Mick Hartley

A nutritional breakthrough for the famine-threatened people of the Democratic People's Republic:

North Korean scientists have developed a new kind of noodle that delays feelings of hunger, a Japan-based pro-Pyongyang newspaper has reported.

The noodles were made from corn and soybeans, the Choson Shinbo said.

They left people feeling fuller longer and represented a technological breakthrough, the newspaper said….

According to the newspaper, which is seen as closely linked to the Pyongyang leadership, the new noodles have twice as much protein and fives times as much fat as ordinary noodles.

"When you consume ordinary noodles (made from wheat or corn), you may soon feel your stomach empty. But this soybean noodle delays such a feeling of hunger," it said on its website.

The noodles would be available soon across North Korea, the newspaper said.

It's an odd way to announce a new food, isn't it? – that it delays feelings of hunger. If it was a genuine noodle breakthrough, you'd expect them to claim that these were far more nutritious than ordinary noodles, or much healthier. To claim merely that they leave people "feeling fuller longer" is hardly a ringing endorsement. Tellingly, there's no mention of taste. Is there something they're not telling us? Does this item, perhaps, from the DPRK Central News Agency, have any relevance?

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has dynamically pushed ahead with the work to recycle waste materials for the protection of environment.

* The Institute of the Environmental Protection under the Ministry of Land and Environment Conservation has proved successful in researches into recycling the spent water and waste matters from foodstuff factories and paper mills.

* The institute has developed a new kind of flocculant for purifying and recycling spent water and waste materials.

* With the help of the flocculant, foodstuff factories are producing additive for animal feed by collecting useful protein from spent water and paper mills are purifying spent water for reuse. The institute also succeeded in purifying the contaminated water area with big azolla filliculoidas, thus doing much to the environmental protection.

Recycling waste materials? Still feeding 'em shit, then…