Shocking Facts Abut Potato Chips

The world we are living in at present is laden with artificiality. If you look around yourself, you can enough evidences that can prove the artificiality in every walk of life.

 

Commercialization of every essential commodity has brought a downfall in the eating habits as well. While listening to a news telecast on the television or going through a news daily, you can find hundreds of news pieces that deal in these things. Popularity of ready made food items have been extremely bad for the human body. For example, you can take the name of the potato chips that are available in a large variety. Why You Can't Say No To Junk Food? These potato chips have revolutionized the modern market with the consumption of these items is increasing with an amazing speed. 

The effects of these chips can be bad for everyone, but the children are the worst affected. People need to grow an awareness towards the poor or unhealthy eating habits. They must know the shocking facts about packaged potato chips. 

As far as availability of the known or unknown facts about packaged potato chips is concerned, loads of such information is available on the Internet. While finding the shocking facts about packaged potato chips, people need to keep their senses open, and they need to realize what harm these ‘delicious’ food items can cause.

Some of the Health Problems Junk Food Can Cause

Potato Chips Are Junk Food: Packaged potato chips do not require cooking, and that is why they are ready to eat. They are actually junk food that have infinite volumes of harmful effects on the body. As a matter of fact, these packaged potato chips are very tasty to the tongue and taste buds, but they are extremely harmful for the belly, and ultimately to the whole body.

They Cause Addiction: Some expert dietitians compare potato chips with harmful and toxic drugs and alcoholic drinks. It is not because of the fact that these chips cause toxic effects, but because of the fact that they compel you to eat them again and again. This is simply addiction that makes you buy more packets and consume them. This can be a great mistake for you as well as for your kids and family. It is your responsibility to make your family aware of the shocking facts about packaged potato chips. They must be made aware of the unknown facts about the packaged potato chips.

They Are Loaded With Calories: As these chips are junk foods, they have no or very little nutritive value. Instead, they have loads of harmful calories that everyone needs to avoid. Excess consumption of these potato chips can cause terrible amounts of physical troubles. Some of these troubles can be seen in the form of obesity, excessive weight, and various related after effects.

They Are Made With Below-Standard Ingredients: As per the available facts and figures, the potato chips are never made with the best ingredients. As per one of the shocking facts about packaged potato chips, the producers use oil of poor quality to fry the potato flakes. In the opinion of the doctors and dietitians, eating these chips is as harmful as consuming 5 liters of cooking oil. Apart from these shocking facts about packaged potato chips, there are loads of unknown facts about packaged potato flakes and chips. As a responsible parents, you must carry the responsibility of restricting your kids from eating these chips. Otherwise, you and your family may end up suffering.

Kangana Ranaut Justifies On Being Called The Highest Paid Bollywood Actress!

After bagging 62nd National Award for the Best Actress for her mind blowing performance in Vikash Bahl's Queen, one more time she proved that she is the real Queen of Bollywood, when she took the industry by storm with her character in Tanu Weds Manu Returns. But after that immense success, reports were rife that Kangana has raised her remuneration quite high, which is far more than any actress's' charge and she has become the highest paid actress of Bollywood.

According to a leading daily, Kangana justifies her demand and said, "I think the kind of films and roles I do takes a whole year... I think it is justified. At some point, we have to come to that place where we are equally paid. It is a small step... we are headed to that direction." The actress, who has worked in many women-oriented films like Fashion, Queen also talked about inequality between the remuneration for actor and actresses in the industry.

She said, "There is a huge gap between the remuneration of an actor and actress... it will take time (to reduce the gap). Male actors get into production, share profit and they don't take money at times but are involved in some capacity which is economical and resourceful."

Power to you, Kangana!

7 Waterfront Hotels In India That Offer Simply Spectacular Views During Monsoon!

1. Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur

HolidayIQ Traveller Gautam Shah says, “The Lake Palace is one of the oldest and most premier of the Udaipur luxury hotels. Being run my TAJ, you can certainly expect grandeur and the best service. What distinguishes this hotel is its location. The hotel is in the centre of the Udaipur Lake and is a place made of beautiful white marble. You go to the hotel in small motor boats and the view and property are simply beautiful.”

