For example, if you insist on buying Advil instead of store brand ibuprofen. I mean, you’d be wasting your money in that example, but you do you
Zeisner curry ketchup is the best though! Don’t know if you can buy it in the Netherlands.
I’m definitely trying the frikandelbroodje next time I’m at Albert Heijn. Don’t know if the Belgian one has all the same products.
Old Bay seasoning
batteries (when I have to use disposables)
Command hooksIdk dude, I don’t think old bay seasoning batteries sound very reliable.
blasphemy. they’re powered by tiny crabs
Legit 3M command hooks are the shit. 3M products seem to be like that. Yeah, more expensive, but always worth it. Nice to see a company stay focused on quality vs. last quarter’s spreadsheets.
Dude, 3M Extreme Mounting Tape is the stuff. I bought a portable CarPlay unit for my work vehicle, and I mounted it on the dash with the included mounting tape. It didn’t stay up there a day before it was falling off anytime I hit a bump. I went to Lowe’s and got some Extreme Mounting Tape and put it on, and it doesn’t move. AT ALL. The one time I had to take it off, I thought I was gonna pull parts of the dash off with the tape! I live in the south, and not even the summer heat affects it.
South here as well. 3M’s outdoor, double-sticky tape is wild. Hot? Humid? DGAF, it’ll not only stick and hold real weight, it’ll come off easily enough without nasty residue.
No idea how their company works, and their chemists must be the bomb, but they obviously have a tradition of pride in their products. So wish we could get back to that in America. (I’ll punt for Gorilla products though! Solid glues and tapes for many purposes.)
When I was a kid, dad had total disdain for “cheap” products. People would talk, compare notes. Everyone knew what products were solid and which weren’t, wasn’t a price tag thing. Everyone knew KitchenAid, Tupperware and Corning made solid shit. And now look where those companies are. :(
I think it’s more likely that the consistent quality is a side bonus from most of 3M’s customers being other corporations, not individual consumers
If 3M only sold painter’s tape to the public, most of the public will buy it whether it’s crap or not because most of the public only needs to put up with painter’s tape occasionally
However if a large commercial real estate company who goes through palettes of painters tape suddenly has to start ordering 1.5x as many palettes because some of the tape is defective, they’ll threaten 3M with cancelling a multi-million-dollar contract that will hurt 3M’s quarterly spreadsheets.
That is until inevitably someone at 3M gets the idea to start producing a cheaper “consumer grade” painters tape and then everyone who doesn’t have a relative in building maintenance who can swipe a pro grade roll for you is SOL
until inevitably someone at 3M gets the idea to start producing a cheaper “consumer grade”
But they haven’t and they’re a mature company, could have done that at any point. I think that backs my point that they’re focused on quality vs. quarters.
I know everyone here is rightfully cynical of corporate America, but 3M seems to get it, be in for the long haul. I’ve seen plenty of other brands go cheap over the decades. Black & Decker anyone? Craftsman?
OTOH, some brands stick to their guns. Victorinox and Zippo come to mind.
I think Dawn dish soap gets mentioned in these often.
My rule of thumb is does it smell good when it boils?
Dawn is the only soap I’ve found that smells good when it’s poured onto a hot pan.
Yeah you should let your stuff cool before washing it… but how many of us do that?
Dawn smells great boiling… so that’s the only soap I use.
Yeah you should let your stuff cool before washing it… but how many of us do that?
I used to love putting hot pans in the sink with cool water. Loved the sizzle and steam it created, and it was faster than waiting for it to cool down.
Then I would complain about all my pans being cheap and warped. I couldn’t cook evenly because there was one bulge that got direct contact with the oven and the rest of the pan rocked back and forth and either burned or undercooked all my food.
Until one day, my wife pointed out that putting a hot pan in cool/cold water causes them to warp. She got mad at me because some of the ruined pans were actually expensive quality brands. I’ve learned my lesson; no more hot pans in the sink for me. Let them cool a bit before you wash them.
Yep no big deal if you’re using a $15 tfal from Walmart. $200 al-clad let that shit cool
Are there that many ducks on here?
