creative_cooks | Member Posts

Parents find Health Star Ratings confusing and unhelpful. We need a better food labelling system (Australia)

Food labels are intended to support healthy choices. But not all labelling schemes are equal.

Australia currently uses a voluntary Health Star Rating system. Food manufacturers can choose to add a star label to their packaging to indicate how it compares to other similar products. Or they can choose not to show a star rating on a product at all.

How satisfied are you with the food labeling option(s) available where you live? If you also buy imported foods, what do you think about labels from other countries?

What kind of traits do you pay attention to in food shopping? Are they easy to find on labels, harder to find, not listed, or actually forbidden to list?

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny and considerably less cold -- ice is melting in places.

I fed the birds. I've seen a large mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a pair of cardinals, and two mourning doves.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/16/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 12/16/25 -- I took a few pictures around the yard, including the plant labels I'm tracking.

EDIT 12/16/25 -- I potted 4 Granny Smith apple seeds that already split open, and stored 3 more in a baggie of damp sand in the fridge.

One of the Pink apple sprouts that I planted earlier has surfaced and opened tiny leaves. \o/ (Note that this will not make a Pink apple, since it is a seedling not a clone, but if it lives then it should produce decent dessert apples of some sort.)

EDIT 12/16/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/16/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

fuzzyred is hosting a pool for the Holiday Poetry Sale. There are no individual poem targets yet, just a general discussion of some favorite areas. If you're shopping for poetry, dive in!

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

The Holiday Poetry Sale is now open on LiveJournal. Sponsors, start your engines! It runs Monday, December 15-Friday, December 19. All listed poems are half-price. If you spend $100 or more, you get the quarter-price rate. Watch to see if someone opens a pool; there is usually one for this event.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Coffee-driven deforestation is making it harder to grow coffee, watchdog group says

Scientists have shown how deforestation leads to less rainfall in tropical rainforests. That's because the trees there soak up and release moisture, which rises to create clouds and more rain. Cutting down trees disrupts the cycle, reducing rainfall and leading to drought.

Drought, of course, makes it harder to grow coffee.

"When you kill the forest, you're actually also killing the rains, which is exactly what your crop needs to thrive in the long run," Higonnet says. "Even for people who don't much care about climate change and mass extinction, if they drink coffee and care about having coffee in the long run, this should be very scary for them."

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Hidden dimensions could explain where mass comes from

A new theory proposes that the universe’s fundamental forces and particle properties may arise from the geometry of hidden extra dimensions. These dimensions could twist and evolve over time, forming stable structures that generate mass and symmetry breaking on their own. The approach may even explain cosmic expansion and predict a new particle. It hints at a universe built entirely from geometry.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny and cold, but less frigid than yesterday. It got down to 8 below last night.

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches. I put out a new block of peanut suet.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/15/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a female cardinal.

EDIT 12/15/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 12/15/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a male cardinal.

EDIT 12/15/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen one female and two male cardinals, plus two mourning doves.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

bill_schubert

Toby is still sick and apparently developed some pneumonia on one side. I do think he'd not feeling well so it makes sense. But, of course they had to take an x-ray so $200 there, plus meds plus doc time. He's now been sick for almost three months.

Beaux is NOT sick but has an occasional cough and sneeze. Texas has year around allergies so I think it is a permanent thing. But he's fine and perky and just as happy about walking and anything else going on as he can be.

Today was pickleball day and it was right around freezing. I'm now an indoor PB player for good, I think. This time last year I'd have been putting on my cycling gear and heavy coat and gloves and playing. That was OK but I was sure happy to be NOT doing all that today. It will be the same in the summer when it it hot at 9AM and we're playing in the AC.

Meanwhile I signed up for a mixed doubles series of matches with the wife of the couple we had dinner with. She'd signed up for this Thursday afternoon not realizing that she was supposed to sign up with a male partner. So she looked at me and said please and what could I do. It will be fun and I will be exhausted on Friday morning for those games. She is late forties, a little order than my eldest son, and has way more energy than I do. But we play well together and she's smiling whether or not she wins. Perfect partner.

Living for long enough is painful at weird times. I keep getting caught off guard.

John Prin's death at the beginning of the Covid epidemic was a gut punch. It still rattles me. I'm not sure why. Lots of others around that age, just ahead of me, have died and I just nod and move on. But his landed.

Rob Reiner is the same. It is going to be a long while before I move past it. He was a mainstay in my life due mostly to All in the Family. Sally Struthers is the remaining member now. Of course Reiner did a lot more than that and there are column inches and hourly podcasts being built right now to honor the works.

The last couple of days have been pretty bad in general. I need to sit with it all.

smoothbores

Watch on YouTube

It might share ancestor with us, meaning we are from the same root although evolution has made us different species eh.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Creative Cooks

Member Posts

Food

Birdfeeding

Pool Open!

Holiday Poetry Sale

Conservation

Science

Birdfeeding

And another $415 later

Ctenophora Is this even real?

Profile

December 2025

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags