Food Labels: % DI or Traffic Light Model?

With the aim to reduce the prevalence of obesity in Australia front of pack food labels may be introduced to help consumers make the right choice when buying food products. There are currently two different models under consideration for front of pack food labels. There is the Percent Daily Intake (%DI) Model and the Traffic Light Model. Most people will have already seen the %DI Model being implemented particularly on Kellogg's breakfast cereals. The Traffic Light Model is what is currently used in the UK.

%DI labelling is based on the average adult's energy requirements of 8700kJ. The %DI label on the front of the food product states the %DI per serving for energy, protein, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, total sugars and sodium, as well as the actually amount in kilojoules, grams or milligrams (which ever is appropriate).

Traffic light labelling involves 4 coloured circles on the front of the food product for fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt. There are coloured red, amber or green depending on the content of the nutrient in the product. For example if the salt content in the product was high it would have red for salt, with amber for moderate and green for low.

Which model do you think should be introduced?

A Blog for the End of Semester

So much for me trying to salvage what is left of my blogspot...two blogs and it died again, whoops. Anyway, I guess I could blame any number of things for this second lapse, like the 4 assignments due in the space of 9 days (Thursday, Friday, Thursday, Friday). The aim was start a month before and do one a week, but in the end some got more time than others, and that by no way was reflected in the marks. It's funny how these things work out.

Anyway, now it's exam time and I'm currently half way through (2 down, 2 to go). I think the hardest to are over, hopefully, and my worst subjects and easier exams are to come. It's all a bit strange that my better subjects had harder exams, and my not so good subjects have easier exams, but I guess it all works out well.

So tomorrow morning I have my Food Policy and Regulation exam. Yes, believe me, it IS as exciting as it sounds. ANZFRMC, FRSC, FSANZ, ISC, Codex, health claims, fortification (mandatory and voluntary), policy, NRVs, dietary guidelines, food selection guides, obesity, local, state and federal governments, interventions, policy-making theories, advocacy, setting and varying food standards and the process involved, food labelling, front of pack labelling, NTDs and folic acid, dietary modelling, risk analysis framework. Well that's a semester of work mushed into a few lines. And yes, at the moment I probably should be finding something extra to look over and make sure I know properly, but I'm not. I've saving my blogspot from self-destructing.

Congratulations if you finished reading that. Possibly my worst blog ever, but oh well, at least I wrote something. :)

Cooking Dinner

Today, for the first time in quite a while I actually properly cooked dinner. Okay, yes I know I have moved out of home so have to cook for and feed myself....so what have I been eating if I haven't properly cooked dinner in a while? Hmm, well I have been eating meals every night (don't worry I haven't been going hungry).

So....well about one night a week I manage to eat a meal which Heidi cooks, so a stir fry or a curry or something. Then there is my seeming endless supply of food in the freezer (of food I prepared earlier). And as a last there is always some pasta sauce and pasta in the cupboard which can easily and quickly become a meal.

Anyway, so this afternoon I actually went to the supermarket and bought lots of food. So tonight for dinner I made Chicken and Cashew Stir Fry! It was great! And it is so nice to know that I haven't lost my ability to cook, after having a week or so off actually cooking a proper meal.

Have I Abandoned My Spot To Blog?

I have recently (well a couple of weeks ago now) been accused of letting my blog die. Does a month and a half of not blogging mean that my blog has died? Well apparently it does. So the truth be known is that a little over a month ago I was introduced to myspace. So yes I will admit to it, when I have spare time or feel like procrastinating, I now log onto myspace, not blogspot. A few other things have changed over the last month too, I'm now living in a house with my brother and sister which means I have to cook and clean etc, which I didn't have to do at Mannix. I have also been getting out a bit more too...which means less time to blog. Another possible reason for abandoning my blog would be that the death of Edward also ended my blogging (Edward was first mentioned on my blog a month after I started blogging and has feature quite heavily as a topic point ever since). So yes I have blogged again. Happy now?

Goodbye Eddie Goodbye

Today is a sad day. It is the day that Edward ran kamikaze-style into the ute. And that was the end of Eddie, our fat lamb.

