s chest evaporates.

He steps out of the way with his shopping bag, hovering at the end of the lane while Ben hefts up the water to be scanned, the muscles in his arms and back moving easily under the fabric of his black t-shirt. Leia had forced him into clean, nice-fitting jeans and a knotted belt that Hux can just see peeking up under the shirt when Hux’s eyes are pulled down the sharp line of his body. When he lifts the water, Hux catches a flash of one angular hipbone where his jeans ride low even with the belt.

“Do you want a hand, Ben?” he asks, his tone innocent. He waits until the tips of Ben’s ears flush pink before he adds, nodding, “With the water.”

“I’m- it’s good, I’ve got it,” Ben stammers, shifting the weight. Hux is reminded suddenly of those broad hands under his thighs, lifting him up, and-

Christ, he’s got to get a hold of himself. He’s in fucking public.

Ben casts shy, appreciative little glances at Hux out of the corner of his eye while Leia pays, whenever he thinks she can’t see him. In the watery sunlight through the front windows of the shop, his eyes are a warm honeyed brown.

“So, uh- grocery shopping?” Ben says. Hux can almost see the moment he realizes what a silly line that was.

“Just a few essentials. I’ve been preoccupied lately, haven’t gotten to the store as much as usual.”

“Yeah? That’s not like you.” They are both trying not to smile. “What are you so preoccupied with?”

If they were alone, Hux would lean in close and say, your cock just to watch the way Ben stammered and blushed. It’s all he wants to do. But they’re not alone, they’re in the middle of fucking Whole Foods and Ben’s mother is five feet away, so he blurts out, “Work,” instead, and has enough time to feel stupid- this boy is actually making him stupid- before he can cover his embarrassment.

“It’s very nice of you, helping your poor mother around like this.”

“I can’t tell if that’s a crack about my height or my age,” Leia interrupts, raising an eyebrow as she joins them. putting away her pocketbook.

“I would never,” Hux insists, the picture of innocence, glad to have something to focus on besides how Ben is standing beside him and Hux can feel the warmth of Ben’s bare arm through his own sleeve. “Insult your height or your age. What kind of man do you think I am?”

“Just my intelligence, then? And I thought you were the kind who calls me an ‘aesthetically bankrupt bleeding-heart hypocrite’ because I approved the Becketts satellite dish?”

He follows them outside, blinking in the afternoon sun.

“That was friendly professional rivalry, nothing more.”

“Professional rivalry implies you’re on the homeowners board. You’re not.”

Hux shuts his mouth, bested.  

“Aand I think that’s mom: one, Hux: zero,” Ben smirks as they approach Leia’s sensible black sedan in the parking lot. Hux shoots him a look that plainly says, traitor.

“Oh, it’s a lot more than one, honey,” Leia pats Ben on the arm.

“The thing’s still a damn eyesore,” he calls after Leia, with no real venom, when she climbs in the driver’s seat, leaving Ben to wrestle their groceries into the trunk.

“You’re still not on the board.” she calls back before shutting the door.

“You shut up,” Hux says to Ben, who had started to snicker.

“What? It’s funny.”

“My complete assassination by your mother isn’t funny.”

“Yeah it is.” He’s smiling, leaning one hip on the trunk of the car, and Hux has the worst urge to kiss it off the corner of his mouth. “You guys both like to argue way too much. It’s funny.”

“I don’t like to argue.”

“See? That’s- you’re doing it right now.”

“Am not,” Hux says, just to make him duck his head and laugh. 

He swallows and looks away, sun-blinded by Ben’s smile. “Come over later,” he murmurs, glancing to see if Leia is paying any attention to them, comforted that they are mostly blocked by the open trunk of the car.

It was only twelve-thirty. Devon’s flight wouldn’t be in until nearly eight.

He’s never been an addict. His father drank, his mother smoked, but nothing has ever stuck to him that way. The lack of something has never made him desperate, not unless it was recognition and even that was more out of spite than desire. But every time he tells himself it’s going to his last with Ben, something in him scrabbles, frantic to eke out just a little more.

Ben swallows. “I can’t.” His eyes are on Hux’s neck, his shoulders. He sighs, a loud frustrated rush of air, “My parents are- they have shit for me to do all day. I have to clean out the stupid garage.”

Something uncomfortably like disappointment blossoms in Hux’s chest. He hates it even more because every inch of him knows that what he’s asking is stupid and pathetic- neither terms he’s ever wanted to associate with himself. “That’s alright.”

And because he is spiteful in his disappointment, he pitches his voice to a low murmur and adds, “I’ll just have to keep myself busy.”

The barb hits home. Ben bits his lip, clearly picturing Hux panting into the pillow as he fucks himself with his largest toy, Ben’s name on his lip, which of course had been Hux’s intention.

“Hux...”

The car horn honks and they both jump, suddenly aware that they’re lingering.

“I gotta go,” Ben, unhappiness in every word, and it’s almost enough to take the sting off of Hux’s disappointment. He shuts the trunk.

Hidden by the bulk of the car, Ben runs his hand- just the backs of two fingers, over Hux’s arm. The touch is like sunlight, soft and a little warm on his skin. Ben tangles their fingers together briefly as their hands part. “See you later though, okay? Tomorrow?”

He doesn’t move, unwilling to budge until Hux responds and for the first time, Hux hates this. Leia hits the horn again.

“Yes, alright, alright. Bye. Go away, before your mother runs me over.”

And that is all it takes to put a warm grin on Ben’s face. “Bye, Hux.”

He forces himself to move, not the stand there and watch Ben fold his long body up into Leia’s little car and drive away. The sun is beating down on the back of his neck. He still has his little bag of groceries in one hand- had held it like an idiot all through that desperate little play. When he reaches his car- an SUV, more because he enjoyed the feeling of driving something big than because he needed the space- he tucks his solitary bag into the empty hatchback, wedging it into a corner so it won’t spill as he drives. He pauses, one hand on the hatch to close it, before going back and fishing something out of the bag.

The car starts with a quiet hum. It was less than a year old and still faintly smelled it.

It had been a Christmas present from Devon.

Hux sighs, sitting there in his silent car in the parking lot, but really he had made this decision ages ago. This was just... seeing it through.

