Toxic Shock Syndrome: How Bacterial Toxins Can Turn Our Immune System Against Us
Streptococcus and staphylococcus bacteria produce toxins that can cause toxic shock syndrome.
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News: Neutrophil Fast Squad Are First Responders to Bacterial Lung Invaders
The body's usual response to a bacterial infection in the blood — called sepsis — takes time. It requires a carefully orchestrated sequence of events that gets the body's immune system ramped up to deal with the invading bacteria.
News: Unique Way Gonorrhea Breaks Down the Female Body's Defenses
Usually, the mucus lining of the female genital tract presents a barrier that helps prevent infections. But, somehow, the bacteria that causes gonorrhea gets around and through that barrier to invade the female genital tract.
News: New 'Personalized Lotions' Made of Good Skin Bacteria Can Prevent Infections, Including MRSA
Most people know atopic dermatitis by its common name, eczema—that dry, flaky skin that itches incessantly. Along with the scratching comes frequent skin infections, often with Staphylococcus aureus.
News: If You're Low on Vitamin D, Supplements Can Help You Fight Off Colds & Flu
Some studies have shown that vitamin D supplements help fight respiratory infections, but some haven't. A new study published in The BMJ clarified the confusion, and identified a group of people that might be better able to fight off colds and flu with vitamin D supplements.
News: The Next Big Antibiotic Could Come from the Gut of an Insect
No one can dispute the evolutionary success of bugs. The oldest insect fossils were found encased in crystallized mineral silica in Scotland in 1926, and they're between 396 and 407 million years old.
News: You're Eating Mold & You Don't Even Know It
Koji is a culture made up of a certain fungus (mold) called Aspergillus oryzae, which has been used to ferment rice and soybeans in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean kitchens for centuries. Koji can actually have other involved fungi, but Aspergillus oryzae is the most common, and therefore the names can be used interchangeably. Its end purpose is to enhance the flavor of items like soy sauce, sake, and miso.
How To: 6 Ways to Have Your Bowl & Eat It Too
Edible bowls are glorious for plenty of reasons. They create fewer dishes, they're pretty to look at, and, well... you can eat them. There are many different options out there you can choose, like bacon cups, hollowed out apples, and molded hash browns, but these are 6 personal favorites of ours to use as edible food vessels.
How To: The Ultimate Carb-Conscious Alternative to Sandwich Bread
If you're gluten-free, on a diet, or just cutting the carbs like me, eating a sandwich can be a dangerous game. There are traditional alternatives such as lettuce or egg wraps, but they have their drawbacks: they can't hold as many ingredients, they can be lack flavor when raw and un-rendered, and it's hard to layer the toppings and condiments to create your perfect bite.
How To: Store Meat to Avoid Freezer Burn
Frozen meat is a saving grace for weeknight meals. Whenever I crave a certain protein, all I need to do is defrost it. Sometimes, I don't even need to defrost it in order to use it.
How To: Prep Oats Overnight for Easy Grab-&-Go Breakfasts All Week
Many of us are guilty of sacrificing a delicious breakfast for a few extra minutes of sleep in the morning during the busy work week. Grab-and-go breakfasts are definitely timesavers, but granola bars and other packaged items often lack the fresh breakfast feel that makes the first meal of the day so great.
How To: Cook Grains Perfectly, Every Time
When it comes to cooking grains, there is an unspoken rule to never stray from the exact measurements. Consulting charts for the proper ratio of liquid to grain is considered the difference between crunchy, undercooked pebbles and a mushy mess... that is, until now.
How To: 5 Shortcuts to Making Killer Breakfasts in a Hurry
Personally, I think everyone should have the freedom to sit down and enjoy a delicious breakfast each morning... but that isn't always attainable, especially because of the prep work and cook time that tasty meals often require.
How To: Do This Before Freezing Chicken, Turkey, & Other Poultry for Insanely Juicy Meat
I'm no coupon-cutter (I just don't have the patience for it, sadly), but I do love buying things in bulk to save a buck or two. And one of the staples on my bulk-buy list is chicken; I cook with chicken so often that trying to save money on it is a no-brainer.
How To: Freshen Your Older Fish Filets with This Simple Trick
I love eating fish at restaurants—the flesh is flaky and tender; the scent, fresh and sweet. Cooking fish at home is a completely different story, though. Even when I do cook successful fish dishes, it often leaves this (for lack of a better description) fishy smell that permeates everything it touches. Monday's salmon becomes Wednesday's odor. It's enough to deter me from cooking fish, period.
