If you doubled the grounds, perhaps it would taste less like diluted coffee? Sounds like a good culinary experiment! The maker of the coffee says that their process uses pressure. I wonder if that somehow results in concentrated granules with lesser oils ...

I learned something new today! I still have second thoughts about drinking roasted peanut coffee and need some time to get used to the idea! But, I have some unsalted roasted peanuts and am debating whether to do this or not! So, thanks for the informative thread, you are not talking to yourself!

My DH's office provides them the "Volcanica" brand of low acid coffee (medium roast). He says that this brand coffee is comparable to the Peet's brand coffees that they provide.

Target had a bunch of Pokémon action figures and pillows last week. I used to buy a lot of pokemon jibbits (those things you put on crocs for decoration) from amazon and eBay for my son. Like this: https://www.amazon.com/Charms-Cartoon-decoration-Childs-Accessories/dp/B0BHMYWMLP

I have seen mentions on extended fasting forums about people with long covid getting relief doing longer fasts. It is not something that is easy for everyone to do, but it could be something that you could look into to see if it is an option for you. Sorry to hear that you are suffering so much from long Covid ☹️

I attended a seminar by a local college consultant yesterday. He said that with USC, there are 2 things affecting their EA this year: one is that they intentionally shifted their focus on to getting more east coast as well as international students and most who apply are from the west coast. Second reason is that during the pandemic, they (and many other west coast universities) gave out more acceptances than normal and hence they want to control the number of students on their campuses by reducing acceptances this year. He mentioned that they are seeing some of this in other popular schools here as well.

@Arcadiai was at TJ’s at a location more south than PA and the entire freezer section was empty, clean - much like during the Covid shutdown with only a few pints of ice cream and a few random boxes of frozen food. There is hoarding of frozen food happening due to our serious weather incidents as well.

In my subdivision, it is not allowed to park a camper on the driveway and many families have their unemployed adult kids do that all the time because of the high COL. There are city code enforcement people driving around giving out tickets and impounding campers etc regularly. So, check first if this is allowed in your neighborhood and if it isn’t, you can use that as a reason to stop them counting on your house as a camping ground.

I make a basic potato filling meant to go into a potato samosa and then make a phyllo wrapping, brush with olive oil and bake. You could make it as phyllo cups as well. Healthier than deep frying the samosas. I don't eat meat, but there are kheema samosa recipes out there if you are inclined to make them ... https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/potato-samosa-phyllo-triangles-358132

I make Palak Tofu (sub pan fried tofu for paneer) with coconut cream. It is delicious!

Either get super firm or firm (you need to press this one to drain off the water). Cut into cubes, then, optionally coat it with potato starch (or corn starch if you use it). Then put it on a hot pan with a teaspoon of oil and sear it on medium heat, turn sides after the tofu releases from the hot surface and cook evenly. You can now add this to any of your stir fries or salads. (many bake the cubes of tofu, but it takes too long for me, so I pan sear them). As for silken tofu, you can add a piece into a smoothie and you will never know that it is in there. There are other savory recipes for silken tofu, but the easiest recipe I have is a banana and strawberry smoothie with almond milk and a piece of silken tofu.

Thank you! I am going to order one for myself and I am wondering if the color matters? Do the darker colors provide more of a blackout effect or does it not matter?

The only thing that ever worked for me (and I am plenty active, eat very healthy foods only, no sugar, take the stairs, walk all day long etc) is Intermittent Fasting. My scale never moved downward any other way. My eating window is 4 hours long. I eat whatever I need for the day in that window. Though I can drink black coffee and black tea any time of the day, I only occasionally do it. It took me over 1 year of IF (and frequent extended fasting) to finally hit my goal weight and now I have been in maintenance mode for a long while. For me, it was many years of eating late dinners due to working late that gave me Insulin Resistance, so no amount of tweaking my diet would reverse that. Even rigorous exercise did not have a noticeable impact for me. When I gave my system a break from insulin spikes, it eventually learned to burn stored fat for energy. Dr Fung has a book called "The Obesity Code" which explains the details in a very easy to understand format.

I felt the wall against which some of my furniture rests shake. It was very mild and hardly noticeable where I am. I am south of the earthquake.

Breakfast meal prep: Overnight oat with chia! Add 2-3 Tablespoons of rolled oats with a teaspoon of chia seeds in a glass container. Cover with milk of choice (dairy or nut milk or kefir). Leave in fridge overnight. Top with fruit, nuts, maple syrup (or sweetener of your choice), vanilla extract or almond extract and eat for breakfast. They keep well for a few days in the fridge. I make them in small mason jars for an entire week of easy breakfasts. Powder a pound or two of rolled oats in your blender and store the flour in a ziplock in your fridge and replace quarter to half a cup of the oat flour in place of regular flour in your baked goods for more nutrition and soluble fiber!

No beating to stiff peaks required. Just adding about 1 Tablespoon of the powder and mixing thoroughly is enough.

