Skills News

Harry Potter fans, are you ready to totally freak out? I sure am, because this year you and yours can feast in the Hogwarts’ Great Hall. Yes, the same one they filmed in at Warner Brother’s Studio in London! For three butterbeer-filled days in December, the stage will be set for the great Yule Ball, including “snow-covered Christmas trees, icicles, and an orchestra of magical instruments.” On December 11, 12, and 13 from 6 p.m.

Everyone wants to be the cool house on Halloween. But if you hand out bad candy, all the great decorations and spooky music in the world won’t save you from eggs and toilet paper. To find out which candies people hate the most, bulk candy retailer CandyStore.com looked at 10 years of sales data and 12 independent “best” and “worst” candy rankings, and surveyed 40,000 people.

When Starbucks rolled out its technicolor Unicorn Frappuccino in April, the internet lost its mind. Instagram was flooded with images of the glittery rainbow cups, and some stores became so overrun with requests that one barista suffered total meltdown from the “magical” mania. Now all of that mayhem is about to begin once again as the coffee company prepares to release a spooky new Halloween drink — at least we think so. Rumors have been flying (lurching?

How many times do you think you’ll say the word “turkey” during the week of Thanksgiving? I usually say it twice: “When will the turkey be ready?” and “Why isn’t the turkey ready yet?” But the experts who man the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line say or type that particular word more than 5,000 times – and they’re ready to give their vocal cords and their texting fingers a break.

Most of us grew up learning about things that our state is known for, like the state bird, flower, and tree. But did you know states have favorite Halloween candies too? This map will not only show you which candies come out on top in your state, but also how many pounds of it are consumed each year. There’s everything from Swedish Fish and Skittles to Tootsie Roll Pops and candy corn (over 146,000 pounds each year in Michigan). Want to see how your state ranks? Well, right this way.

Hang around with parents long enough and you’ll hear plenty of stories about picky eating. A father who was determined to serve nothing at home but organic, in-season produce is now watching for signs of scurvy in an otherwise healthy toddler and hoping the “orange” in goldfish crackers has vitamin C. (So sorry, it doesn’t.

Once December 1 arrives, it’s agonizing to wait the 24 days until Christmas. Those little chocolate advent calendars did the trick when we were kids, but boozy Christmas countdowns are making the month a lot more tolerable for us now that we’re grown-ups.

It’s no secret that people change when they’re in a relationship. Being close to someone makes you alter your behavior, daily patterns, and even habits. And there’s no shortage of research hinting at the fact that couples become increasingly similar throughout a relationship — some even say couples start looking alike. Now, a new study published in the journal Appetite has unearthed a thing or two about the dining habits of couples.

There are really very few things that are better than a well-made sandwich. It might not have taken a genius to come up with the idea of putting their meal between two pieces of bread, but whoever it was, I thank you. We all thank you. There’s something so incredibly satisfying about biting into that glorious stack of layers and getting an even amount of bread, spread, cheese, lettuce, tomato, seasoning, and meat. The only problem with sandwiches is that they are frequently poorly made.

Hurricane Irma has taken a toll on regions impacted by the storm, with flooding, power outages, powerful winds, and food shortages. The latter is an especially difficult situation for survivors, as most sources of food — markets, restaurants, and convenience stores — are without power and access to fresh ingredients. As for supermarkets, they are either destroyed or have empty shelves.

The status of school lunch in America is far from perfect. Between unhealthy options and lunch shaming, there’s tremendous room for improvement when it comes to how and what children in the nation are being fed. Earlier this year, New Mexico became the first American state to take a legal stand on lunch shaming when students don’t have the funds to purchase food.

As the Carolina coast prepares for Hurricane Florence, those living in areas impacted have plenty of issues on their mind. Amidst debating evacuation plans, stocking up on emergency items, and generally preparing for the storm, there’s one food dilemma for those who plan to flee: Will the contents of their fridge be safe to eat when they return?