So we got 1 otter and a bunch of ducks. Am I the only human??
slurping intensifies
I use an Aldi version of Dawn. There is no difference.
Choice Australia did a test of different washing liquid recently and found the Aldi stuff to be one of the best and a bunch of expensive brands to be no better than plain hot water.
Well Costco brand is absolutely shit. Smells horrrrrible. Bought it and did my best to convince myself it wasn’t that bad I’d just finish the bottle, ended up tossing the whole thing
At Costco, I decided to get the Dawn Ultra Advanced Power, and man it knocks the socks off of grease, with just a small dollop on a sponge. While my cooking is simplistic and I wash sparingly in large batches, I don’t eat out often and I’ve only used a 10th of the 2.66L bottle in 2 months.
If you don’t use a sponge then I think any dishsoap will do, so long as you can tolerate the smell.
Dawn Powerwash is pretty great for general cleaning too, not just dishes. It’s great at removing soap scum. You can technically DIY it with dish soap, isopropyl alcohol, water, and a spray bottle, but the bottles they sell last a while and are cheap.
That’s not enough to do what powerwash does. Normal dishsoap has to maintain a consistency so certain additives are just not feasible. This allows powerwash to have a higher ph, stuff that goes after calcium deposits and stuff that hydrates stuck on food.
Personally I really really like powerwash but the amount of plastic it needs is too much for me. They did to come out with bulk refills.
Stop pissing on my bonfire
Off brand Bagel Bites are a big nope for me.
I used to agree but after finding Kirkland hazelnut spread at costco i’ve switched to that. Its palm oil free and every bit as delicious as nutella.
no other chocolate spread tastes nearly as good
That’s because it isn’t a chocolate spread, but rather a nut and nougat spread.
It has 13% hazelnut, the same as many other brands, but also the lowest amount I can buy. There’s a really pricy one that has 30%
I live in France and there are lots of brands that are exactly like Nutella, or even more tasty. Nutella is cheaper yet.
The Kirklands one is good, but doesn’t hold an emulsion. And trying to stir a 3000 litre tub of “hazelnut spread” to re-emulsify it isn’t on my list of desirable morning activities.
For nougat, the Milka stuff is better. If you want real chocolate, take Caotina.
Trader Joe’s would like a word
This is very true.
Cottage Cheese. Prairie Farms is my go to
The problem I keep running into with cottage cheese is finding large curd. I went to the supermarket today and only managed to swipe one off of the restocking cart. There wasn’t a single container on the shelf. I’m just not a fan of the smooth texture of the small curd, might as well eat ricotta.
Top The Tater. Accept no substitutes
I’ve never seen it. I struggle to believe it’s better than DIY with a container of sour cream + one of the Hidden Valley Ranch packets. That’s the true ranch dip of the gods.
I should do a comparison test, I don’t think it would beat a Minnesota staple
It’s now the inaugural item on my “When in Minnesota” list.
Interestingly, I learned how to make ranch dressing from scratch a few years ago. I always have the ingredients on hand, so I can make ranch dressing whenever I want.
The proportions are NOT super important. At least 1 teaspoon of each of the main dry ingredients but you can use more if you want.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
make ranch dressing from scratch
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
No idea what this is, but ok!
From what I’ve heard, it’s exclusively available in the Midwest. It’s one of the best dips out there, especially with ruffles
You’re absolutely wrong about Advil. Advil has a tasty candy coating.
The liquid gels are so profoundly better than the other types of pills that I’ve stopped purchasing any other brands or kinds of ibuprofen forever. Liquigels are the GOAT
Idgaf about pills. Doesn’t mater the size or coating, I can down em without a drink.
As a child I was raised in a household of chewable Tylenol tablets. Those were the only pills I really knew, particularly for mild pain relief.
In gradeschool, I had a day where I developed a splitting headache. I was sent to the ““nurse””, who, by nature of this being a small town American public school, was just the school office secretary armed with a bottle of child dose Advil tablets. I was promptly given a couple tablets to take, and was shooed off to the drinking fountain. Instinctively, I chewed the tablets. Within minutes, they came back to see me, along with my breakfast, and I was quickly sent home. The valuable lesson I took away from that day was, “chewables are for babies, grown-up pills are swallowed whole”.
