Tag: meat

Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why A Fridge Freezer Is Your Best Friend

When life gets too tough we all do it, we all turn to that one shiny square symbol of comfort, yes you got it in one, the fridge freezer combo. I understand that the fridge-freezer is so much more than an appliance; it shelters your beer, hides the children’s treats and offers you a place to stash your ready meals from the Mrs (who happens to think you have managed to learn how to cook whilst she is at yoga). These are the 7 reasons why your Fridge Freezer is your best friend…

1. Fridge-freezer is the most practical invention on the planet. Think about it guys; where would we be without the fridge-freezer combo? Well I will tell you, we wouldn’t be that far behind damn dirty apes. The sheer practicality and advancements in technology part us from an archaic existence and through the pure genius of combining both the fridge and freezer (someone needs a pat on the back for that) we are able to store more and more food. We are basically like advanced technological squirrels.

2. Making your mates jealous. Having the best fridge-freezer is guaranteed to make your mates envious, they won’t let you see this jealous streak but be warned they are secretly judging you on the size of your new appliance. But hey, relax, ask them if they want a drink; then see if they want ice with that, obviously from your amazing new built in fridge ice dispenser.

3. Had a bad day? Your fridge-freezer is there for you. So the kids insist on kicking you in the leg and drawing on the newly decorated walls. After 4 hours of trying to bribe reason with them they have finally surrendered and fallen asleep. You still have a mountain of paper work to go through (don’t forget to wipe down the walls too). Threat no more the fridge is here for you grab an ice cold beer and some ice-cream before the wife emerges from the bath. The fridge-freezer demands that you have some “you time”.

4. Think of your beers and ready meals, they deserve a good home. Let’s face it (despite what your wife thinks) you rely on the odd ready meal to feed yourself and the kids on the nights she insists she needs to work anyway. Think about it; with a bigger, more efficient, fridge-freezer you can hide such meals better plus nobody will find that extra 4 pack of cans behind the salad draw.

5. It can protect you from nuclear explosions. If there is one thing that we all learned from the brilliant – and in no way a disgrace to the adventure genre – movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it’s that climbing into your fridge will leave you unscathed and ready to embrace the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. It’s in a movie, so it has to be 100% scientifically accurate. Nice one, Mr Fridge.

6. Man Drawer: fridge style. Here’s some food for thought if you’re diplomatic and extra complimentary to your other half maybe she will give you the huge privilege of having a man drawer: fridge style? Yeah just imagine a man drawer in your freaking fridge, your own refrigerated cubby hole to store all of your special treats. Let’s cut to the chase; it would basically be the ‘beer and meat’ drawer, with rules stipulating that all salads and low fat yoghurts be banished.

7. The fridge-freezer is the heart of any family home. No matter how you dress it, the fridge- freezer combo is an industrial giver of family happiness and joyous memories. Without it, chances are you would have died from food poisoning, starvation, heartbreak and spontaneous combustion. And really who wants that; not me! I would rather have a fridge-freezer. So I suggest you get yourself a new best friend; a fridge-freezer. Guaranteed not to break your heart.

Author Bio: Rachel Hurley spends her days working as a writer for Appliances Online. In her spare time she likes to rescue snails, watch Dexter and overdose on caffeine. She is also due to release her first solo single with Universal, entitled ‘Oh joyous Fridge’, with a B-side track ‘Refrigeration for the Nation’. Available to download now, only $9.95.

July 15, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Be A Vegetarian

With the 7 Reasons sofa still state side, it’s understandable that there is quite a queue next to it. First to jump into the guest post hot seat is Breanna Carter. Before we get to Breanna’s post, though, a warning. If you like your turkey it might be worth waiting until after Christmas before you read this.