How To: Make a Cheap Cut of Steak Taste Like Filet Mignon
Living on a budget often means compromising what you want for what you need—or at least, for what's affordable. But that doesn't necessarily mean you have to compromise on flavor, especially if you know the right tips and tricks to make something spectacular out of the ordinary.
How To: Sushi + Burrito = The Ultimate Handheld Meal
Sushirrito offers burrito-sized sushi rolls that are on the cusp of becoming the trendiest handheld snack to hit the foodie world. According to its website, Peter Yen created the Sushirrito brand, trademarked it in 2008, and opened his first restaurant in 2011 in the Bay Area with Ty Mahler, executive chef.
How To: 3 Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread Alternatives That Don't Sacrifice Flavor
Let me start by saying something controversial: I despise the gluten-free fad. I think gluten is delicious (I go through at least two loaves of bread a week, with a healthy dose of pretzels and pasta in there as well), and I think many of the health myths surrounding gluten are either fabricated or hyperbolic.
How To: Make a Full Breakfast—Without a Skillet
Aren't the weekends extra special when they include a bacon, egg, and pancake breakfast? We call it "Lazy Sunday" for a reason. Actually, who needs it to be a weekend? Monday it is!
How To: Make the World's Easiest Salad Dressing (No Seeding or Peeling Necessary)
In my family, if a food could be made instead of bought, it was made. It wasn't until I went to college and started eating dorm food that I tasted the store-bought versions of many kitchen staples. I quickly learned that there is an enormous quality difference between homemade dressing and the kind that comes in a bottle at the supermarket.
How To: Make Cheaper, Healthier & Tastier Pancakes with This Easy Pancake Mix Recipe
You can make a pretty strong case for pancakes being the ultimate breakfast food. They taste like a treat for a special occasion, yet they're not bad for you (presuming you don't share my whipped cream and maple syrup habits). They can be customized and accessorized, and they cook up in just a few minutes.
How To: Make a Week's Worth of Salad at Once
Greasy fast food. Snacks. Candy. Empty stomachs. What do these all have in common? They're all things that people commonly have for lunch during the week, because it beats the hassle of having to plan, make, and pack lunches before their workday.
Dishwasher Cooking: Delicious Recipes You Can Make While Cleaning Your Dishes
This sounds a little crazy, and it is—in a good way. Cooking food in the dishwasher while it cleans your dishes multitasks your appliance and saves time and energy. And who doesn't want to spend less time over a hot stove? How Dishwasher Cooking Works
How To: Why You Should Eat Cookies for Breakfast
Cookies for breakfast seem like a clear dietary no-no, but these three-ingredient breakfast cookies are easy, healthy, portable, and can be made in advance. They're also dairy-free, egg-free, and have no added processed sugar, so they can also be called allergy-friendly cookies. If you use gluten-free quick oats in this recipe, they are also gluten-free breakfast cookies! Besides all of those reasons, these cookies are only about 50 calories each when they're made with just the original three...
How To: Keep Ground Meat from Sticking to Your Hands
If you have ever attempted to mix and shape your own meatballs or burger patties, you may have endured bits of meat continuously and stubbornly sticking to your hands. This can make shaping more challenging than it should be.
How To: Clean Up Liquid Spills More Easily with Flour
Spills happen in the kitchen, and while every good cook knows to clean as you go, not every cook has an endless supply of cleaning materials. Besides, one spill can exhaust your entire stockpile of sponges, paper towels, and rags in a matter of minutes. Particularly egregious mishaps can make everything they touch feel sticky and gross.
How To: Keep Garlic from Sticking to Your Hands & Knife
It's a shame that one of the world's tastiest foods can be such a pain to prep. Most cooks are familiar with this conundrum: chopping or crushing garlic releases a pungent liquid that causes bits of garlic to stick your knife and hands, creating a messy affair. So what is going on here? The common assumption is that the garlic is releasing some kind of oil, but the truth is that this liquid rinses away easily in water. Yet one of the basic precepts of chemistry is that oil and water don't mix.
How To: Straighten hair with a Brazilian blowout treatment
Ever hear of the Brazilian Blowout? No, it's not that… pervert. The Brazilian Blowout is a special hair treatment that perfectly straightens your hair. It leaves the hair totally frizz-free, shiny and effortlessly manageable. And this treatment is not a relaxer for the hair. Relaxers are very damaging to hair, and the Brazilian Blowout is the exact opposite. It infuses the hair with keratin, a hair protein, that makes the hair exceptionally soft and smooth for at least 12 weeks.
