Jim Paull

Mangoes are tropical fruits and sweet in taste. They are best served freshly cut in fruit salads, smoothies, or as a frozen snack. Like papayas, mangoes are also commonly found as a breakfast side dish. Freezing mangoes are the best method to prepare a large quantity to store.

Steps

1. Select ripe mangoes to use. Gently put a very small amount of pressure on them to ensure the hardness of the fruit. Use your touch sense when comparing ripeness, not the color of it.
   
2. Prepare the mangoes. Use a knife to remove the skin from the fruit. Slice the mango into bite sized pieces.
   

Raw cubes

1. Place the pieces on a baking sheet. Make sure that the pieces do not touch each other, as it's very difficult to break frozen mangoes apart.
   
   • It's useful if the sheet as a "lip" or curved section, so that the pieces doesn't fall off. You can always use a shallow casserole dish as a substitute.
2. Place the baking sheet in the freezer on a flat surface. Freeze the fruit for about three to five hours, depending on the thickness of the pieces.
   
3. Add the frozen mangoes to a freezer zipped bag. Label accordingly, with the current date.
   
4. Freeze the mangoes up to 10 months.
   

Simple syrup cubes

1. Combine a cup of sugar and two cups of water in a medium pot.
   
2. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly and allowing the sugar to dissolve.
   
3. Allow the mixture to completely cool on the side.
   
4. Add the mango pieces in freezer friendly Tupperware containers. Label accordingly, with the current date.
   
5. Pour the simple syrup over the mango. Leave a 1" (2.54 cm) room at the top for expansion.
   
6. Freeze the mangoes up to 12 months.

Tips

• When thawed, like any other fruit, the mangoes may change texture. It's best to use frozen fruit in smoothies instead of recipes that call for fresh ingredients.
• Syrup-based mangoes are better to use when making sauces.

Related wikiHows

• How to Freeze Pineapple
• How to Freeze Blueberries
• How to Freeze Strawberries
• How to Freeze Butternut Squash

Sources and Citations

• http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/freeze/mango.html - resource source

KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Equities Research downgraded Petronas Gas to Hold as its share price upside will be limited by its huge valuation premium against the market.

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It didn’t take long for Magnetic smartphone vent mounts to join our bestsellers club , and it’s easy to see why. They’re essentially invisible when your phone is attached, and there’s just something cool about slapping your phone onto your dashboard, and watching it stick in place. Even if you’re a skeptic, you might as well try one out for $4. [Aukey Upgraded Magnetic Cradle-less Car Mount, $4 with code G9GHR7MI]

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Sleep apnea may increase the risk of developing gout and experiencing flare-ups, according to a new study.

The intense pain and swelling of a joint, often a big toe, that marks gout is caused by the deposition of uric acid crystals in joints and tissues. Sleep apnea, the study team notes, causes periods of oxygen deprivation during the night when people stop breathing, which triggers overproduction of uric acid in the bloodstream.

But little was known about the relationship between the two conditions, the study team writes in Arthritis and Rheumatology.

In 2007-2008, almost six percent of men and two percent of women in the U.S. experienced gout, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sleep apnea, which is much more common, can increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke and heart failure, among other conditions, if untreated.

Obesity plays an important role in both sleep apnea and gout, but sleep apnea still increased the risk for gout even when weight was accounted for, said lead author Yuqing Zhang of Boston University Clinical Epidemiology Research and Training Unit.

The researchers used data on almost 10,000 people with a new diagnosis of sleep apnea from a U.K. database and compared them to more than 40,000 people of similar sex, age, birth year and body composition but without sleep apnea.

Over a one-year period, there were 270 cases of gout, 76 in the sleep apnea group and 194 in the larger comparison group. Gout was diagnosed at an average age of 60.

Gout was almost twice as common in the sleep apnea group as in the comparison group, according to the analysis.

