processed food -- the scoop

Fast foods, tinned food, ice cream, frozen food, all these are processed. Processed food are foods that have literally been processed and not in their natural state. Like tinned fruit with syrup, when the fruit, eg. lychee, longan, pineapple are no longer fresh. Most tinned food have a long shelf life but it means nutrients have been sucked out of the fruit when it was being processed. With reference to longans in heavy syrup, ( I eat these every like one month - a sinful snack) The vitamin C content of longans is about 60.1 mg/ 100 grams, and consuming 12 - 14 longans can already meet the daily requirement of 75 - 90mg of vitamin C. But tinned longans vitamin C content is about 4% of the daily requirement per 100 grams, and eating these( along with the syrup), you have to eat almost 50 of them! I reckon the vitamin C was washed out when the fruit are washed.

Processed foods are bad for us and sadly I eat somewhat a lot of them. I eat cornflakes as a snack whether sugary or not. I also love puff pastry. Occasionally I eat sausages. OK I guess but after reading this article on the Internet, quoting from: http://nutrition.about.com/od/askyournutritionist/f/processedfoods.htm
"Processed meats might be some of the worst of these foods. Eating these meats may increase your risk of colorectal, kidney and stomach cancer. Processed meats include hot dogs, bologna, sausage, ham and other packaged lunch meats."

Oh crap I'd better improve my diet.

Although most processed foods are bad, milk is an exception. Technically it is also a processed food, as fat has been skimmed of in the low fat or skimmed version, and the milk has been pasteurized. Also frozen vegetables may be good. While most frozen stuff, like meat lose flavour the more it is kept in the fridge, vegetables retain freshness and vitamins, making it convenient. The same goes with juices.

Joke

I just had to post this really funny joke:

A man went for a pun competition and sent in ten puns. He waited for the results but what he saw disappointed him. As it turned out:
No pun in ten did.

Lol you should get it after reading it one time.

Old equipment - Thursday

Wow. This is the first time I'm writing about other stuff. Yesterday there was a problem with the class com and then the entire thing hanged when it was starting up. On Wednesday there was a problem with the mouse so no teacher could log on. When we were supposed to be watching NIC the AVA reps were trying to figure out what was wrong.

The class cleanliness didn't work out and our class was the worst in the entire consortium.
Areas of Improvements:- Keep away old newspapers, magazines, unwanted items e.t.c.- Clear away the litter around the rubbish bin. ( taken from the SMB ) Well I hope that next time our facility secretary (philmann) would be more conscious about cleanliness and prompt us about the classes condition and the duty persons job. Mr Tan Kok Kim wants to meet the facilities secretary (is that a blessing or a curse?)

Reader's digest joke: The newly hired musician was having trouble keeping up with the cruise ship's orchestra. The captain got so fed up he threatened, " Either keep up with the band or I'll throw you overboard. Your choice: Sync or swim.

World's largest dam Three Gorges

The world's largest dam in China is called the three gorges dam. It is by far very expensive at 39 billion US dollars and also the most notorious dam ever made, drawing criticism from many environmental activists. The building of the dam has caused many problems on the source of the Yangtze river. Pros and cons include:

Pros

• Flooding control: for many years the Yangtze has overflowed its banks due to monsoon rains, and building the dam reduces water flow into the mouth of the river, controlling flooding and blocking excess water. Many industries are built by the river and farmers also farm near as water is plentiful. To prevent a huge flood means many billions of dollars in damages can be avoided.
• Environmental impact(positive): Hydro electricity by building the dam would reduce the country's dependence on coal, there for cutting carbon emissions. China is the largest emitter of carbon, and achieving clean hydro electric energy would bring China one step closer to stopping global warming. Also, Industries have been reminded to treat toxic waste before dumping it in the river and up to 65% (confirmed) of factories have done so. Also waste treatment sites have been built.
• Reforestation has also been accelerated by the China government to prevent huge floods near the river basin.

Cons

• Relocation: Relocation of many farmers would also have to take place, as water levels would obviously rise and flood many homes. Farmers are put off by the lack of assistance by local governments and sometimes even corruption can be a obstacle to farmers where tax money is taken and not paid as compensation to farmers.
• Pollution and erosion : when water levels rise before the dam the ability to flush out pollutants by the river is slowed down so pollutants accumulate and may affect ecosystems. Also trees which are removed cannot hold on to soil with roots so erosion might occur. Sedimentation would affect water quality, and even, the silt may decrease the efficiency of the turbines. To clean up the entire river, over a billion yuan is needed. Also the sediments may block the entrance and cause dam failure and an overflow of water causing more floods.
• Cultural and aesthetic problems: The dam causes many different cultural or historical artefacts to be submerged. Although some of them are removable, many historical locations cannot be removed because of its size or other factors.

references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam

Speech for prevention of whaling SPCA

Japan has a long history of whaling, dating back to the eighth century, when Emperor Jimmu, had the first taste of whale meat recorded from a old book, Kojiki. As of now, whaling in Japan has gone to dangerous levels, with Japan turning to the West for new methods of whaling. Japanese relationship with whales is strong, and from a story, a daughter was given a whale as a bride. With anything from the skin to the meat usable, it was going to be a huge problem as many whales started to be killed for commercial uses, quoting a famous proverb "There is nothing to throw away from a whale except its voice."

Whales are useful, they are a great source of protein after the nuclear bombs devastated Japan and food was scarce. The teeth are also known as sea ivory, which are carved into beautiful statues or etched with ink, made into pieces of art. The blubber is fine and free of any impurities allowing it to be used as a lubricant, or even heavily processed into cosmetic products.

In 1986, a commercial ban of whaling was introduced following a whopping 226000 tonnes being consumed in 1962. Yet Japan under the term of "research"were aiming to capture and kill at least 1,000 whales, including many endangered species, the largest whaling expedition ever in 2007. This is a large jump from 200 in 1985. The entire fleet of ships, proud of leading the expedition, ignored many countries advice on stopping the killing of whales. It had also received strong opposition from environmentalists and conservation groups. What is there to be "proud" of? Having the fate of all whales lying at your feet? Eating away the population of a species, driving them to extinction? Leading the entire fleet of ships to prepare for mass genocide? There is not much pride in taking away lives, especially when there is a already dwindling population of whales.

Many have reservations about the hunt having any scientific value. Japan said hunting of whales would not have an impact on whale populations, but non lethal forms of treatment, allowing the whale to survive, could produce the same effects.

But would it all be the Japanese fault? Whaling technology evolved from the United States and Britain in Europe. Implementation of whaling was also a move by them, industrializing so rapidly causing the once common whale to nearly disappear off the face of the Earth. Would the Japanese done the same?

There is hypocrisy and deception in Japanese research, probably the whales were hunted for commercial uses. If we work towards saving whales from Japanese tradition, we would know we did our part in saving endangered species .

WOW my first post! rules 1.0

1I1 BLOG POLICY

I shall lay them out in black and white
Firstly:
No spamming
No flaming
No undesirable content
No hacking
No cyber bullying
No indecent language

So resist the temptation!
Dont write bad comments on my blog ok?