Author: Hannah (BitterSweet)

Author of My Sweet Vegan, Vegan Desserts, Vegan a la Mode, and Easy as Vegan Pie.

Travel Well: 8 Tips For Healthier Trips

Travel is both a luxury and a necessity. Being able to experience new cultures and cuisines, meet new people, and see even a small portion of the world can be transformational. It can also provide the space to relax, recharge, and revitalize the tired mind. However, time away from the usual routine can also lead to some poor habits, which may have the opposite effect on your health.

Avoiding such pitfalls is as easy as packing your bags, once you learn the art of clothing Tetris. To make the most of your precious vacation days, here are eight tips for better travel for your mental and physical health.

1. Make sure you’re traveling for the right reasons

There’s no doubt that traveling is an exciting time, but for many people, it can also be lonely, even if you’re traveling with others – it’s easy to miss home. Some people might travel to try and escape their problems, which is never a fix, and could end up heightening any anxiety you’re experiencing. Try to resolve those issues first and leave that baggage at home.

2. Stay calm and prepared to be as stress-free as possible

Travel can be stressful. From dealing with airport delays to juggling a packed itinerary, it can feel overwhelming from time to time. One of the best tips is to stay organized. Having all your details somewhere you can access easily will help, both digitally and in print, and it doesn’t hurt to confirm any reservations or travel plans in the days before you need them.

You’ll also have to accept that some things are out of your control. Be it road closures or bad weather, there will be times when you need to go with the flow and realize that it’s all part of the adventure.

3. Maintain sleep hygiene

Between changing time zones and a change of routine, sleep isn’t always easy when you’re away from home. Try to switch your usual sleep pattern to the current time zone, without napping midday, especially when you first arrive. If you can maintain a basic sleeping pattern while traveling, you should have the energy you need to enjoy your days. Aim for eight hours to help you avoid lagging behind and missing out on the fun.

4. Protect your back, pack lightly

Packing too much can lead to all sorts of problems, especially for your back. Where possible, pack lightly to save you from lugging around heavy suitcases from one day to the next. Try to take advantage of luggage storage, especially in big cities. Finding luggage storage in Rome or elsewhere will easily help you explore the city, allowing you to make the most of it on foot.  

5. Walk as much as you can

The best way to explore new places is on foot. Make sure you pack some decent walking shoes and walk as much as you can. Walking will keep you healthy and active while enjoying some time outdoors. It could also be a great way to discover some hidden gems you may not have come across if you were on a bus or in a car. To stay energized and hydrated during long walks, consider bringing Sodii electrolytes which can help replenish lost minerals and keep you feeling refreshed throughout your adventures.

6. Keep in touch with friends and family

Travel can be very much a case of Instagram versus Reality. Only the best, most beautiful parts of each adventure get shared, but that doesn’t mean it’s all perfect out there. If your mood becomes low or you’re homesick, reach out to friends and family. You don’t have to feel alone thanks to instant messaging and abundant WiFi, so confide in those who care about you to help you keep on track.

7. Try to eat well where you can

As a person who often travels for food and wants to try EVERYTHING, eating healthily can pose a challenge, to say the least. Take the opportunity to indulge, but don’t forget to find some reasonable balance. Try to pick dishes packed with fruits and vegetables to help you get your nutrients, bring healthy snacks to stave off cravings between meals, and don’t feel compelled to join the clean plate club. If you’re staying somewhere with access to a kitchen, take advantage of the local markets to cook fresh food from scratch.

8. Exercise on the fly

Exercise might be the last thing on your mind when traveling, but it’s highly beneficial to keep moving, even if only to stretch in the morning. It can help you maintain a routine, stay fit, and give you some energy. There are countless great ways to exercise while traveling, including hotel gyms and travel-friendly workouts. Don’t forget to pack workout clothes and work up a sweat!

Staying healthy while traveling is so important to help you enjoy it. Develop some good habits and keep focusing on your physical and mental health to help you make the most of your experiences.

Hannah (BitterSweet)6 Comments

Sweet and Sassy

If you haven’t thought much, or at all, about Sassafras before, you’re not alone. Banished to the darkest depths of the forest after enjoying brief success as a soda shoppe superstar, there’s not a trace of it left on the market today. Where did it all go? Why did the original root of root beer disappear while only chemical imitators remain? The controversial answer is tangled up in politics and bunk science.

Sass Back

Sassafras is a tree grown in the American Southeast, cherished for years by the indigenous peoples for culinary, medicinal and aromatic applications. Sassafras leaves could be enjoyed as a fresh spice, like bay leaves, in soups and stews, or dried and steeped like tea. Spicy and earthy, with hints of vanilla and licorice, it’s what you might expect from root beer soda if it wasn’t so brash and artificial. The roots have the added benefit of thickening liquids, giving them a place of honor in many gumbo recipes instead of or in addition to file powder.

