Articles!

One on 25 years worth of dryer lint. WOW

On wasting food. Or not.

On a sorta early EARLY intervention for potentially autistic toddlers.

( Read more... )

On learning to like fruits and vegetables. I've never understood the hype about how "hard" it is to eat sufficient fruits/vegetables. Some of that hype, admittedly, is beverage ads (so... yeah), but a lot of it isn't. How hard is it to eat an apple with your breakfast (one or two servings of fruit), an orange and half a banana with your lunch (one serving each) which also has a small side salad (half a serving), a salad at dinnertime (another half a serving) and a vegetable side (another serving - hey, now I'm over 5 servings, and I haven't even had any snacks!), seriously?

Could be worse. I've seen an ad for some product full of vitamin C because it's "so hard" to get your RDA by drinking a gallon of OJ daily. *headdesk* Vitamin C is so prevalent in EVERYTHING that you can't even get scurvy unless you really try!

( Read more... )

Explaining the 2nd Avenue Subway to first graders.

( Read more... )

Apparently, some genius has decided breast pumps do not merit a tax break.

( Read more... )

The return of Pee-wee Herman

( Read more... )

Is Candy Evil or Just Misunderstood?

( Read more... )

Here's something that's been bothering me for a while.

I know that you're not supposed to boil certain vegetables because they lose some of their vitamins to the water. You're supposed to steam them or cook them in some other way instead.

I often try to get rid of spare vegetables by adding them to something else. Carrots, for example - the nieces don't consistently like carrots (that is, when one does the other doesn't), but they're cheap and we always have them, so I'm always grating them up finely and adding them where they're relatively inconspicuous. This helps bulk out the meal slightly, makes it a little more nutritious, and I get to move some carrots out of the fridge! (You'd think I'd learn and stop buying carrots, but then I see a few pounds of them for a dollar in the dubious produce section, and even old carrots keep. The siren call of carrots cannot be resisted...!)

Now, I've recently started making spinach rice. It's a good way to use up spinach (you buy it, but it doesn't get used that fast!), and it's yummy. You cook the rice same way as always, but when it's almost done you toss spinach leaves and butter (or margarine) on top and let it cook a bit longer. And in the process, I discovered that if you add very finely grated carrots to the rice BEFORE you cook it, and stir it in, the rice turns a pretty orange color, but that's about all. I love it!

Except... do the vitamins go away or not? I know that some of them disappear into the water when boiled, but then the water gets absorbed by the rice, so...? Are the vitamins gone now, or are they part of the rice, or what? (My knowledge of nutrition is somewhat limited, admittedly.)