Sweet dreams

26/12/2021

For many cultures, the dawn of the new year is marked not only with celebration, but also the opportunity for personal reflection and growth.

But as the year progresses, our initial drive for self-betterment can falter.

The good news is our tendency to give up can be circumvented. There are various ways we can strengthen our commitment to our new year’s goals.

A mismatch between aim and actions
In early 2020, my colleagues and I surveyed 182 participants to study personal goal factors which promoted well-being and sustained people’s pursuit of their most important new year’s resolution.

We found 74% of participants listed their most important resolution as the same, or nearly the same, as in the previous year.

More than half of the resolutions focused on either “diet” (29%) or “exercise” (24%). This suggests health-related goals tend to get rebooted each year — perhaps because New Year’s Day follows plenty of end-of-year festivities and feasting.

Furthermore, despite the participants reporting a strong commitment to their listed resolution, about two thirds gave up within one month. Other studies have shown similarly high rates for not sticking with new year’s resolutions.

Read more: Symbolic gestures, magical thinking: New Year's resolutions

Generating meaning to sustain effort
If you’re wanting to set yourself a resolution for 2021, a good place to start is to reflect on the year that was.

Our personal reflection on 2020, and the key lessons we took away from it, will help determine our hopes and visions for the year ahead.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 was marked by prolonged lockdowns, isolation, loss and shifts in opportunity. But personal growth and strength can stem from such experiences, as past research has revealed.

Living though difficult and stressful times can pave the way for a greater appreciation for life, deeper self-understanding, and increased personal resilience (which means being able to bounce back quicker).

When setting resolutions, it’s important they’re linked to meaningful goals and values that can sustain motivation.

For example, the resolution to “lose five kilos” will more likely endure in the face of obstacles, difficulties or other competing resolutions if it’s linked to higher personal values, such as beliefs about one’s health or appearance.

Sticky note with various popular new year's resolutions
If you’re wondering whether your motivation to reach a certain goal will dwindle later on, look at why you want to achieve the goal in the first place. What does it really mean to you? Shutterstock
Our study also found “goal flexibility”, which refers to being able to adapt to various situations, was positively associated with mental well-being. In turn, this was associated with a greater chance of sticking to new year’s resolutions.

So being adaptable in the process of meeting your goals will not only improve your general well-being, it will also help you pursue your new year’s resolutions.

Tips for setting your 2021 new year’s resolutions
When it comes to sticking to resolutions, insight gleaned from psychology research can be distilled into several practical and easy-to-apply tips.

1) Set resolutions that match your deeper values

Your personal beliefs and hopes have a key role in sustaining your motivational impetus and keeping you focused. This form of motivation is associated with increased personal well-being.

2) Try to set “new” resolutions

This is preferable to recycling old ones. If you still want to pursue a resolution from last year, try to be more specific in your approach.

3) Set resolutions as specific plans

These should account for factors such as time, place and people. Specific plans provide the mental cues needed to stick to our goals.

This is because they’re also less mentally taxing than more vague or generic plans that require further thinking. For instance, consider this resolution:

I will walk for at least 30 minutes around the nearby lake with my friend Sam on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

It already sets a framework that provides plenty of mental cues and strategies on which to follow up. Also, including another person in the plan also sets a greater sense of responsibility, accountability and social enjoyment — compared with a more vague resolution such as:

I’ll go on more walks this year.

4) Identify and imagine your desired positive outcome

Visualising your goals will help keep you focused on identifying the specific resources your resolution requires. It will also help mobilise a sustained pursuit of the goal.

5) Reward small gains along the way

Enjoying small progress gains is not only pleasurable, it will also help to motivate you.

Taking stock of how far you’ve come in the process of achieving a goal can provide the internal drive needed to see it to the end. Shutterstock
6) Set resolutions you want to pursue, rather than those you think you should

Research consistently shows pursuing freely chosen goals that are internally motivated enhances well-being. Meanwhile, goals that are externally motivated are associated with psychological distress and are less likely to be achieved.

Examples of external motivation include doing something because the situation demands it, because it might please someone else, or to avoid shame or guilt that may arise if it isn’t done.

