Chen Geliang Lounge

Have you ever played around with sriracha hot sauce? It’s that spicy red sauce you often find at south east asian restaurants in the plastic bottle with the rooster on the side. It’s sort of an “in” thing these days, a great combination of sweet, spicy, garlicky, and sour, with the consistency of ketchup. People are finding all sorts of culinary uses for sriracha, check out these mean buffalo wings with sriracha sauce from my friends Diane and Todd. For an experiment we thought we would jack up the humble hot dog with this sauce. We added a little Chinese mustard and topped the dog with asian coleslaw; it turned out great, we loved it! Even my dad, who tends to hold back on hot chilies gobbled up his. Do you use sriracha in your cooking? If so, please tell us how in the comments.

Continue reading "Hot Dogs with Sriracha and Asian Slaw" »

I like pistachio nuts. In fact, I would say that pistachios are the fifth best variety of nut in the whole wide world.

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nuts, pistachios, Things We Like

Hey everyone, I'm Dick Talens. I'm the co-founder of Fitocracy and a nutritional/fitness coach who specializes in helping people with very little time find their six-pack. Summer is just around the corner, and everyone is looking to get in shape. There are many "get fit for the summer" programs out there, but very few of them work if you're busy, un-athletic, or don't love exercise. Fortunately, I specialize in helping these people.

Fitness wasn't always a big part of my life. As a chubby kid, merely looking at a cookie would cause me to gain weight. This problem finally culminated in my teenage years when, after a summer of 15 hours/day playing Everquest, I found myself at 230 pounds. I spent hundreds of hours researching fitness and eventually became a competitive amateur bodybuilder. Using my knowledge of both fitness and people like us (you know... internet geeks), I can help you get in the best shape of your life over the next eight weeks and beyond. Have questions? I'm hanging out for the next couple of hours, so ask away!

The q&a is now closed—thanks for all the great questions!

Have an expert you'd like to see participate? Email us.

ask an expert, Diet, Exercise, Fitness, Health, Nutrition, qa, summer, working out

Weight loss is tricky business. Obviously what you eat has a huge impact on your health and body weight. But anyone who has ever tried to modify their diet for the sake of losing weight knows it isn’t so simple.

Most of us understand intuitively that broccoli is healthier than cookies. We can talk about sugar, fat, gluten, and antioxidants all day, but that doesn’t change the fact that cookies taste good and you still want to eat them. Any weight loss plan that simply tells you what to eat and neglects why you make the choices you make is unlikely to help you in the long run.

Nutrition knowledge is important, but it is only one piece of the puzzle. The real secret is understanding your behaviors and motivations at their roots, and using this information to have a meaningful impact on your health. In this sense, good health starts in your brain, not on your plate.

Willpower is a Limited Resource

The first thing you need to understand is that we don’t have as much control over our food decisions as most of us assume. We tend to believe that we can call on willpower anytime we wish and use it to order a salad instead of a burger, and if we fail to do so it is our own fault. However, self-control is not something we can simply turn on or off, and as a result the process of decision making––particularly when it comes to food––is much more complex.

Approximately 20 percent of the calories we expend daily are used by our brains. Because brain activity is so costly, things like self-control and decision making cannot be relied on indefinitely. As a result, willpower is a limited resource. Like a muscle, willpower becomes fatigued when exercised too frequently. All the decisions you make throughout the day deplete your willpower, and when you start running out of steam your ability to choose healthy food over more convenient food rapidly diminishes. Ironically, increasing your blood sugar can help restore willpower to some extent. But finding a healthy way to raise blood sugar in a state of depleted willpower can pose quite the dilemma. Tired brains find it much easier to just grab a cookie.

The way our brains cope with the willpower conundrum is to automate as much of our decision making as possible. It does this by creating habits. Habits are specific behaviors that occur in response to a trigger or cue. They are also always associated with some kind of reward, which in turn reinforces and strengthens the trigger. For example, a buzz in your pocket is a cue to reach down, grab your phone, pull it out, and glance at the screen. The information you see causes a bit of dopamine to be released in the reward center of your brain. We humans love novelty, which is why most of us have a reflexive response to checking our mobile devices when we receive a notification. This is how habits are born.

Once established, habits occur automatically without expending any willpower or mental effort. Scientists have estimated that up to 90 percent of our daily food decisions occur as a result of habits. This saves our brain energy for more difficult decisions where habits cannot be used.

How Can this Knowledge Help Us Lose Weight?

For one thing, it shows that willpower is not particularly reliable as a means to achieve lasting weight loss, and we’re better off spending our efforts creating healthy habits.

It also teaches us that any habit we wish to develop needs to impart a meaningful reward in order for it to stick. You can probably guess that some vague promise of future thinness is not sufficient––the reward for any habit needs to be immediate and tangible. This means that in order to achieve long-term weight control you need to find healthy foods you actually enjoy eating, physical activities you like doing, and spend your time making these as convenient and accessible as possible.

Fabulous news, right? Using willpower for restrictive dieting is difficult and incredibly unpleasant. We can all let out a collective sigh of relief that it doesn’t actually work. To achieve true success in health and weight loss, we’re better off quitting diets altogether and focusing on building healthy habits we enjoy. Try starting with something as simple as breakfast. Warm muesli with a splash of almond milk and cinnamon only takes two minutes to prepare and is absolutely delicious. Invest in a pedometer and challenge yourself to reach 10,000 steps a day. Setting and achieving an attainable goal is a very powerful reward, and is one of the reasons so many people love videogames.

Since our brains are easily overwhelmed, don’t try to develop too many habits at once. Work on just two or three habits at a time, and build from there. Habits take anywhere from two weeks to six months to take root, but on average about two months. Start with the easiest ones and work your way up. Once you’ve built enough good habits, your health will take care of itself.

Focus More on Your Brain and Less on Your Diet if You're Serious About Losing Weight | Summer Tomato

Darya Rose is a neuroscientist and the creator of the popular blog Summer Tomato, which provides the ultimate guide to hacking our brains to achieve real and lasting weight loss. Her new book FOODIST: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting, teaches you how to stop dieting, build healthy habits, and make life awesome.

Image remixed from

Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.

Diet, finess, Habits, Health, Nutrition, Psychology, Republished, Weight, weight-loss, willpower

When you need lemon juice for a recipe, nothing beats fresh-squeezed, but it's always a struggle to coax a lot of juice out of the fruit. As it turns out, the secret is to cut the lemon lengthwise.

Ian Knauer at Gourmet demonstrated this surprising trick by cutting two lemons, one lengthwise, and one the "normal" way, across its equator. He then juiced the lemons, and found that the one cut lengthwise yielded him nearly three times as much juice. For added juice, he also recommends warming the lemon up in the microwave for a few seconds if it's coming from your fridge. Once it's warm, be sure to give it a firm roll on the counter too before you cut. Lemons cut the "wrong" way might work a little better with a handheld reamer, but if you're using a citrus juicer, or just squeezing by hand, there aren't any downsides to cutting lengthwise. Click through the source link to check out the video.

The Test Kitchen: How To Get the Most Juice from Lemons and Limes | Gourmet via The Kitchn

Photo by Topseller (Shutterstock).

Citrus, Cooking, juicing, Kitchen, Lemons, maximizing

Sometimes, you can do something the fast way, or you can do it the right way. Other times, those two things are one and the same. Here are 10 everyday tasks that you can do in 10 seconds or less.

10. Tie an Emergency Tie Knot

Ever get to the point where you're already 5 minutes late, but haven't even tied your tie yet? With this method, you can tie your tie in five seconds flat, meaning you can get out the door faster. It'll take a bit of practice to learn—and you may have to adapt it to fit your preferred type of knot—but once you get it down, you'll feel like a well-dressed version of The Flash.

9. Cure Your Hiccups

You've probably heard a million hiccup cures over the years, but when our own Adam Dachis got hiccups that lasted over 36 hours, the one remedy he—and many others—found worked best was just a quick shot of applce cider vinegar. It only takes a few seconds, and works shockingly well.