Wine tasting is one way to see what blends you like. Another way? A DNA test. Now, thanks to a company called Vinome, you can use your DNA to navigate your way to the perfect bottle of vino. Vinome was founded by a team of genetic scientists and wine experts in 2015. Using genetic analysis, the company determines what bottles are best suited to your preferences.

Hard-boiled eggs are notoriously hard to peel and everyone seems to have a tip or trick that works for them. Some have a three-step method involving ice water, others swear by adding a little baking soda to the water, and still others live by the standard crack-and-peel method. They’re tedious and there’s room for error, but every method eventually gets the job done. Now, a YouTube video has offered a different take: using a wine glass.

When the internet revolts against a “healthy” recipe, things can get ugly pretty fast. So when Glow by PopSugar created a video for a “low-cal” avocado mac and cheese recipe back in November 2016, it quickly went viral, but not necessarily for a good reason. You see, the brand suggested subbing in avocado for traditional cheese, but then added goat cheese to the mix and topped it with low-cal mozzarella.

Word to the wise: Think twice before airing your dirty food confessions on social media. Specifically, keep your off-beat food pairings off Twitter if you don’t want to provoke the wrath of food traditionalists. Case in point? Just ask Philadelphia-based sports writer Jim Salisbury, who confessed on the micro-blogging platform that he added mayo to his coffee. His supposed crime was that he admitted it was “not half bad.

If you’re guilty of leaving water bottles in your car, whether it be clutter or a backup source of hydration, then it’s time to quit the habit. Firefighters are warning drivers about the hazard that clear water bottles pose. Specifically, Oklahoma’s Midwest City Fire Department conducted a test to find that water bottles magnify sunlight. This can make it reach a temperature as high as 250°F.

Coffee consumption is on the rise around the world. In fact, the demand for coffee is being attributed to two factors: millennials are chugging more java and more countries are adopting a caffeine fix. “Coffee demand is robust and growing at about 1.5 percent per annum,” Carlos Mera Arzeno, a commodities analyst with Rabobank International in London, tells The Washington Post. But not all countries consume coffee equally.

The way we have saved our favorite recipes has changed drastically in the last couple decades. Recipe cards were the norm in the past, alongside clipping recipes out of magazines and newspapers. But then came the internet, and with it new ways to keep track of recipes, including Paprika and Pinterest. It can’t get much easier than these digital tools, right? What could possibly be better?

You’ve probably heard of GMOs, and you might even know what it stands for (genetically modified organisms), but understanding what GMOs actually are is a whole other ball game, and there’s a lot of misinformation floating around. Fortunately, Neil deGrasse Tyson and his StarTalk on Mashable podcast is here to set the record straight and start the dialogue on what it really means and how it impacts our health. Tyson’s guest on the podcast is Dr.

When you live in the same household as someone, it’s a not a surprise that you would all eat similarly. Unless someone is making specific meals for every individual — which would be too much work — everyone is going to be eating that pizza, or salad, or whatever you’re having for meals. So it’s generally accepted that children eat how their parents do. But a new study found that managing a child’s diet can also impact the parent’s.

Mornings! Right? Very few of us pull into our office parking lot looking as happy as this girl pictured above. It’s understandable: There are so many things that happen to us between waking up and walking into our office. A lot of these things are out of our control (the torrential downpour that came out of nowhere, the inexplicable traffic you hit on the highway, your toddler’s meltdown over his socks being orange). Luckily, though, there are a few things you can control.

When pouring orange juice from the carton, most people intuitively put the plastic spout as close to the glass as possible. This results in the infamous glugging approach, where your juice splatters within the glass and makes a “glug glug” noise. Not cool. Well, I’m here to tell you that if this is your approach to pouring juice out of a carton — or really any liquid from a carton — you’ve been doing it wrong your entire life.

The brains behind the incredibly popular food blogs How Sweet Eats and Two Peas and Their Pod have launched a meal planning subscription service. Called Sweet Peas Meals, the goal is to get people to cook balanced and delicious meals without having to spend too much time in the kitchen. “When we first started talking about Sweet Peas Meals, our main goal was to create something that would simplify your everyday life, every single day,” reads the website.

