Category Archives: Travel/Food

Travel/Food

Cinnamon Streusel Muffin Review

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 By: Alice Rapacz

Ingredients:

Muffin

  • 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup/8 tablespoons unsalted butter (at room temperature)
  • ¾ cup light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs (at room temperature)
  • ½ cup sour cream (at room temperature)
  • ¼ cup whole milk
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Cinnamon Streusel Topping

  • ½ cup all-purpose flour
  • ¼ cup light brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (melted)

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a 12 count muffin tin with cupcake liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
  2. In a medium bowl add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, combine together.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar, about 2-3 minutes.
  4. Add in the 2 eggs, sour cream, milk, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until just combined.
  5. Add in the dry ingredients and use a spatula or spoon to combine just until there are no more dry flour patches remaining.
  6. Make the streusel topping by melting the butter in a microwave safe bowl. Next add the sugar to the melted butter and mix until combined. Then add the flour and cinnamon and mix together until you have clumps of the mixture.
  7. Put the batter into the muffin tin, making sure to fill the liners all the way to the top.
  8. Sprinkle each muffin with the streusel topping.
  9. Bake the muffins for 5 minutes at 425 degrees and immediately reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 12-15 minutes.
  10. Once a toothpick can be inserted into the muffin and comes out clean, the muffins are done.
  11. Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the muffin tin, then take them out and let them cool on a wire rack.
  12. Lastly, Enjoy!

Review:

I thought that this recipe from Chisel & Fork was really good. Typically for baking recipes, I like to use Sally’s Baking addiction, but this time I wanted to try something new. I found this recipe for Cinnamon Streusel Muffins and wanted to give it a try. I thought that the recipe was easy to follow and understand. I followed the directions step by step, first measuring out my dry ingredients, and in a separate bowl my wet. I used a stand mixer to combine the wet ingredients, and I found that the end result is not as smooth as I thought it would be. There were small chunks of sour cream in the mixture even though I had mixed it for more than enough time. I was a little surprised at first, but once I added the dry ingredients into the wet, it all came together really nicely.

Once I divided the muffin batter into the tin, I topped each muffin with the streusel. I added too much on the first muffins, so I had to divide and sprinkle them onto other muffins to make sure there was enough for each one. Once they were baked, they filled my house with a warm cinnamon smell.

When I tried the muffin warm for the first time, it had a perfect texture, light, and fluffy. The streusel on top added a perfect crunch, that wasn’t too crunchy, it just added the perfect texture. The muffin itself had a nice cinnamon flavor, but I thought that the addition of the streusel was needed for extra cinnamon flavor. Everyone in my family tried them and two days later all the muffins were gone. They are the perfect sweet treat or easy on the go breakfast. Overall, I would definitely recommend this recipe if you’re looking for a quick, easy and delicious muffin recipe.

Getting To Know/History, Travel/Food

The history of Trolli

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By: Maya Song

Trolli is a long standing candy manufacturing company known all across the world. It was founded in Germany in 1948 by Willy Menderer, which was then passed down to his son, Herbert Mederer in 1981. The company is now operated by the Mederer group which acquired the company in 1998.

The company expanded its reach to the United States in 1982, which introduced their product to a whole new population. Places such as Asia, North America, and Europe all saw the potential of this brand and invested in helping it grow. The fact that Trolli was given the opportunity to sell its products internationally really helped the company reach the status that it holds today, as one of the world’s biggest candy manufacturing companies ever.

They reached their highest accolade in 1993 when their famous sour glow worm won the Candy Kettle Award, a highly prestigious award that other famous companies like Ferrero, Lindt, Nestlé, and Haribo have won.

Some of their bestsellers include the sour brite crawlers, peach rings, and my personal favorite, egg gummies. Trolli is well known for having very creative flavors and designs as well as experimenting with sour flavors. The company does not sit on their laurels but constantly comes out with new things for consumers to try. They provide a variety of different gummy candies and have become a very successful and popular company due to their innovation.

While there are a plethora of other candy manufacturing companies around the world that compete with Trolli, Trolli will always be one of the originals. Trolli has remained one of the most successful ones out there for nearly 75 years, while it continues to grow its brand and followers.

In my personal opinion, I truly love Trolli gummies, especially the gummy eggs. I think that they are definitely worthy of their status, and it is always a guarantee to fulfill a sweet craving.

Travel/Food

Recipe review: Rosa Pasta Sauce

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By: Austin Bailey-Zimmerman

Ingredients:

  • 1 tbls of olive oil
  • 1 onion (diced)
  • 6 cloves of minced garlic
  • 2 tsp of dried oregano
  • 24 oz. of your preferred tomato pasta sauce
  • ¾ cups of heavy cream
  • pepper and salt
  • 16 oz of penne pasta, cooked al dente
  • Optional: garlic bread

Instructions:

  1. Cook your pasta until al dente, drizzle with olive oil and season with a pinch of salt and pepper (or to taste) and set aside.
  2. Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat.
  3. Add diced onion along with a couple pinches of salt and pepper, and cook for 4 minutes (stir frequently).
  4. Add in the garlic and oregano and cook for 1 minute (stir frequently).
  5. Add preferred pasta sauce and stir till combined.
  6. Cook for 3-4 minutes (stirring frequently) until pasta sauce is heated all the way through.
  7. Remove the pan from heat and stir in heavy cream.
  8. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
  9. Add pasta and toss to coat evenly.
  10. Optional: add garlic bread.
  11. Enjoy!

Review:

This recipe was absolutely delicious. I made it for my family for dinner, and they all loved it! We all went back for seconds because we enjoyed it so much.

The sauce is altogether so creamy and enjoyable to eat. The sauce also has a lot of flavor to it from the warm tomato flavor to the savory onion and sweet cream. I like how you can also make this recipe your own by using whatever base sauce you want and adding things to your specific taste.

I got this recipe from https://midwestfoodieblog.com/penne-rosa by Kylie. She has created this recipe to be so easy and affordable, and it doesn’t take a lot of time to have a full dinner for your family!

The sauce has the perfect ratio of flavor and paired with the noodles, it is an amazing, filling and healthy dinner!

Try this recipe out for a great dinner! I know I will for sure be making this again! Enjoy!

Travel/Food

Crumbl

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By: Sylvia Yannsdottir & Maya Song

Image by Revoleikooc via Wikimedia Commons

Introduction to Crumbl

Crumbl is an extremely popular, and widespread cookie shop across the United States of America. With its vibrant appeal, fun flavors, and trendy advertising, it has become one of the most well known dessert places, with over 1 million desserts sold every single day.

Crumbl was based in Utah, and founded in 2017. Since then, it now has 1071 store locations across the United States of America.

What’s the appeal?

One thing that makes Crumbl truly unique is the flavor variety and creativity. The company is known for its weekly rotation of 6 new, fun flavors that come out every Monday. Crumbl is also widely known for keeping up with current trends.

Crumbl’s flavors are mainly inspired by popular existing treats, or candies, and the company frequently collaborates with exciting brands to come up with new flavors.

While they maintain a surprising variety of flavors, the company keeps one cookie the same every single week, the Classic Milk Chocolate Chip cookie, which was their first invented flavor.

Rise to fame

There are a lot of aspects to what has made Crumbl so remarkably well known, and to sum it up a mix of its innovative design, publicity, and its appeal have led it to its success.

When we analyze Crumbl’s design, one thing that stands out is the iconic pink box. Since the company started, desserts come in a signature bright-pink box, with the company’s well known logo on top. Aside from that, stores are also designed with bright, intriguing colors.

A key factor to the success of Crumbl is its publicity. Specifically directed towards younger generations, a huge wave of influencers across social media platforms post reviews, start trends, and add to the fame of the brand. Crumbl would not be the company it is today if it weren’t for social media platforms.

Lastly, its appeal. The typical Crumbl cookie is neatly and creatively decorated to correspond to its flavor. With all of the flavor options, it’s hard to resist trying one.

Criticisms

Whenever there is something new, and popular, there will always be something that needs improvement.