8. Deseed a Pomegranate the Easy Way

I think the deliciousness of food is directly proportional to how much work it takes to eat. Case in point: pomegranates. They're delicious, but you have to work forever to get all those little seeds out into a bowl to eat it, right? Wrong! All you need is a wooden spoon and a little instruction. If you're of a plum fan, though, we've got tricks for that too.

7. Tie Your Shoes Faster with the Ian Knot

Tying your shoes isn't exactly a long, drawn-out process, but every second counts—especially when you're in a rush. The Ian Knot is a super-speedy way of tying your shoes, and while it takes a few minutes to learn, it's pretty easy. Check out the video above to see it in action, and while you're at it, check out this method for untying double-knotted shoes with ease.

6. Open a Bottle of Wine (Without Struggling with the Foil)

Most wine bottles come with a foil wrapper on top that, often, is a task to get off. Many of you wine experts may already know this, but for the rest: don't try to unwrap the foil. Just grab it, twist, and pull—you'll be enjoying your wine in no time.

5. Peel an Entire Head of Garlic

Peeling garlic is messy and sometimes difficult, particularly if you have a lot of cloves. Why go one by one when you could stick them all in a bowl, shake it up, and be done in less than 10 seconds? It sounds crazy, but it works—check out the video above for proof.

4. Unload a 12 Pack of Soda in One Swift Move

These days, soda comes in some pretty handy "fridge packs" meant to dispense cans in your fridge, but they're not great. They won't fit into every fridge, and once you get a few cans into the box, you have to reach all the way in there to fish out the last few cans. Instead, unload the entire box in one swift move—just open up both ends and push the cans through, as shown above. Simple, huh?

3. De-Fog Your Mirror After a Shower

We've all been there: you take a nice, long, hot shower, get out, stand in front of the mirror to shave/brush/whatever and your mirror is fogged beyond belief. Intsead of trying to wipe all that moisture off, just give it a quick blast of hot air from a hair dryer. After a few seconds, you'll be able to use your mirror as it was originally intended.

2. Fold a T-Shirt in Two Moves

Everyone's always looking for a way to speed up laundry, the world's most boring chore, and nothing's better than the tried-and-true Japanese t-shirt folding technique. In fact, you guys voted it your favorite Lifehacker tip of all time, and with good reason—once you get it down, it's mind-blowing how fast you can get through your shirts. Check out the video above for more time-saving clothing tips while you're at it.

1. Do All Kinds of Mental Math

When you were in school, you probably learned all sorts of quick math tricks, like how to multiply numbers with your hands or square large numbers (if not, you should brush up on those methods now). But those aren't the only tricks you can do: there are a lot of quick solutions for real-world problems too, like converting standard time to military time, converting farenheit to celsius, and even figuring out the day of the week that any date falls on. The complexity of the problem may make it a bit longer than a few simple seconds, but it's amazing what you can do with the right tricks up your sleeve.

Annoyances, Clips, Clothing, Drinks, Household, Lifehacker Top 10, Time Savers

It’s the beginning of blueberry season over here; let the parade of baked goods begin! I had a basket of blueberries giving me the eye the other morning, as well as some ricotta cheese in the fridge begging to be used up. Hmmm. Blueberry muffins maybe? blueberry pancakes? or pound cake? A lemony blueberry pound cake won the toss this time, a pound cake made even more dense and silky rich with the substitution of ricotta for some of the butter and flour. This ricotta pound cake was declared a winner by all who tasted it. Enjoy!

Continue reading "Lemon Blueberry Ricotta Pound Cake" »

Cooking at home can save you a lot of money, but you can also rack up a huge grocery bill learning to make certain dishes that don't always turn out better than their cheaper counterparts. What are your favorite inexpensive, home-cooked meals?

Personal finance blog Wise Bread shares a number of recipes that cost as little as $2 each to make. That seems a little on the excessively cheap side, however one of my favorite cheap meals—which comes out to about $2—is just rice, beans, and veggies. What's yours? Share a recipe if you've got it!

Best Money Tips: Dinner Recipes for $2 or Less | Wisebread

Photo by wavebreakmedia (Shutterstock).