Coming back from vacation is the worst. Let’s just put that out there. Not only do you have to deal with getting back home, but you also have to change your mental status from Drinking Pina Coladas by the Pool to Available for Inane Questions and Last-Minute Requests. There’s the inevitable deluge of emails, a week of dinners to consider, and all that laundry. No fun! And it’s never going to be fun. But it can be just a little bit easier. Always plan a buffer day.

Ice cream is loved around the globe and if you think the United States is the largest per capita consumer of the treat, it’s time to recalibrate your knowledge. According to an annual report from Mintel, the U.S. is neither the country that consumes the most ice cream nor the nation with the highest per capita intake. Last year, the U.S. scarfed down 2.7 billion liters of ice cream. That’s a lot.

It’s not difficult to pinpoint the types of people who hate cheese: vegans, lactose-intolerant individuals, sociopaths. Cheese-haters who don’t fall into these categories often have an innate distaste for cheese and their peculiar preferences may have less to do with personal taste — in fact, it just might be genetic. According to Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, evolution could be at play.

Berry intake is on the rise and it may have a thing or two to do with their “superfood” status. Blueberries and raspberries, in particular, are applauded for their nutritional value. So it’s not too surprising that data from the United States Department of Agriculture found the per capita consumption of blueberries went up by 411 percent from 2000 to 2012, 475 percent for raspberries, and even 60 percent for strawberries.

The prices for peaches are on the rise after Georgia lost roughly 80 percent of its crop this year due to irregular weather. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that a warm winter, coupled with a hard freeze this spring, resulted in a bulk of peach crop dying this year in the South. Georgia produced 43,000 tons of peaches last year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, and this year the state’s output may be a quarter of that.

Blissfully ignorant vegetarians had their hearts broken this week when they learned Parmigiano-Reggiano is not really vegetarian. Well, not technically at least. It doesn’t have meat in the traditional sense, but the beloved cheese, which is a staple garnish and ingredient for an array of foods, is made with calf rennet. What’s calf rennet, you ask? It’s found in the stomach lining of calves and it’s what causes cheese to curd through the active enzyme chymosin.

Ever wonder the best way to prepare mushrooms without sacrificing their nutritional content? A few scientists from the Mushroom Technological Research Center in La Rioja, Spain did and they have the answer for how to best prepare the fungus. Mushrooms can be prepared in a variety of different ways, but some cooking techniques can make them lose their health appeal (they are rich in fiber, vitamins, and protein).

It’s not quite an allergy to fruits and veggies, but it’s also not “not an allergy.” If you’ve bitten into a fruit or veggie and felt a tingling sensation in your throat or your lips immediately getting ever-so-slightly swollen, know that it’s not in your head. It’s a seasonal allergic reaction to fruits and vegetables called “oral allergy syndrome.

Sparkling water is often considered to be a healthy (and delicious) alternative to sodas and high-sugar drinks, but a new study has made some troubling findings about how healthy sparkling water really is. Spoiler alert: It might not be as good for you as you may think. New research from Birzeit University in Palestine, published in the peer-reviewed journal Obesity Research and Clinical Practice, suggests that carbonated beverages make you feel hungrier. How?

The organic dairy market is booming, with sales reaching $6 billion last year in the United States alone. Part of the reason is that organic milk comes with a “healthy” halo effect; it is deemed to be a better alternative than conventional milk. But a recent investigation by The Washington Post found that there’s a big difference between buying organic from corporations versus directly from farmers.

If you’re fluent in cooking, then chances are you’ve heard of sous-vide — which literally translates to “under vacuum” in French. It’s a cooking technique conceived in the 1970s and the process entails putting ingredients in a bag, sucking the air out, and cooking the bag in a water bath at a precise temperature. Sound fancy? It’s cause it is.

Multitaskers have a new way to increase their efficiency by washing a load of laundry while also cooking dinner. Thanks to Iftach Gazit, from Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, you may soon be able to repurpose your washing machine into your very own sous-vide machine. The new line of meals, although not ready for market, includes salmon with teriyaki sauce, mixed veggies in olive oil and garlic salt, and garlic-herb steak.

