data-driven food posts Archives | Page 4 of 4

March 15, 2018

12 Natural Home Remedies for the Common Cold

Blame it on Nashville’s fast fluctuations in temperature or our having kids at home, we all got sick last week. One became two became a full family of runny noses. So while we were pounding supplements, sipping smoothies and making another tissue run, I started this list. Your go-to roundup of home remedies for the common cold.* Keep it for next time you’re sick (knock on wood).

Like it or not, at some point or another, we’re all going to get colds. According to Nicola Davison at The Guardian, what’s considered normal today is “an average of between two and four colds each year” for adults and for “children, up to 10.” Woah. We’re all so used to this idea, in fact, we call it common. The common cold. But just because you have to get a cold doesn’t mean you have to surrender to it.Read More

March 1, 2018

gluten-free bread for communion

Anyone who’s lived a gluten-free lifestyle knows how hard it is to find a bread free of wheat. So, recently tasked with finding a gluten-free bread for communion, i.e., one sturdy enough to dip into liquid without dissolving, I test two recipes, comparing quality and costs with store-bought varieties. Here’s what I find.

Where do you go when you need a bread you can offer the masses? When you want loaves you can break and hand out? Given that, according to a study discussed last year by Niall McCarthy at Forbes Magazine, some 3.1 million Americans follow a gluten-free diet, a number that has “tripled since 2009,” finding a bread sans gluten is a good place to start. Read More

February 13, 2018

5 Thrive Market Benefits Or, Why Try the Healthy Online Membership Grocery

This post on Thrive Market benefits is part of a series of posts examining grocery sources. Described as an online Costco meets Whole Foods, Thrive Market is a membership site that offers lower prices on recognized healthy and organic products, as well as its own Thrive Market branded line. Why try it? Here’s a look.

If Brandless is the site that does $3 product pricing by cutting out the brand name, Thrive Market is the site that gives you the brand name, but at a better cost. For those organic or healthy products you’re loyal to and can’t replace with off-brand alternatives–a particular supplement, a favorite paleo tortilla, a non-GMO candy bar–Thrive Market typically beats the costs you’ll find at your local grocer, while also giving you the convenience of online shopping.

The only catch? Like Costco, Thrive Market is a membership grocery. While it does provide a free 30-day trial, after that you pay $59.95 a year to buy at its lower costs. Are the savings worth it?Read More

January 23, 2018

6 Brandless Benefits Or, Why Order from the $3 Online Grocery

UPDATE December 2019: Brandless no longer sells food! I still recommend their diapers ($11), to-go beverage cups ($3) and kitchenware.

This post on Brandless benefits is the first in a series of posts examining grocery sources (see also later posts on Thrive Market and Kroger). When you want to find good food without breaking the budget, is Brandless the answer? Here’s a look.

Just launched this past July, Brandless is a new online grocery store with one unique shtick: everything is $3. Read More

January 19, 2018

Smoothie Packs: Empty Hype or Savvy Hack?

This article on smoothie packs is the second post in a series of make-ahead morning recipes, batch breakfasts designed to save you time. Also in this series: breakfast panna cotta.

They’re tasty, healthy and an easy way to get your greens–but, let’s face it, even smoothies are a chore when you’re tired, stressed or in a rush. Who can’t relate to blogger and cookbook author Kathryne Taylor, who said in Women’s Health Magazine, “I need my breakfasts to be easy enough to fumble together in the morning, because I don’t have the energy to pull out a variety of smoothie ingredients before I’ve had coffee”?Read More

December 14, 2017

Will the Best Pie Crust Recipe Please Stand Up?

This is part two in a Cook the Cookbook series featuring Margaret Rudkin’s The Pepperidge Farm Cookbook, published in 1963. Read the intro to this cookbook’s series here and part one here.

Before Margaret Rudkin wrote the world’s first cookbook to land on the New York Times Bestseller list, she was a mathematics and finance major who joined the working world and met the man she’d marry, Henry, at a job. They wed in 1923, three years before they’d, “to live a real country life,” buy 125 acres of land in Connecticut and name it Pepperidge Farm.Read More