Ask the Readers, Cooking, frugal, Frugality, Home, Kitchen, Recipes, Saving Money, tell us

Once you realize you don't need a recipe for everything, you may find yourself cooking a lot more often. Stir-fry is a perfect example—the steps stay the same, and you can use whatever is in the fridge. The pros at Food52 walk you through the quick and easy process.

There are a few technical issues that are really the key to stir-fry success. You need to get your pan hot enough (which is generally impossible to do with a wok because of the BTUs of American stoves and the thinness of the wok metal), but a non-stick skillet will do what you need it to do perfectly.

The other misstep is when you try to cram too many ingredients into the wrong-sized pan—this is my most common stir-fry failure. Easily solvable, with a little thing called patience.

The Six Steps

1. Stir-fries cook quickly so act like a scout and be prepared. Cut all vegetables small enough that they'll cook fast, and line up all ingredients next to the stove in the order they'll go into the pan. Always dilute soy sauce in a ratio of 1 part soy to 1 part water—when it hits the hot pan it will reduce, gaining back its strength.

2. Choose your noodle. I find all noodles are good noodles as long as they're long. Cook them to al dente and cool them—I like to steep rice noodles instead of boiling them, which only takes about 10 minutes.

3. Cook the protein first, adding half the diluted soy after the protein has caramelized. Remove the protein to a plate, wipe out the pan, and reheat it.

4. Sear the vegetables until tender. Be sure to add the vegetables that take the longest to cook to the pan first. Carrots first, ginger and garlic last.

5. Combine everything in the pan and toss just till it's warmed through, adding the remaining diluted soy sauce last.

6. Add the garnish—here, chives and scallions—which in Asian food isn't optional. It's an actual ingredient that needs to be added for flavor.

Still want a recipe? Here are a few for inspiration:

• Shredded Pork and Chinese Celery Lo Mein• Spicy Grilled Chicken Salad with Noodles• Thai Curry Noodles with Shrimp

How to Make Any Stir-Fried Noodles in 6 Steps | Food52

Tom Hirschfeld is a contributor at Food52. He's a stay-at-home dad and a trained chef. He taught at the local culinary school for 5 years, and has a small farm where he gardens, and raises chickens, turkeys, geese, and ducks. He talks about small farm life at www.bonafidefarmfood.com.

Image remixed from bonchan (Shutterstock).

Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.

Cooking, Kitchen, Kitchen hacks, Recipes, Republished, shutterstock, stir-fry

When you juice a lemon or lime by hand (without any special unitasker tool or juicer), all too often the seeds end up with the juice. To prevent the seeds from coming along for the ride, all you need is some cheesecloth.

As Household Magic Daily Tips recommends, wrapping a wet piece of cheesecloth around the cut end of the lemon will collect the seeds while the juice strains through. Alternatively, you you could use another other kind of mesh material such as sterile gauze.

While you're at it, if you want to get as most juice as possible for your drinks or dishes, we know a few tricks for that too.

Pit-Free Lemon Juice Without the Sticky Fingers | Household Magic Daily Tips

Photo by Daniella Segura.

Cooking, Food Hacks, Kitchen, Macgyver tips

Are you a lover of books? My father, the English teacher, instilled in us an appreciation for literature. When I find a book I love I want to yell about it from the mountain top. Instead, my friends are the beneficiaries of this enthusiasm, since I typically find every excuse to send them a copy of the new favorite. Last year the book my friends received was The Lost World of the Kalahari by Laurens van der Post. This year it will be The Honey Thief, a beautifully written collection of fictional stories by Najaf Mazari, a Hazara Afghani refugee living in Australia, and his collaborator, novelist Robert Hillman.

Continue reading "Lamb Korma" »

Monsanto is a $58 billion multinational Pesticide-'n-Frankenfood corporation that has moved on from selling Agent Orange to its new business of patenting actual seed genomes and then suing farmers who try to grow crops without paying the Monsanto corporation. Who could be opposed to such a thing. Only the elites, clearly.

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Appic, corporate america, Crazies, elitism, genetically modified food, Monsanto, Politics, Science, villainy

Energy bars make for great snacks and fuel for workouts, but the pricey commercial versions often contain ingredients you don't need. These homemade energy bars are a healthier version you can make in about half an hour.

