What are they cooking for dinner?

The picture below shows the dinner for each family member cooked by a housewife in Japan.

Menu

• Grilled Fish with Simmered Burdock
• Open Omelette with Octopus and Basil
• Boiled Komatsuna (a Japanese vegetable) and Thinly Sliced Pork with Chili Soy Sauce Dressing
• Grilled Deep-fried Tofu
• Fried Yam and Shitaki Mushroom with Butter

Mayo Clinic Developing Artificial Pancreas to Ease Diabetes Burden

The 25.8 million Americans who have diabetes may soon be free of finger pricks and daily insulin dosing. Mayo Clinic endocrinologists Yogish Kudva, M.B.B.S., and Ananda Basu, M.B.B.S., M.D., are developing an artificial pancreas that will deliver insulin automatically and with an individualized precision never before possible.

As part of this effort, Drs. Kudva and Basu will present their latest findings on how the mundane movements of everyday life affect blood sugar to the American Diabetes Association meeting this month in San Diego.

“The effects of low-intensity physical activity, mimicking activities of daily living, measured with precise accelerometers on glucose variability in type 1 diabetes had not been examined,” says Dr. Kudva.

Among his newest findings is that even basic physical activity after meals has a profound impact on blood sugar levels for people with type 1 diabetes. “You would expect this result, but we wanted to know to what extent this phenomena would happen in people with type 1 diabetes,” Dr. Kudva says.

Diabetics who engaged in low-grade physical activity after eating had blood sugar levels close to those of people with fully functioning pancreases. Those who remained sedentary after their meal, however, had elevated blood sugars.

The researchers plan to incorporate these findings into an artificial pancreas being developed at Mayo Clinic. The “Closed Loop System” under development includes a blood sugar monitor, an automatic insulin pump, a set of activity monitors that attach to the body and a central processing unit.

Clinical trials of the artificial pancreases are likely to begin in November with a handful of inpatient volunteers.

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A Chinese Shrimp Stir-fry Recipe from My Clippings

Ingredients

1/2 Papaya
300 g Shrimp
25 g Lily Bulb
1/2 Red Bell Pepper
pinch of salt and pepper

Sauce

1 tsp Cornstarch
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tbsp Water

Method

1. Shell and devine shrimp, can keep the tail. Rinse and marinade with salt and pepper.
2. Peel and seed papaya, cut into bite-sized pieces.
3. Cut lily bulb into pieces, rinse and set aside.
4. Dice bell pepper.
5. Heat 1 tbsp oil, stir-fry shrimp until nearly cooked. Dish up and set aside.
6. Stir-fry lily bulb and bell pepper till soft. Add papaya and shrimp. Toss to combine.
7. Add pre-mixed sauce ingredients, stir-fry until sauce thickens. Serve hot.

Source: Hong Kong magazine

US Made Chopsticks Exported to China

For more than 3,000 years, chopsticks have been the quintessential Chinese dining tool. Now, millions of chopsticks are getting a “made in the United States” label, as a Georgia factory churns out utensils that will be exported to China.

The type of wood required for chopsticks – not too hard, not too soft – is scarce in China, but Southern Georgia is lush with both poplar and sweet gum trees, which are ideal. Most Chinese chopstick companies have traditionally imported wood from Russia and a few other countries to manufacture in China. But new Russian regulations against shipping raw lumber and rising freight prices have forced the industry to consider alternatives.

Entrepreneur Jae Lee, who is a South Korean-born US citizen, had initially been interested in shipping lumber to China.

But he got the idea to set up shop in the US after speaking with a friend in the chopstick business who was discouraged by increasing freight costs, he said in an interview with China Daily.

In November he opened Georgia Chopsticks in the town of Americus, Georgia, and is now producing 2 million chopsticks a day.

“China is the No 1 importer for raw materials,” he said. “But it can be very expensive to ship materials, and some of the materials often get wasted in production. I realized that instead of sending logs, I could save money by producing somewhere else and then sending the products to China. Of course when a lot of labor needs to be done, you cannot beat Chinese prices. But when it’s just basic work, it’s worth it.”

Lee said the wood is trimmed down to the basic shape of the chopsticks at the factory in Georgia. Then most of the company’s wares are shipped to China, where they are polished and packaged in a Japanese-owned factory in Dalian. Some of the chopsticks are then sent to Japan and South Korea to be sold.

Since opening, the company has employed 25 workers and plans to hire at least 125 more to ultimately produce 10 million chopsticks a day, he said. This is great news for a town where unemployment is at 12 percent.

“This benefits both sides,” Lee said. “I think more Chinese companies should look outside China, instead of just buying raw materials. Right now, we’re the only chopstick company doing this. But I really think more Chinese companies should consider doing this in other areas too.”

Source: China Daily

Chips, Fries, Soda Most to Blame for Long-Term Weight Gain

The edict to eat less and exercise more is far from far-reaching, as a new analysis points to the increased consumption of potato chips, French fries, sugary sodas and red meat as a major cause of weight gain in people across the United States.

Inadequate changes in lifestyle factors such as television watching, exercise and sleep were also linked to gradual but relentless weight gain across the board.

Data from three separate studies following more than 120,000 healthy, non-obese American women and men for up to 20 years found that participants gained an average of 3.35 pounds within each four-year period — totaling more than 16 pounds over two decades.

The unrelenting weight gain was tied most strongly to eating potatoes, sugar-sweetened beverages, red and processed meats and refined grains such as white flour.

“This is the obesity epidemic before our eyes,” said study author Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an associate professor in the department of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health and the division of cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “It’s not a small segment of the population gaining an enormous amount of weight quickly; it’s everyone gaining weight slowly.”

“I was surprised how consistent the results were, down to the size of the effect and direction of the effect,” he said.

The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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