Remember that age-old piece of nutritional advice that salty foods make you thirsty? It’s wrong. Scientists have long believed that eating more salt results in urinating more, which causes one to drink more to refuel. But no long-term study has ever looked into the matter to verify the seemingly logical assumption. Now an international team of scientists found evidence suggesting the contrary: Those who ate more salt retained more water, were less thirsty, and were hungrier.

Coffee drinkers know the struggle of keeping their teeth white, as the caffeinated beverage can permanently discolor teeth. Now, thanks to two Slovakian brothers, there is a solution: clear colored coffee. The clear coffee, produced by British coffee company CLR CFF, offers the same caffeine found in a traditional cup of joe, but without the dark-colored hue. According to David Nagy and his brother Adam, the transparent coffee is a “combination of technology and quality ingredients.

Weird food pairing are counterintuitive: How can a person possibly enjoy two conflicting flavor profiles like chocolate-covered salmon or pizza dipped in sugary icing? One possibility is that said person is a masochist. Or they have low-functioning taste buds. But odds are (because science says so!) it has a thing or two to do with flavor perception. Sebastian Ahnert, a physicist at Cambridge specializing in biochemical networks, looked into this very thing.

Brain freezes are nuisances that come in between you and your ability to eat a pint of gelato or down an ice-cold treat. But the fleeting headache has nothing to do with your brain. Instead, it’s how these cold items mess with your arteries. The New York Daily News reports that the short-lived sensation is not a literal freezing of the brain. Instead, it’s possibly triggered by changes in the general region.

Ask a tea aficionado how tea should be prepared and you can bet a microwave will not be involved. But ask a food scientist from University of Newcastle in Australia and they’ll make a compelling case for using a microwave. Research shows preparing tea in a microwave might actually make it healthier for you.

People who love to bake really love to bake. They’ll jump on any opportunity to whip up a treat to share with others and put their stand mixer to work. But it turns out there might be another reason why baking and cooking make some people feel so good. A study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that those who engage in creative projects (like cooking and baking) are happier in their day-to-day lives.

For an herb, cilantro is very divisive. People either love it or can’t stand the taste. Julia Child famously validated a hatred for cilantro in a 2002 interview with Larry King when she admitted she detested cilantro, saying it has a “dead taste” to her. Others say it leaves a soap-like aftertaste in their mouths, and some have even likened the taste to crushed bugs. But there’s more to a repulsion of cilantro than picky taste buds: it’s biological.

At some point or another, everyone has experienced the classic symptoms of a food coma. You know what I’m talking about. It’s that overwhelming feeling of fullness after a buffet binge or too many servings of mashed potatoes at a family dinner. We laymen call it a food coma, but medical professionals have a name for the phenomenon: postprandial somnolence. Medical experts agree that eating too much food results in a change in your body’s circulation.

Kids think it’s funny to mess with adults. It’s just the way of the world. They think it’s hysterical to prank call their parents, hide their grandparents’ remote controls, and hide from the teacher during roll call. They also think it’s adorable to not try new foods at the dinner table that they will willingly eat at the cafeteria at lunch. So, how are you supposed to get your kids to eat new things? I have a slightly sneaky way that actually works.

Whether you’re a die-hard fan or you could live without it, chances are you’ve at least heard of quinoa. The grain-like gluten-free seed, pronounced KEEN-wah, is touted for being a “protein-packed texture goddess.” Now, in addition to its health perks, the South American super-seed has a new claim to fame: it could play an instrumental part in combating the world’s impending food shortage. So, what makes quinoa a viable solution for the global food shortage?

Raw chicken breast meat is usually a pale shade of lightly translucent pink. But if you’ve been paying attention to the meat you buy, then chances are you’ve occasionally noticed a few extra white stripes on your protein. While seemingly harmless, an animal welfare group is advising consumers to be wary of chicken with “white striping” present, reports Buzzfeed. White striping on chicken meat reflects a muscle disorder.

