Has anyone heard of the product called Le Whif? I’ve only read about this online but from what I understand it is a product that allows you to get the benefits of chocolate and coffee without actually consuming them. This is done through inhaling a powdered version of the product from a biodegradable dispenser.

The website for the company says that you get chocolate without the calories and your coffee caffeine jolt without the cup. This could be appealing to people who are dieting but crave chocolate. It could also be good for people who really like the morning caffeine boost from coffee but don’t like that whole process of making it and taking a cup with them to work.

I don’t know if I buy it. I think it’s an interesting idea. I think I’d considering trying the product just to see what it’s like. I’m particularly curious about the taste of the products. But as a true substitute for chocolate and coffee? I think I’d rather stick with the real thing.

What do you think about the idea of Le Whif?

The image above is a poster from artist Justin Perricone. It’s the first in a series designed to show you what’s in the food that you’re eating. For this particular poster, he took all of the ingredients that are in a Ham and Cheese Pizza Pocket and arranged them into this design. Looking at this could definitely make at least a few of us think twice about putting that food into our bodies.

And the poster got me thinking about how you could use tag clouds to actually analyze what is in the food that you are eating. If you’re familiar with the food rules popularized by Michael Pollan, you know that one of the most important things that you can do if you want to eat a healthy, natural diet is to avoid eating foods that have more than five ingredients and foods that contain anything that you can’t pronounce. This makes sense but it’s tough to get used to and I think tag clouds could help.

Here’s how:

Pull out an item from your pantry that you eat on a regular basis. Copy the ingredients into a document on your computer. Now, the way that tag cloud programs work is that the more frequently a word is used, the bigger or bolder it will appear in the tag cloud. Luckily, the ingredients in your food are listed in order of how much of them is in your food. You won’t get anything exact, of course, since you don’t know the percentage of each ingredient in the food, but you can get a general idea by copy-pasting the leading ingredients multiple times into your document.

For example, here are the ingredients for my supposedly healthy cereal bars; they’re in order although I’ve separated the outside part from the inside filling:

enriched flour, oat bran, canola oil, raisin paste, liquid whole eggs, molasses, glycerin, oat fiber, brown sugar, liquid invert sugar, baking powder, vitamins, minerals, wheat bran, salt, cellulose, honey, sodium bicarbonate, sodium propionate, niacinamide, zinc oxide, reduced iron, calcium carbonate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, folic acid

fructose, high fructose corn syrup, strawberries, sugar, glycerin water, maltodextrin, modified corn starch, sodium alginate, natural flavor, artificial flavor, calcium chloride, citric acid, malic acid, sodium citrate, xanthum gum, caramel color

Now, to keep things super simple, I’ve entered these into a tag cloud program. I’ve taken the first five ingredients from each part of the list and copy-pasted them five extra times. Then I’ve taken the following five ingredients and entered them an extra three times. Then I generated my tag cloud. Here’s the result:

Granted, this isn’t an exact science but it certainly gives me a decent picture of what I’m putting in my body. And I definitely think the process of doing this will make me think twice about frequently consuming some of the foods in my pantry!

If you try this, please come back and leave me a comment … I’d love to know how it works out for other people!!!

7 Fun Free Tag Cloud Programs

8 Ways to Use Tag Clouds for Your Writing

I’ve been enjoying a little bit of a twist on instant hot chocolate lately. I thought some other people might want to enjoy it as well. Here’s my recipe:

• Get a package of instant hot chocolate (the kind that you can heat up with either water or milk)
• Fill half a cup with water.
• Add a few drops of vanilla extract. (You can also substitute Torani-style flavored syrups here; cherry is a good one).
• Heat in microwave until water is quite hot.
• Stir in hot chocolate package.
• Fill rest of cup with cold milk. Heat another 20-45 seconds in microwave (depending on how cold it gets after you put in the milk).
• Add a heavy dose of whipped cream. Put back in microwave for another ten seconds. This will make the whipped cream all frothy.

I was recently reviewing all of the ways that using a food dehydrator can save you money. You’d be surprised at just how many ways there are! Some of these are more important than others though so I thought I’d share here what I consider to be the Top 5 Ways that a food dehydrator will save you money:

1. Facilitates buying in bulk. One of the best ways to save money on groceries is to buy bulk items at a discount. However, this doesn’t work if the food goes bad before you can eat it. If you use a food dehydrator to dry the food then it won’t go bad which means that you can more efficiently buy affordable food in bulk.
2. Reduces spending on costly items. You can use a food dehydrator to make your own herbs, spices, dried fruits and camping food. All of these are expensive items when you buy them in the store but you end up paying just a fraction of the cost when you dehydrate them yourself.
3. Increases the likelihood that you’ll make healthy food choices. A lot of people use their food dehydrator to make healthy foods, support raw food diets and go vegetarian. If you do this then you’ll be healthier which reduces the money you spend on medical care. That’s a big savings - and an important step for your life!
4. Gives you a gift you can always give. You can save a lot of money on gifts for others by using your food dehydrator to make homemade foods for people. I love homemade gifts so I especially love this point!
5. Can even be a money maker. A smart person will further increase the savings of a food dehydrator by actually using it to make money. This can be done by selling dried foods, offering classes in food dehydrator use or writing articles about your dehydrator.

So, what do you think - can you save money with a food dehydrator?

I discovered an easy way to make my morning oatmeal a little bit more special. I thought that I would share. The tip is to add yogurt-covered raisins to the oatmeal. Do this when it’s still piping hot and what happens is that the sweet yogurt melts into the oatmeal. You can stir it up to get a creamy sweet taste for the oatmeal. The raisins are still in there. I added a bit of cinnamon, too, to top it all of.

YUM!

