Heavier taxation on sweets

The Finnish Finance Ministry has made a proposition on an additional tax on candy and sweets, sweetened soft drinks, chocolates and products containing cocoa taking effect by beginning of next year.

The proposition is based on the risen consumption of confectionery, obesity and deteriorating dental health becoming more common amongst the young during the past ten years and a similar tax was actually already in force in Finland between the years of 1926 and 1999.

This additional tax on sugar is estimated to bring in about 120 million more euros a year to the state budget, and also hopefully leading to decreased consumption of confectionery with it resulting in long term savings in dental and health care.

What I wonder here is, why only these items? Why not tax all un-healthy foods more? The higher consumption of junk-food must also have deteriorating effects on the health amongst the population. And why not lower the taxation of healthy foods?

Anyway, today is the car free day for the 11th time in Finland, a day people are encouraged to leave their car at home and use the public transports, go by bike or walk instead. According to what I’ve heard, today, in the city of Jyväskylä 3000 free bus tickets are handed out, and public bus fares are available at a reduced price in the capital region . This in order to encourage better health and exercise routines, as well as being more friendly to the environment.

Shot or no shot?

Okay, so now it has happened, my first appointment that was cancelled because of the Pig flu.

The person in question will be getting back to me next week when feeling better. And if not feeling better by next week, then who am I to turn to?!?

I wonder if this Pig flu really is as dangerous as the media wants to make us believe. A pandemic it is that is for sure and some have died of it, but then some people die of the normal seasonal flu as well and any flu medication is a high seller at present, among tissue paper and anti-bacterial washes.

The major discussion topic among people here in Finland now seems to be whether to or not to, take the flu shot, that is. And there are pro's and con's in both choices.

Getting the vaccination, well there are side effects and the queueing, as people have waited in line for hours for their shots. By the way, how are you to know when it is your time? Does anyone tell you when to go? Still it takes about two weeks for the antibodies to form and you getting a resistance for it, maybe, for the flu in question as this is a viral flu, and as you might have heard viruses do constantly mutate. So in a worst case scenario there might be no point in taking the shot, as it has already changed and does not work against the new strand of the flu.

Okay, what about not getting the shot then? Well, I guess keep it your own secret, you better not tell anyone about not having it to avoid getting ostracized.

Anyway, a quite big school in the vicinity of the capital had their flu shots, and this against the general guidelines of the flu vaccinations from the health department. As there are guidelines on who is to get vaccinated first, elder people, young children etc. One can wonder if there maybe might have been some children to some prominent politician, or maybe even in plural as in politicians, attending to that very school...

Ready at hand

The weekend has been filled with snow relentlessly falling off the sky in all directions, and fortunately we have not had any power cuts that have occurred around the country.

Winter cold and snow storm has not out any restrain on exiting for the offspring, and very surprising news reached me by accident when having dinner yesterday.

I am aware of the drinking habits of the youth, and I do know the offspring also drinks alcohol. I do not like teenagers getting drunk but I see no way of prohibiting it either, I do not buy it, nor do I allow them to store it at home and they’ll do it anyway with or without our consent, just like we used to in our time. All we can do as a parent is to be there when needed and sometimes it takes nerves to listen to what you are told.

I know I am not told everything but it seems I get to know a far bit more than other parents and lately the stories have not all been very nice. This weekend a friend of the offspring, a first time drinker I am told, had had too much alcohol and passed out.

Fortunately the rest of the company was alert enough to call an ambulance, and with it saving the life of the adolescent.

With a blood alcohol content of 0, 40 % it was touch and go, just and barely, saving his life. And knowing that a blood alcohol content rating of 0, 20% means serious intoxication, and that 0, 35-0, 40% means potentially fatal alcohol poisoning; it scares the hell out of me thinking this was a first time out, drinking alcohol.

This incident seems a bit sad, maybe it is the exception of the rule that every rule needs to have to be confirmed, as a recently done research done by the University of Kuopio suggests that Finnish alcohol consumption appears is levelling off.

The research is based on 40 years of statistics and the consumption is compared to other countries, and as alcohol consumption in Finland has doubled in a decade, with the average consumption over ten litres per year and person, the Finns tendency for over consumption has been lowered by the more moderate use of alcohol use among adolescents. Adolescents are considered to either totally abstain from alcohol or to be more be moderate drinkers, much like their European peers in comparison to elder people who more tend to turn to drink as comfort when dealing with the turns of life.

So, there is nothing we can do about our offspring drinking alcohol but to talk about it at home, instead of trying to ignore the whole thing as I have discovered most parents tend to do. Adolescents do drink, and most of the times they are okay, but in case of an emergency, even if you hate thinking about it, we have to give them the confidence and make them feel secure enough, to take the needed action, call for help.

At least one thing is good about mobile phones and teenagers using them all the time, which I always earlier used to find most annoying.

They are always ready at hand in case of an emergency!

Unwanted houseguests

After last week’s food poisoning by the Cryptosporidium infection in Helsinki, I came to think about other pests that occur more often than they used to earlier.

Head lice, cockroaches and other insects are more common now in Finland, than they were earlier. Their decline has been said to have been because of better personal hygiene as well as to the more frequent house cleaning chemicals and better routines, until a couple of decades ago. Since then, with the busier lifestyle people tend to clean their homes less often and the more frequent travelling to far away countries has most certainly had a negative effect on the occurrence of head lice and cockroaches. Or should I here be saying "a positive" effect?

Here I am finally trying to get to my point of today, why then is it most often people who lead an alternative way of life, such as more "back to nature" with saving the environment, leading a "greener" life and alternative views opposed to the consumption society more often get the pests?

Like for instance, an acquaintance of ours called me to happily and told me she had head lice. Well, I guess that would not have been my reason to call anybody, only the ones that could have been infected if I had had any, but she just told me her news like it was something everybody was yearning to have!

To the story I must add that she then worked in a Steiner school, a philosophy that is more in tune with Mother Nature, and maybe they either are less prone keeping up a good hygiene or their soaps, shampoos and washing detergents are too environmentally friendly to kill such house guests.

Houseguests I would hate to get, and even when just thinking about it, it makes my scalp itch! Even now, years later.

And to tell you the truth, it was no joyride, as about at the same time this acquaintance of ours rang me, we had had a friend of the offspring’s on a sleep-over with her own accompanying guests in hair. She was decent enough to ring me about it when she afterwards discovered she had lice. So off to the pharmacists I went. No fun there, just serious business with the lady pharmacist sneering at me when I asked for and bought waste amounts of lice shampoo, enough for two rounds, as a prophylactic. Just in case, for the whole family to kill even the tiniest hint of chance of getting an infection.

All bed linen, covers and pillows hats, scarves and winter coats had to be washed and detoxified as a precaution and I was absolutely knackered after all the cleaning and washing. And thought never again!

And here we go again, it really bugs about this incident, the same girl with lice infection in her hair visited us a couple of weeks later, and as it was winter time and all use hats, scarves and winter coats, well I had to go over all our winter clothes that had been hanging in the hallway, once again. Very nice she rang me again and told, but why could she not have told us beforehand, as she apparently knew before, so I could have made the proper precautions?

At least my detergents and shampoos were up to the job, no head lice turned up in any inspections combing any hair in this household, so far.

So, keeping fingers crossed.

And pepper, pepper touch wood.

Food poisoning in cafeteria

65 people have caught micro-organism called Cryptosporidium that causes gastro-intestinal illness and 4 have been admitted to hospital because of dehydration.

The infection was as traced to the public works cafeteria in Helsinki that closed on Friday after the health officials learned about it, but the source of the outbreak is still to be determined to avoid it from spreading further in the country, as imported food is suspected to be the culprit.

This is the first of its’ kind in Finland so far, even though they are relatively common around the world. The symptoms of the infection begin to appear one week after you’ve become infected. The symptoms of the infection are diarrhoea, stomach cramps, nausea and fever and can last from two weeks but can remain for up to five weeks. The treatment is symptomatic with fluid rehydration, electrolyte correction and relieving pain. Cryptosporidiosis is an acute short-term infection and in healthy adults the illness usually passes on its own but can become severe in children and persons with immune deficits.

Specialized in a generality

How strange does it not sound when somebody has specialized in general medicine?

I know that the word is used in many other languages, but it just occurred to me the other day how stupid it really sounds.

Anyway, I was admitted into hospital for some major surgery, just routine stuff but minding the rumour the hospital in question I was an outpatient, I was quite a bit worried about having it done there. And it turned out excellent.

