"help" news and stories

Our friends over at Engadget tipped us off to a really unusual diet-helper called the Smart Plate. The 15-cm plate was invented by a Ukrainian scientist, Dr. Hryhory Chausovsky, and is weight sensitive. When the plate is overloaded with food, a palm sized computer attached to the plate is activated and audio alerts are triggered. At that point, acting like your own personal "weight-watcher," the plate will reprimand the user, saying things like, "Stop right there! And what about excess weight?" and "Where's your willpower?" If you really have a problem with overloaded your plate, especially in a buffet-type of situation, it would be worth getting a few odd looks as you pulled out your own dish if it helped you keep your diet under control. And having your plate reprimand you in public is significantly more embarrassing than just bringing out the plate itself, so there is a good chance that the plate really would keep you on track.

Dr. Chausovsky has a number of other weight-loss aids to his name, too. He has a second version of the plate that has a different type of sensor. This one will play music faster and faster, depending on the speed at which food is eaten and the rate at which utensils touch the surface of the dish. Slower eating would keep the music at a normal tempo. He also has a belt that monitors a stomach's expansion during a meal, an armband that monitors calorie intake per bite, a refrigerator magnet that demands"Are you here because you are really hungry, or is it just your emotions?" when the door is opened and "food spectacles" that are tinted to make good food look unappealing.

Chausovsky says that he doesn't take any money for any of his inventions, since he got into the business to benefit people, not to profit from them.

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When kids are very young, they often want to emulate what their parents are doing. For example, if Mom and Dad are preparing dinner, Junior will want to be involved. Unfortunately, while cultivating an interest in food - especially homemade food, as opposed to fast food - is a wonderful thing for a child, they can occasionally get in the way of the chef.

An easy solution is to assign your child age-appropriate tasks that they can do with little to no supervision once they have been shown how to do it in the first place. Real Simple offers a helpful list of such tasks, sorted by age, so your kids can join in the cooking process. Here are a few of their suggestions:

5 and over

• Retrieve ingredients from the pantry or refrigerator.
• Wash vegetables and fruits.
• Stir together dry ingredients.
• Smash crackers into crumbs.
• Set the table.

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Cargill, Inc., the US's second largest meat processor, has done some research on consumer knowledge of beef. As it turns out, people don't know a lot about it. To remedy the problem, as well as hoping to boost sales, the company has launched a program to educate meat buyers on meat, including the differences between things like chuck roast and tri-tip and how to cook them properly. The target age group is people between 25 and 45 who may not have grown up in a family that cooked a lot in the home, so they have limited experience with meats.

BeefQuiz.com is a site launched by the company to help consumers learn about meat. As an incentive, people who do well will get a coupon for up to $1.50 off Sterling Silver beef, a Cargill brand. There is also a beef buying guide on their website, though you can check out our list of the leanest beef cuts if that is more your style. Consumer-friendly labeling is another one of their strategies, adding cooking tips and recipes right onto the packaging.

From a consumer standpoint, the campaign will help people to eat better. If you have no idea what a skirt steak is but know that you can make hamburgers from ground beef, you might never get around to trying the skirt steak. Knowledge gives consumers more options and, in this case, might help eliminate a beef with beef.

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