Other ideas for better oatmeal:

• Add fresh sliced fruit. I always love this one!
• Add a bit of granola or other dry cereal. Stir in some milk.
• Get a granola bar or breakfast cereal break. Break it into small pieces and add it to the oatmeal.
• Swirl honey into your oatmeal. Some people also use maple syrup although that’s a bit too sweet for me!

What are your tips for making morning oatmeal a bit more special?

There are some foods that just seem to naturally go well together. Peanut butter and jelly. Cookies and milk. Broccoli and cheese. That last one is one of my favorite food pairs although I don’t actually eat it all that often.

I used to eat broccoli and cheese together frequently. However, when I decided to start eating healthier, I cut out a lot of my favorite broccoli cheese dishes. Thick cheesy soups and baked, breaded casseroles aren’t exactly at the top of the list for healthy eaters.

Recently I’ve started eating more broccoli and cheese together again though. I’ve just started choosing healthier recipes than in the past. Some of my favorite broccoli cheese recipes include:

• Broccoli cheese rice. A whole grain rice dish made with fresh broccoli and a light cheese sauce is a great dish that can be eaten as a side or as an entree.
• Broccoli with melted cheese. Why get complicated? You can melt a healthy amount of fresh cheese onto your broccoli and have a great side dish.
• Broccoli cheese salad. That’s right. A green salad that’s topped with fresh raw broccoli and some grated cheese is a great healthy dish.

What other broccoli cheese recipes are there that are actually healthy for you? What tips do you have for substituting ingredients in standard broccoli cheese recipes to make them better for your health?

For the most part, I don’t drink carbonated beverages. I tend to feel kind of gross when I drink things that are too carbonated even though I like the taste and feel of them as they’re being imbibed. As a result, I limit my intake.

But if I’m going to indulge in carbonated beverages, my top picks are:

• Clearly Canadian Sparkling. I haven’t had this flavored water in a really long time but it’s one of my favorite drinks to indulge in when I do get the chance.
• Go Girl and Go Girl Glo. This is my favorite energy drink. It’s refreshing and it’s correctly portioned out and I love it.
• Italian Sodas. If I want to get a treat at a cafe then I’ll usually go for an Italian flavored soda with no cream.
• Dr. Pepper. On the rare occasion that I do buy a soda, this is my favorite one to get.
• Vodka and Tonic. This isn’t my top choice at the bar but I’ll get one now and then.

Are you a soda drinker? A fan of energy drinks? What’s your favorite carbonated beverage?

One of the things that I really need to work on is learning how to cook better. I am just not a natural cook. Even when I follow a recipe, things often turn out only “okay”. I rarely make food that comes out tasting delicious. Despite this, I prefer to cook at home than to dine out because it costs less and it tends to be healthier if you know what you’re doing. Because of this, I think that I should learn to cook a little bit better.

Rice is something that I’m learning how to make better. I don’t know what my problem is but I can never really make rice that tastes great. I often make it too tough or too tender. I’m thinking that a rice cooker would help with this problem so I’ll probably invest in one in the near future. I’ve learned over time that having the right tools in the kitchen makes a big different to good cooking.

I’m also thinking that it would be a good idea to explore different types of rice recipes. For example I was just reading about some different Irish Rice recipes. Most of them include ingredients that don’t appeal to me (like canned cream of mushroom soup) but I found one that has fresh ingredients that sounds pretty good. I’ll have to see if I can actually make it taste right in my own kitchen!

If you’ve got any good rice recipes then send them my way!

I have become something of a chocolate snob since moving to San Francisco. There are just so many great chocolate shops in this city that I can no longer be satisfied with your basic Hershey’s bar. I want exotic. I want delicious. I want more.

As a result, I was intrigued when I learned about Chocolatique, a California-based chocolate business that’s been around since 2003. The goal of this company is to merge American and French chocolate-making techniques to create a new kind of chocolate that is high-class but distinctly American.

I have to admit that my first sample of the good from this business didn’t leave a sweet taste in my mouth. I tried out the company’s darkest chocolates because I tend to really be a dark chocolate kind of gal. However, it turns out that what I consider dark isn’t nearly as dark as what a true chocolate aficionado will love. The dark chocolate was just too dark for me.

Nevertheless, I could tell that the quality of these chocolates was high so even though I wasn’t in love with the chocolate I’d tried, I was drawn to try more of what Choclatique had to offer. I got a sampler box of delicious Chocolate Boutique chocolates. Not only did these ones taste totally unique and delicious but they were also beautiful to look at. Now this is the kind of chocolate that I’ve become accustomed to and this is the kind of stuff that I want!

I keep trying to reduce what I spend each month so that I can save a little bit of money. It’s a smart thing for anyone to do and it’s really important for those of us who freelance and who therefore may have an unstable income. Unfortunately, I continue to keep over-spending on groceries and dining out even though I’m aware of the fact that this is a problem for me.

It’s not that I don’t know how to save money on food. I’ve written extensively on this topic including recently publishing 20 Simple Tips for Spending Less on Food Without Resorting to Ramen. I’m aware of the tricks and I use some of them on a regular basis. But the fact of the matter is that there are some foods that I like that are expensive and I’m not very good at restraining myself from buying them even though I know that they impact my food budget. Marinated mushrooms and fancy cheeses are two big examples from my kitchen.

The other thing that I do to waste money on food is that I often spend more money than necessary on food for when other people come over. Any time that I’m going to have someone to my house, I buy way too much food - even when it’s for a potluck! I’m always worried that there won’t be enough. It’s something I really need to work on if I want to spend less.

Luckily, the one area that I’m getting good at is saving money on eating out. I’m learning not only to eat out less but also to make smart choices when I do dine out. I always split my meal in half and save part of it for later. I usually skip expensive drinks. And I try to choose affordable restaurants. So I’m getting there. Slowly.