We’re back with more chemistry life hacks.
This time around, we’ve got some brilliant
chemistry-fuel food tricks to make your life
a little easier, with all the evidence you
need to back it up.
Now let’s get started.
Now that summer’s here, you’ve been trying
to get that beach bod up to standard, but
you love your stir fries too much to cut down
on the starches.
Well here’s a quick tip to cut the calories
on a cup of rice.
For this hack, when you’re cooking your
rice, you have to first bring the water to
a boil.
Once it’s boiling, then add two teaspoons
of coconut oil.
Then drop the heat to a simmer, add your rice
until cooked.
Once it’s done cover the rice, and store
it in the fridge for 12 hours.
It’s that easy.
When you take it out of the fridge, it looks
like normal rice, but it’s packing way less
calories than normal -- potentially as much
as 50 percent less.
How?
Starches in rice come in digestible or indigestible
varieties.
Digestible starches are metabolized into glucose
to be used as energy, and any leftovers are
then converted to glycogen to be stored as
fuel for later.
Problem is, if there’s too much glucose
it can’t be converted fast enough and is
stored as fat.
This hack cuts that excess down because when
the rice is cooled, amylose -- one of main
components of starch -- reacts with the oil
to make a so-called "amylose lipid complex.
Your body has a hard time breaking down this
complex which means that parts of the rice
that were once digestible now become indigestible
and just pass on through without leaving the
calories behind.
so get to eating!
 
 
You want to pack up some apple slices for
lunch later, but you’re sick of biting into
mushy brown wedges.
 Here’s a quick tip to keep your apple
slices, avocado halves or other chopped up
fruit nice and fresh.
Once done slicing, take a small bowl and fill
it with water.
Then take a lemon, half it, and squeeze both
halves into the bowl.
Now dip all your apple slices in the water
and pack them into their bag.
You can actually pour some extra lemon water
in there as well.
Also, If you don’t mind lemon-y apples,
you can even just skip the bowl and give them
a spray of lemon juice.
When you chop into fruits like apples, avocados,
and pears, you damage some of their cells,
releasing an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase.
This in turn causes the quick oxidation of,
you guessed it, polyphenols -- antioxidants
in fruit that give them color and in some
cases fight plant infection.
Once the damaged fruit is exposed to oxygen,
polyphenol oxidase produces brown pigments
and a bit of an off flavor.
That’s where the lemons come in.
 Lemons have a lot of vitamin C, also known
as ascorbic acid, which is a noted food preservative
that slows down the reaction.
This combined with the citric acid in the
lemon help keep your apples looking, tasting,
and snapping fresher for longer.
And don’t forget, you can use this for avocados,
pears and all kinds of other fruit.
You’re about to cook up some of that world
famous chicken salad of yours, but you didn’t
have time to marinate and you don’t want
chewy chicken.
So here’s a tip that will help make chicken
and other meats cook nice and tender.
Slice up your raw chicken into small cubes
for cooking and place them inside of a bowl.
Now go into your cupboard and grab some baking
soda.
For every 12 oz of raw meat that you have
in your bowl, add one teaspoon of baking soda,
mix it all up, cover it with saran wrap, and
let it sit for 15 minutes.
When finished, head to the sink to rinse the
baking soda off of your chicken.
Once cooked, your chicken will be perfectly
tender.
 
Meats are made up of fats and proteins, which
have everything to do with texture.
Proteins give meat its body and keep other
compounds in it strapped together, including
moisture.
Once an animal dies lactic acid starts to
build up in the muscle and the pH of the meat
steadily drops.
If it gets too low  it’s going to be a
super tough and dry dinner.
Baking soda has a pH of around 9, so coating
the raw meat in it will increase the pH before
you cook it which, in turn, will increase
its water-holding capacity.
With that extra moisture trapped inside, each
bite will be world class.
  
Alright folks, we hope you can put these hacks
to use this summer, and if you happen to have
any other tricks up your sleeves, post them
down in the comments for us and we may add
them to upcoming life hack episodes.
Thanks for watching, hit thumbs up and subscribe,
and we’ll see you again soon.
