A Bloody Mary garnished with Mean
Beans from Rick’s Picks, a NIBBLE
Top Pick Of The Week.

Ditch that celery stick—a pickled vegetable will add more excitement to the classic cocktail.

Garnish your Bloody Marys with a dilly bean, pickled asparagus or carrot stick—or go Southern with pickled okra. You can pickle them yourself, or buy ready-made from two of our favorite picklers:

• Rick’s Picks (dilly beans)
• Tillen Farms (pickled carrot sticks, regular and spicy dilly beans, white and green asparagus)
• For more ideas, check out the history of the Bloody Mary and our Bloody Mary recipes.

Those snacks can add 1,000 calories or more to your day; and each beer is 150-170 calories per 8-ounce portion (porter and stout have higher calories).

Here are some tips to save calories on favorite Super Bowl snacks. They’re provided by THE NIBBLE and health and fitness expert Dr. Eric Plasker, best-selling author of The 100 Year Lifestyle and The 100 Year Lifestyle Workout.

• Check out the calorie-saving ideas.
• See all of our low-calorie favorites in THE NIBBLE’s Diet Foods Section.

Whole grain Mary’s Gone Crackers with olive
spread, hummos, and Greek yogurt/smoked salmon.

If your coffee is too bitter, try different
beans. Photo by Klaus Post | SXC.

The level of bitterness in coffee is a result of the bean variety, how it is processed and roasted, the brewing method, temperature and the chemical content of the water.

If you’d like a less bitter cup, here are some tips from the Coffee Research Institute:

• Buy a medium-roast arabica coffee, brew using a drip system and try a coarser grind.
• Don’t use distilled water. While logic might say it makes better coffee, hard and soft water have chemicals that cancel out the bitterness.

Read more about how to make better coffee, and find much more information about coffee (plus recipes) in our Gourmet Coffee Section.

Take a look at how you can benefit from:

• An electric food steamer
• A food dehydrator
• Countertop grills
• A vertical rotisserie
• A pressure cooker
• An electric wok
• Vapor cookware
• An electric frother
• A loose leaf tea brewer

See them all and decide if they can help you with your eating goals.

This food steamer makes it easy to cook
three different types of healthy veggies
at once. Photo courtesy JCPenney.com.

Make your own flavored waters as a treat
for yourself and your guests. Photo by
Kelly Cline IST.

1. In a two-quart pitcher, cut half a cucumber into 1/8″ slices. If it’s a waxed cucumber, use a carrot peeler to remove most of the waxy peel before slicing, but leave some decorative “stripes” by peeling the cucumber vertically, leaving long strips of peel at 1″ intervals.

2. Cut a lemon and/or lime into 1/8″ slices, removing the seeds. Add to the pitcher.

3. Fill with water. Refrigerate for 4 hours or more to chill and let the flavors infuse. (When you’ve finished all the water you can add more to the same cucumber and lemons, although you’ll get a lighter infusion.)

4. You can also layer the flavors by adding other favorites, such as fresh rosemary.

We drink a quart of this zero-calorie flavored water daily. It’s earth-friendly—there are no bottles to dispose of. And it’s refreshing and delicious!

• Find reviews of mineral and spring water.
• Where did water come from? Find out in The Origin Of Water.
• There’s no such thing as “pure” water. Here’s why.