Shadowing Practice: I Tested Weird Al FOOD HACKS! - Learn English Speaking with Video

The weirdest food videos on TikTok right now are these animated AI food hacks.

Fake food, fake voice, fake confidence, but somehow surprisingly convincing.

So today, I'm testing these AI food hacks in real life to find out

if they're AI slop brain rot or they're actually genius.

I'm not sure if AI has learned that water and oil doesn't mix, but according to this hack...

Hate bacon popping everywhere?

Start with a little water in the pan.

It says that if you pour a little bit of water into the pan before cooking your bacon, you're supposed to be able to avoid popping and splatter.

But in my opinion, I feel like that would cause it.

So let's test it.

So let's add a little bit of water to the pan first.

I guess that's enough.

Let's turn on the heat.

Okay, I have my bacon.

And there is a good amount of fat on these bacon.

So let's see how this goes.

But actually, now that it's in there, I also don't like boiled bacon.

So as it's cooking, I'm seeing white stuff come out of the bacon and that's supposed to be fat being rendered.

And as the water's evaporating quickly, so far there's no splatter.

But let me flip it on the other side.

I guess let's add a little more water because now it's starting to pop and splatter.

So usually when I cook bacon, when it gets to this point where it's almost half shriveled up, there's usually a big pool of oil.

But the water somehow made it turn white like this so it's pulled up inside of this thing.

And now that the water has completely evaporated, it's starting to pop and splatter.

And now the grease is pulling out.

Well, our bacon did end up crisping, and I do notice less of an oil splatter around the pan.

Usually, it's a giant greasy mess.

So I'm gonna say water apparently does help with oil, so I'm gonna give this hack a 7 out of 10.

Boiling eggs?

Drop in a lemon wedge.

Peeling often feels easier, and you can feel less eggy smell.

This AI hack says if you're boiling an egg, dropping in a lemon wedge while you boil it makes it peel easier and it gets rid of that eggy smell.

Sounds a little too good to be true.

So let's test it.

Okay, I have some water.

Let's bring it up to a boil and then we'll drop our egg in. And now we wait.

And since I'm always skeptical of these AI hacks, here's one that I pre-boiled without the lemon wedge.

Time's up.

Let's get this out.

Is there an eggy smell?

slightly.

But now I'm gonna put this into an ice bath and let it cool.

Whoa.

So I just took my egg out of the water bath and there's something crazy that I noticed.

The acid from the lemon took out part of the peel.

Wow.

Look at this.

I have never seen my eggs do this before.

It completely stripped the enamel coating and I could just like rub it off like this.

That's crazy.

So I wonder if it actually weaken the shell too, making it easier to peel.

But before we peel this one, I have to test my control.

So I just boiled this the plain old simple normal way.

And how I like to peel my eggs is just give it a tap and roll.

Sometimes it comes off in one big piece.

I'd say that was pretty painless.

But would this be even easier than that?

I'm gonna do the same thing.

Tap and roll.

It does feel a little more crackly.

And the membrane that usually holds on to the egg white, I feel like it's little bit looser.

The shell doesn't feel any weaker though.

Whoa.

Well that was pretty painless too.

But in terms of the eggy smell, yeah, I'm gonna say that was a lie.

It still smells like an egg.

I'm gonna give this hack an 8 out of 10.

I'm sparkling water.

Replace regular water with me and pancake batter.

The bubbles make pancakes incredibly fluffy and light.

So to make the fluffiest pancake, This AI hack says the bubbles from sparkling water will make the pancakes incredibly fluffy and light.

I have never heard of that before because pancakes have lemony in them, and that's usually what makes it fluffy and light, but let's test it.

As per usual, I'm gonna have my control.

So we'll add half a cup of our mix, follow the package's direction, oil in both bowls.

Our control mix gets water, and now the AI version gets our fancy sparkling water.

Whoa, oh my god, it's already super bubbly.

If this works, I might even end up getting souffle pancakes.

But let's mix both of them up.

It's kind of hard to see under all these bubbles.

It's still kind of clumpy.

Now it's ready, let's cook them up.

So these have sat for like a good minute.

And what I've noticed is the sparkling water side is super loose.

And it kind of reminds me of sourdough starter.

So I don't know how this is going to turn out.

But this side is exactly how you would expect a pancake batter.

Still a little lumpy, but thick.

Let me heat up the pan, and then we're gonna spread some butter at the bottom and cook the pancakes.

Control goes in first.

And the sparkling water.

Oh, it's so thin and runny.

I am a skeptic on this one.

So as you can see, because it was super runny, it spread out a lot, but there is a lot more bubbling action going on in the sparkling water pancake,

whereas this one is just kind of chilling.

I'm still waiting for the bubbles to appear so I can flip it.

Let me just check.

Oh yeah, it's ready.

Ooh, look at that beautiful crust.

And because this one has been bubbling the whole time, it's hard for me to tell.

100

But let me just check on it too.

101

Oh, we have a nice crust.

102

But it's the crust that you get from like a flat pancake.

103

But this is supposed to be incredibly fluffy.

104

So I am not sure.

105

And just by the looks in the pan alone, I already know what the answer is going to be.

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Let me just spread some butter and maple syrup to make it taste good.

107

Control.

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Just look at how fluffy the plain water turned out.

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Mmm.

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Mmm. So good.

111

And how sad and flat our sparkling water one turned out.

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This is exactly how flat I'd want it if I were making a McGriddle sandwich.

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Mmm.

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There's a little bit of a sponginess to it that's not apparent in the regular control one.

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But to say it's incredibly fluffy and light is a lie.

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Drink your sparkling water, make your pancakes a regular way.

117

I'm going to give this hack a 4 out of 10.

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Next time you make coffee, add one tiny pinch of salt.

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It kills the bitterness and makes the whole cup taste smoother.

120

Then add a pinch of cinnamon to the grounds before you brew.

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It melts into the coffee and makes it taste softer and naturally sweeter.

122

So I like to make coffee every single morning, but AI says to make the perfect cup of coffee before you brew your coffee grounds.

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Let me go ahead and add some to my machine first.

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Then it says to sprinkle in some cinnamon directly into the coffee grounds

125

because it's gonna melt into your coffee and then round out the flavor making it sweeter.

126

It didn't specify how much so I'm just gonna give it a good shake.

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I feel like that should be enough.

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Do I stir it up or do I just leave it as is?

129

We'll just leave it as is.

130

Now let's brew it.

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Coffee's ready.

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Let's pour in our cup.

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It does have a very nice cinnamony smell, but now to take out the bitterness that you normally get in coffee, it's said to sprinkle a pinch of salt.

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So am I gonna get cinnamony salty coffee after this?

135

Let me give it a quick mix.

136

And let's see, it's supposed to be a softer, naturally sweeter, not bitter cup of coffee.

137

Let's see if those claims are true.

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There's a hint of that cinnamon flavor in there.

139

But I'm gonna say the only thing that's ever made my coffee less bitter

140

and softer is by adding a little bit of milk

141

Now that's the perfect cup of coffee

142

And I'm gonna say this hack only half worked five out of ten

143

because despite adding salt still pretty bitter I am a cookie.

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I've gone hard add bread to the container.

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I absorb moisture.

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I soften overnight These are hard day old dried out cookies

147

and according to this AI video Apparently we can revive them

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and make them soft again by putting them in a container with bread.

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I've actually seen this hack work before with brown sugar.

150

So I feel like this could half work, but there's a lot more things involved in the cookies.

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So we're going to have to test this theory.

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And because you guys know I always have to do a control, I'm going to cut both of these cookies in half.

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So hard it's not even cutting.

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Keep one in a container without the bread and one with the bread.

