Legend Has It That This Spicy Pizza Induces Child Labor

According to a popular rumor among pregnant women, spicy food can help induce child labor, and while that has yet to be confirmed by medical specialists, a pizza place in Charlotte North Carolina has become a popular destination for mothers-to-be eager to bring their offspring into the world sooner.

Hawthorne’s New York Pizza and Bar in Charlotte is considering changing the name of its Buffalo Wings Pizza into “The Inducer” after dozens of pregnant women have credited it with helping them deliver their babies ahead of schedule. Tales of the labor-inducing properties of this medium-hot pizza have been circulating around Charlotte for over half a decade, and some women actually swear by it.

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Someone Invented Colorless Coffee That Doesn’t Stain Your Teeth

Coffee is more popular today than ever before, but many people abstain from consuming to much of it because it can really take a toll on their pearly whites. Well, thanks to the world’s first colorless coffee, you don’t have to worry about stained teeth anymore.

After getting tired of looking for a coffee drink that had the natural flavor they loved so much but didn’t stain their teeth, David and Adam Nagy, two Slovakian brothers who like strong coffee and their teeth white, decided to create it themselves. Called CLR CFF, their innovative drink is exactly what it sounds like – clear coffee, without the vowels.

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Indonesian Bakery Creates the World’s Most Elaborate Wedding Cakes

LeNovelle Cake, a family-run bakery in Jakarta, Indonesia, specializes in epic wedding cakes. From fairy-tale castles to glazed cathedrals and pagodas up to 7 meters tall and complete with detailed turrets, pillars and balconies, these guys can turn the most outlandish architectural design into a magnificent cake.

The world-famous bakery was founded in 1993 as a neighborhood cake business selling birthday cakes to friends and family, but it slowly grew and in 2004 it started selling wedding cakes under the LeNovelle Cake brand. Their designs have been getting more complex every year, and today they can have up to 24 people working 12 hours a day for over a month to complete just one of their sugar-coated masterpieces.

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The New World’s Strongest Coffee is Called “Black Insomnia” for a Reason

The International Food Information Council recommends a daily caffeine intake of 300 mg, while the FDA recommends 400 mg, but just one 12-ounce cup of Black Insomnia brew contains 702 mg of caffeine, which will definitely keep you up at night and may even cause some health problems.

Black Insomnia Coffee was founded in 2016 by South African coffee lover Sean Kristafor. From the very beginning, his goal was to create the strongest coffee in the world, and he managed to do it by using the stronger Robusta variety, instead of the more aromatic Arabica. The secret to its high caffeine content is apparently in the way that the coffee beans are roasted, but Kristafor is obviously not interested in revealing the process. He only says that they can make it considerably stronger, and actually had to dial it down a bit for the commercial version, just so it was safe to consume.

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This Cotton Candy Pizza Makes Pineapple Topping Seem Mighty Delicious

If you thought pineapple was the worst thing to put on a pizza, you were very wrong. A restaurant in Japan is offering pizza topped with cotton candy and seasoned with honey sauce. Sounds “devine”!

Schmatz Beer Dining, a German-themed restaurant in Tokyo, Japan, is changing pizza as we know it. Instead of classic ingredients like prosciutto, peppers or tomato sauce, it uses spun sugar as the main ingredient for one of its pies. And if you’re thinking that this is probably just a pizza-shaped dessert, you’re wrong again. The bizarre dish consists of a thin-crust pizza dough pie, cheese and cotton candy. The ketchup is replaced by a special honey-based ginger sauce that is poured over the cotton candy, melting the candy floss and allowing the sugar to really get into the pizza.

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Fire Paan – The Hottest Street Snack to Ever Come Out of India

Paan has been a part of Indian cuisine since Vedic times, and today, many varieties are served at street stalls all across the Asian country. But with competition as fierce as it is, paan vendors are constantly working on new types of paan, the most impressive of which is definitely fire paan – a flaming hot snack that is literally set on fire.

Found at nearly every street corner in India, paan regularly consists of a mixture of spices, mukhwas, dried fruits, and sugar wrapped inside a betel leaf. According to Ayurvedic medicine, paan can cure a variety of ailments, including coughs, colds and headaches, but it is also used a breath freshener and a virility booster. Fire paan is basically a regular paan that just happens to be on fire when it goes into your mouth.