The surgeon that was performing the operation took his time to see me before the procedure, to talk things through and chat about common trivialities such as the weather, which I normally find boring stuff but this time joined in out of sheer pleasure, it really took the edge of my by then almost panic stricken fear. Nest came along the anaesthetist, to interview me about possible allergies, when I had eaten and if I’d taken any medication in the morning. Same questions, which was asked in the pre-interview the precedent week by a nurse. The longest time it took was the waiting for getting in to the theatre and estimated time had been mentioned as 6-7 hours before I could leave for home loaded with a stock of heavy painkillers. I was quite amazed that just after having had major anaesthesia when I was sedated and the drugs totally knocked me out and 3 and a half hours later I was ready to leave for home in perfect condition!

Oh, and about the huge misunderstanding that Finland should have health care free of charge, well that is a huge lie as they do bill you for it afterwards.

Choose your parents well

Dear spouse of mine watched a very interesting TV show some time ago, that I was unfortunately not able to see at the time, but was referred about very keenly so I had to google about it.

The programme was very interesting indeed, and I went through extensive research criss-crossing the Internet. As you might know, gene research has been going on for some time now and we learn more and more about genes and their effect on us as time goes by and I was surprised to hear that a gene mutation actually can be good for you!

I had always thought mutated and malformed genes were bad for you but no, not always, is the case so. In fact, possessing this particular mutated gene could save your life, and the lives of your children

About an average of 10% of the European population are estimated to have this mutation in their CCR5 gene. 16 % of the Finns and Russians and 14 % the Scandinavians possess the same gene.

This particular gene is called the CCR5 and the malformed itself has its’ own name, “Δ32”.

But first we have to leap back to the dark middle ages and then back to our time in order to understand what I am ranting about here. What was going on in the middle-ages? Well,” the black death” or the plague, was two thirds of the population of Europe and those with the mutated Δ32 inherited genomic sequence are those who survived, passing on their defect gene, which in this case was life saving, to their off-spring. Generations and generations passed by and then came the HIV-virus and AIDS.

You might now wonder where the connection is, if there is any at all, but I assure you that there is one.

Now comes the interesting part, the Finns are said to be resistant to HIV infection, but who wants to try it out on the entire population as they might be so absolutely wrong as they can be. According to research the possession of the Δ32 gene makes you of HIV if you inherit it doubly, that is from both your parents. If you have inherited only the half you are able to delay the onset of HIV once you’ve become infected.

So if you want to have unprotected sex and no worries about HIV, be aware of whom you chose as your parents and ancestors!

Truth serum?

Since the last time I blogged the whole family has been down with this years’ unusually virulent and persistent flu, for myself it has now been dragging on into the third week now but there might be a part of my pollen allergies intertwined with it.

Soup has for some time now been scooped and digested in abundance together with tens of pots each day of well brewed chamomilla tea. The herbal tea served steaming hot with luscious spoonfuls of golden honey poured into it. Drunk several times a day it really helps to beat the flu except in my case as I seem to be allergic to either the chamomilla tea or the honey, in large amounts and digesting it several times a day. Today for the first time I got a bunch of wood anemones, my favourite flowers. Normally I get them for Mother’s day which is a couple of weeks away but with this heat wave they might already have bloomed over and wilted by then. That is if the for this time of the year unusually hot spring weather continues. Most of the birches have got tiny small leaves by now and the grass is green.

So it has been quite boring as well as uncomfortable to have been ill for this long. My trip to the local pharmacist the other day to stock up with some painkillers was an ordeal with fever but since I was the only one well enough to go there I had to be clench my teeth together in order to safely get there and back.

Dear spouse of mine called the doctor’s the other morning and leaving a message on the answering machine he did not even remember his own phone number and had to ring back three times before he listened to me and wrote it down on a piece of paper to get it right. That’s what fever does to you, a head full of slime and with a runny nose and sneezing all the time, it makes you look and sound like just the idiot you feel.

I had planned to go to some special spots to get some early spring photos but with this lot home constantly needing some more soup, I may not get the chance to do it this year, even if I would recover quickly and be sane again. And I will never, ever try to cure any cold or flu with a hot bath with a snifter of brandy. That really knocks you off your feet if not your brain. Zonked and down with fa high ever, not a good combination. The outcome is lethal if you have anything you want to stay as secrets as you are not fully at the height of your intelligence. Out of drunkards and children’s mouths comes the truth they say here.

Maybe this method of mine with fever, not bath and brandy could be used as an alternative to all the drugs like scopolamine and others, used to get the truth out of spies. Maybe it also could also successfully be used on tipsy spouses or offspring entering home in the early morning hours. Just one catch, how to give them the fever.

