BKC Solutions Corner

If you are an alert consumer, you know there are more beverage choices today than ever. Before drinking that next high-calorie soda, stop and consider a healthier alternative.

In 1903, SodaStream was born. Invented by Giles Gilby, it was a carbonation system which made standard water into fizzy water, and was originally targeted to the upper classes. A variety of flavours were introduced in the 1920s. These included cherry ciderette and sarsaparilla. In the 1970s and 80s it enjoyed vast success, becoming a big hit in countries such as Australia, the UK, and Germany.

The company underwent numerous changes in ownership; at one stage, SodaStream even became part of the Cadbury Schweppes empire. 1998 was the year the company changed hands for the final time when purchased by Soda Club, which at that time was the biggest supplier of SodaStream to Israel. SodaStream remained the name of the brand after Soda Club’s unsuccessful bid to change the name to Soda-Club.

More recently Soda Club sought to rename the SodaStream brand. Focusing on the health and diet issues that are so prevalent in this day and age, SodaStream was relaunched with a new machine and many new flavours, concentrating on producing a healthy alternative to fizzy, sugar-rich drinks such as Coca Cola and Pepsi.

In basic terms, the SodaStream product is a home carbonation kit, which allows you to change water into sparkling water, as well as allowing you to add low-calorie flavours such as cola and orange. A large assortment of calorie-free flavours to flavour sparkling water to great taste is sold at allfreightfree.com.

The SodaStream machine process forces co2 into a water-filled bottle suitable for pressurising. The water is turned into sparkling (carbonated) water by the co2. This process of dissolving co2 is known as carbonation. The carbonated water can then be drunk on its own as sparkling water, or mixed with flavours to create tasty, healthy treats. Once the co2 canisters have been used up they can be sent back to Soda-Club who recycle the canisters by refilling them with co2 then sending them back out.

As far as the actual health and diet benefits gained from drinking SodaStream, it is claimed that all their flavours are completely sugar-free and contain a maximum of 2 calories per 100ml, surely good news for parents concerned about their children’s diet.

The SodaStream machine adds only co2 to the water, meaning it does not have the added sugar that some bottled sparkling water contains, so there is fundamentally no difference between it and normal water.

SodaStream have made much of their environmental and health credentials, going so far as to claim that each litre bottle of SodaStream saves three aluminum cans. This, in turn, means that over 3 years, a family of four could slash their soft-drink-related packaging usage by over 90%. This is an arresting claim, one that should stand them in good stead in this environmentally conscious age. Obviously, Sodastream has developed into a viable alternative to the big players in the soft drink world.

chocolate cake

A regular diet should consist of antioxidants.  Antioxidants provide an important function within the human body in that they fight free radicals.

Free radicals are harmful substances found within the body.  These harmful substances, if left unrestrained, have been linked to the cause of many diseases within the human body.  These diseases include cancer, heart disease and the early aging of the body.

Antioxidants, as a requirement for healthy living, must be ingested from food sources and through the daily use of supplements.  Major sources of antioxidants are fruits, vegetables, beans and teas.

A big eye opener was the great benefits of dark chocolate.  It is not often that we are encouraged to eat chocolate for health reasons, but, amazingly, dark chocolate antioxidants are beneficial when eaten properly. They even come in the forms of a chocolate phone and chocolate cell.

The Benefits That Dark Chocolate Antioxidant Provide

Evidence suggests that consuming dark chocolate provides antioxidants in the bloodstream.  These dark chocolate antioxidants that are provided help to protect and strengthen the heart.  Found in the cocoa bean, these dark chocolate antioxidants have been specifically identified as epicatechin which is a type of flavonoid.  A flavonoid is a ketone that is also found in the leaves, stems, and seeds of many plants. 