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San Diego Brewery Uses Recycled Toilet Water to Make Beer

San Diego-Based Stone Brewing, the ninth-largest brewery in the United States, recently unveiled its newest creation – a pale ale brewed using recycled water that “comes from the toilet.”

Aptly named ‘Full Circle’, the unique beer is made with 100% recycled waste water from the Pure Water demonstration plant in Miramar. Chief brewer Steve Gonzalez admits being skeptical about using recycled water to make beer and asking for analysis results before even considering it, but says that Full Circle turned out to be one of his best works yet, probably in the top three pale ales he’s ever brewed.

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Wine-Infused Coffee Is Now a Thing

If you’re into crazy taste combinations like peanut butter&jelly or pineapple pizza, you’re probably going to love this wine-infused coffee that combines the taste and health benefits of two of the world’s most popular drinks.

Molinari Private Reserve artisan coffee is the brainchild of Rick Molinari, the owner of Molinari Caffè in Napa Valley, California. He claims to have come up with the idea for a wine-infused coffee in 2013, after talking with his friend and fellow coffee roaster, John Weaver, of Wild Card Roasters LLC. Born and raised among the vineyards of Napa Valley, Molinari was convinced that bringing together “the best of both worlds” in one unique drink was bound to be a success, so he started researching ways of making it happen.

Molinari came up with a working formula within a year, and in 2014 he actually started selling his unique blend of roasted coffee and red wine, but a magnitude-6.0 earthquake that shook Northern California that year forced him to put the process of perfecting his idea on hold. He never gave up on it, though, and after teaming up with several vineyeards around Napa Valley, the cafe owner recently launched an improved version of his wine-infused coffee, and is already struggling to keep up with demand.

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Would You Spend $25,000 on the World’s Most Expensive Taco?

Tacos are generally low-cost fare in Mexico – you can buy one from street stalls for as low as 10 pesos (¢50) – so how can one cost as much as a fully optioned family car?

Juan Licerio Alcala, the executive chef at the Grand Velas Los Cabos Resort, a luxury vacation destination in Baja California, and the creator of the world’s most expensive taco, says that the mind-blowing $25,000 price tag of this delicacy is justified by “the technique and the harmony that you will lift from the plate”. That’s a pretty vague explanation, but he assures those interested in sampling his creation that “it’s worth it”.

But if you don’t feel like taking Licerio at his word with 25 grand on the line, maybe the list of ingredients will give you a better idea of what you can expect from the world’s most expensive taco. To make the opulent dish, the Mexican chef takes a corn tortilla speckled with 24 carat gold flakes, which he then fills with Kobe beef, langoustines, Almas Beluga caviar and black truffle brie cheese. Then, the taco is dressed with a salsa based on Morita chiles and Kopi Luwak coffee, before being sprinkled with some edible gold flakes.

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Raw Cookie Dough Shop Proves Big Hit in New York

We all loved eating raw cookie dough when we were children, but apparently a lot of adults like it too. DO Cookie Dough Confections, a small shop in Greenwich Village, New York, sells roughly 1,500 pounds of safe-to-eat raw cookie dough every day to people willing to spend over an hour in line for a chance to relive their childhood fantasies.

28-year-old Kristen Tomlan, the founder and CEO of DO Cookie Dough Confections never outgrew her craving for raw cookie dough. She always wondered why there wasn’t a place where people could enjoy their favorite treat, and started contemplating the idea of opening up her own business on a vacation, when she and a few friends stopped at a cookie shop, but instead of buying baked treats, they opted for a tub of raw cookie dough, which they ate in the car.

In 2014, Tomlan almost died after an allergic reaction to an antibiotic left her in a medically induced coma for three weeks, just a couple of months before her wedding. This near-death experience made her realize that life is short and she should follow her dreams. She first started her raw-cookie dough business online, and after getting coverage on a couple of popular websites, she and her husband had to rearrange the furniture in their apartment to accommodate commercial freezers. She soon quit her job in branding to focus solely on her business.

