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JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day 
Links: diet, spam, and the Roman Invasion I subscribe to a BBC news roundup email, giving headlines in particular areas that interest me. There were four stories I want share - and I'll start with two interesting stories from the health section:

The first is a report on an eight year study of the Mediterranean diet, which shows that very small changes to the diet (a little more olive oil, OR perhaps a little less red meat) give protection from certain types of cancers. It sounds like stuff we already know, but here we have some proof.

The second is about the effect of junk food eaten by pregnant rats on their offspring. Predictably terrifying.

The computer security firm McAfee ran an experiment to see what happened when fifty people around the world surfed for a month without any sort of protection for their computer. Doesn't bear thinking about. BUT ... fascinating national differences.

Finally - well I'm a historian, so please forgive me. The headline said there was doubt over the date of Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain. Not 55BC??? Actually, it turns out that we are talking about whether it was the beginning or the end of one week in August 55BC. Wonderful stuff.

PS if you get to the fourth link, you'll see that my photo of the White Cliffs of Dover is courtesy of the BBC

Posted by Joanna at 10:16 am Labels: diet, food issues, history, links Magic Cochin said...

Heard the Roman Invasion piece on radio 4 'Today' this morning. A Texan scientist dropping an apple off Deal pier to recreate Caesar's invasion - priceless!

 
Love the Ceaser story. Oh the controversy!!! You gotta love historians.
 
Fascinating stuff Joanna. The Mediterranean diet was of particular interest - we're now eating a version of this diet having cut down on meat consumption.

I didn't know that you could subscribe and get emails on topics of interest. Thanks for the tip.
 Hippolyra said...

I recently picked up more than 30 pieces of spyware whilst unprotected on the net for 45mins downloading and installing Service Pack 2 for XP so I could install AVG free when I reinstalled my operating system the other day.

With the amount of malware that is out there I am surprised that any of the computers worked after 2 days!
 
I missed Today, but, yes, priceless, and I love it, all that effort: beginning or end of the week?!

More seriously, the Med diet research is great because it underpins all that we think we know with some solid data.

Fiona, if you have difficulty finding the BBC news email on their site, let me know, and I'll find you a link. I find it a very useful way to be sure I haven't missed stories about obscure places in Africa, and good basic news for days when I haven't enough time to read a newspaper.

Hippolyra - what a horrible story, I hope your computer has recovered. I was rather amazed, as well, that the computers worked for long. I just cannot understand why they do it, can't put myself into that mindset


8:44 pm 
I just never know what I'll find here and I love it. All these stories were super interesting in their different ways. The history thing: it makes me think it's why I like medicine and mysteries, I just like following clues and getting answers even if it only amounts to a couple of days! Sweet Joanna.
 David Hall said...

Ha! Nice little post Joanna. I'm always preaching the Med diet to people. Scary stuff what we do over here eh?

 Meg Wolff said...

Interesting article about the effects of junk food eaten by pregnant rats on their offspring. Thanks.

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