Knocked off my feet

I really had no idea of how hard the death of my dear friend would affect me until it one day did hit me and almost knocked me off my feet.

Just keeping going with my ordinary daily routines for normality’s sake was maybe the thing I needed to do right then, but now I seem to be surfacing from my deep grief and become normal again. Somehow it seems that a really bad flu did the trick and gave me the time and needed slowing down to realize what had happened and gave the necessary time to get through my feelings.

Anyway, while my Blog has been inactive, I still have had ideas of what I have wanted to write about, so even if I might not have put them down in letters in rows forming readable words, I have been thinking. So now I hope I will be able to maintain my normal blogging routine unless this spring hits me with massive doses of pollen and knock me down a second time.

Offspring has been quite worried and even went down to the market to get me some smoked herring to cheer me up, but unfortunately my throat was too sore at the time being I did not enjoy them as much as I ordinarily would have. But they say it is the thought that counts, and the thought was beautiful.

Moisture damages

An average of 50% of the schools in Finland suffers from moisture damages, according to recently published information and one fifth of the 6.000 schools have serious problems with moisture and mould.

The same goes for many municipal and government offices around the country. This is a problem the authorities concerned have been aware of for about two decades but decisions apparently were made at the time to do nothing about it.

Today this is a health hazard with an increasing number of respiratory illnesses and allergies in school children and employees working in government and municipal offices and the country will be facing bills of billions of Euros in both health cots and medical treatments of the ill. The houses built in the early 60’s and 70’s and repairs of the same were done with different knowledge and standards than today.

The problem was already discovered two decades ago and the then in charge decided to postpone the needed alterations and repairs of the buildings and it will now be more expensive to mend the situation than it would have been to do it back then. Now they will have to face the medical cost of the illnesses it causes in addition to the repairing of the buildings.

Anyway, old dear friend of mine peacefully passed away yesterday afternoon…

Life will never be the same, but it goes on.

On coffee again

The town of Nokia is still suffering of lack of potable water as they still are waiting for the results of the cleaning of the contamination from its municipal water in some areas of the town. The chloride levels in the water were temporarily raised sky high in order to flush out the impurities and people were asked to run the tap water in order to get the water pipes clean.

The last results of the water’s purity is expected by end of this week and then hopefully life can go back to normal for the last 10.000 inhabitants in the last and worst contaminated part of the town after having been on detention from tap water and having to collect it at these special drinking water distribution stations all over town since beginning of December last year. I can only imagine the trouble you have to go through for making one single cup of coffee, which reminds me; our house is more peaceful now than it has been for the past three weeks as dear spouse of mine is once again allowed two cups of his accustomed coffee. One in the morning before he leaves for work and the second one that the two of us have together when he arrives home after a hard days work. Which is a nice custom as we share what has happened during the day over the coffee, a moment for just the two of us every day as routine?

All raw vegetables are back on the menu, as well as is his favourite rye bread that was the second thing he missed the most being on this scientific “we will then know” diet his doctor ordered, only thing missing is dairy products and as the air home nowadays is less polluted by bad fumes our dear docto0nr must’ve been right. Not that I doubt him, as I notice the pleasant outcome, but it might have been something else, not necessarily more serious but something that would not have been quite as obvious as this lactose intolerance is.

At least there will be no more grunting about “coffee this and coffee that” anymore when out on town on our almost weekly shopping trips to town, dear husband and I with an occasional impromptu coffee and cake break.

No equality in Parliament

The Finnish Parliament returned to working life again as their Christmas break ended on Monday.

Despite having been on Xmas break the parliament has been hitting the headlines with rumours about female assistants and secretaries having been sexually harassed by male parliamentary representatives. Names of the representatives have of course been visible in the media but none of the allegedly sexually harassed has come forward. The president and the chairman of parliament both have condemned sexual maltreatment, and to my surprise I found out that the law on equality only applies to workers and not to representatives of the parliament. This seems like a peculiar oddity and at the same time a bad flaw in the law in these days when sexual equality is spoken about and regulated and guidelined for here in Finland in every way.

