I often think of small little notes that I want to share with others but they aren’t things that require a whole blog post. I’ll be sharing these in short snippets under the feature title: K-Tips. (Kathryn’s Tips).

For example, today I was thinking about how I mix my coffee and tea and I thought that others might like to know that I do this by putting two different coffee filters into the coffee maker. I put the coffee in first then I put a second filter on top of that and add the loose tea. Then I brew as normal. The reason that I do this is because the tea can be re-used many days in a row but the coffee is too weak if you re-use it. So I pop the tea filter out, put in new coffee in a bottom filter and then pop the tea back in.

Tags: coffee tea, Food, K-tips

Treating myself to what feels like a really sweet super indulgent breakfast and yet is a lot healthier than something like French Toast or Corned Beef Hash and Hash Browns. Yummy morning. (It’s not on the photo but there’s a side of half grapefruit here too).

Tags: breakfast, Food, healthy eating, meals

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

Tags: diet, Food, healthy, ingredients, tag clouds

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?

Tags: Food, food dehydrator, Frugal Living, save money

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?

Tags: Food, healthy eating, kathryn vercillo, oatmeal, tips

I had cherries for lunch the other day. They were so pretty that I decided to take some photographs of them. I’ve discovered that doing this sometimes allows me to be more present in the moment, enjoying something as simple as my lunch. What I really love in this picture, though, is the reflection of some of the room’s windows in the bowl.

Tags: cherries, cherries in a bowl, Food, Photos, reflection

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?

Tags: broccoli cheese, Food, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, recipes

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?

Tags: beverages, carbonated beverages, drinks, flavored water, Food, hubpages, kathryn vercillo

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.

Tags: Food, grocery shopping, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, money, Personal Finance, saving money, shopping, spending money

Any SmartChick (or SmartGuy) knows that it’s really important to be concerned about your health. In line with this, it is important to be concerned about your diet because we are what we eat in a lot of ways. One of the best things that a smart person can do for themselves is to learn how to incorporate different foods into an overall balanced diet to get all of the right nutrition so that the body always feels good.

Fiber is one of those foods that you hear enough about to know that it’s something that you need to have in your diet. But is it something that you pay attention to? Most people don’t – at least not until they get old enough that a lack of fiber starts causing some serious issues in their bodies. It’s always better to prevent problems than to treat problems so adding fiber to your diet before it’s an issue just makes sense.

Luckily, there are tons of easy ways to add fiber to your diet. Basically you just want to eat lots of whole grains, fruits and vegetables. You want to get a lot of beans and peas in your diet. You want to avoid white (as in white bread and white rice) in favor of brown. You want to leave the skin and seeds on your foods as often as possible and eat raw fruits and veggies instead of cooked ones. Someone who is already eating a healthy diet is probably already doing most of these things. Way to be smart!

Tags: diet, dietary fiber, fiber, Food, health, how to eat fiber, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, nutrition