Reaching over to the passenger seat, he grabs the pre-paid phone he had bought inside and begins to open it.

[healthspiritbody]

Why Full Fat Milk Is Better To Drink And The Reason Why The 'Skinny Stuff' Makes You Fat

When I was a child almost everyone drank full-fat fat milk. Then, in the 1970s, we were warned saturated fats found in dairy would block our arteries and make us fat.

Britons are drinking third less milk than they were 30 years ago, and consumption rates continue to fall

Concerned about our health, many made the switch to foul-tasting skimmed milk or gave up cow’s milk altogether. I included.

As a result, Britons are drinking third less milk than they were 30 years ago, and consumption rates continue to fall. A recent survey found a third of people under 35 are now considering cutting back on dairy, citing a health or moral reasons. Instead, they opt for plant-based alternatives such as soya, almond or coconut ‘milk’.

My 18-year-old daughter Kate is one of them. Cow’s milk makes her uncomfortable and bloated, so in a bid to reduce her symptoms, she made the switch to almond milk.

Kate’s problem is surprisingly common. About 60 percent of the global population lacks the enzyme lactase that helps us digest the sugars in cow’s milk, called lactose. For these people, guzzling milk can lead to unpleasant symptoms such as stomach irritation, gas and bloating. However, the vast majority have minor symptoms and even those with severe lactose intolerance can usually tolerate a tiny splash in their tea.

But for some people, even the odd builder’s tea can cause crippling stomach cramps, not to mention the embarrassing wind. So I understand why the alternative milk market is booming. But I also have concerns.

If you are thinking of switching away from dairy, for health reasons, then there are a few things to know, because unless you really understand what it is you are doing, switching from dairy could actually be bad for your bones, heart, and brain. And, rather ironically, opting for skinny versions could even make you fatter. After weighing up the evidence, I’ve recently switched to the full-fat variety again – and after reading this you may want to do the same.

Almond milk won’t protect your brain

Cow’s milk contains lots of essential nutrients that nut or oat milk don’t; high levels of protein and Vitamin B12, for instance.

Everyone knows dairy is an excellent, natural source of calcium, essential for healthy bones, but not many are aware of another, equally important nutrient, called iodine. One small glass of cow’s milk (full-fat, semi-skimmed or skimmed) contains almost 70 percent of our recommended daily intake of iodine – essential for brain development in babies and regulating mood and metabolism in adults.

Studies have shown ‘milk’ derived from plants contains just two percent of the amount found in cow’s milk. You can also get your iodine ‘fix’ from eating seaweed and it’s abundant in shellfish and other white fish. But cow’s milk remains by far the main source of iodine in the average British diet.

One small glass of cow’s milk contains 70 percent of our recommended daily intake of iodine, whereas plant-based ‘milk’ contains only two percent of the vital ingredient

Given the fact that we are one of the most iodine-deficient countries in the world, many of us need every scrap we can get.

Sadly, young women tend to have the lowest levels – and this is the same demographic most likely to shun animal foods in favor of plant-based alternatives. A 2011 study of British teenage girls found nearly 70 percent had iodine levels well below the acceptable minimum. Iodine is needed to make thyroxine, a hormone released by the thyroid gland that controls how effective your body is at converting food into energy, also known as metabolic rate.

Persistently low levels of iodine lead to depletion of this hormone and the slowing down of vital bodily functions, including burning energy. It is what is known as a ‘hypothyroid’ state, which leads to weight gain and mood swings. More worryingly, iodine deficiency in a pregnant woman can impact the brain of her fetus – a 20-year study of 14,000 pregnant and post-pregnant women discovered that if an expectant mother was mild to moderately iodine-deficient, this had a significant effect on her child’s reading ability and IQ scores.

Another study, looking at almost 50,000 babies, found both maternal and new-born iodine intake to have a significant impact on the child’s neurodevelopment at three years of age. Low levels of the mineral were associated with delayed language development, behavioral problems, and reduced motor skills in children. This happens because a lack of thyroid hormones dramatically halts the brain development of the fetus.

The extra fat can curb your hunger pangs

I witched from full-fat milk to skimmed in the 1980s, amid fears that saturated fat could impact my heart health and my waistline. The trouble was, I found skimmed milk (which is about 0.3 percent fat) so watery I couldn’t stomach it, so chose semi-skimmed (1.6 percent fat) instead. This green-top milk remained my go-to for many years until last year. I returned to blue-top after reading a number of recent studies which showed the sorts of saturated fat you find in milk and dairy seems to be protective rather than harmful.

One of the reasons we’ve been told to go for low-fat options, like skimmed milk, is because consuming saturated fats raises the level in the blood of LDL, often thought of as ‘bad cholesterol’. High levels of LDL are associated with a greater chance of heart disease.

It was also assumed that because skimmed milk has less than two-thirds of the number of calories, per glass, of full-fat milk, it would be less fattening.

But we now know it is more complicated than that.

The saturated fat in milk does indeed boost LDL but it also boosts levels of ‘good cholesterol’ known as HDL, and this appears to balance out the damage done by higher LDL.

HDL picks up excess cholesterol in the blood and takes it back to your liver, where it’s broken down and removed from the body.

To many people’s great surprise (including me), there have been a large number of recent studies demonstrating that full-fat milk drinkers not only tend to be slimmer than those on lower-fat varieties but also have a lower risk of metabolic syndrome – or raised blood pressure, elevated blood sugars and raised levels of fats in the blood that can increase your risk of heart disease.

A recent study of 1,600 healthy middle-aged Swedish men found those who ate butter and drank full-fat milk were half as likely, over the 11-year study period, to become obese than those who went for skimmed milk and low-fat spreads.

And a study of 18,438 American women found those eating the highest amount of full-fat dairy were the least likely to gain a lot of weight over 11 years.

The likely explanation, according to studies, is that consuming high-fat dairy products keeps you fuller for longer, reducing the lure of sugary snacks.

So why not just go one step up to semi-skimmed? Well, you certainly could but it has lower levels of some essential fatty acids, like omega-3, which is linked to slowing cognitive decline and reducing anxiety and depression.

