Grab Bag Calorie Burner/Heat Generator:

This just in from Dr. Andrew Weil, profiling research recently performed at UCLA. For those who hope to burn more calories, and/or those that run cold (hello Arlene G.!), this could be interesting:

A  Hot Way to Burn Calories
If you like spicy foods and want to pare a few pounds, you might try adding hot peppers to your diet. Many varieties contain capsaicin, a substance that causes the zippy “burn” you get when eating some Mexican foods. Capsaicin also promotes the generation of body heat, which helps burns calories. Researchers at the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition tested a “non-burning” version of capsaicin in a small study to see if it boosted heat production in dieters. All 34 participants agreed to drink a very low calorie liquid meal replacement for 28 days; some received pills containing dihydrocapsiate (DCT), the non-burning capsaicin, and some a placebo. At the start and end of the trial the investigators checked each participant’s weight, body fat and energy expenditure after a serving of the test meal. They found that for several hours afterward heat production in the participants who had received the highest amount of DCT was almost double that of those who took the placebo.

Grab Bag “Did You Know” Tip:

Maybe most of you know this, but a number of people I know were not aware of this handy short cut.

You know those LONG menu lists that drop down for you to choose something like State or Country when filling out a form or making a purchase on the web? And, if you live in Washington, Venezuela, the U.S., etc., your target selection is WAY the heck and gone at the very bottom of that menu, prompting you to have to scroll ALL the way through all those other states and countries.

Don’t laugh… it used to bug me to have to scroll through the whole world to get to the U.S…. especially when you can just….

• Use the keyboard to type the first few letters of the selection you want once the menu is open •

Voila. Merry Christmas to ya. I just gave you back 3 seconds x the number of menus you pull down each year.

Grab Bag Bitter (sweet!) Fat Burner:

So… if hot peppers isn’t your thing, maybe salad dressing is??

Yes, Dorothy, it was right there all along. Just click your heels together three times and say, “Apple cider vinegar”, and your caloric burn rate will climb.

WHAT THE HEY? Well, apparently so. The docs at Real Age report on a study showing that obese participants who consumed 1 to 2 tablespoons of the tasty stuff daily lost significantly more body fat AND belly fat than the placebo group (what on earth could serve as a placebo for apple cider vinegar, I ask??), despite the same diet and exercise plans.

Triglyceride levels and systolic blood pressure numbers dropped, too. They suggest that probably any type of vinegar would have similar effects.

Personally, I LOVE the taste of apple cider vinegar.

And you thought it was just a simple salad dressing layer…

Grab Bag “Honeycrisp Anti-Aging Serum??”:

As many Bag readers know, the FINEST APPLE ON THE PLANET, Honeycrisp, not only slays all contenders in the taste and texture categories, but the longevity factor in these nutritional nuggets has been reported to be ground breaking (Read the original Grab Bag info on Honeycrisp here). Alas, most Honeycrisp apples are eaten so quickly that few test the claim.

Well, as a devoted Honeycrisp parishioner, I committed to some research. In the fall, I bought organic Honeycrisp by THE  CASE. That’s right… about 100 to a box. I bought a case in September when they first came out, and then I bought 2 cases in November, which is usually near the end of the season of availability. I kept them in a cool location, sharing lots with friends and family, but personally consuming at least one a day, every day.

Astoundingly, I ate the last of my Honeycrisps in late April, and it was very nearly as crisp, juicy and tasty as the first one I had in the fall. Now that’s pretty amazing. (No wonder the U.S. patent on this apple, now expired, pulled in roughly $6 MILLION for the University of Minnesota!)

So I wasn’t surprised to read that Swiss chemists are working on developing a new anti-aging face cream using the genes of “a nearly extinct variety of apple” that uses its own unusually resilient stem (no pun intended) cells to prolong freshness. Maybe they should try Honeycrisp stem cells… hmmmmm.

Okay… that image above is creepy.

Grab Bag Public Service Announcement:

So artfully done…..

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Grab Bag Brain Game:

For all you lovers of slingshots, this is a great game. “Buy” a ball (bigger= more expensive), then aim and slingshot it from the orange staging circle into the pile of bricks, knocking off as many green ones as possible. Gets addicting…

BLOSICS 2

Grab Bag Funny Stuff:

Great look-alikes: