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Ostrich eggs are still a specialty in the kitchen. No wonder: after all, an ostrich egg is the equivalent of about 20 chicken eggs! Quite a large amount can be processed there. Ostrich eggs are particularly suitable for desserts.

Ostrich eggs for desserts

Cakes or creams can be prepared with ostrich eggs. In terms of taste, there is hardly any difference between chicken eggs, but the consistency of the desserts is particularly fluffy, as ostrich breeder Cornelia Pfeiffer now explains will.

Since an ostrich egg is about the size of 20 normal chicken eggs, processing only makes sense if this large amount is needed. To open the eggs, a hole can be drilled into them and negative pressure can then be created using a straw. This is how the inside of the ostrich egg flows out. Of course, the egg can also be cracked open.

Ostrich eggs are so healthy

The ostrich eggs, which can weigh up to 1.5 kilograms, consist of protein and egg yolk, just like chicken eggs – but in larger quantities. They are a good source of animal protein, which keeps you full for a long time and avoids cravings. Ostrich eggs contain vitamins A, B, D, and E as well as the minerals iron and calcium.

If you let off steam all day on the ski slopes, you obviously need enough energy. But which foods are the right ones, provide enough power, and do not cause cravings or concentration difficulties? You can find out what the right diet for skiers looks like here!

Nutrition for skiers

In the morning

The right nutrition for skiers in the morning includes an easily digestible, low-fat but still high-energy breakfast, as recommended by the German Ski Instructors Association (DSLV). This could be, for example, wholesome muesli with oatmeal and natural yogurt as well as fruit, nuts, or seeds.

Equally good are a hearty wholemeal bread and a milk drink. Due to the complex carbohydrates and the portion of protein, the blood sugar level rises only slowly and the body gets enough energy for a sporty winter day.

Noon

Greasy meals like chips or schnitzel at lunchtime can make you feel like you have a stone in your stomach after eating – not good conditions for a fun day of skiing in the mountains. Instead, when it comes to nutrition for skiers, care should be taken to ensure that something light and protein-rich is preferred during the lunch break.

For example, a salad with a turkey breast fillet, a hot soup, or even a snack is the better choice. These meals also provide the body with complex carbohydrates and protein, which keeps you full for a long time and is easy to digest. The so dreaded afternoon slump is therefore missing.

Snacks

Fruit, nuts, dried fruit, or muesli bars are particularly recommended as snacks for skiers. They quickly provide energy without putting unnecessary strain on the body – fruit also provides an extra portion of vitamins, and nuts provide minerals and high-quality protein.

Children

Of course, even the little ones can have fun on the ski slopes and race down the slopes. They too should pay attention to the right diet for skiers. Children generally have a higher need for fluids and a higher energy expenditure than adults.

Parents should therefore make sure that they take short drinking breaks from time to time and eat a snack when they are not hungry. Water and isotonic drinks are particularly suitable for young and old to compensate for the loss of minerals.

When it’s freezing cold outside, hot cocoa warms body and soul. For an intense chocolaty taste, those with a sweet tooth should reach for pure cocoa and stir it into their hot chocolate.

Pure cocoa for hot chocolate

Many use instant cocoa powder for their cocoa drink. But this often contains added sugar and not only tastes pretty sweet but also provides more calories. However, the more figure-friendly and delicious variant is the one with pure cocoa.

If the pure cocoa powder is used for hot chocolate, the drink scores with valuable ingredients such as magnesium, potassium, and iron. It is also rich in protein and contains fiber. The slightly bitter taste of the cocoa can be neutralized by the protein and fat in the milk – a dash of honey will delight those with a sweet tooth.

Prepare properly

The hot chocolate will be perfect if the milk is only heated to medium and not boiled. If you keep stirring, you prevent the formation of milky skin. Just one tablespoon of pure cocoa provides half a liter of milk with an intense chocolaty taste.

Homemade ice cubes can be found in almost every household in the freezer. But in addition to the variant with water, there are now more and more containers in which coconut milk ice cubes are stuck. They give smoothies a silky texture and add great flavor to iced coffees – perfect for spring and summer!

