Will the Sugar Tax Be Implemented in the UK?

A new study has revealed the cost of eating healthy continues to rise, but price of high-calorie processed foods has dropped. With obesity on the rise, on a worldwide scale, this is a situation that does not bode well for the future. Now researchers in the UK are suggesting the British Government introduce a special tax for junk food and use the proceeds to subsidise the costs of fruit and vegetable production.

Data collected in the study, conducted  by the Overseas Development Institute shows cost of fruit and vegetables has soared over the last two or three decades, but in the years between 1980 and 2012 the cost of ice cream has dropped by 50% and ready meal prices have been slashed by 20%.

The UK is not the only culprit though. In China the costs of vegetables have doubled in the last 20 years, in Brazil the prevalence of sugary drinks and crisps and biscuits has been rendered more attractive by low prices, and cabbage lovers in Korean are now paying around 60% more green for their greens.

In Mexico nearly halt the adult population is obese, but little wonder. The cost of fruit and vegetables has increased significantly since 1990, but the Mexican government has already taken a proactive stance in the fight against obesity. In January 2014, a tax was introduced and applied to high calorie food and drinks.

Obesity can shorten the average person's lifespan by around nine years so the Mexican sugar tax could prolong lives, whether or not such a tax will actually become a reality in the UK, remains to be seen.

Six Little-Known Facts about Testosterone

1. Women have it too!

I know if I tell you that women produce testosterone you are going to shout "Balls!", but it's true. Women really do produce testosterone.  Most people are aware the male testes produce testosterone, but if you want to be really accurate about it the testosterone is actually manufactured by the leydig cells that are located in the testicles. Well guess what, women have leydig cells as well. They are located in the ovaries, and they are not as productive as male leydig cells, but they can and do secrete testosterone each and every day.


2. Testosterone Can Make Your Gal Feel Horny
Although testosterone is generally associated with the male sex drive, if your lady is acting a little friskier of late it could be due to elevated testosterone levels. Testosterone can enhance the female libido by targeting the receptors in the brain that are responsible for regulating the sex drive.


3. Testosterone can make you Big and Strong

Testosterone is a natural steroid hormone that can help speed up post-exercise recovery rates, aid the anabolic (muscle building) process and assist protein synthesis.


4. Testosterone Burns Fat

There is somewhat of a paradox here, because when people become overly fat or obese the extra poundage can restrict the body's ability to produce testosterone. But when the body contains a sufficient quantity of testosterone it can assist the fat burning process and help keep you slim.


5. Testosterone Levels Decline with Age

Yep! It's a scientific fact I'm afraid. The older you get the less testosterone your body is likely to produce.  It's not an ideal situation at the best of times, but when you are trying to remain big and strong so you burn off a little extra fat with your significant other, whose producing so much she's turned into a rampant beast, it can be a particularly daunting state of affairs. But do you know what the worst thing is guys? Testosterone production often starts to diminish during adolescence. After that it's downhill all the way.


6. Testosterone Supplements Began as a Piss-Take

Testosterone was first synthesized in 1935 and the production process was strange to say the least. It required a sufficient quantity of the male hormone aldosterone, which had to be distilled from around 4,000 gallons of donated human urine.

Book Talk: A Few Audiobook Advantages

Everyone knows the reasons why eBook readers are supposed to a better option than normal books (no trees are slaughtered in their creation, take up less room on the shelf etc.), but there is another option out there. Yep, I'm talking audiobooks. You know—books that talk to you! And it could be argued that audiobooks are even better than eBooks because you listen to them while eating a bag of chips and not need to worry about getting grease all over your Amazon Kindle, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. Let's have a look at a few more reasons why any getting your story fix from an audiobook may be a better option than you ever realized.

You can get your Stories on the Go

Yeah, I know what it sounds like, but I'm not suggesting you listen to your favourite book while you're sitting on the John—although it's certainly doable. But there are many occasions where flicking a few pages or consulting the Kindle are not really possible.

• At the gym:  Thank God for headphones and Terry Pratchett (now if only there was something you could do about the guy next to you with the terminal BO!)
• Driving the car:  always a good option and a real life-saver in a traffic jam.
• Travelling on the bus/train: Well you didn't really want to listen to the lady in front of you banging on about her verruca and varicose veins, did you?