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This is soft

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and fluffy milk bread too put it right over here this

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half goes here this half goes here we'll close up our airtight container

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and these two halves in a container with no bread i'm supposed to leave it overnight

159

so we're gonna check on this later making burgers mix small

160

pieces of cold butter in the raw meat before you form the patties it melts inside as they cook

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and bastes the beef from within you're just basically adding extra

162

fat into your meat of course it would make it juicier but let's see if we can taste the difference.

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I of course got the leanest ground beef I can find.

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It's a 93.7 blend and we'll just chop up some salted butter.

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I try to cut them as small as possible

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but these chunks still look super huge and I'm afraid

167

that once we mix it

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and cook it it's just gonna be like spilling out in every bite which doesn't sound that appetizing to me.

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But we're gonna make a quarter pounder here.

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We'll season it with some salt and pepper

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and then I feel like one tablespoon for this much meat Looks a little excessive.

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So I'll just add that much.

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And we mix.

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I don't know about this, guys.

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Instead of a cheese stuffed burger, we get butter.

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And here's our patty, studded with butter.

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I've got my hot griddle.

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Let's cook this up.

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You can already see some of the fat pulling out, but I do wonder, because it's so studded with the chunks of butter, that it keeps the meat from shrinking too much.

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It does look like the burger's getting a nice crust, though.

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Whoa You have the indentation from the butter melting out of

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the meat still there I have the tendency to smash my burgers whenever I cook them like this

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But I'm gonna try not to Oh my gosh, the butter is just pulling out of it

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And our meat patty is done It does look incredibly juicy I think the only thing

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that I hate about this recipe Is that it triggers my trypophobia

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Because the butter left indentation in the meat And it's just like weirding me out.

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Let's close it.

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But let's see how juicy this burger is.

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Oh, it's dripping down my fingers.

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It is quite tasty.

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I'm not gonna lie.

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Instead of buttering your bun, you're buttering your burger.

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Pretty good hack if someone else cooks it for you.

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8 out of 10.

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I'm baking powder.

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Toss wings in me before baking for ultra crispy skin.

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I dry out the skin so it crisps perfectly in the oven.

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I don't know if you've ever tasted baking powder.

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It's pretty metallic-y.

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So am I supposed to just dip this straight into here?

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Something doesn't sound right.

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So I'm going to try it three ways.

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Just plain salt and pepper without the baking powder.

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And then I'm going to follow that hack, but then I'm going to twist my own.

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So let's first season our chicken wings with some salt and pepper.

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I'm going to pour in some baking powder into this dish.

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But if this hack were up to me, I think we should be adding a little bit of baking powder into a flour mixture

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so that we might avoid that metallic-y flavor.

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But again, I could be wrong, so let's try it.

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Okay, let's mix this up real quick.

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We have our air fryer ready.

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So like I said, we're going to do one wing with no coating

213

and then one wing in the baking powder for the AI hack.

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This just feels so wrong.

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And finally, my version, the baking powder with some flour.

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Put the lid on.

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We'll air fry it for 10 minutes and we'll see what happens. And it's done.

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It sounds hot and ultra crispy with the sizzling sounds

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but I'm gonna let them cool down real quick before we test the crispiness.

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So now that I'm looking at the cooled wings I will say the one without any coating looks kind of sad.

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However the one with baking soda looks the most like a tempura where it has a scraggly skin.

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And the one where I coated with flour and baking powder looks a little better than the non-coated one, but nowhere near as crispy looking as the baking powder.

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So I could be wrong.

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Let's see if our plain naked one is still crispy without any coating.

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Not bad.

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Let's try the flour dredged one.

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There's a little bit of a crispiness to the wing, Definitely more so than the naked one, but now let's try the AI hack one.

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It looks crispy, but I'm scared that it's going to taste metallicy.

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Did AI just prove me wrong?

230

I wouldn't say the skin is super crispy.

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I would say it feels, if anything, a little bit lighter than the flour one.

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There's just something that's a little bit more airy about the skin.

