Australia’s home-loan approvals fell by the most in eight years in May as the highest interest rates since 1996 and rising costs for building products damped demand for property.

The number of loans granted to build or buy homes and apartments dropped 7.9 percent from April, when they declined a revised 4.2 percent, the statistics bureau said in Sydney today. The drop was four times as much as the median estimate of a 2 percent decrease in a Bloomberg survey of 21 economists.

Weaker lending, coupled with reports today that showed consumer confidence slumped to a 16-year low and building work fell, add to signs the economy is slowing. The figures may reinforce speculation the central bank will refrain from raising borrowing costs again after four increases since August. Read more » »

Australia’s home-loan approvals fell by the most in eight years in May as the highest interest rates since 1996 and rising costs for building products damped demand for property.

The number of loans granted to build or buy homes and apartments dropped 7.9 percent from April, when they declined a revised 4.2 percent, the statistics bureau said in Sydney today. The drop was four times as much as the median estimate of a 2 percent decrease in a Bloomberg survey of 21 economists.

Weaker lending, coupled with reports today that showed consumer confidence slumped to a 16-year low and building work fell, add to signs the economy is slowing. The figures may reinforce speculation the central bank will refrain from raising borrowing costs again after four increases since August. Read more » »

A newly remodeled beauty shop came a little sooner than planned for Teri Barton of Alpha.

Barton’s Mane Attraction shop, a location she had 18 years, was destroyed by fire Feb. 2, and though she planned to move into the old Woodhull Town Hall building she and her husband Brad bought, the fire hastened the moving date.

Barton said she learned of the fire after husband Brad received the fire call.

“We knew it was a Woodhull business building, but Brad called back and told me it was the building where my shop was located and told me it’s all gone,” she said.

Though she had replacement insurance, she was most concerned about the client records and tax information in her computer. Read more » »

When 10-year-old Marie Grandguillotte goes grocery shopping with her mother, she reads the food labels. She looks for calories and ingredients and knows to avoid fat and cholesterol. Reading the food labels was “a little bit confusing, but after a while I got used to it,” said the fifth-grader from suburban Doral.

Nutrition experts and the Food and Drug Administration think there should be more kids like Marie. They advocate teaching children to read food labels themselves instead of relying on mom and dad.

“Since I find parents are not doing a bang-up job (teaching nutrition), I think it’s important to empower the children with their own information,” said Miami registered dietitian Ronni Litz Julien.

The FDA partnered with the Cartoon Network earlier this year to launch a public education Read more » »

LONDON — Some artificial food colorings may stimulate hyperactivity in children, and parents may gain some benefit from preventing their children from consuming them, a government agency said Thursday.

The Food Standards agency had commissioned researchers at Southampton University in England to examine the possible effects of several commonly used dyes. The researchers described their findings as tentative, and advised parents that hyperactivity has complex causes and cannot be cured by simply withdrawing food colorings.

Susan Jebb, a nutrition scientist at Britain’s Medical Research Council, said the results might reflect wider problems of child nutrition.
Read more » »

(WebMD) Going for healthy fast-food fare? You might want to give yourself a calorie reality check.

A new study shows that people tend to underestimate the calories in fast-food items that they consider relatively healthy.

Those diners, perhaps thinking they’ve got a little leeway in their calorie budget, often treat themselves to cookies, sodas, or other extras that push their calories even higher.

That’s according to Pierre Chandon, Ph.D., and Brian Wansink, Ph.D. Chandon is an associate professor of marketing at the European Institute for Business Administration (INSEAD), a business school in Fontainebleau, France. Wansink is the John S. Dyson Chair of marketing and of nutritional science in Cornell University’s applied economics and management department. Their report on fast-food health claims appears in October’s edition of the Journal of Consumer Read more » »

by Mary Beth Lawton Johnson
the-triton.com

You may think that you are the only chef who is guilty of not always buying extremely healthy items for your yacht. You are not alone. I am guilty of it, too. Sure, I am a chef, and I don’t always buy the healthiest of items, although I do try.

I looked around my house (the yacht is in refit right now), my refrigerator and pie safe to create this list of staple healthy foods.

Keep in mind that these items should be purchased one at a time and slowly incorporated into the diet. Not everyone will share your enthusiasm for healthy eating, especially if it’s an item they have never tried. Go slowly. Read more » »