No Glasses Required

After a long day at work the eyes can feel pretty tired and sore, and they can feel even worse if some smelly guy in the gym has given you a good hiding for complaining about his personal hygiene, so it can sometimes be nice to just put up your feet, close your eyes, and listen to a few chapters of a good book (a good book, not The Good Book—all the begatting that went on may have been fun at the time, but hearing about it thousands of years later ain't much fun and the Bible leaves out all the juicy bits that could have made kids actually want to read it last thing at night.)

Space Saving Stories

Although audiobooks were traditionally sold on CDs, and the really old may even have listened to them on cassettes or Long Playing Records, these days most people just purchase an audiobook download and downloads are famous for their space-saving capabilities. And in the case of Audible audiobooks there is no need to even worry about retaining a back-up copy of the file because Audible customers can log-in to their account and access all of the books in their library any time that they want to and download them as many times as required.

Great for Learning Languages

Budding language students or people who need a pre-holiday brush up on their Spanish chat-up lines can study on the go, any time they want, and speak along with the native speaker. Audiobooks are a great way to learn or improve your language skills, even if it does mean you sometimes get a few funny looks when you are talking to yourself at bus stops.

A few other Audiobooks Benefits

• No lights are required
• Audiooks don't discolour and go smelly with age
• Audiobooks can be a brilliant way to avoid listening to your partner during nagging sessions
• Paper cuts are extremely unlikely

Overeating Could Damage Your Liver

Binge drinking may be a big problem in the UK, but it appears overeating may is catching-up fast because a leading health expert is warning that, by the year 2020, most liver transplants are likely to be the results of overeating rather than alcohol abuse.

Dr Quentin Anstee, consultant hepatologist at Newcastle University and the Freeman hospital, says he UK is facing a "major and growing challenge" as an escalating number of Brits succumb to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Around 33% of the British population is already believed to suffer from the condition and researchers are putting it down to greed—people are quite simply cramming themselves with more food than their livers can handle.

"Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is one of the major and growing challenges facing the UK," Anstee said."

But with so much of the population at risk, Anstee says it may be hard to decide which individuals to "home in on".

"There has been a shift in the entire population," Anstee explained. "The truth is that the man in the street is carrying a few more pounds than a decade ago. The rate of liver disease has increased 400% since the 1970s."

The figures are already frightening enough, but Anstee's forecast for the future does not suggest there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

"It’s predicted that by the end of this decade, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease will be the most common underlying reason why people are required to have liver transplants, overtaking alcohol," he said.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a blanket term that covers a number of condition that are caused by a build-up of fat within the liver cells, but the condition is more common in those who are overweight or obese.

Obesity is on the rise on a worldwide scale though, so Brits are not the only culprits when it comes to going large on their meals and growing large a consequence. Unfortunately, once overeating has become a habit it can be a hard habit to break and many people lack the necessary motivation to exercise regularly and eat healthy, even when the stakes are so high, so Anstee's predictions for the future will likely be all too accurate.

Was the Virgin Queen a King of Deception?

Elizabeth I never married, was proud to be called 'The Virgin Queen', and claimed that people needed to feel their monarch was wedded to the whole country, rather than one man. On other occasions, she hinted that the debacle of her father’s six wives, and her mother’s death at the block, had put her off marriage for life, but many people believe that Elizabeth's aversion to marriage was due to the need to hide a terrible secret that, if it were to be exposed, would bring the nation to its knees. What was her—supposed—terrible secret? Shocking as it may sound; some evidence suggests she was a drag queen monarch, rather than a true Queen.

Although many people have heard nothing of this rumored high-level deception, it is a subject that more people may soon become aware of because noted author, Steve Berry, has worked it into the plot of his controversial new novel The King's Deception. The book is part of Berry's Cotton Malone series.

From the Amazon sales page:

"Cotton Malone and his fifteen-year-old son, Gary, are headed to Europe. As a favor to his former boss at the Justice Department, Malone agrees to escort a teenage fugitive back to England. But after he is greeted at gunpoint in London, both the fugitive and Gary disappear, and Malone learns that he’s stumbled into a high-stakes diplomatic showdown—an international incident fueled by geopolitical gamesmanship and shocking Tudor secrets."

Berry is not the only writer to have been aware of this rumor. Dracula author, Bram Stoker was aware of it as well, and was so convinced of its credibility that that he included the story in the final chapter of his lesser-known work Imposters.

But what is this story that Stoker found so convincing, and has now inspired Berry's new novel?