Anyway, I have been down with the most excruciating headache since Saturday afternoon and finally today it was time for my appointment with my chiropractor. I have a tendency to get my neck all tense and then the headache hits me like a sledge hammer, it is no migraine as my migraine medication does no do anything for it and ordinary painkillers only get the edges off it, and as the agonising pain can go on for day and night for up to ten days I sometimes crave for a bullet to end it all. All I have been able to do about it has been to stay in bed in my dark bedroom and wait for it to pass, counting the hours…and seconds avoiding to move and to think. And thinking is not the best thing to do, the rest of the family always enjoy the oddities that comes out of my mouth at these fortunately more rare than commonly habitual occasions of this headache.

Thinking about it right now, it seems a bit like an over drastic measure to take to end the pain with a bullet into the brain but this far nothing has helped, and when you’re there having the pain you just want it to end. This time I was lucky as I had the appointment with the chiropractor so conveniently booked, almost like a premonition. Of course his treatment was not the most pleasurable ones I have been through, and believe me I have been to a couple of chiropractors in my days, but the relief afterwards even though places still are sore and ache but I got relief from the tension, the headache lifted off.

God, am I thankful to be alive and kicking!

As sweet as it comes

As sweet as it comes

Sucralose is a non-caloric sweetener.

It is an approved food additive and is also called E 955 and it is also available as a tabletop sweetener under the brand name SPLENDA. Sucralose is used in diet sodas, yoghurts

It is the only non-caloric sweetener made from sugar, yet it is 600 times sweeter than sucrose which is ordinary sugar. Sucralose tastes like sugar and it has a clean, sweet taste that does not leave an unpleasant aftertaste compared to other artificial sweeteners and it passes rapidly through the body virtually unchanged and it is proven non-toxic to humans in the amounts it is used in food products.

Well, I have enjoyed my occasional use of low-calorie sweeteners as they have tasted artificial which goes well together with the junk food it has been accompanied with but the new Coca Cola being too sweet for my taste as it now contains Sucralose and this little secret pleasure of mine has come to an end but out of a completely different reason.

Sucralose as sweetener may sound good for dieters, but there seems to be a down side to it as 85% of the Sucralose we take in comes out as it was ingested, most of it remains as it was when swallowed and it is neither converted into something else in our digestive tract. So where does it go then?

According to recent Swedish research the Sucralose passes out of us down the toilet ending up in the nature as the today used wastewater treatment processes the have little effect on Sucralose removal rates and the breaking down of the Sucralose molecule is very slow in the nature and there is no knowledge whether the discharge of it into nature has any eco-toxical effects or not.

Cat naps

That people living in the northern hemisphere, way up north as here in the Nordic countries are deficient of vitamin D, but not until just recently it was in research discovered how badly deficient we are. Sunlight being the main source of this vitamin D, or to be more accurate being in the sunlight makes our skin synthesize more vitamin D, and with a one week vacation to the sun cures the deficiency temporarily for about three months time.

Vitamin D is also in the food we eat, and most of us probably know that we get if from fish, especially fat fish like salmon eel, mackerel and sardines as well as vitamin fortified dairy products but to my surprise I found out that a good source are these tube formed chanterelles and the picking of them this fall have been blogging about earlier

They have now discovered that the official intake recommendations of vitamin D have been way too low, as the functions of the vitamin D is more complex than was believed earlier and it actually more works more like a steroid hormone. The research indicated that vitamin D deficiency has a role in causing many varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis and muscle weakness. It is also clear that the presence of vitamin A in food supplements might inhibit our ability to digest the additional vitamin D, so now I have one more reason to stay out in the sun when it is shining, and to take more keep in mind what we eat to and if taking any food supplements read the label more carefully in order to get enough vitamin D.

Today the sky is overcast so there is no use going out for that reason, and besides I have caught a bad cold I have to cure first. I’ll be hard on the best cure at hand, staying in bed all bad with lots of steaming hot chamomile tea with a couple of tablespoons with honey in it.

And nothing had happened during the weekend we were away, so the offspring must’ve behaved well, both cats were safe and sane. Well, it still is a question mark concerning to little gremlin-kitten, but she has occasionally shown some tendencies to behave like a little cat and we do not receive as many bite marks any longer as she can take a nap on my chest for a while. And this is a very good heater for sore bronchial tubes when coming down with a cold.

Finally something she has a natural born talent for, taking a nap on a sore, feverish chest.

Guidelines for restaurant food

As the Finns of today's modern society on average dine out in restaurants more than once a week suggestions on nutritional content on restaurant food are now considered in Finland.