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And when it comes to the aftertaste of the baking powder, honestly, I didn't taste anything at all.

234

So could AI actually be a genius in this case?

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I might have to say yes.

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This hack gets an 8 out of 10.

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Want way more juice?

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Roll me hard first, then microwave for 10 seconds.

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It's honestly crazy.

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So apparently AI says if I roll my lemon and microwave it for 10 seconds, I can yield more juice out of it than just juicing one alone.

241

So here's two lemons about identical size and from the same tree.

242

So to test if that theory is true, this is just a plain lemon that I'm gonna juice first without the AI hack.

243

And we'll see how much juice we get out of this.

244

From half that lemon alone, I feel like this is a lot of juice.

245

But we're not done yet because some still get stuck inside and I like to do this.

246

Get every last drop of it out.

247

Let's do the other one.

248

I gotta say, without having to do any of that hack at all, that's a lot of lemon juice from one lemon.

249

Let's see if I can get more juice with the hack.

250

Let's roll.

251

I'm putting all the pressure into it.

252

And now we microwave for 10 seconds.

253

It feels warm.

254

Let me cut it in half.

255

And we'll see if it's easy peasy lemon squeezy.

256

Putting it in the squeezer though, it does feel a lot easier to press down.

257

I don't know.

258

I still have half to go.

259

Will we beat the other cup?

260

Hard to say.

261

Hard to say.

262

I'm almost done.

263

It's almost done dripping.

264

Let's do a side by side comparison.

265

Oh, just barely.

266

It's like a hairline higher than the other lemon.

267

But I did notice one thing is

268

that the oil from the lemon peel dripped into this one making it look a lot more Concentrated

269

and it probably has a bolder lemon juice flavor, but for science.

270

Let's see if it's more lemony And now the bolder one Actually,

271

this is good some hacks end up surprising you

272

and i'm gonna say this hack worked

273

and it tastes better too from all the oils This lemon hack gets 9 out of 10.

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I'm butter.

275

Add a tablespoon of me to pasta water while it boils.

276

I help sauce stick better and add richness.

277

According to AI, you can make your pasta taste even better if you boil some butter with your pasta water.

278

It's supposed to help your sauce cling to the pasta better and make your sauce richer.

279

I've seen people do this with olive oil before, but I just thought that it kept the pasta from sticking to each other.

280

Let's test it.

281

So let me get the water boiling, then I'll add my pasta, and once it starts to cook, we're gonna add in a tablespoon of butter.

282

So the butter is just kind of floating on top, because like I said, oil and water don't mix.

283

But it's trying its best.

284

But we'll let it finish cooking and see what happens.

285

Okay, our pasta is just about done.

286

It looks like because the pasta released so much of its starch, the butter was able to emulsify with the water.

287

So it's all mixed up together now.

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But let me go ahead and drain this and see if it does in fact make our sauce richer.

289

The sauce is clinging to the pasta, but not without any noticeable difference to me.

290

Let's just try it.

291

It's not so much the sauce, but the pasta has a little bit of a butteriness to it.

292

It's hard to explain.

293

You know like how when you salt your water, your pasta becomes a little more salty?

294

This one just became a little more buttery.

295

Not a huge difference if you don't know what you're looking for, but I can taste the slightest subtle difference.

296

So I'm going to say the semi worked 7 out of 10.

297

I'm bread.

298

Drop a thick slice of me into over salted soup and simmer for 10 minutes.

299

I absorb excess salt, then pull me out.

300

Now AI thinks that it can salvage our food.

301

And I've seen people do this with potatoes before, which kind of makes sense.

302

But to drop in a whole slice of bread like this, I feel it would just absorb all the liquid, leaving you with nothing, which is probably why it's not going to be as salty.

303

But let's test that theory.

304

I have this jar of soup right here, which is probably the saltiest soup I've ever had in my life.

305

It has 61% of your daily salt intake just in this one single jar right here.

306

So it's pretty salty.

