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A Food Network star shares his tips for throwing the perfect Super Bowl party

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curtis stone andrew zimmern

Whether you're America's biggest football fan or just in it for the commercials, Super Bowl Sunday is the perfect excuse to have a bunch of friends over for some delicious snacks and beer. 

We caught up with Curtis Stone, host of the new season of Food Network's "All-Star Academy", to get his tips on making the best grub for your Super Bowl gathering. 

Business Insider: What are your favorite things to make for the Super Bowl? 

Curtis Stone: Homemade food that can be easily shared with a group and enjoyed with no fuss – grab-a-napkin-and-go kind of food.

So with that in mind, I go for dishes that you can dig straight into, like chicken wings and drumsticks, homemade tortilla chips with a seasonal dip, popcorn with some kind of delicious spin (like my Popcorn with Bacon and Parmesan), sliders, cheesy melts (I’ve got a a killer recipe for a smoked trout melt, which is simple to assemble but sophisticated to serve), and how about kick-starting the day with a spicy Bloody Mary? Why not? 

BI: Do you have any tips for people who are cooking for a large group? 

CS: The most important thing hosts should remember is to enjoy themselves. Don't over-complicate things by going too over-the-top or fancy. Just prepare ahead of time, then relax. The more fun you have, the more fun your guests will have.

Look for recipes and dishes that can be prepared ahead of time – like my Chicken Drumsticks Marinated with Honey and Soy. You marinate them ahead of time, so all you need to do when it comes time to eat is broil for 15 minutes, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and serve. These sticky drummies pair perfectly with the drink of the day: beer! 

Also, I think people enjoy making something for the game, so if anyone offers to bring a plate, take them up on the offer. 

BI: Is there a way to make Super Bowl snacks healthy? Or is it a day when people should just forget about the calories? 

CS: You don’t have to throw all your healthy eating habits out the window on Super Bowl day. There's plenty of ways to incorporate fresh, seasonal foods into your day that are exciting and super tasty.

You can whip up a healthy Caesar salad with plenty of greens, some warm flatbread with chickpea hummus, or a white bean dip, sweet potato wedges ... the list goes on. However, Super Bowl is a day where I personally let myself go a little and have that extra spoonful of mac and cheese, and I'm probably the one who swipes the last chocolate brownie from the plate. 

BI: I understand you used to play Australian Rules football — what do you think about the football craze in America? How does it compare to Australia?

CS: I did play quite a bit of footy in Melbourne when I was around 16 or 17. I was a decent leader but never had the skills to actually make it on the footy field. And then I found myself in a kitchen and, bizarrely, they require really similar leadership skills. To be a good leader on the footy field is exactly how you have to be in the kitchen: loud voice, lead from the front, put your body on the line, get in early, train hard – all that sort of stuff. Somehow Aussie Rules made me a good chef.

Now that I'm living in LA, I still keep my finger closely on the pulse on Aussie Rules, but I'm also an avid American football fan too. We have a huge grand final celebration at the end of each footy season in Oz, but it's not quite on the same scale as the world-famous Super Bowl, with the half-time entertainment, the celeb-studded adverts, the cheerleaders – it's pretty over-the-top here, but I like over-the-top.

SEE ALSO: A Food Network star and top chef shares her favorite diners in America

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14 surprising foods you probably thought were healthier than they really are

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granola blueberries

Most Americans say that they want to eat healthier. It's a beautiful — and fairly new — thing.

The problem is that most of us don't know how.

But the next time you take a stroll down your grocery's "health food" aisle, take note: Most of what you're looking at likely doesn't belong there.

Here are some of the most popular products you probably thought were far healthier than they actually are:

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Cereal — high in sugar, low in protein

Somewhere along the line, bowls of sugar-laden empty carbs got swapped for protein-rich components of the "balanced breakfast." But multiple studies suggest that a high-sugar, low-protein diet can increase hunger pangs and mood swings and leave you with low energy. Not exactly the best way to start the school day.

