How many times have you and your partner spent more than a few minutes, staring at each other blankly, mulling over where or what to eat? Do you often find it hard to decide on a venue when planning a dinner outing with friends? When someone asks you for a suggestion on the best “Banana Leaf Rice” or “Bak Kut Teh” in town, do you often find it hard to narrow it to just one (other than your regular haunt)?
Do you always tell yourself, “you are what you eat”? Do you need to go on a diet? Are you hosting a dinner party this weekend but you have no clue where to start sourcing for good recipes? Ah! So many things to do (and eat), so little time!
Google Chrome offers extensions and web apps to satisfy your hunger and also help the health conscious keep in tip-top shape. Starting with:
1. Utilizing local search
Nearing lunch and suddenly craving “Nasi Kandar”? Simply type “Nasi Kandar” or “Nasi Kandar in PJ” into the Chrome omnibox and find out which local restaurants are serving this yummy lunch-time favorite near you. Hover your cursor over the search results and a box-out will appear with image of the website, details of address, and contact numbers. Quite easily done!
2. Clicking for directions
So you heard about that Thai restaurant but need directions for you and your friends to get there in one piece. Or rather, you need directions to key into your GPS just in case you end up in Timbuktu. Simply highlight the address, whether it’s in your e-mail or on a website, right-click, and select “Search google.com for ___”, and Chrome will display search results, including a map for the address.
3. Searching for healthy recipes online
Eating healthy should not be hard or expensive. A Google Chrome web app, “Good Food”, offers recipes that list all nutritional information and also, the step-by-step methods to cooking each dish. Plus, you can view each recipe even when you’re offline, so you can easily access the recipe from the grocery store.
4. Playing “finders keepers” with recipes
Found a great recipe online that you want to try during the weekend? Instead of printing the recipe or scrambling for a pen and paper to copy it, import your favorite recipes into Google Docs using the “gRecipes” Chrome extension and access it from your home PC without having to remember any URLs. The extension allows you to import your favorite recipes into Google Docs, making it easy to share and change your favorite dishes. Simply browse the recipes you love and when “gRecipes” finds something it can import, the purple cow will appear next to the web address. With a quick click the recipe is automatically added as a Google Document.
(Yes, that means you can keep recipes from sites such as Epicurious, Food.com, Martha Stewart, Allrecipes.com, BBC Good Food, and Food Network, to say the least. Yay!)
5. Keeping your “noms” in check
Water is an essential part of our diet and a vital factor in a healthy lifestyle. But you already know that. Do you know, however, if you’re consuming the right amount of water in a day? The “Everyday” water app can help you track how many bottles of water you have drunk each day so you can stay hydrated.
(Side note: Water helps flush out toxins from your body. It’s the easiest and quickest way to detox!)
Or, have you been trying to lose weight but finding it difficult to stay on track? Having a hard time losing all the calories and carbohydrates you’ve packed after days of eating out? Set a goal and track your food intake and exercise time by using the “Lose It!” application. The app claims that 85% of its most active users have lost more than 12lbs.
It’s a tad “geek central” but it’s true – Google Chrome is more than just a web browser. Who would’ve known that it could be the very thing that feeds you? Well, sort of. If you’re not using Google Chrome (though we cannot fathom why), download it now!
Oh. And you’re welcome.
