Are Singaporeans taking lesser sugar?

The stats are out regarding sugar and salt intake by Singaporeans. One reason was that more people are now eating out, thus intake of salt is not falling like sugar. Is that the truth or just trying to push only the good news and avoid the bad.

I have my two cents worth looking at the issue. First, sugar is relatively more expensive than salt and when the word goes out about making drinks with less sugar, drink makers jumped with joy. Here was an opportunity to save on sugar, add more water, increase prices and nobody is the wiser. When everyone making drinks saw the benefit, it takes off like rocket. Now, it is not whether consumers still have a choice as most drinks have low sugar on its label. I wanted to buy packet drinks without the low sugar label as I always put ice cubes to keep it cool but could not find any. That was one big reason why sugar consumption has fallen over the years. One problem I personally encountered with low sugar content drinks was when putting ice cubes into drink containers diluting the drink that was to taste almost like plain water.

When the call went out about encouraging vendors to produce food with less salt, food outlets and hawkers are not listening. Customer's taste and profits are more important and all that talk about health issues goes out the ear. If one hawker uses less salt and another does not, who do you think is going to lose customers? Salt is cheap and taste matters more than just health talk. Consumers are not going to eat food finding them less savory, and that is likely to make them avoid such vendors. It is human nature. All the time we are bombarded by how tasty some places are, not how healthy the food they are selling. Money talks and bullshit walks.


Anonymous

Saudi fighting Houthis, rich men fighting poor men

Saudi Arabia is now escalating its war with the Houthis. Saudi Arabia intervened in the Civil War in Yemen between the Yemeni Government and the opposition Houthis since 2014, leading to deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. There was a lull in the fighting with the peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023 but is now flaring up. The Houthis have blockaded the Bab Al-Mandab seaway, preventing the Saudis from exporting its oil via the Red Sea route.

The Saudi/Yemen war was a massive humanitarian crisis, largely ignored by the Western MSM. Saudi Arabia was then supported by the USA, while the Yemen opposition, the Houthis, was supported by Iran. The status quo still stands and what is the result is left to be seen.

Without the control of the Bab Al-Mandab, the Saudis do not have access to the Red Sea route, even if it tried to avoid the Strait of Hormuz. Is there any substance talking about oil moving out of the Middle East at levels before the war? I am flabbergasted at the optimistic fabrication.

Right now, Trump is gloating about the release of 100 million barrels of oil from stockpiles by the G7 countries to soften the blow and hoping to keep oil prices from rising further before November. How realistic is the attempt and what will be the consequence if the blockade in the Middle East continues? Are the G7 countries capable of influencing oil prices just by releasing stockpiles? A hype is just a hype, nothing else. What is important is the reality.


Anonymous

China bashing - China bogey man got hammered again by the whites

 Commentary: What happens when Chinese AI goes rogue?

Using China as the boogeyman is no longer a convincing excuse for inaction on AI regulations by US lawmakers, says Catherine Thorbecke for Bloomberg Opinion.

TOKYO: Covering the recent round of AI apocalypse warnings, I’ve tried to reject this cult-like deference toward all-powerful computer systems and the inevitability rhetoric: If Silicon Valley doesn’t build them first, someone else – likely China – will.

Yet a recent spate of incidents in the United States has spurred a fresh, heated debate on the safety of allowing AI systems to act on their own. A growing number of researchers inside the companies involved are also warning of “existential” dangers, with Anthropic even flagging such concerns to investors in its initial public offering prospectus.

For China, the risks of near-term hazards like labour market threats or the more alarming sci-fi scenarios such as hacks on critical infrastructure are making it harder to write off the furore as a distinctly American obsession.

Beijing has dismissed some of these warnings as “fearmongering,” seeing the calls to slow AI development as an attempt to hold China back. But voices inside the industry have also suggested that frontier risks simply aren’t being felt as acutely at home because they’re further behind the US.  CNA

Never will a day pass without the American and western media bashing China of what will happen in the future if China will ..... The China sin is all about something that the Americans and the whites hyped about that could happen, not about something that China had done. The danger and invasive American AI models and agents have already started to attack many operating systems when put on short trial.