The nutritional low-down in a cup of Reese's Puffs cereal:

  • 160 calories
  • 29 g carbs
  • 13 g sugar
  • 4 g fat (1 g saturated) a
  • 3 g protein

 



Ground beef — great source of protein, but high in fat and terrible for the environment

For decades, beef has been presented to us as a go-to source of protein. But the product, which studies suggest has been contributing to the California drought because of its large impact on land and water resources, is also high in fat. 

The nutritional low-down for a 6-oz. serving of 80% lean ground beef:

  • 430 calories
  • 34 g fat (13 g saturated)
  • 120 mg cholesterol
  • 29 g protein

Red meat in general is also pretty terrible for the planet. From raising the cows to washing and processing the meat, burgers and steaks require far more water per ounce to produce than other comparable sources of protein, like beans or nuts. A whopping 106 gallons of water go into making a single ounce of beef. That's not a pretty sight in California, which is currently in its fifth year of a historic drought and also happens to be home to lots of meat and dairy farms.



Fruit smoothies — good source of vitamins, but high in sugar and calories and almost no protein

Just because they pack lots of fruit, smoothies and juices aren't necessarily healthy. Most, in fact, are incredibly high in sugar and calories.

The nutritional snapshot of a 15-oz bottle of Mighty Mango-flavored Naked Juice:

  • 290 calories
  • 68 grams of carbs
  • 57 grams of sugar (for comparison, a 16-oz. bottle of Coke has 44g)
  • 2 grams of protein

 



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With a $57 billion fortune, Jeff Bezos is the world's wealthiest tech CEO (AMZN)

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Amazon Jeff Bezos

With a net worth of $56.6 billion, Jeff Bezos ranks fourth on our recently published list of the 50 richest people on earth, produced in collaboration with Wealth-X, a company that researches the super-wealthy. 

That makes him the world's richest tech CEO.

Bezos' wealth eclipses the fortunes of other tech titans like Oracle's Larry Ellison ($45.3 billion), Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg ($42.8 billion), and Google's duo of Larry Page ($38.5 billion) and Sergey Brin ($37 billion), thanks to the rapid growth of Amazon.com, the world's leader in e-commerce. 

Most of Bezos' fortune is comprised of an 18% stake in Amazon worth almost $50 billion — a nearly $18 billion increase from a year ago. Amazon stock has climbed almost 60% over that span as sales and profitability have soared: Total revenue hit $107 billion with profits of $600 million in 2015, up from $89 billion and a loss of $240 million in 2014. 

Bezos founded Amazon.com in the garage of his Seattle home in 1994 and operated it exclusively as an online book retailer. The company went public three years later with $16 million in annual sales and has since grown to include everything from furniture to food to Amazon's own consumer-electronics products. The internet retailer also has a thriving cloud-computing operation, Amazon Web Services, and a bold plan to conquer India's "trillion dollar" online-retail market.

Though most of his fortune is in Amazon, Bezos has made several large investments outside of the company, including the more than $500 million he reportedly put into his privately owned space company Blue Origin, which successfully launched its first spacecraft in 2015. He also bought the The Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million and has since taken a hands-on role in its management. And in January he invested millions in a company that's creating a simple blood test to detect every form of cancer.

Bezos is one of 13 tech moguls to make the Business Insider and Wealth-X ranking of the world's 50 richest people. Among them he only trails Bill Gates ($87.4 billion), who is no longer actively involved in Microsoft.   

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15 simple ways to relax, according to scientists

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The Big Lebowski, bowling

It's easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day grind and let the stress pile on.

And getting rid of that stress often seems exponentially difficult. 

So if you're looking for a way to escape, here are some science-backed ways to decompress, even if you can't take a vacation.

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Get a massage.

Yes indeed, getting a massage may be a great way for some of us to relieve stress and relax. 

One small study looking at the effect of back massages on Japanese students preparing for exams found that people who got them had less muscle stiffness and lower levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress. Some caveats though: the study was small, and it didn't have a control group. In other words, there's no way to know if they'd sent another group of people into a quiet room and not given them massages that they wouldn't have seen similar results, perhaps just from being isolated from their studies.