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Airline Launches Beer Specifically Formulated to Be Consumed at 35,000 Feet

Our senses of taste and smell are diminished at very high altitudes, and airlines apparently take this into consideration when developing their food menus, but until now, no one had tackled this issue when it came to beer. Luckily, one airline has recently announced a beer brewed specifically for consumption at 35,000 feet.

Betsy Beer, a brew formulated with the “ingredients, aroma and necessary carbonation to taste great both in the air and on the ground”, is the brainchild of Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific in collaboration with McCann Worldgroup. It’s named after the company’s first ever airplane, and is produced Hong Kong Beer Co. using UK-sourced hops called ‘fuggle’, honey from Hong Kong, as well as dragon-eye fruit also known as ‘longan’.

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Fail Chips – Pre-Crushed Potato Chips That Don’t Leave Your Hands Greasy

For years, companies have been researching ways to best package potato chips to prevent them from being crushed, but one company is actually crushing them on purpose so that you can just toss them in your moth directly from the bag, without touching them with your hands.

I’m not yet sure if Fail Chips are an actual product or just a promotional stunt, but the concept behind them is actually pretty cool. Most potato chip fans will tell you that the best part of a bag are the crushed chip bits at the bottom. They’re super salty, super seasoned, and best of all, you can toss them in your mouth straight out of the bag, without having to lay a finger on them. Well, somebody decided to make the best part of the bag the whole bag. They take full-size chips, crush them into small pieces, package them in colorful bags and sell them as tasty snacks.

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Cat and Dog Paw-Themed Ice Cream Is Now a Thing in Japan

From jellyfish to miso ramen, Japan has some of the most bizarre ice cream flavors in the world, but a frozen treat that’s supposed to replicate the texture and smell of soft cat and dog paws is a bit too much, even for the Land of the Rising Sun.

Japan’s longstanding fascination with cat paws is not exactly new. To many Japanese feline lovers, cat paws smell like nice things (right from caramel crepes, to wheat and sunflowers) and their soft, smooth texture is considered mysteriously soothing. Cat paws are so popular that a couple of years ago, a company came out with a hand-cream that not only left the users’ hands as smooth to the touch as a cat’s paw, but also made their skin smell like it too. But now, the organizers of the 2017 Japan Pet Fair, are taking this obsession one step further with two unique ice creams designed to have the texture and flavor of cat and dog paws.

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Honk Kong Supermarket Sells Individually-Packaged Strawberries for $22

Looking for an original Valentine’s Day gift? How about a special Kotoka strawberry hand-picked in Japan that comes pre-packed in a special gift box? It’s said to be very tasty, and it only costs $22.

City’super, a supermarket chain in Hong Kong, has come under fire recently for selling what many have called “the most expensive strawberry in the world”. Priced at 168 HK dollars a piece, these Kokota strawberries are apparently hand-picked to ensure that only the finest specimens hit the market, and flown in from Japan. They come individually packaged in plastic-covered paper boxes, complete with a straw nest and Styrofoam “sock”, to emphasize their exclusivity. Photos of the ridiculously expensive “designer fruits” have been doing the rounds on social media in Hong Kong and mainland China, with most people declaring themselves appalled by the display of decadence.

The supermarket, which advertises itself as a “mega lifestyle specialty store”, has responded to the negative feedback by saying that the retail prices of its products are based on a number of factors, including purchase price, transport costs, market conditions and product exclusivity. City’super representatives also added that the supermarket was merely trying to offer “more choices of premium fresh produce to Hong Kong customers”, and that the Kotoka strawberries were intended as special Valentine’s Day Gifts. After all, who doesn’t find a $22 strawberry romantic.

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Virginia Brewery Creates Oreo-Flavored Beer

Virginia-based  brewery the Veil Brewing Company has taken the dessert beer category to a whole new level with its innovative “Hornswoggler” brew, a a chocolate milk stout aged on hundreds of pounds of Oreo cookies that even has icing chunks in it.

They say Oreos go best with milk, but the guys at the Veil Brewing Company apparently decided prove that beer works too. And they hit it out of the park. After launching the Oreo-flavored brew on January 24, the 64 cases available sold out almost instantly. The company then sold what little they had left as on-draft at the brewery, in Scott’s Addition, Richmond. That didn’t last very long either, and now the brewery is getting bombarded with questions about the next batch.

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