Breaking
FoodNerdy Recipes Management System
Tag

hard

Browsing
Food

Like Hard Drugs: Cheese Can Be Addictive!

There are countless types of cheese, and the selection is large – but the popular milk product has a great potential for addiction!

A study by the University of Michigan shows that cheese has a high potential for addiction – similar to heroin, which is a hard drug. This is due to the substance casomorphin contained in cheese.

It is formed when the milk protein casein is digested in the stomach. It then stimulates the receptors in the brain, dopamine is released and a physical feeling of well-being arises.

Analog cheese is particularly addictive

In 2016, around 24 kilograms of cheese were consumed per capita in Germany. Since more than twenty times the amount of milk is often required for the production of one kilo of cheese, the concentration of casomorphine in the cheese is very high.

A liter of milk, on the other hand, only contains small amounts of the substance, so milk is considered harmless. The so-called analog cheese is particularly addictive, as these cheese products can also contain refined carbohydrates and fats that can lead to addictive eating behavior.

As long as you make sure you eat a balanced diet, eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, and only occasionally eat foods with a lot of cheese, consumption is not a concern. However, caution is advised if you include cheese in a large number of meals. Here you should try to eat less cheese and other fatty products.

Natural happiness hormones

Incidentally, the effect of casomorphins can also be produced in another way: through endorphins. The happiness hormones also ensure a feeling of well-being and can be produced by the body itself, for example during sport, or can also be produced by other foods.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Making Honey Liquid Again: This is How You Get Rid of Hard Crystals

Re-liquefying honey is easy and saves food waste – because you don’t have to throw away crystallized honey. Here you can find out how.

Honey is a popular sweetener for drinks and food. Handling is easiest when it is liquid. However, all natural honeys crystallize over time and become hard. The honey can then no longer be dosed and used so easily.

But you don’t have to give up crystallized honey immediately: you can avoid food waste by re-liquefying honey that has become hard. This is easy to do with a hot water bath. After that, you can continue to use it as before.

Things to know about crystallized honey

Fresh honey is always liquid. Chemically, honey is a solution of water and sugar and contains important enzymes and nutrients.

However, some types of sugar are not entirely soluble in water. When a certain concentration of sugar content is reached, crystals form. The more crystals that form, the harder the honey becomes.

Glucose forms crystals particularly quickly. Honey types with a high glucose content therefore harden more quickly, including rapeseed honey, for example. Honey types with a higher fructose content, on the other hand, form crystals less quickly. Honeys containing fructose include forest honey or chestnut honey. But no matter what kind it is: It is not difficult to make crystallized honey liquid again.

Crystalized honey is not harmful

Even types of honey with a low glucose content crystallize after a while. But that’s not bad. On the contrary: if your honey crystallizes, this is a sign of real quality and a natural origin.

Although crystallized honey is not harmful, the crystals can become uncomfortable when consumed. It is therefore best to store the honey at room temperature. Glucose forms crystals more quickly in the refrigerator and honey solidifies sooner.

Also, stir the honey regularly. Stirring will break up the sugar crystals and keep the honey liquid longer. Should crystals nevertheless form, a simple water bath is sufficient to make the honey liquid again.

Making honey liquid again: Here’s how

Crystallized honey usually becomes softer again just by stirring it extensively. You can use a water bath to make solid honey completely liquid again.

Here’s how you do it:

Heat some water in a small saucepan. This should not exceed a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius, otherwise the enzymes and nutrients contained in the honey will break down.
Place the honey jar in the warm water bath.
Leave the jar in the water bath until the honey has become liquid again. Stir constantly to speed up the process.
Important: Since the nutrients in honey are sensitive to heat, the honey should not be exposed to high heat for too long. Therefore, try to avoid crystallization by stirring constantly.

When buying honey, always make sure that it comes from fair and bee-friendly production. This helps the bees and protects the environment. Therefore, buy honey from local beekeepers and if possible in organic quality.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Boiling Eggs: That’s How Long the Hard and Soft Egg Takes

Boiling eggs could be so easy. But it’s not – sometimes it’s too soft, sometimes too hard, sometimes it bursts when cooking. Find out here how long it takes to cook the perfect egg.

It doesn’t matter whether you prefer a hard-boiled or a soft-boiled egg for breakfast – it is important to buy organic eggs to save the chickens unnecessary suffering. When you boil your egg, there are only two things you need to keep in mind to get the result you want: the size of the egg and the cooking time.

Soft or hard-boiled eggs: rule of thumb for cooking eggs

Before you get started, you should check the size of your egg. The cooking time varies depending on the size. There are the egg sizes S, M, L, and XL – they are noted on the egg carton.

Basically, you cook the eggs like this: just put them in boiling water and rinse them with cold water after the cooking time. For M eggs one can roughly say:

Four minutes: The egg white is set, but the yolk is still very runny – a perfect breakfast egg.
Seven minutes: the yolk is soft as wax – now you have a snack egg.
Eleven minutes: The yolk is hard and cutable – a typical hard-boiled egg.
If you are using S eggs you will need to cook them about 30 seconds less, for L eggs 30 seconds more.

Cooking eggs: It depends on the temperature

It would be nice if you could simply specify a number of minutes after which an egg is hard- or soft-boiled. But it’s not really about the cooking time, but about the temperature that the inside of the egg has to reach for the respective texture. And the “internal temperature” depends on three factors:

The size of the eggs – an XL egg takes longer to hatch than an S egg.
The temperature of the eggs – did you just get them out of the fridge or have they been out for a while? They take up to a minute longer from the fridge.
The temperature of the cooking water – most of us cook the eggs in bubbling boiling water. It’s about 100 degrees warm by the sea, but only 90 degrees on the Zugspitze. The higher your location, the longer the egg has to cook.
In fact, the egg white becomes solid at 62 degrees. The yolk is already no longer liquid at 63 degrees – so a solid egg white with a liquid yolk is not so easy to find! At around 66 degrees Celsius, the egg yolk is soft as wax, and at 70 degrees it is hard and cut-resistant.

For example, if you want a perfect egg, you could cook the egg at 66 degrees for hours and still end up with a waxy egg. However, most kitchen appliances are not that accurate in practice.

Cooking eggs

Are you unsure if your egg is still good? Then don’t just throw it away, but find out with the egg test. Because many eggs have a longer shelf life than the best-before date promises.

Eating fewer eggs overall is even better. You can also use vegan egg substitutes for many recipes – just give it a try!

Keep Reading
By