The exotic among the ice cubes

Coconut milk is made from the flesh of the coconut. The result is a creamy liquid that refines many dishes such as Indian curries. But coconut milk doesn’t just taste wonderful in hot meals: the latest trend is coconut milk ice cubes!

Instead of the usual water, the trendy ice cubes are made entirely from coconut milk. In terms of taste, this is particularly interesting for coffees or smoothies: the sweet coconut milk goes well with the bitter coffee aroma and ensures a creamier consistency and chilled drinks. In addition, the drinks are not watered down unnecessarily.

The coconut milk ice cubes are also easy to portion, so you no longer have to open and use up a whole can of coconut milk for a shot of milk. However, with a fat content of around 20 percent, commercial coconut milk is not lightweight. However, you can fall back on the reduced-fat version – which has twelve percent fat.

Make coconut milk ice cubes yourself – that’s how it works!

The ingredients:

  • 1 can of coconut milk
  • Ice cube molds of your choice

The Preparation:

  1. Shake the coconut milk well before opening to form a homogeneous mixture.
  2. Pour the coconut milk into the ice cube molds and place in the freezer for at least four hours.
  3. Depending on your needs, remove the coconut milk ice cubes from the mold and add them to creamy smoothies or cold iced coffees.

Soon it will start again, the popular hiking time: over mountains, through forests, and along rivers, it goes over hill and dale. So that the body has enough energy available and does not tire, wholesome snacks are important. In this article, you can read what hikers should consider when packing their lunch boxes.

Hiking snacks

So that the body is supplied with sufficient energy while hiking, it is important to put together the right snacks for hiking. Break bread, bars, and the like should primarily contain complex carbohydrates.

These keep you full for a long time and provide energy over a long period of time. In order not to unnecessarily burden the body with digestion and to prevent performance slumps, it is better to take several breaks and eat small snacks.

Whole grains, fruits & vegetables

Wholemeal bread, which is topped with mild cheese and a lettuce leaf or a slice of cucumber, is particularly recommended. Magnesium-rich bananas are also among the hiking snacks that definitely belong in your backpack. It is refreshing and revitalizing with tomato, cucumber, paprika, and other favorite vegetables – previously cut into bite-sized pieces.

Granola bar

Nuts such as almonds or walnuts, dried fruits such as dates or mangoes, and homemade muesli slices provide an energy boost. It is best to pack these individually and not together with the lunch break, as they can soften and take on the smell.

Beverages

Drinking enough is especially important when hiking, as it means physical exertion. Drinks are therefore part of the snacks for hiking. Mineral water, fruit spritzers (mixing ratio 2/3 water to 1/3 juice) and unsweetened herbal or fruit teas are best.

Fast food is frowned upon by health-conscious people – but you can treat yourself to it every now and then. But be careful: If you get the urge for a burger or a pizza, don’t eat it in front of small children, because even one-year-olds register good and bad eating habits! That’s the result of a new study. EAT SMARTER explains what’s behind it.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Child nutrition is an important issue, especially for first-time parents. What can the child eat and what is unhealthy for the little ones? What they often don’t think about is that what they eat also influences the child.

The parents shape their children. Even if the toddler happily munches his carrot mash, he can tell when dad is enjoying a greasy cheeseburger but grimaces at the vegetables. From an early age, we learn which foods we (should) like and which we don’t.

Regional and social factors play a major role here: Germans have different favorite foods than the French, and Hamburgers eat differently than Bavarians. How our parents raise us, our food experiences and genetics influence our eating habits. This is how personal taste develops, which of course is primarily shaped by family.

A study by Cornell University in Ithaca now shows that even small children from the age of one put out their feelers for it. “When babies see someone eating, they not only learn about the food, they also learn who is eating with whom,” explains one of the researchers.

For the study, 200 babies were shown different eating situations via video. In one video, people were apparently strangers to each other and spoke in different languages. In the other video, the actors looked familiar and spoke the same language.

