Bananas: The ultimate hunger buster

Ever grab a snack but then feel hungry again 20 minutes later? Next time, reach for a banana. It’s loaded with Resistant Starch (RS), a healthy carb that fills you up and helps to boost your metabolism. Slightly underripe medium-sized bananas have 12.5 grams of RS—more than most other foods. Ripe bananas give you 4.7 grams of RS, still enough to keep hunger pangs away. Check out these tasty ways to work in this wonder food.

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Banana "Ice Cream"
Peel, slice, and freeze 1 small banana. Place frozen banana pieces in a blender with 3 tablespoons 1% low-fat milk; blend until thick. Top with 1 tablespoon chopped walnuts.

Banana Salsa
Make a quick salsa with 2 diced peeled bananas, 2 tablespoons minced red onion, 1 tablespoon minced cilantro, 1 teaspoon minced serrano or jalepeno pepper, juice of 1 lime, and brown sugar and salt to taste. Use it to top fish or pork tacos, jerk chicken, or jerk pork.

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Broiled Bananas
Slice 1 peeled banana in half lengthwise. Put banana pieces, cut sides up, on a rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle the banana pieces with 1 teaspoon brown sugar, and broil on high until the sugar bubbles and the bananas brown (about 2–3 minutes). After broiling, sprinkle with cinnamon—or drizzle with 1 teaspoon rum for an extra-special treat.

Health.com: Surprising health benefits of cinnamon

Coffee and Banana Smoothie
Place 1 sliced peeled banana, 1 cup 1% low-fat milk, 1/2 cup cold black coffee, 2 teaspoons sugar, and 1/2 cup ice in a blender. Blend until smooth—and enjoy.

Health.com: 11 healthy milk shakes and smoothies

Tropical Fruit Salad
Make a fruit salad with 1 sliced peeled banana, 1 sliced peeled kiwi, and 1/2 diced peeled ripe mango. Squirt juice of 1/4 lime over the salad, and serve.

OFWs issued travel documents to leave Libya

HONG KONG – Fleeing for safety, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who escaped from Tripoli and other parts of strife-torn Libya either lost or left with their respective employers their Philippine passports.

Fortunately for them, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto del Rosario was with them in Tunisia and issued them travel documents as their exit pass from Libya.

Rosita Garfin, principal of the school for the Philippine community in Tripoli, was profuse in expressing gratitude for the efforts of the secretary and Philippine

ambassador to Libya Alejandrino Vicente, who supervised the processing of their travel documents out of Libya.

Del Rosario flew to Tunisia immediately after he was sworn into office last week by President Aquino as acting Foreign Affairs secretary and concurrent presidential adviser on foreign relations.

Saying she is probably the oldest OFW working in the Middle East, the 70-year-old Garfin expressed her appreciation for the assistance given them by Del Rosario. She noted that the secretary personally directed the evacuation being undertaken by Philippine embassy officials in Libya to bring OFWs to safer locations like Tunisia and Dubai.

Patrick Patani, a civil engineer also working in Tripoli, told The STAR that they feared for their lives while traveling by land for more than four hours to Tunisia and then to Dubai. From Dubai, Patani said they were taken to an aircraft chartered by the Philippine government that brought them to Hong Kong, from where they were to take their flight to Manila.

Garfin and Patani were among the first batch of 180 OFWs who were processed out of Tunisia by Philippine embassy officials under the supervision of the Foreign secretary.



Garfin relayed her experience of fleeing from the civil strife in Libya to Sen. Loren Legarda, chair of the Senate foreign relations committee who was here on a stopover en route to Vietnam to attend the United Nations International Strategic Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) conference where she is the “regional champion” for Asia-Pacific.

Legarda took the opportunity to talk with OFWs in transit at the Hong Kong airport before flying back to Manila. As chair of the foreign relations committee, Legarda sought out information and the experiences of the OFWs on how the Philippine embassies in the Middle East are handling the situation, especially in attending to the needs of those stranded by the civil strife in Libya and Egypt.

“I would like to hear from you the sense of urgency, the sense of anticipation by our Philippine embassy officials in those foreign posts in attending to the needs primarily of our OFWs,” Legarda told them.

Garfin and Patani told the senator that they have already identified to Philippine embassy officials other areas in Libya where there are large concentrations of OFWs waiting to be rescued.

“I’m glad to hear that your needs were very well attended to by our embassy officials,” Legarda told them.

Patani was specially concerned for the safety of other OFWs left behind in Tripoli and other parts of Libya because of the presence of many armed men who take away mobile phones, laptops and even food. He said even their transport van that was supposed to take them out was seized.

Fortunately, he said, his employer was kind enough to provide another vehicle that took them to safer ground.

Their problem, he said, was they cannot identify who are friendly and who are not because whether they are for or against the Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, they forcibly take away private properties at gunpoint.