The attention is not about how dangerous the American AI can be and how to deal with them. As expected, it is about an opportunity for China bashing. What if China AI turns rogue?  Not about American AI has turned rogue. And the fear mongering starts, painting China as the demon to be that will destroy the world. This is the playbook of American and western media to demonise China and all their enemies. The Americans are committing wars of aggression and war crimes in Iran and the Middle East, on the excuse that Iran may have nuclear weapons in the future to nuke America. So it is right and proper to invade Iran, to destroy Iran, to annihilate Iranians and to nuke Iran. This is their standard of morality, of righteousness, of the white men's right to rule the world, to kill and destroy others on a vague excuse about a future event that may not happen at all.

Oh, America is so advanced in AI and China is trying to catch up? Really? America is so advanced in AI and now wanted to limit the growth of AI in China? Just like American chips are so advanced and afraid that China will come up with more advanced chips? The best AI scientists and chip engineers are all Chinese. Get it?

The silly playbook to demonise China has gone on for too long and getting so silly for the world to believe in them. Every time the American imbeciles and clowns open their mouths, the world would only laugh. Only American media and silly American crony media will find such China bashing articles worthy of mentioning and publishing.

Not to worry, China is collapsing with tons of problems. Just leave China alone, no need to do anything, no need to spend billions to demonise China. China will collapse on its own. Save your money and resources. No need to be yelping stupid things about China and make yourself looking stupid.

India and Japan will never be accepted as whites

In any case these doggies will still be crawling and groveling at the feet of Trump and even kissing his arsehole. They can hug each other on the bed, but we know all that lacks sincerity. We already know what friends of the USA are for anyway, thanks to Henry Kissinger.

India and Japan are just cultivated to counter China, nothing more. Trump is a hardcore bigoted racist and has no love lost for Asians. If those stupid Asians think otherwise, that is a sad state of affairs. India is trying to sniggle up to the Europeans at the G7 for years, or at least the Europeans in the G7 are throwing a bone for India to chew on but will never allow India into the club. India's GDP may be above some of the G7 countries but is not qualified to be in the rich White men's club. India will have to bleach itself white to be accepted.

On the other hand, the Indians are pissed off that they are not considered rich enough or white enough. Now, the first problem is solvable, maybe fifty years down the road, but the second problem about whiteness cannot be solved. After all, we all know that a leopard cannot change its spots however hard it tried.

The Japanese have considered themselves to be on par with the Whites and be treated as Whites in the past, which I do not know based on what criteria. In South America, the Japanese wanted to be treated as Whites decades ago. The same as in Africa. This is documented, not fabrication. But Japan's downfall today leaves much to be desired by countries for Japan to continue to sashay around once again like in the past.


Anonymous

American fabricated truths, everything wrong is about Iran...it used to be China

Why is everything happening in the West all pointing towards Iranian involvement? Anything wrong and they straight away point the fingers at Iran. Automatic mode? Iran is involved in the Flydubai attempted hijacking. Iran is involved in the UK RAF Fairfield plot. Is this another attempt to give a dog a bad name and then skin it? What else is going to happen to consolidate the demonization of Iran?

Not long ago, anything untoward happening in the West was always China's CPC involved. Chinese spies were everywhere in the USA and Europe. Chinese products - quayside cranes, power transformers, solar panels, wind turbines, toilet seats, academics working in universities, Chinese workers in companies and even garlic were all spying for China. Every Tom, Dick and Harry was connected to the CPC, and every Chinese company in the USA and the West was likewise spying for the CPC. Tik Tok CEO, a Singaporean was accused of being a CPC member and therefore also spying for the CPC using Tik Tok as a front.

If the Iranians are really infiltrating so successfully into Western entities just like the Israelis, it really is a problem, right? Or is the so-called tight scrutiny by the West not working as well as it had been touted to be, letting the Iranians infiltrate. Which is which? The chicken or the eggs come first?

Anonymous