“When people have a gout attack it’s so painful, they have limited mobility, they cannot put even one piece of paper on the toe,” Zhang told Reuters Health.

Although obesity increases the risk for sleep apnea, some thin people have sleep apnea, too, and even in these people the risk of gout was increased by 80 percent, he said.

The next step is to test whether treating sleep apnea also reduces the risk for gout, which seems likely, he said.

“Some studies show that if you get treatment, your uric acid may go down,” Zhang said.

Sleep apnea can be treated with lifestyle changes, such as losing weight or wearing mouthpieces or breathing devices at night, or with surgery.

It takes years for uric acid crystals to accumulate in the joints and lead to an eventual gout flare, so sleep apnea may not “cause” the gout, but may create a more ideal environment for a flare up, said Dr. Robert Thomas Keenan of Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, who was not part of the new study.

“Gout is the most common inflammatory arthritis in the western world,” he told Reuters Health by email.

“Sleep apnea and gout risks can be reduced in many people by losing weight if they are overweight, eating healthy and indulging in alcohol and red meats in moderation,” he said.

– Reuters

Here are nine of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.

Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

Kefir—a fermented dairy beverage with a taste similar to drinkable yogurt—is packed with probiotics, but its tangy flavor and creamy body make it perfect for dips and dressings.

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MUMBAI: A female passenger was prevented from boarding a domestic flight in India because she was showing too much leg, the budget carrier IndiGo and newspaper reports said on Thursday.

The woman travelling from the western city of Mumbai to India’s capital New Delhi was not allowed to board Monday’s flight because her dress was too short, the Indian Express reported.

An official at IndiGo, who asked not to be named, told AFP that the dress had stopped above the knee, in violation of rules issued to employees and relatives of staff.

The woman was formerly employed by the airline and was travelling on a special ticket because her sister worked for the company, the official said.

“Employees and the nominated family members are required to maintain a specific dress code, as and when they fly with the airline under the staff leisure travel privileges,” read an IndiGo statement.

“Keeping in mind this policy, the Mumbai ground staff followed the protocol to brief this passenger on the dress code policy,” it added.

The Indian national changed her attire and was allowed onto a later flight, the official said, stressing that the dress code was not for ordinary customers.

IndiGo is India’s only consistently profitable airline and commands almost 40 percent of its home market, the biggest share of any airline.

It is currently seeking to raise $460 million through an initial public offering.

– AFP

There are two kinds of gym-goers: those who lift too much too soon and hurt themselves, and those who hold back and don’t lift enough—when they actually can (and should). For the latter group, it might be from not knowing if the time is ripe for heavier weights and glory. Here’s the breakdown.

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Are you Team Almond Milk or Team Cow Milk? According to Dana Goodyear, in her thought-provoking piece for The New Yorker, the almond milk vs. cow milk discussion entirely the misses the point. So where should we focus our attention instead? Not on what the crop is, but how it is grown.

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Low-fat diets do not yield greater weight loss than other slimming regimes, said a study Friday, adding to the long-running debate on how best to shed extra pounds or kilos.

A review of 53 scientific studies, covering nearly 70,000 adults in several countries, found “no good evidence for recommending low-fat diets,” said lead author Deirdre Tobias of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts.

“The science does not support low-fat diets as the optimal long-term weight loss strategy.”

In fact, low-carbohydrate diets led to greater weight loss than low-fat ones, according to study results published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal.

Weight loss on a low-fat diet was just 360 grammes (13 ounces), compared to 1.15 kilogrammes (2.5 pounds) on a higher-fat, low-carbohydrate eating plan.

As the world’s population grows ever fatter, the quest for an easy weight-loss plan has taken a high priority.

Dietary fat has long been targeted, said the study, for the reason that every gram (0.04 ounce) of it contains more then double the calories of a gram of carbohydrates or protein.

But research through the years has yielded contradictory results.

Just last month a small-scale study in the journal Cell Metabolism said cutting back dietary fat caused obese people to lose more body fat than restricting carbohydrates.

