Tag: salt

April 26th National Pretzel Day

April Holidays

Pretzels were not invented in Germany! The first pretzel came out of Southern France when monks made them as a reward for children who properly learned their prayers, somewhere around 610 AD. Now the Germans did find they went really well with beer so they became popular in Germany soon there after. Pretzels were first made in the US in 1850 by Julius Sturgis in Lithz, Pennsylvania. Salt was probably not added to the original pretzels which accordingly to resemble children’s hands folded in prayer.

How to celebrate – Learn how to make your own pretzels. Enjoy eating some pretzels. Visit Germany.

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July 24th National Tequila Day

July Holidays

July 24th National Tequila Day

You can thank Mexico for it’s blue agave juice for today. Add a little lime and salt around the time of your glass and you have your nearly perfect drink. It’s actually refreshing as well as intoxicating! It’s history dates back to the 16th century and is either named for the town it is originally created in or the town is named for the drink… that depends on how much Tequila you’ve had. Over 300 million blue agave plants are harvested every year to create the drink. Bottoms up!

How to celebrate – Have a Tequila. Try growing your own blue agave plants. Stock up on your salt and lime.

August 29th More Herbs, Less Salt Day

August Holidays

Finally an actual day we can use from the good people at Wellcat.com… More Herbs, Less Salt Day. Most of us add salt, and then more salt, to bring out the flavor of our food. That is not very good for us in so many ways. If we could, and would, learn to use other herbs and spices to bring out that flavor we would all be healthier. I think we learned salt because it was used to keep meat eatable when stored for later use. The meat was very salty but preserved so we learned, as people, to eat that and found anything not served with salt lacking. That was okay for the 1700’s but not so much today. Learn to use other spices and herbs to perk up your food and make eating a healthier choice for you.

how to celebrate – Learn what herbs help spice things up! Plant an herb garden. Use less salt in your diet.

August 29th More Herbs, Less Salt Day

August Holidays

We all know salt is bad for us, at least too much of it is bad for us. However, meals without salt can be very bland so instead of using salt, use some herbs to flavor your meals. Garlic, rosemary, thyme… they all add flavor to meals (Sometimes too much flavor). Herbs are natures way of telling us… well, I don’t know what they are telling us since both salt and herbs have been around forever. Most herbs are pretty easy to grow, you can pick them fresh and they do add flavor and most of them are good for you! So when you reach for that salt shaker at your next meal think about adding some herbs instead, they are natural and most are pretty cheap as well. Today was created by Wellcat.com.

How to celebrate – See how many herbs you can list. Grow your own herb garden. Check which herbs go best with which foods.

August 29th More Herbs, Less Salt Day

August Holidays, Unboxing the Bizarre

Finally a day Wellcat.com created that actually is a good idea! True, it isn’t a real holiday but maybe it should be. Eat More Herbs and Use Less Salt Day! It’s good for you and makes sense since this is the time of year we generally harvest our gardens before the cold starts to set it.

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We all know the more salt we eat the worse it is for us. However, a lot of foods are bland and need something to wake up the flavor or we simply won’t eat it. Salt was the first choice and it also preserved food for later consumption. But it makes us fat by retaining water and cause numerous other health issues.

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Now no one is saying not to use salt at all, just use less. There are all sorts of herbs we can add to flavor dishes. Most of them are actually good for us as well. And they are sort of fun to grow, generally not requiring as much attention as say, tomatoes. These herbs can also be preserved so that what we grow over the summer we can use all year long.

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You can taste them ahead of time to see what you like, and don’t like and how much of them to use in a dish. They are often stronger, requiring less, and some may not mix all that well so you will have to experiment a little. That’s part of the fun though and no one can tell you what is right or wrong since it is your taste that makes them work.

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They also brighten up your dish and make it look more tempting. So finally, a day from Wellcat that might actually have meaning and be useful. (And no doubt they stock in companies that sell the seeds to grow your own.)

How to celebrate – Grow your own herbs! (Not weeds of either kind) Test the flavors and figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. No omit salt, just use less of it.

July 21st National Junk Food Day

July Holidays, Unboxing the Bizarre

So with all the new trend of trying to eat healthy, we all need that occasional “fix” of junk food. There are only so many salads and stalks of vegetables one can eat before they reach out for something that satisfies that taste for… junk!

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It’s hard to say when junk food began. People didn’t use to have access to tons of sugar and other items that weren’t good for them until fairly recently in mankind’s history. Naturally we made up for it fast though! We eat french fries and chips by the ton, knowing they aren’t good for us but still, we can’t resist them.

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The thing is, when junk food did become a part of our diet, we began craving it. Eat salt and your body wants more, eat sugar and your body wants more. But it’s primarily mental, not as much physical.

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So we eat whatever it is we crave and then we feel guilty about it. But  not today. Today we can eat junk food because it’s Junk Food Day! And it’s National!

How to celebrate – Eat your favorite junk food! Try some junk food you have never tried before. Enjoy a good sugar rush!

July 21st National Junk Food Day

July Holidays, Unboxing the Bizarre

Junk food is often referred to as “Comfort food” because we normally turn to it when we are unhappy or sad about something. It probably does make us happy for the moment, that sweet taste or salty goodness tastes so good… it’s what happens afterwards that makes us even sadder and unhappy.

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Sure that ice cream smooths things over for a few minutes, that bottle of beer (which by the way is junk food as well) makes the troubles disappear, and that bunch of french fries makes us forget about anything else while we are eating them. But whatever drove us to those comforts will come back shortly and haunts us, reminding us daily as we look at our stomachs, our thighs, and those frightening man boobs!

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The thing is, it’s not the junk foods fault! It’s ours! There’s nothing wrong with junk food, as long as we don’t get carried away. Diets don’t work because when we are on a diet, all we can think about is what we can’t have instead of what we can! Under normal circumstances given the choice between an apple or a candy bar we might actually choose the apple, but when we are denied the candy bar, that is what we crave.

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Junk food does have a place in life today. It is convenient, it is fast, and it does taste good. Used when we don’t have time or other choices it serves a purpose. The problem is, in life today we find those conditions more the rule than the exception. A soda will cool you down, but it will also increase the sugar in your body which heats you back up! Diet sodas are known to mimic serious desease. Pizza really isn’t all that bad for you, as long as you don’t eat the whole thing by yourself. Hamburgers aren’t all that bad either, though red meat does have its drawbacks,  it’s more all the bread and condiments we add to it. And fries, well.. there isn’t really much good about them at all. There is nothing wrong with a potato but fry it in grease, add a lot of salt, and shove that in your mouth, it’s a different story.

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Cereals are more often than not filled with sugar. Donuts, brownies, chips, and candy have little redeeming quality to them either. It’s not that eating them is so awful for you, its eating so many of them that causes the problems. But for today you can forget all of that as we celebrate junk food day. And tomorrow, we will pay the price for our celebration.

How to celebrate – visit a candy or chocolate factory. Maybe replace that candy bar with a piece of celery or that hamburger with a turkey sub (after today if course). Don’t worry about it and eat what you want which is probably what you are going to do anyway.