Does it count if?

Over the last 2 hours, I've been sitting at home waiting for my university's website maintenance to be over.. while occasionally going to the fridge. Right now, I am feeling like a balloon. What a coincidence that I just saw a the advert 'It doesn't count'. Or shall I saw the campaign. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was made for the protection of myself and thousands of other women who feel guilty after eating a mountain of chocolates or greasy, delicious cheese. It doesn't count if it's free, if it's organic, if it's a holiday, a sad or happy moment... It is a brilliant campaign. However, the only thing is that it was made by the right type of company to encourage eating freely over the right quantity. “Our first major social campaign provides us with a light-hearted mechanic to engage directly with young adult females, and gives us a chance to change their perception of KFC,” said Jennelle Tilling, UK and Ireland vice-president for marketing at the House that Colonel Sanders built.

Here is the video:


The last quote was taken from brandsinsm.com

Are we really that stupid?

Here are some silly instructions on packaging. It's quite interesting who comes up with that sort of explanation and who is likely to misuse the products in that way...

 

On a bag of Fritos:
You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside.

Printed on the bottom of Tesco Tiramisu dessert:
Do not turn upside down.

On Marks and Spencer Bread Pudding:
Product will be hot after heating.

On packaging for a Rowenta iron:
Do not iron clothes on body.

On Boot's Children's Cough Medicine:
Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this medication.

On most brands of Christmas lights:
For indoor or outdoor use only.

On an American Airlines packet of nuts:
Instructions: open packet, eat nuts.


On a child's Superman costume:

Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly.

On a take away coffee cup:

Caution: Hot beverages are hot.

On a Harry Potter wizards broom:

This broom does not actually fly.

On a muffin packet:

Remove wrapper, open mouth, insert muffin, eat.

On a bottle of hair dye:

Do not use as Ice Cream topping.

On a box of fireworks:

Do not put in mouth.

On a toaster:

Do not use underwater.

Is it really for people's safety, for attracting attention, fear of being taken to court, or simply for making you buy something...? :)

Source: http://www.doheth.co.uk/funny/doomed

10 cheap healthy foods vs 10 ridiculosly expensive foods!

The cheap and overall healthy foods:

1. Bananas - about $0.33 each


2. Beans  ($0.75/15oz can)


3. Canned tomatoes ($1.67/28oz can)


4. Carrots ($0.66 per pound)

5. Frozen spinach ($1.00/10oz bag)

6. Lentils ($0.79/1lb bag)

7. Oatmeal ($3.69/42oz canister)

8. Peanut butter ($2.39/18oz jar

 

9. Peas ($3.00/2lb bag)

10. Sweet potatoes ($0.50 per potato)

Here is the list of hilariously expensive foods!

 1  Matsutake Mushrooms – $1000pound because of its rarity

2. The World’s Most Expensive Bagel – $1000 topped with white truffle cream cheese and goji berry infused Riesling jelly with golden leaves.

3. The Zillion Dollar Frittata – $1000
It consists of a mixture of eggs, lobster and 10 ounces of sevruga caviar (which costs the restaurant $65 per ounce).


4. Wagyu Steak – $2800
Kobe beef comes from cows that are allegedly fed only beer and massaged by hand to ensure a tenderness and marbling beyond compare



5. Samundari Khazana, the World’s Most Expensive Curry – $3200 To celebrate the DVD release of Slumdog Millionaire, Bombay Brassiere packed this curry platter full of the most expensive ingredients they could find. Devon crab and white truffle and a half tomato filled with Beluga caviar and dressed with gold leaf are just the start of this lavish dish

6. Domenico Crolla’s “Pizza Royale 007″ – $4200


The 12 inch pizza pie is densely packed with an assortment of some of the world’s most expensive food ingredients, such as lobster marinated in cognac, caviar soaked in champagne, sunblush tomato sauce, Scottish smoked salmon, venison medallions, prosciutto, and vintage balsamic vinegar. In addition to all these fine ingredients, it’s topped with a significant amount of edible 24-carat gold flakes.



7. Dansuke Watermelon – $6,100
In a country where watermelons are rare game, they can be a costly commodity. That’s how a 17-pound Japanese watermelon became the most expensive watermelon in the world. Densuke watermelons, a type of black watermelon grown only on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, are usually given as gifts due to their extraordinary rarity. There were only sixty-five of the fruits among the first harvest this season. They are harder and crisper than the watermelons we Americans are used to and, according to Tohma Agricultural Cooperative’s spokesman, they “have a different level of sweetness.”


