Alarming Statistics

A recent study suggests that eating while driving is the worst form of distracted driving – even more distracting than texting! In the study, more than 70 percent of drivers admitted to eating behind the wheel, and more than 80 percent admit to drinking (non-alcoholic) beverages while they drive. Another study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) verified that drivers who eat and drink behind the wheel increase their odds of an accident by more than 80 percent! These statistics are alarming and certainly cause for awareness and action.

The most food-related driving accidents occur in the morning when commuters, on their way to work, attempt to eat breakfast and drink coffee at the same time. Since we are concerned about not ruining our freshly pressed office attire, spilling our food on our clothing becomes a serious distraction for drivers who want to immediately clean up the mess. Doing this while operating a vehicle in heavy traffic, or even adverse weather conditions (or both) can have serious consequences.

A Matter of Life and Death

As improbable as it may seem, eating while driving could lead to a fatal crash, as it did for one 48-year-old Georgia woman in 2009. She was eating, alone in her car, and not wearing a seatbelt when she lost control, veered across a busy highway and collided with an oncoming vehicle. She died at an area hospital.

Other accidents like this one have happened all across the country. With the rise of food related accidents comes more legal consultations. From Atlanta to Seattle, attorneys like Stokes & Kopitsky, P.A. are seeing more cases that result in injuries and even death.

The Most Dangerous Food List

Since most spills are what distract a driver who is eating and drinking, the foods that top this list of offenders include the following:

• soup
• hot coffee
• hamburgers
• messy tacos
• cream-filled donuts

All of these foods have the potential for spilling, oozing, dripping and messing up our clothes. The simple act of cleaning up a mess on your lap could cause you to look away from the road, and in that moment, cause an accident.

What You Can Do

There is a simple solution to this problem: do not eat or drink while driving. We have so many other distractions to contend with while behind the wheel, like talking on the phone and texting – the things that are highly publicized as dangerous – that we often lose sight of other driving distractions as well.

Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier so you can eat before you leave the house. In addition, when ordering from a fast food restaurant, simply pull into the parking lot and enjoy your meal if you don’t want to go inside. It could save your life and the lives of others.

Jamica Bell is a freelance writer and parent. As a busy mother commuting children around to various activities, she has had to make adjustments to drive safer by not eating and driving. Atlanta personal injury attorneys, Stokes & Kopitsky, P.A., have many years of experience defending the legal rights of individuals who have been adversely affected by car accidents.

The post Dangers of Eating and Drinking While Driving appeared first on Weekly Living.

Once you’ve decided on the reason that you need to raise some funds, here are some ideas to ensure your coffee morning goes off without a hitch.

Where to hold your coffee morning

You can hold a coffee morning at your home and it doesn’t matter if you live in a £2 million house or the smallest terraced house as the occasion is more about raising money for a good reason rather than showing off your home.

If you don’t like the idea of cleaning your home before your guests get to see the inside of your property, you might decide that your coffee morning will be better held at a place of work, one of the local mother and toddler groups or even your local church facility.

When you are involved with a group of people that meet regularly for coffee in a cafe, for a change you could invite them to your home and everyone could donate the amount that they would have spent on their coffee and cakes, on your homebrewed and baked varieties, with all of the funds going to the chosen charity.

Your workplace may be willing to help you in providing a space to hold a coffee morning and equally you could use a club or a church for your coffee morning. If it is held straight after a well attended meeting, you will have a greater number of people for your occasion.

Thinking about the fundraising

If you are meeting with a group of people who are not short of a pound or two, you could charge a small entrance fee even if you’re using your own home or that of a friend. By inviting a special guest of honour that can open the event your guests will be pleased to pay to attend your coffee morning.

You can ask friends and family to help you with serving coffee and cakes at your meeting and you might even ask them if they can bake home-made cakes and biscuits for the occasion.

Planning ahead to make your day a success will include making sure that you have some other drinks available for those who don’t think coffee; they’ll think of you as very thoughtful.

Although it’s obvious, don’t forget the milk and sugar, sweeteners and perhaps alternatives for people who are allergic to milk. If you’re not using your own home, you will need to make sure that the venue has sufficient cups and saucers or mugs and to enquire whether you are expected to wash up afterwards. You’ll need rubbish bags to clean up after you and your friends, but if you’re going to be inviting a lot of people, think ahead about how many kettles and containers you will need to be able to store and serve sufficient drinks.