Full-fat milk may have three times the fat content but it also contains 90 times the amount of omega-3 fats as found in skimmed milk, and about twice as much as semi-skimmed, not to mention that the fat-removal process rids the finished product of a host of vitamins, such as Vitamin A and Vitamin D. Some of these vitamins are added back in afterward, but by no means all.

I like the flavor of full-fat milk and those extra few grams of fat curb my hunger pangs.

I believe my brain, bones, heart – and taste buds – will thank me for it.

If you know someone who might like this, please click “Share”!

Why Full Fat Milk Is Better To Drink And The Reason Why The ‘Skinny Stuff’ Makes You Fat was originally published on Health Spirit Body

[24hourchampagnediet-blog1]

How to Drink Alcohol on Keto

New Post has been published on https://bestrawfoodrecipes.com/how-to-drink-alcohol-on-keto/

How to Drink Alcohol on Keto

How do you know someone is on a ketogenic diet? Because they won’t quit talking about it. Especially if they’re shit-faced. Welcome to KetoDrunk, a Reddit community that currently counts over 28,000 members. Its motto: “Getting hammered while getting thin.” In this strange niche of the internet, the strictest dieters of us all try to thwart their silly, self-imposed regimens in the pursuit of a decent drink. KetoDrunk is the place where their truly hilarious hacks for low-carb mixology are tried, tested, and championed.

“I think most people drink in general, and some people find it hard to give up that last indulgence, as they have already given up so many hedonistic pleasures from their unhealthier lifestyles before,” says Daniel Wiseman, the group’s founder. He started KetoDrunk in 2013, just as the nearly century-old, high fat, very-low-carb diet was again becoming trendy. These new adopters of keto were questioning what they were actually allowed to imbibe, and Wiseman hoped to help them.

“You decided you want washboard abs and SWEET GAINS but also want to get crunk,” he wrote in his welcome message to the group. “Are these goals mutually exclusive?”

If you know anything about keto, you know followers are supposed to eschew carbs. If you know anything about alcohol, you’ve probably noticed it’s completely packed with carbs—malty beers, fruity wines, and all those $15 cocktails loaded with juices and syrups and sometimes straight scoops of granulated sugar. As Wiseman explains, however, it’s pretty simple for him to drink while sticking to his diet, assuming you understand the lingo: “A ketogenic diet is one that puts you into a state of ketosis, and most people find that alcohol does not inhibit ketone production,” he says. (In plain English: So long as he doesn’t drink any carbs that would kick him out of the metabolic state of ketosis, he’s cool.)

Kahlúa won’t work for a keto-friendly White Russian. But sugar-free coffee syrup will.

Esquire

Wiseman drinks straight whiskey, which he prefers neat, favoring brands like Booker’s and Four Roses Single Barrel. Even though whiskey is made from grains, once you distill a spirit it becomes 100-percent carb-free. Any unflavored spirit (gin, vodka, tequila, etc.) works for KetoDrunk, though be careful of rum, a poorly regulated category notorious for being secretly dosed with sugar. As with any diet, cognitive dissonance is also helpful.

“I believe the reason [Captain Morgan] has a sweet taste to it is because of the hydrocarbons released during the barrel aging,” said one commenter who really wanted to drink the spiced rum in peace.

For most people, pounding tequila shots is not an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday night. That’s why Wiseman also maintains a lengthy line of bitters bottles at home, allowing him to splash some of the carb-free ingredient into his whiskey to manipulate flavor, something he also does with MiO, a water enhancer offered in flavors like berry pomegranate and mango peach. Not that he usually needs it.

“[M]any people will find that their taste buds become more sensitive to the sweetness naturally found in alcohols and the addition of any sweet component is unnecessary,” he wrote on the subreddit.

“Some people find it hard to give up that last indulgence, as they have already given up so many hedonistic pleasures from their unhealthier lifestyles before.”

Other KetoDrunk practitioners are more adventurous, often looking for acceptable analogs to iconic cocktails. The biggest problem for keto mixology is that most of these necessitate a sweetener like simple syrup. Unfortunately, simple syrup—a 1-to-1 blend of sugar and water—has around 28 grams of carbs per ounce, which is more than most keto dieters aim to consume in an entire day.

“My coworkers and I are probably going out to drinks later in the week at a really fancy, upscale cocktail place downtown,” one commenter fretted. “Would it be super weird to order those cocktails that include sugar…without sugar? I can bring along some of my own Stevia too if I find I need it.”

The group is always looking for sugar-free cocktail sweeteners, utilizing ones you’ve heard of like Stevia and Splenda, and ones you probably haven’t, like allulose, erythritol, and something called Swerve to make their own faux simple syrups. (These can have a thin mouthfeel, so some followers add egg whites for extra body—which gives you protein to boot!) There are some store-brand options like NuNaturals and Simply Simple Sugar Free Simple Syrup, but you really have to read the labels; though they may be listed as “sugar-free,” Wiseman warns that some have “carbohydrate-laden ingredients such as maltodextrin,” and that’s no good.

While certain cocktails like, say, the Manhattan are nearly impossible to make keto-friendly—there’s no good substitute for sweet vermouth—others are a cinch. Easy highballs like G&Ts and Moscow Mules are popular; just use diet tonic or ginger beer, natch. So are Whiskey Sours and Margaritas, so long as you make them with sugar-free triple sec. Since calories from fat are actually desirable on a ketogenic diet, you can have a “Keto Colada” made with coconut vodka, heavy whipping cream, and pineapple seltzer. Even better, a 1,000-calorie Mudslide made with vodka, Ketologie chocolate shake mix, erythritol, almond milk, and heavy cream. “Jesus. That’s ridiculous,” as one commenter said.

Grenadine is packed with carbs, but you can make an alternative with Diet Ocean Spray.

Esquire

The White Russian seems to be the unofficial cocktail of KetoDrunk, with members constantly attempting their take on The Dude’s favorite drink—it’s quite easy to make delicious. A typical go might use sugar-free coffee syrup, nut milk, heavy cream, and vodka. (The verdict: “fuckin great!”) An advanced attempt opts for a butter- and chocolate chip-infused vodka shaken with heavy cream and homemade coffee liqueur, with pink Himalayan salt on the rim for added electrolytes. Despite all that effort to get loaded, one unimpressed Reddit commenter could only reply: “Help me understand if I’m wrong, but [a chocolate chip] uses soy lecithin and I thought that isn’t good for keto.”