307

Let me bring it up to a boil and then I'll taste it.

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Our soup is nice and hot.

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Let me go ahead and taste it.

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Make sure that it is, in fact, salty.

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Taste just like the ocean.

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Now let me go ahead and drop in this thick slice of bread

313

and simmer for 10 minutes to see if it makes a difference.

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10 minutes is up and surprisingly, there is still plenty of liquid left in the soup.

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Let me fish out the piece of bread.

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Let's see how soggy it is.

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It's relatively soaked through.

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And it did take away quite a bit of liquid from our soup.

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Because look at the line here.

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But the more important question is, does this still taste like the sea?

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There is still a saltiness there.

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But I will have to say it's not as salty as tasting the ocean in my mouth.

323

So I'm gonna have to say this hack actually worked.

324

But is this bread now super salty?

325

Mm-hmm.

326

Mm-hmm.

327

That is straight up salt.

328

Ugh.

329

8 out of 10.

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Making chili, add one small square of chocolate in the last 15 minutes.

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No chocolate flavor, just a deeper, richer pot that makes everyone ask what your secret is.

332

AI thinks it can make my chili better by simply adding a piece of chocolate in the sauce.

333

Apparently, the chocolate's supposed to give it more depth, but I feel like my chili recipe is pretty dang good as it is.

334

Because why else would I put it in my cookbook?

335

Mmm, smoky and delicious.

336

But I'm not above improving if this in fact helps.

337

So you're supposed to just put in a square of chocolate directly into the sauce, let it melt, and then stir it.

338

Okay, our chocolate looks like it's nice and melted.

339

Did that piece of chocolate turn my chili into dessert soup?

340

Hopefully not.

341

Let's taste.

342

It has that hint of cocoa in there that's throwing me off.

343

Kind of reminds me of like a Mexican hot chocolate.

344

But here we go.

345

I'm gonna say this might have ruined my chili.

346

It added a sweet flavor to the chili, which I don't really like.

347

And I used dark chocolate too.

348

Somehow, it just doesn't go with my particular recipe.

349

But maybe for a different chili, it could work.

350

But in my opinion, this was AI slop and it did not work.

351

4 out of 10.

352

Freeze me before scooping desserts.

353

I glide, not fight.

354

Same food, man.

355

Zero struggle.

356

Now this AI hack might seem a little counterintuitive

357

because apparently a frozen spoon is supposed to be able to scoop ice cream better than a room temperature spoon.

358

I don't see how that's possible because wouldn't the room temperature kind of just glide through and melt the ice cream?

359

Or even a warm spoon, but let's put this in the freezer and get it nice and cold.

360

Our spoon looks nice and chilled.

361

And I want to test it against a regular spoon first.

362

And here's my cherry lime frozen yogurt that I made.

363

It does fight through the ice cream and made it rather crumbly.

364

But nonetheless, you're still able to get a scoop.

365

And with the frozen spoon, there's not supposed to be any resistance.

366

It was a little bit easier to scoop.

367

I think it just like cut through the ice a little bit better.

368

But it also could have been the angle that I was coming in from.

369

So let me try it on a different ice cream.

370

This time with peanut butter fudge ripple swirl.

371

Room temperature spoon cuts through like butter.

372

Makes sense.

373

Frozen spoon.

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If anything, I feel like this was a little bit more resistant.

375

I don't know.

376

It just didn't cut through as easily.

377

But they were both able to scoop some ice cream.

378

So I'm gonna say this hack is inconclusive.

379

5 out of 10.

380

It's the next day.

381

And did our cookie soften?

382

Let's find out.

383

Here's the one with the bread slice.

384

And here's the one without.

385

This cookie, still hard and stale.

386

But the one stored with a slice of bread?

387

Still stale, just slightly softer.

388

Let me try this one.

389

Crumbly and dry.

390

The bread is still soft.

391

So the slice of bread didn't make it magically soft and chewy again.

392

It kind of just gave it a little bit more moisture.