7) Be flexible

If your resolution isn’t working for you, reset it or adjust it to make it more meaningful and/or achievable.

8) Be realistic

The more realistic your resolution is, the more achievable it will be and the less likely you are to set yourself up for failure.

9) Learn from past failures

Instead of engaging in self-criticism and negative self-evaluation, a positive attitude towards failed resolutions can help you do better next time.

23/12/2021

Here are 15 Interesting Maple Syrup facts.

1. Maple trees aren’t the only trees tapped for maple syrup. The sap from Pine, Birch and Black Walnut trees also produce edible syrup. –

2. Canadians make a candy called tire d’érable by pouring maple syrup on snow, then rolling it onto sticks. –
3. Canada has a maple syrup cartel. –

4. Maple syrup bottles have little handles on them because they originally came in 5lb containers that needed handles to hold, so when shrinking the bottle the handle was kept on because people associated the handle with that product. –

5. A man was fined $9.4 million and sentenced to 8 years in jail for stealing 3,000 tonnes of maple syrup which cost $18.7 million from Quebec reserve in 2012. –

6. Maple syrup has more calcium than milk. – Source

7. Abolitionists used Maple Syrup in their cooking because molasses and cane sugar were both slave crops. – Source

8. Because maple syrup doesn’t always look good on camera, many food advertisers replace it with motor oil in commercials. – Source

9. North-Eastern Native American tribes used maple syrup to enhance and improve the taste of their dishes. Making maple syrup production one of the few agricultural processes that is not a European colonial import. – Source

10. It takes 40 gallons of tree sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup. – Source

11-15 Maple Syrup Facts

11. Grades of maple syrup indicate color and flavor, not quality: Grade A is lighter and milder than grade B. – Source

12. The maple syrup event: A maple syrup scent wafted through NYC on random occasions for a period of years. No one knew where the scent was coming from until 2009 when the scent was traced to a factory in NJ that processed seeds that let off a volatile compound that smells like maple syrup. – Source

13. Due to food rationing during the WWII, people in the U.S. were encouraged to stretch their sugar rations by sweetening foods with maple syrup and maple sugar, and recipe books were printed at that time to help housewives employ this alternative source to cane sugar. – Source

14. Maine has a holiday just for Maple Syrup. Families go out to the producers and buy maple syrup, take tours, go on hayrides, see animals, and eat maple food. – Source

15. IHOP (the International House of Pancakes) has only 1 location out of 1400 that serves actual maple syrup. – Source

23/12/2021

Here are 25 Kickass and Interesting Facts About Sugar and Sweeteners.

Tic Tacs-Interesting Facts About Sugar

1. Tic Tacs are labelled as zero sugar despite sugar being its primary ingredient because if a single serving contains less than 0.5 g of sugars, the company is allowed to express the amount of sugar in a serving as zero. One serving is one Tic Tac. –

2. “Sugar buzz,” or hyperactivity in children as a result of sugar intake, is a myth. –

3. The first ingredient in Nutella is sugar and in fact it contains 50% sugar –

4. One 32oz McDonald’s sweet tea has as much sugar as two and a half snickers bars. –

5. It is cheaper for U.S. companies to use High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of cane sugar because corn is subsidized at $40 billion. – Source

Passover Coca-Cola-Interesting Facts About Sugar

6. During Passover, Coca-Cola sells coke with sugar instead of corn syrup in areas with a substantial Jewish population because corn syrup isn’t kosher. Keep an eye out for coke bottles with a yellow cap. –

7. If you eat a teaspoon of sugar after eating something spicy, it will completely neutralize the heat. –

8. The US pays on average 15% more for sugar than the rest of the world do to the Farm Bill. This may also be the reason soft drinks switched over to High Fructose Corn Syrup. – Source

9. 70% of milk served in U.S. schools contains on average four teaspoons of added sugar per serving (about half the amount of sugar as a serving of Coke). – Source

10. A cup of Campbell’s Tomato Bisque has more sugar than a cup of orange juice, more sugar than 6 oreos, and more sugar than a serving of B&J’s Chunky Monkey. – Source