Yes, a constant trope on KetoDrunk is that even when you’re buzzed and feeling good, you can still be a pedant—as big a hallmark of following this diet as subbing in a side salad instead of french fries. KetoDrunk is likewise surely the only drinking forum on the internet that has deep arguments about things like “gluconeogenesis” and “autophagy.” (Don’t ask.)

The group has even spawned its own cocktail book: Ke-Tiki: The Keto & Low-Carb Guide to Tiki Drinks by Jason Gawron, an Atlanta-area man and formerly overweight tiki enthusiast. Tiki drinks are notoriously some of the most keto-unfriendly cocktails around, laden with sugars, syrups, and fruit juices—as in, “the majority of ingredients found in the tiki drinks I had come to love,” Gawron writes in the book’s intro. Remarkably, he figured out how to make keto-kind versions of everything from the Mai Tai to the Fog Cutter to the typically sugar-packed Zombie, for which he swaps in crystalized citrus powder instead of lime juice and makes a grenadine using Diet Ocean Spray Cran-Pomegranate juice.

No, ke-tiki cocktails don’t taste as good as legit tiki. “But the way I see it, close enough is better than no tiki at all,” Gowran tells me.

Of course, when you’re attempting KetoDrunk, you will have to go without some things you used to love. Many in the group lament the lack of a truly tasty low-carb beer, forced to drink the watery Michelob Ultra. Many instead opt for low-carb alcoholic seltzer or Nude (essentially a vodka soda) when they desire a canned crusher.

“The way I see it, close enough is better than no tiki at all.”

But you can honestly drink anything on KetoDrunk, so long as your body remains in ketosis. Ketosis means that, due to a lack of carb-created glucose, your body instead burns stored fat, which creates an elevated level of acids in your system called ketones. Gawron monitors his ketone levels by bringing testing strips out to the bar, which he urinates on to make sure what he’s drinking hasn’t “knocked him out” of ketosis. Some KetoDrunk enthusiasts don’t find the strips reliable enough, however (and yeah, you might not want to be peeing toward your hand while buzzed). Wiseman simply pricks his blood in the morning to see if enough ketones are present. “Anyone completely altering their metabolism and still consuming alcohol needs to be aware that things change,” he says.

So, exactly how drunk do people get on KetoDrunk? There seem to be two vastly divergent camps. You would expect that, lacking a solid base of bread in the belly, many keto drinkers would immediately become lightweights—“zero to absolutely trashed,” as one commenter said. And some do.

Beer is often high in carbs, so some opt for spiked seltzer to get KetoDrunk.

Esquire

“The other pattern is that people will achieve a sort of plateau of inebriation where two drinks and seven drinks feel the exact same, but that eighth drink just lays them down like a sucker punch,” says Wiseman. He theorizes that the neuroprotective effects of deep ketosis, which studies have found to reduce seizures in children and Alzheimer’s in old people, may also “work” for preventing the feeling of drunkenness. This theory is unproven. Gawron, for his part, finds he can often drink all night long and never get loaded.

Some keto dieters find drinking is no longer fun at all.

“When I drink on carbs, the music sounds 1000 [times] better,” lamented one KetoDrunk commenter, with another describing the feeling of being drunk on keto as “less euphoric and more intoxicated.” A third said, “Basically it just makes me sleepy.”

If only sleepiness were the most pressing issue. There are some bigger health concerns to contend with as well. Bad breath is one, as ketosis causes acetone production; you might want to bring sugar-free mints on your Tinder date. Rashes are likely, too. Bloating is also possible, a common side effect of overconsumption of natural sweeteners. But dehydration is the biggest concern, as people on keto store less water than someone eating SAD (their somewhat derisive acronym for the “Standard American Diet”). Plus, alcohol is a diuretic, which causes many people to flush all the electrolytes from their body after a night of hard boozing. This often manifests itself in severe leg and foot cramping.

“I woke up this morning yelling out of pain and my roommate ran in the room to check on me,” complained a rare woman in the group; a sympathetic commenter revealed that cramps kept hitting him during post-bar coitus.

That’s why many KetoDrunk practitioners have started to chug pickle juice once they get home for the night. Others start electrolyte-loading while drinking, using pickle juice as their mixer—Tito’s vodka and pickle juice on ice is particularly popular. Stranger, perhaps, is the pickle juice Daiquiri, a mix of brine, lime juice, and rum, which you can garnish with a bread-and-butter slice when you’re feeling snazzy. (Pickle juice has not been conclusively proven to be an effective source of electrolytes.)

Wiseman appeases his drunchies with butter on cheese. We cannot recommend this.

Esquire

If you have the willpower to be KetoDrunk, there’s still the concern about what to eat for KetoDrunk food. Pizza and nachos are obviously off the table. Pork rinds and unsauced chicken wings are a great option, as are bunless burgers and crustless pizza, where browned mozzarella acts as the bottom layer.

“If I’ve had a few drinks on a fasted stomach, you may find me spreading butter on a slice of cheddar cheese,” Wiseman tells me.

Even KetoDrunk’s most monk-like followers know the other shoe is all but guaranteed to drop the next day, no matter what they ate or drank the night before. No, not in the form of weight gain, but as one of the apparently legendary hangovers you can only get while on keto, which some practitioners say last up to three days. “The headaches are like nothing else I’ve experienced,” said one dieter on the forum, while another said they frequently found themselves “wishing for the sweet release of death to put me out of my misery.”

One KetoDrunk enthusiast offered yet another hack, this one to get around the hangovers: “I usually just drink 1-2 Nuun caplets dissolved in some water throughout the night. And a ton of blow,” this commenter wrote. “Usually wake up feeling like a billion bucks.”

Aaron Goldfarb Aaron Goldfarb lives in Brooklyn and is a novelist and the author of ‘Hacking Whiskey.’

