Olive Oil: Spanish versus Italian

Options are abundant for olive oil, and the olive oil section at the grocery store can pose a challenge. How do you efficiently and confidently choose the best-tasting or best-value bottle? 

For starters, like wine or any food for that matter, it's difficult to say what will taste best since taste is so specific to the individual, says How Stuff Works. It's a good idea to experiment with what tastes good to you within your price range.

That said, several guidelines and tips ensure you get high-quality olive oil. Many may want to use the olive oil's country of origin — like Spain or Italy — as the prime determining factor. 

While each region and variety does affect the taste, first, it's best to know how and where to look for the best olive oil on the shelf. Then, you can consider the olive oil's region.

Premium extra virgin olive oil is superior and best used fresh as a topping, drizzle, or condiment. Extra virgin olive oil is next in line for high quality, per How Stuff Works. This is because extra virgin olive oil is the least processed and is chemical and additive-free, says Bon Appétit. 

Next, pick a dark-colored bottle. Olive oil spoils quickly, and clear bottles speed up the process. If you're wanting to avoid pesticides, anything certified organic is the way to go.  READ MORE...

Why Pancakes Taste Better At A Diner

Pancakes may be a breakfast staple, but making them — especially well — can be a tricky and time-consuming experience. If you've tried attempted pancakes before, you've likely experienced batches that were too thin, too lumpy, or too flavorless. 

Yet every time you order them at a restaurant or diner, you get fat, flavorful, fluffy stacks of flapjacks. What gives?

Insider claims that pancakes are just one of those foods that you're better off ordering at a restaurant or diner than trying to make at home, explaining that amateur chefs may not have access to the tools or ingredients that make restaurant pancakes so good. 

Plus, professional chefs and restaurant chains have perfected the ingredients ratios through trial and error. But if you were to make restaurant-quality pancakes at home, how would you do it?

Fortunately, it is possible to make restaurant-quality pancakes at home — but it might mean tweaking your recipes and technique a bit. 

In 2015, Marie Grimm, the vice president of culinary innovation at IHOP, told Delish a few of the chain's secrets, which can help you perfect your own pancake process.  READ MORE...

Global Garlic

Calling all garlic lovers! How well do you really know your garlic? Although there are many varieties, Hello Homestead explains that garlic usually falls into one of two groups: hard neck (robust with a woody center stalk) and soft neck (mild without a stalk). 

Whether used raw to add a pungent kick or cooked to an earthy sweetness, garlic has become a pantry staple across the globe, and there's one country in particular to thank for its mass production.

Primarily used as a food source, garlic was also embraced throughout history because it was thought to have healing properties. 

Those ideas turned out to be pretty accurate as Oregon State University shares that a compound called allicin is responsible for garlic's antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and even anticancer properties. Interestingly, allicin is also what gives garlic its strong aroma!

Also referred to by its scientific name, allium sativum, the University of Missouri reports that garlic dates back over 7,000 years ago to parts of central Asia. 

While the passage of time has made the crop accessible globally, garlic continues to be produced primarily in Asia, specifically in the east.  READ MORE...

Protein in Beans

Protein: it's not just for bodybuilders. Dietician Nancy Waldek explains that the human body doesn't naturally store protein, so folks need to consume protein regularly through their daily diets to create, maintain, and fuel cells, via Piedmont Healthcare.

Since everybody has different activity levels and calorie needs, it should come as no surprise that the amount of protein you should eat in a day varies from person to person. According to Harvard, a person's Recommended Dietary Allowance for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of their body weight.

For example, a person weighing 130 pounds would have an RDA of 46.8 grams of protein per day. In order to calculate your personal RDA, Harvard says, you can multiply your own weight in pounds by 0.36. Animal sources might be high in protein, but they're also high in saturated fat, according to Livestrong.

Plant-based protein sources like beans provide an easy and healthy way to bypass unwanted fat content and still fulfill your daily protein quota.  READ MORE...

Drinking Wine and COVID

Those who were paying close attention to a study released by the UK National Health Service might have gotten excited about their latest find. 

The study's report showed a correlation between those who consume certain kinds of wine and their likelihood for contracting COVID-19. 

Though it might be tempting to jump to the conclusion that drinking some wine could help ward off the highly-transmittable virus, that isn't exactly what the study suggests (via Wine-Searcher).

The study found that those who do not drink at all were more likely to get COVID-19 while those who drink liquor had no more or less of a chance of contracting the virus. 

But the key findings were that those who drank 14 glasses of red wine or fewer per week were 10 to 17% less likely to get COVID-19. The same number of glasses of fortified wine reduced the risk by 12%. 

Those who drank white wine or Champagne were up to 8% less likely to get the virus. However, it is vital to remember that these figures were reported as correlative patterns, rather than the direct effect of alcohol on COVID-19.  READ MORE...