11-15 Interesting Facts About Sugar
Chewing Gum-Interesting Facts About Sugar

11. Sugar was first added to chewing gum in 1869. Ironically, a dentist named William Semple was the person behind this decision. – Source

12. Ci******es often contain sugar, caramel and cocoa. Cocoa burned in a cigarette produces bromine gas which dilates the airways of the lungs and increases the ability to absorb ni****ne. – Source

13. The use of granulated sugar for the treatment of infected wounds offers a practical, proven approach for wound care. Sugar has been called a nonspecific universal antimicrobial agent – Source

14. Sugar is the most farmed crop in the world. In 2010, 1.69 billion tons was produced on 23.8 million hectares in about 90 countries.

15. Before the 20th century, sugar was sold as one big rock and special tools were required to break pieces off. – Source

16-20 Interesting Facts About Sugar
Sodium Cyclamate-Interesting Facts About Sugar

16. Sodium Cyclamate, an artificial sweetener that is 30-50 times sweeter than sugar, was banned by the FDA in October 1969 due to claims that it could cause cancer. In the same month, it was approved for use in the UK where it is still used today. – Source

17. Aspartame, the sweetener notorious for being linked to cancer, is now called “AminoSweet” and is being marketed as a “natural sweetener.” – Source

18. Saccharin, a key ingredient in Sweet’n Low that was once considered carcinogenic, was removed from The Report on Carcinogens because humans react differently to saccharin than rats do. – Source

19. Most of the sweetener known as Sucralose is passed as excrement. Only between 11 – 27% of it is actually absorbed at all. – Source

20. Scientists have synthesized a now approved artificial sugar (sweetener) that is up to 13,000 times sweeter than sugar. It’s called Neotame – Source

21-25 Interesting Facts About Sugar
Mexican free-tailed bat-Interesting Facts About Sugar

21. The Mexican free-tailed bat is featured as Bacardi’s logo because it pollinates sugar cane and protects it from insects – Source

22. Diet coke floats in water, but regular ones sink because the sugar makes it more dense than water. – Source

23. Eating an apple before a meal can result in wanting/eating less calories during a meal and adding cinnamon to a meal helps metabolize sugar quicker – Source

24. The average American has gone from consuming 20 teaspoons of sugar per year to 150 pounds of sugar per year, or nearly a half a pound of sugar per day. – Source

25. Natalie Portman (the actress) invented a simple method to demonstrate the enzymatic production of hydrogen from sugar. – Source

23/12/2021

so sweet berry

24 interesting facts about Watermelons

1. One of the first things free blacks could grow, eat and sell were watermelons. It became a symbol of freedom that was corrupted into a negative stereotype by southern whites and still persists today.

2. When watermelons are grilled or baked they lose their granular texture and can even be used as a meat substitute, a “watermelon steak”.

3. In 2007, the House of Representatives of Oklahoma declared the watermelon, a fruit, their state vegetable. –

4. Half a watermelon in Barrow, Alaska costs $36.96 in late 2017. –

5. Watermelon is considered to be a berry. –

6. In Japan, some watermelons are grown into cubes for storing efficiency. This practice was invented by graphic designer Tomoyuki Ono in 1978. – Source

7. Watermelon mosaic virus is a virus that “draws” circles on watermelons. –

8. Drinking watermelon juice before a workout helps reduce muscle soreness. –
9. The Watermelon War was a riot in Panama City (1856) which started because a drunken American wouldn’t pay 5 cents for a slice of watermelon. It led to the death of 15 Americans and 2 Panamanians. –

10. Human-induced evolution created today’s watermelons, growing them 1680 times the size of the original and becoming 3,3 times sweeter. –

11. China produces 68% of the world’s watermelon. They produce 20 times more than the second highest producer. – Source

12. Farmers differentiate watermelon by gender. “Boy” watermelons are longer and more watery, while “girl” watermelons are rounder and sweeter. – Source

