Posts filed under ‘Food and Drink’
How to Chop Food Quickly, Safely and Easily
The difference between an amateur and a professional is their technique and practice.
In this case, it’s fairly easy to do it like a pro. You just need to know the right technique.
For a quick tutorial, watch this video from Chef Jacob (if you can’t watch the video, read below).
When you’re slicing, dicing and chopping vegetables, you’ll place one hand on the knife and use your other hand to hold the food and guide the knife. The knuckles on your guide hand will maintain constant contact with the side of the knife. You will curl your fingers under your knuckles to protect them from the cutting edge of the knife. Your thumb will oppose your knuckles and stabilize the food. You can see the correct hand position in the photo below:
For those of us who have never been to culinary school or worked in a restaurant, this is a tip that we can really benefit from.
Thanks to Chef Jacob of FreeCulinarySchool.com.
Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton
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Source and Photo: @ChefJacob
Stock Market Analysis Began with Rice in 18th Century Japan
The past few years have proven that the world economy lives and dies on the success of major financial markets around the world.
Traders use sophisticated software to analyze trends, make predictions and purchases. There is one legendary trader, who made billions of dollars analyzing market trends.
His name was Munehisa Homma and the only thing he traded was rice. His billions in earnings are in today’s dollars and he may have known more about market analysis in the 1700s than our smartest people do now.
He began trading rice in Osaka, where the rice market was very sophisticated, it even traded rice futures. Coupons were sold that promised the delivery of rice at a specific price in the future. Homma was believed to have created a personal network of 100 men located about 6km apart from each other to move market information between Osaka and Sakata.
He wrote the first book on market psychology in 1755, The fountain of Gold – The Three Monkey Record of Money. I have no idea what the title means, hopefully somebody is working on a movie adaptation and we can see it in 3D. Maybe it could be a prequel to 12 Monkeys?
Seriously though, Homma was a genius. He invented the candlestick chart, which is still used by traders today.
This handy chart combines four pieces of data into each plot point on a date axis. For example, you can look at a single day of trading of a specific stock and see the open and close price of the stock on that day (the candle body), along with a low and high range of prices at which it traded throughout the day (the candle wick). The candle body is solid when the open price is represented by the top line and the close price is the bottom line. It is hollow when it’s the opposite, indicating whether the price increased or decreased that day.
For a single date, this gives the reader a lot of information. But, it becomes a fountain of gold when you put multiple days together — that’s when patterns can be spotted. The great master could read the chart and predict how the market would behave in the future. Understanding these patterns is how he made his billions.
Charles Dow recognized the value of candlestick charts around 1900 and included them in his studies. You may have heard of him, he’s the guy who co-founded Dow Jones & Company, The Dow Jones Industrial Average and The Wall Street Journal.
He was obviously a brilliant man, but it was the research of Steve Nison in the early 1990s that popularized candlestick charts in North America. If you want to know more about these charts, you should look at his work.
Homma is still recognized as the greatest trader of all time. It is believed that he made more than $100 billion (today’s dollars). He once said, when all are bearish, there is cause for prices to rise.
Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton
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Sources: Trader’s Log, Candlestick Forum, Wikipedia (Candlestick, Charles Dow, Homma Muneshisa)
Images: Wikipedia (Candlestick Chart, Candlestick Definition)
Coupons You Get at Grocery Stores are Based on Your Purchases
In the United States it is very common for supermarkets to offer discounts to shoppers who present their loyalty card at the checkout. Price tags in the aisles often quote two prices, with and without the discount card.
The loyalty cards are usually provided by the retailer at no charge. However, they’re not free.
Although you don’t pay any money for these cards, you do handover your entire purchase history at that store. Your information is often used immediately at your time of purchase to determine which coupons should be printed out for your next visit.
Marketers frequently target consumers who buy their competitors products. For example, if you frequently buy Uncle Ben’s Rice, you may get a coupon from Rice-A-Roni. The manufacturer is trying to entice you to buy their brand the next time you shop.
Purchase history may also be used to determine the dollar value of the coupons you receive. For example, if you normally buy Dannon yogurt, then Yoplait may offer you $0.50 off your next Yoplait purchase. If you’re already a Yoplait customer, you may only get a $0.10 coupon or none at all.
