http://www.funadvice.com/my/advice/ewald72 en-us Mate-tea (which is not really from the tea-plant) contains a substance which helps agains hunger. Other teas may simply work because the water keeps you from getting hungry (for a short time, at least). ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:54:30 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/what_s_the_green_tea_diet 100555 I agree with dw5386 I doesn't make sense to talk to those people. Just let them be and hope they don't send their children to the same schools the went to. Here are some interesting arguments they lost so far, in the approximate time-sequence. It is easy to see that religion lost more and more ground, but always tried to oppose the next idea until it was known fact. Earth is flat Human culture is static (no technical progress occurs) The Moon is a light, not another world The Planets are lights, not worlds The universe is filled with air Earth is the center of the solar system The Stars are not other suns, but small lights Earth is 4000 Years old The animal and plant world is static (no new species or extinctions) The Solar system is the center of the universe Our Galaxy is the only one (list about 1900) The Universe is static (lost in the 1920's) Heart transplantations will remove the soul from the human (lost in the 50's) There are no other solar systems, only naked stars (lost in the 90's) In one thing they were right: the Moon DOES revolve around the earth ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:11:30 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/ignorance_religion_walk_hand_in_hand 100545 Every Blog is a Website, but most Websites are not a Blog. A Blog transfers it's data with the http protocol and is formatted in html like ever other Website. But while you need a website designer to make a standard Website (or you write it directly in html using a texteditor) a Blog is a system which allows you to add new content with your webbrowser itself and is therefore similar to online homepage-builders. Because of that, it's also more limited than websites. Technically, it's a program running on a webserving computer which generates the html code on-demand when somebody looks at the page, and most need a database somewhere to store the content (some have the db integrated). ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:15:08 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/blogs_and_website_are_they_same 100541 Shintoism is not a coherent religion, it is more a loosely connected set of different belief systems which came down from history to be known as 'The way of the Gods'. There is no central authority. It's basically animism and ancestor-worship. Both animism and ancestor worship occur naturally in primitive societies without central authorities (which Japan was only about 2000 years ago). Animism sees nature itself as godly - a stone, a tree, a mountain etc can be incorporated by a spirit. There are good and bad spirits and initially there is no difference between gods, spirits, demons etc. Some gods were always spirits, some are dead people. Ancestor-worship means the dead become ghosts (=gods) watching over their family and should be worshipped therefore. After some time, the ghosts fuse back into the nature (but not always). Some of today's gods were originally clan-leaders, as all villages had their village-temple, and inside the temple the village-god resided (in most cases a former clan-leader). Politically influent clans therefore were able to install their village-god in the national pantheon. Death is perceived as a spiritual contaminant. There is still an island with a shrine on it in Japan where you are not allowed to die (the hospital will transport you away before that happens). Interestingly, Birth and Menstruation are also seen as contaminating. In olden times, villages had their own houses to give birth or to die in. There are three practices: - Village Shinto is the family shinto and the oldest (worshipping your dead or local deities). A LOT of shrines exists, in every household one. - Folk Shinto has a national pantheon and big, national shrines (like Ise-Shrine) the gods are no longer a relative or a local deity - Imperial Shinto worships the God-Emperor and came to full power in Japan's imperialistic phase (after the Edo-Shogunate collapsed) Buddhism had a big influence on Shinto as it tried to overcome it by fusing with it. There were even mixed shinto/buddhist shrines during the Edo-period. For further reading, I recommend the books of Lefcatio Hearn. ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:58:55 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/what_is_shinto_belief 100536 The CLASSIC Japanese cuisine is extremely healthy. If you take a look at old recipes, it's really mostly rice, vegetables, eggs and fish, almost no additional fat at all. In classic recipes NOTHING is fried, the only preparation methods being grilling, cooking and steaming (Tempura is something the Japanese learned from portuguese sailors). The only drawback in japanese cooking is the high salt-content. Even the sweets are based on rice, sugar, agar jelly and bea-paste, and are therefore quite low in fat. Also, the Japanese nowadays have the tendency to eat high-quality food while many western cultures want low prices. In general, food is more expensive in Japan than here and fatty foods are not as accepted (many western food companies had to adapt to local taste by removing some of the fat). Furthermore, many of the classic ingredients like Seaweed, Konjaku (both of which are eaten frequently) have virtually zero calories and lots of fibers. Compared with other cultures, Japanese have a lower caloric intake because of this and lowered caloric intake is linked to better health. However, that doesn't mean that everything is OK today. Japan has adapted many of the more unhealthy trends, including ready-made foods, snacks and fastfood. ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:27:26 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/is_chinese_or_japanese_food_healthier 100518 For Sencha Tea (the standard tea nowadays) * Wash the tea-leaves * Cook water, let it cool for one minute * Put tea in water, let it stay for one to 1 to 2 minutes * Pass through sieve Generally, high-quality teas need cooler water. Gyokuro needs only about 40 Celsius. ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:46:58 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/how_do_i_brew_japanese_tea 100496 That happened so long ago it will be impossible to say for sure. Primitive Bread is available since sometime in the paleolithic. Pakuntos, an ancient Greek flatbread with toppings of herbs and onions may qualify. Also, persian soldiers were known to bake flatbread on their shields, topped with cheese and dates about 500BC. ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:35:14 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/what_country_did_pizza_first_come 100490 Salt ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:26:41 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/what_is_the_only_food_that_doesn 100488 Coffee, eating something and strong mints ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:24:17 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/alcoholic_beverages 100485 Apple-pie is european in origin, almost every culture here has it's own set of recipes. ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:21:59 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/do_they_eat_apple_pie_in_europe 100484 By learning to cook. As a matter of fact, eating out generally means eating too much or at least unhealthy. ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:13:40 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/when_you_can_t_cook 100482 * Fat-spray when pan-frying * Electric low-fat grills (tilted heating plate to separate the fat) Also, when buying a grill, you should make sure that the heating plate is removable so you can wash it easily. * Start to cook traditionally japanese (costs lots of money outside of Japan, but is mostly cooking, steaming and grilling) * Remove processed meats like wieners, spam, etc * Make your sauces based on water and cornstarch ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:09:57 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/cooking_with_less_fat 100481 The japanese know something called 'Furikake', which is a crispy mix of sesame, rice-cakes, fish flakes and seaweed, tea, eggs, dried roe, etc. You can buy it in asian supermarkets. You can also make it yourself: * Dry a can of tuna (canned in water, not oil) in a pan until damp * Add a minced omelette and continue drying * Add toasted sesame, salt, lost of sugar, maybe some MSG * Dry until almost no dampness remains Use like a condiment on cold rice (japanese-style rice is best for this) ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:55:21 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/how_can_make_rice_testy 100479 Hotness of pepper is measured in scoville, which is the proportion of dilution you need to neutralize the pepper powder in sugar-water, so that at least humans don't detect any hotness at all. The winners are two Thai peppers, Bhut Jolokia and Naga Jolokia, which have 1000000 scoville. Pepper-spray has about 2000000-5000000. Pure Capsaicin (the substance which causes the hotness) has 16000000. However, I don't think it's easy to get it pure, because it can be lethal in large quantities. ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:47:33 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/peppers 100478 Theoretically, using PURE alcohol mixed in a no-cal soda like Cola Light would be most effective, because the only calories are from the alcohol itself. In reality you won't be able to get pure alc so easily, but a high-proof Rum works nicely too, you can get up to 80% of alcohol in some types of Rum. Unfortunately, alcohol increases the water-content of the human body, which will increase you weight. However, the water is also easily lost as soon as you stop drinking. ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:36:32 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/wine_liquor_or_beer 100472 It's not so much a question of belief. There are some people even nowadays who believe Earth to be flat, but you will rarely find them in industrialized societies. Evolution is well-understood and a fact. Not all missing links were found, but given the population densities of man-apes, you will never find all links beause there didn't exists so many individuals. I think it strange how many people are willing to believe in the Bible (an OLD book, based on the knowledge of it's time) and not in the thinks science tells us. Science is not religion, it just looks at the world and tries to classify. If you ever used a genetic algorithm to solve complex mathematical problems, you will NEVER EVER believe in creationism, because you see the blind clockmaker at work, first-hand. There is something called REALITY out there, unfortunately people depend on opinions rather than facts. That's also the reason so many people read Horoscopes. By the way, the term 'Theory' is used in science to classify thoughts about which the scientific community is VERY sure, the only level even higher is 'Nature-law'. In everyday language, 'Theory' is much weaker and people tend to think that evolution is one of many ideas, while it's really the only thing which seems to work. I don't just tell you to just believe in evolution. But if nobody better comes up, this is by far the most likely explanation. ewald72 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:23:43 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 100467