A.1. Sauce Candles Are the Father’s Day Gift Your Dad Never Asked For

We’ve seen our fair share of food-scented candles on the market. Fruit scents are classic candle staples, but beyond that Bath & Body Works even has an entire line of merchandise dedicated to avocados, kale, and Thai food! But A.1.’s latest product is the meatiest iteration of this trend we’ve seen yet.

The classic steak sauce brand has just introduced three scented candles themed around their line of condiments. The varieties include original meat, backyard BBQ, and classic burger. We have no idea what separates the smell of burgers from the scent of more generic meat, but we trust there is a distinction in the aroma to the most discerning noses. If you can detect it, please let us know!

Each candle is hand poured in the United States and will burn for anywhere between 50-70 hours. How exciting! Now the long-lasting aroma of grilled steak can linger in your bedroom, bathroom, and other places that traditionally lack the scent of barbecue char, forever and ever, well after the summer barbecue season is over.  The nine-ounce candles sell for about 15 bucks each.

Frankly we’re not sure why anyone would want their house to smell that meaty all the time, but it could make a great Father’s Day present for a carnivorous dad that already has every grill gadget on the market. Besides, you can only gift him a “World’s Best Cook” apron so many times after all.

While A.1. sauce has a history that goes back almost 200 years (the original sauce it’s based on was created in 1824!), it’s hard to fathom the company’s founders ever imagining this non-edible variation of its product. But hey, this is where we are! For those of us too lazy to cook, the future is candles. We’ll raise a flame to that!

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New Research Suggests Green Tea May Help Reduce Risk of Heart Attacks

New research suggests that a substance found in green tea could help reduce the risk of heart attacks. A recent study found that a molecule in the tea called epigallocatechin gallate (or EGCG for short) has the ability to bind to protein found in plaques that are linked to coronary artery disease. And in certain cases it can even make it more soluble.

While experts are excited over the potential power of EGCG in fighting heart disease, they’re not sure if drinking copious amounts of everyone’s favorite bedtime beverage is the most effective way to go. It’s more likely they’ll work on developing a way for the molecule to target blood vessels with plaque deposits instead.

Professor David Middleton, a co-author of the study from the University of Lancaster, had this to say in an interview with The Guardian, “If you drink normal quantities of green tea it will probably be unlikely to have an effect. What we are saying is that we need to look at this molecule more carefully and figure out ways we can either adapt it to make it more [available to the body when taken] or ways of delivering it to the plaques.”

Even if gulping down pots of tea won’t have a direct impact on your heart health, there are still a ton of nutritional benefits to reap from the stuff. Matcha, a super concentrated green tea powder, in particular, is rich in L-Theanine, an amino acid that tempers its caffeine content and promotes calmness, as well as higher levels of concentration and focus. It’s also high in antioxidants, boasting a polyphenol count that’s supposedly 60 times higher than spinach.

Clearly there’s a lot to love about green tea, and it will be interesting to see what other scientific discoveries emerge in the future. (Like, it’s hard to imagine that it can get even healthier!)  We’ll just have to wait to find out.

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A Guide to Sea Salt Varieties and How to Pair Them with Food

The rise of paleo diets and the organic craze has changed the way that we look at food (and how much we’re willing to pay for that avocado), but one of the more niche aspects of the education of our palates, sea salt, never seems to get the credit that it deserves.

Sea salt isn’t just fancier and more expensive than table salt, it’s supposedly healthier for you too—though the science is still out on a lot of these claims. Unlike the salt you dump out of those huge ugly cardboard cylinders, sea salt is almost always organic. It’s born as water from the ocean evaporates and usually doesn’t go through the nasty processing that table salt endures. It really is the salt of the earth and its ocean origin makes it ideal for beach-friendly dishes.

Of course, different sorts of sea salt work better with different recipes. When considering which sea salt goes best with the dish you’re putting on the table, you can’t go wrong with pairing the location of the food and salt. Sea salt from one region of the world just seems to taste better with a recipe from that area.

Here are a few great recipes for the different types of sea salt:

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Our first sea salt recipe is for Himalayan pink salt, which is one of the more popular spices and most people say that it’s not as strong of a taste as other blends. Though it is marketed in a lot of different ways, the authentic spice comes from a region near Pakistan and you can tell it apart by its pink hue. Here’s a great, simple recipe for a Buddha vegan bowl that you can quadruple to serve a table.

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Next, let’s take a trip to France, where they’ve perfected fleur de sel. The authentic grey salt comes from the coast of Brittany in northwest France, though you can also pick up a Portuguese blend that is almost indistinguishable. Fleur de sel has more of a bite than Himalayan pink salt, which makes it a perfect salt for topping your beachside margarita. Here’s a great and extremely simple recipe for red mullet fillets utilizing fleur de sel.

