Food & Nutrition: Culinary Techniques, Diets & Metabolic Health

Nutritional health is achieved through the therapeutic use of whole foods, safe culinary preparation, and understanding the metabolic impacts of specific dietary frameworks and ingredients.

Homemade Ground Beef Tacos

How to Cook Taco Shells in the Microwave

For the best taco, follow directions to heat up prepackaged taco shells. Heat them in the oven if you want crisp shells to hold your ingredients. Use the microwave -- which is quicker and more energy-efficient -- if you like the shells to be more pliable.

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Ice coffee with milk and whipped cream

Milk Shakes to Gain Weight

To gain weight, you need to consume a serious number of calories. Taking in 500 to 1,000 calories more than you burn daily yields a 1- to 2-pound gain per week. Milkshakes are an easy and tasty way to boost your calorie intake.

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Chubby male's hand hold yellow vitamin  tabletss

Is It Safe to Cut Vitamins to Swallow Them?

The primary safety concern with cutting a vitamin comes from the challenge of using a knife to chop an unwieldy pill. You can cut vitamins to make them easier to swallow, as long as the directions or your doctor don't specifically say to take them whole.

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How to Cook Pig Heart

A pig's heart is one of the animal's most active organs, so it's quite lean. It has a rich, dense flavor, especially when it's fresh and the fat is trimmed away ahead of time. Once it's ready, draw out that flavor by cooking it one of two ways: slow and low or fast and flashy.

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Bananas at the Market

Low Potassium & Dizziness

Potassium is an important mineral needed for several bodily functions. It helps to keep the right acid-base balance in the body, plays a role in the digestion of proteins and carbohydrates, helps the heart maintain a regular rhythm and it supports muscle growth.

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How to Make Molding Chocolate With Cocoa Powder

Creating your own molding chocolate from cocoa power allows you to control the ingredients and easily make adjustments for nutrition. Cocoa beans come from the fruit of the cocoa tree and contain about 54 percent fat, 11 percent protein and 31 percent carbohydrates.

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Coconuts

What Are the Health Benefits of Desiccated Coconut?

Coconuts make up staples in many cuisines -- including several Indian and South American cuisines -- and their widespread availability in the tropics provided sustenance needed to establish trade routes, according to Dr. Kenneth Olson, an associate professor at Washington University.

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Barbecued pork and beer

How to Bake Boneless Pork Southern Style Ribs

The term "Southern-style ribs" may appear to allude to a region-specific type of barbecue sauce or a certain mixture of spices, but actually refers to a cut of pork . Southern-style ribs, also referred to as "country-style," are meatier pork ribs that are cut from the pork loin.

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Healthy turkey avocado and sprouts sandwich on whole wheat lunch

Turkey for Weight Loss

Including sources of lean protein in your diet is important when you're trying to lose weight, since protein helps to preserve muscle mass and keeps you feeling full.

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Breakfast on the table ready to  be eaten

What Should Be Your Biggest Meal?

Although many people typically eat their biggest meal later in the day, there can be benefits to making breakfast your biggest meal instead.

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Italian pasta

Association Between Iron and Magnesium Deficiency

One of the reasons that it is necessary to eat a variety of foods to maintain a nutritious diet is that most nutrients act synergistically. In other words, your body requires the different nutrients found in several foods to maintain health and functionality.

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Chicken baked with vegetables

Is it Ok to Cook Tomato Dishes in Metal Pans?

Few things are more frustrating than putting time and energy into a recipe only to have it turn out badly. While low-quality ingredients, the wrong heat setting and poor technique can each befoul a perfect dish, when you're cooking with tomatoes, the pan you choose counts, too.

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Succulent pot roast

How to Cook a Boneless Inside-Blade Pot Roast

The chuck, or beef shoulder, contains a large number of mostly small muscles running in several different directions. Appropriately, they're known by a similar variety of names in different parts of the country. For example, two different roasts are sold as inside-blade, depending on your butcher's preferences.

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chicken soup

How Do I Fix My Chicken Soup If It Has No Flavor?

Bland chicken soup may be good for the body, but it’s hardly good for your taste buds. From simple to savory, there are as many methods for flavoring the soup as there are recipes for the soup. The key is to taste the soup as you go so you avoid over-seasoning the broth.

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How Do I Make Apple Brandy at Home?

Made from white or red wine and usually aged for several years in oak barrels, brandy can be flavored with various fruit juices. In particular, apple brandy is made from apple cider and white wine. The two main types of apple brandy are Calvados and applejack.

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Tomato-spinach soup with noodles

Are Shirataki Noodles Healthy?

Shirataki noodles are traditional Japanese noodles that are thin, low-carb and chewy. They are made from a dietary fiber called glucomannan, derived from the konjac root. This fiber contains more than 16 amino acids and several vitamins and minerals.

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pills

Magnesium Malate vs. Magnesium Citrate

Magnesium is an important mineral required by numerous critical biological processes in the body, including muscle, heart and brain function. Because magnesium is found in almost all plant and animal food sources, dietary deficiencies in magnesium are rare.

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Dried Date

Dates and Cholesterol

Dates are a type of fruit and, like all plant products, are cholesterol-free. You'll only find cholesterol in animal foods such as meat, butter and cheese, so replacing animal-based snacks with dates in your diet may help keep your arteries clear.

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How to Cook Raw Breakfast Sausage Links

Breakfast sausage links are produced from a blend of lean ground pork, pork fat and spices. Generally smaller and milder in flavor than their Italian or Polish cousins, the sausages are sold in two forms: partially cooked that require very little cooking time, and raw uncooked links that must be thoroughly cooked.

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