Josh Layton 30 Jun 2013 MirrorUK Researchers were inspired by tobacco companies who have been making packaging more attractive for consumers Cigarette packets that TALK could soon join the fight to browbeat smokers into quitting their unhealthy habit. Researchers were inspired by tobacco companies who have been making packaging more attractive for consumers. They wanted to see if similar tactics could work against the companies and encourage people to give up the habit, rather than keep buying. Stirling University have been testing the devices on young women, and are about to open this up to include older age groups and men. The researchers from the university’s Centre for Tobacco Control Research created two talking packets with different recorded messages. One offered smokers a phone number for advice on quitting smoking and another warned that smoking reduces fertility. The packets use similar technology to singing birthday cards were a message plays…

David Gillespie July 2, 2013 The Age Ten ways to change your shopping list that could help you live longer. The modern diet contains far too much sugar and seed oils, and commercially made foods are largely to blame. David Gillespie, best-selling author of Sweet Poison and Toxic Oil, explains why and how these ingredients are damaging our health and how to avoid them. If I were to lend you a time machine (no, you can’t keep it) and send you back two centuries, you’d notice that the food on your plate looked pretty much the same as it does now. But how it looked would be the end of the similarities. Scratching just below the surface, you would find two significant, but largely invisible, changes. You would discover that almost all the fat used then came from animals and that there was almost no sugar added. Today’s meal would…

Sarah Michael July 02, 2013 news.com.au RETAIL staff as young as 15 are being forced to spend their wages on employer-brand clothes when working on the shop floor, and the onus is on them to fix the problem. As reported last week by news.com.au, employees at Australian chain stores are spending a significant portion of their earnings keeping up to date with current stock. Under law, employers must reimburse the cost of purchasing the clothing to the employee. However, news.com.au has received more than 200 emails and comments from frustrated employees who have not been compensated. And both Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten and the retail union say if workers want their money refunded they need to take their claims to the Fair Work Ombudsman. Joe de Bruyn, national secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employee’s Union, told news.com.au the only way to fix the problem was for retail…

David Wilson July 3, 2013 The Age So you think you can tell fine wine from plonk without reading the label? You might be deluded because, economists say, our grasp of wine’s class and worth is shaky. Several scathing studies suggest we are suckers for mystique and marketing – the price tag-driven power of suggestion. According to the industry blog The Wine Economist, the wine retailing industry’s ”dirty little secret” is that we automatically lean towards dearer brands. On the hunt, we look at least for a mid-range bottle, irrespective of other dynamics, swayed by the brainwashed belief we should spend proper money. Nobody wants to look crass. Our unease about buying plonk is exploited by supermarkets. Cheap brands are shelved near the floor, forcing anyone who feels moved to buy an everyday table wine to stoop – so demeaning. The contrarian case for still taking the low-rent road and…

Michael Baker July 3, 2013 The Age A message to the major retailers: no-one cares what you’ve got to say on the GST, disability insurance or pretty much anything else. A lot of CEOs would be better off keeping their opinions to themselves. David Green, CEO of giant retail chain Hobby Lobby, which has 555 stores throughout the US selling craft and other supplies, is an evangelical Christian and wants everyone to know it, particularly the US government. The stores are all closed on Sundays and Hobby Lobby’s home page shrieks the phrase “In God We Trust” in bold text. The CEO’s religious conscience is not just a personal character trait; it’s a corporate profit centre. The company has just won a major court victory exempting it on religious grounds from an ‘Obamacare’ mandate that “morning-after” pills and certain other forms of contraception be covered under employer health care plans.…