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Finally, let’s take a look at the native salt of Hawaii, which can be either red or black and gets its coloring from the volcanic clay of the island (and is often referred to as Alaea salt). This has a gritty feel to it and it can be expensive and difficult to find outside the Hawaiian islands. Of course, since Hawaii is surrounded by water, this blend goes wonderfully on just about every kind of seafood but it’s definitely preferable for a sweet fish like mahi-mahi or yellowfin tuna. Pork is also a very popular dish in the Hawaiian Islands and if you’re feeling experimental, try a roasted pork dish with Alaea.

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What Is the Difference Between Regular, Raw, and Manuka Honey?

If you’ve visited any Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods lately, you might have noticed an abundance of honey and honey-based products lining the shelves. Honey, or apiculture (the technical term of beekeeping), is big business these days due to the variety of health benefits found in bee pollen to the sweet golden nectar of honey itself. Used as a natural sweetener in lieu of processed sugar and sweeteners, honey is even Goop approved, dubbed as a natural elixir and “nectar of the gods” by beauty experts with celebrity endorsements from the likes of Kourtney Kardashian and Meghan Markle who swear by the sweet stuff’s restorative powers.

Historically, honey has been used for centuries. Dating back thousands of years to ancient Egypt and ancient China, honey has been used as traditional forms of medicine, aiding in everything from digestive issues and sleep deprivation to allergies and anti-aging. Even today, China remains the largest consumer of honey products due to its natural uses of antibacterial and antiseptic properties found in its syrupy wake.

While there are literally hundreds of types of honey to choose from, not all honey is created equal and knowing the basics between regular honey, raw honey, and Manuka honey (the relative darling of the wellness and celebrity world right now) is equally important. Here’s a look at the major differences between regular honey, raw honey, and Manuka honey.

Regular Honey

Simply put, regular honey is any honey that has been pasteurized or filtered. During the pasteurization process, similar to the pasteurization of milk, cheese, or butter, honey is heated at high temperatures to kill any yeast that may be present in order to prevent fermentation. It’s pretty easy to tell regular honey from raw or Manuka honey because of its translucent color and syrupy consistency. According to the website Benefits Of Honey, “a lot of honey found in the supermarket is not raw honey but ‘commercial’ regular honey […] which has been pasteurized (heated at 70 degrees Celsius or more, followed by rapid cooling) for easy filtering and bottling so that it looks cleaner and smoother, more appealing on the shelf, and easier to handle and package.”

Raw Honey

Raw honey, on the other hand, is any honey that hasn’t been heated or filtered. Think of it as hive to shelf. While there’s no official FDA definition for raw honey, according to the National Honey Board, raw honey is defined as “honey as it exists in the beehive or as obtained by extraction, settling or straining without adding heat.” While raw honey is better in terms of preserving the vitamins and natural enzymes that you won’t find in processed, regular honey, the characteristics and consistency can vary greatly. Your best bet, if you don’t want to buy just based on a label, is to get it straight from farmer’s market/beekeeper as it really doesn’t get much fresher than that.

Manuka Honey

Taking your honey education one step further, one of the healthiest types of honey available on the market today, Manuka honey (pronounced Mah-noo-kah) is honey that is derived from the nectar of the Manuka bush, a plant that’s only grown in New Zealand and Australia. Long been hailed for its medicinal and antibacterial properties, today, this medical grade form of honey is being used in everything from treating topical cuts, burns and common colds to helping cure acne and general skin care to being served in high-end restaurants and sold in health food stores around the world. It also carries a hefty price tag to match.

One of the largest purveyors of Manuka honey, New Zealand-based health company Comvita makes everything from honey-based adhesives to throat lozenges and moisturizer. “We started using honey-based treatments as an alternative option for patients and noticed it was making such a big difference topically,” Heidi Darcy, a registered nurse and Comvita’s communication manager said. “Of course, some people still need conventional medicine treatments but I think there’s so much opportunity for honey to work with conventional forms of treatments so that it can really improve people’s lives.” Darcy pointed to the unique properties found in Manuka including leptosperin and methylglyoxal. How do you know if what you’re getting is the real deal? Look for a jar of honey that’s UMF or Unique Manuka Factor.

“Honey’s something so simple, people could put it on and use it at home if they got any little nick or cut, they could put it on so that it doesn’t get to the infected stage and you don’t have to use the antibiotics, and then we can keep the antibiotics for when we really need them,” Darcy said.

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