20 Things We Keep Doing Wrong Every Day Without Even Realizing It

Despite the common belief, washing raw chicken can be counter-productive as it might contaminate other foods, utensils, and countertops. Cans, on the other hand, are hardly washed and wrongly so. It is recommended to wash them so harmful particles don’t fall into the food, especially if it’s a soda can, for example, since you put it directly into your mouth.

Non-stick pans can become a health issue if they’re not used in the right way. Heating Teflon above 500ºF (when preheating or when cooking a steak, for example) could lead to a release of particles and gases that could harm you. This, of course, doesn’t mean you cannot use it, but rather, that you cannot use it for everything. When cooking meat, for example, choose cast iron pans instead. You can also opt for granite stone for medium-high temperatures, but watch out for its coating staying intact.

Eating slowly in order to be fully aware of your food is a Japanese custom that might be a part of what helps them stay slim. It turns out that eating slowly can help you eat less and gobbling food makes us overeat because it takes our brain 20 minutes to register what our stomach contains. Chopsticks also play a crucial role in this matter.

Just in case our previous point didn’t get stressed enough, being aware of your food is important. To put it in different terms, distracted eating might lead to obesity, according to Harvard, because it makes you eat more in one meal.

The time at which you drink coffee can actually have an impact on your caffeine tolerance, a study suggests. Cortisol, the so-called “stress hormone” is responsible for keeping you alert. There are about 3 daily peaks of cortisol production, one of them being right after waking up. If you drink coffee during those peaks, your body might get used to creating less cortisol.

Science has found the best way to eat a hamburger and it’s not the way we normally do it. The right way to chow down is to visually divide the burger into 8 parts and turn it around instead of eating it “linearly.”