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The American Diet

Ninety percent of Americans' household food budget is spent on processed food, the majority of which are filled with additives and stripped of nutrients. Processed, packaged foods have almost completely taken over the diet of Americans.Unfortunately, most processed foods are laden with sweeteners, salts, artificial flavors, factory-created fats, colorings, chemicals that alter texture, and preservatives. But the trouble is not just what's been added, but what's been taken away. Processed foods are often stripped of nutrients designed by nature to protect your heart, such as soluble fiber, antioxidants, and "good" fats. Combine that with additives, and you have a recipe for disaster.

If $4 Gas Is Bad, Just Wait $7 a Gallon Gas Is Possible

Judging from the futures markets, shock at the gas pump is bound to get worse. Maybe much worse. Since the beginning of the year, benchmark oil and gasoline futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange both have increased by more than a third, but the average retail price of gasoline in the U.S. has risen by 22%. That bodes ill for consumers.So far, oil refiners and petroleum-product distributors have absorbed much of the increase, but their ability to continue to swallow losses and operate at thin margins is limited. Many analysts consider $4-a-gallon retail gasoline across the U.S. a foregone conclusion this summer driving season, a period of typically peak demand, but those estimates take only current record-high oil prices into account. Thursday, light, sweet crude futures breached $135 a barrel, more than double the price a year ago. If oil hits $200 a barrel, which is the upper end of Goldman Sach's prediction for prices over the next six months to two years, the gasoline picture changes quite dramatically. At $200 a barrel, crude alone would cost $4.76 a gallon. Add on the costs of refining and distributing as well as taxes, and pump prices could rise to a range of $6 to $7 a gallon.

Think Green

The wheelbarrow-bike that could be the solution to saving gas
It looks like a wheelbarrow attached to a bike - but transport experts believe it could be the solution to school-run traffic.
Families in Richmond are being asked to swap their 4x4s for a more environmentally friendly mode of transport: Dutch cargo bikes. Each costs from £1,150 and can carry a rider and up to three young children, or the weekly family shop. The "wheelbarrow" section is fitted with seatbelts for children.