We don’t normally think about the supply chain involved in getting the food that you consume on to your table, but it is at times long and tortuous. For example, it has been said that it takes about 50 companies to prepare a can of Campbell’s soup, each one attending to a very specialized task. Although that is true for processed food, the fact is that it can be no different even for foods that require little preparation, and the food industry can be known to be highly political and may have some practices that might make you think twice about whether you really should be eating what’s on your plate or not.

Did you know that the term banana republic, used as a pejorative term to refer to politically unstable countries with corrupt governments, originally referred to Latin American countries that were huge suppliers of bananas?  In the early 20th century, Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve been listening to the radio recently, you must have heard the advertisements proclaiming that coffee can be really healthy for you as it has a lot of antioxidants. While it’s true that antioxidants can be good for you, by binding with a lot of the oxidising materials that can cause cancer in humans, the truth about the adage that coffee is good to you is far harder to establish. In this article, we’ll look at some of the science done around the world to try and determine just whether or not coffee is good for you and, if it is, how you can try to avoid some of the less benevolent effects of coffee.

We’d like to point out however, that not all coffee is created equal and some types of coffee might have more antioxidants than others, which may have practically no antioxidants. Unfortunately, there are just too many variables that determine the antioxidant content in the coffee – for instance, do green coffee beans have the most antioxidants or are there more (or less) antioxidants once the coffee beans have been roasted? What about instant coffee or coffee powders? Does the process of making instant coffee mean that most of the antioxidants have been destroyed? Read the rest of this entry »

This is normally more of a problem in colder and dryer weather although there are still many Malaysians who suffer from asthma and many other problems that are generally caused by airborne allergens. Allergens are substances in the air, which could be pollen or mould or from dust mites, that might trigger an allergic reaction in those who are sensitive to these things. They might cause a severe running or congested nose, but at the very worst, they can also trigger an asthmatic attack in those who are prone to this condition.

The problem is even more apparent if you’re commonly a city dweller visiting the countryside for the first time. Unless your immune system has been regularly exposed to low amounts of allergens (even in small enough amounts that it won’t trigger an allergic response), your system is likely to react quite strongly to the allergens out in nature. Therefore, if you’re prone to getting asthmatic attacks and you’re going to be out exercising or walking in nature for a while, it’s probably a good idea to keep to the following handy tips: Read the rest of this entry »

We don’t normally think of bats as important animals to save because there seems to be so many of them, and that they’re more of an annoyance rather than a really important part of the ecosystem. Yet, in the United States, bats are currently in some danger and conservationists and other individuals are swinging into action to save them. You might ask yourself why they’d bother, but the truth is that all animals and plants do generally play an important role in the ecosystem and bats, as it turns out, are hugely important and they can even generate a substantial amount of economic value. We were highlighted to this piece of news by this article.

Bats are what is known as apex predators, which means they lie at the top of the food pyramid and play an integral role in managing the activity of the other creatures below it in the pyramid. Bats generally eat insects and help control the insect population. Fruit bats in particular are Read the rest of this entry »

It is said that reading broadens perspectives and open minds and we have no reason to dispute this age old saying. We think it is quite saddening that many Malaysians tend to read very little with some statistics quoting that the average Malaysian only reads a total of two pages of print a year. Reading is in fact a very cheap way of exploring the world and experiencing much of what it has to offer from the confines of your own home while expanding your vocabulary and communications skills. It’s particularly important to inculcate this habit from a young age.

We still need to be mindful, however, that the ability to indulge in reading is really one of life’s little luxuries and that it can be too much for the most disenfranchised amongst us. With that in mind, a former Microsoft executive, John Wood, left a high flying corporate career in order to Read the rest of this entry »

With just a few simple cooking techniques at home, you and your family can enjoy better health. Here are some tips that we’ve gathered on how to cook more healthily at home:

Reduce the amount of salt you use in your cooking. Most of the time we get used to a certain quantity of salt but, in fact, if you cut the amount of salt in your diet by a half, you might not even notice the difference. Reducing your salt intake is essential in keeping your blood pressure and health within a healthy range, and prevents you from getting a whole host of kidney problems. If you find the taste change unacceptable, you can always substitute salt with any natural herbs to make up for the taste change, and even get the health benefits from some of these healthy herbs. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve recently seen this short film that describes gorillas as 98.6% close to humans. While we can’t exactly say whether the number is accurate or not, it is undeniable that the genetic codes of many of the great apes (of which gorillas are only one of the family) are extremely similar to those of the human race, and it is in the slight differences between the genetic codes that make the great apes all vastly dissimilar to one another. The film follows a few families of gorillas and we think one thing is immediately striking, although gorillas are commonly depicted as aggressive and dangerous animals, this isn’t necessarily the whole pictures. In fact, sometimes human aggression can be a lot more scary and dangerous than gorilla aggression.

Admittedly, we haven’t seen any gorillas up close in the wild so we will have to fall back on the work of pioneers such as Dian Fossey and the many groups of conservationists and field biologists who spend a lot of their times with gorillas. It turns out that, in the wild, gorillas are remarkably social animals who are practically never violent with members of their own family or other species. The only times when gorillas get aggressive with one another is when there is competition between two families and the two dominant males of each family engage in a fight to the death. Although Read the rest of this entry »

This is something that we normally don’t think too much about since we get so much sunlight here in Malaysia. In fact, we even try to go out of our way to avoid as much sunlight as possible since it just makes us hot and sweaty, which is something we don’t particularly want during the day. Nevertheless, sunlight has some useful benefits for all of us in moderate doses and can play an integral part in maintaining our physical and mental health.

Perhaps the most important function that sunlight allows the skin to naturally produce vitamin D, which is actually the most convenient source for this important vitamin. Of course, vitamin D has been added to many foods now – as humans have moved on to a more sedentary lifestyle indoors, humans no longer get enough sunlight to naturally produce as much vitamin D as is needed to maintain health. Read the rest of this entry »