2. Ocean Spray Hotel, Pondicherry

HolidayIQ Traveller Pankaj says, “The Ocean Spray is a beautiful resort located on ECR Road overlooking the Bay of Bengal. It is close to 20 km outside Pondicherry. Situated in very large area, it has its own man-made lake. We stayed in ‘the heavens’ which are open sky Jacuzzi rooms. The hotel provide bicycles to roam around the property. There are many beautiful fishes in the lake."

3. Golden Sands, A Sterling Holidays Resort , Puri

“The resort is a splendid property located near sea beach in Puri”, says HolidayIQ Traveller Rakesh Sharda.

Located at the scenic spot where Bhargavi River meets the sea, Sterling Holidays resort at Puri is the ideal place to start your spiritual sojourn in this temple town.

4. Zuri White Sands Resort and Casino, Goa

HolidayIQ Traveller Vinayak says, “As the name suggests, it is the luxury resort and spa and lives up to its reputation. The room is clean and tidy, the casino is great. The Zuri is situated on the beach, we had a great time partying.”

Etched across the rather long beach of Varca in Goa is the Zuri White Sands Resort and Casino. It is here that you get to indulge in a waterfront retreat that spells holiday and relaxation. The views are best from the tents where you get the sight of pristine sands that line the glistening waters. A must is a candle light dinner at the beach.

5. Ri Kynjai Resort, Shillong

HolidayIQ Traveller Bansuri Das says, “This hotel is situated away from the congested city of Shillong. It is located on the banks of RIver Bada Pani.”

You can spend hours on the rustic balcony that opens up to a fascinating view of expansive clear blue skies and mystical waters fenced by tapering lush landscapes on both the sides. Catch this sight especially in mornings when fog spreads over Umiam Lake and green land, giving it an ethereal feeling.

6. The World Backwaters A Lake Resort, Alleppey

HolidayIQ Traveller Ujjawal says, “The world ends here, only you can see is water, a calm and peaceful, beautiful place. One can enjoy the evening with their loved ones with the beautiful view you will be lost in the beauty of the place. Having dinner on the riverside with a wonderful view is a never to miss experience."

7. Leela Kovalam Beach Resort, Kerala

HolidayIQ Traveller Aravind Jayaraman says, “When you stay at the Leela, you literally are on the sea!! They have club rooms practically on the sea and cottages that face the sea. We took the latter since they were closer to the beach and less expensive. The staff were very helpful and our vacation very memorable. They have a true infinity pool and the facilities are fabulous!”

How much are we trashing our oceans?

Nearly every piece of plastic still exists on Earth, regardless of whether it's been recycled, broken down into microscopic bits or discarded in the ocean.

And the world keeps producing more of the material -- creating 288 million metric tons of it in 2012. About 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons of it end up in the oceans in 2010, according to a new estimate published in the journal Science.

That report released Thursday ranks countries that generate the most plastic debris into the oceans, with Asian nations taking 13 out of the top 20 spots.

Using World Bank data on 192 coastal countries, researchers estimated that China, the most populous nation, has the most mismanaged plastic waste per year and also generates the most plastic debris that end up in the ocean at 28%.

Mismanaged waste means the material is littered or not properly disposed of-- meaning there isn't a formally managed waste management system.

"The study is not to point fingers at people, it wasn't to focus on the countries," said lead author Jenna Jambeck. "The purpose was to make a global estimate." But the data set Jambeck and the seven co-authors used was only available on a country-by-country level.

The countries with the most mismanaged waste are ...

Eight of the top 10 countries with mismanaged plastic waste are in Asia.

"Many of them are middle-income countries with rapidly growing economy," said Jambeck of the University of Georgia. "They have also large coastal populations, they have high levels of mismanaged waste, they have trouble keeping up with infrastructure."

The United States also cracked the top 20 and had a higher rate of waste generation per person at 5.6 pounds per person than China (2.4 pounds).

Low-income countries were less likely to end up on the list, because of less waste, Jambeck said.

We're using way more plastic than ever before

Since 1974, the world has undergone a 620% increase in plastic production, according to the researchers.

"When the waste was natural material, we could leave it and not think about it," Jambeck said. "Even disposing of it in the land was fine, but plastic has increased 650% in the last 40 years.

"It's a wake-up call. We need to look at this and the way we're collecting and containing our waste."

Plastic waste discarded in the ocean raises a number of concerns, scientists say. It may damage ecosystems and marine animals, contaminate our food supply, and lead to chemical leaching.

