Blog Posts by Reader s Digest Magazine

Legend has it that Bruce Lee used to eat entire eggs, including the shell. Maybe he knew something the rest of us don't. While we don't recommend you eat eggshells, here are a few unusual uses for them.

Sweeten your coffee
Add some crushed eggshells to ground coffee before brewing it to make it taste less bitter. When you're done, toss the grounds and shells on your compost heap!

Put them on your face
To restore a youthful glow to your skin, pulverize clean, dried eggshells with a mortar and pestle. Mix the powder with some egg white and spread on your skin. Allow the mixture to dry before washing it off.

Clean your house with them
Ground eggshells make a wonderful (and nontoxic!) abrasive for those tough-to-clean pots, pans, and thermoses. Mix them with a little soapy water for a powerful clean.

Unclog your drains
Keep a few ground eggshells in your kitchen sink strainer. They trap additional solids and when they slowly break down, they will help to naturally clean your pipes on

The hops in this pillow produce a deep, musky aroma while encouraging sleep.

You Will Need
1 cup dried hops
1 cup dried rose petals
½ cup dried lavender
3 dried bay leaves, crumbled
2 teaspoons cloves, crushed
10 drops lavender essential oil
1 small plain cotton cushion case (available from craft shops)

What to Do
1. Crush all the herbs, then combine them with lavender essential oil in a bowl.

2. Spoon the mixture into the cushion case and stitch securely.

3. Tuck the sleep pillow between your pillow and its case, or slip it under your pillow, where the scent will linger all night long.

Plus: Is what you are eating disrupting your sleep?

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1. Garlic
Cloves of garlic can be easily peeled if you place them in the microwave oven for 15 seconds. Avoid frying garlic at a temperature that's too high, otherwise it will become scorched and bitter.

2. Potatoes
They won't burst if you salt the water they are cooked in. The skin is easy to remove if you peel them after they're cooked. Choose new potatoes when they are in season and you won't have to peel them at all. To give mashed potato a quick lift, add a pinch of grated nutmeg and a pinch of baking powder.

PLUS: 20 Questions to a Healthier Diet

3. Onions
To avoid tears, peel them under cold water and cut them next to cold running water. You can also put them in the freezer for a few moments before cutting them. To make onions brown faster, without burning, sprinkle them with sugar.

4. Green beans
Boil them for 2 minutes before peeling them and the strings will come off instantly.

5. Bell peppers
To remove the skin, cook them under a hot grill until they go brown, then put

1. You shouldn't need cream in a properly made risotto
There are two tricks to making a great risotto; patience and the right rice. Don't ever attempt to make this ancient dish with regular long-grain rice because it will turn mushy, not creamy, when cooked in this manner. Second, use a heavyweight pot that distributes heat evenly. Melt the butter, oil, or fat slowly, add the rice, stir, and don't add any liquid until all of the grains are coated with fat. The very minute that the rice stops absorbing liquid, you'll know that it's done.

2. Use carrot juice in salad dressings
For low-fat salad dressings with tons of flavor, replace one-fourth of the oil with carrot juice.

3. Bananas are the secret to complex-tasting muffins
For complex-tasting blueberry muffins with less fat, replace the butter in your favorite recipe with a mixture of mashed bananas and vegetable oil.

4. Use peas in guacamole
To make low-fat guacamole, puree peas and use them to replace some or all of the avocados

1. Bacon or sausage?

ANSWER: BACON. A slice of bacon, cooked thoroughly, has fewer calories than a typical sausage. Your best bet is a slice of lean back bacon with the rind and fat cut off, rather than fatty streaky bacon.

2. A packed lunch or a purchased lunch?

ANSWER: A PACKED LUNCH. It'll be healthier, it'll probably have fewer calories, it'll be cheaper and it'll save you lots of time that you can use for walking, reading or socializing instead.

PLUS: 13 Supermarket Secrets

3. Lunch or graze?

ANSWER: GRAZE. Nibble food throughout the day, rather than having a large, formal lunch. Spreading out your calories stabilizes blood sugar and insulin levels, provides more frequent relief from stress, tension and boredom, and avoids the post-meal fatigue, because you don't have a big meal. Plus, you never get really hungry, and so are less likely to make the regrettable food choices that you might when you're starving. Best reason: all-day grazing frees up lunchtime for other things,

Keep the car doors unfrozen

If you live in a northern clime, you have no doubt experienced the frustration of a frozen door lock in the morning. Use a wide, flat refrigerator magnet to protect the lock. Leave it over the locks overnight and in the morning, they will still open!

Go fishing in your drain

Dropping a metal object - a fork or a ring, for example - down a drain is annoying because you can't retrieve it, and it's potentially dangerous if you have a garbage disposer. Get rid of your annoyance and danger by attaching a magnet to a long piece of stiff twine, and use the twine as a fishing line. You should be able to retrieve your belongings.

PLUS: 5 Kitchen Gadget Secrets

Clean up a metal mess

Suppose you spilled a container of nails and nuts and other small metal objects, but didn't have a magnet inside the jar to stop from making a mess. Use a magnet now. Turn a ziplock bag inside out, and put a bar magnet inside. Pick up the nails with the bag - they'll stick to it - then

Some foods like blood oranges and black truffles have a short season. Get them now and three other seasonal gems that will be gone before spring.

We're all adults here. Of course we're not seriously influenced by children's stories! Or are we?

If you're still adding to your mountain of debt, you're absorbing messages from somewhere that tell you it's OK. The reality is, debt never leads to a happy ending. Couples don't divorce because they were so debt-free, they fought all the time.

If you want a real-life lesson to share with your kids, let it be the story of how you stopped believing in fairy tales and became debt-free.

You're living Snow White

Summary:
Snow White's stepmom is jealous of her beauty and convinces her to eat a poison apple. The dwarfs put Snow White's corpse in a glass coffin, and Prince Charming shows up and kisses her, breaking the spell and saving the day.

Intended message:
Love conquers all, good triumphs over evil, etc.

Unintended message:
Sometimes people do things even when they know it might be a bad idea. But if we're lucky/kind/beautiful enough, someone will come along and save the day!

How it