The tea from sassafras leaves is believed to have many curative properties, historically used to treat colds, measles, scarlet fever, indigestion, and heal wounds. Distilled safrole, the primary chemical compound in sassafras, is still used to make perfumes and natural insecticide products overseas. In the US, where this unique ingredient originated, the story is completely different.

The Dose That Makes The Poison

A study was done in the 1970s where a group of rats was fed extreme, excessive amounts of concentrated safrole. Unsurprisingly, they developed cancer and liver damage. The USDA reacted swiftly and blindly, banning the substance indefinitely. Abundant misinformation persists; even otherwise legitimate-looking websites claim that “Consuming 5 mL of sassafras can kill an adult.”

This is, frankly, a lie. Dr. James Duke, author Handbook of Edible Weeds, has written that on the contrary, root beer with safrole was 1/13 as cancer-causing as the alcohol in beer. While yes, safrole can be used in the production of ecstasy (MDMA), let’s not forget that over-the-counter cold medications can be used to make meth, too.

Distilling The Solution

By my estimation, I’ve consumed much more questionable things. That’s why I was overjoyed when I got real sassafras root from Tripp Distillery, creators of unparalleled sassafras liqueur. Not everyone has access like this, but there are some online resources as well. With my prize in hand, I knew what I wanted to make right away: A reverse root beer float. That is, scoops of homemade sassafras ice cream bobbing in a frosty mug of sparkling water. Cool, crisp, and invigorating, with much less cloying sweetness than the original.

What happened when I got home was a bit different than planned. My ice cream maker decided to give up the ghost, paddle immersed in cool custard, never to spin again. With the base already cooked and a heatwave approaching, I grabbed the nearest popsicle mold and started pouring.

Creamsicle Of Dreams

Call it fate, or a happy accident, but I think the results turned out even better this way. Sweet, creamy, and delicately spiced, there’s nothing else quite like it. Perched on wooden sticks, these frozen treats are even better for summer fun on the go, or swirling into a pop-tail, AKA popsicle cocktail. Just add hard seltzer or a shot of your favorite spirits to that sparkling water to get the party started.

If you like root beer, you’ll love sassafras. Ignore the fearmongering and give it a chance. It’s long overdue for a revival, but don’t just save the best for last—eat dessert first!

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Hannah (BitterSweet)1 Comment

Ice Capades

I probably think about ice more than the average person. Yes, ice; that naturally occurring phenomenon of water reaching 32° Fahrenheit (or 0° Celsius) degrees and transforming into a solid state of matter. It’s incredible, if you stop to consider, how humans have managed to harness this power and put it in the hands of anyone with access to electricity. If you have a working freezer, you already have ice, wanted or not, chilling on the shelves. So ubiquitous that it’s not even considered as a component of a recipe, lower on the ingredient hierarchy than the optional salt, it’s an insult that this modern marvel gets such disrespect.

I won’t bore you with a glacially slow history of ice. Rather, I want to highlight how cool ice really is, and how the quality of ice has a huge impact on the overall eating and drinking experience. I may or may not be able to chill out on the puns, but good ice is snow joke!

Quality AND Quantity

Much as been made in recent years about the volume of ice in drinks. Increasingly price-conscious consumers see all that space in their glasses taken up by flavorless frozen water and are crying foul. Where’s the rest of the order that should theoretically occupy that void?

The thing is, that’s not the way an iced beverage works. Ice, by design and by nature, melts. A properly composed drink takes this into account, factoring in the amount of dilution ice will cause and calibrating the concentration of the added liquid accordingly. That’s why a good iced latte is made with strong espresso, while iced coffee should be poured over coffee cubes to maintain the same bold flavor.

Certain cocktails are just a mixture of liquors; without a good measure of ice, that would be straight firewater. In other cases, when a stronger drink is desired or more juices and syrups are involved, that’s where cocktail shakers come in handy, straining out the excess ice to prevent the flavor from changing beyond a certain standard.

The shape and size of the ice makes a big impact on the amount that should be used as well.

Shaping Up Nicely

Being that it’s the frozen state of liquid H2O, ice can be in any shape imaginable. I personally own at least three or four dozen different ice cube trays that range from hearts to skulls and everything in between. In terms of common makes and models, there’s still a dizzying array of ice to cut through. The biggest differences have more to do with the freezing method than the final form.