Growing older, I became accustomed to increasingly annoying pills, which only further cemented that lesson. The culmination was probably being forced to swallow huge capsule pills while having a throat swollen and raw with strep. I just accepted that “real” pills are swallowed whole, and they suck, and that’s just how it is.
Much later in life, I was visiting my parents while recovering from a pub crawl. My mom offered me some Tums to combat some heartburn I was having. Somehow I made it far enough into life to drink alcohol but not know what antacids were. I was handed two US silver dollar sized tablets. Flashing back to my previous mistake when taking unknown pills, I swallowed them whole. I was embarassed to learn after the fact that they are, in fact, meant to be chewed.
The morals of this story:
- I apparently have no problem swallowing any pill or tablet.
- I am a fucking idiot and always have been.
I read a study recently that found it really only ends up working like 10 minutes faster than the regular kind.
Also, yes the OP of this thread is correct; the sweetener added to the capsules for all branded Advils are really nice, and the coating they put on all their pills allows for smoother swallowing (so smooth that I normally don’t take them with water anymore). Literally nothing comes close this these fucking amazing pills they make.
depending on what you’re taking it for those 10 minutes can be worth it
I’m in the process of slowly replacing my screwed-up teeth, and ten minutes means a lot when you’re in pain. I haven’t had the liquigels in a very long time, but I’d consider buying them for the faster response time.
10 minutes worth every penny. When you need it, you need it now
I do powders for headache medicine. When I want that to work, I want it working yesterday. Dissolve in like 4 ounces of water, drink, and go lay down in a dark room.
Tasty until it’s not. And it happens fast.
No, it’s that the actual ibuprofen has that horrible tangy taste.
I take Advil Cold and Sinus to help me breathe. LOL, the brand name certainly has a sweet coating vs. the generic! No difference in effect, and it’s not like I’m chewing it up first.
Not me. I ordered a pallet of Sam’s Choice when I hit puberty and should be set for life. Got so many I double them up sometimes.
Ivan is clearly joking, but for those that don’t know, condoms DO expire, and will be more likely to break the more times passes. Similarly, doubling condoms makes them more likely to break.
Shit.
That’s why Ivan should triple up. In case one fails he stays doubled up. It’s fool proof.
Pro-tip: if the third won’t fit easily, you can preheat them in the oven to make them more pliable (and it feels nice, as a bonus)!
Ever tried Duke’s mayo? I was Hellman’s always until my sister in law turned me on to Duke’s.
I always preferred Seagate spinning steel over Western Digital. I’ve had some WD drives fail horribly, unexpectedly and very prematurely on me. My PC today still has some Seagate HDDs in it that are approaching 15 years of age.
This has become a rarity for me but I don’t like any french onion dip other than Dean’s French onion dip.
I don’t eat it very often because my tastes have changed but if I had to go to the store and buy some right now if they didn’t have deans I wouldn’t get it.
Hanes crew socks. All the alternatives just don’t feel good on my feet.
Socks are another good answer, but there, it’s nothing but gold toe for me. They’re just so comfortable.
Yeah, I don’t pretend that they’re premium socks or anything, they’re just not the generic socks that’re like, “value premium” or whatever store brand sock. Or even just the unlabeled.
Irish butter, in particularly Kerrygold, are so much better than american butter.
Irish butter is a generic category. Kerrygold is an irish butter name brand
What’s different about it?
It’s got a bit o the Irish in it
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It’s deeper and richer. Sauteed onions in irish butter soften easier and taste more flavorful.
Kerrygold (and other imported-to-US/European, “fancy,” etc.) butter just tastes better. It has more fat content than land o lakes, for example, which contributes. The unsalted version is also cultured, and that makes a difference too. It’s definitely worth the price in any use where the butter flavor is important. In baking, maybe it’s not as worth it, but even then I’d still use it over a US brand.
Fyi to Europeans: Any and all of our butter is what they call “fancy” or “high fat” over there, otherwise it wouldn’t be allowed to be called butter in the EU
“I can’t believe it’s not legally allowed to called butter in the EU” brand buttery spread.
