Banana, What makes it so popular? Benefits and Facts of Banana

  It is the most popular fruit in the world. It is consumed over 100 billion annually in the world, and it is the fourth largest agricultural product in the world following only wheat, rice and corn. 

  What on earth is it? Yes. It is "banana." As many people do, I also love banana very much. However, I think many people eat bananas without knowing what exactly banana is and how wonderful it is. Let's take a look at banana.

What is banana?

  Banana means "finger" in Arabic. Why was it named "finger?" That is attributed to which type of plant banana is. Many people believe banana is fruit from a tree, but that is not true. What we know as a banana tree is actually a giant herb. That means a banana tree doesn't have woody stems but has only giant herbs, and banana is the fruit of these giant herbs. In the past, when people first found out banana, they thought it looked like fingers of herbs, so they named it as banana which means finger. 

  Banana originated in Asia, but India is the biggest cultivator nowadays, followed by Uganda, China and the Philippines. Uganda has the highest average per person consumption of bananas in the world. Ugandans eat on average about 225 kilo of banana per person, per year.

  There are about 1000 types of banana, but there are only a few types we can eat as fruit. The most-consumed type of banana is called the "Cavendish," which we can see in markets. In the past, however, another type of banana called the "Gros Michel" was preferred over the Cavendish because it was larger, easier to transport, didn't go bad nearly as fast, and the taste was better. The reason why we can't find the Gros Michel any more is that it was completely wiped out globally by certain strains of fungus called Panama disease.


What are the benefits of banana?

Good for diet

   One banana has 11% of the RDA of dietary fibre and only about 108 calories. The fibre in bananas not only keeps digestion regular, but also helps maintain low blood sugar and curbs overeating.


Energy Booster 

  Because of the abundance of vitamins and minerals, bananas are a great source of natural energy. Eating only two bananas will give you enough energy to exercise or workout for an hour and a half. Bananas are also ideal for eating during that midday lull when you feel tired and sluggish.

  Instead of drinking caffeine or having a sugary snack, bananas provide a level of energy that lasts longer without the dramatic crash caused by caffeine.


Making You Cheer Up

  Besides a banana gives energy to you, eating a banana can cheer you up. Bananas are the only fruit to contain the amino acid, tryptophan plus Vitamin B6, which together help the body produce seratonin. Seratonin is the natural chemical which alleviates mental depression.


Lower Blood Pressure

   Studies show that the high amounts of potassium in bananas (over 13% of the RDA) can lower one's blood pressure, which in turn lessens the possibility of atherosclerosis, heart attack and stroke.


Good for Digestive Tract 

  Bananas can diminish the uncomfortable effects of diarrhea and constipation. The high amounts of potassium in bananas can restock electrolytes that are easily depleted when suffering from diarrhea - potassium being an important electrolyte itself. Furthermore, bananas can relieve the body from constipation and help restore regular digestion with pectin, a soluble polysaccharide that helps normalize the digestive tract. 


High Nutrient Absorption

  Bananas also contain high levels of fructooligosaccharide (FOS) that--along with insulin--promotes calcium absorption. FOS further nourishes healthy bacteria in the colon that manufacture vitamins and digestive enzymes that boost the body's overall ability to absorb nutrients.

  As seeing above, there are a lot of benefits of eating bananas, making it reasonable that banana is the most popular fruit. So, why not trying it? However, remember that eating underripe bananas or too many bananas could cause constipation.


What kind of recipes?

  Many people just eat bananas as they are, but there are many other recipes with which people can enjoy bananas. 

  Bananas are sometimes used as an ingredient of bread. Banana muffin and banana pie are one of the good ways of enjoying bananas.

  Chocolate is also a great mate of bananas. People can enjoy sweet flavour with chocolate banana. 

  Banana juice is one of the best drink made of fruit. Since banana itself is sweet, no sugar is needed for banana juice. Plus, I sometimes enjoy chocolate banana frappuccino or mango banana frappuccino at Starbucks. It is tasty.

  There are many other recipes using bananas along with those recipes above. Why not making your own recipes using bananas?

  We have taken a look at banana. Now you know what banana is and how great banana is. Doesn't banana seem tastier than before? Why don't you keep your body healthy with nutritious bananas? However, remember that eating only one kind of fruit too much cannot be good for health.




Reference

http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/8-health-beneits-of-bananas.html
http://www.lifescript.com/food/articles/0/14_banana_health_benefits_you_might_not_know_about.aspx
http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/25-facts-about-bananas.html
http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/gobananas/banana_facts/
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/09/15-facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-bananas/

A Weekend Trip to GyeongJu World Amusement Park(경주월드)

  As Spring has come, the weather is wonderful these days. Such weather makes people go out for a picnic. I was not the exception. For the weekend, I went to an amusement park, GyeongJu World which is located in GyeongJu, Gyeongsang province. 

  GyeongJu is very famous for historic relics of Korea. Many people visit GyeongJu for field trips, but GyeongJu World is also one of the best attractions of GyeongJu. In GyeongJu World, there is an amusement park, a water park called California beach, and a juvenile training centre. GyeongJu world is crowded with people visiting the water park especially in summer.

  Since I'm currently staying in Busan, which is in Gyeongsang province, GyeongJu World is quite close to Busan. So, why not? I went there. It was my first time I visited there, so I was excited.

 

   That is GyeongJu Station. I took a train, and it takes about one and a half hours from Haeundae station, which is in Busan, to GyeongJu station by Mugunghwa train. It costs about 5000 won. Cheap and quick.

  Here I am. GyeongJu World is not that far from the station.

 

  I took a Ferris wheel.

  The view from the Ferris wheel is quite great.

  There are two specialised areas, which are Wizard Garden and X-Zone. Here are the photos of Wizard Garden area.

 

 

  Wizard Garden is designed like a magical world, so children usually enjoy this area.

  X-Zone is for those who seek for extreme rides such as a rollercoaster.

  That is Mega Drop in X-Zone. It is 70m high, and it is the highest ride among Korean Mega Drop rides. Doesn't it look so scary? Yes. I took a ride, and I was almost freaked out.

  I also rode Tornado, which is similar to a pirate ship ride. It was also a extreme-thriller.

  Phaethon. That is a kind of rollercoaster. It was also exciting. I rode it even three times.

  Time flew like an arrow in GyeongJu World, and I had a really good time. I was exhausted, but I could refresh myself with thrilling rides. GyeongJu World was much better than I'd expected. It was a great trip.

Boston bombings, Ricin letters, Plant explosion. Panicking Situations throughout the USA.

  When I check news homepages in the morning, new massive incidents are happening every day for this whole week, and the thing is, all these tragic incidents are from America. Boston marathon bombing terror, poisonous ricin letters and plant explosion in Waco, Texas. Only one tragic incident like them is panicking enough but three of them consecutively happened in America. America must be in such a chaos. So, what exactly happened in America? What are the three? I'd like to summarise those three.

(Reuters)

Boston Marathon Bombing Terror

  On Monday, April 15th, two bombs exploded near the finish line of the marathon course in Boston. One bomb exploded first, and then the other exploded after around 30 seconds. It was during the 2013 Boston Marathon, and it was Patriot's Day of America. 3 people died, more than 170 people were injured by the bombs. the bombs ripped while amatuer marathoners were coming to the finish line. That was after a few hours of professional marathoners' finishing the course. It seems that the targets were random people, not professionals. In addition, It is said that pressure cookers filled with shrapnels were used as bombs. It has not been found who did this and why it happened. As of Friday, two suspects have been captured by CCTV and FBI is struggling to find out who they are.

(Reuters)

Deathly Poisonous Ricin Letters Case

  On Tuesday, April 16th, There was a statement that letters containing lethal posion ricin had been sent to the White House. The letters were addressed to US president, Barack Obama. After the first letter was acknowledged, it turned out that two other letters had also been sent to a US Senator and a Mississippi justice offical. Fortunately, the letters were blocked before they reached the President and the Senator. Since there were similar cases in the past, the letters could be blocked by strict mail-screening.

  On Wednesday, which was the following day, FBI arrested a Mississippi guy in connection with the letters. It is said that there is no connection with the bombing terror in Boston.

(Reuters)

Fertilizer Plant Explosion in Waco, Texas

  On Thursday, a fertilizer plant exploded in Waco, Texas. It has been reported that between five and 15 people died, and there are up to 200 casualties as of Friday. The emergency services officials said that the explosion is an accident, which was caused by ammonia. Beside casualties it also destroyed numerous buildings including houses, a school and nursing home. Emergency services are finding survivors after the blast.