But the latest contribution, in the form of a meta-analysis of other studies comparing low-fat diets to other ones, found the contrary.

“Behind current dietary advice to cut out the fat… the thinking is that simply reducing fat intake will naturally lead to weight loss,” Tobias said in a statement.

“But our robust evidence clearly suggests otherwise.”

Tobias said more research must be done to “identify better approaches for long-term weight loss and weight maintenance”.

A comment on the study, published by the same journal, said it showed that weight loss overall was poor, regardless of the diet chosen.

“What seems to be clear is that long-term diet adherence is abysmal, irrespective of whether low-fat or other diets… are prescribed,” wrote Kevin Hall of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Maryland, United States.

Added Tom Sanders of King’s College London: the best diet is to eat less and exercise more.

“To me, the take-home message from this paper is that energy intake determines the extent of weight loss rather than the relative proportions of fat and carbohydrates in the diet,” he said via the Science Media Centre.

– AFP

I probably should have saved this for an open thread but you know what? We all need a laugh tonight and this is totally hilarious.

Be sure to watch through to the end. It made me (almost) miss Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee.

We’ve asked this before, and apparently we have to ask again: what is wrong with some people? Unfortunately we have to yet again report on an incident involving a passenger accused of molesting a fellow traveler during a flight. This should go without being said, but just because someone is asleep, that does not mean they’re giving you permission to touch them.

A woman flying on an Emirates flight from Dubai to New York City said a male passenger took lotion out of the seatback pocket where she’d left it and rubbed it on her body while she was asleep, federal investigators said (via The Smoking Gun). He allegedly claimed that he thought the victim “enjoyed it because she did not resist.”

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, the victim said she fell asleep about an hour into the 13-hour flight after taking anti-anxiety medication. She was seated next to a 42-year-old man who lives in Staten Island.

After several hours, she said she woke up and the man asked her “whether she had a good nap.” Shudder. That’s when she realized there was lotion on her arms, chest and up her legs, and that she noticed her hand lotion wasn’t where she’d left it. When she walked to the bathroom, she said she realized “her vaginal area was sore.” She then “saw that her underwear had been shifted and that lotion was in her vaginal area and on her underwear.”

When she got back to her seat she asked the man where her lotion was, and he gave it back to her. That’s when she alerted the plane’s crew, telling them that she believed “something happened to her while she fell asleep.”

The man reportedly admitted to applying the lotion to the sleeping woman, saying that he thought the woman “needed it,” and that the sleeping passenger “enjoyed it because she did not resist.”

He was questioned upon landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport and admitted to “inappropriately touching the passenger, that he knew it was wrong, but he did not specify how he touched the passenger,” law enforcement said. The male passenger was arrested for the alleged in-flight sexual assault and was ordered to surrender his passport and not leave New York City without the permission of pretrial service officials.

Again, we’re really getting sick of having to report on these situations, but here are just a few of the ones we’ve had to cover already:

• Yet Another Airline Passenger Arrested For Groping Sleeping Woman

•Off-Duty Delta Pilot Accused Of Groping 14-Year-Old Asleep Next To Him On Flight

•United Passenger Guilty Of Sexually Assaulting Sleeping Female Traveler

•Man Prompts JetBlue Flight To Make Emergency Landing Because Groping Pregnant Women Isn’t Okay

•JetBlue Passenger Charged With Putting Hand Under Sleeping Woman’s Skirt

Woman Molested During Flight From Dubai [The Smoking Gun]

In a simpler time, a single pair of sneaks was adequate for all activities: walking, biking, running, gardening—you name it, and the shoe fit. Now, it seems more like the other way around: the workout must fit the shoe. These days, shoe shopping can be overwhelming for first-timer buyers, but don’t worry: we’re here to help.

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KUALA LUMPUR: UMW Oil and Gas Corp Bhd’s (UMW-OG) unit, UMW Offshore Drilling Sdn Bhd, has been awarded a contract for the provision of a jack-up drilling rig from Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd.

