Are there any ingredients that could indicate a product is low-quality?
Ingredients on the back of the bottle are ordered by quantity. “The baddies that you want to look out for… is your mineral oil, your sodium lauryl sulfate, parfum, benzel peroxide” being high up on the ingredients list, Miss Truman says.
The BBC sent ingredients lists of two BHA 2% salicylic acid toners with similar packaging to Dr Bhate. One is typically sold for six times the price of the other.
Dr Bhate says the the list of active ingredients in both products “looks pretty similar, no red flags,” but she notes the products have different formulations with solvents and humectants, which break down ingredients and hydrate the skin respectively.
“This will likely lead to varying performance between the two products,” she says.
Dr Bhate also looked at the ingredients lists for two serums with similar branding, one from a luxury skincare brand and one from a supermarket.
She says that though they have “lookalike packaging”, the budget product “doesn’t appear very similar in terms of ingredients” and the higher-end formula “seems more complex with barrier lipids and more marine extracts”.
Standing around a kitchen island with a small group of other food writers, I pull on a pair of plastic gloves and begin massaging a bright red paste into wedges of cabbage.
We are in Korean-American TV chef Judy Joo’s London flat, learning how to make kimchi from scratch.
Kimchi – sharp, funky, fermented cabbage – has become a kind of shorthand for Korean food in the UK. Judy calls it “the cornerstone of Korean cuisine”.
“Traditionally, Koreans eat kimchi 365 days a year,” Judy tells me. Kimchi recipes are passed down “like heirlooms”, she adds.
The group joke about the chilli under our nails and the smell lingering on the train home, but we’re all excited to have a jar of homemade kimchi ready to put in the fridge.
Judy, who’s known for bringing Korean food to British audiences, was leading a class tied to Ocado’s new Korean food aisle. It’s part of what appears to be a growing trend of bringing Korean food further into the British mainstream.
Judy Joo
Korean-American TV chef Judy Joo demonstrates how to make kimchi from scratch…
Judy Joo
… Her class duly rub red paste into wedges of cabbage
Growing up as a Korean in London, I was used to my culture turning up at school in the form of food. On “international day”, my mum would be asked to send in Korean dishes for pupils to try. Teachers were often more curious than students, and there was usually confusion about whether it was another type of Chinese food.
Korean food has never been in competition with other Asian cuisines – it simply wants to be seen and tasted on its own terms. As more Korean restaurants have opened, and as I’ve gone back to Korea and explored its food there, I’ve watched that shift happen in both places.
‘Fermented foods, such as kimchi, have become mainstream’
Back in 2009, the South Korean government launched a “Global Hansik” campaign to raise the profile of Korean food abroad, putting public money into restaurant promotion, chef training and overseas marketing. The programme drew criticism at the time for lacking clear results but, later, government studies suggested awareness of Korean food in major overseas cities rose over the first half of the 2010s.
Since then, Korean food has increasingly travelled alongside the broader “K-wave” of pop culture. Food-centred drama Bon Appétit, Your Majesty has showcased Korean fusion dishes, while South Korean competition show Culinary Class Wars returns for a second season on Netflix this month after topping the platform’s global non-English TV chart in its first run.
The shift is also visible on UK shelves. Searches for “Korean BBQ” on Waitrose’s website are up more than 60% year on year, and sales of its gochujang paste have risen more than 70%. Kimchi is among its fastest-growing international products.
“Fermented foods, such as kimchi, have become mainstream,” explains nutritionist Emer Lowry. “They enhance flavour and texture, but also offer benefits including improved digestion and a diverse, healthier gut microbiome.”
And the interest in Korean food didn’t just happen overnight – it’s driven by curiosity. Analysis by Bibigo, part of food giant CJ, suggests TikTok posts by UK users mentioning Korean food have risen from just under 10,000 in 2023 to more than 17,000 in 2025.
Lola Lee
Dishes at Cálong in North London
At Cálong, a restaurant in North London, chef Joo Won is exploring what it means to cook Korean food in Britain. In his early career in a London hotel kitchen, he worked with chefs from France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Thailand. Between shifts, they would take it in turns to cook meals from home for each other and, one day, the others asked him to make something Korean.
“When they asked me to cook Korean food, I realised I couldn’t,” he says. “As a Korean person and a chef, being unable to cook Korean food was embarrassing.”
He began revisiting the dishes he grew up with, not just restaurant staples but the home cooking most non-Koreans never encounter. “In Korea, the real foundation of our food is jang,” he says, referring to fermented pastes and sauces such as doenjang, ganjang and gochujang.
Try this BBC Food kimchi recipe:
But ingredients in Britain are different. “We can’t get exactly the same ingredients here that we have in Korea,” he says. “So a big challenge is: how do we reinterpret the character of British ingredients in a Korean way?
“We’re a restaurant that uses Korean techniques and flavours, but we also rely heavily on what’s available here in the UK,” he continues. “If an ingredient doesn’t suit Korean seasoning, there’s no need to put gochujang on it. If every dish at an Italian pasta restaurant came out with the same sauce, it would feel strange.”
As the popularity of Korean food grows, Joo thinks chefs may find it easier to source the authentic products they need. “At the moment, I’d say we’re only at the beginning. It feels like we’ve just reached the starting line.”