One huge criticism about Crumbl is the nutritional value. Although of course, it is a dessert company, it has a ridiculous amount of calories per cookie. One of the typical cookies has anywhere from 800-1000 calories, which is kind of insane if you think about it.

Typically, when you go to Crumbl you’d get a box of between 4-6 cookies, and indulging in this sweet treat can easily be up to 6,000 calories, which is almost double the amount of calories a grown person is encouraged to consume in a single day.

While it is known that desserts aren’t going to be the healthiest thing ever, it eventually gets to a point where it’s just too much. Along with that, there are thousands of content creators who’s pages are dedicated to trying, and reviewing Crumbl every single week. Not only does that normalize an extremely unhealthy habit, but it is rather concerning in general.

Aside from that, another thing that Crumbl could improve on is its pricing. A lot of people can agree that it’s rather overpriced for what it is. Oftentimes, a box of 6 cookies is $26. When you compare that to other places, it’s quite a bit pricier.

Competitors

Crumbl is not the first innovative dessert brand like this, and definitely won’t be the last. There are of course a lot of other dessert brands out there, but specifically there are a few that have reached a similar status as Crumbl.

One very popular dessert brand out there is Insomnia Cookies. Insomnia Cookies is a dessert brand that was founded back in 2003 in the United States, with over 150 store locations now.

Insomnia Cookies are known for having freshly baked goods, especially their cookies. Just like with Crumbl, there are a lot of flavor options, and typically their cookies are large, and have fillings in the interior of the cookie.

A few aspects that set Insomnia Cookies apart from Crumbl is the availability of the cookies. A big part of the brand is how it’s known for staying open until 3 in the morning serving its fresh cookies. Besides that, there’s a variety of other dessert options that come with the cookies.

Some people say that they prefer Insomnia Cookies over Crumbl cookies, because of the freshness, the more realistic nutritional value, and availability. Others would choose Crumbl over Insomnia Cookies because of the flavor variety, constant change, and because Crumbl is typically seen as a rare treat.

Personal Opinion

We would highly recommend trying Crumbl cookies. We say this because they are genuinely delicious, and it’s really fun to go try out new flavors with friends or family.

Although they’re not the best for you nutritionally, life is about balance and we believe it’s more than okay to have them occasionally.

Crumbl is an extremely innovative brand, has come really far, and has maintained its platform very well. It’s very exciting to think about what will come from it in the future.

Travel/Food

Recipe baking review: Crumble Chocolate Chip Cookies

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By: Austin Bailey-Zimmerman

Ingredients:

  • 1 ½ cups of butter (3 sticks)
  • ¾ cup of granulated sugar
  • 1 ½ cups of packed brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  •  1 ½ tablespoons of vanilla extract
  • 4 ¼ cups of all purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoon of baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • 2 cups of milk chocolate chunks (or 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of dark chocolate chunks)

Instructions:

  1. Gather together all of your ingredients.
  2. Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
  3. Get a large bowl and cream together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar.
  4. Then you can add in the eggs and vanilla.
  5. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and soda, and salt until fully combined.
  6. Add the dry ingredients into the wet and stir until combined.
  7. Stir the chocolate chunks into the dough.
  8. Take a ¼ cup and scoop out the balls of dough (or if you want them to be the regular crumble size, use a ⅓ cup) and lay them out on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
  9. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until they are golden brown.
  10. Take them out and let them cool.
  11. Enjoy!

Review:

If you have never tried Crumble before, it is a very high quality bakery with new flavors of cookies every week, but one thing stays the same, the original Chocolate Chunk Cookie. It is my personal favorite, and that is why I decided to find the perfect recipe to make because this recipe tastes exactly like a Crumble cookie.

I absolutely love the Crumble cookie flavors and types, but they are all so big and each cookie is 5 dollars, but with this recipe, you can make two dozen cookies at a much more reasonable size.

The cookie itself is the perfect balance of a crunchy browned outside, and the most delicious soft, gooey inside with chocolate chunks that melt in your mouth. Believe it or not the cookie isn’t too sweet, the salt balances out the flavor so as to not feel sick after. The cookies pair perfectly with a glass of cold milk before bed.