SINGAPORE: Asia-Pacific oil and gas (O&G) companies may have to make tough decisions if the fall in oil prices is prolonged, according to a Standard and Poor's Ratings Services report on Wednesday.

KUALA LUMPUR: Abdul Rani Kulop mendakwa jerebu teruk yang semakin pulih di negara ini hasil berkat laporan polis yang dibuatnya baru-baru ini.

Dalam laporan itu, Rani Kulop telah meminta rakyat Malaysia supaya berdoa agar jerebu di negara ini berkurangan dan pulih.

“Alhamdulilah, setelah ayah buat laporan polis tempoh hari yang meminta rakyat mendoakan supaya jerebu ini dapat dihindarkan….tengok Jerabu di Malaysia dah kurang… Ini berkat seruan ayah (Rani Kulop),” katanya di hadapan Ibu Pejabat Balai Polis Daerah Dang Wangi.

Rani Kulop yang juga Presiden Martabat Jalinan Muhibah Malaysia (MJMM) turut meminta agar kerajaan lebih tegas dalam menangani isu jerebu.

Katanya, masalah jerebu ini tidak akan selesai sampai bila-bila jika kerajaan tidak mengambil tindakan tegas.

“Ayah minta kerajaan ambil tindakan terhadap syarikat-syarikat yang membakar hutan di sana (Indonesia).

“Selagi tak ambil tindakan orang tak takut dan ia akan mendatangkan kemarahan kepada rakyat… Kita nak bakar sampah berlebihan pun tak sampai hati tapi di negara luar, mereka bebas membakar hutan,” katanya.

 

With all the pumpkin spice mania reaching a fever pitch over the past few years, we'd forgotten all about the original food craze: maple bacon. Like they say, out of sight, out of mind.

Well, Kellogg's is trying to bring maple bacon back with their latest limited-edition flavor launch.

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Let's get one thing straight: As adults, we might be too old to go trick-or-treating, but we'll never be too old to eat Halloween candy.

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Via. Open thread below....

BANGKOK: A senior police officer charged under Thailand’s controversial royal defamation law has died in custody after “hanging” himself in his cell, officials said on Saturday, prompting an investigation.

Earlier this week Police Major Prakrom Warunprapa was charged with lese majeste, one of the strictest such laws in the world as it carries up to 15 years in jail on each count for anyone convicted of insulting the king, queen, heir or regent.

The officer was charged along with a well-known fortune teller and his assistant for making claims of closeness to the monarchy to extract benefits, according to a court statement.

On Saturday Thailand’s corrections department said a prison guard had found Prakrom “hanging inside his cell” at around 10 pm on Friday.

“The guard administered first aid before sending the suspect to hospital in the corrections department where the doctor pronounced him dead,” it said in a statement.

Prakrom’s body will undergo an autopsy and a fact-finding committee has been set up by the department to “investigate” his death, it added.

The exact nature of the crime the three men have been accused of has not been revealed as is common in royal defamation cases.

Even where the allegations are known, journalists routinely self-censor in order to avoid falling foul of the draconian law.

Prakrom had faced additional charges including possessing unlicensed firearms and falsifying documents.

Prosecutions under the lese majeste laws protecting Thailand’s widely revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 87, have skyrocketed since last May’s military coup toppled an elected government.

But critics of the law say it is often used to pursue political opponents of the country’s military and royalist elite.

-AFP

For years you’ve been telling your friends, family, co-workers and anyone who will listen that you’re addicted to cheese. It’s a part of every meal or snack, and you think about it constantly. According to a new study from the University of Michigan, cheese crack is a real thing....

Here are nine of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.

Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

Our best pens nominations round was the biggest so far. Here are the five you signed off on, and now it’s time to vote for a winner.