Master of Health Sciences Enni Mertanen has done a research in a dozen à la Carte restaurants and found out that steak meals meet nutritional guidelines the best and that that are considered to be light suppers were surprisingly heavy alternatives even though the courses left much to be desired concerning their nutritional values. Well why not fixed prices on courses, menus and why not make it a law when you’re at it?!?

Cheaper prices in restaurants with good nutritional meals and more expensive in junk food chains not to mention any names. Then do the same thing with food prices in supermarkets, the better and healthier for you the less expensive, the more unhealthy the food the more expensive.

Hello big brother!

When will we get the food police to check up in each home to see if we eat according to nutritional guidelines? Quit smoking and drinking alcohol, exercise more, or quit coffee for that matter?

Maybe we should have cameras installed in our homes so big brother can check up on us when he wants to see if we exercise as much as we need and be good boys and girls ought to so Santa will bring us some presents next Xmas.

Is Big Brother maybe Santa Claus?

By the way, dear spouse’s quitting coffee drinking has been much easier than we first feared. He has been out on extensive long walks, kept quietly to himself and not been bad at all. It is only I who has badly missed my daily one cup of coffee we always have at the time when he gets home in the weeks. It is always dear husband of mine who turns the percolator on and makes the coffee, as mine of horrible most of the time so there is a good reason for it, or then it is flooding all over the kitchen tops pouring down the sides to the floor.

I only know how to cook, not how to make coffee.

No more coffee!

Sulphite is a commonly known migraine trigger together with cheeses, nuts and onion.

I know dear spouse of mine gets his from sulphites, the reason he has never been very keen on red wine as they more commonly contain sulphites. Last time he had migraine was during Xmas as he had eaten chocolates containing apricots.

Apricots you might ask, how come you get a migraine from them? Well, they are commonly treated with sulphites to preserve their lovely orange colour. This was actually referred to on the chocolate box, but as I did not read it through, as I normally do with most of the edible stuff entering this house it was left unnoticed and the search for the migraines trigger began.

Funny those, as there are several persons suffering from migraine headaches in our family, we all have different things that set it off. Mine is a bit more irregular, I can never tell what set it off and the warning signs have disappeared with age so I can never take any medication in advance, which is a shame but I have to cope with. Last time it was triggered by my chiropractor, the headache I had when entering his surgery shifted places and turned out as s full blooming migraine. So what to do, take a pill go back home by bus and leave the car standing in order to collect some parking tickets, take a pill and drive under the influence back home, or drive home straight away not taking any medication before entering home, which still would be like driving under the influence this time not some medical substance risking an accident? I mean you might just be alright and nothing happens, but what is something happens?!?

Anyway, dear spouse of mine has finally been to the doctor, an appointment we, the rest of the family, have been on him about for more than a year now, but men, they take more than they should, if sane, sometimes resulting a bit too drastic measures, like this time. He just happily phoned me telling me our family doctor was a bit busy at this time, but that he has to quit rye bread, all raw vegetables and coffee to find out what 's wrong.

Well I can understand why in order to be able to determine what in his diet it is that has been causing the trouble; the rest of us gasping in despair for some fresh air, if you know what I mean, but quitting his coffee! Well, this is the day the really sh** hits the fan. It might not be migraines he will be having, and here we are just facing the weekend when he will be home and not shouting at work at somebody else but us suffering from bad headaches.

I must now seriously consider in which order I have to visit all my friends, right this weekend as of this moment before the gets back home. And of course we will be celebrating some, drinking wine and I will have to stay overnight. And this I expect to be worse, and last for longer, than when he quit smoking a year ago.

Winterblues

The most common form of depression in Finland is so called winter depression coming from the lack of light during the winter months.

When you get the blues from the prevailing darkness you also tend to put on some extra weight and you suffer from constant exhaustion. You just want to sleep and can not get enough sleep. According to the research the use of so called bright light lamps for waking up in the morning can ease the depression and create more beneficial sleeping patterns together with obtaining healthier levels of hormones affecting the sleeping and waking cycle.

The most common cause for sick leave or for retiring from working life out of health reasons in Finland is burn out. This has now been found to have a close connection with liability to either have or get other diseases like depression and a lot of it is causes of the receding light in the beginning of the winter. Suffering from a burn out also, according to this research, makes you more liable to having a heart condition or a circulatory affection like hypertension and even some muscular affections like fibromyalgia.

