Posts by B Jones

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  • Island Life: Tune in, turn on, score…,

    Not to mention coffee is on the list of things that you probably shouldn't have too much of if you're in your first trimester (more than 2 a day increases your risk of miscarriage). As are RTDs and a number of other suggestions that don't really survive second consideration.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

  • Hard News: Chocolate elitism,

    Whittaker's Mocha has ground up coffee beans in it. I bought some by accident once - extra coffee beans aren't so useful when you're making ganache. It's quite nice eating though.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

  • Hard News: Chocolate elitism,

    Tempering chocolate properly is a pretty important part of making it good, I understand. All to do with crystal formation and the temperature at which it will melt (in your hand, or in your mouth).

    All of this, of course, is making the siren song of the office vending machine that much harder to resist. If we're talking cheap and cheerful, the old Pixie Caramel is pretty hard to beat if it's not too cold.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

  • Hard News: Chocolate elitism,

    I suppose it had to happen, given that Cadbury's has been doing their Old Gold brand for some time, and needed a point of difference between that and its other brands. You'd think they'd make the OG better rather than the DM worse, though. The price of it all seems to have come down in recent years.

    I tap out at around the 60-70% cocoa range - any more than that tastes great but tends to turn into cement in my stomach.

    Schoc's tequila, lime and salt chocolate is completely counterintuitive, but really very good.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

  • Island Life: Tune in, turn on, score…,

    And also, while the concept of abortion is no big deal to many people, losing a fetus you actually want, after you've seen the 20 week ultrasound and felt the kicks, would be pretty terrible regardless of your position on the pro-choice/anti-abortion spectrum. Preventing this from happening strikes me as something worth doing.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

  • Island Life: Tune in, turn on, score…,

    81st - the opposite, according to this paper. We use less iodised table salt, but consume more food with the salt already added, which isn't iodised.

    Urban legend has it that goitre is spreading like wildfire amongst the households of Khandallah and Remuera, who have switched from Cerebos to Maldon. Sounds a bit dodgy to me.

    Oddly, most of our iodine consumption comes from the chemicals they use to clean out dairy equipment - it gets into our milk, but in a good way. Changes to dairy processes mean that we're getting less.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

  • Hard News: When it's Not Okay,

    He clearly sees himself as the superior intellect in that room.

    Doesn't stop him from thinking Jane Austen wrote melodrama. And don't get me started on the reporter who thought he was referring to Mrs Bennett. Pride and Prejudice is a comedy, for heaven's sake - I think what he's after is Wuthering Heights.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

  • Island Life: Tune in, turn on, score…,

    It's not a precise analogy, Glenn, I won't insist on it. But there is a difference between how people treat freedom of choice for the general population and those responsible for the care of children. I know I do - I get annoyed enough with people exercising their freedom to made perverse choices in direct contradiction of medical evidence, but I get shoutingly angry when they do so on behalf of their kids.

    Some being over at Kiwiblog that seems to have acquired literacy without humanity actually suggested that those women who didn't know that folate was good for their kids would be bad mothers anyway and didn't deserve the benefits of mandatory fortification. There's a gender element to the debate that's very obvious over there.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

  • Island Life: Tune in, turn on, score…,

    I wonder how many lunches My Key has had with the manufacturers of B9 pills that are at the moment sold to all pregnant and planning women. A public health initiative like this would cut into their profits something awful.

    Not necessarily, you'd still need to supplement if you were planning a baby to get to the higher levels they recommend. It's just that fortifying bread would mean that there's a higher baseline population consumption, and therefore a better safety net, for people who were unaware they could benefit from this.

    It interests me that in a world where you could probably get a majority of people to support a total ban on alcohol consumption among pregnant women, the instant that measures to improve babies' health could fall on the shoulders of everyone else, there's an uproar. Sure, this is a sophisticated version of the Helen Lovejoy doctrine, but it's one in which there is evidence of preventable physical harm, rather than an imagined moral one.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

  • Island Life: Tune in, turn on, score…,

    A policy version of direct rabbit-rifle pointing might be identifying all women aged, say, 15-45 and giving them each supplements in pill form for up to thirty years each. I think it's pretty easy to identify the cost and implementation issues associated with that.

    I expect everyone seriously objecting to supplementation to hand over their supplies of Sultana Bran and Calci-Smart tout suite.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 976 posts Report

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