Both groups clearly expressed their feelings towards the food: if they liked it, they looked enthusiastic, if they rejected it, they grimaced. The babies were particularly drawn to the video, in which people interacted intimately. It was striking that when the small children were clearly disgusted, they automatically expected that everyone would share the disgust.

The eye eats with you

Disgust at certain dishes is originally our body’s protective function: it warns of potential pathogens. Anthropologist and epidemiologist Valerie Curtis of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine believes that disgust evolved over time and is firmly embedded in our genes.

Disgust is expressed by people all over the world with the same facial expression: puckering up the upper lip, wrinkling the nose, sometimes even narrowing the eyes. Small children perceive these facial expressions and, according to the study, also categorize the food as repulsive.

So: Be careful when eating when small children are sitting at the table. Child nutrition is not only what the child gets to eat, but also what the parents eat in front of the child. Because even one-year-olds register disgust or satisfaction from the people around them – if you look peacefully at the burger and wrinkle your nose at the vegetables, you are laying a bad foundation in terms of upbringing.

Pesticides are hazardous to health and should not be absorbed into our bodies if possible. That’s why you should always clean fruit and vegetables properly – even if you don’t eat the peel.

Pesticides on fruits and vegetables: where are they used?

These are various chemical-synthetic substances that are toxic to very specific organisms. Herbicides are used against weeds, fungicides are used against fungi and so-called insecticides are used against insects. In Europe alone, around 290 different substances are permitted. Of course, in conventional agriculture there are strict regulations regarding the amount and type of use of pesticides.

These are EU maximum values ​​that must not be exceeded. Therefore, most fruits and vegetables contain only small amounts of residues, but in which combination and with what effects on the body remains questionable.

In order to avoid the intake of harmful substances as much as possible, you should always remove pesticides from your fruit and vegetables.

How do you properly remove pesticides?

If you want to thoroughly rid your fruits and vegetables of pesticides, there are two simple methods:
Wash fruits and vegetables carefully under running water and rub them well with a cloth. This removes even more residue. Also wash varieties with skin that we don’t eat (citrus fruits, melons, pumpkins, bananas), because when you cut them up, residues and dirt can get straight from the skin to the inside of the pulp and be eaten.
However, the most effective method is provided by an American study from 2017: Scientists from the University of Massachusetts found that you can use water mixed with baking soda or baking soda for cleaning. It is much more thorough and removes almost all pesticides. However, you will need to leave your fruit and veg in the solution for about 15 minutes. Here are the exact instructions: Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to 200 ml of tap water. Mix both together briefly and add the fruit.

The safest way to avoid using pesticides is to buy organic fruits and vegetables. Organically grown vegetables and fruits can be eaten with their skins without hesitation, as chemical-synthetic pesticides are generally not permitted in organic farming.

Replacing pasta with vegetable noodles is trendy. There is a wide variety of cutting systems on the market to quickly and easily cut the vegetables into spaghetti shapes. We tried out eight products for you, ranging from very simple to sophisticated, and found two clear test winners.

Anyone who loves pasta dishes but wants to save on carbohydrates likes to use “zoodles” made from zucchini or other types of vegetables that can be shaped into spaghetti. Smaller quantities of zucchini noodles can also be made without special equipment, for example with a vegetable peeler or a sharp knife (you can find more tips here). But it is quicker and more practical to use a spiral cutter or “spiralizer”.

Spiral cutters tested

Anyone looking for spiral cutters on the Internet or in the household goods department will now find a wide range, starting with simple spiralizers that look like an oversized double sharpener, up to real cutting machines with several blade attachments. But which device is good, and does it really have to be a large spiral cutting “machine”, such as the company Lurch from Hildesheim has been offering with the Spirali since 1996? The EAT SMARTER team fought the ultimate spaghetti battle and tested eight products from the manufacturer’s Lurch and Gefu for their suitability for everyday use. We also tried a julienne cutter as a cheap and space-saving alternative.