Estimates of the time it takes to degrade plastic range from hundreds to thousands of years -- and because plastic has only been around for 100 years, there hasn't been enough time to observe the process, says Darby Hoover, senior resource specialist at Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

Meanwhile, plastic waste keeps on growing with more people and more consumption, the report authors wrote.

"All that consumption is growing, unfortunately the waste management systems around the world are not keeping pace as quickly as the consumption and products -- there's a big mismatch," said Doug Woodring, who was not involved in the study but has worked on the issue of plastics waste at the Ocean Recovery Alliance in Hong Kong.

Who's responsible?

Last year, one study in the journal PLOS estimated that a minimum of 5.25 trillion floating plastic particles weighing 268,940 tons are in the ocean. This estimate included only surface plastics, and not the materials that have sunk.

"A lot of people think of an island of floating garbage, people envision that there are forms of an island you can see on Google Earth -- it's much more diffuse than that," Hoover said. " All of our oceans are plastic soups- everywhere you can go."

Environmentalists have criticized the rampant use of plastics in packaging that are only used once and then discarded.

The solutions have to be both local and global, Jambeck said.

"It's everybody's responsibility. Of course, don't litter and prioritize using reusables," Hoover said. "At the same time there's a responsibility on companies who produce the products found in oceans, to make sure the materials they produce are recyclable, get recycled and look for ways to improve the infrastructure."

Efforts to reduce plastic waste

While China topped the list in the report, the country has made some efforts to curb waste. In 2008, China banned free plastic bags and five years later, banned the import of poorly sorted recyclables from other countries including the U.S.

There are some successful models, said Woodring. For example, Taiwan places a surcharge on plastics sold on a company level and it pays for the sorting, capturing, cleaning and recycling.

However, some countries lack infrastructure for waste management and recycling.

Black Money: India will have to wait till 2018 for info from Swiss govt

In its fight against black money menace, India will have to wait till 2018 for Switzerland to provide bank account details of Indians under the 'automatic information exchange' framework.

Under a global framework, more than 40 jurisdictions including India had agreed to become 'early adopters' of an 'automatic exchange of information' mechanism prepared by global body OECD to help each other in fighting the tax evasion and frauds.

"This so-called early adopters group plans to collect data from 2016 and exchange information for the first time in September 2017," according to a new report by the Swiss government. However, Switzerland would see its 'first exchange' under this framework taking place in the year 2018. As per the report, as many as 58 countries would see their 'first exchange' taking place in 2017, followed by another 35 in the year 2018. While India is part of the 'First Exchange 2017' group, it will have to wait till 2018 for 'automatic exchange of information' with Switzerland because of the Alpine nation being in the second grouping. The details that would be shared include account number, name, address and date of birth, tax identification number, interest and dividends, receipts from certain insurance policies, credit balances on accounts, as also proceeds from the sale of financial assets.

Explaining the exchange process, the report said: If a taxpayer in a Country A has a bank account in Country B, the bank would disclose financial account data to authorities in the Country B, which would automatically forward the details to authorities in Country A to help them examine the data. Once in place, the mechanism would help the Indian authorities to have a strong ground while seeking to bring back and tax the funds stashed overseas by its citizens. To curb illicit fund flows and to tax unaccounted wealth stashed abroad, India has stepped up its efforts, including re-negotiating tax treaties with various countries. India expects automatic exchange to help curb this menace.

Many countries worldwide are taking steps to address the menace of illicit funds being stashed away in tax havens. On ways to prevent black money menace in the future, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has also said that the world is moving towards automatic exchange of information. After meeting his Swiss counterpart Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf in Davos last month, Jaitley said the bilateral agreements with regard to automatic exchange of tax information with various countries, including Switzerland, would be "the long term solution to check this menace."

As it steps up measures to bring back black money stashed overseas, current law allows the government to re-open tax assessment for cases as old as 16 years. With respect to taxing the unaccounted money overseas, experts said the challenge for the Indian tax authorities would be in building a strong case. Experts opined that the time limit of 16 years provides adequate time to the tax authorities to bring to tax income in relation to assets located outside the country. Grant Thornton Advisory Pvt Ltd's Director Pallavi Bakhru said that first tax authorities would have to build a case that the money lying in off-shore bank accounts in unaccounted and tax liability on such income has escaped assessment.