Source link Keto Diet Effects

[fuckyeahtattoogirls-blog1]

How to Drink Alcohol on Keto

New Post has been published on https://bestrawfoodrecipes.com/how-to-drink-alcohol-on-keto/

How to Drink Alcohol on Keto

How do you know someone is on a ketogenic diet? Because they won’t quit talking about it. Especially if they’re shit-faced. Welcome to KetoDrunk, a Reddit community that currently counts over 28,000 members. Its motto: “Getting hammered while getting thin.” In this strange niche of the internet, the strictest dieters of us all try to thwart their silly, self-imposed regimens in the pursuit of a decent drink. KetoDrunk is the place where their truly hilarious hacks for low-carb mixology are tried, tested, and championed.

“I think most people drink in general, and some people find it hard to give up that last indulgence, as they have already given up so many hedonistic pleasures from their unhealthier lifestyles before,” says Daniel Wiseman, the group’s founder. He started KetoDrunk in 2013, just as the nearly century-old, high fat, very-low-carb diet was again becoming trendy. These new adopters of keto were questioning what they were actually allowed to imbibe, and Wiseman hoped to help them.

“You decided you want washboard abs and SWEET GAINS but also want to get crunk,” he wrote in his welcome message to the group. “Are these goals mutually exclusive?”

If you know anything about keto, you know followers are supposed to eschew carbs. If you know anything about alcohol, you’ve probably noticed it’s completely packed with carbs—malty beers, fruity wines, and all those $15 cocktails loaded with juices and syrups and sometimes straight scoops of granulated sugar. As Wiseman explains, however, it’s pretty simple for him to drink while sticking to his diet, assuming you understand the lingo: “A ketogenic diet is one that puts you into a state of ketosis, and most people find that alcohol does not inhibit ketone production,” he says. (In plain English: So long as he doesn’t drink any carbs that would kick him out of the metabolic state of ketosis, he’s cool.)

Kahlúa won’t work for a keto-friendly White Russian. But sugar-free coffee syrup will.

Esquire

Wiseman drinks straight whiskey, which he prefers neat, favoring brands like Booker’s and Four Roses Single Barrel. Even though whiskey is made from grains, once you distill a spirit it becomes 100-percent carb-free. Any unflavored spirit (gin, vodka, tequila, etc.) works for KetoDrunk, though be careful of rum, a poorly regulated category notorious for being secretly dosed with sugar. As with any diet, cognitive dissonance is also helpful.

“I believe the reason [Captain Morgan] has a sweet taste to it is because of the hydrocarbons released during the barrel aging,” said one commenter who really wanted to drink the spiced rum in peace.

For most people, pounding tequila shots is not an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday night. That’s why Wiseman also maintains a lengthy line of bitters bottles at home, allowing him to splash some of the carb-free ingredient into his whiskey to manipulate flavor, something he also does with MiO, a water enhancer offered in flavors like berry pomegranate and mango peach. Not that he usually needs it.

“[M]any people will find that their taste buds become more sensitive to the sweetness naturally found in alcohols and the addition of any sweet component is unnecessary,” he wrote on the subreddit.

“Some people find it hard to give up that last indulgence, as they have already given up so many hedonistic pleasures from their unhealthier lifestyles before.”

Other KetoDrunk practitioners are more adventurous, often looking for acceptable analogs to iconic cocktails. The biggest problem for keto mixology is that most of these necessitate a sweetener like simple syrup. Unfortunately, simple syrup—a 1-to-1 blend of sugar and water—has around 28 grams of carbs per ounce, which is more than most keto dieters aim to consume in an entire day.

“My coworkers and I are probably going out to drinks later in the week at a really fancy, upscale cocktail place downtown,” one commenter fretted. “Would it be super weird to order those cocktails that include sugar…without sugar? I can bring along some of my own Stevia too if I find I need it.”

The group is always looking for sugar-free cocktail sweeteners, utilizing ones you’ve heard of like Stevia and Splenda, and ones you probably haven’t, like allulose, erythritol, and something called Swerve to make their own faux simple syrups. (These can have a thin mouthfeel, so some followers add egg whites for extra body—which gives you protein to boot!) There are some store-brand options like NuNaturals and Simply Simple Sugar Free Simple Syrup, but you really have to read the labels; though they may be listed as “sugar-free,” Wiseman warns that some have “carbohydrate-laden ingredients such as maltodextrin,” and that’s no good.

While certain cocktails like, say, the Manhattan are nearly impossible to make keto-friendly—there’s no good substitute for sweet vermouth—others are a cinch. Easy highballs like G&Ts and Moscow Mules are popular; just use diet tonic or ginger beer, natch. So are Whiskey Sours and Margaritas, so long as you make them with sugar-free triple sec. Since calories from fat are actually desirable on a ketogenic diet, you can have a “Keto Colada” made with coconut vodka, heavy whipping cream, and pineapple seltzer. Even better, a 1,000-calorie Mudslide made with vodka, Ketologie chocolate shake mix, erythritol, almond milk, and heavy cream. “Jesus. That’s ridiculous,” as one commenter said.

Grenadine is packed with carbs, but you can make an alternative with Diet Ocean Spray.

Esquire

The White Russian seems to be the unofficial cocktail of KetoDrunk, with members constantly attempting their take on The Dude’s favorite drink—it’s quite easy to make delicious. A typical go might use sugar-free coffee syrup, nut milk, heavy cream, and vodka. (The verdict: “fuckin great!”) An advanced attempt opts for a butter- and chocolate chip-infused vodka shaken with heavy cream and homemade coffee liqueur, with pink Himalayan salt on the rim for added electrolytes. Despite all that effort to get loaded, one unimpressed Reddit commenter could only reply: “Help me understand if I’m wrong, but [a chocolate chip] uses soy lecithin and I thought that isn’t good for keto.”

Yes, a constant trope on KetoDrunk is that even when you’re buzzed and feeling good, you can still be a pedant—as big a hallmark of following this diet as subbing in a side salad instead of french fries. KetoDrunk is likewise surely the only drinking forum on the internet that has deep arguments about things like “gluconeogenesis” and “autophagy.” (Don’t ask.)