This is how we tested

Soft veggies like zucchini, hard veggies like carrots – a good spiralizer should be able to handle both and cut visually appealing “noodles”. That’s why we chose zucchini and carrots as test vegetables.

In detail: Lurch Spiral

The Spiral is the all-time favorite among spiral cutters: it has been manufactured by the Hildesheim company Lurch since 1996. Like Lurch’s other large spiralizers, it comes with three interchangeable blades that are conveniently stored in the base of the unit.

In the test, the Lurch Spirali reliably spiralized soft vegetables into rather coarse, medium-fine, and fine vegetable noodles. The Spiral only passed the endurance test with the carrot with the finest blade, and only with a relatively large amount of effort. It would also be nice if the suction cups had a better grip on the ground.

In detail: Lurch Tango

With the Tango series, Lurch offers three small and particularly handy spiralizers. The Tango, which is sold in three different knife sizes, is still quite good at handling soft vegetables.

But when it comes to hard vegetables, the small spiral cutter reaches its limits: You can only get coherent vegetable noodles with a lot of patience. In addition, the vegetables are more difficult to spiralize, the shorter the rest to hold and turn.

In detail: Gefu Spiralfix

With the Gefu Spiralfix, storage is already integrated: the spiralized vegetables fall into the supplied box, which can be closed with a lid. However, this box only holds a small ration, which is why the Spiralfix will probably be used more “hands-free”.

The vegetables must be cut into pieces so that they fit into the Spiralfix. The fineness of the noodles can be adjusted using a small wheel. The Gefu Spiralfix has done well with both hard and soft vegetables. However, it takes a bit of practice to make even “Zoodles” or “Moodles” from carrots. If you use the Spiralfix freehand, i.e. without placing it on the can, it is more difficult to exert the necessary pressure on the vegetables.

Beer should not be missing in your household. Whether for a snack, after work or at parties, people like to have a beer. But you can also use it in the household.

Everything shines: beer as a furniture polish

Maybe you see it now as a pure waste. But beer is not only suitable as a thirst quencher after work, it also works well as a furniture polish.

Do you perhaps have a beautiful old piece of wooden furniture in your apartment? An old wooden table? A chest of drawers? Then just polish it every now and then with some beer.

To do this, put just a small sip on a soft cotton lamp and gently rub it over the furniture. The good piece is already shining again. We can all make mistakes when cleaning and, for example, damage the surfaces of furniture rather than clean them carefully.

Coffee stains: The stain is quickly gone with beer

You can use beer to clean surfaces very well – coffee stains in particular can be removed very well with the help of beer.

After a few minutes, gently wipe over it with a sponge. For stubborn stains, repeat the process several times until the stain is gone. To neutralize the smell of beer, finally wipe with a little clear water – done.

Annoying and unsightly: Your cutlery comes out of the dishwasher dull and rusty. Even the stainless steel knife seems to be rusting. The aluminum foil trick can help.

This is how the aluminum foil trick works

You can use the aluminum foil trick to prevent rust film. You take a piece of aluminum foil, crumple it into a ball and put it in the cutlery basket of the dishwasher. Then you do the dishes as usual. After washing, your cutlery will shine like new.

Why this works: The rust film settles on the aluminum foil, which oxidizes more easily than stainless steel. It attracts the rust film, so to speak, and your cutlery is spared.

Of course, aluminum foil can’t work wonders for older, scratched cutlery on which the rust has already really set in. But you will certainly see a certain shine effect. You can also use rust magnets as an alternative to aluminum foil

Alternatively: What to do against rust film?

You can do this to prevent rust film: If you want to avoid rust film, you must not put anything in the dishwasher that can rust. Unfortunately, this is only partially possible. Even the smallest parts, such as rivets on the handle of a stainless steel pan, are enough to cause rust.

Incidentally, the dishwasher itself can also rust on crockery baskets or if the covers are damaged. It is therefore best not to leave your dishes damp in the dishwasher for long. Moisture accelerates the setting of the rust film. If you can, always unload the machine immediately after rinsing. Or at least leave the door of the machine open so the dishes dry and the steam can escape.