I got this recipe off of TikTok, but it is from the Crumble franchise. I had my friends and brother try the cookies, and they said they couldn’t tell the difference between the Crumble cookies or the homemade! They even went back for seconds as they were so good.

Try this recipe and see for yourself! I know I will be making this again!

Travel/Food

Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookie review by: Sallys Baking Addiction

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By: Alice Rapacz

Ingredients:

  • 1 and ⅔ cups all purpose flour
  • ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • ¾ cup packed brown sugar
  • ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg, at room temperature
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • ¾ teaspoons red food coloring (more if you want them brighter)
  • 1 cup white or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

  1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
  2. Using a hand held mixer or stand mixer, on medium speed cream together your butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until creamy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg and vanilla extract and combine on high speed.
  3. Add the dry ingredients into the wet and add in the milk and food coloring. Mix on low speed until combined. Add the chocolate chips and mix on low speed.
  4. Cover the dough and chill for at least 1 hour or up to 3 days. If you chill the dough for longer than 2 hours allow the dough to sit out at room temperature for at least 15 min before rolling out the dough.
  5. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
  6. Scoop and roll each cookie to about 1 ½ tablespoons. Arrange on the baking sheet 3 inches apart from each other and bake for 11-13 minutes.
  7. Cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to let them cool completely.
  8. Enjoy the cookies now and with any extra cover and store at room temperature for up to 1 week.

Review:

I thought this recipe from Sallys Baking Addiction was great and easy to follow. I started by getting all my ingredients measured out and ready to use, which made the process very smooth.

The dough came together really well. I was able to follow the instructions with ease and just combined all the ingredients together. One extra thing I did was when adding the dry ingredients to the wet, I did them in batches. This made it easy not to have the bowl overflow with all the ingredients when I turned on the mixer.

I let the dough chill for around 4 hours so when I went to roll it out, even after 15 minutes it was still very hard. I had to let it sit out for an additional 15 minutes before it became soft enough to roll into balls.

I baked my batches for 11 minutes because I like my cookies soft, that time seemed perfect. They came out of the oven with a soft interior and they had a slight crunch to the exterior.

Flavor wise I thought they tasted pretty good. The chocolate chips added a needed bit of chocolate flavor, because although there was cocoa powder in the cookie, I felt it wasn’t chocolatey enough on its own. Besides that, they were the perfect sweet treat for the night. I added white chocolate chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips, the two paired well with the cookie, and while warm and gooey they coated your tongue and they were very delicious.

This recipe, I have made before for my neighbors and let’s just say, I didn’t even get to eat one because they were gone that fast. Nonetheless, this is a great and easy recipe that is a crowd favorite and I think you should give it a try the next time you are craving something sweet.

Travel/Food

Fast food controversies

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By: Ian Larson

Fast food companies have had their fair share of controversies. They have had problems with their food, leaders, ads, and more. Controversy can ruin companies completely, but these chains are still popular today.

McDonald’s had a controversy once because their coffee was too hot. A woman sued McDonald’s for almost 3 million dollars over their hot coffee being too hot. This case actually became pretty popular because of how ridiculous it sounds. It turns out that multiple people were actually injured because of how hot the coffee was. Stella Liebeck, the woman who was suing McDonald’s got 3rd degree burns from spilling the coffee and actually got hospitalized. McDonald’s decided to lower how hot their coffee is served to prevent future injuries.

There were people claiming that Taco Bell’s beef was only 35% meat. This would mean that their beef wouldn’t actually be beef according to USDA standards. However, Taco Bell quickly disproved these claims in their marketing, but this didn’t erase what people thought and they still have a reputation for fake meat.

Papa John’s is a fast food chain loved by many, but it turns out that “Papa John” wasn’t such a great guy after all. John Schnatter, AKA Papa John, was confirmed to have used the N-word on a conference call. John Schnatter decided to resign because of all of the hate coming towards him. This event scarred Papa John’s and made a lot of people think negatively about the chain.

