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You might think so, but the truth is they are not always. Surprisingly a silent complete with dressings and toppings more often than not contains more calories and fat than most traditional fast food choices.

A typical Caesar salad for instance can easily reach 500kcals and around 30g of fat. This is actually very close to the amount of calories and fat you would find in a small burger and chips.

So you’re winning if you have a flame grilled chicken salad without dressing, but if you add the dressing you add another 70kcals and a further 6g of fat.

Mind you if you decide to eat out by going healthier with a salad, watch out you don’t get tempted into the burgers and fries instead. I’ve done it myself.

Tags: salad, salads, fast food



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photo credit: Luis Fabres [no video!]

Better barbecuing skills come from experience. How do you get experience? Make mistakes. However wouldn’t it be better if you could learn from someone else’s mistakes first?

It’s easy to run into mistakes when you’re barbecuing. We’ve all done it haven’t we?
Wouldn’t you rather someone shared some barbecuing tips?

Here are some insider secrets to better barbecuing.

Before you even begin to cook check your cooking area and spray it with a non-stick cooking spray. This will prevent your meat from sticking and tearing lumps from the surface when you try to turn over or move it. It also helps your meat to retain its natural juices and prevent the meat from drying out.

Temperature variation of the charcoal is another problem you need to avoid. You need to make sure that the charcoal is completely grey before putting the meat on the grill. This allows the temperature to become even and any remaining lighter fluid to burn off. Should you place the meat on the grill to soon not only will the temperature be uneven, but you may cause your food to taste slightly strange as the lighter fluid will favour the meat undesirably.

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If you decide not to use lighter fuel, then you’ll have probably a lot of frustration trying to start your barbecue. Charcoal is extremely difficult to light without lighter fuel.

Properly prepared meat is the secret to a good barbecue. Never attempt to cook frozen or partly frozen food. You’ll end up with food poisoning.

Your meat must be thoroughly thawed before cooking it. Ideally it should be sitting out to thaw from about 12 to 24 hours before you plan on needing it. If it is already thawed and in the fridge, then allow sufficient time for it to reach room temperature before you attempt to cook it.

Keep precooked meat and cooked meat separate. Ensure cooked meat goes to a clean fresh plate. Do not use the same implements to lift your fresh meat to the barbecue that you use to remove it. A second set of utensils should be kept for the cooked food. Fail to do this and you are a looking at a possible dose of food poisoning later. You may be lucky in that it may not be too severe, but you and your guests are likely to have diarrhoea the next day. Not exactly the memories you want to leave your family or guests with.

Resist poking at the meat when it is cooking. This punctures the seared surface allowing juices to escape and leak to the bottom of the grill. It also causes excess smoke when the juice hits the charcoal, and can lead to a buildup of unwanted grease and residue on your grill causing further sticking problems with your food. You want to minimise leaking juices.

If you use a lid on your barbecue to help keep the temperature constant, then resist opening the lid to look at the food because obviously this is going to cause a temperature variation and your meat will dry up or burn more easily.

Meat generally tastes more tender when it is cooked slowly, so less charcoal may be better than more.

Using tin foil is fine to line the inside of your barbecue, but don’t use it on the grill itself or your food will taste like it has been fried rather than barbecued.

Only place your barbecue sauce on your food at the very last minute possible. Putting the sauce on too early will cause your meat to dry out and burn more easily.

Following these simple secrets will give you a much better chance of a delicious and successful barbecue. Enjoy the next one.

Tags: barbecue, barbecuing secrets, barbecuing tips



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photo credit: avlxyz

Probiotic foods are foods that contain friendly or beneficial bacteria. The actual term probiotic means ‘for life’. Probiotics are simply organisms that live in your intestines, (specifically the colon), aid with digestion, and are beneficial to your health as they combat bad bacteria and help fight disease.

The most commonplace to find probiotic organisms are in yoghurt. Yoghurt which contains probiotics is commonly labelled ‘bio-live’, ‘probiotic’, or ‘active’.

Probiotics work in several different ways. They combat inflammatory processes. They secrete compounds which regulate cell functions, and they reduce the growth of bacteria which cause disease by inhibiting their attachment to the intestine and by producing chemicals that reduce or slow down their growth.

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Additionally they assist with the digestion of food and with the manufacture of vitamins, and believed to help strengthen the immune system and reduce blood cholesterol.

There is a fine balance between good and bad bacteria in our gut and this balance can be easily upset allowing the bad bacteria to become prominent. Stress, poor diet, illness, antibiotics, and prescription drugs can and will upset the balance to our detriment.

This imbalance actually has a medical name. It’s called disbiosis, and has been linked with a number of problems including irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, colon cancer, diarrhoea, ME, food allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, and even thrush.

By now you should be beginning to see that there is a benefit to topping up your probiotics on a daily basis. To be effective however the probiotics need to reach the colon insufficiently large numbers to make a difference. This means overcoming and resisting the effects of digestion, gastric juice in the stomach, and bile in the small intestine.

When they get to the colon there has to be enough left for them to reproduce and establish themselves. Therefore it is no good taking a probiotic yoghurt one-day and not taking another for days later. In order to be effective a daily topping up with new supplies of probiotic organisms are required.

In other words bio-live yoghurt should become part of your daily diet.

Tags: probiotics, probiotic, probiotic foods, bio-live

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