"information" news and stories

C'mon, you knew there had to be one. The Online Pork Rind Resource has way more info than you should reasonably want about those delectable little bits of fried pork skin. The site doesn't seem to sell pork rinds anymore, so it looks to now be a warehouse of chicharone-related information. I'd do anything to hold onto the porkrind.com domain too. Witness the Presidential Pork Rind (scroll down) that was apparently part of George Bush's inauguration ceremony. We just missed the Pork Rind Heritage Festival ("Admission is Free") in Harrod, Ohio. There's also talk of chocolate-dipped pork rinds for dessert. Honestly, the more I explored this site, the weirder it got. There's even a pork rind fetish section that borders on NSFW. Really.

For those of you desperate for more information about tea, The Tea Page seems like a good place to go. This stripped down reference site, apparently maintained by one Birger Nielsen, has dozens of encyclopedia entries about tea, regional references, FAQs and a list of 246 tea-related books and 333 tea caddies. The book list has some decent reviews, although not for every book, of course. There are also several full articles and excerpts, some in Danish, others in English. While it isn't the easiest thing to navigate, there is a search function that could be of some use if you know exactly what you're looking for.

The traffic light system is a voluntary food labeling system devised by the British Food Standards Agency to denote with a single glance the levels of fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt in products. While not necessarily intended to let consumers know that the product is health food, it does give them a very fast, clear idea of what they are about to eat. Several supermarkets, including Waitrose and Sainsburys have adopted the program with surprising results: sales of unhealthy foods have dropped and healthier foods have increased.

Why is this working when so many other awareness campaigns have failed in the past, or enjoyed only a very limited success? It seems to be the fact that the labels are hard to ignore. Or rather, it is that they take no effort to read. A consumer doesn't have to spend time trying to decipher a nutritional label or wonder what "48% less fat!" really refers to. They don't have to draw attention to the fact that they want to know the nutritional information, which can be embarrassing for some shoppers.