Ever since we chased down prey with rudimentary tools on the African savannah, the human race has always been a carnivorous one. Our medieval kings ate pheasant, our oil barons steak, and beef and poultry have increasingly become staples of consumption in the Western world. But recent decades has also seen the rise of vegetarianism, and more people now eschew meat than ever before. Most of these people are driven by either health or humanitarian concerns. While these reasons are arguably the strongest argument for vegetarianism, there are other supporting points as well. Here, then, are the seven main reasons for being a vegetarian:

1. Healthier. To be sure, health is a key reason for dropping meat from your diet. Diets high in meat, after all, are almost invariably high in fat as well. There are many ways of getting the protein provided by meat without the unneeded fat, meaning that there’s really no health downside to being a vegetarian. Furthermore, most unhealthy fast food products include meat; being a vegetarian provides a good impetus to stop eating at such establishments.

2. Less Chance of Disease. Undercooked and diseased meat results in thousands of sicknesses and recalls each year. While unwashed vegetables may occasionally contain bacteria and cause food poisoning, your chance of getting serious ill from your food – although low – is much higher when it comes to meat.

3. More Humane. This one goes without saying, but a diet that doesn’t include meat also doesn’t include any animal that was killed for your consumption. This has become even more significant in recent years, as stories have repeatedly emerged detailing cruel practices at slaughterhouses. You don’t need to be a die-hard animal lover to sympathize with a cow who faces a painful death.

4. Cheaper. Meat products are almost always some of the most expensive items being sold at a given grocery store. One pound of rice or beans – compared with one pound of meat – is far less expensive and far more nutritious. Consequently, your grocery budget would stand to drop noticeably if you made the switch to vegetarianism.

5. More Eco-Friendly. As you’ve probably heard, it takes up much more land and many more resources to raise a group of cows than to grow a field of produce. With the world population skyrocketing, arable land becoming more scare, and food prices on the rise, a sustained move to vegetarianism would vastly reduce the resources we consume on a global level.

6. Confers Status. In some circles, vegetarians are not well-regarded and could probably use some reputation management assistance. In others, however, those who forgo meat are respected and admired. If you travel in the latter type of circle, your switch to vegetarianism could thus have an added social benefit.

7. Better for Your Bowels. Even though humans have been carnivores since our earliest days, our bodies are much better equipped to process plant and grain products than animal ones. If you suffer from bowel issues, then, becoming a vegetarian could vastly improve your day-to-day level of comfort.

So there you have it: seven reasons to be a vegetarian. Although meat can be tasty and high in protein, it ultimately just cannot compete.

December 1, 2011
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why A Barbecue Is Better Than A Microwave

Given the weather we have had so far this year, the chances are you’ve already had a barbecue. If you haven’t though – and you still insist on taking your microwave to the park for a picnic – then you really need to pay attention. Sitting on the sofa this week is Robert Plastow. A man who has important things to share about nuclear attacks and leather. Yes, we know, you like him already. Here’s Robert:

This isn’t Robert. This is a Beefeater 900 Series Classic 3 Burner Gas Barbecue. But you knew that.

1. Friends. Having friends over to hang around your microwave for a few beers isn’t as thrilling as having a BBQ party. For one, you’d need quite a big kitchen and quite a big microwave. Even then the anticipation of fervent hunger wouldn’t be as satisfyingly met by the nonchalant ding of a microwave as it would be by the crackle and hiss of mesmerising flames as they lick the dripping fat from a perfectly cooked burger. It might be quicker but microwave cooking is about as sociable as J.D Salinger impersonating a hermit crab in an underground bunker with the lights off.

2. Outdoors. Unlike a barbecue, you can’t take a microwave to the beach or to the park. Barbecues can be portable, which means that if the sun is shining you can be cooking over a mini fire and dining al fresco wherever you are. The great outdoors becomes your friend as every landscape becomes a potential dining table where you can feast upon the bounty of nature in both body and mind. Meanwhile, back at home your microwave sits in the kitchen like a dormant robot awaiting the signal for the rise of the machines and the ensuing mechanical apocalypse. (If you have been taking a microwave to the park for a picnic recently, you should talk about it with someone who knows you well and who you feel comfortable around. Ask someone whose opinion you value and see if they think you need to be referred to a therapist.)