Wait until you try french butter.
Yes, once I tried kerrygold, I never went back.
Irish are so much better than American. Word.
in Australia you can get store brand butter that is every bit as good because it comes from NewZeland where every cow is grassfed.
Such a massive money saver that Woolworths now tells you where it’s produced, for a long time it was an open secret.
And it’s probably fucking cheaper than exactly the same thing in New Zealand.
Greek yogurt
Ah, you mean creamed chalk? I think that texture is because of low fat, but it’s hard finding a generic full fat Greek yogurt.
Edit: it’s the generic low/no fat ones that have that chalk texture.
Fage and only Fage.
Mine is Q-tips…. Let’s just say you shouldn’t put a flimsy cotton stick in your ear unless you trust it’ll come out in one piece
Let’s just say you shouldn’t put a flimsy cotton stick in your ear
unless you trust it’ll come out in one piece. Just don’t.WHAT? I CANT HEAR YOU!
I have daily for decades and have never had a problem
I’m glad it’s worked out for you so far, but you really should stop. Your ears probably don’t need to be cleaned at all. You could end up damaging your ears at worst, and at best you’re just pushing ear wax deeper into your ears, possibly creating a clog that might not have happened otherwise.
Anecdotally, I stopped cleaning my ears 15-20 years ago, and not once have I had ears clogged due to earwax.
That’s not at all true for everyone. My ears 1000% need to be cleaned, unfortunately. My ears will periodically get physically clogged with wax and it will both impair my hearing and feel gross/uncomfortable. My brothers all have this issue as well, so maybe I am just genetically predisposed to create too much earwax or something.
I don’t use a Q tip though. That can’t at all unclog a wax impaction. Instead, I use something called an “ear syringe” (there’s no needle don’t worry lol). You fill it with water from the sink and squirt it into your ear. Cheap, reusable, and will get rid of wax clogs. You can pick one up cheap at any drug store.
The wax impactions could be from things like in ear headphones, but I very rarely use in ears to begin with. It will happen even during long periods of not using them.
It’s really easy and quick to use, and creates minimal mess. Whenever I start to feel a clog coming on, I just use it for a few minutes over the sink and I’m good to go. I’d highly recommend it to anyone with wax issues. The chemical wax softeners like Debrox (or even hydrogen peroxide) cost too much and are really not very effective compared to simple mechanical removal.
You might not notice them, but id say theres a good chance you have wax plugs built up in your ears from using QTips (and inear headphones if you use them).
Wait, my headphones do this too?? Why is this the first time I’m hearing this? I thought I was being so responsible by not using a q tip on my ears like once a week, but all this time I’ve still been shoving those bluetooth earbuds in on the daily. Sleeping with them sometimes. I feel like an idiot. What else am I doing wrong?
…Also, what type of headphones do you use, if you don’t mind me asking? :')
I never really liked the in-ear feel, I also dislike bluetooth, so my go to for moving is Koss PortaPro, these are very open so no real isolation, however. For bluetooth the staple overear is WM1000xm4, though I have no experience.
I did, too, until my early 40s when it caused a
wicketwicked ear infection. Tiny pieces of cotton, like threads, eventually built up over time. I ended up with a fungal ear infection that had me in pain and dizzy for weeks. I was very close to having my eardrum burst. Never again. It was really hard to break the habit of using qtips, but it’s fine now; ears are self-cleaning.I use these regularly. I feel like they do the best job and they also allow me to gently “scratch” the inside of my ear. It’s not really scratching, but it relieves the itch I can sometimes get.
If you need to clean your ears that desperately, buy yourself earwax dissolver instead. Medically safe and easy to use, and unlike qtips, it will reach every nook and corner of the ear canal and clean up everything, pouring out the dirt like oil.
QTips cause wax plugs, if you use them gently to clean just the outer bit of the ear canal, it is kind of okay, but really you shouldnt. The ear canal is cone shaped so as you insert the Qtip you inevitably push some wax down.
Furthermore the ear canal is self cleaning.
Yes, every day