  • Crescent Ice: These are half-moon cubes that home freezers with built-in ice makers churn out 24/7. I have little opinion about them, personally. They do their job dutifully, unbothered by aesthetics. These will always be cloudy. (More on that later.)
  • Bullet Ice: If you host a lot of parties and need to keep the ice flowing, you probably have a stand-alone ice maker that delivers these cylinder-shaped pieces on demand. They’re formed on metal tubes, with frozen water building up around the sides, creating an indentation in the centers.

  • Nugget Ice: Known by some as “Sonic Ice,” these are the gold standard for chewable ice. Thin sheets of ice are frozen and scraped together repeatedly to form compact, 1-cm bites that have a similar texture to hard shaved ice. Nugget ice machines sit in the upper price range for most consumers, but there’s a very affordable loophole. If you have a Sonic location nearby, you can buy a 10 lb bag of packed ice from the drive-thru for around $3 – 5.
  • Square Ice: These familiar 1-inch cubes are the workhorses of the bar. They chill drinks effectively without melting too quickly, making them ideal for a wide range of cocktails. Larger cubes, about 2 inches square, melt slower than standard cubes, perfect for sipping on neat liquors or spirit-forward cocktails on the rocks without watering them down.

  • Spherical: Seamless round orbs add a touch of sophistication to any drink. Spheres have a smaller surface area compared to their volume, so they melt even slower than large square cubes. Plus, it’s hard to beat that visual appeal.

Clear As Day

Perhaps you’ve noticed that the ice cubes from your home freezer or ice maker are cloudy, whereas they’re perfectly clear in most restaurants and cafes. What gives? For such a simple question, the answer is a bit complicated.

Cloudy ice can contain minerals and trapped air, which can impart unwanted flavors and textures. However, even if you start with purified water, boiled tap water, hot water, or cold water, the very same hazy finish comes to the fore. The issue stems from microscopic air bubbles trying to get out as the water molecules draw tighter and tighter together. Household freezers pump out cold air from all sides to work more efficiently, setting the outer layer of water first, which then traps all the air bubbles in the center. The only way to ensure complete clarity is through directional freezing.

There are gadgets and DIY solutions to make your own directional freezing chamber, but I won’t lie, it takes a lot of patience and freezer real estate to work.The basic idea is that you insulate all but one side of the ice you’re creating so it’s forced to freeze only from the top down. You can then cut off the impurities than end up at the bottom.

I adore clear ice, notice and appraise it every time I order a drink at the bar, but this is too much of a commitment, even for me. Some things are best left to the professionals.

Frozen Assets

This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. We could still talk about crushed ice, luxury ice stamps, hand-carved artisan ice cubes, reusable ice cubes or “whiskey stones,” herbal and floral infused ice cubes, shot glasses made from ice… You see what I mean? Before hell freezes over, I should probably wrap things up.

Does anyone really need to think this much about ice? Maybe not. You don’t need to be an ice fanatic to enjoy it, as all people should be so fortunate on these brutal summer days. Even cloudy crescent ice is still good ice in my book. Just take a closer look next time you pour yourself a drink and appreciate what’s in your glass.

Hannah (BitterSweet)6 Comments

Kiss And Tell

Lemon zest has become my new garlic. By which I mean, there’s no such thing as too much. If a recipe calls for a teaspoon, or pinch, or even just as an optional addition, you’d better believe I’m not going to stop zesting until that whole lemon is bald. Unlike garlic, this applies to everything, both sweet and savory (although truth be told, I have bridged that gap for the former, too.)

While there’s never a bad time for dark chocolate, I’ve been craving something lighter, brighter, and breezier. Lemon-Kissed Raspberry Bark is the answer. Invigorating lemon zest cuts the sweetness of white chocolate alongside tart freeze-dried raspberries, delivering a burst of high-contrast, full spectrum flavor in every bite.

Minimal Effort, Maximum Enjoyment

Like any good bark, be it of dark or white chocolate, half its beauty lies in its simplicity. All you really need are three basic ingredients, plus optional salt and sprinkles, because life is better with both. Then, it’s just one bowl, one spatula, and a microwave that stands between you and your prize. No fancy equipment or complicated steps are involved. Even on a hot summer’s day when the kitchen is a less inviting place, it’s an ideal dessert to either share or hoard.

A Zest For Life

Don’t even think about cutting back on the lemon zest. The only acceptable modification is to swap it with another citrus. Orange or lime zest are equally suitable understudies, but don’t forget more unconventional options like yuzu, buddha’s hand, pomelo, makrut lime, and of course, any combination of the aforementioned fruits, too. The raspberries may seem like the star of the show, but it’s really the zest that makes it a winning production.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)3 Comments