Biting into a crisp apple or chomping on some crunchy chips makes a very distinct sound. For some, eating noises just signal that someone is enjoying their food. For others, though, it’s downright annoying and anger-inducing. Well, there’s a word to go along with this rage — misophonia — and scientists have finally figured out why some people have it.

There’s really nothing better than a slice of cheap pizza after you’ve had a little too much to drink. And the anecdotal evidence is strong: Anyone who has had too much alcohol can vouch for the desire to nosh on some snacks. It turns out that scientists even have a name for this specific desire: the apéritif effect. While you might accredit increased hunger on diminished self-restraint that comes with drinking booze, science has a different answer that might surprise you.

When my son first started eating solid foods, I like to think I was pretty relaxed. I puréed meatloaf or whatever else I made for dinner, gave him the same full-fat yogurt I already kept in the house, and let him have his way with leftover coconut rice. I was, however, petrified about peanut butter. I waited until his 9-month doctor appointment, and fed him a tiny spoonful under the watchful eye of my pediatrician, lest he have a negative reaction.

Is your oven out of commission? Is your grill on the fritz? Well, lucky for you, apparently you can use your dishwasher to cook a big, juicy steak. Yes, that’s right. While you’re washing last night’s dinner plates, you could also be making dinner. Dishwasher “cooking” isn’t a completely new idea (salmon!), but it’s still pretty shocking nonetheless.

Snack board suppers are a dinner solution for eating better during the holidays.

Kale may be a celebrated superfood, but it’s not as popular as you might think. According to Zagat’s 2015 National Dining Trends Survey, only 27 percent of diners in America reported liking the plant. For the remaining 73 percent, there’s some good news in store: Plant researchers at Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Science are working on creating a version that is more appealing to American palates.

Choosing a costume for your baby’s first Halloween is a very difficult decision. My sister-in-law gave birth to her first child back in May, and we’ve been plotting her daughter’s costume since basically her first day on earth. Do you dress them up in something classic like a pumpkin or a pea pod? Do you go with a costume concept the whole family can get in on, like Star Wars or Mario Brothers? Or do you try something super original that might take some work?

Trying to get the most juice out of limes can be tough. We have a whole bunch of tricks on the site for how to get the job done, including rolling limes and putting them in the microwave. I thought I had seen it all until a post popped up on Reddit, which includes an image that indicates we should be cutting our limes in a different way to get the most juice. Have you tried this? Does it actually make a difference? I needed to find out.

Since last December, you might have heard a lot of people talk about bullet journaling. There’s a whole website dedicated to the concept, and a clever video that breaks down the whole process. In its basic form, a bullet diary combines a to-do list, a diary, and planner. It helps you keep track of what you need to do that day, and also helps you plan for things you want to accomplish in the future. There are many additions you can add to your bullet journal.

Office meals are tough. Whether you bring something from home, buy something near your office, or are lucky enough to have meals provided for you, everyone needs a couple of all-star ingredients at their desk to make things more appetizing or easy to prepare. My favorite thing to have on hand is powdered peanut butter. As Faith explained a couple years ago, powdered peanut butter is “essentially powdered peanuts that have been pressed to remove much of the oil and fats.

Nobody enjoys bad breath. Whether you have it, or are around someone who ate something a little funky for lunch, it’s not pleasant. Garlic in particular gets a bad rap for being the cause of a lot of smelly situations, so it comes as a surprise to no one that someone would go ahead and make garlic that doesn’t make your breath smell bad. But is it really worth the drawbacks?

The Internet’s latest “this-or-that” posts compare baby rolls to bread rolls. Can you tell which is which? Parents in Japan are using this Twitter hashtag to show the striking similarities between their babies’ roly-poly arms and a pull-apart snack bread from 7-Eleven. It’s a little different from the this-or-that posts we’ve seen before, but I think this is the best yet. It’s certainly the cutest, at the very least.