Obviously, you don’t need a loyalty card for the store to recognize that you’re buying Uncle Ben’s today, but it is important if they want to know if you have bought that brand before or if you typically buy another brand.
When you sign up for a loyalty card, you often fill out a short survey of personal information, including your home address. They say they want your address so they can mail other offers to you, which they may. More importantly, your address allows them to understand a lot about you, including the average income of your neighborhood and even how much you paid for your house. In some cases, these programs are run by outside companies. Your address will help them combine your shopping information from multiple stores, assuming you always use the same name and address.
By comparing your personal information with information about other people’s shopping habits, average income and other demographic information, they can predict which products you’ll most likely try if they provide a coupon a for it.
Many stores will give you their loyalty card and let you use it right away, then they send you home with a survey to fill out and mail in to register for the card. I can tell you from experience that you can use your loyalty card for years without ever mailing the survey in. Although they’re collecting your shopping history, they don’t know much else about you.
There are also studies that show stores with loyalty cards don’t always have the best price, even when you use your frequent shopper card. In fact, one study even showed that sale prices went up after the introduction of a loyalty shopping card. It’s a good idea to keep track of the prices of a few items you commonly purchase to see if the regular price is better at other nearby stores.
I usually shop at a co-op, which does not use a loyalty card but has better prices than any other store around. They even have better prices than Target on items that they both carry, although that is one of the few places I cannot use my credit card to get cash back — they only accept cash or debit, one way they try to keep their costs down.
It’s not just grocery stores that provide you with sponsored coupons. I stopped at target yesterday to pick up some envelopes, on my way to the cash I spotted a new iced coffee drink. From other posts, you know I am addicted to coffee, so I couldn’t resist. At the register I was given a $7 off coupon for Crest Whitening strips. I doubt the envelopes triggered that.
Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton
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Sources: Seattle Press, No Cards, an Industry Insider
You Can’t Grow Hemp in the US But You Can Import It
Hemp is a plant with a long and interesting history, especially in the United States.
Farmers cannot freely grow hemp in the US, but many companies import hemp products for resale, mostly from Canada and the UK.
The problem is that hemp is from the same plant family (genus) as marijuana. But hemp is not a drug, it is a raw material that is used much like cotton. We all know that cotton is great, we use it for making: t-shirts, socks, denim for blue-jeans, fishnets, coffee filters, paper and many other things. Considering everything we use it for, it’s a miracle plant.
But, cotton has some limitations. It can only be grown in areas that get a lot of sunshine, have consistent rainfall and long frost-free periods. Cotton also requires a lot of pesticides: 50% of the world’s pesticides are sprayed on cotton.
Imagine a plant with all the benefits of cotton, but it has even stronger fibers, could be grown anywhere in the country and doesn’t require pesticides or herbicides.
That plant is called hemp.
At the risk of sounding like a huge hippie, hemp is a perfect plant. Frankly, I am not a hippie — I only own one hemp product: hemp protein powder.
Hemp as a food source is one example of why it’s so perfect. The seeds contain all of the essential fatty acids and essential amino acids required for a human to be healthy. It also contains a lot of fiber, another essential part of the human diet.
When used as a textile, hemp is stronger and more mildew resistant than cotton. For that reason, hemp is an excellent material for making canvas boat sails, and it was used for that exact purpose by Christopher Columbus. (more…)
You Can Stop Your Microwave From Rotating
My friend Neil is pretty healthy, he lived for a few years with no microwave at all. It forced him to eat fresh food, a healthy alternative to frozen foods that are made for the microwave. That said, the microwave can also be your best friend.
It’s great for heating water, making rice and one of my favorites: bacon (use a bacon tray to do it well). I remember the first microwave we got, I think it was 1986. That thing changed out lives. No longer did we have to wait 4 minutes for popcorn on the stove, we could do it in the microwave in 3.5 minutes. It was a magical device.
Some microwaves rotate inside, which is great — that heats food more evenly. Although, it’s not great when a large dish doesn’t fit on the turntable, it sounds like tennis shoes in the dryer.