Making sure that all the food produce meets with all the rules of the Food Standards Agency is important and listing any potential allergies alongside any of the cakes and biscuits will help your day run better.

You must make sure that everyone knows why you are running the coffee morning and what the money is going to be used for, so having somebody on hand to give  a short talk to the invited guests will help you make as much money as possible.

Finally, if you intend to hold coffee mornings regularly to raise money for your favourite cause or charity, you may be able to ask for sponsorship which will increase the profits from your day.

Damien Higgins writes for Eden Springs, the water and coffee company who supply the Kenco singles machine.

The post How to Make a Coffee Morning a Fund Raiser appeared first on Weekly Living.

Even if you settle for two coffees a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, why should you have to suffer the superstore’s basic brand that costs less than a pound for a large tin that will last several months? It’s time to make some simple suggestions to your coffee management.

1.   Start by buying the best coffee

Avoiding the cheap and cheerful coffees will at least give your office the opportunity of sampling a range of quality flavours. Where your office has the facility and the funds to install one of the pod systems in a communal kitchen, employees will be able to choose their favourite coffee while making the whole process as easy and clean as possible.

2.   Using filtered water only

Although the U.K.’s water is generally very good, plenty of people use a water filter either on their tap at home or with a freestanding unit that filters all of your water before you make your coffee. It’s no wonder that coffee tastes so different in your office if you’re not using filtered water like you would at home.

3.   Keep your coffee fresh

Some offices choose to use a filter coffee machine, which essentially saves time because it means there is always a coffee pot ready and willing.

Unfortunately, when it is your turn to take a coffee from the filter machine, you won’t know how long the coffee has been resting there, which might be an hour or more. Fresh coffee will bring you a fuller flavour as most coffees start to lose their flavour and their freshness if you don’t consume them quickly. Where you are able to drink your coffee straight away, your overall satisfaction level will rapidly increase.

4.   Tweak the whole process

Cleaning the office coffee pot can make a vast difference to the flavour of your coffee. Where water and coffee have been brewed over weeks and months, there will be a build-up inside the coffee pot which may ruin the flavour of your fresh coffee.

5.   The right milk or cream is important

Some offices choose small individual milk or cream containers in the hope that the kitchen area will remain relatively clean. Other companies will choose jars of powdered milk and creamers which suffer the indignity of having spoons plunged into them time and time again, just after stirring another person’s coffee. It’s no wonder that this may have a detrimental effect on your taste buds, making the office coffee taste different to the one you experience at home.

Making a few small changes to the way that your office stores and produces coffee for your employees and visitors, can change the sour look on people’s faces to one of pure enjoyment.

Damien Higgins writes for Eden Springs, whose office coffee machines give you a delicious cup of coffee at work.

The post 5 Common Mistakes That Are Ruining Your Coffee appeared first on Weekly Living.

1. Chiffonade

Chiffonading herbs and vegetables is a great way to fancy up a salad or a pasta dish. Chiffonading takes leafy vegetables or herbs and slices them into long, thin strips. Some smaller herbs cannot use the chiffonade technique, as they cannot be cut effectively.
In order to chiffonade, you need to stack your herbs or vegetables. Once they’re stacked, you can roll them up tightly and then cut across them with a knife.

2. Roasting peppers

Adding roasted peppers to recipes is a great way to add a touch of beauty and taste to your meals. The nice thing about roasted peppers is that you can roast a bunch at one time and save them in a jar to add to recipes at a later date.
In order to roast your peppers, you can either do it in your oven’s broiler or on your stovetop. If you do it in the broiler, you need to preheat the broiler first. Then, dip your peppers in olive oil and place on a baking sheet. Place them in the broiler, and keep an eye on them. Once they started bubbling and turning brown, remove them from the broiler, and using tongs, flip them to another side. Continue to do this to each side of the peppers until they are brown on all sides. After they have cooled, remove the stems and the skins.

If you want to roast peppers on the stovetop, simply hold the pepper over an open flame until it turns brown. Continue to rotate the pepper until brown on all sides. Again, remove the stem and the skin when cooled.