We've mentioned DIY energy bars a couple of times before, but this version from America's Test Kitchen is the simplest one so far. It doesn't even require baking!

The great thing about this recipe is that there aren’t too many ingredients, and there’s minimal prep work involved—you don’t even have to toast the nuts or chop anything beforehand.

To make them, pulse the ingredients (pitted dates, sunflower seeds, raw almonds, chia seeds, dried cranberries, and coconut oil) in a food processor. Then press the mixture into a lined baking dish, leave it in the fridge for twenty minutes, and then just cut it up. The bars stay good for a week in the fridge or frozen for up to a month.

As one commenter on the recipe says, "You should stop what you're doing, and make these."

Homemade Energy Bars | America's Test Kitchen

Cooking, DIY, Food Hacks, Kitchen

You hear all these so-called "health experts" and "emergency room doctors gazing at our insulin levels in amazement" today who tell us, "Hey, don't drink so much soda," or "Hey, how can you put Mountain Dew in your baby's bottle, you monster?" They're always telling us to drink more water. But water is gross. What to do?

Read more...

Beverages, Health, marketing, Swill, Usa

If you're looking for a new brew to try, or just want to expand your palate a little bit, Beer Viz asks you a couple of questions about the beer you already enjoy and presents you with a plethora of alternatives that might suit you nicely. It's kind of like Pandora for beer.

To get started, select the strength of beer you're interested in (light, medium, dark), and select whether you'd like to explore similar beers by aroma, taste, appearance, or overall (selected by default, and takes them all into consideration). From there, you're presented with a map to various beers in the category, organized by color and family so you can see which ones are like each other by type, and then with lines connecting the ones that are similar by taste, aroma, or the other parameters you selected. The size of the dot next to the beer's name indicates its popularity among beer drinkers, and you can hover over a beer's name with your mouse to read details about it, including its percent alcohol-by-volume, and its overall rating.

The site uses data collected over 10 years by BeerAdvocate (and organized by Stanford University), so while it's not a complete list of every beer ever, it's pretty robust and includes beers popular with beer drinkers and fans. You won't find Budweiser, but you will find an interesting craft beer to try instead.

Beer Viz | via Hacker News

Alcohol, Beer, Drinks, Exploring, recommendations, suggestions, taste, web services, Webapps

Android: Do you ever need to split a bill with friends at a restaurant but struggle through the math? Grouptuity helps you figure out exactly how much everyone owes, including tax, tip, and any discounts you may have, without too much hassle.

Tell Grouptuity who's eating, what they ordered, and if there are any discounts. It'll keep track of it all and split the bill with the exact tax and tip owed for each person. If anyone in the party shares a dish, you can assign it to both and they'll each pay half. Grouptuity is free to use for the most part, but requires three credits to see the final split bill with full calculations. You get 25 credits when you download the app, providing eight split bills for free. After that you have to pay $1 for an additional 100 credits. We find this a little irritating and would rather pay a few bucks for the app outright, but are glad you get to try it out for free. Definitely give it a look if you ever have trouble splitting bills with large parties. You can test it out eight times before you decide if you want to pay.

For those of you with iPhones who want a similar feature set, check out Billr instead.

Grouptuity (Free-ish) | Google Play Store via Grouptuity Official Site

android, Android downloads, Bills, Downloads, eating out, Friends, Money, Parties, Personal Finance, Restaurants

If you want a loaf of sweet bread or a cake, starting with ice cream can save you a lot of time. Because ice cream contains many of the ingredients you need for these recipes—sugar, eggs, and fat—you can save yourself some time with just a few scoops.

All you really have to do is melt the ice cream, add flour, baking powder, and salt, and bake at about 350 degrees. When finished, you have bread! I've also heard that melted ice cream works as a substitute for the liquids you need for cake mixes and produces a more rich and moist cake. Check out the recipe at the Hungry Housewife for bread, and the post at WonderHowTo for additional possibilities.

Ice Cream Bread | The Hungry Housewife via WonderHowTo

baking, bread, desserts, Food Hacks, ice cream, Kitchen, Timesavers

For years, doctors have advised people to limit their daily salt intake to 1,500 milligrams in order to protect their hearts. Now, other doctors say that keeping your salt intake that low will hurt your heart. What we can say for sure: salt, heart.