Meditate.

Meditation is often seen as a great way to relax, and many studies back up that idea. In a meta-analysis looking at several studies of relaxation training in people with anxiety, the observed effects of meditation were greater than those observed for other intentional relaxation techniques, such as autogenic training (a process that involves making your body feel heavy and warm) and applied relaxation. Other studies have also outlined its effect as an anti-anxiety and antidepressant method.

Want to learn how to meditate? Check out this nifty graphic.



Exercise regularly.

The key to a relaxed mind is a relaxed body, according to the Harvard Medical School"The relaxed body will, in turn, send signals of calm and control that help reduce mental tension."

One way to relax the body is by exercising. It may sound counterintuitive, but working out can help the body release mood elevating hormones, like endorphins, and reduce levels of stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol.



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The 20 best jobs in business for 2016

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statistician

It's a great time to be a job-seeker. The US economy is humming, adding a total of 2.7 million jobs in 2015, and the potential for job growth in 2016 is bright as well.

U.S. News & World Report's recently published 2016 Best Jobs ranking provides a tool for job-seekers to compare professions based on important metrics like salary and expected number of openings.

To compile their ranking, U.S. News identified jobs with the greatest hiring demand — those with the highest projected number of openings from 2014 to 2024 — as categorized by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The jobs that topped the list were then scored using seven measures, including stress level, work-life balance, median salary, and employment rate. Read more about the full methodology.

U.S. News also broke down the best jobs by industry, including the best business jobs for 2016. The top business jobs this year are statistician, operations-research analyst, and accountant. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts more than 30% job growth for positions as statisticians and operations-research analysts and more than 10% job growth for positions in accounting.

Check out the 20 best business jobs for 2016 below, along with their average annual salary, according to 2014 figures from the BLS.

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20. Loan officer

Average salary: $73,670

Best-paying cities: Grand Junction, Colorado; Ocala, Florida

Loan officers are available to help clients with financial milestones like paying for a college education or buying a new car or house. The best loan officers have excellent interpersonal skills and advise, evaluate, and authorize loans to people and businesses.

Positions are available in a range of settings from commercial banks and credit unions to mortgage companies and car dealerships. Employment growth of 8% is expected for loan officer jobs through 2024.



19. Fundraiser

Average salary: $56,840

Best-paying cities: Durham, North Carolina; Washington D.C.

Fundraisers raise money for nonprofit organizations like educational institutions, health-research foundations, and political campaigns. People in this position are relied upon to bring in the big bucks by making cold calls, writing grants, and organizing events. Fundraising jobs are expected to have a growth rate of 9% through 2024.



18. Administrative assistant

Average salary: $34,500

Best-paying cities: Trenton, New Jersey; Boston, Massachusetts

This position is defined by the employer, though many fill diverse roles such as operations managers, event planners, accountants, and maintenance workers. Administrative assistants provide support at all levels of an organization and are often tasked with keeping track of budgets and ensuring all departments adhere to their budgets.

In 2014, there were 2.4 million jobs in this position, but the BLS projects that number to grow by 3% within 10 years.



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An exercise scientist told us how many pounds you should lose each week if you want to keep it off

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workout

Dieters beware: Not all weight-loss plans are created equal, and for some, timing is key.

You might be enticed, for example, by a diet that claims it can help you shed 20 or 50 pounds in a couple of weeks.

But shedding pounds too fast can be a red flag for a diet that might encourage unsafe behaviors. On the other hand, losing weight too slowly might be discouraging and make you want to give up.

So how much weight should you lose each week if you want to keep it off?

We asked Philip Stanforth, a professor of exercise science at the University of Texas and the executive director of the Fitness Institute of Texas.

He said most people shouldn't lose more than one to three pounds each week.

"During the losing phase, you need a calorie deficit," said Stanforth. "At the maximum you want a 1,000 calorie-per-day deficit, meaning you burn 1,000 calories more than you take in each day. That typically means you’re losing a few pounds a week. And that tends to be a lot more sustainable than losing a whole bunch at once."