Obviously elated they would soon be coming back to the Philippines, the OFWs eagerly posed for photo with Legarda.

11 Pinoys in New Zealand still missing | Sun.Star

11 Pinoys in New Zealand still missing | Sun.Star

Mystery solved in death of legendary Japanese dog

Scientists have settled a decades-old mystery by naming a cause of death for Japan's most famous dog, Hachiko, whose legendary loyalty was immortalized in a Hollywood movie starring Richard Gere.

They say Hachiko died of cancer and worms, not because he swallowed a chicken skewer that ruptured his stomach — as legend had had it.

Hachiko was considered such a model of devotion that his organs were preserved when he died in 1935.

For years, Hachiko used to wait at Shibuya train station for its master, a professor at the University of Tokyo. Even after the professor died, the dog went to the station to wait for his master every afternoon for a decade until he finally died.

Tokyo residents were so moved that they built a statue of Hachiko at the station, which remains a popular rendezvous spot for Japanese today. He was also the hero of Japanese children's books.

The dog's story turned into a 2009 Hollywood film, "Hachi: A Dog's Story," starring Richard Gere — a remake of a 1987 Japanese movie.

Rumors had it that Hachiko died after wolfing down a skewer of grilled chicken — Japanese barbecue called yakitori — that ruptured his stomach.

But University of Tokyo veterinarians examining his innards said Wednesday that they found Hachiko had terminal cancer and also a filaria infection — worms.

Four yakitori sticks remained in Hachiko's stomach, but they did not damage his stomach or cause death, said Kazuyuki Uchida, one of veterinarians.

"Hachiko certainly had yakitori given by a street vendor at Shibuya," he said. "But the sticks were unrelated to his death, and the rumor is groundless."

persons with disability...20% discount on groceries

CEBU, Philippines - Two thousand persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Mandaue City can now avail of a 20 percent discount each time they buy medicines and groceries.

They can avail of the discount once they show the purchase booklets given to them by the city government. The booklets bear the signature of Mayor Jonas Cortes.

The city, through the City Social Welfare and Services (CSWS), distributed the printed purchase booklets through the presidents of the 28 chapters of the Federation for the Welfare of PWDs, which includes the Mandaue City Blind Association.

The The city allotted more than P300,000 for the printing of 4,000 purchase booklets. The other 2,000 booklets will be distributed through the barangays to PWDs who are not members of the federation.

As provided by Republic Act 9442, which amended Republic Act 7277 or the “Magna Carta for Disabled Persons,” all PWDs can enjoy the privileges enjoyed by senior citizens.

Cortes said PWDs “play a vital role in the development programs of the city.” In fact, the city government has employed many of them in the CSWS office and in different barangay centers.

Michael Pielago, president of the federation, said the gesture of the city government will “really boost the morale” of PWDs in the city. Mandaue has pioneered this kind of service. Many local government units remain unaware of the law providing such benefits.

During the ceremonial turnover of the purchase booklets, Pielago asked his colleagues to observe diplomacy in asking for the discount.



CSWS already informed owners of drugstores and department stores in the city about the discount for PWDs. The office will also hold a symposium on Republic Act 7277 “to iron out any kinds and for any clarification.” /JMO (THE FREEMAN)

20% off on meds, groceries for PWDs | The Freeman The Freeman Sections Metro Cebu

20% off on meds, groceries for PWDs | The Freeman The Freeman Sections Metro Cebu

1974 miss universe

Amparo Muñoz declared Miss Universe in 1974
Miss Universe 1974 Amparo Muñoz, who was crowned in the Philippines when the international beauty pageant was held here, has died after a "long illness" at her home in Malaga, Spain, reports Typically Spanish. She was 56 years old.

The actress was the first Miss Spain to be crowned Miss Universe but she renounced the title six months later due to discrepancies with the organizers, reports Typically Spanish. After winning the pageant, she returned to the Philippines to shoot the movie Hayop sa Ganda with 1969 Miss Universe Gloria Diaz, according to Ricky Lo of The Philippine Star. However, she "went home in a huff after she clashed with a producer-talent-scout with whom she swapped court charges."

More than a decade ago, Muñoz was rumored to have died from AIDS, according to Lo's column in 2006. That year, Lo wrote that Muñoz told Spanish newspaper Cronica that she suffered from a cerebral disease, not AIDS, a few years ago.

Lo quoted Muñoz, "I got sick the same day my Papa died of pulmonary infection... I was devastated by his death because I wasn't able to ask forgiveness from him for everything that I did. At first, I felt little symptoms. I would get dizzy when tying my shoes."

She added, "So I consulted a doctor and at first he told me, 'I'm afraid that you have cancer of the brain.' Soon, I was vomiting and feeling tremors. I was checked again by my doctor who found an abnormal growth in my cerebellum. So I underwent chemotherapy."
For more on this story, log on to Typically Spanish and The Philippine Star.