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Death, Health, Irony, salt, Science, Studies

Dry granola bars, like those from Nature Valley, can make quite a mess. Reddit user Poke_Red suggests avoiding this problem by microwaving your snack before you eat it.

Ten to thirty seconds in the microwave (depending on your device's wattage) is all it takes to make the bar chewy and less likely to crumble. Obviously, this is less of an issue if your preferred brand is already chewy, but many are not, so save yourself the cleanup.

Heat up your Nature Valley Bar to prevent it from crumbling everywhere! | Reddit via Efficient Life Skills

Photo by Jem Hologram.

Clever Uses, Microwave

Mindful eating, or paying more attention when you eat, prevents you from overeating and makes meals more enjoyable. To make this a lasting habit, food writer Darya Rose recommends creating triggers that will remind you to pay attention.

For example, starting to stab a bite of food with your fork is a defined action that occurs several times throughout your meal. For me, this action is now a trigger that forces me to ask myself if there’s already food in my mouth. If there is, I am reminded to set my fork down again and focus on chewing instead. It’s amazing how well this works. In this situation, the reward I receive for following through on the habit I’ve scripted (putting down my fork) is getting to appreciate and enjoy the bite of food already in my mouth. This is actually incredibly satisfying.

She also recommends other little tricks you can use to "program" yourself into eating more mindfully. For example, you can use setting the table as a reminder to drink half a glass of water or even set a recurring alarm to remind you to count your chews.

Mindfulness in general takes work to develop, but this practice can have a profound effect on your health and life as a whole.

Mind Over Fatter | Medium

Photo by Ollie Crafoord.

Eating, Health, Meditation, Mind Hacks

Dear Lifehacker,I want to eat a healthy, balanced diet, but does that actually include a multivitamin? If I eat well, shouldn't I get the nutrients I need by default? I assume a multivitamin won't hurt me, but I don't want to bother if it isn't necessary. Should I take a daily multivitamin or not?

Sincerely,Vexed by Vitamins

Dear Vexed,We all want a simple diet, but unfortunately those two things rarely match up. Although multivitamins can provide health benefits, they can cause problems as well. Ultimately you should speak with your doctor or a registered dietician about any significant health choices you make, but we spoke to Dr. Carly Stewart, medical expert at Money Crashers, to get some general advice.

The Pros and Cons of Multivitamins

According to Dr. Stewart, multivitamins offer a number of health benefits:

Multivitamins give people sufficient amounts of both vitamins and minerals that their current diet may not be providing. They can improve many bodily functions and assist with mental health. They can also help decrease stress.

That said, taking them can make us a little less diligent:

Taking multivitamins can cause people to pay less attention to their diets. Every effort should be made to get as many vitamins and minerals out of actual foods as possible.

Dr. Stewart notes that multivitamins cause the largest problem when they provide too much of something we don't need:

One of the biggest risks of taking multivitamins is that you may be ingesting too much of a particular vitamin, depending upon what your diet consists of. Some vitamins, if taken at a high level, will simply pass through the body without any negative effects. But both Vitamins A and D, which are fat soluble, build up in the body's tissue if too much is taken. Taking too much Vitamin A can increase the risk of osteoporosis, and taking too much Vitamin D can damage both the kidneys and blood vessels.

As previously suggested, we recommend discussing any important health choice with your doctor. You want to avoid taking vitamins you don't need and causing severe issues. It's also important to monitor and understand what you eat so you know when you're ingesting too much of a particular vitamin. Keep yourself informed and you'll stay safe.

How to Choose a Multivitamin

If you choose to take a multivitamin, how do you pick the right one? Dr. Stewart offers a few guidelines:

Consumers should stay away from multivitamins that contain more than 100% of any daily recommended dosages, as that can cause vitamin toxicity. Most multivitamins are geared towards either men, women, or even the elderly. Consumers should choose a multivitamin based on their age and sex. For those who have difficulty swallowing large pills, gel-coated capsules and liquid vitamins are also available.