My japanese friend swears by meringue powder in waffles. She says that hers turn out fluffy because she adds a little to the batter. I don't eat eggs, so have no experience with it. But, it is worth a try from what I hear!

There is a field of CS called "AI Training" which constantly trains the AI software and teaches it explicitly how to interpret data, how to learn from it, how to make accurate decisions and how to perform tasks with accuracy. It is similar to training a human to do those things and this company used a massive dataset and a lot of validation and testing to get to where they are now and hence the excitement. the AI in this product is constantly being trained and learning with a larger and larger dataset. So, the accuracy with which it perceives information to do its task will increase profoundly with more user interaction and more evolution. @MercyAthere are some cool AI software for generating art that are making sensational and realistic art. You can input various characteristics of a person (height, hair color, eye color, clothes, occupation etc) or an animal or a scene or an imaginary sci-fi character and it renders those parameters into art. https://midjourney.com/showcase/recent/ (so far, works on chrome browser for me) https://neuralblender.com/create-art https://dream.ai/create

My son has been asking it tips on how to study certain classical music pieces, their nuances, and tips and he is getting pretty accurate information on them. He is also asking it to write mini opinion pieces on various topics of interest in 4 different languages and it is doing quite a good job of it.

ask it to write a topic that you want in a foreign language of your choice (even classical latin). my son says that it does a pretty good job!

I have not seen a pure monk fruit product so far. I get either Lakanto brand from Whole Foods or Whole Earth brand from Costco. It is a 1:1 replacer for sugar. I don't bake with it, but use it if I am having a cup of chai or a latte late in the evening as I don't want my insulin spiking at that time of the day. I use all kinds of ancient grains. I mix a few at a time, mill them into flour and store in the freezer in ziplocks. I add about 250-350 grams of it to bread dough (which uses 1000 grams of flour, total) to increase nutrition value when I bake my breads. You can do similar substitutions for pancakes, waffles and muffins. I buy the Bob's Red Mill brand or Shiloh Farms Organic brands of ancient grains from vitacost.com .

For my sport playing son, I prefer to buy an organic vegan protein powder without artificial sweeteners or sugar substitutes. I don't have a problem with natural sugars added to the powder, but would like to avoid artificial sweeteners, stevia and erythritol. I also avoid those that contain brown rice based protein (my personal discomfort about arsenic in brown rice) and choose those based on nuts and seeds. There are a few but they may be slightly gritty, which does not matter to me as I put it in smoothies with berries, bananas, superfood powders and other good stuff and my Vitamix does a pretty good task of homogenizing the smoothie. https://orgain.com/products/organic-simple-plant-protein-powder?variant=32734855233645 https://www.bobsredmill.com/shop/nutritional-boosters/almond-protein-powder.html#nutritional-info https://www.bobsredmill.com/shop/nutritional-boosters/hemp-protein-powder.html#nutritional-info https://www.nowfoods.com/products/sports-nutrition/pea-protein-organic-powder

This is not a "you" thing and don't feel sad about it, because I wholeheartedly share the sentiment that pop song lyrics sound very dishonest and insincere. I have not listened to a pop or light-rock radio station in 15 years. I have our local Classical FM station going on multiple devices every single day and my husband has NPR on his car. The end result is that I don't hear any more of those sentiments which to me sound dishonest and insincere. I have also started to learn classical music myself in this time period, so I try to understand the classical music that plays, the historical aspects of the composition as explained by the presenter and the nuances involved. I highly recommend that you take an online or in-person course on "How to Listen to Classical Music" from a music conservatory and enjoy your local Classical Music station! https://www.openculture.com/2017/08/how-to-listen-to-music-a-free-course-from-yale-university.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LCwI5iErE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCKZDSIHV80

Overnight sourdough English Crumpets and English Muffins. I make a large batch when I get around to making them and slice and freeze. They are a convenient thing to have for a quick snack or breakfast. I wing the recipes these days, but they are very similar to these two linked recipes and I substitute Wholewheat flour for 50% of the flour called for in the recipe and use soy milk instead of dairy milk: https://littlespoonfarm.com/wprm_print/236 https://www.2hungrybakers.com/blog-1/2017/1/15/sourdough-crumpets

I came here many many years ago, when my son was a newborn because I like to plan ahead. I am what might be termed as a "rigorous schooler" and I have benefited a lot from so many people who were ahead of me in this journey. There was a time when my child was elementary school aged, when I was desperate for solutions to meet the needs for my child and I have spent hours upon hours on the education forums and they influenced the paths that I have taken and shaped the intellect and interests of my child. In fact, those older threads and discussions were transformative for us. I don't post in those forums much anymore as there are many options available for older kids and I don't need to actively seek input anymore. I do answer questions if I see anyone in the same position that I was in a long time ago, because I do know how deeply influential the help I received was. So, I came here primarily for the deep discussions on education that was available, the kind people who took time to educate me and the depth of knowledge and expertise. I stay for the same reasons though I don't post much.