That jives well with the guidelines from the Mayo Clinic and the UK's National Health Service, both of which suggest losing one to two pounds each week.

"The concern with fast weight loss is that it usually takes extraordinary efforts in diet and exercise — efforts that could be unhealthy and that you probably can't maintain as permanent lifestyle changes," writes Mayo Clinic's Dr. Donald D. Hensrud, chair of the Division of Preventive, Occupational, and Aerospace Medicine with a joint appointment in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, Metabolism, and Nutrition, in the clinic's "Expert Answers" column.

Clinical studies on weight loss provide us with a slightly more complex answer, however.

Severalstudies, for example, suggest that losing weight at a slow initial rate can help ensure that you keep losing it over time while also reducing your risk for gaining it back in the long term.

But other research suggests that neither slow or rapid weight loss is necessarily better. A 2014 randomized controlled trial of more than 200 people found that neither a rapid, 12-week program or a more gradual 36-week one affected the amount of weight the particpants regained over a nearly three-year period. And a 2010 study of nearly 300 obese women found that those in the study who'd lost weight fast also lost more weight overall — and for longer periods — than those in the study who'd lost it slowly.

So if you want to lose weight and keep it off, there's no one-size-fits-all approach. Talk with a health professional and come up with a plan that works for your goals.

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No, Beyoncé is not bashing the police: Here's what her new song 'Formation' is really saying

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Beyonce Formation

The pinnacle of any music artist's evolution probably looks a lot like this.

You release a new song online, without any previous announcement, and in just an hour or two, virtually all of the internet — and pretty much the world — is talking about you and your work.

Do it the day before you're set to perform at the most important American sporting event of the year, and your personal stock shoots through the stratosphere.

That's a place an artist like Beyoncé is very familiar with.

The music video for her newest song, "Formation," has become the most political message she's ever shared, evoking powerful images of black cultural pride, oppression, wealth, tragedy, and resilience.

It's not just a video about the police, as some who apparently wanted to boycott Beyoncé's halftime performance appear to believe.

The video makes two implicit references to law enforcement, and here they are:

Hurricane Katrina

The music video's opening frames show Beyoncé, a 20-time Grammy Award winner, standing on top of a New Orleans police car that is partially submerged in water. It's a visceral look that harks back to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm that killed hundreds and left thousands homeless and without food or clean water for days. It was one of the biggest failures in US domestic policy of a generation.

In her video, Beyoncé rests on top of the New Orleans police car as she, and the cruiser, sink beneath the surface.

Beyonce Formation

Police shootings

Another scene that seems to have caused a lot of conversation is one in which a young boy, dressed in all black and wearing a hoodie, jigs to the track's bass-heavy beat. Quickly, we see he's dancing in front of a row of police officers who are dressed in riot gear.

Suddenly, he stops and lifts his hands. The officers respond in kind, lifting their hands, as the camera cuts to a wall that shows the words, "stop shooting us" spray-painted on it.

Beyonce Formation

This scene is a tacit statement on police brutality and use of force— which has been a leading topic of discussion in the US for the past several years as black men, women, and children have been killed by the police in controversial circumstances.

"Formation" also declares the importance of owning one's identity. In the lyrics, Beyoncé asserts her love of the fact that she is genuinely, unapologetically black:

"My daddy Alabama || Momma Louisiana || You mix that Negro with that Creole, make a Texas Bama || I like my baby hair with baby hair and afros || I like my Negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils ..."

And it goes on. The point is, Beyoncé is proud of being black and unafraid to say it.

Beyonce Formation

The video also amplifies the artist's personal and professional success, which quickly becomes a bold, ethno-feminist statement when Beyoncé says: "I might just be a black Bill Gates in the making." To date, she remains one of the wealthiest women in the music business.

Jenna Wortham summed it up best in The New York Times:

"'Formation' isn't just about police brutality — it's about the entirety of the black experience in America in 2016, which includes standards of beauty, (dis)empowerment, culture and the shared parts of our history."

You can see the full "Formation" video here:

Join the conversation about this story »

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