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 »