Returning to the days of rickets

A vegan child in Scotland was found to suffer Rickets associated with vitamin D deficiency a few months ago – which caused quite a storm in a teacup among a few.

A recent study has found that about 50% of children may be getting not enough vit D – to the extent that bone growth may be suffering – I wonder if this will get the same kind of news coverage.

Some very ill informed members of the public posted comments to the Timesonline.com about veg*ns – that this was further evidence that eating meat and drinking milk is essential to our diet – and mums like myself, who don’t, should probably have our children taken into care – for child neglect.

I say ill informed because meat does not contain vit. D and dairy products do not naturally contain vit D. In this country Vit D has been added to milk – as a precaution – for about the past 50 years.

The main source of Vitamin D is from the reaction of the sunlight on our skin – I don’t want to get too technical, suffice to say it is just not like the vitamins we eat. In the summer months in England we require just 10 minutes exposure to a small area of our bodies. Fortunately, we do store vit D – which is just as well – because in those months when our shadows are longer than our actual bodies then the sunlight is not intensive enough to bring about the chemical changes…

Basically we can’t get enough sun light in winter – more so the further north we are – so it is vital to get out in the sun for a short time each day in the summer months.

My conclusion – in general the western lifestyle is not healthy: it includes limited exercise, not enough walking, too much staying indoors playing with our high tech equipment, and really poor diet.

The typical diet of children is quite shocking: including limited fruit and veg., large amounts of sugary soft drinks and high salt/sugar convenience foods.

There is no reason to think a veg*n is going to be more or less healthy than any other person in our society.

Link: www.wddty.com/03363800371776507641/vitamin-d-half-of-all-children-are-deficient.html

Good bye Corgi – hello new…

Next year Corgi registration is not going to be a requirement for gas engineers – not a lot of people know this.

Corgi registration has been a legal requirement for gas safety for more than 10 years – most people know Corgi registration is the thing to look for and Corgi are the body to address gas concerns.

In order to be Corgi registered every individual has to sit and re-sit exams – practical and written every five years which are run by approved centres (not Corgi) – each individual has their own unique number and ID card which will detail the exact gas items which they are deemed competent in.

A company/individual must register annually and any of their work can be inspected randomly by a Corgi inspector.

Ok – the gas engineers must still be registered but under a new scheme. Only 7 months to go and here is what we don’t know:

• What will the scheme be called?
• What logo will it have?
• Will those currently registered with Corgi continue to keep the same registration number under the new scheme?

What we do know is that a company called Capita will run the registration scheme – for a while at least.

We know that a new ‘BRAND’ is going to be developed which will be independent of the company that runs it. Whereas Corgi is a company that ‘own’ the ‘Corgi’ brand. Corgi will continue to exist.

The implications of this change are massive both to registered gas engineers and to the public.

From my point of view: For most companies we need to be prepared 12 months or so in advance because of the financial implications – our Corgi registration details are on our letterheads, our sign written vehicles, and in our adverts – there are legal requirements about these.

E.g. advertising is often prepared 12 months in advance – you know how long you keep the Yellow Pages – you may not realise that the copy for those adverts has been submitted a long time before publication.

For the public I think it is going to be very confusing and for a while it will be difficult to be confident that the person you employ is in fact registered with the correct body as we do not know what they will be called – telephone number or website. Can this all be put in place with sufficient publicity in such a short time?

Recipe for disaster?

This is happening because the Health & Safety Executive HSE are in charge of the whole thing and they thought it would be a good idea – back in 2006!

Why not more publicity?

You can’t blame Corgi – it is not their responsibility – here is what they say:

www.trustcorgi.com/news/corgi/HSEDecision.htmx

As for the HSE they say everything has been detailed on their website. I’m sure we all regularly look there to see if there is any important changes we should know about:

www.hse.gov.uk/gas/domestic/bidder.htm

And read more here:

http://home-plumbing.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_new_gas_safe_register_in_great_britain