Last month an extraordinary road show hit 35 major cities around the world promising to save the planet. The EAT-Lancet Commision had come to town – big time. The roll-out of the EAT-Lancet diet comprises some 40 prominent scientists presided over by a beautiful 40-year old founder, a physician herself, name of Gunhild Stordalen, […]
Read moreCategory: Alternative Voice
Under the name ParacelsusAsia writer, journalist and long-time Asia hand, Adrian Batten, takes a characteristically wry, humorous but always staunchly consumerist, if not iconoclastic, look at life in general in his column “Alternative Voice”. About half the subject matter gives hard-hitting no-nonsense advise about integrative medicine, various chronic conditions and personal well being, a subject he has researched and written about for well over a decade.
Are Things Better Now? …and if it is, will it last?
Of course they are. We live longer, we live better, we’re better educated and most of us are better off than before. By and large we don’t own slaves, we don’t burn women as witches any more, nor do we hang children for stealing handkerchiefs. Yes, bad things happen, possibly more of them than happened […]
Read moreAs goes Bali – so does a Polluted World
2018 seems to be the tipping point – the year when the world finally woke up to the reality that climate change and environmental pollution have to be addressed and it’s up to us. There’s nothing really special about 2018, except perhaps that the sense of powerlessness felt by many of us seems to have […]
Read moreFool’s Gold: What Fish Oil Does to Our Health & Planet
Omega-3 in the form or fish or krill oil is one of the world’s most successful supplements but a recent and definitive study has found that it has little or no benefit for heart health or strokes. As a result the US$30 billion a year omega-3 industry is in a bind. In fact, this is […]
Read moreOf Food Scams & in Search of the Best Cuppa
The world of food is passing strange. Bean sprouts, romaine lettuce, a bad egg or oyster, all of these could kill you in next to no time if you ate unlucky. Yet you can eat junk food till the cows come home and it’s a lot less likely to kill you. In the end though, […]
Read moreWhen the US invaded Indonesia… It was the Pepper that made them do it
Given the the multi-polar way the world is going, it is probably just as well that Indonesia’s President Jokawi wants to reclaim the maritime greatness of 10th century Srivijaya. What with China, not content with laying claim to the entire South China Sea and all that lies beneath, seeking to overturn US naval dominance in […]
Read moreGive up Meat & Dairy – Save Yourself & the World!
Or… why not just eat less of them & do the same? One of the small pleasures in which I indulge is buying the FT Weekend. This publishes on a Saturday and is when the UK’s Financial Times, for one brief hebdomadal moment, forsakes the pursuit of Mammon (at least in part) for the more […]
Read moreAustralian architect Kerry Hill dies
Seminal figure in what became known as ‘Bali Style’ Prominent Australian architect Kerry Hill died of cancer last month 26 August at his home in Singapore, where he had set up a practice in 1979. He was 75 and sadly predeceased by his wife Ruth, also of cancer some eight months earlier. Over four decades […]
Read moreSimple Pleasures & Moving House Forget Benoa…. here’s to the F1 Renon Circuit
After nearly 24 years in Sanur my wife and I moved to Renon and into another world. Like most long term residents we got stuck in a comfortable rut. During the first two years we relentlessly explored the island, circumnavigating and criss-crossing it, exploring small lanes into forests and up mountains, often as not […]
Read moreBeauty Confidential…..Spilling the Beans – Beauty Revolution that Began In Bali
Tomoka Nguyan is a woman on a mission and it is a big one. Her vision is nothing less than to convert people to using homemade all-natural skin care and to stop buying it from big business. It may take a while but in her view we simply don’t need all the face care we […]
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