Even though Eddie was only 7 months and 11 days old he definitely had his own unique personality. In the early days little Eddie loved his bottles and was happy to suck on my fingers for ages. When he was only a week old he had already decided that he was too good for a cardboard box and moved into Lucy's kennel (Lucy sleeps under the house). I had gone back to Melbourne at this point and Edward adopted Mum as his new mother. He followed her everywhere.

During his short life, Edward managed a few trips to Mildura (including a visit to Mum's school one afternoon). He had a little sister for a short time (Aimee) before she up and left him because he was too much a sook for her to put up with. And Aimee also knew that she was a sheep and wanted to live with sheep (not Edward).

In the later months, Edward spent his days wandering around the house yard, chook yard and all the way up to grandma's old place, where he enjoyed sleeping under the field bins at night. His favourite place was the old round haybales. There was even a day when I saw him standing on top of them. My favourite image of Eddie is one where he came running out of the haybales with some straw sticking out of his mouth.

A bit over a month ago just before Mum and I went to Melbourne, I was showing Mum how Eddie would still come to me when I called him. Then Mum called him (thinking that he wouldn't come) while standing in the kitchen. Bad idea, so Edward jumped up the steps and into the kitchen! It was a funny sight, a 6 month old lamb running around the kitchen table. Let me assure you we got him out pretty quick.

Two weeks ago today, Edward was shorn for the first time. He actually had to spend 2 nights with sheep and he didn't manage to do a Houdini from the sheep yards, although when he was put in the paddock with the rest of the sheep the next day, it didn't take him long to escape.

Well at least now he won't have to be lead onto the truck and taken to market. His death was quick and done definitely in true Edward-style.

Edward 11/7/06 - 22/2/07

The lamb that couldn't play soccer and would never reproduce,
but was still a character and will be missed (except maybe not by Lucy).

The All-Nighter - Coola 2007

During the middle of January I spent a week as a leader on the Yr 9 & 10 Coolamatong Lake Camp (aka Coola). After a week of kayaking, sailing, waterskiing, bike riding, ropes course conquering and rafting (aka jellyfishing), the last night typically consists of an all-nighter. The All-Nighter is basically tradition.

This year campers occupied themselves by writing warm fuzzies (nice warm and fuzzy things about other people), making crafty things, watching movies, chatting, randomly sleeping on a blanket on the concrete floor of the hall or playing cards. Cards consisted of uno or the mammoth game of 500 (which started at 11pm and continued until about 5.00am).

At about 5.30am about half the campers (15) and I walked to the jetty to watch the sunrise. At the same time one of the other leaders took about 4 campers kayaking out to the middle of the lake to also watch the sunrise. The sunrise was spectacular.

5.59am

6.16am

6.23am

The black blob left of the centre is the kayakers.

6.26am

6.28am

6.30am

6.44am

Hope you enjoyed the sunrise.

Crazy Weather

Imagine this:
It is a hot sunny summer's day with the temperature hovering around 37 degrees. Not only is it hot and sunny but there is a strong hot wind blowing, so much so that it raises dust to the point that it is almost a dust storm. Then out of nowhere it starts raining. Big spots of rain. Meanwhile the sun is still blazing and there is no hint of a cool change. It rains for approximately 3 minutes and about 1 minute after the rain has stopped there is no sign that it had ever rained because the concrete has already dried.

That is what occurred on the farm about 15 minutes ago.

Snakes!

Yesterday afternoon Dad announced that he had found another carpet snake (he stumbled across a carpet python about a month or so earlier - more about that later). Anyway this snake was apparently pretty small and was asleep in the outside toilet, which is now used as Mum's garden shed. Yes, we have an outside toilet (and an inside one too), but it's not used anymore. So back to the snake. Dad took me to have a look at it, and I was expecting to see a snake curled up on the ground, but this is no ordinary snake. This clever little snake was sleep upside-down hanging off the garden tools.

Toward the end of November Dad discovered a carpet python (looks exactly the same as the one above, just a bigger, fatter, longer version). Although this carpet python was definitely not asleep. It was making a dash across the chook yard, through Mum's vegie garden and the orchard before making it's way through yet another fence and into the scrub. Along the way the carpet python, almost came close to almost death when it nearly stuck its head through the bird netting which was protecting the strawberries. It also dashed through the beetroot and potato patch, before quickly negotiating the grape vine and making its final getaway.