Heart-wrenching Thai Insurance Ads

Grab the kleenex – here are two of my favourite Thai life insurance ads.

This one gets really philosophical – I love it:

Damn allergies

Sugar – A startling new truth

Back in 2009 Dr. Robert Lustig gave a lecture called: ‘Sugar, the bitter truth’ this was posted to youtube a year later and was a scientifically heavy 1.5 hour long video that you’d think not many people would sit through. But this video went viral gaining over 1,000,000 viewers. Packed with amazing research and biochemistry Dr. Lustig argued that a calorie is not a calorie.

In short, your body handles 120 calories in two slices of white bread very differently to 120 calories in a can of soft drink or beer. Dr. Lustig’s particular area of expertise is childhood obesity. Back in the 70s it was argued that our high fat diets were making us fatter which has been the prevailing wisdom for the past 30 years – but what everyone had overlooked that our diets were much higher in sugar – particularly fructose.
To cut a long lecture very short, the body uses up glucose very efficiently (sugar found in bread etc.), but turns most of the calories found in fructose and glucose into fat. The big problem is high fructose corn syrup which is found in just about everything. Basically, he argues, if you cut out the fructose you’ll cut out the fat which is why the Atkins and Japanese diets work so well – they’re very low in sugars. There’s more to the lecture than ‘fat’ – he demonstrates how sugar/fructose create problems like diabetes, hypertension etc. all diseases that have also increased since the 70s.

You can watch this fascinating video below but I’ve also linked directly the biochemsitry and interesting part here.

Food Inc. Everyone should see this!

Food Inc. is one of those documentaries that can change the world. It asks the questions, you’re too afraid to ask, when it comes to food and while we can’t watch it on PBS here in Australia it is available on youtube and I’ve put the 9 parts that make up the movie below.
Food Inc. Shows us why it is cheaper to by a fully cooked hamburger than a head of broccoli. – in other words, ‘Why is junk food cheaper than healthy food?’. Everyone is focussed on the HOW when it comes to mass producing our food but no-one is asking WHY? And you’re going to see that ‘because it’s cheaper’ is not a great answer.

Your going to see how your food is controlled by a tiny handful of companies that have taken the farming out of farm and the implications from this are pretty serious.

In short, grab a coffee – the full show is below although split into parts:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4: – told you it was rivetting stuff didn’t I?

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

Part 8: I can’t embed part 8 so you have to watch it at youtube – I’ll pop it up in a new window for you.

Part 9:

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and I also hope the links still work and PBS haven’t taken them down.

How an engineer loses weight

We’re constantly bombarded with ads offering the latest scientific way to lose weight – usually when you add the word ’science’ in your claim then you know there’s going to be money involved. Wired.com has a fantastic article on how to lose weight mathematically . . .

Want to drop 10 pounds in two months? All you have to do is the math, says Autodesk founder and Hacker’s Diet author John Walker. Here’s the skinny:

1. Multiply the pounds you want to lose by the number of calories in a pound of fat: 10 x 3,500 = 35,000.
2. Divide the total by the days you’ll diet: 35,000 ÷ 60 = 583.
3. Calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate 100 calories per ten pounds of body weight
4. Calculate your calories expenditure from exercize
5. Then use the formula (BMR+Exercise)-diet=total allowed calories

Or stated more simply: if you can eliminate 100 calories per day, that can add up to about 11 pounds a year, says Dr. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating. 100 calories – that’s less than the calories in a can of Coke! Substitute one glass of water for one can of soda a day, and you’re well on your way to permanent weight loss.

Obviously exercise can help but eating less also makes sense. And how do you know if you’re over-eating?

One night, eat only half the amount of food on your plate. Wait 30 minutes, assess your feelings of satiation, and then wait 90. If you’re still not hungry, you’ve probably been overeating. Most people grossly overestimate the amount of food they need to feel full, says Dr. David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating

You can read more of this article at wired.com

The world is amazing

I don’t know why, I just love this video – makes you realise the world is amazing:

A whole new way of seeing the world

Guaranteed: You’ve never seen data presented like this. By any logic, a presentation that tracks global health and poverty trends should be, in a word: boring. But in Rosling’s hands, data sings. Trends come to life. And the big picture — usually hazy at best — snaps into sharp focus.

Rosling developed breakthrough software which animates trends in incredible ways showing you that most of the third world is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west did. This has UNBELIEVABLE impacts on the world as you and I might know it.

Bring a tear to your eye

Cleaning up the bookmarks in my web browser I found this gem. At the time of this clip, Paul Potts used to be a salesman at ‘carphone warehouse’ … just shows you never to judge anyone by their job. Turn your speakers up, and try not to cry.

The story of a sign

Cool short film that won the NFB online competition at Cannes 2008. With a change of words, a stranger transforms the afternoon for a blind man:

5 dangerous things you should let your kids do (

An inspiring talk from Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, talking about how kids are overprotected and the 5 dangerous things you should let them do and why:

Kids not doing well at school

A teacher attaches McDonald’s application forms to kids’ failed test results… nice way to motivate them to do better next time.

via Neatorama