Bengo’s Latest News Clips 2018.02.05
1.
Magical microbes – how to feed your gut
Want
a healthy gut? Reach for the kimchi, sauerkraut, artichokes, coffee and
chocolate. But watch out – one category of food will make your microbes wither
The Guardian 29 Jan 2018
Kimchi,
kombucha, sauerkraut, miso and kefir – all fermented foods and drinks – have
been around for centuries, but suddenly they are all the rage. The reason? They
are supposedly packed full of gut-healthy microorganisms, and we are finally
waking up to just how much the trillions of microorganisms that live in our
guts (AKA the gut microbiome) contribute to our mental and physical health.
True,
probiotic products such as Yakult – sweetened skimmed milk fermented with a
single strain of friendly bacteria – have been shifting hefty units for some
time: the global probiotic market,
dominated by yoghurt drinks, was worth $45.6bn (£33bn) last year. But Yakult is fairly
bland and sweet. Traditional and home-fermented delicacies are another, more
pungent matter altogether: kombucha (a naturally fizzy cocktail of green tea
and sugar) tastes vinegary; kimchi (vegetables fermented Korean-style) is sour
and fiery; sauerkraut, which is fermented cabbage, whiffs of sulphur. All can
intimidate palates used to highly processed western blandness.
Because
of how they are prepared, they all contain microorganisms that boost
the diversity of good bacteria, yeasts and fungi living in our
guts. Harbouring a flourishing gut flora has been linked to lower obesity,
fewer autoimmune conditions and digestion problems, longer lifespan, good brain
function and happiness.
Some
very big companies are beginning to take this on board. If you could never
quite trust the mouldering kombucha you once nurtured in your airing cupboard,
now you can buy some from Whole Foods instead. Step forward brands such as
Eaten Alive, Bio-tiful – whose flavoured version of the fermented-milk drink
kefir is now stocked in Sainsbury’s – and the Urban Fermentary, whose
bacteria-riddled pickles and drinks come in appetising packaging. (It is unlikely,
however, that mass-produced, pasturised ferments will contain as many of the
desired microorganisms as those made using traditional methods, so it’s worth
checking how a product was made before you buy.)
Take
sauerkraut, the pickled cabbage beloved of central Europeans. Unlike the
majority of supermarket-bought pickles, which are preserved in vinegar and have
no “live” element, the cabbage in sauerkraut is massaged in salt until the
juices are drawn out and the healthy microorganisms living on it produce lactic
acid. This stops it going off, while adding a vinegary twang. The result, says
Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, where
he also directs the British Gut microbiome project, is “a really good
combination of a pro- and prebiotic”. Spector’s 2015 book, The Diet Myth,
revealed that much of what we eat is digested by our microbes, which in turn
produce vitamins and unlock other nutrients for us (and are influential in many
other ways). As with live yoghurt, the probiotics are the friendly bacteria
food contains, whereas prebiotic is the word for substances that feed your gut
flora. “The cabbage actually feeds other microbes in your gut, so I’m
definitely a fan of kraut, kimchi, all those kind of things.”
But
unless you are fermenting foods yourself, these products are not cheap – a 375g
jar of sauerkraut from Eaten Alive will set you back £6. It’s good to know,
therefore, that bog-standard live yoghurts aren’t a total waste of time. All
yoghurt is fermented and the milk used to make products for sale is legally
required to be pasteurised to kill off pathogens, after which a few strains of
lab-produced friendly bacteria are added. “We’ve done some [not-yet-published]
research ourselves,” says Spector, “showing that [this] yoghurt definitely does
have an effect on the microbes.” The added bacteria aren’t the same as the ones
that live in our guts, he says. “The [former] are moving through
the body, but they can have an effect on your existing microbes and we also
know they produce substances that are beneficial. So, in a way, they’re
energising your gut microbes as they go through, producing some chemicals that
look as if they’re good for weight loss as well.” However, he reserves the
title of “super yoghurt” for kefir. “It has about five times as many microbes,
with more diversity, and also has extra fungi in there and they’re all good.”
2.