They say trouble never comes alone, but I think it is unfair and it seems than some people just get more than their fair share of hard things in life to deal with. You get a burn out at work, go on sick leave to get better, you eat more as comfort, exercise less as you grow more fat. God I am depressed again!

Must be the winterblues again, maybe I should go lampshopping?

Brewing stopped

Apparently the brewery in Nokia was not informed about the municipal tap water having been contaminated with waste water since Wednesday so they had kept on brewing their ciders and beer as normal.

Fortunately no contaminated products have hit the market but the Nokia brewery still clean their manufacturing facilities thoroughly, and wait before the water supply is back to normal which can take its’ time. The Nokia brewery is manufacturer of ciders, various kinds of beer and lager, a lingonberry soda and a lemon soda and a bottled Vichy water. Talking about a major economic set back for the brewery having to stop manufacturing now just in time for the peak shopping season of the year! Not to mention the loss in ready brewed drinks having to discard of because of the waste water that accidentally was used.

Anyway, I have wondered about this phenomenon, bottling ordinary tap water, adding fizz to it and calling it Vichy water. But I guess Vichy has over the years become to mean just sparkling bottled water for many people. For me it is of importance how the bottled water tastes as I can detect a difference between them, like Perrier, Evian or any other brand although others claim it is impossible saying “water is only water”.

Well, this time tap water is not water anymore.

Tax returns and tap water

If you have paid too little taxes you are to make your first installment payment at latest tomorrow, with the second to be paid in January next year but if you are getting money back from having paid too much you won’t get them until the day after tomorrow, that is if you have a filed a bank account with the tax authorities. If you have not informed them about your account number you will have to wait until mid month before your get your tax-returns. This might seem like a minor glitch, but if one spouse get s tax return the day after the day the other spouse is to pay, and if you have not got enough money to pay before you get the return then what do you do?

Anyway, it seems strange that three towns have so far this year suffered from contaminated tap water by E-Coli bacteria. There was one case in Vihti in October this year when 8 dead squirrels were found in the water tower earlier this spring and now there is a current case in Nokia, you know the city where the mobile phone company comes from and Nokia car tyres are manufactured. Also in Jyväskylä in September the citizens were also told to boil their tap water before using if for several minutes in order for it to be potable.

How can semi purified waste water that is not fully purified get mixed into the purified chloride drinking water? As for what I know about drinking water and waste water systems they are normally here in the Nordic countries built separate from each other, and the drinking water facilities’ intake are not even in the near vicinity of the waste water plants and the systems normally just are able to run one way, not be reversed just to prevent cases like this. The two different plants purify their water in their own system and normally in quite the opposite sides of the towns.

Having lived outside the Nordic countries I have acquired the here often considered strange habit of having a separate water filter to our drinking water. We have laughed a lot about it among our friends many times but with these statistics for recurrent epidemics around the country with harmful bacteria getting into the drinking water, I might even consider switching into bottled mineral water. It will be more expensive, and there are also bacteria in the bottle waters but guess their amount is smaller than might be in tap water.

Twice so far I have been warned about tap water, once my whites in the washing machine got all black because of some residue was flushed from the water pipes, the other time the water pipe had burst because of the cold weather, which also seems strange as they are normally dug that deep into the ground that they do not burst from frost. It might be the wear and tear of time that has been working at it, but it must be less expensive to change into new water pipes instead of having people die of the infections it causes, especially among the young, elderly and ill.

Healthier but more obese

Finns are still getting healthier but at the same time more and more are obese.

According to recently done new wide scale health survey Finns gain weight despite pursuing a healthier diet with a fifth of both men and women obese. The survey was carried out by the National Public Health Institute with some 6,000 Finns interviewed across the country with the research taking into account peoples' dietary habits, their lifestyle and their blood levels were examined.

So the Finns are healthier but still get more obese, might there maybe something in the western style of eating that is wrong? If people eat and exercise as they are told to do, maybe there is something wrong with the dietary guidelines we are fed with? Or maybe there are some additives commonly used in our food that we are not aware of how it works within the human metabolism, or something badly lacking in our food that used to be there?

One thing though is, the consumption of alcohol has increased and is suspected to be the culprit in many cases as the use of sodium in common used foodsalt has declined as well as people have switched to healthier vegetable oils instead of the satured animal fatty acids that used to be more common. People also tend to take more care of getting their daily exercise, which reminds me of my own.

Better get my wellies on and grab the umbrella before I go out for my daily exercise in the winter rain.