OLUFUNKE FROM PUNCH
I had a funny experience about yeast a couple of months ago and I vowed never to keep it to myself. Sometime ago, I bought a big pack of a good brand of instant yeast and I poured it out of the pack into a plastic container.
At some point, I noticed that my puff-puff stopped turning out well. I got confused. My yeast was instant yeast, so it does not need to be proofed before use. I got so curious one day and I had to prove it. Proofing yeast tests its vitality; you are proving if it is vigorous enough to make your dough rise. To proof yeast, you dissolve it in warm water with sugar and wait until it is creamy-looking with many small bubbles. When the yeast refused to bubble, my fears were confirmed. That was how I got to know that it was my yeast that had been the culprit all along.
I wanted answers to why the yeast went bad so I took it to the market. I really did not know what got into me that particular day because instead of taking it to where I bought it, I took it to an entirely new place where I just started buying things. I was glad I made that decision because this new person, Miss Oluwafunmilayo Hammed, coincidentally is a microbiologist. So, it was a case of bringing a problem to the right place for a solution. She sat me down and gave me a lecture on yeast and its lifespan, and she also told me that I should not have poured it into a plastic container. So, I had to buy another pack of yeast. I made sure it was a smaller quantity so that it would not overstay at home.
I made puff-puff with the new yeast as soon as I got home and it turned out so beautiful! Now, I make Guinness World Record-breaking puff-puff!
A closed mouth does not get fed. A decision to go out and ask questions about my yeast brought me to the right place for a solution and I have been fulfilled in my snacks-making ever since then.
Your body has been speaking to you but you have refused to listen. When are you going to start asking questions about those symptoms you have been quiet about?
Thousands of years ago, our forebears were mostly nomadic. Hunter-gatherer culture was the way of life. The lifestyle of hunter-gatherers was based on hunting animals and foraging for food. Because they had to hunt and gather their food before the invention of agriculture, they were more physically active than we are.
A study shows that human skeletons today are much lighter and more fragile than those of our ancestors. This is mainly a result of a drop in our level of physical activity. In the study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Cambridge and Penn State University analysed X-ray images of thigh bones from modern humans, as well as those from humans who lived thousands of years ago. They compared these samples to bones from other primates, including orangutans. According to the researchers, after people stopped hunting for food and became involved in agriculture, a more sedentary lifestyle became the norm. This sedentary lifestyle led to more delicate, lighter and weaker bones.