8. Yubari Melons – $22,872
Another type of expensive melon, the world’s most expensive cantaloupes are a pair of Yubari melons and were the first auction of the 2008 season. They had previously been judged the best pair and were purchased by the owner of a nearby seafood lunchbox and souvenir business. It had some competition—100 melons grown by farmers from Yubari were also judged.

9. Almas Caviar – $25,000
Almas caviar comes from Iran making it extremely rare and extremely expensive - sol only in the Caviar House & Prunier in London England’s Picadilly that sells a kilo of the expensive Almas caviar in a 24-karat gold tin for £16,000, or about $25,000. Coincidentally, it is also where you can find the most expensive meal in Britain. The Caviar House also sells a £800 tin for those on a smaller budget.



10. Italian White Alba Truffle – $160,406
Expensive truffles are notoriously pricey because they are difficult to cultivate. This makes them a true delicacy which some have called the king of all fungi. The Associate Press reported that a real estate investor and his wife from Hong Kong have paid €125,000 ($160,406 USD) for a gigantic Italian White Alba truffle which is reportedly the world’s most expensive ever. The most expensive truffle weighs in 1.51 kilograms (3.3 lbs).

Sources: http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/10-cheapest-healthiest-foods-money-can.html
http://most-expensive.net/foods

Roasted Pumpkin

I've never realised how much I adore pumpkin 'till today!
Or squash, they are pretty much the same.


My favourite way of preparing both is just:
- put them into the oven
- bake for ~ 20 mins
- add a little bit cinnamon


Done!


So delicious, cheap, healthy and low-calorie. Try it, you won't regret it!

Potatoes Make Dark Circles Disappear?

 Do you have problems with dark circles around your eyes? You may find this interesting.

What?

I came across an appealing article. Instead of buying expensive make-up to cover the areas that you may wish to hide (e.g. concealers), it suggests that you try a home remedy. Cheap, easy and hopefully, effective.

How?

What you need is a grater, a cheese cloth and a potato (raw).

You need to grate the vegetable, put it in the clot, place it on the areas that you wish to lighten, lie down and wait for 20 minutes.

Why?

The reason why it should be effective is that scientist have found that the potatoes contain a chemical called catecholase which helps with the natural lightening of the skin. It is a major ingredient in many skin products.

What causes dark circles?

In short:

lack of sleep

inheritance

medicals

food allergy

lifestyle

sun

the skin around the eye is very tender, so it is easy for it to get wrinkles or dark circles.

I personally haven't tried it, but intend to do it asap. Student life is not easy, so tiredness needs to be covered.

 

 More info:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/85039-use-raw-potatoes-dark-circles/

http://www.targetwoman.com/articles/cause-dark-eye-circle.html

The Story of a Famous Dish

I find this picture incredibly cute. Can you guess what it is? Well, it's... sushi :)))

These 3 little 'fellows' are pieces of rice hugging chunks of fish.

So they inspired me do do some little research about one of my favourite meals.

It can be tracked to centuries ago (some sources say the 2nd, some say the 4th, some say the 7th century. But they all agree on is that all started when people in China needed to preserve their fish for longer (as they didn't have fridges) and put it into rice. Because of the natural fermenting processes the fish was successfully being preserved. So the Chinese threw away the rice and ate the fish. This became popular and spread around the country. It even reached Japan, but the citizens there made some alterations and added rice and salt to the fish. It was a very easy to made dish because of those 3 simple ingredients.

Little by little, it was modified and in the 1980s in the US, they started producing it the way we know it today :) Being successful not only because of its tastiness, but also because of its nutritional content - rich in protein, low in fat and being able to satiate your appetite. 

Harry Potter Pumkin Juice & Theme Park

Harry Potter has always been a huge mania of mine and therefore, as I've been widely experimenting with different recipes, I decided to finally try something that would remind me of the books/films. And of course, the most popular one - pompkin jouice!

Ingredients:

2 cups of pumpkin, chopped up into chunks

2 cups of apple juice

½ cup of pineapple juice

1 teaspoon of honey (more or less to your liking)

Method:

1.Juice the pumpkin pieces by squeezing through a cheesecloth or using a juicer if you have one.

