opinionated alchemist

There is an article on cookinglight.com  which lists drinks per calorie content. I am sorry to be again  so opinionated - however this is utterly nonsense. Besides of the fact, that I would rather have one proper craft beer (like a IPA) instead of 3 or 4 American macro lagers (or even worse: light beer) - but also the caloric values are misleading: The issue is, that calories are calculated by burning the respective "material" and measure the energy (heat), which comes out of it. While this works quite well with simple and complex sugars and with fats, it doesn't necessarily work with ethanol (drinking alcohol). Why? Due to the fact, that our body cannot metabolize alcohol, as he metabolizes sugar. Hence if you are drinking a Martini cocktail (with proper vodka or gin which are theoretically only ethanol and water), you probably won't put some (additional) weight on, despite the fact, that it shows quite a "horrific calorie number". This doesn't

Masafi is a UAE based drinking water supplier. There has been another brand (Al Ain)  which has started the "zero sodium trend".  But what I have to give to Al Ain is, that they just advertised their water what it is: zero sodium. They didn't implied any health benefits or anything else. I found that pretty smart - as a lot of people are concerned about their sodium intake - hence they are "playing with the perception" that the water "can help" to reduce the sodium intake, without being misleading. Masafi though is definitely misleading. They suggesting, that their water actively helps to maintain a healthy sodium intake. Why is it misleading? Because it all depends on ratio. Look - the recommended sodium intake of a normal adult is 1,500 mg (1.5 grams). The sodium content of "normal" mineral water is about 3mg to 33mg (latter is already pretty extreme- it is Badoit sparkling water with one of the highest sodium content of all commerci

The pink wave is approaching us and probably will overrun us all... at least this is my current feeling, when I see, what kind of new products are approaching and which products are hitting the trend-lists. First there was the Cosmopolitan - then after a long hiatus of pink highly popular beverages, rosé wine started its incredible victory run. The frozé has been a wine based drink, which really pushed pink further. And now we are at pink gin. This is an obvious combination of "pink" and another current hyper trend: gin. Gordon's, one of the biggest volume producer of gin (but in my eyes, maybe not one of the outstanding ones),  didn't wanted to stay behind - and also developed a pinkish gin. How is it? It is sweet, it is pink, it smells like strawberries and taste like a berry-fruit bouquet. There are for sure some juniper and other spice notes, which are coming through. Yet the beverage is not very complex. Which might be ok, for the target clientele?! M