3. Tournée

The tournée cut creates vegetables with an oblong shape. This is a great way to present vegetables used in a vegetable tray or even a dish.
If you want to tournée, cut the vegetable into 2-inch long pieces and then cut them so they end up looking like a football. There are specific knifes for this process, called a Tourner knife, but any short bladed knife should do the trick.

4. Julienne

The julienne cut is similar to the tourney cut, except that instead of oblong shape, the vegetable is cut into long thin strips. This is a great way to add vegetables to a dish or a salad.

In order to cut julienne, you need to peel your vegetable if necessary. Then, cut them in half. Take one half, and make very thin cuts. Once you have them cut, flip the vegetable over and make cuts the opposite way. This will give you long, thin pieces.

5. Taking corn off the cob

Yes, you can buy kernels of corn at the grocery store, but they will most likely be canned or frozen, and sometimes, you really need some fresh corn kernels. If you want fresh kernels, you can actually remove them from the cob.

To remove corn from the cob, hold the shucked corn upright in a pan, and using a sharp knife, cut down the sides of the corn until you have successfully removed the corn from the cob. You can do this either before or after the corn has been cooked.

Using these kitchen techniques are not hard to do, and they will certainly make your dishes stand out.

Ashley Cole is a stay at home mother and avid cook who loves to write in her spare time. To ensure all her writing is professional and mistake-free she proofs it with a grammar checker. She knows she should learn grammar rules better but she likes having a back-up plan for her work.

The post Five Awesome Kitchen Techniques appeared first on Weekly Living.

Coca Cola was an invention of John Pemberton. John was an American druggist and a veteran of the War Between the States.

Background

Pemberton was born 8 July, 1831 in Knoxville Georgia to parents James Pemberton and Martha Grant. His family moved shortly after his birth to live in Columbus Georgia. His uncle was John Pemberton a commander in the Confederate Army.

How Coca-Cola came to be

Pemberton was wounded in April 1865 during the Battle of Columbus, Georgia and was prescribed morphine to treat the ongoing pain he experienced as a result of this. He became addicted to the pain killer and decided to find a cure for his dependency. His search led him to experiment with the coca plant and derivative wines. He soon created a formulation based on his research, which was composed of Kola nut and damiana. He deemed the concoction Pemberton’s French Wine Coca. The increased awareness of drug addiction allowed his formula to gain new ground. It was especially marketed to women who were said to suffer from neurasthenia. It was also advertised as being a useful way to overcome drug addiction, alcoholism and depression, which was commonly seen among veterans. It was, therefore, first categorized as a medicine much before it was considered a beverage for regular consumption. It’s alcoholic properties were altered in 1885 after legislation prohibiting the sale of alcohol was enacted. The French Wine Coca was then renamed Coca Cola by Frank Mason Robinson. With the alcoholic content removed the new Coca Cola was marketed slightly differently. It was referred to as a brain tonic that was good for headaches and advertised as being “delicious, refreshing, exhilarating and invigorating” The name itself would become problematic later on when people began to suspect the beverage contained large amounts of cocaine. While the original formula contained 8.46mg of cocaine newer formulations have removed all traces of cocaine found in the cola. Cocaine free coca leaves are now used in the production process. The cocaine in the original version of coca cola maintained a stimulant effect despite its relatively low concentration of the drug because of the presence of caffeine.

Health Effects of Coca Cola

Coca Cola has been linked to obesity and diabetes in the United States. This has been attributed to the high caloric content and presence of high fructose corn syrup/sucrose in the beverage. Nutritionist warn that Coca Cola and other soft drinks should not be consumed in excess. Additionally there have also been concerns about the effect drinking such beverages may have on teeth. It has been found that the sugary and acidic contents of these beverages may slowly wear away enamel.

Coca Cola in Present Times

The Coca-Cola brand name and formula were eventually bought out by Asa Griggs Candler who acquired a stake in Pemberton’s company. There have been claims that the signatures on the documents that sold Candler the rights were actually forged. Today Coca Cola is a successful brand that outsells its major competitor Pepsi in the United States. While the brand has been subject to many controversies it continues to be acknowledged as being symbolically American.

For more information on Coke, read Who Invented Coca Cola and The Top Five Best Superbowl Commercials.

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