In fact, test studies revealed that those individuals who ate dark chocolate cookies had an increase of antioxidants in their bloodstream.  The level of increase of antioxidants, in the bloodstream, was measured at a significant increase of 20%.  Therefore, a moderate diet of dark chocolate can be just as healthy and helpful as a diet consisting of leafy vegetables.

Maximum Benefit Of Dark Chocolate Antioxidant

However, there is one precaution when wishing to receive the maximum healthful benefits of dark chocolate antioxidants.  That precaution is not drinking milk when eating dark chocolate or for that matter any other food item that is replete with antioxidants.

Additional studies on those individuals who had eaten dark chocolate antioxidants, revealed that the benefit of eating dark chocolate antioxidants was negated when milk was drank separately or was part of the dark chocolate mixture.  Specifically, when the level of antioxidants in the bloodstream was measured after eating milk chocolate or milk with their dark chocolate there was no increase in the epicatechim level.  The conjecture of this study is that the food molecules of milk adheres to the epicatechins and prevents the assimilation of the flavonoids.

Therefore, the study concluded that when eating  dark chocolate or other richly saturated antioxidant products, it is important not to drink milk.This will provide the best absorption of the antioxidants with these given food products.

For many years, the coffee urn, was used for coffee service to many communities. There’s no scarcity for these boxes. Visit any Church or town hall and you can find them. It’s a myth that coffee urns provide coffee exclusively. They also serve hot chocolate and tea instantly. If you’re throwing a party, and plan on serving refreshments for your guests, you, too, could serve many uses for these coffee urns.

A hot cup of coffee served to workers in the first hour of the day ensures they deliver their best. Typically, coffee urns can prepare 20 (using a 20 cup coffee urn) to 100 cups of coffee, depending on the size of the urn. Its due of the strength offered by Stainless steel, that coffee urns withstand large contents of hot drinks.

Urns Used By Public Service Employees On Regular Basis

For many years, the White House has implemented the use of the coffee urn to serve the President and many of his guests. Volunteers that serve needy people in crisis times are taken good care by the Red Cross which serves them hot cup of coffee regularly with help of coffee urns. People living the UK use coffee urns to serve you with a hot cup of coffee or tea reminding of days when royal families served their guests with these.

Law enforcement organizations are using coffee urns to keep the work force alert in hospitals to allow them to update the families of patients, as well as the patients themselves. Armed force of the United States is one of the most well known consumers of coffee urns. Just like every other human, militants also consume regular amount of coffee everyday.

1,000,000 boxes of urns are ordered every year by the United States of America and other countries to provide food to its military personnel. Your demand for a hot cup of coffee can be instantly addressed with the help of coffee urns that are available almost at all places.

Whether your an passionate wine collector or just like to have a few bottles available for a party, a compact wine refrigerator is an ideal way to store your wine. With wine cooler capacity ranging from eight bottles up to 800 bottles, a compact wine refrigerator can fit beneath a kitchen cabinet and a larger one can be placed against a wall. Dual zone wine fridges can be used to store different wine types at different temperatures for drinking now or for longer-term storage and aging.

For the many people who do not have the space to build a mini wine cellar, a compact wine refrigerator can provide an ideal solution. A compact under-counter wine refrigerator will store wines at the ideal wine temperature and it should also be remembered that even those wines that are best served at room temperature should be stored in a cool environment prior to opening to protect the integrity of the wine.

One of the advantages of a dual zone compact wine refrigerator lies is its ability to store different types of wines at different temperatures within the same wine cooler unit. The recommended storage temperature for white wines is between 46 and 54 degrees Farenheit and for red wines it is 54 to 64 degrees Farenheit. As well as offering best practice temperature control, a wine refrigerator also maintains the correct humidity for wine storage.

How To Store Wine The Right Way

Most wine lovers understand that they must treat their wines with respect and avoid vibration to the bottles to protect their wine. Any good quality wine refrigerator should be free from vibration and some of the better wine refrigerators are now beginning to use LED lighting in the interior to further protect the wine from deterioration.

