Teenagers are switching regular cigarettes for a trendy smoking device.  E-Cigarettes are preferred by teens as they are cool and taste good, and are becoming more and more popular among teenager living in the United States.

Reports from the Centre of Control and Prevention have shown that between 2013 and 2014 the consumption of e-cigarettes among teenagers has tripled, meaning that in 2013, 4.5% teenagers were using cigarettes and by 2014 the numbers have increased to 13.4%. In the same period, regular cigarettes have shown a serious decrease in sales, from 12.7% to 9.2%.

This statistics are raising the big question, whether e cigarettes are a threat for public health and if new regulations have to be released.

Studies have previously demonstrated that there are some flavour chemicals in the e cigarettes fluids, like chocolate, grape, cotton candy, vanilla and so on. The amount of flavour contained by the liquid was somewhere between 10 to 40 mg/mL.

What is concerning is the fact that 6 out of 24 ingredients used to give flavour to liquids belong to a group of chemicals known as aldehydes, substances that can cause respiratory irritations.

According to the CDC, half of the teens were smoking more than one type of products,( out of 4.6 million teenagers, 2.2 admitted to smoking several types of cigarettes)among which on the first position were e-cigarettes, followed by hookah and on the third place were standard cigarettes.

But the big picture has shown that teenagers are still consumers of tobacco, as the numbers of teens smoking tobacco has went up from 22.9% to 24.6%. All these statistics have alarmed the group of people who are against tobacco use, and they fear that e-cigarettes will lead to a brand new generation of nicotine addicts who at one point in their life will change the e-cigarettes for the standard ones.

Doctor Tom Frieden the head of the Centres for Control Disease and Prevention is fearing that exposing teenagers to nicotine use may develop into brain damage and lead to nicotine addiction.

Another official who showed concerns was, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, Mitch Zeller, who stated that all the progress they had made in breaking down cigarette use among teenagers might be in danger. Surveys, have reported that teenagers see e-cigarettes just as casual as their phone or their laptop.

A large amount stated that the reason why they were using e-cigarettes was to help them quit smoking standard cigarettes or weed, while others stated that they were not cigarettes smokers but they enjoyed e-cigarettes as they are cool and they taste good.
Image Source: ehp

Would you be brave enough to eat worms? In the future animal meat might be replaced by insects and worms as the industry is rising and demands are growing.

Worms, crickets and other type of insects could might be the protein food of the future.  Entrepreneurs in the United States, are growing businesses of this type and are aiming to convince more and more people that this type of food intake is less costly, uses less land and water than any other animals raised for meat.

Information released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, has shown that in 2013, there were more than 2 billion people all over the planet that had insects included in their diet.

Insects consumption has been promoted by the United Nations because it has several benefits from, being environmental friendly to starting the basis for new job for people interested in the production of insects.

Serving insect foods in the western part of the world, might encounter some difficulties as people here are used to looking at insects as something disgusting, something that if you see in your plate you refuse to eat your food anymore, explained Daniella Martin, a blogger of a site specialised in eating insects.

Monica Martinez is an entrepreneur from San Francisco who is serving this kind of food and has many different recipes inspired from the Mexican traditional delicacies. Some of her famous recipes are salted crickets glazed in chocolate and spicy worms.

The whole point of this business is to invite people to taste and combine more diversified protein sources than the ones available. Their highest purpose is to transform this type of meals into something normal that is seen as something natural and people should at least try some of these foods before saying no, to them.

For starters , Martinez’s insect “restaurant” is offering free food samples for people to get the taste of it. As it was expected, there are people who have said a loud no to eating this and there were those who felt that they should at least give it a try and they have actually liked it.

In another area of San Francisco , Megan Miller is another entrepreneur who is trying to promote insects as delicious food and healthy protein sources. Her specialty cricket flour cookies, which are basically cookies containing a flour made from crickets.
They are promoting their foods as healthy snacks and a better option for parents to offer their children, as they contain less sugar than standard cookies and a double amount of proteins.

The problem with insects is that they are hard to market as something appealing to the eye and our taste buds, which is the reason why people in this business are finding ways of mixing them with classical ingredients and creating attractive packages. Insects in the form of powders added to foods, are a great way for people to start getting used to the taste before they try out the entire insect, explained Miller.

Big Cricket Farms is one of the cricket suppliers from North America and its owner, Kevin Bachhuber, had the idea of opening this business after he ate crickets in Thailand.

The company started with 8,000 pounds of crickets per month but the high demand of the market is forcing him to enlarge the production to 25,000 pounds a month. Bachhuber stated that the orders are so many and large that its hard for them to keep up and he was surprised to see how fond have grown people of eating insects. He added that their goal is to incorporate insects in our regular diet.

Image Source: chad cheerier,wikipedia, food navigator

A few centuries ago four New England states — Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont — were leading a religious revival. Nowadays, however, they are at the opposite end as far as U.S. church attendance is concerned, shows a late Gallup survey. As indicated by the overview, religious participation in congregations today goes from 22 percent in the Bay State down to 17 percent in the Green Mountain State. Connecticut positioned on ninth place at 25 percent. First ranked was Utah with 51% church attendance. The state has been leading the top for several years now

Frank Newport editor-in-chief at Gallup believes that the reasons behind the lack of church-goers in New England are varied. He noted:

“There is no definitive answer as to why residents in a state like Mississippi are so likely to be in church on Sundays, while residents in a state like Vermont are so unlikely,” he wrote. “Some of the differences reflect the types of people who choose to live in these states, and some reflect the types of religion that are predominant in a given state.”

Mississippi inhabitants are next in the top, alongside Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas, with 45 percent to 47 percent saying they attend religious services in church, as per the survey.

Newport noted it is quite clear why Utah is the first on the rundown.  According to him Utah ranking at the top is the direct outcome of the state’s 59 percent Mormon residents. Mormons are known to have the highest worship service participation of all the major religious congregations in the U.S.

Last October, The Atlantic highlighted an alternate variable that is liable to keep individuals going to church, namely family ties.  The magazine wrote that throughout decades, research has found various factors to religiosity, a significant number of them obvious — like going to religious services as a kid.  Another factor is the family with studies showing that children with wedded parents that also have the same religious beliefs are likely to retain the religion they grew up with. The magazine also reported that school graduates conceived in the 1970s are more likely than non-graduates of the same age to relate to a specific religious belief.

Constant church participation might truly be a lifesaver, as the Deseret News reported a study by the Utah Department of Health, uncovering that family and religious inclusion are key elements in preventing suicide. Accordingly, young people who reported going to worship services on a weekly basis were half as likely to have considered suicide than the individuals who did not go to church regularly.

Image Source: The Blaze