13. Watermelon can act as a natural Vi**ra- but you would have to eat 6 cups to have an effect. – Source

14. There is an extremely rare watermelon called the Densuke, grown on the island of Hokkaido, Japan which has garnered prices in excess of eight thousand dollars. – Source

15. After Hurricane Katrina, watermelons grew everywhere in St. Bernard Parish. – Source

16-20 Watermelon Facts

16. The red part of the watermelon is technically called the placenta. – Source

17. The sweetest watermelon is the Bradford watermelon. Its ‘brix’ measurement is 12.5.” Brix is a widely used sweetness rating, and most melons hover around 10, which is already considered very sweet. – Source

18. There is the Lincoln Watermelon Monument. It is in the shape of a two-foot-long ear-to-ear watermelon slice. It commemorates the day in 1853 when the future 16th President, christened his namesake community (Lincoln, IL) by slicing open a melon and pouring its juice onto the ground. – Source

19. Watermelon contains Citrulline, which can be used to treat erectile dysfunction. – Source

20. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that commercial watermelon grows have at least one beehive per acre of crop. – Source

21-24 Watermelon Facts

21. According to Romani legend, watermelons left out in the full moon become vampiric. – Source

22. There are more than 120 different varieties of watermelon, more than half of which are actually yellow on the inside, outside, or both. – Source

23. Seedless watermelons are cultivated using a chemical commonly used to treat gout. – Source

24. August 3 is celebrated as National Watermelon Day

19/12/2021

Candy is a sweet kind of food that is usually made from sugar and water, with flavours and other ingredients added. The word candy comes from the Persian word for "cane sugar", and probably also from Sanskrit khanda, which means "piece (of sugar)".

Candy is found in almost any store because they are made in many companies. Candy can also be made at home. Many people like candy and think it tastes good. Other people do not like it. Candy contains lots of sugar, so it is not very healthy, but can be eaten sometimes. It is the most common snacking food, and there are hundreds of flavours, shapes, and sizes.

Candy, also called sweets or lollies, is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, called sugar confectionery, encompasses any sweet confection, including chocolate, chewing gum, and sugar candy. Vegetables, fruit, or nuts which have been glazed and coated with sugar are said to be candied.

Physically, candy is characterized by the use of a significant amount of sugar or sugar substitutes. Unlike a cake or loaf of bread that would be shared among many people, candies are usually made in smaller pieces. However, the definition of candy also depends upon how people treat the food. Unlike sweet pastries served for a dessert course at the end of a meal, candies are normally eaten casually, often with the fingers, as a snack between meals. Each culture has its own ideas of what constitutes candy rather than dessert. The same food may be a candy in one culture and a dessert in another.

19/12/2021

Even the name sparks the imagination: "passion fruit".
I'll say it again:
PASSION + FRUIT
It's almost like you're looking into the soul of a Brazilian.
Passion and fruit - two things close to our heart. (If we could somehow add music, we'd have a real winner :)
Brazilians are crazy about them: Brazil grows more and eats more passion fruit than any other country on earth.
This is how it looks inside

Ever tried it? Seen it or tasted its fresh pulp?
It's a very popular tropical fruit which can be served either sweet or sour.
That's why we had to include it as an official tinyB brigadeiro flavor.
Actually, that's not entirely true. I have another motive: I *love* it. I eat practically anything with passion fruit.
Fun Facts About Passion Fruit
It's native to Brazil.
Its name comes from a family of passion flowers (passiflora). In Portuguese it's called "maracujá," after an Native American word which is not so pleasant, so I'll skip it. If you want the details they're in Wikipedia. Personally, I like "passion fruit" better.
It's served either sweet or sour.
Technically it's a berry and one fruit has only 17 calories. The dark seeds are crunchy but edible.
The most popular varieties are purple and yellow. Purple ones are smaller but sweeter and are more commonly found here in the US. Yellow ones are more sour and larger and they're Brazilians' favorite.
It's known to have calming properties and it's used as a sleeping aid, to calm nerves and relieve anxiety. So if you're feeling edgy, try it for a few days and see.
It's a source of vitamins A, C and B complex and has minerals as well: iron, sodium, calcium and phosphorous. More nutrition details available here.