The group has even spawned its own cocktail book: Ke-Tiki: The Keto & Low-Carb Guide to Tiki Drinks by Jason Gawron, an Atlanta-area man and formerly overweight tiki enthusiast. Tiki drinks are notoriously some of the most keto-unfriendly cocktails around, laden with sugars, syrups, and fruit juices—as in, “the majority of ingredients found in the tiki drinks I had come to love,” Gawron writes in the book’s intro. Remarkably, he figured out how to make keto-kind versions of everything from the Mai Tai to the Fog Cutter to the typically sugar-packed Zombie, for which he swaps in crystalized citrus powder instead of lime juice and makes a grenadine using Diet Ocean Spray Cran-Pomegranate juice.

No, ke-tiki cocktails don’t taste as good as legit tiki. “But the way I see it, close enough is better than no tiki at all,” Gowran tells me.

Of course, when you’re attempting KetoDrunk, you will have to go without some things you used to love. Many in the group lament the lack of a truly tasty low-carb beer, forced to drink the watery Michelob Ultra. Many instead opt for low-carb alcoholic seltzer or Nude (essentially a vodka soda) when they desire a canned crusher.

“The way I see it, close enough is better than no tiki at all.”

But you can honestly drink anything on KetoDrunk, so long as your body remains in ketosis. Ketosis means that, due to a lack of carb-created glucose, your body instead burns stored fat, which creates an elevated level of acids in your system called ketones. Gawron monitors his ketone levels by bringing testing strips out to the bar, which he urinates on to make sure what he’s drinking hasn’t “knocked him out” of ketosis. Some KetoDrunk enthusiasts don’t find the strips reliable enough, however (and yeah, you might not want to be peeing toward your hand while buzzed). Wiseman simply pricks his blood in the morning to see if enough ketones are present. “Anyone completely altering their metabolism and still consuming alcohol needs to be aware that things change,” he says.

So, exactly how drunk do people get on KetoDrunk? There seem to be two vastly divergent camps. You would expect that, lacking a solid base of bread in the belly, many keto drinkers would immediately become lightweights—“zero to absolutely trashed,” as one commenter said. And some do.

Beer is often high in carbs, so some opt for spiked seltzer to get KetoDrunk.

Esquire

“The other pattern is that people will achieve a sort of plateau of inebriation where two drinks and seven drinks feel the exact same, but that eighth drink just lays them down like a sucker punch,” says Wiseman. He theorizes that the neuroprotective effects of deep ketosis, which studies have found to reduce seizures in children and Alzheimer’s in old people, may also “work” for preventing the feeling of drunkenness. This theory is unproven. Gawron, for his part, finds he can often drink all night long and never get loaded.

Some keto dieters find drinking is no longer fun at all.

“When I drink on carbs, the music sounds 1000 [times] better,” lamented one KetoDrunk commenter, with another describing the feeling of being drunk on keto as “less euphoric and more intoxicated.” A third said, “Basically it just makes me sleepy.”

If only sleepiness were the most pressing issue. There are some bigger health concerns to contend with as well. Bad breath is one, as ketosis causes acetone production; you might want to bring sugar-free mints on your Tinder date. Rashes are likely, too. Bloating is also possible, a common side effect of overconsumption of natural sweeteners. But dehydration is the biggest concern, as people on keto store less water than someone eating SAD (their somewhat derisive acronym for the “Standard American Diet”). Plus, alcohol is a diuretic, which causes many people to flush all the electrolytes from their body after a night of hard boozing. This often manifests itself in severe leg and foot cramping.

“I woke up this morning yelling out of pain and my roommate ran in the room to check on me,” complained a rare woman in the group; a sympathetic commenter revealed that cramps kept hitting him during post-bar coitus.

That’s why many KetoDrunk practitioners have started to chug pickle juice once they get home for the night. Others start electrolyte-loading while drinking, using pickle juice as their mixer—Tito’s vodka and pickle juice on ice is particularly popular. Stranger, perhaps, is the pickle juice Daiquiri, a mix of brine, lime juice, and rum, which you can garnish with a bread-and-butter slice when you’re feeling snazzy. (Pickle juice has not been conclusively proven to be an effective source of electrolytes.)

Wiseman appeases his drunchies with butter on cheese. We cannot recommend this.

Esquire

If you have the willpower to be KetoDrunk, there’s still the concern about what to eat for KetoDrunk food. Pizza and nachos are obviously off the table. Pork rinds and unsauced chicken wings are a great option, as are bunless burgers and crustless pizza, where browned mozzarella acts as the bottom layer.

“If I’ve had a few drinks on a fasted stomach, you may find me spreading butter on a slice of cheddar cheese,” Wiseman tells me.

Even KetoDrunk’s most monk-like followers know the other shoe is all but guaranteed to drop the next day, no matter what they ate or drank the night before. No, not in the form of weight gain, but as one of the apparently legendary hangovers you can only get while on keto, which some practitioners say last up to three days. “The headaches are like nothing else I’ve experienced,” said one dieter on the forum, while another said they frequently found themselves “wishing for the sweet release of death to put me out of my misery.”

One KetoDrunk enthusiast offered yet another hack, this one to get around the hangovers: “I usually just drink 1-2 Nuun caplets dissolved in some water throughout the night. And a ton of blow,” this commenter wrote. “Usually wake up feeling like a billion bucks.”

Aaron Goldfarb Aaron Goldfarb lives in Brooklyn and is a novelist and the author of ‘Hacking Whiskey.’

Source link Keto Diet Effects

[drycoin14-blog]

10 minute gazpacho

If you’ve got summer veggies bursting out of the garden right now, then you are in the right place! Read on to find out how to turn garden-fresh tomatoes, herbs, cucumbers, peppers and more into a delicious bowl of gazpacho in just 10 minutes.

My older daughter is one of those true natural born foodies who starts thinking about her next meal while still eating the current one. She will often blurt out “what’s for dinner?” while we are still eating lunch. I try not to scold her, as I know she can’t help but being food obsessed. It’s in her nature. She has been that way since she was born. I have no idea how I survived on-demand-nursing that kid.

This time of year, August, puts me into her frame of mind. But it’s not so much for the simple pleasure of eating. It’s because I’m worried about getting in as much gorgeous garden-fresh produce into every meal as possible, and it all needs to be planned out and strategized or there will be wasted bites. Or cucumbers left to grow out of control in the garden.

