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Banana snack industry goes stale

Not so long ago, the Central Java town of Majenang was famous for being the home of sale pisang, a unique snack made with bananas, but recently the market changed and the local snack industry faded to a fraction of its former success. Majenang, one of 23 districts in Cilacap regency in the far west of the province - bordering with Banjar and Ciamis regencies in West Java - has about 30 small factories producing the snack. Before the 1998 economic crisis, there were around 100 such producers, leading Cilacap administration to come up with the idea of making the snack the icon of Majenang. But with the crisis, the plan hit snags and many cottage industries were forced out of business. More than a decade later, the situation has yet to improve. "Before the crisis I could sell 2 or 3 tons of fried banana sweets to Jakarta. But things are difficult now," Yayat, a 61-year-old sale pisang business owner, told The Jakarta Post in Majenang. Today, Yayat produces only about 200 kilograms of sale pisang a month, and 99 percent of this is sold in Majenang. The snacks are sold in 250-gram packages, each costing around Rp 25,000 (US$2). Another snack producer, Juremi, said that before the crisis she could send 2 tons of sale pisang to Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya each month. "Now we only sell sale pisang for the local market," the 60-year-old said. Juremi said most of the snack producers were struggling to survive. "What's important is that business survives. If there are buyers in the city, that's enough. Sometimes we get an order from outside the city, but this is unreliable," she said. "Once, a distributor from outside the city wanted to place an order, but the price he offered was too low to cover our production costs. Rather than suffering losses, we preferred not to take it." Making sale pisang does not take long. Ripe bananas are cut into slices and dried in the sun. "If the sun is bright, the bananas will dry out in two days. But in a rainy season like this, it takes about four days," Juremi said. The dried bananas are then smeared with flour and deep-fried. After being drained, the banana chips are ready to be packaged and sold. The sale pisang business has supported many, including farmers and traders who sell raw bananas to cottage industries in Majenang, as well as banana snack makers such as Juremi and Yayat, and the vendors. Majenang district head, Heru Susedyo, said he was aware of the stagnant business situation. "Sale pisang was once so popular that the Cilacap administration planned to make it the icon of Majenang city, but the plan could not be realized because sales keep decreasing." http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/03/06/

Monday 1 December 2008

banana muffin recipe

does not mean that it is "healthy" or "good" for you. That's A Lie. Myth 5: Fad Diets Work Long-Term If You Stick To ThemFad diets are the type of diets to promise quick weight loss by eating certain foods in combination with another food and by eliminating some sorts of foods all together. Slide rule not included. Give me a break. It took us a while to gain weight so it's going to take us awhile to lose weight. That is, if you want to lose it for good. Otherwise partake in silly fad diets, lose a couple quick pounds and gain back double. Are you losing a little weight on fad diets? You betcha. And 90% of it is water. Is this what you're hoping for? Go sit in a sauna it's less painful. And see your nutritional therapist. Why? Because these types of quickie diets often leave followers with low amounts of important nutrients. So you've lost weight that you'll gain back, you're dehydrated, and now your hair is falling out. Tradeoff? I think not. Myth 6: Drinking Water Will Make You Lose WeightThe truth is drinking water will not make you lose weight. A more correct statement would be, "Drinking water can help in weight loss." It's true that drinking a healthy amount of water is important to good health. It's not true that drinking water will make you lose weight. What helps you lose weight is the tradeoff. Trading water for high calorie drinks leads to weight loss because you're not consuming as many calories. And, consuming fewer calories encourages weight loss. Water is very important whether or not you are dieting. Your liver needs to pick up where the kidneys leave off. This isn't one of it's main functions but it's an important one. Our kidneys need water in order to work at optimum levels. So, if our kidneys don't have sufficient water, the liver has to work harder and it can't do it's main job properly. Which is to metabolize as quickly as possible. So water depletion can lead to ugly fat being stored in the body. Myth 7: Vegetarians Are Thin And HealthyMany times, going vegetarian, in my personal experience
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