It's been a good week for ...
sprout detractors
Christmas diners who prefer to dodge the most famous of festive greens will be pleased to hear proof has emerged that sprouts can be bad for you. The Medical Journal Of Australia reports a man from Ayrshire had to be hospitalised after eating too many Brussels sprouts last Christmas.
The vegetable contain lots of vitamin K, which promotes blood clotting. While not a bad thing in itself, the vitamin counteracted the effect of anticoagulants he was taking because he had a mechanical heart. Doctors at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank eventually realised too many sprouts were to blame.
Happily, his condition was stabilised, but the case should serve as a warning, and give a handy excuse to skip the sprouts, leaving more room for Christmas pudding.
It's been a bad week for ... chocolate bears
It might not be in the same league as Scotland's Ice Cream Wars, but Germany is waging its own confectionery battle. The pugilists? A jelly bear muscling in at 2cm tall and a slightly more substantial chocolate bear wearing a jaunty red ribbon and armoured in golden foil.
You might think these contenders bear little resemblance to each other. But there, you'd be wrong. Last autumn, German confectioner Haribo launched legal action accusing Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Sprungli of copying its trademark on the Gold Bear name after it launched the gold foil-wrapped Lindt Teddy. Haribo, which has been manufacturing multi-coloured gummy bears since 1967 and has held a global trademark for use of the term "Gold-Bears" since 1975, said the two products would confuse shoppers (but presumably only the really unobservant ones).
The Haribo gummy bear packaging features a cartoon bear wearing a red ribbon around its neck, while the Lindt product features a bear caricature printed on gold foil, with a real red ribbon wrapped around its neck.
On Tuesday, a German regional court ruled in favour of Haribo and banned any future sales of the chocolate bears.
To avoid any dolly mix-ups, sweetie eaters should perhaps stick to something far more distinctive – soor plooms, perhaps, not to be confused with sour grapes.
Why are you making commenting on HeraldScotland only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereCommments are closed on this article