The efforts to combat overfishing have reached a new frontier: faux foods. Certainly most people are familiar with krab, but are you ready to dig in to a plate of faux shrimp? I have to admit, I’m a little wary. With an ingredient list that contains broken-down red algae and a production process that’s been compared to baking bread, New Wave‘s product doesn’t sound wholly appetizing.

Slicing a tomato is pretty boring. In general, just use a serrated knife and aim for uniform steaks. Pop one or two on your burger or salad and dinner is served. But sometimes plating calls for something more inspired. Maybe you’re trying to impress someone, or maybe you just want to treat yourself. Whatever the case may be, you’re in luck! Jacques Pépin has spilled his technique for turning a humble tomato into a work of art.

No one expects good news to come from research on sugar, but a recent study revealed some particularly grim results. According to the report, eating excessive amounts of sugar as a child could severely impact a person’s ability to deal with stress throughout their life. Shockingly, sugar’s effects on a developing mind were so severe that they were found to be similar to the lasting effects of neglect and abuse.

I inherited my love of avocados from my mom. When I was in high school, she showed me how to prepare one for guacamole: carefully whacking the pit with a hefty blade, twisting to remove, and then cutting a grid pattern into the flesh before scooping with a large spoon. From there: mash, mash, mash. The task never bothered me — avocados are so delicious that the semi-annoying way that they exist is just kind of … well, fine, I guess.

How do you cut your homemade pizza so everyone gets an even share? Do you do the classic slices, or maybe even squares? Well apparently, according to science, there is a better way to cut your pizza. Be warned: This may upset you. The image you’re seeing above is the best way to cut your pizza according to science.

We may have been making one of the easiest breakfasts in the world the wrong way all these years. Raquel Pelzel, author of the new book Toast, recommends buttering your bread before you put it in the toaster. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But the more you consider pre-buttering your toast, the more it starts to make sense.

There are few things quite as frustrating as a kid who is a fussy eater — especially when you love food and want to share that enjoyment with them. A new research study published in the journal Appetite gives the advice to just follow the three Rs to get your kid to try new foods. No, it’s not reduce, reuse, and recycle. Instead you’ll be using “repetition, role modeling, and rewards.

The days for food ingredient labels with a long list of artificial colors (Red 40 Lake and Yellow 6, anyone?) might be numbered. As NPR reported this week, many big-name brands are starting to ditch those questionable, chemical colors in favor of dyes made from plants and vegetables instead. Kraft, General Mills, Nestle, and Panera Bread have all pledged to release products with natural dyes, or to eliminate artificial coloring from their product lines between now and next year.

While those foams and flavor balloons might not be disappearing anytime soon, there’s a new food science on the horizon called neurogastronomy. Neurogastronomy is the study of how our brains affect our sense of taste. The focus here switches from altering food to make it taste better to changing the brain’s perception of the foods to make it taste better.

If you think marinating meat before cooking makes a big difference in flavor and tenderness, think again, says Russ Parsons at The LA Times. Turns out that the truth is, with a few exceptions, oil-based marinades don’t penetrate more than an eighth of an inch into meat. Unless you’re using really thin cuts of meat, the flavor of the marinade really doesn’t get absorbed very much.

Good things come from unexpected places. Case in point: The United States armed forces are partially responsible for the invention of everyone’s favorite cheese curls. Yes, that’s right — the military invented the essential ingredient in Cheetos. During WWII, the military funded research in dehydrating foods to make it easier for them to be packed into meal kits for soldiers. One of the results of that research? Cheese powder.

Just as some people have the genes that make them more sensitive to bitter flavors, scientists have discovered that the same applies to one of the other tastes: sweet. Researchers asked subjects, both twins (with the idea that twins have at least half to almost all of the same genes) and non-twins, to rate the sweetness intensity of two natural and two artificial sugars.

The public debate on genetically modified seeds and crops runs high with feelings. When it comes to this line of science and our food, what is healthy, and what should be avoided? Journalist William Saletan spent a year researching the field and came to the conclusion that the anti-GMO rhetoric is not doing us any favors. This is a long, intensely researched and argued piece, and it’s excellent reading for all sorts of reasons.