2.Pour the pumpkin juice, apple juice and pineapple juice into a blender.

3.Add the honey (we recommend you start with 1 teaspoon, as you can add some later!) to the juices and blend thoroughly.

4.Chill your pumpkin juice or serve iced and enjoy!

from: http://www.mugglenet.com

I'd probably replace the apple and the pineapple juices with actual fruits, but I'm still waiting for my blender that I purchased from ebay to arrive. So I can't make the juice until then.

When I was searching for an image for this post, I noticed the label 'The Wizarding World of Harry Potter' and I thought: 'How cute is this? Someone produces this and has an own packaging?

The result that appeared when I searched for this wizarding world is this amazing website! http://www.universalorlando.com/harrypotter/ It is so interactive and amazing! And it turned out there is a Harry Potter theme park! Unfortunately, it is in Florida, far, far way from me, but I still think that the idea is phenomenal!

Just look at those pictures

 I'm speechless..

Frozen Blueberry Smothie

It looks delicious! I should try it :)

From: http://chelseaalysse.tumblr.com/

Recipe: Tropical breakfast smoothie

 Ingredients

• 3 passion fruits
• 1 banana , chopped
• 1 small mango , peeled, stoned and chopped
• 300ml orange juice
• ice cubes

 Scoop the pulp of the passion fruits into a blender and add the banana, mango and orange juice. Purée until smooth and drink immediately, topped with ice cubes.

I'd probably skip the ice and would not drink it ice-cold, but the combination sounds irresistible...

from http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2810/tropical-breakfast-smoothie

Waitrose

As a big fan of healthiness, good food and lifestyle and of course, business, I asked my self: 'Are the money spent on Waitrose's products really worth it?' Because in the UK, the supermarket chain is famous for its much higher prices, but is also claimed that the food is healthier. So I decided to check this.

According to an article called Waitrose's Green Light for Healthy Food Labels in Regional Business News, 2006, Waitrose has adopted 'the Government's controversial traffic light labelling scheme' which indicate how healthy a certain food is. I'm not familiar with today's situation, but in 2006 many firms refused to use that kind of labelling because that would 'demonise' certain foods.

Also, Waitrose's manager Mr Price says in many interviews that this is what they do - have more expensive food, but are keen on high quality. And he blames the Government of stimulating people buying from the cheap giants - ASDA and Tesco, which in his words, have cheaper and lower-quality food. He also puts that buying cheap food is one of the main reasons for people having health problems.

And there was another article informing that the chains will stop buying fish from 'unsustainable markets'.

I am not an expert, but I am likely to believe that the supermarket chain IS healthy in deed. I didn't manage to find any criticism in the net or in my uni's library reports and journals. So I'll just keep experimenting their foods and will look carefully at the labels. Hopefully, I'll gain some knowledge about the bad chemicals and will be happy recognising the lack of them.

Until that point, I've tried Waitrose's chick peas, lentils and wholemeal cous-cous and was quite satisfied. Ironically, these products are cheaper that ASDA's version.

10 reasons for eating/cooking healthy food...

... while you are at uni:

1. Your body and your mind function better.
Better skin, fewer dark spots, better sleep, more energy.


2. You are fitter.
No cellulite (depends on how much you are eating of course), slimmer, more likely to build up a nice body.


3. You can learn how to cook. 
And really enjoy it. Cooking = creativity, stress releasing, enjoying different colours also.


4. Cooking trains your discipline. 
You realise that if you eat your thoroughly prepared ingredients your meal won't become a reality.


5. This is a new hobby for you
Thinking of different ingredients, researching recipes, collecting them.


6. No one eats your food from the fridge.
Because they think it's a tasteless rubbish. But you know that's not true.


7. Every day you enjoy a diverse and delicious dish.
Of your choice.


8. Saving money
You may thin that fast food saves you some money, but if you count the number of sandwiches and pizzas needed to satisfy your appetite, it would actually be much more expensive.


9. Time management.
In order to have cooked food waiting for you every day, you need to manage the time when you have to buy the ingredients, to have enough in stock and to have about 2-3 hours per week to cook it (if you cook bigger portions/several dishes at the same time).


10 Other students secretly envy you.
Because they wish they could replace the frozen precooked meals with a real food.


Image from: http://nakedphilly.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Screen-shot-2011-02-28-at-1.33.05-PM-560x350.png