  Seeing those three misfortunes, the whole United States of America seems in shock and chaos. Those three are not related to one another, but they are happening altogether, which seems truly weird. With those disasters, I am little bit worried that America can't currently consider other issues which are outside the countries because White House is too busy to care about them other than caring for domestic issues. North Korea, for example, could take advantage of this chaos of America since North Korea and America were in a tense situation, but America is now less committed to the situation. 

  Sometimes, America seems the safest country in the world, but sometimes America seems the most dangerous country. However, I think the reason why America is considered an amazing country is that America takes measures really quickly after something happens and quickly but strictly prepare for prevention against same thing's happening. I think it is to be admired.

  I feel so sorry for those who are suffering from the misfortunes, and things get better as soon as possible. I hope FBI would find out who did the terror and bring them to justice quickly. I'd like to present my condolences to the casualties.

Multiple accounts of SNS(Social Networking Service), how do you think?

 

 "How many Social Networking Service accounts are you using?"

 

  It can be said that almost every single person who can get access to the internet is using Social Networking Service which is so-called SNS. As more and more people are using SNS, new kinds of SNS are showing up. 

  Since each SNS is a bit different from one another, people use many other kinds of SNS with many other purposes. For example, people use Facebook usually to connect with their "already-known" friends such as family members, schoolmates or co-workers. Facebook users usually show how they are, what they did and what they are doing right now, and friends can catch up with one another by checking their posts.

  For Twitter users, they also connect with already-known friends, but I think they usually connect with randomly new people. Because of that, Twitter users don't really care about people with whom they connect, so they tweet what they think without any deep consideration. In addition, those who see other people's tweets don't take them that serious and don't really care seriously.

  For bloggers, there is a tendency for bloggers to try to look more professional than when they are on other kinds of SNS, so they deeply consider what they are going to write down, which sometimes takes quite a long time. For blog subscribers, they can get quality information from bloggers' posts.

  Other than those three, there are many other kinds of SNS and I am also using various kinds of it including the three above. The interesting thing that I want to think about is, the characterstics of people change based on which SNS they are on, and more interestingly, I found that people use multiple accounts of one kind of SNS. That is, people have two or three Twitter accounts or multiple Facebook accounts. For me, I don't have more than one account of certain SNS, but I wanted to think about why people would do that.

  I think there are pros and cons of having multiple accounts. For pros, I believe, they can manage their social network more easily. When I leaf through my friends list on Facebook or Twitter, there are hundreds of friends, which sometimes makes me think that is "too much." This could be handled by having multiple accounts, each of which has different groups of friends. Since each account has different groups of people, what users see on news feed would differ, and they could post considering the group of friends. 
  When it comes to twitter, since users connect with mostly random people, they can manage friends more easily by having multiple accounts. Plus, when users would like to start tweeting and friendship again on twitter, they can just make a new account and start again.
  I think one of the reasons why people have multiple accounts is that it is not that complicated to make a new account. people can easily make a new account only with an e-mail address. Because of that, people just don't hesitate to do it.

  It seems that using multiple accounts is a really good thing, but I would like to cast this question. "Can I show 'completely real me' on SNS if I have many other accounts of SNS?" I would say no. It is surely great that people can manage their friends easily by having multiple accounts, but in reality, relationship is not that a simple thing. In everyday's life, we interact with many kinds of groups of people, and based on who we meet, our identity could differ. With multiple accounts, however, people can manipulate what they want to meet on the internet, and they would avoid situations in which they have to show what they don't want to show to other people. In the end, everyone on Social Networking Service would only show their edited characteristics, and friendship would become such a light thing. When something complicated happens, they can just delete everything, make a new account, and start again, which is never possible in reality. 

  In the past, this "managing people" stuff was usually the problem of public figures. Since they are being shown to people publicly all the time, they had to consider which is to show and not to show, and they had to manipulate their images. These days, however, it seems that everybody on the internet is becoming public figures. People are aware of the audience, and they show their edited characteristics and manage their images. Wow. I think this is so interesting.

  In my opinion, I don't think it is a great idea to have multiple accounts and divide my egos based on my accounts, but I also think that could be useful "only if" people wisely use the multiple accounts. Why do we bother to split your characteristics? Well, that is entirely "my personal" opinion. 
  
  So, How do you think?

Hyper-tension throughout the Korean Peninsula. What is going on?

  Today, North Korea blocked the entry of South Korean workers into Kaesong Industrial complex, intensifying high tension between South Korea and North Korea. I feel that the tension is extremely high these days, and it even seems to get worse and worse.