If you go out into my garden right now, there are three tomato plants (one of which is actually taller than me), a sweet pepper plant, two cucumbers and three zucchini. It gives me a bit of anxiety as we speak just thinking that there may be a hidden zucchini under those giant leaves that I haven’t caught in time before it grows to Volkswagen Beetle size.

I can’t believe I am actually saying this, but I am glad the center raised vegetable bed was taken over by rampant purslane, and I had to rip out all the seedlings before they actually got going. It would have been just too much of a good thing! Sort of.

One of the “necessity is the mother of invention” recipes I turn to at this time of year is good old fashioned pureed gazpacho. I can use up a lot of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers all at once. I add in onion and garlic (of course) and some flavor boosters, jalapeno, basil, cilantro and a splash of vinegar to brighten it up.

I use fresh bread in my gazpacho. I favor using sourdough because it is neutral tasting (not wheaty) and it has natural tanginess to it that pairs well with the tomatoes and vegetables. The bread gives the gazpacho body and makes the texture less watery. You can also use foccacia or Italian bread if you like.

I like to add in olive oil as well. This is traditional, and I can really taste the difference. It adds richness and helps to give it a better mouth feel too.

Then since it only takes about 7 minutes to make the gazpacho (since all you have to do is peel and quarter the veggies) I like to spend a tiny amount of extra time to doll it up with some garnishes. Like a swirl of mascarpone (thin it with milk so you can drizzle it) or creme fraiche. Even full-fat yogurt is nice. Other toppings that serve as a contrasting addition are microgreens, chopped herbs and toasted nuts or seeds (try hemp seeds!)

MORE RECIPES YOU’LL LOVE WITH AUGUST PRODUCE

Rainbow Panzanella it’s made with Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, Basil and Onions (vegan)

Simple Heirloom Tomato Salad with Anchovies

Green Beans with Basil Vinaigrette (vegan and gluten-free)

Low Carb Grilled Stuffed Summer Squash (vegetarian and gluten-free)

No-Cook Zucchini Noodles with Pesto (vegetarian and gluten-free)

ALSO READ MY PRODUCE GUIDES

The Ultimate Guide to Tomatoes

The Ultimate Guide to Cucumbers

Thanks so much for reading! Happy Cooking! ~Katie

This 10 Minute Gazpacho recipe will help use some of your tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers from the garden. Customize it how you like with fresh basil or cilantro. Add a kick with jalapeño pepper. And make it a bit fancy with garnishes like sliced cherry tomatoes, microgreens and mascarpone cheese.

Ingredients

2 large ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into quarters (about 1 ½ pound)

1 cucumber, cut into quarters

1 red or green bell pepper, cored and cut into large chunks

½ red onion, peeled, cored and cut into quarters

½ to 1 clove garlic, to taste, chopped

1 cup water

2 slices sourdough bread

½ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

additional flavor boosters: 1 small handful basil or cilantro leaves, 1 jalapeno chili, stemmed.

Optional garnishes: greek yogurt, crème fraiche or mascarpone. Microgreens, chopped cilantro or basil. Sliced cherry tomatoes and diced avocado. Toasted seeds or nuts.

Instructions

1. Set up work area with chopped vegetables, blender and a large bowl or pitcher for the final product.

2. Add about half of the ingredients (1 tomato, ½ cucumber, ½ bell pepper, ½ of the onion, garlic, ½ cup water, 1 slice sourdough, ¼ cup oil, 1 tablespoon vinegar, ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper) to the blender. If using additional flavor boosters add half of them to the blender. Pulse until the mixture liquefies, then run the motor continuously until desired smoothness. Transfer the gazpacho to the bowl or pitcher.

3. Repeat with the remaining ingredients and process to desired smoothness. Thoroughly mix the two batches together in the pitcher to ensure even distribution of the flavors. Chill if desired.

4. Divide among 4 bowls and top with optional garnishes.

https://www.healthyseasonalrecipes.com/10-minute-gazpacho/

Katie Webster | HealthySeasonalRecipes.com

struggling with weeknight meals?

My free ebook, The Best Weeknight Dinners, includes 15 of my family’s favorites — recipes and meals we go back to over and over again. It includes simple entrees you can make start to finish in 20 to 40 minutes. And all are made with simple to follow instructions and easy to find ingredients.

Thanks for signing up! Just check your inbox to confirm your subscription, and then look for a welcome letter from me, including a link to download your free ebook. Every week you’ll receive ideas and inspiration on how to incorporate more fabulous healthy seasonal recipes into your life!

Source: https://www.healthyseasonalrecipes.com/10-minute-gazpacho/

[shannrussell-blog1]

So, you’ve decided to finally bite the bullet and start training and planning for a huge multi-day hike. Whether it’s Larapinta, Bibbulman, or the Overland track – one thing you need to start thinking about is the kind of food you’ll need to fuel your body for the entire journey.

How much weight should I allow for food each day?

You should allow for approximately 700g – 1kg on average of food per day, depending on how much you know your body will need. It’s also a good idea to bring extra food in case you need it – an extra meal plus snacks should do the trick, just in case you have to spend an extra night on the trail.

Where can I get lightweight hiking food?

Meal prep for hiking is as easy as jumping in the car and heading down to your local shops, so you won’t need to stray far to get mostly everything you need. You can buy all your condiments, snacks, breakfast, lunch and dinners from the supermarket, and then for more specialised items like freeze dried meals – head to your favourite online camping or hiking store.

Here’s what approximately a day’s worth of food might look like. 

How should I pack my meals?

The best way to go about it is to do a little bit of food prep and planning in the week or days leading up to your trip (the night before is not a good idea!). Remove all excess packaging that you don’t need to bring with you, as that will just weigh you down, and take up valuable space in your pack. Ziplock bags are perfect for hiking, as they form a tight seal that won’t leak, they’re super lightweight, and they’ll keep your meals fresh.

Pre-mix your meals e.g. put your muesli, powdered milk, and dried fruit together- and label each bag carefully with the day number, meal, and even what’s in it (you’d be surprised at how similar food can look in low light conditions) so you know exactly what it is, and when you’re going to eat it.