Even low wattage bulbs can increase the temperature in a small enclosed space like a compact wine refrigerator. Because wines should be stored in darkness, the use of LED lights that do not emit any appreciable heat will assist in creating a more stable environment. Regardless of the type of lights you have, you should only open the wine refrigerator when necessary.

Most compact wine refrigerators have metal or glass racks and will store the bottles at a slight angle to ensure the corks stay moist by remaining in contact with the wine at all times. Depending on the space available for a wine refrigerator – from compact under-counter units that can hold up to a dozen bottles to larger furniture-style units with a capacity to store many hundreds of bottles – a wine refrigerator can protect your wine collection from the temperature, humidity and vibration hazards that can alter taste, hasten aging and reduce the appeal of your wine.

At his wine blog – ChrisOnWine – Chris Miley occasionally mentions wine refrigerators amongst many other wine topics.

Sparkling water is just one of all bottled water types  sometimes referred to as “spring water” but that’s not really accurate. The processing and origin of various types of bottled water really makes them quite different in taste and content. In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-the federal agency that regulates all types of bottled water-has established guidelines called standards of identity that classify bottled water into several different water types:

Spring Water: Ah, the ever-popular “spring water” is defined as bottled water derived from an underground formation from which water flows naturally to the surface of the earth. To qualify as spring water, it must be collected only at the spring or through a borehole tapping the underground formation feeding the spring. If the collection process uses some type of an external force, the water must be from the same stratum as the spring and must retain the quality and all of the same physical properties of water that flows naturally from a spring to the surface.

Purified Water: This is a type of drinking water that has been treated with processes such as distillation, deionization or reverse osmosis (we’ll get to those terms later). Basically, this just means that the bacteria and dissolved solids have been removed from the water by some process, making it “purified.” This type of bottled water is usually labeled as purified drinking water but can also be labeled for the specific process used to produce it, for example, reverse osmosis drinking water or distilled drinking water. There are lots of bottled water brands that are actually purified drinking water.

Mineral Water: Okay, ready for some science? Mineral water contains not less than 250 parts per million total dissolved solids and is defined by its constant level and relative proportions of mineral and trace elements at the point of emergence from the source. No minerals can be added to the water.

Sparkling Bottled Water: Yes, the fizzy kind. But what makes it fizzy? This type of water contains the same amount of carbon dioxide that it had when it emerged from its source. Sparkling bottled waters may be labeled as sparkling drinking water, sparkling mineral water, sparkling spring water, etc. A large assortment of calorie free flavors to flavor sparkling water to great taste is sold at http://allfreightfree.com

Artesian Water/Artesian Well Water: Ready for some more science? Artesian water is which comes from a well that taps a confined aquifer-a water-bearing underground layer of sand or rock – in which level of the water level is above top of the aquifer.

Well Water: This one is pretty easy. Well water is exactly what it sounds like- water from a hole made in the ground that taps the water source.

Water of Municipal/Tap : As you know it is the water which reaches in your home through pipe. While tap water isn’t regulated by the FDA (but we thought it should be included here), it must meet the strict standards of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Municipal tap water is generally of excellent quality, however, many people prefer the taste and enjoy the convenience of bottled water, which, in most cases, undergoes additional processing and often retains the pleasant characteristics of its natural source.

Bottled Water Regulation: The FDA is responsible for the food and pharmaceutical industries, two industries where safety and quality are of paramount importance. Yes, the FDA is full of serious customers. Therefore, bottled water is one of the most extensively regulated packaged-food products. The bottled water industry receives government oversight from federal and state agencies across the country, providing consumers with multiple layers of safety assurance – from the finished water product back to the source. Bottled water is required to be tested for the same parameters as tap water, but the standards are, in some cases, stricter than for tap water. State governments inspect and certify the “sources” of spring water, meaning that samples have been analyzed and found to be of a safe and sanitary quality according to regulation.