Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Here is something for our older posters.

Cocoa 'might prevent memory decline'

Drinking cocoa every day may help older people keep their brains healthy, research suggests.
A study of 60 elderly people with no dementia found two cups of cocoa a day improved blood flow to the brain in those who had problems to start with.
Those participants whose blood flow improved also did better on memory tests at the end of the study, the journal Neurology reported.
Experts said more research was needed before conclusions could be drawn.
It is not the first time cocoa has been linked with vascular health and researchers believe that this is in part due to it being rich in flavanols, which are thought to have an important role.
In the latest study, researchers asked 60 people with an average age of 73 to drink two cups of cocoa a day - one group given high-flavanol cocoa and another a low-flavanol cocoa - and consume no other chocolate.
Blood flow
Ultrasound tests at the start of the study showed 17 of them had impaired blood flow to the brain.
There was no difference between those who drank flavanol-rich cocoa and those who had flavanol-poor cocoa.
But whichever drink they were given, 88% of those with impaired blood flow at the start of the study saw improvements in blood flow and some cognitive tests, compared with 37% of people whose blood flow was normal at the beginning of the study.
MRI scans in 24 participants found that people with impaired blood flow were also more likely to have tiny areas of brain damage.
"We're learning more about blood flow in the brain and its effect on thinking skills," said study author Dr Farzaneh Sorond a neurologist at Harvard Medical School.
"As different areas of the brain need more energy to complete their tasks, they also need greater blood flow. This relationship, called neurovascular coupling, may play an important role in diseases such as Alzheimer's."
The researchers said the lack of difference between the flavanol-rich and flavanol-poor cocoa could be because another component of the drink was having an effect or because only small amounts were needed.
Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said this was a small study but that it added to a wealth of evidence.
"A cocoa-based treatment would likely be very popular, but it's too soon to draw any conclusions about its effects.
"One drawback of this study is the lack of a control group for comparison, and we can't tell whether the results would have been different if the participants drank no cocoa at all."
But he added: "Poor vascular health is a known risk factor for dementia, and understanding more about the links between vascular problems and declining brain health could help the search for new treatments and preventions."

hay yes it was out last month

the uk GOV keep on about cutting out junk food and smoking drinking
surely the GOV should be WARNING the public about the dirty restaurants
and takeaways which is costing the NHS milions .and destroying peoples health

There are web sites where you can look up the hygiene rating given by councils to restaurants.

Pictured: The moment two British girls were caught 'trying to smuggle £1.5million of cocaine out of Peru hidden in food bags'
Michaella McCollum Connolly, 20, and Melissa Reid, 19, arrested last week
Girls from Northern Ireland and Scotland photographed at Lima airport
Anti-drugs squad officers found nearly 6kg of cocaine hidden in suitcases


Read more: http://www.dailymail
they should be hanged

all drug pushers should be hung

Check your favourite restaurant/pub etc here

http://ratings.food.gov.uk/enhanced-search/en-GB/%5E/%5E/alpha/0/%5E/%5E/1/1/10

now take swab tests on your home kitchen work tops and chopping boards
how often do you use disinfectant on them?
are you meticulous as to what foods are used on which boards?

and now have your fridge inspected by your local EHO to see if you comply with even "safe storage" leaving aside commercial regs

and don't forget your dish and drying-up cloths either
how often do you change them?

At least restaurants keep different chopping boards for cooked and raw meat.

and fish and vegetables
they also have to have a separate hand-basin with scrubbing brush, and i'm sure a host of other regs

for sure some food establishments are pretty disgusting to say the least, but then so are many homes.

funny how the french seem pretty unconcerned about many of these "nanny state" regs

my kitchen is spotless . and only use towels that we put in the bin .

of course .... you're almost certainly anal about it too

cynic why do you hate facts why do you not wright to papers and complain about heir reports

Papers like sensational stories as you do. The reality is that most restaurants are fine and a few are bad. I have never had food poisoning as far as I know. That goes for my wife and kids. We have eaten in restaurants for years on a regular basis. I have friends who own restaurants and I often see the amount of work involved in cleaning the restaurant/kitchen on a daily basis. Every few months they employ a company that comes in overnight to make a deep clean. I just looked them up on the food standards web site above and they all got 5 out of 5.

But regulations are only good, when you wish to prosecute somebody else.


(Not true, before Manuel jumps on me.)

If you are worried about hygiene I suggest looking at one’s own personal “touch and non-touch” habits.

The dirtiest things in a kitchen are the towels, dish clothes, wipe downs which are used to wipe down and spread the bugs around and fresh meat and fish products are also a problem.

Leaving out viral infections from "shellfish".

In a kitchen it is sometimes difficult to adhere to the rules, but I wince sometimes by examples shown on "food programmes".

Sometimes, cross infection seems to be down to good or bad techniques and “luck”. (Whether, or not there is a bugger about.)

Use restaurants very infrequently nowadays, prefer my own cooking and prices.

But, I was watching some chefs and a kitchen in France about a week ago and was glad I was sticking to a beer.

Also, some seem to have more resistance to bugs than others, or perhaps there is a reason for drinking Rakija or Vinjac.

---------------------

Chocolate or cocoa, if taken at the prescribed rate will probably give you type 2 diabetes and an inability not to forget you are ill.

8-)

Not sure why you think that cocoa will give you type 2 diabetes. I just looked at a pack of cocoa and the is 14 calories per mug. I use boiling water to make it with a splash of skimmed milk and no sugar. I doubt that my cup of cocoa comes to even 30 calories.

fred - i think you and i are much the same age .... that being so, we were brought up in an era of eat a peck of dirt before you die, and therefore built up significant tolerances and immunities .....

while admitting that food processing and the like has almost certainly increased the number of "nasties" that are around, i'm pretty certain that today's obsession with hygiene in all areas of our lives, means we are now much more suspect to infections of many kinds

Tanker your post above 27392....... Haystack ie, the Bill part of the duo Bill and Ben(cynic).

Yep your right he just ignores other peoples findings and true facts but at the same time he uses his own and Bens as though they were written in law.

Just look at his analysis of the Poll findings each week. If labour have had a good week.......he says ohhh not a big enough and accurate reflection of the public...BUT..... if Tories have had a good week hes shouting from the roof tops.

Just ignore the weak man and filter him, honestly hes just a waste of time as is his bum chum Ben.

And when did Labour have a good week in recent history? Never.

Hays,

That must be one reason for you being such a miserable B. Treat yourself to cocoa with fully cream milk and a large dollop of condensed milk.

Used to drink similar after potholing when I was young an slim. Daren't now.

Cynic.

Yes and No. Some contaminations are more virulent and less responsive to treatments and also naivety of younger generation in food preparation, conservation and application of simple hygiene.

Anyway, and more important, you are 10 years junior to me.