393

But both of them are still pretty stale.

394

I wouldn't say that the bread brought it back to life to its delicious soft cookie glory.

395

So this hack didn't work that great.

396

And it's just brain rot.

397

5 out of 10.

398

I am too spicy.

399

Water won't help you.

400

Add dairy.

401

Fat absorbs heat.

402

Balance restored.

403

I'm not sure if this hack is going to work at all, but apparently, if you have something spicy, water's not going to help you.

404

Dairy will.

405

And this one is two times spicy.

406

So spicy, the sauce looks black.

407

And in my experience, anytime I've had anything super spicy milk has never helped is

408

it supposed to look like this here's a bite without the dairy

409

can confirm it's very spicy i've seen people use mayo in their ramen hacks

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but that's not exactly dairy at this point i wouldn't even know

411

if it worked because my mouth is still on fire Yeah.

412

The only thing I can say is that the dairy fat globules floated to the top, so skimmed that off to take away the spiciness.

413

1 out of 10.

414

But if you liked this video, go watch me test more TikTok hacks.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “I Tested Weird Al FOOD HACKS!”. This video has 414 sentences and 4171 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:33. The speaker talks fast, about 185 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
lemon noun	/ˈlɛmən/	A yellowish citrus fruit.
bake verb	/beɪk/	To cook (something) in an oven (for someone).
pancake noun	/ˈpæn.keɪk/	An thin batter cake similar to a crepe, typically unleavened.
pasta noun	/ˈpɑ.stə/	Dough made from wheat and water and sometimes mixed with egg and formed into various shapes; often sold in dried form and typically boiled for eating.
boil verb	/bɔɪ(ə)l/	To heat to the point where it begins to turn into a gas.
powder noun	/ˈpaʊ.dɚ/	The fine particles which are the result of reducing a dry substance by pounding, grinding, or triturating, or the result of decay; dust.
sparkling adjective	/ˈspɑɹkl̩ɪŋ/	Of an object, reflecting light as if giving off tiny sparks or flashes of light.
spoon noun	/spuːn/	An implement for eating or serving; a scooped utensil whose long handle is straight, in contrast to a ladle.
bacon noun	/ˈbeɪ.kən/	Cured meat from the sides, belly, or back of a pig.
chili noun	/ˈt͡ʃɪli/	The pungent, spicy fresh or dried fruit of any of several cultivated varieties of capsicum peppers, used in cooking.
salty adjective	/ˈsɔlti/	Tasting of salt.
melt verb	/mɛlt/	To change (or to be changed) from a solid state to a liquid state, usually by a gradual heat.
cookie noun	/ˈkʊki/	A small, flat, baked good which is either crisp or soft but firm.
soup noun	/sup/	Any of various dishes commonly made by combining liquids, such as water or stock, with other ingredients, such as meat and vegetables, that contribute the food…
crispy adjective	/ˈkɹɪs.pi/	Having a crisp texture; brittle yet tender.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
go ahead verb	/ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/	To proceed with; to begin.
cut through verb		To take a shortcut through.
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
turn out verb		To end up; to result.
dry out verb		To cause moisture to be completely removed from; to make dry.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
get out of verb		To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of.
pull out verb		To withdraw; especially of military forces; to retreat.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Let's turn on the heat.
I'd say that was pretty painless.
I'm gonna do the same thing.
As per usual, I'm gonna have my control.
Will we beat the other cup?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has learned · have never seen · have never heard
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	being rendered · is done
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	nothing, which is · here, which is
Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group	The weirdest · the fluffiest · the leanest

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 135 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, gonna, we'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: indentation /ˌɪndɛnˈteɪʃən/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, smash /smæʃ/, dish /dɪʃ/, shake /ˈʃeɪk/
Long words — get the stress right: indentation /ˌɪndɛnˈteɪʃən/, surprisingly /səˈpɹaɪzɪŋli/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like lemon, bake, pancake.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?