Timely nuggets of information and ideas we want to share with you.

Chart courtesy of Reddit.com

This is an eye-opening comparison of beef and red beans that I saw on the Instagram of Total Body performance and Fitness. Looks like I’m going to be eating more red beans. Same amount of protein, more fiber, iron, magnesium, and calcium in the beans. And no cholesterol in the beans. Notice how much more water is needed to produce that amount of beef vs that amount of red beans. Shocking.

Have you ever wondered about those photographs or elaborate designs you sometimes see on top of cakes or cupcakes? It’s edible paper, also known as icing sheets or frosting sheets and they are ideal for food decoration. An icing sheet is a very thin layer of icing pressed against a backing paper or backing plastic acetate sheet. Before it is applied to the baked good, the backing is peeled off. The edible paper icing sheet is applied to a layer of frosting on top of the baked good. These icing sheets can go through a printer and produce a high-quality print finish. I did not detect any taste in the icing sheet. They must lie flat due to their thinness and must go on icing or a thin layer of corn syrup. I recently ate a delicious rectangular sugar cookie with a playing card decoration. It was great looking and delicious.

If you need to have a design that stands up, you will use wafer paper. It comes in a variety of thicknesses, thin to go through a printer and thicker to create 3D decorations. The thicker version is made from potato starches, water, and oil. You can buy decorations already on the edible papers, or blanks and have your own images printed, all at Ink4cakes.com.

Gastro Obscura is “The Definitive Guide to Unique Places to Eat and Drink”. Remember our article on Atlas Obscura? You can reread it here. They have a spin-off where you can find unusual restaurants or food museums all over the world. If you find such a place, you can submit it to Gastro Obscura if it is an amazing place or if it features lesser known culinary skills or traditions, or unusual architecture or interior décor. Go to Louis’ Lunch, the birthplace of the hamburger in New Haven, CT or Haunted Margaritas, a Mexican chain restaurant in Concord, NH that is inside an old jail. This seems like a great way to search for a unique, memorable gastronomic experience tonight!

Are you guilty of what sleep experts call “Revenge Bedtime Procrastination”? That is delaying your bedtime knowing you will regret it in the morning but doing it anyway. If that is a rut you’re stuck in, here are four tips to get your sleep sorted out.

Try to rearrange your schedule so that the distractions that keep you up late (reading, playing video games, etc.) can be fit into daytime hours.
Try to wake up at the same time every day. This will reset your body’s internal clock so that you will feel sleepy at night.
Set up your favorite late-night TV shows to be recorded so you won’t miss them.
Use a browser extension (RescueTime is one) to kick you off your social media feeds or email at a certain time.