3. We Are Man. Sitting by a fire and cooking flesh brings out the masculine caveman instinct, whereas sitting by a microwave probably gives you ball cancer. There’s no medical evidence to support this claim but I challenge any man to happily sit naked on top of a microwave whilst it nukes a spud for 10 minutes straight. Whereas BBQs are different. Men throughout the ages have been more than happy to hang around a fire whilst perpetuating an overused stereotype of primitive masculinity attached to carnivorism. Grunting and farting as they proudly cook another creature’s flesh, it’s easy to see why men prefer to assert their dominance over fire and beast alike rather than frying their nuts in accurately timed bouts of microwave radiation.

4. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Microwaves could destroy Australia, while barbecues make it what it is. You can’t throw another shrimp on the microwave. Not unless you want it to rot along with all the other detritus that has been lost in the sands of time behind your beeping radiation cupboard. Australians would lose their entire culture if microwaves replaced barbecues. They wouldn’t survive the cultural upheaval and havoc that newer phrases would wreak on their well-established parlance. Can you see an Aussie saying “reheat another plate of leftovers in the wavey mate”?. Australia, in its very being, is itself an argument for the prevalence of barbecues over microwaves. Would you deny the culture and population of an entire country for the sake of a conveniently cooked ready-meal?

5. The World Of Leather. A microwave ‘leatherises’ meat. Try cooking a steak in the microwave and see what happens. Seriously. Go and spend a good chunk of money on a really nice fillet steak and put it in your microwave set to max power for 5 mins and watch it shrivel into a poor impersonation of a mummified chihuahua. Alternatively, season and lightly oil it, then flame grill it to perfection over the glowing grill of your beloved gas barbecue. If you eat the one from the microwave you’ll be confined to the smallest room in the house whilst your barbecuing friends will be drinking all your beer.

6. Nuclear Attack. A microwave destroys the nutritional value of food, whereas barbecues lock it in behind walls of chargrilled deliciousness. Microwaving is not called ‘nuking’ your food without reason. When nuking, you are heating your food through a process of molecular friction, which destroys the delicate molecules of vitamins and phytonutirents. And that’s SCIENCE. Read it and weep. You might as well take something really healthy, sniff it and then eat warm cardboard – it is pretty much the same experience you will get from microwaving your food. I challenge any microwave fan to a scurvy cook-off. You try living off of microwaved food alone for 3 months while I’ll take my vitamins barbecue style. Whoever gets scurvy first, loses.

7. Active Pursuits. Microwaves are the tools of the obese and lazy living dead. Get up off your fat bum and barbecue something before the last vitamin in your radiated body gives up and dies. Get outside, breathe in the air, enjoy the sunshine with all its energy giving vitamin D and use your fat covered muscles to drag your grill out of the shed before they waste away. Barbecuing takes time and has to be done outdoors which means you get the benefits of both exercise and of being in your evolutionary home: nature. You remember nature don’t you microwave fans? Or are you too removed from it in your automated, mechanized matrix of sloth to only recall images of the outside world when beamed to you through the pixels of an electrified screen? Get outside and barbecue now!

May 28, 2011
7 Reasons That 24th December Should Be Known As The Day of the Sausage

Hi there, it’s the day before Christmas and at other humour websites, you could probably expect to find some sort of Christmas Eve themed piece today, cynically concocted to gain the maximum amount of traffic by exploiting the festive mood. But not here. Because at 7 Reasons(.org) we have had a great and noble idea. We’ve come to realise that Christmas Eve is just a little too Christmassy. Similarly, it’s also occurred to us that it’s just not sausagey enough. When was the last time that your thoughts turned to sausages on Christmas Eve? But we think that’s wrong, and we want to change it. So we see this piece as a clarion call, a rallying cry, because we firmly believe that Christmas Eve should be known as The Day of the Sausage, and here are seven reasons why.

Churchill was never without a sausage.

1. Rennie. You might think that The Day of the Sausage falling on Christmas Eve is a tremendous coincidence. It isn’t. In fact it has been meticulously planned. At Christmas, you can’t move for two things. People and indigestion tablets. The world is full of them. It is full of indigestion tablets because the day that follows The Day of the Sausage is Christmas Day. A day when, regardless of your religious views, you eat a lot. It’s like a rule. When better therefore to hold The Day of the Sausage? You can spend all of 24th December eating sausages knowing that you will have both enough days and enough tablets to recover.

2. Vegetarians. Quite how vegetarians survive without meat is probably the one thing I wouldn’t want to be asked when faced with the One Million Pound question by Chris Tarrant. But that’s okay, because I am never going to be asked. I can live content in the knowledge that there are meat substitute products our there for the herbivores among us and no more prominent are they than during the Christmas period. In amongst the people and the indigestion tablets are vegetarian sausages and vegetarian sausages on cocktail sticks and vegetarian sausages wrapped in something that should really be bacon. They have already been catered for! If The Day of the Sausage fell on June 30th, shops would have to fill their shelves with vegetarian sausages twice a year, but with it falling on 24th December they only need to do it once. Which means they can sell proper food in June to go on my barbecue. Never let it be said that we don’t consider the economic elements when we write.

3. Maths. Christmas Eve falls on the 24^th of December, and you can make that number out of sausages. You’re probably looking at the numbers 2 and 4 right now thinking, oh no you can’t. But you’re wrong. Because sausages come in many forms, but the two most common types of sausage are the straight sausage and the circular sausage (which is essentially a longer version of the straight sausage that can go round corners). And you can make the number 24 from them. Here it is. In binary.

Coincidentally, this is just the right amount of sausages for two average sausage consumers to share.

4. Clarification. If you Google the words ‘Sausage Day’ you will be both disappointed and confused. (Unless you’re a pervert). There is no such thing as an International Sausage Day. Nor a National Sausage Day. Nor just a Sausage Day. There are however various Sausage Weeks. Yes, that’s right. Various Sausage Weeks. More than one. That’s not right! In 2010, British Sausage Week ran from 1st-7th November. However, the Egerton Arms in Knutsford, Cheshire, ran their Sausage Week from 3rd-12th November! Which raises another issue. Do they have 10-day weeks in Knutsford? But that is an issue for another day. Back to the sausages. And to the Cumberland Sausage Day. That falls on 5th July. Yes, it’s a Sausage Day, but a Sausage Day for just one kind of sausage. That is sausagist in anyone’s language. Except French. Where is would be saucissonist. The Day of the Sausage would eliminate such exclusivity and allow the whole world to know exactly when to celebrate their sausage. And that has to be a good thing.

5. Harmony. The Day of the Sausage and Christmas Eve won’t conflict with each other. In fact, to borrow a phrase from George W. Bush, they should be able to co-exist peacefully. You can even make the traditional Christmas Eve nativity scene using them, as this heartwarming depiction of the birth of the baby Jesusage shows.

We assume that Americans did this.

6. Shopping. In something of an exclusive to our 7 Reasons readers, we can reveal that The Day of the Sausage has a sub-agenda. Let us ask you a question. What will you be doing on The Day of the Sausage? The correct answer is eating sausages, celebrating sausages and having your photo taken while hovering your sausage over your top lip so it looks like a moustache. What won’t you be doing? Last-minute Christmas shopping. That’s right, everyone will have forgotten about Christmas. The shops will be empty. So while everyone is celebrating bangers, we will be in Halfords deciding whether our respective partners would prefer the de-icer or some reflectors for their bikes. And because we are kind, both of our readers can join us too.

7. Santa. On Christmas Eve Santa comes to visit you, and how do you reward him while he’s emptying his sack into your stockings? You give him a glass of whisky (he likes a 12 year old Highland Park by the way, don’t ask how we know this) and a mince pie. But a mince pie is essentially a dessert. A teeny-tiny dessert. But look at Santa. He’s a big, fat, ruddy faced man engaged in a hard job of work on his busiest day of the year. And you want to give him a pastry confection! That’s hardly adequate sustenance. What Santa needs is something more nutritious and something more filling to keep him going. He needs sausages. And double the quantity of whisky while you’re at it.*

*The 7 Reasons team would like to wish you a very merry Sausage Day, and a happy Christmas.

December 24, 2010