Apparently Henry VIII sent his young daughter to a manor house in the Cotswold village of Bisley, not for a holiday, but as a precautionary measure because he was afraid that she, like so many Londoners, would fall victim to the plague. This much is known is an historical fact, subsequent events are, however, harder to prove, but this is the story . . .

The King's sensible precaution proved to be a futile because Elizabeth caught a fever and died, a terrible turn of events that would surely have entailed terrible consequences for those who had been assigned to protect her, so the whole matter was hushed up. Elizabeth was buried in secret and a substitute was sought in the village. Unfortunately the only substitute that could be found was a young boy and, with the king's imminent arrival at Bisley there was no time to find a better option.

The two people who manufactured this incredible deception—if deception it was—were Lady Kat Ashley (her governess) and Thomas Parry (her guardian) and, fortunately for them, certain circumstances worked to their advantage. The King had rarely spent time with his daughter and even when he did so she was such a quiet child that he was used to her sitting in silence; so in the dim light of the manor, the King had no reason to suspect that anyone other than his daughter stood before him. Opportunity for a better replacement was never forthcoming, so the boy was taught to be a princess, while the real Elizabeth was buried in the manor's grounds.

It is this clandestine burial that proved to be of particular interest to Stoker, who heard persistent rumors that a coffin had been unearthed at Bisley, during the 1800s, that contained the remains of a young girl, fully garbed in Tudor finery with precious gems sewn into the fabric.

Stoker could easily see how such a deception explained the Virgin Queen's failure to marry, even though one of her most important duties was to provide an heir, and her refusal to give her hand to the Prince of Spain provoked a war.

Berry believes that when the Queen said she had the heart of a man she was telling the truth. Stoker believed it too, so much of this story is heresay; the rest is a mix of heresy and history, while the truth of the matter remains a matter of personal opinion. Queen of the Realm, or drag Queen King? Maybe this is one piece of history that is better forgotten.

More at the Mail Online

Woman Gives Up Eating in Favor of a Strict Diet of Sunlight

Sixty-five-year-old Navene Shine has decided that it is perectly possible to live on sunshine all washed down, of course, with plenty of water. A firm believer in the Breatharian Diet, she has not eaten solid food since May 30th.

Exponents of Breatharianism believe that sunlight provides all the nourishment the body needs. Sadly none of  many thousands of people who are starving in Africa have come forward to back up this theory and all of the western world practitioners who managed to find the will power to stick with the Breatharian diet are now dead.

Mrs. Shine, who has been sharing her experience via Facebook and YouTube, and has set up eight cameras around her home to track her progress, admits that her new diet has not been easy. She occasionally gets twinges of something that ‘feels like hunger ‘ and has been constipated, and claims to feel short of energy.  She also says she has suffered from nausea.

So far she has lost more than six inches from her belly and has dropped from a weight of 159lbs to 130lbs and on her 30th day of the diet she wrote:
‘I have the feeling that my body has reached a point where it has used up all its stored fats and is now looking around for what next to consume.’

If someone doesn’t get her on a sunbed pretty soon the old dear may well starve to death, but she is one lady who knows what she wants out life and appears to be ready to fight to the death to get it.

More on this story from the Mail Online

Queen Guitarist Brian May Leads Protest to Stop Badger Cull

It’s official. June 1^st is the start of culling season and one of the worst things about this is the sad fact that this outrageous and barbaric state of affairs has been fully sanctioned by the British government.

Five thousand badgers may be killed in two pilot badger culls in West Gloucestershire and West Somerset and it is likely that it will cost around £4 million to provide enough police officers to cope with the inevitable disruptions caused by animal right protestors.

Brian May, Bill Oddie, and hundreds of protestors—some wearing badger masks—have already stormed the streets of London and delivered a petition against this cruel practice. The petition had been signed by 228,000 people, but the powers that be refuse to be moved and continue to claim that course of action is necessary to prevent the spread of bovine TB.

Many experts disagree and consider the cull do be an ill-advised act that may cause the disease to spread faster than normal, meaning the government will have spent millions of pounds of the British taxpayer's money to create a bigger problem than they had before.

Philip Mansbridge, chief executive of animal charity Care for the Wild, has stated: "The badger cull has no scientific, economic or animal welfare justification.

"The Government and the NFU are blindly embarking on one of the worst agricultural policies of the past 30 years, which will lead to senseless slaughter, chaos and disruption in the countryside, huge cost to the taxpayer and no meaningful reduction in the spread of bovine TB."