Final curtain call for Fantales
Australians will farewell Fantales – the iconic chocolate covered caramels famed for movie star stories on the wrappers – with plans announced today to cease producing the lollies next month.
A la recherche du sweets perdu: An obit for Fantales
A piece of my childhood was stolen from me on June 20, 2023. Nestlé Oceania Confectionery announced that it would cease making Fantales in July 2023. Fantales – hard sticky caramel toffee coated in chocolate and wrapped in the lives of movie stars. I should explain that: each wrapper had a short bio of a film star (in my generation, I understand they also now have musicians)hence the clever catchy name Fantales (kudos to the marketing whizz that came up with that).
Hungry gold miners created Victoria’s Murray cod fisheries – and we’re still dealing with the consequences
Some canny miners who saw the boom was fast fading had an eye out for business opportunities. There was another untapped, seemingly limitless resource – another type of “gold” – waiting within coo-ee of the goldfields for the right person to come along and extract it. Not from earth. From water. The cod rush was about to start.
Spending habits, negative reviews and drink-of-choice: what your favourite restaurant knows about you
Profile information runs the gamut from dietary requirements to spending habits, with tags such as “positive reviewer”, “high spender” and “delivery regular”. “[Restaurants] can get a really robust view of me as a customer,” says Paul Hadida, general manager of SevenRooms APAC. “They can go into my profile, see exactly what I ordered, how much I spent [and] how many times I’ve visited … they know the specific type of steak I like, and which whiskey I drink.”
‘We are gambling with the future of our planet for the sake of hamburgers’: Peter Singer on climate change
Joseph Poore, of the University of Oxford, led a study that consolidated a huge amount of environmental data on 38,700 farms and 1,600 food processors in 119 countries and covered 40 different food products. Poore summarised the upshot of all this research thus: A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions. Poore doesn’t see “sustainable” animal agriculture as the solution: Really it is animal products that are responsible for so much of this. Avoiding consumption of animal products delivers far better environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable meat and dairy.Those who claim to care about the wellbeing of human beings and the preservation of our climate and our environment should become vegans for those reasons alone.Doing so would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution, save water and energy, free vast tracts of land for reforestation, and eliminate the most significant incentive for clearing the Amazon and other forests.
Unearthing Culinary Pasts—With Help From Llama Poop
Around the world today, people continue to embrace simple, nostalgic foods—sometimes called “struggle meals”—for a sense of belonging within a community. Consider beloved dishes made from less desirable meat scraps and offal, such as scrapple, salami, and braised oxtails, or soups and stews that stretch ingredients, such as menudo, cassoulet, and acquacotta. Starchy dishes with humble origins made from staple crops also bring comfort to many eaters: Think colcannon, polenta, congee, or red beans and rice. By looking into past societies like the Moche’s, we can better understand how humans turn to food to navigate stressors such as inequality and environmental change. Today when we look at some our favorite humble dishes, we should consider the stories they tell about the resilience of past generations
How Food Archaeology Unearths Culinary Pasts – SAPIENS
Supermarket shelves were empty for months after the Lismore floods. Here’s how to make supply chains more resilient
Much of this region’s food is trucked in from cities and food grown in the region transported out. The 2022 flood crisis damaged farms, cut off roads and freight lines, and inundated cool storage facilities. This, in turn, led to empty supermarket shelves. And not just for a day. In Lismore, they were empty for weeks or up to four months for major supermarkets. Our new research found that shortening supply chains will be vital to make regions more resilient to these shocks – as well as drawing on community efforts such as farmers’ markets.
Is it finally time to ban junk food advertising A new bill could improve kids health
The share of Australian adults who are overweight or obese has tripled since 1980. Today, about a quarter of Australian children are overweight or obese. The consequences are serious. Obesity increases the risk of a range of illnesses, such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease, setting children up to develop chronic disease. The health care costs of obesity run into the billions of dollars each year, not to mention all the years of life lived with illness and disability, or lost to early death. This isn’t the first time a ban on junk food advertising has been floated. But there is more reason than ever to make it happe
Why are we paying so much for alcohol-free drinks that aren’t taxed?
But look at what makes up the price. All processed drinks incur a Goods and Services Tax (GST). And drinks that contain alcohol are hit with a heavy additional excise. The exact percentage is difficult to calculate, but the alcohol-related tax on a bottle of full-strength beer can exceed 30%. Industry players don’t pay that tax on non-alcoholic drinks. So, in a sense, they are pocketing a hefty bonus that well-anchored customers forget is not being passed on to the government. Ouch.
