Noon International: Food Trading Import Export

I am intrigued to discover that on the latest CIA Life Expectancy (LE) tables the USA is ranked 45th (or 29th on the UN country list of LE). Here in the USA, the high tech medical country, yet we only rank 45th. I have to ask myself why only 45th if we are so advanced in our state of the art of medicine? The only answer I can come up with is that nutrition must be a key factor in LE. Nutrition is an area were the USA falls down, junk food, prepared foods, and rich desserts are the eating habits of today. With our fast food diets our medical industry is left to combat our ill eating habits. Obesity and diabetes are becoming bigger daily. The health industry can only do so much and at some point we the individual have to take charge of our own eating habits and nutritional intake.

Perhaps we should look at the leaders Andorra, Macau, Japan, San Marino, Singapore and Hong Kong (4 of the 6 from Asia with 3 from S.E. Asia). What do they eat? We should start looking at their eating habits and model our own habits after them.

If we look further at the table you will see that at the bottom of the list are African countries that have LEs of only 40+ years. Can you imagine an LE of 40? This is no better than it was in the USA back in the 19th century. Why is it that in this prosperous world we can’t improve the LE in Africa? Why can’t we teach them and give them technology to improve their food delivery?

Food safety is an issue that can help to improve our lives and particularly in the African countries. However food safety cannot counter the effects of junk food. It is time for us as a nation to raise the bar and become aware of our health habits and eat proper nutritional foods. Let’s reach for a new level of excellence.

Technorati Tags: Noon International, junk food, nutrition, life expectancy

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Environmental issues are the second most frequent subject of public protest in China after disputes over land. Wonder why?

Some of the actual facts are:

80% of China’s electricity comes from coal; the sulfur that spews from the smokestacks of coal-fired power stations causes acid rain and the soot generates smog.

The OECD cites a finding that air pollution alone reduces China’s output by between 3% and 7% a year, mainly because of respiratory ailments that keep workers at home.

The amount of water available per head of population is only a quarter of the global average. In the arid North and West of China the figure is only one tenth of the global average.

Two in three cities already suffer from water shortages of some sort.

Groundwater in China is being pumped out much faster than is being replenished.

Most cities don’t treat sewage water at all; Beijing the hosting city for the 2008 Olympics doesn’t treat 100% of their sewage water.

Over half the water in the seven biggest river basins is unfit for consumption, according to a recent report from the World Bank. The resulting health problems reduce rural output by 2%, the World Bank found. The cost to industry and agriculture of dirty and scarce water sap GDP by another percentage point.

The World Bank put the price tag for China’s air and water pollution at $100 billion a year, or about 5.8% of GDP.

China’s paramount environmental regulator estimates the annual cost of environmental damage at 8 - 13% of GDP - much the same as the overall economic growth rate.

These are really scary numbers which make me think about Thomas Friedman, NY Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author, quote on climate change: “Don’t change your light bulbs; change your leaders.” Bono from U2 during the recent Davos Forum suggested changing both, I concur.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Water pollution, Air pollution, Beijing 2008 Olympics, GDP, World Bank

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China states it will be enacting 7700 new or update national safety rules, see the article from the UK Guardian here.

Technorati Tags: Noon International, food safety

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