You'll also see food-based vitamins offered on some shelfs, but for a much higher price. Marketing arounds these types of vitamins claim they offer better absorption and aid in digestion, but we currently don't know enough to validate those claims. Dr. Stewart explains one advantage:

Food-based multivitamins contain powdered fruits, vegetables, and other food ingredients, something that traditional multivitamins don't have. Taking food-based multivitamins can decrease the risk of an upset stomach and can generally be taken on an empty stomach without issue.

Whether or not that's worth the higher cost is up to you. Either way, you'll want to consider your specific situation when choosing a vitamin as well. For example, prenatal vitamins exist for pregnant women to provide additional nutrients they made need. Dr. Stewart explains:

The type of multivitamin does matter, depending upon your personal situation. Women who are or looking to become pregnant should take a multivitamin high in folic acid and iron, which can help prevent birth defects. Women in general should consider a multivitamin with Vitamin D and calcium, which can stave off osteoporosis. Most seniors need a multivitamin with higher levels of Vitamin D, which improves bone strength.

Ideally we'd all have a multivitamin tailored to our specific needs. While personalized vitamin services exist, they require frequent testing and monitoring and therefore cost a lot of money (and are so rare that few people have local access). While a one-size-fits-all option may help a lot of people in most cases, visit your doctor and discuss what you need before you make your decision. Plenty of variety now exists, and you can get individual vitamins if you don't mind swallowing multiple pills and wish to essentially create your own mix. Pick what suits you best based on your doctor's recommendations and it'll help provide what you're missing.

Love,Lifehacker

Title image from The Matrix. Other photos by me.

Have a question or suggestion for a future Ask Lifehacker? Send it to tips+asklh@lifehacker.com.

Ask Lifehacker, Body, Diet, Health, multivitamin, Multivitamins, Nutrients, Nutrition, vitamin, Vitamins

iPad: Making pizza isn't rocket science, but making good pizza can be tricky. Thankfully, DIY Pizza Pie is a guide to making the perfect pizza from scratch. The app shows you how to make dough, pick great toppings, choose the right cheese, and avoid some of the most common pitfalls at-home pizza chefs encounter.

The team behind the app sent us a version to try out, and it's packed with useful information about making great pizza at home. The app was built with the help of the Pizza a Casa cooking school in New York, and while you'll see a lot of tips for making New York-style pizza, it's not the only kind that's represented. DIY Pizza Pie walks you through all of the ingredients and tools you'll need to make great pizza at home, helps you choose the best for the type of pizza you're making (eg, fresh mozzarella versus block versus shredded, and other grated cheeses), the best way to reheat your pizza, how to choose a pizza stone (and how to properly clean one), and much more.

Maybe my favorite section of the app is the "7 Deadly Pizza Pitfalls," where you can read how to avoid soggy pizza crusts, why you should leave the rolling pin in the cabinet when making your dough, why overloading your pizza with toppings will actually hurt it more than help it, and even how to make great pizza at home without setting off the smoke alarm. Hit the link below to grab the app, it's $5 in the iTunes App Store.

DIY Pizza Pie ($5) | iTunes App Store via Pizza a Casa

cookbooks, Cooking, Cooking Tips, DIY, Downloads, Food tips, home cooking, Household, ipad, Ipad downloads, Kitchen, Pizza, Tutorials

A new UN report finds that insects, our six-legged friends, could help solve world hunger — if only we got over ourselves and started eating them.

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bugs, United Nations

It must be said right up front: coffee is a utilitarian beverage that exists mainly to wake you up. Therefore, treating coffee as some delicate wine-like treat that can only be appreciated by a select group of gourmands is absurd. Or is it?

Read more...

Beverages, Caffeine, Coffee, Fetishes, preoccupations, Swill, the rich, Yuppies

When "fast food" was invented back in the 1950s or whenever, we were cautiously optimistic. A ground hamburger patty and french-fried potatoes served in less time than it takes to raise and slaughter a cow, plant a field of potatoes, and build a fire? Sure, why not? But today it seems that Americans have forgotten how to take their time with their food.

Read more...

Breakfast, Dining, Fast Food, McDonalds, trendwatch