6 Make-Ahead Meals That Are Ready When You Are
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: produce season! Literally everything is ripe for the picking, which means that this is the optimal time to up your fruit and vegetable game. This perfectly coincides with our tendency to crave lighter and more refreshing fare during warmer weather without spending...
From the Coffee Shop
Coffee Grounds for Your Garden
Instead of throwing away your coffee grounds each day, try saving them for your garden! Coffee grounds make a great addition to the compost pile, as they are about 2% nitrogen by volume. Nitrogen helps stimulate root development, increases seed and fruit production, and promotes leaf growth. It’s also found in other popular fertilizers like manure. Good homemade compost is made by mixing carbon-rich ingredients (dried leaves, straw, shredded newspaper) with nitrogen-rich ingredients (grass clippings, manures, coffee grounds, green plant trimmings). The fastest rate of decomposition occurs when there are 2-3 times the amount of carbon ingredients to nitrogen ingredients....
Can Coffee Help Keep You Honest?
We know coffee has many health benefits for our bodies, but what about when it comes to our personalities? A new study by three college professors actually shows that drinking coffee can keep you more honest! Researchers found that two cups of coffee can make workers more ethical. The study’s co-author Michael Christian said people often think of the “best” employees in a workplace as ones who are working nonstop. However, those are the ones who are often making the worst ethical choices. Being sleep-deprived or not thinking clearly can affect decisions, and caffeine can give those tired individuals the...
Coffee Sip Size Can Affect Flavor
Are you a coffee sipper or gulper? One study shows that taking larger sips of coffee give the best flavor, since more aroma is released compared to during smaller sips. The study looked at “sip volume” and found that larger sips have a higher aroma releases. The researchers were from the University of Naples and pointed out the well-known correlation between smell and taste, and that one can have a significant impact on the other. This advice does go against that for other drinks, such as wine, where people are advised to take small sips to get the maximum flavor...
Coffee May Help with Liver Disease
Evidence is showing that coffee may prevent and mitigate liver disease, even among people who may not realize they have the disease. Several studies spanning the past 15-20 years have shown that coffee helps prevent liver inflammation, which is often tied to Hepatitis C, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. It’s unclear whether caffeine or other ingredients of coffee are responsible for the benefits, but one study in Japan showed that green tea failed to have the same effects. Obesity is a leading cause of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which many Americans have but don’t realize, up to 10-15% of the population....
Coffee Helping Research for Parkinson’s Disease
For new medications for the treatment of Parkinson’s to Dementia, scientists are looking to coffee! Caffeine, the world’s most widely used drug, can do more than just wake people up. Various studies have linked caffeine to improvements in memory and protection against the destruction of brain cells. One study found that people who drank more than two cups of coffee per day had a 40% lower risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease. Some drug companies have been designing drugs to replicate these benefits, but the challenge is to go beyond to achieve a more powerful effect without side effects like jitters...