Ingvar Kamprad, founder of Ikea, dies at 91
Washington Post January 28
Ingvar
Kamprad, a Swedish entrepreneur who grew a childhood business selling matches
and lingonberries into Ikea, a build-it-yourself furniture empire that
introduced sleek Scandinavian designs into tens of millions of homes around the
world, died Jan. 27 at his home in Smaland, a province in southern Sweden.
He was 91.
A
spokeswoman for Ikano Group, a finance and real estate conglomerate that Mr.
Kamprad founded as part of Ikea, confirmed the death but did not give a cause.
Born
into a family of rural farmers, Mr. Kamprad was a self-described lazy, dyslexic
child who flirted with far-right groups in Sweden as a teenager, grew into a
hard-driving alcoholic as an adult and built one of the most influential design
and retail companies of the 20th century.
Founded
in 1943 when Mr. Kamprad was 17, Ikea sold picture frames, nylon stockings,
udder balm and other small-town necessities before focusing on low-priced
furniture and home furnishings. Milking salves went by the wayside as Mr.
Kamprad turned Ikea into the world’s largest furniture retailer, making a
fortune with products whose bright colors and minimalist designs have become a
ubiquitous part of middle-class bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, dens and
children’s play areas.
“On
some Sundays in Britain,” the Guardian newspaper reported in
2004, “almost twice as many people visit [Ikea] as attend church; it has
been calculated that 10% of Europeans currently alive were conceived in one of
Ikea’s beds.”
Although
Mr. Kamprad had stepped away from Ikea’s board in recent years, serving since
1988 as a senior adviser, he was widely regarded as the company’s leading
architect and a powerful force behind the scenes.
The
central tenet of his business model was simple, spurred by an idea from one of
his chief designers, Gillis
Lundgren, to take the legs off tables the company was storing in its warehouses.
It was not the first time unbuilt goods had been sold to consumers, but the
idea — “flat-pack” furniture for flat-wallet families — had never been tried on
such a large scale.
Ikea
now sports 412 stores across 49 countries, branches that sprawl more than
400,000 square feet and feature model rooms stocked with Malm bed frames, Poang
chairs, Billy bookcases and Ektorp sofas.
The
company has become a leading cultural ambassador for Sweden, taking its name
from Mr. Kamprad’s initials and the first letters of the farm (Elmtaryd) and
village (Agunnaryd) where he was raised. Its logo employs the blue and gold
colors of the Swedish flag, and its restaurants and food aisles — created by
Mr. Kamprad in an effort to keep customers shopping — offer candy Swedish fish
and traditional meatballs served with cream sauce or lingonberry jam.
“Empty
stomachs,” Mr. Ingvar once quipped, “make no sofa sales.”
In
addition to foot traffic from its bricks-and-mortar stores, Ikea’s business has
been helped along for decades by a catalogue that is translated into more than
30 languages. With about 200 million copies printed each year, its circulation
reportedly rivals that of the Bible,
the Koran and the “Harry Potter” books, whose magical summoning spells might be
useful for finding missing dowels and screws that vanish during the assembly
process.
Yet
while Mr. Kamprad’s company has grown in prominence, the details of his
personal life have become obscured by a public-relations machine that has made
him a business-executive embodiment of lista, the Swedish concept of “making
do” that Mr. Kamprad has described as being central to the Ikea mission.
Publicly,
at least, he made an art of making do, demonstrating a frugality that bordered
on asceticism. He drove an old Volvo, recycled his tea bags, reportedly
pilfered the salt and pepper packets at restaurants and visited markets in
the late afternoon to find discounted produce. Ikea catalogues were
photographed using company employees instead of models, and staff were
encouraged to write on both sides of a sheet of paper.
For
decades, the company seemed to be thriving under his watch, as it avoided
controversy and seemed to instill in its employees a near-fanatical devotion to
Mr. Kamprad.
That
appeared to change beginning in 1994, when Sweden’s Expressen newspaper
uncovered documents that linked the company founder to pro-Nazi groups in the
1940s. Mr. Kamprad disavowed his participation with the groups, describing it
in a letter to Ikea employees as a youthful mistake and “a part of my life
which I bitterly regret.”
3.
Federer wins
20th grand slam title with Australian Open victory over Cilic
• Federer beats Cilic 6-2, 5-7, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1
• ‘I couldn’t see through the tears. I couldn’t lift my head’
• ‘I couldn’t see through the tears. I couldn’t lift my head’
The Guardian 28 Jan 2018 5000 shares
Roger Federer has time for everyone:
opponents, fans, umpires, even the media – but nowhere in the world away from
his mountain retreat does the mutual love and respect between the Swiss and his
followers seem louder and more unconditional than in Melbourne.
As
he savoured his sixth Australian Open on his way to a
night of no doubt impeccably behaved celebration, he engaged with everyone who
wanted to spend even a second in the glow of his royal progress. And, when it
was suggested to him that Federation Square near Flinders Street station in the
middle of the city be officially shortened to Fed Square in his honour, he
blushed and smiled.
“Fed
Square, eh? That’d be cool,” he said to the other part of his post-match double
act, Jim Courier. “We’ll make it good. Rock it.”
Only
a couple of hours earlier, he had dragged himself through such an
emotional wringer – beating Marin Cilic 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in
just over three hours under the roof on Rod Laver Arena – that he broke down in
tears at the end of the courtside presentation. Later, he revealed why. “My
thoughts were all over the place all day. I was thinking, ‘What if I lost? What
if I won?’ Like all day. By the time the match comes around, you’re a wreck.”
Who
would have thought that the 36-year-old father of four with the perfect life
and a bank of achievement in his sport that might never be equalled would be
capable of such vulnerability? He has never shown us this side of him before –
although he said later: “I have felt it many times.”
As
for his performance, which swung between outrageous genius in the 24-minute
first set, through a perplexing struggle mid-match and on to a devastating
finish, he said: “I had my chances. I think I froze in the [second-set]
tie-breaker. And I got nervous in the fourth set. I couldn’t stop the bleeding,
almost. He was in control, calling the shots. My mind was all over the place in
the fourth set, like, ‘Don’t mess it up.’ I had to get lucky at the beginning
of the fifth set. And I could see he was feeling it.”
These
are rare and candid insights into the mind of a champion, a player who has
risen to the stratosphere of his sport, slipped and climbed again, looking back
from time to time to check on his younger rivals, who have tumbled from view.
No Rafael Nadal in the final this time, after last year’s epic comeback to rob the Spaniard
of the glory; no Novak Djokovic, who is contemplating surgery on his elbow; and
no Andy Murray, who has already taken that route to mend his hip.
Federer
has sailed serenely on, inhabiting a cloud that is eternally silver-lined. And
he shows no sign of leaving the stage. It is 15 years since he appeared in the
first of his 30 grand slam finals, when he beat Mark Philippoussis at
Wimbledon. His first Australian triumph arrived the following year. Then came a
string of wins that lit up the sporting universe like a blazing sun.
“Everything
changes in your life after your first,” he said – as if ordinary people would
understand what that was like. “This one reminds me of 2006 against Marcos
Baghdatis. I was keeping my composure. And then I was so relieved. I felt the
same way tonight. It was terrible.”
He
meant terrible to endure but wonderful to revel in after his last serve was
called good. And there to applaud with all the others was the man in whose
honour the main stadium here was named, Rod Laver. Lining up his mobile phone,
he snapped away from the stands to record the moment Federer raised the Norman
Brookes trophy for the sixth – and probably not final – time.
Federer
said: “He’s the best. The Rocket. I’m so happy when I see him. It’s because of
the legends of this sport that I play tennis. But I didn’t even see that
through the tears. I couldn’t lift my head. I was so embarrassed.”
Roger
Federer kisses the winner’s trophy after beating Croatia’s Marin Cilic.
Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images
There
is a view that Federer lacks self-awareness, that he sometimes says the most
gauche, self-serving things when praise is heaped upon him – which is most of
the time. But this almost boyish grinning also talks to the innocence still in
him. He has won everything, been everywhere, done things with a tennis racket
even his peers marvel at, and yet he plays on because he loves it.