One of the craziest controversies in fast food history was Krispy Kreme making poor choices with the letters they used. The donut shop Krispy Kreme decided to create a donut decorating club in the UK that they called the “Krispy Kreme Klub”. They promoted it to people calling it “KKK Wednesdays”. The abbreviation “KKK” is more often used to refer to the Ku Klux Klan, a hate group in the US. This promotion was made in the UK and was definitely unintentional but still was a very bad look for the company.

Travel/Food

Jam thumbprint cookie review

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By: Norah Hoglund and Max Cahoon

Image created with Instagram AI

Overview

Jam thumbprint cookies are a classic Christmas or holiday cookie for this time of year. They not only look cute but they also taste really good. We tried out a recipe for them and are going to share our thoughts on it.

Link to the recipe:

https://www.loveandlemons.com/thumbprint-cookies/#wprm-recipe-container-53346

Review

Taste

These cookies had two components: the cookie and the jam. The cookie was like a shortbread cookie, and it was sweet and crumbly. They were also very buttery and they were quite a good cookie. If they didn’t have the jam in the center they would have been a bit boring, so good thing there was jam in the middle. It added a different tart flavor to the cookies as well as a fruity flavor and a different texture. The cookies would have been a bit dry without the jam but it made their texture perfect. We rate the taste an 8/10.

Baking process

The process of making these cookies was fairly easy. The cookie part was pretty straightforward to make and wasn’t really any more difficult than any other cookie. The hardest part was putting the jam in the middle of them, because it was sort of hard to be precise with a spoon and to not spill over the edge of the indent that was made in the cookies for the jam.

Another thing about the recipe is that it says to wait until the bottoms are lightly browned, so we put it in for 12 minutes but the bottom edge didn’t look brown at all, so we put it in for a little bit longer which made the cookies a little more dry. Other than that, these cookies were pretty simple to make. We rate the baking process a 7/10.

Overall

Overall, this recipe is pretty simple and straightforward and yields good results. The taste and texture is good and the blend of flavors is pleasant. The one thing that we would change is the instruction about looking for brownness, because you can’t see if the bottoms would be brown.

Overall, we rate this recipe a 7.5/10. We would recommend this recipe to anyone who enjoys baking, cookies, and especially the sweet jam.

RECIPE

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350° F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the two flours and salt.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter, sugar, vanilla, and almond extract until fluffy. Gradually add the flour and mix until completely combined.
  4. Scoop rounded tablespoons of the dough and roll them into balls. Place them on the prepared baking sheets. Gently press down to form discs and use your thumb, or the back of a 1 teaspoon measuring spoon, to make an indentation in the middle of the cookies. Use a spoon to spoon ½ teaspoon of jam onto each cookie.
  5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the bottoms are lightly browned. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely
  6. Then enjoy.
Travel/Food

Christmas cookies

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By: Sophie Elmstrom & Lily Sheldon

Photo by Jonathan Meyer on Pexels.com

The holidays have come to an end, but that doesn’t mean that all of the recipes that come with it do!

During the holiday season there are so many treats to make, with Christmas cookies being a staple recipe. There are so many different cookie recipes for the holiday season. We wanted to share a few of our favorite cookie recipes to make.

Sugar Cookies:

Sugar cookies are a classic, and are a very common cookie, not just made for Christmas, although once you add the red and green sprinkles it will add Christmas cheer! This is a very simple recipe, so it’s easy and quick to make. It’s sure to be a staple cookie to add to your holiday baking. These cookies have cream cheese in them, and that adds a richer flavor to them.

You can find the directions here: https://www.nourish-and-fete.com/sprinkle-sugar-cookies/

Hershey’s Peanut Butter Blossoms:

These cookies have a delicious peanut butter cookie base topped with a Hershey’s Kiss that is perfectly melted on top. These are a fan favorite, and they don’t take long to make either. With a simple list of ingredients, and a short baking time of 8-10 minutes, these cookies have the perfect texture with a slightly crispy outside and warm chewy inside, and the kiss on top adds the perfect flavor and richness to the cookie base.

