Shoppers of the future will ‘pick’ fruit from supermarket shelves – Telegraph … Supermarket shoppers in the next decade will be able to pick fruit and vegetables from plants still growing on the shelves, according to a report into the future of retailing…

Cindy here: Still a long way off but it could help kids realise that fruit comes from a plant not a pack!

Expert: It’s your fault if you’re a fatty – Health – NZ Herald News … A leading expert in human nutrition has caused outrage by calling “over-fatness” a self-inflicted burden on the taxpayer. Professor John Birkbeck, adjunct professor in human nutrition at Massey University, said anti-obesity efforts won’t work until society refuses to accept the condition as normal and healthy, as it has done for smoking…

Cindy: Look for my upcoming post on this news item soon…

Lapband surgery to be publicly funded | The Courier-Mail … TAXPAYERS could soon be funding the cost of weight loss surgery for thousands of obese Australians who are too poor to pay for the operations themselves…

Cindy: This is major surgery and a drastic measure which doesn’t always work long term if they don’t deal with the reasons why they over-ate in the first place. Of the few cases I studied as a student dietitian, they all regained weight after two years – sometimes by melting the chocolate biscuits in their cup of tea!

Weight-Revealing Billboard Shames Fatties into Joining Gym | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Hmm – a novel idea. But will seeing our weight up in lights convince us to join the gym? If I’m already feeling bad about myself it will probably just drive me to relieve the pain with some more chocolate! And who cares about weight anyway? What’s more important is how much fat and muscle you have. If you don’t have much muscle you can weigh light on the scales but still be quite flabby. At the other extreme, if one of our super-fit, muscle-bound All Blacks sat on this seat the scale would flash up anywhere from 80-100kg. Does that tell you he needs to join the gym and lose weight? I don’t think so!

Govt in NZ cuts off cash to obesity coalition

How to tips for great food photopics This amateur’s photos of food are sooo good

Research : diet more important than exercise See my post and take on this here

Crazy [foolhardy] energy drink diet About 80 tsps sugar a day, who knows how much caffeine and no fibre or vitamins. No wonder she got sick.

Women deliberately buy dresses that are too small as an incentive to lose weight, researchers have found.

Homemade jam making big comeback Yeah, great idea!

Growing herbs in winter – the raw beginner’s guide Another super how-to blog post from SMH with tips on growing herbs