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Hard-disk drive maker Western Digital Corp agreed to buy SanDisk Corp in a US$19 billion deal that will increase its ability to make flash memory storage chips used in smartphones and tablets.

NEW YORK: Oil prices fell about 2 percent to three-week lows on Wednesday as the U.S. government reported a bigger build than expected in crude stockpiles, although significant drawdowns in gasoline and distillates prevented a steeper slide in crude futures.

Put away your stand mixer, and don't even think about taking out that whisk. You can make delicious, creamy whipped cream in your Mason jar. That's right! It sounds too good to be true, but trust me — it's not. Flex your arm muscles a little bit and make the easiest whipped cream on the planet.

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KUALA LUMPUR: The use of cassia and cinnamon barks as a spice in cooking is not harmful to health, said Health ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said this is because cinnamon, which contains coumarin, a natural flavouring in food, was normally used only in small quantities in cooking.

“The content of coumarin in cassia bark is higher compared with the bark of cinnamon.

“However, according to the Food Regulations 1985, coumarin is allowed as a spice when not exceeding 10mg/kg,” he said in a statement today.

He said the ministry was aware of allegations in social media that the bark of cinnamon sold in Malaysia was harmful and could affect one’s health, especially the liver and kidney.

“Consumers need not worry as the Health Ministry is always monitoring issues of food safety to ensure the people’s health is not endangered,” he said.

He clarified that the barks of cassia and cinnamon were from the same family.

Dr Noor Hisham said cassia or better known as Chinese cinnamon originates from China and had been planted in several other Asian countries such as India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam while cinnamon which originates from Sri Lanka, is known as Ceylon cinnamon.

Members of the public who are doubtful about the safety status of the food can lodge reports at the nearest district health offices, or state health department.

They can also lodge their complaints online at the Food Quality and Safety Division website at http://fsq.moh.gov.my or BKKM facebook at www.facebook.com/bkkmhq.

– BERNAMA

Proof that it's worth keeping one or two cans stocked in your pantry. READ MORE...

KUALA LUMPUR: The haze, which has worsened again, is caused by the tropical storms, Koppu and Champi in the Philippines which is influencing the wind pattern in the region.

Malaysian Meteorological Department director-general Che Gayah Ismail said this resulted in the weak multi-directional winds blowing at moderate speed from the south-west.

She said it also brought with it the haze from the areas of raging fires in Sumatra, Indonesia to peninsula Malaysia and the haze from Southern Kalimantan, also Indonesia, to Sarawak.

“The cross-border haze affecting Malaysia will end if the tropical storms, which can influence the wind pattern and cause dryness, dissipates or when the monsoon starts in November, she told Bernama here, today.

Meanwhile, Department of Environment (DOE) director-general Halimah Hassan said the portal apims.doe.my was disrupted this morning until 1pm due to the increase in visitors to 3,000 people in three minutes.

The public can contact the DOE control room at 1800882727, if the portal is disrupted again, for information on haze, she said.

She also advised the public to reduce outdoor activities and to wear masks if forced to leave the house, to protect against diseases due to the impact of the haze.

As of 5pm, 17 areas recorded unhealthy Air Pollutant Index readings, with Seremban still recording the highest API, namely, 194, followed by Batu Muda, Kuala Lumpur (165); Banting, Selangor (164); Tawau, Sabah and Nilai, Negeri Sembilan (each 157).

Other areas included Bukit Rambai, Melaka City and Putrajaya, each 154.

Twenty-six other areas recorded moderate API including Kota Tinggi, Pasir Gudang in Johor, Alor Star and Langkawi in Kedah, Jalan Tasek, Ipoh and Seri Manjung in Perak, Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, Bintulu and Samarahan in Sarawak and Kuala Terengganu.

API readings are categorised as good (0 to 50), moderate (51 to 100), unhealthy (101 to 200), very unhealthy (201 to 300) and dangerous (300 upwards).

The public could surf the portal http://apims.doe.gov.my to find out the current API readings.

– BERNAMA