  Tons of news articles pop up on the internet, and before I totally understand what is going on, another incident continually happens. Therefore,  I would like to summarise what has happened and what is going on throughout the peninsula at this point.

•   The first spark happened in December, 2012 when North Korea fired a three-stage rocket. What made it worse was that North Korea's firing the rocket was violation of a ban on North Korean ballistic missile tests, since the rocket was also related to the long-range missile technology. As a result, Many countries condemned the launch of the North Korean rocket including the UN Security Council. 

•   Another big spark happened in February, 2013. North Korea carried out a third underground nuclear test, which was said to be twice as big as the previous test in 2009. That deeply intensified the tension between South Korea and the North, and moreover, between the North and the UN. That was followed by the sanction over the North Korea by the UN Security Council. After the sanction, North Korea showed their anger with it. 

•   Last week on March 26th, North Korea ordered artillery and rocket units into "combat posture" to target US bases which are in Hawaii, Guam and the mainland of America. In a few days, as the reaction of that, American military showed their training of American stealth bombers flying over South Korea, followed by North Korea's urgent operations conference.

•    Yesterday, on April 2nd, North Korea stated that they will restart Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which was closed in 2007, and it seems to reoperate this Autumn. 

  As seeing above, North Korea is continuously carrying out their manoeuvres, violating agreements made with other countries, leading to more intensive tensions. 
 
 
  Beside the issues of North Korea's nuclear missiles, it seems that the North is also carrying on suspicious moves. On March 20th, the computer networks of broadcasters and banks in South Korea were paralysed by an unknown computer virus attack from hackers. The source of the network attack has not been clarified yet, but it is being assumed that the attack is from North Korea seeing that the tension between the South and the North is extremely high.

  In my opinion, North Korea would keep carrying out sensitive deeds, so South Korea would have to strongly react to the threats from the North. South Korean President Park Geun Hye said that South Korea is resolute in taking strong action against the threat. I really hope South Korea would do so. 

  As a result of the high tension, financial supports from other countries to North Korea seems to be taken back. If South Korea also withdraws their support to North Korea, the resource of North Korea would be depleted in the end, and the North would end up with stopping going onto the next step.

  I think the collapse of North Korea could happen from the inside of North Korea. It is said that more than the half of North Korean people are suffering from famine. I think it could happen that starving people would end up furious demonstration, leading to collapse of North Korea. That is just my little piece of comment.

  While North Korea is keeping their hostile attitude, the South cannot be sure what would happen, so I think South Korea should keep watching all the time. I hope these issues would be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep watching how it would go.




* I referred to webpage of BBC News which is : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11421928 Check this webpage out for more information.

* Image sources are following below : 
http://www.alternavox.net/18717/world-notes-violence-against-women-addressed-by-un-koreas-exchange-threats-maduro-becomes-acting-president-of-venezuela/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/03/12/why-north-korea-loves-to-threaten-world-war-iii-but-probably-wont-follow-through/
http://news.in.msn.com/international/us-denounces-north-koreas-nuke-threats

A Cherry Blossom Tour at "Dalmaji-gil"(달맞이길)

  As Spring has come, streets are getting covered with beautiful flowers, so I took a tour to enjoy some flowery streets with my friend.

  The place I chose to enjoy flowery roads was "Dalmaji-gil"(달맞이길) which is near the Haeundae beach in Busan. The name "Dalmaji-gil" means "moon-viewing street". The streets goes up to the mountain, so there are great spots to view the moon. Many people come by Dalmaji-gil not only for enjoying the moon, but also for enjoying the flowery streets full of cherry blossoms.

  Dalmaji-gil is near the right side of the Haeundae Beach. It takes about 20 minutes on foot from the beach to the start point of Dalmaji-gil.

  Fully-bloomed cherry blossoms looked amazing. The weather was warm enough to take a stroll and enjoy the flowers.

 

  There are a lot of flats along with the streets. I felt jealous of people living here. 

 

 

  When I looked down, I could see the sea. Cherry blossoms and pine trees with the sea, that was awesome.

  After enjoying the flowery streets, I walked down to the side.

  And I could see the beachside scenery.

  I feel as if I could smell the salty scent from the beach.

  In the end, I walked down to the Haeundae beach. The sun was falling down.

  Now I feel Spring has finally come.  It was a great trip.