"This exercise, would need to be completed for tax authorities to form an opinion that certain income has escaped assessment, which would be needed to issue a notice for re-assessment," she said. KPMG in India's Partner (Tax) Vikas Vasal said the challenge in case of overseas income or assets situated outside India is in getting necessary information and also to collaborate it with sufficient evidence for having a strong case. "Therefore, the relevant provisions in the treaty or the specific information exchange agreements play an important role in this context.

"In general, roving enquiries are not permitted and information has to be sought for a particular case or a transaction from the overseas authorities," he noted. About loopholes in existing tax law regime that may hurt efforts to recover untaxed money, Bakhru said there is a lack of structured mechanism to recover taxes from foreign assets of non-resident taxpayers. Besides, litigation options are available to taxpayers challenging the tax assessment and consequent tax demands can come in way of government's effort to recover taxes from unaccounted money, Bakhru added. After last week's fresh 'HSBC List' expose, wherein names of 1,195 Indians have been disclosed, the government said that it has taken "vigorous and pro-active measures to expedite investigations in the cases of Indians holding undisclosed foreign accounts/assets abroad". "Useful contacts have been established with foreign governments who might have some further information in this regard. "Based upon credible information of undisclosed foreign bank accounts, fresh references for obtaining further information in more than 600 cases have been made to foreign jurisdictions, under available treaties/agreements.

The same are being pursued," as per a finance ministry statement.

Unhappy with your appraisal? Speak to your boss

Not happy with your appraisal this year? Don’t worry. Just write or talk to your boss. Firms including Virtusa Corp, HCL Technologies, MakeMyTrip, Tata Group, Godrej and RPG Group are welcoming feedback from their employees as part of a new human resource (HR) practice to control attrition.

Companies are also making efforts to create the appraisal process fair and interactive to retain talent.

“Employees can now give (written or vocal) feedback on the quality of appraisal discussions they had with their managers,” said R Anand, vicepresident, global rewards, people and leadership, HCL Technologies. “In case of dissatisfaction, the reviewer is informed along with the respective HR manager who is responsible to bring the discussion to a satisfactory close.”

Many companies are conducting surveys and organsiing group meetings where employees can convey disappointments or suggestions to their immediate bosses as well as the top management.

MakeMyTrip, a travel portal, is coaching its appraisers about tips on the art of receiving feedback.

Virtusa Corp, a Nasdaqlisted IT company, will carry out employee surveys on the appraisal process.

“We are encouraging our employees to provide feedback on the performance appraisal process through engagement surveys and group meetings,” said Ratish Jha, head, HR, Raychem RPG. “The appraisal process is designed to enhance employee development, and we want to know if it is achieving this purpose.”

Staffing companies also feel that receiving feedback is a welcome trend. “This is a welcome trend,” said Mayank Chandra, managing partner, Antal International, an UKbased staffing firm. “However, firms should ensure impartiality among team members.”

Oscars 2015: the full list of winners

The 87th Academy Awards have now ended in Los Angeles. Here’s a list of the awards recipients in full.

Best supporting actor

WINNER: JK Simmons for Whiplash

Robert Duvall for The Judge
Ethan Hawke for Boyhood
Edward Norton for Birdman
Mark Ruffalo for Foxcatcher

Achievement in costume design

WINNER: The Grand Budapest Hotel – Milena Canonero

Inherent Vice – Mark Bridges
Into the Woods – Colleen Atwood
Maleficent – Anna B Sheppard
Mr Turner – Jacqueline Durran

Achievement in makeup and hairstyling

WINNER: The Grand Budapest Hotel – Frances Hannon, Mark Coulier
Foxcatcher – Bill Corso, Dennis Liddiard
Guardians of the Galaxy – Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou, David White

Best foreign-language film

WINNER: Ida – Paweł Pawlikowski
Tangerines – Zaza Urushadze
Leviathan – Andrey Zvyagintsev
Wild Tales – Damián Szifrón
Timbuktu – Abderrahmane Sissako

Best live-action short film

WINNER: The Phone Call – Mat Kirkby, James Lucas

Aya – Oded Binnun, Mihal Brezis

Boogaloo and Graham – Michael Lennox, Ronan Blaney

Butter Lamp – Wei Hu, Julien Féret

Parvaneh – Talkhon Hamzavi, Stefan Eichenberger

Best documentary short subject

WINNER: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 – Ellen Goosenberg Kent, Dana Perry
Joanna – Aneta Kopacz
Our Curse – Tomasz Sliwinski, Maciej Slesicki
The Reaper – Gabriel Serra
White Earth – Christian Jensen