That’s why they put the turntable on/off button on the microwave. I discovered this about two years ago and everyone I’ve told since has been completely surprised.
Don’t forget my other microwave secret, you can use foil in the microwave.
Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton
Watering Hard to Reach Plants
I did an interview with the BBC a few weeks ago and I was on the show with Caroline Bloor, head of consumer testing at Good Housekeeping. I shared a few secrets with the audience and she shared a few secrets too, including how to water hard to reach plants.
If you’ve got hanging plants or otherwise hard-to-reach botanicals, you’ve probably overshot the pot with the watering can.
Instead, trying putting ice cubes in the pot. They’ll melt slowly and water the plant. They’re much easier to water with and if you drop one, it’s much easier to clean up than its thawed relative.
Thanks for sharing this secret, Caroline.
Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton
Photo: ell brown (cc)
Rotten Eggs Float
Whether you throw away the carton and use the egg holder in your fridge or you just don’t believe the expiry date, there will come a time when you question the edibility of eggs.
There is an easy way to test them.
Fill a container with water and gently place the egg inside it. If it sinks, it’s good to eat. If it floats, throw it out. If it weighs the same as a duck, it’s a witch.
Why?
Eggs naturally have a small air pocket in them. In fact, a bright light is used during a process called candling to determine the size of this air cell. The size of the air cell is used to determine the grade of an egg. Grade AA eggs have the smallest air cell, and as the air cell gets large the egg is given a lower grade (A, B…etc).
This air cell increases as the egg ages. There are two schools of thought about why. Some say the eggshell is porous and allows some liquid to escape and air to enter. Others say a chemical reaction takes place inside, which results in the larger air chamber and the awful smell when they are rotten. I couldn’t find a definitive answer to why the air cell increases in size, but nobody disputed the fact that it does.
Because the air cell increases, it makes the egg less dense, meaning it will float in water with enough time.
The smell of rotten eggs is a popular description for the smell of sulfur. There’s good reason for that, eggs contain a fair amount of sulfur because it is necessary for feather formation. This smell becomes more prevalent as eggs age.
Thanks to my wife Kristen for this secret.
Broken Secrets | By: Chad Upton
Source: Eggs WP, Sulfur WP, What’s Cooking America, O Chef
Pure Vanilla Extract is 35% Alcohol
I made vanilla crème brulée a few weeks ago and I used a lot of pure vanilla extract, almost twice the amount the recipe suggested. I did a Grand Marnier flambé on top and although it tasted great, the best part was the excuse to buy a blowtorch.
Now, when you buy something labeled “pure”, you expect it to match the definition of pure, “unmodified by an admixture; simple or homogeneous.” But, that’s not what you get with pure vanilla extract.
In the United States, the FDA requires Pure Vanilla Extract to contain alcohol if it’s going to be called “pure.” Specifically, it must contain at least 35% alcohol and 13.35 ounces of vanilla bean per gallon.
It turns out this is not a rip off, alcohol actually helps extract the flavor from the vanilla beans. Not only that, vanilla extract gets better with age, maturing in about 2 years.
Alcohol free versions are available, but will not be labeled as “pure.”
Broken Secrets | Written By: Chad Upton
Sources: dictionary.com, wikipedia, FDA, Arizona Vanilla
Photo: Jocelyn | McAuliflower (cc)
Caffeine Makes Headache Medicine Work Faster
Not all, but some medicine actually contains caffeine to make it work faster, particularly headache relief medications.
I went to CVS pharmacy and snapped this picture of their headache relief formula.
As you can see, the main ingredients are acetaminophen (aka “Tylenol”) and Aspirin. But, there is a significant amount of caffeine too.
At 65 mg, that’s about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. Caffeine allows faster absorption of these drugs and makes them 40% more effective according to Web MD. That means you don’t need to take as much, saving you some money and reduces side effects.
Although it reduces the amount of painkiller you need to take, it raises the amount of caffeine you consume. This creates a slight risk of additional headaches due to caffeine withdrawal when you stop. Be sure to read the package directions and not take more than recommended.
Broken Secrets | Written By: Chad Upton
Sources: Web MD, International Coffee Organization, WP Caffeine, WP Codeine,
Broken Secrets 