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Bacon curing methods
There are three methods of curing bacon: pumping, dry curing, and immersion curing.
Commercial bacon producers use pumping as it’s the cheapest and the fastest method. Bacon is injected with a curing liquid and is rested for 6 to 24 hours before being heated and/or smoked. The injected liquid also adds weight to bacon, but it impacts the texture and taste.
Immersion curing is very similar to pumping, except bacon is left to cure in liquid for 2-3 days, then hung to dry. This method is much slower than pumping, so rarely anyone uses it nowadays.
Dry curing is the method where salt, Cure #1, and spices are applied to pork belly pieces. The meat is then left to cure. This method, while the most time-consuming, produces the tastiest bacon which has a deeper, more robust flavor profile. This is the best method for curing bacon at home.
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9. Go to bed, already
If you’ve ever heard that you can stay awake to beat a hangover, well, you’ve heard wrong. According to Michael Fingerhood, MD, and Chief of the Department of Chemical Dependency at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, this is a a bunch of shit (our words, not his).
Fingerhood does say that due to the excellent chances you’ll be woken up at least once in the middle of the night (nightmares, running to the toilet, need to quench your thirst, etc.) the sooner you lie down the better.
According to Fingerhood, sleep deprivation makes hangovers worse, so if you do know you’ll be going all night long on Saturday, try and stay in and make up the sleep on Friday. You might miss out on Friday night’s fun, but at least you’ll feel good on Sunday.
12. Bonus: Visit The Hangover Heaven in Vegas
If you should find yourself in Vegas, with a Vegas sized hangover, then go ahead and skip steps 1 through 11 and call Hangover Heaven.
If you haven’t heard of Hangover Heaven, it is an RV that will fuel your body back up while cruising around Las Vegas or if you can’t make it out of bed, they will come to your room and get you moving again.
Hangover Heaven will cure your hangover using an IV containing fluids to hydrate you, along with headache medication, nausea medication and anything else you may need to hit The Strip again that night.
Coconut Water
Coconut water is surprisingly effective at dealing with hangovers. It contains all the minerals and electrolytes that your body needs, as well as antioxidantsto deal with the residual toxins of the alcohol. One small serving of the water contains the same nutrients as a large bottle Pedialyte, but it tastes a whole lot better and is much more natural.
The meat
The fresher the meat, the better the bacon will be. If possible, use pasture-raised heritage pork. Heritage pork (on the left below) has a richer color and a much better flavor than bacon made with commodity pork (on the right below). Making bacon from Berkshire pork was an eye-opener for me. The most apparent difference was in the texture. It’s not stringy like store-bought bacon. It’s not chewy. Bacon made with Berkshire pork had a kind of brittle texture that practically began to disintegrate and melt away as soon as you put it in your mouth.
Uncooked fat was pure white, dry and firm, as opposed to soft, mushy and wet on the store-bought one. The differences are staggering.
There was more fat in it than I would have liked, but the cooked fatty part was tasty. Very tasty. I baked the bacon and served with eggs and sourdough biscuits. It was outstanding.
I purchased the pork belly from Murray’s Farm, a local farm that raises happy heritage piggies. You may want to check out pig farms in your area, it’s amazing what kind of goodies you can find there. It’s worth it!
I am anxious to taste the guanciale and pancetta that I made from the same pig.
Marijuanas Role
We know by now that cannabis has a slew of beneficial effects that helped millions of people worldwide with a variety of illnesses and symptoms. Given that the effects of a hangover do overlap with some of the things marijuana treats, it only makes sense to assume that pot can help in this area as well; however, the answer isn’t simple.
Can Cannabis Cure a Hangover?
Earlier, we went over the details of how alcohol causes a hangover. We didn’t do this for the sake of just a science lesson. It’s important to establish how hangovers work to see whether marijuana fixes these issues. So will it literally cure a hangover? The simple answer is “no”.
Much like marijuana doesn’t cure cancer, arthritis, glaucoma or any other diseases, hangovers also can’t be effectively erased. The way cannabis interacts with out bodies is radically different from that of alcohol. While alcohol figuratively attacks our organs with a slew of nasty chemicals, pot interacts with the endocannabinoid system – a network of receptors that allow us to experience the benefits of cannabis. But while weed won’t cure a hangover, it can do a pretty good job of handling the symptoms.
Not Curing – But More Tolerable…
Think of it this way. When you have a cold, you use over-the-counter medications to deal with runny nose, sore throat, fever, etc. After taking it, you feel great, but that nasty virus is still roaming freely inside you. Only your immune system can take care of that. The same applies with hangovers. While you may feel vastly better after using marijuana following a night of heavy drinking, your body is still internally reeling from the alcohol.
Marijuana also doesn’t help with certain symptoms at all. For instance, smoking a joint won’t fix dehydration. In fact, this could make it worse – hence the dry mouth that commonly occurs as a result of marijuana use.
Furthermore, too much marijuana can actually cause nausea and vomiting, an experience colloquially referred to as “greening out”.
Cannabis also won’t do you any favors when it comes to cognitive impairment from your hangover. Anyone who’s been high knows this, and usually smokes marijuana for that very reason.
However, when used properly, it will help you sleep, stop nausea and reduce pain, helping mask the symptoms until your body manages to recover – like Nyquil does with a cold.
Can Marijuana Prevent a Hangover?
As we said earlier, prevention is the best “cure” for hangovers; however, if you plan to use marijuana as a barrier to the consequences of heavy drinking, then we have some bad news.
The body’s cannabinoid receptors don’t interact with alcohol in any way, so there’s nothing marijuana can do to act as a barrier to the former’s ill effects.
If anything, getting drunk and high could just compound the problem on the night of drinking. The only difference is that marijuana won’t actually contribute to how badly you feel the next day.
If you want to feel intoxicated for fun, then it’s best to forego alcohol and use marijuana instead. Unlike its liquid counterpart, marijuana doesn’t leave any ill effects the next morning.
If there’s one thing true about humans, it’s that we like to do things without consequences. Unfortunately, this isn’t the reality with alcohol. Overdoing it on the booze is a bad idea, which we all know from the beginning. Marijuana can definitely make your life easier during a hangover, but if you want to stop it altogether, then the only option is to drink responsibly – or not at all.
Related posts:12 Unique Baked Edible Recipes You Need To TryToo High? How To Come Back DownCannabis Terms & Nicknames 101
1: Umeboshi, Japan
Umeboshi are considered healthy snacks in Japan and are sold pretty much everywhere. tomophotography/Getty Images
Umeboshi are Japanese ume — a fruit like an apricot or plum — that are picked while green, then pickled with sea salt for a few months. Brace yourself before popping one in your mouth, though. The gumball-sized hangover cure is exceptionally sour and salty, plus rather bitter. If you can’t stomach the taste, try steeping one in green tea before eating [source: Paull].
Umeboshi supposedly work at combating hangovers because their acids can do everything from improve your liver function to assist your digestive system and knock back fatigue. Additionally, they’re loaded with electrolytes like sodium and potassium — electrolytes you lose during a drinking binge — and thus help replace them. Finally, their briny, sourpuss flavors make you want to drink a lot of water. Since the main symptom of a hangover is dehydration, drinking a lot of water will definitely help you recover more quickly [source: Paull].
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You can find umeboshi for sale all over Japan.