Achievement in sound mixing

WINNER: Whiplash – Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins, Thomas Curley
American Sniper – John T Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, Walt Martin
Birdman – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Thomas Varga
Interstellar – Gary Rizzo, Gregg Landaker, Mark Weingarten
Unbroken – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, David Lee

Achievement in sound editing

WINNER: American Sniper – Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman
Birdman – Aaron Glascock, Martín Hernández
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Brent Burge, Jason Canovas
Interstellar – Richard King
Unbroken – Becky Sullivan, Andrew DeCristofaro

Best supporting actress

WINNER: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood
Laura Dern for Wild
Keira Knightley for The Imitation Game
Emma Stone for Birdman
Meryl Streep for Into the Woods

Achievement in visual effects

WINNER: Interstellar – Paul J Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter, Scott R Fisher
Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Dan Deleeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill, Daniel Sudick
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett, Erik Winquist
Guardians of the Galaxy – Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner, Paul Corbould
X-Men: Days of Future Past – Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie, Cameron Waldbauer

Best animated short film

WINNER: Feast – Patrick Osborne, Kristina Reed
The Bigger Picture – Daisy Jacobs, Chris Hees
The Dam Keeper – Robert Kondo, Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi
Me and My Moulton – Torill Kove
A Single Life – Joris Oprins

Best animated feature film

WINNER: Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Best production design

WINNER: The Grand Budapest Hotel: Adam Stockhausen, Anna Pinnock
The Imitation Game: Maria Djurkovic, Tatiana Macdonald
Interstellar: Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis
Into the Woods: Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock
Mr Turner: Suzie Davies, Charlotte Watts

Achievement in cinematography

WINNER: Birdman: Emmanuel Lubezki
The Grand Budapest Hotel: Robert D Yeoman
Ida: Lukasz Zal, Ryszard Lenczewski
Mr Turner: Dick Pope
Unbroken: Roger Deakins

Achievement in film editing

WINNER: Whiplash – Tom Cross
Boyhood – Sandra Adair
The Imitation Game – William Goldenberg
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Barney Pilling
American Sniper – Joel Cox, Gary Roach

Best documentary feature

WINNER: Citizenfour – Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, Dirk Wilutzky
Finding Vivian Maier – John Maloof, Charlie Siskel
Last Days in Vietnam – Rory Kennedy, Keven McAlester
The Salt of the Earth – Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, David Rosier
Virunga – Orlando von Einsiedel, Joanna Natasegara

Best original song

WINNER: Glory from Selma – Lonnie Lynn (Common), John Stephens (John Legend)
The Lego Movie – Shawn Patterson (Everything Is Awesome)
Beyond the Lights – Diane Warren (Grateful)
Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me – Glen Campbell, Julian Raymond (I’m Not Gonna Miss You)
Begin Again – Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois (Lost Stars)

Best original score

WINNER: Alexandre Desplat – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alexandre Desplat – The Imitation Game 
Hans Zimmer – Interstellar
Jóhann Jóhannsson– The Theory of Everything 
Gary Yershon – Mr Turner

Original screenplay

WINNER: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo – Birdman
Richard Linklater – Boyhood
E Max Frye, Dan Futterman – Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson, Hugo Guinness – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Dan Gilroy – Nightcrawler

Adapted screenplay

WINNER: Graham Moore – The Imitation Game
Jason Hall – American Sniper
Paul Thomas Anderson – Inherent Vice
Anthony McCarten – The Theory of Everything
Damien Chazelle – Whiplash

Best Director

WINNER: Alejandro González Iñárritu for Birdman
Richard Linklater for Boyhood
Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game

Best Actor

WINNER: Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything
Steve Carell for Foxcatcher
Benedict Cumberbatch for The Imitation Game
Bradley Cooper for American Sniper
Michael Keaton for Birdman

Best Actress

WINNER: Julianne Moore for Still Alice
Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones for The Theory of Everything
Rosamund Pike for Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon for Wild

Best Picture

WINNER: Birdman
American Sniper
Boyhood
The Imitation Game
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash