When it comes to the butter aisle, picking the best product for your health can be a confusing decision that ends up leaving a lot of people stumped. It's no wonder so many people don't know whether they should be opting for butter or margarine as years ago we were continuously told that butter was a big no-no. This caused vegetable-oil based margarines to increase in popularity as doctors started warning patients about the dangers of saturated fats and recommending that margarine was the … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2014
Choco-Banana Rilakkuma Toast
This week I purchased a western food called "Nutella" for the first time in my life. I'm aware that Nutella is a wildly common food throughout the US and Europe, but not in Japan. I lived in the states for seven years, yet I promised myself never to lose my Bushido (the way of a samurai) and cooked Japanese food almost every day. I never even touched any American ingredients when I went shopping at the grocery stores. Looking back, it was almost madness; it was as if I was afraid of becoming … [Read more...]
Gluten-phobia or Gluten-aware?
What is "Gluten"? Gluten is a sticky, stretchable protein found in grains like wheat, barley, oats, and rye. Most of us unknowingly love it, because gluten gives our favorite foods that special touch: It makes pizza dough stretchy, gives bread its spongy texture, and is used to thicken sauces and soups. Even your soy souse contains gluten! To people with a chronic digestive disorder called celiac disease, gluten is truly evil: Their bodies regard even a tiny crumb of it as a malicious … [Read more...]
Rilakkuma Scrambled Eggs
Most young kids will run after mom if she tries to leave them alone with a stranger. But according to a study, kids who haven't bonded well with their mothers—psychologists call it "insecurely attached"—will rather stay behind with a security blanket. And in my case, it was always stuffed animals. They say kids with secure attachments to their mothers were more or less likely to have a security blanket, because they simply don't need a security blanket to fill their void. But what about the … [Read more...]