How To: Cook salmon with simple seasoning
Salmon is full of protein and omega 3 fatty acid which helps you’re brain function and is a healthy fat. Add this delicious and healthy fish to your dinner with simple seasoning and cooking method that will really show off the flavor.
News: The Magic of Komodo Dragon Blood: The Stuff Legends — & Antibiotics — Are Made Of
Despite legends to the contrary, it appears that the saliva of a Komodo dragon is not teeming with pathogenic bacteria that kills their prey. Its reputation to survive while colonized with lots of horrible disease-causing bacteria, true or untrue, has made it the subject of research in pursuit of natural antimicrobial agents and led scientists to some remarkable findings.
How To: Sleep on Long Flights Like a Pro with These 13 Must-Know Tips
There's absolutely nothing comfortable about flying, unless you happen to be tiny enough to fit into the limited space offered on airplanes, or wealthy enough to afford a first-class ticket. And if you're about to embark on a long flight, catching a few Zs can feel like an impossible task. But it's definitely not impossible to get some quality sleep for a few hours, you just need to know how to use that limited space to your advantage.
How To: The Ultimate Guide to Making a Kickass Meat & Cheese Plate
Whether it's college football, the NFL, basketball, soccer, or baseball, sporting events are prime opportunities to entertain. No matter what the sport, food that's easy to eat is a must. Your guests should be able to mingle, eat, and talk trash... all at the same time! So a meat and cheese plate—also known as a characuterie board— is sure to be a crowd pleaser.
How To: 5 Tips That Make Cooking for a Crowd Easy
Even those of us most comfortable in the kitchen can be daunted by the idea of cooking for a whole houseful of people. Whether you have a large, well-equipped kitchen or a small one with just the essentials, it can prove to be quite a task to prepare food for a dozen or so people. It takes a certain type of recipe that allows for mass production, in respects to both technique and ingredients. And what I've provided below includes several recipes that you might normally make for just a family ...
How To: Why Bananas, Flax, Chia, & Even Blood Make Great Egg Substitutes
Eggs are incredibly important to cooks, and not just because they're tasty and a complete protein (many erratic genius/artist types make a point of eating an egg or two for breakfast). Yes, they are great when perfectly poached, scrambled, hard-boiled, and even scram-boiled, but they serve literally dozens of functions when used in recipes, especially baked goods.
How To: 14 Food Hacks You Need to Know for Grilling Season
It's that time of year where you need to break out the grill and cook food over red-hot coals, whether it's the beginning, middle, or end of summer. Even if you're not a grill master extraordinaire, you can use these hacks to fool your friends and family into thinking that you're a barbecuing badass.
Whisking: We're All Doing It Wrong
Whisking liquids seems somehow quaint, especially since there are good, cheap devices out there like immersion blenders and hand mixers that can whip cream, turn egg whites into meringue, and mix batters for you.
How To: Lose weight and gain muscle with quinoa
In this video author introduces a new grain called quinoa which is considered very healthy and has good nutrition values. Quinoa is rich and proteins and fibers and low in fat. It is Excellent food for muscle builders and someone trying to lose weight. Quinoa basically is tasteless but you can add flavor to it. It is very easy to cook quinoa. We need to wash quinoa and mix with double quantity of water. We also need to add a little bit of salt. Author adds freshly cut salsa to mixture of quin...
How To: Make tasty homemade beef jerky
Jerky is not only delicious but it is a great way to bring a protein rich energy snack with you anywhere. This video will how you how to make a great beef jerky at home. You will want a think slice of meat and you can create your own fantastic flavoring.
How To: Remove Furniture Scratches with a Walnut
You’re munching away on walnuts and, oh no, you notice you have a scratch on your wood floor. You already have the solution in your hand. The oil in nuts will fill in and make scratches on a wood floor disappear.
News: Starve E Coli of Copper to Cure Aggressive UTIs
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) drive over eight million people to seek medical attention every year. Almost all — as many as 90% — of those infections are caused by Escherichia coli. Copper can kill bacteria, but E. coli has found a way to capture the copper, preventing its antibacterial action. Now, researchers have found that, in a cruel irony, the bacteria use the copper it grabs as a nutrient to feed its growth.