Here is a simple recipe: https://www.hersheyland.com/recipes/peanut-butter-blossoms.html

Christmas Bark:

Christmas bark or “ Christmas crack” is a saltine layered base with chocolate and toffee pieces on top. This is a very versatile cookie, with the option to add any combination of chocolate and toppings to the saltine layer base. Here we have a version with milk chocolate and toffee pieces, which is our personal favorite combination. Other ideas you could make are white chocolate with peppermint, or milk/dark chocolate with various toppings such as M&M’s, pretzels, etc. This is a crunchy treat that is so delicious and a fun bake for the holidays!

Here is a recipe: https://therecipecritic.com/christmas-crack-recipe/

Sandwich Cookies:

These sandwich cookies are flaky and buttery, they crumble in your mouth. This recipe is very complicated and takes a while to make because you have to refrigerate the dough for the cookies before you roll them out and cut them. Even though these take time to make, they are so worth it and don’t have to be made in just the holiday season, you can make the frosting different colors for different events and enjoy them all year long! Make sure to bring these to a cookie competition, it will be a sure win for you.

Here is the recipe: https://inspiredbycharm.com/cream-wafer-tree-cookies/#Ingredients

Wreath Cookies:

The wreath cookies are an easy to make recipe without using an oven. All you have to do is melt marshmallows and combine them with rice crispy cereal, shape them into a wreath and add some green food coloring and you’re done! These cookies are very good and chewy and once you show them to people they will be begging for more. We’re sure you could make these into different shapes for different holidays and events.

Here is a simple recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/10070/christmas-cornflake-wreath-cookies/

Travel/Food

The effects of energy drinks

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By: Ruby Anderson and Priya Anderson

Energy drinks have begun to rise in popularity, especially among younger people, often replacing coffee as a new popular form of caffeine intake. These drinks can contain dangerous amounts of caffeine and other chemicals that can be unsafe to consume, especially to those who drink them on a regular basis. According to the ‘National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health’, energy drinks are the second most popular dietary supplement for American teens and young adults and almost one third of teens ages 12-17 drink them regularly.

While caffeine can be safe in limited amounts, too much caffeine can cause side effects. The most common side effects of energy drinks are short term effects such as shaking, rapid heart beat, increased blood pressure, anxiety, and restlessness. The recommended caffeine intake is up to 400 milligrams per day for adults and 100 milligrams for adolescents. Sticking to these amounts or less per day can prevent you from experiencing serious health issues.

Energy drinks contain ingredients like taurine, caffeine, and lots of sugar which when consumed daily can cause many long term health issues. Some include insomnia, dehydration, digestive problems, heart palpitations and can even cause problems as serious as cardiovascular disease and heart attacks. Long term use of caffeinated beverages can make you dependent on caffeine and without it can cause you to experience withdrawal symptoms like headaches, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, a depressed mood, and many more symptoms.

Energy drinks have become very popular recently and many of the most popular drinks contain the highest amounts of caffeine. A few of these drinks are: Redbull, Monster Energy, Bang, and tons of other drinks which can contain dangerously high amounts of caffeine. These energy drinks are available to almost anyone, being sold mostly at grocery stores, gas stations, and in vending machines.

Even though energy drinks are so easy to access, there are many groups of people which energy drinks can be especially dangerous to. Children and adolescents, pregnant people, those who have conditions like heart or kidney disease, and anyone who takes medications regularly can be more negatively affected by energy drinks than others.

Even with all of these negative effects from energy drinks, these beverages can actually be beneficial for certain people. If you consume energy drinks in a safe amount, a few of the benefits you can get include increased energy, concentration, mental alertness, and enhanced physical performance. Many people, especially athletes or those who participate in other strenuous activities, use energy drinks to enhance their abilities. Energy drinks can also contain vitamins and minerals. The majority of energy drinks contain B vitamins, most commonly biotin.

For those who still would like a caffeine boost in the morning without drinking energy drinks or coffee, there are many alternatives that are much more healthy. Green tea is probably the most healthy alternative with typically 25-45 milligrams of caffeine per 8 ounces. Really, any tea is a good alternative and also includes many health benefits that energy drinks don’t contain. Fruit juice and smoothies are nutritious alternatives and even just simply drinking water can give you a boost of energy when you wake up.

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