You can also separate your meals into different bags in your pack, as that might make it easier rather than sorting through lunch and dinners looking for your morning brekkie.

Ziplock bags are a lightweight, and easy way to pack your meals and keep them fresh.

Breakfast

Depending on your schedule you may want to cook something that involves the least amount of prep time as possible such as a muesli or power bar, or you might want to put something warm in your belly to start the day – especially on a chilly morning!

Instant oatmeal with some honey, fruit or nuts added is a solid choice that’s a good start to a long day of hiking. If you’re set on a cooked breakfast, you could bring instant pancake mix, so all you have to do is add water and shake and you’ll be on your way to a hot breakfast on the trail.

Don’t forget a cup of tea or coffee as well to get you going!

Food ideas for breakfast

Instant Oatmeal

Muesli

Cereals

Powdered milk

Pre-made pancake mix

Muesli, protein or

Protein and carbs are just what you need after a long day of trekking. 

Dinner

If you’re more of a gourmet eater, you might prefer preparing your own meals on the trail. If you pack staple carbs such as instant rice, pasta, couscous or noodles, and then add some protein, dried vegetables, and sauces or spices – you’ll have a pretty tasty meal that will provide you with the protein, carbohydrates and fats you need after a long day of exertion.

You do want to provide yourself with options, as the same meal 7 nights in a row will get pretty tiresome. When coming up with your hiking menu, also check how long it will take to cook certain foods as the longer the cook time – the more fuel you’ll have to bring.

For example, something like quinoa might not be the best food to take on a hike, as it takes around 15 minutes to cook – which isn’t the best use of your precious fuel.

Food ideas for hiking dinners

Fast cooking rice

Pasta

Couscous

Noodles

Tuna, salmon, or sardines in a packet (not a tin)

Jerky, salami, or other dried meat

Cheese such as gouda or cheddar

Lentils

Dried vegetables

Instant mash potato

Dinner can be as simple as adding a sauce to pasta, or you can get a little more creative. 

Freeze dried meals

If you know that you’ll be a complete zombie after an intensely long day of hiking, then you might want to consider bringing freeze dried pre-packaged meals.

Freeze dried meals are a great option as they’re lightweight, involve very little preparation, and come in an array of different options from

All you have to do is boil water, add it to the pack, let it stand for 10 minutes, and the meal is ready to eat. They do end up costing a little more than if you prepared it yourself, but for some, it’s well worth it for the convenience alone.

It can be difficult to guess how much water to add to your freeze dried foods, so a good tip is to take a drink bottle with measurements on the side, so you don’t go overboard and end up with watery food. If you’re eating straight from the packet, it’s also useful to take a longer spoon or fork to stir with – that way your hands won’t get grubby in the packet.

Serving wise, if you normally have a big appetite, then definitely go for a double size – you’ll be starving after hours of trekking and you don’t want to go to bed hungry. Freeze dried meals also come in 

Freeze dried meals are a convenient and lightweight menu choice that makes food planning a little easier. 

Dehydrate your own food

If you prefer for your ingredients to have as little preservatives and additives as possible, then dehydrating your own fruits and vegetables may be right up your alley.

Dehydrating food is cheaper than buying freeze dried meals and it’s a great option for when you want to add more texture and flavour to starchy meals, but it’ll involve a little more effort on your part.

Dehydrating reduces the volume and weight, but it requires a little extra water and time to rehydrate. Plus it has the tendency to be a little more on the chewy side once rehydrated – so that’s something to keep in mind.

Snacks

Regularly refuelling your body as you hike is very important to keep your energy levels up, and to also treat yourself when you take a break from the trek. It’s best to keep snacks in an accessible area, like the hip belt or side pockets of your pack so you don’t have to sort through your pack to find them.

Snacks to bring on the trail

Dried fruit, or fruit leather

Nuts and seeds

Chocolate

Nut butters

Muesli bars, protein bars,

Instant pudding

Powdered custard

Lollies

Grazing throughout the hike is important to make sure that you don’t deplete your energy levels. 

Condiments and spices

Whilst almost anything will taste great when you’re that tired after a long day, you’ll be patting yourself on the back later for bringing along various condiments and spices to make your evening meal as delicious as possible.

Bring along a selection of your favourites, so you don’t get too tired of the same basic meal each day. If you’re pre-packaging each meal into a ziplock bag, you can add it straight in, or carry it separately if you’d prefer to add to taste as you go.

Condiments and spices to pack

Curry powder

Tomato paste

Garlic and onion flakes

Capers

Olives

Sun-dried tomatoes

Parmesan cheese

Chili flakes

Jam

Honey, rice or malt syrup

Packet sauces

Powdered sauces

Hummus

Tahini

Sauces

Salt and pepper

Beverages

If you’re a serious caffeine fiend, then you’re probably rather attached to your coffee machine at home. If the thought of granulated coffee touching your lips sends involuntary shivers up your spine, then perhaps a lightweight espresso maker made just for hiking, may be worth an extra 200-300g in your pack.

Not everyone is fussed about taste, so if this is you – then just pack plenty of tea bags and granulated coffee for your early morning caffeine kick.

During the day, a smoothie or hydration drink is nice to break up the monotony of plain water now and again, and in the evenings a sachet of hot chocolate or Milo can go down a treat on a chilly evening before bed.

Beverages to take

Instant coffee

Powdered milk

Tea bags

Freeze dried or powdered smoothies

Hot chocolate sachets / Milo

Take along several different drinks to mix it up, as it’s important to stay motivated to drink fluids on the trail. 

Top 5 meal planning tips for multi-day hikes

Make sure you give some of the recipes you’re planning a test run before you go. This way you’ll know what meals you’re going to enjoy and get the most out of on the trail.

Variety is very important for longer trips. This helps to keep you motivated to fuel your body for the entire trek.

If you want to be super organised, use a spreadsheet to record your food (and gear). This way you can weigh and add up the total weight and also how much energy you’ll get per day.

If you’re a big eater, try to find ways to cut down on weight in other areas of your pack so that you can take more food with you.

Pack some food that doesn’t have to be cooked in your stove breaks or you run out of fuel.

Do you have any excellent tips for packing your food like a pro? Let us know in the comments below.

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