Food is the most important part of Korean dining culture. But Yoonsun Chang – who runs a Korean supper club – says Jeong, a deep warmth and care often associated with Korean hospitality, and inyeon, a sense of meaningful connections formed at the table, are also key. “What I try to give is jeong, but what’s created through these gatherings is also inyeon.”
LoKoLi – short for “Lovely Korean Life” – is a one-woman project run by Yoonsun, who creates one-off dining experiences built around Korean food and culture. I first came across her on Instagram and was struck by how much of it she was doing alone, driven by her own desire to show a version of Korean life that reflected what she loved.
Guests at her monthly clubs, which she usually hosts at home, often say they want more than the obvious elements of K-culture. They already know the music and dramas. What they’re seeking is the quieter, domestic side of Korean life: the table setting, the stories behind everyday dishes.
She also pays close attention to how Korean food appears outside Korean spaces. She recalls a time when “kimchi burgers” in Britain used “just some generic pickles”. Now, she says, pubs and restaurants increasingly use real kimchi. “Seeing that makes me feel Korean culture has really spread,” she says.
‘The flavour profiles were so different to what we were used to’
For British YouTubers Armand and Max, their introduction to Korean food came after taking part in a viral video for the Korean Englishman YouTube channel. Now in their early 20s, they say that day changed the way they eat.
The video, which featured the pair trying Korean street food in their school playground, was seen by tens of millions – and eventually took them to Korea itself, where they tried barbecue, late-night ramyun and school lunches.
“The flavour profiles… were just so different to what we were used to,” says Max. “Fermented cabbage, kimchi, we’d never had that. That was delicious. I can’t even compare it to anything.”
Korean Englishman
Back in Judy’s kitchen, as cabbages disappear into jars, she explains that proper kimchi needs weeks to ferment, though we were encouraged to taste it as it developed – as people do when making it at home.
The jar I made that day is now bubbling away in my fridge. It’s not the kind of kimchi my family would have made, but the process – rubbing paste into each leaf, waiting for the tang to deepen – connects back to kitchens thousands of miles away.
Korean food in Britain is still young compared with other cuisines. It has not replaced anyone’s Friday-night takeaway. But from supper clubs and YouTube channels to supermarket aisles and small flats where people are learning to make kimchi for the first time, it is steadily becoming part of everyday life.
BEIJING, Dec. 13 — China’s top economic planner said on Saturday that it will take multiple measures to stabilize investment growth in the coming year.
The measures will include leveraging various types of government investment funds, moderately increasing the scale of central budget investment, and continuing to utilize new policy-based financial instruments, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said at a work conference.
Next year, the NDRC will act to invigorate private investment, improve the implementation of consumer goods trade-in programs, boost service consumption, cultivate new growth drivers, and expand high-standard opening up.
Foreign funds would divert their liquidity into buying Pakistan’s stocks. This would merely increases prices of shares and be profitable for those who already hold stocks. PHOTO: FILE
KARACHI:
Pakistan’s benchmark KSE-100 Index soared to a fresh all-time high of 169,964.52 points, gaining 1.66% week-on-week to close at 169,865, fuelled by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s approval of a $1.2 billion disbursement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF).
On a day-to-day basis, the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) began the week on a strong note, with the index gaining 1,218 points (+0.73%) to close at 168,303. The momentum continued on Tuesday as the KSE-100 closed at a new peak of 169,456, gaining 1,153 points or 0.69%.
On Wednesday, the index briefly breached the key psychological barrier of 170,000 during intraday trading, but profit-taking at and above that level pulled the market back, resulting in a flattish close at 169,452 points, down just five points. PSX attempted once again on Thursday to close above 170,000 but fell short, with the KSE-100 ending at 168,575, down 877 points or 0.52%.
On Friday, the third consecutive attempt, the market again approached the 170,000 level but narrowly missed it, with the index settling at 169,865, up 1,290 points or 0.77%.
Arif Habib Limited (AHL), in its weekly report, noted that the index increased from 167,086 last week to 169,865 this week, posting a gain of 2,779 points (1.66%). Sentiment was supported by the IMF’s $1.2 billion disbursement under the EFF second review and the first tranche of the RSF, along with the settlement of Pakistan Energy Sukuk (first phase), a step toward addressing circular debt in the power sector.
Remittances by overseas Pakistanis increased by 9% year-on-year to $3.19 billion in November 2025 compared to $2.92 billion in November 2024. On a month-on-month basis, remittances decreased by 7%. In 5MFY26, they rose 9% year-on-year to $16.14 billion.
This week’s T-bill auction saw the government raise Rs981.7 billion against a Rs1 trillion target, with strong participation of Rs1,925.1 billion. Yields eased slightly across all tenors by 13 basis points. Oil production inched up 0.1% week-on-week to 66,014 bpd, while gas output rose sharply by 6.1% to 2,917 mmcfd, supported by higher flows from Mari, Uch and Qadirpur.
Net metering’s share in total generation increased by 112 basis points year-on-year in October 2025, reflecting rising solar adoption and lower grid reliance. Overall power generation declined 3.7% year-on-year in October 2025. NEPRA expects power demand to grow 2.8% year-on-year in FY25. On a month-on-month basis, net metering units increased by 43.3%.
Auto sales (cars, LCVs, vans and jeeps) fell 11% month-on-month to 15,400 units in November 2025, though they increased 53% year-on-year.
Syed Danyal Hussain of JS Global noted that the KSE-100 regained momentum this week, closing at an all-time high of 169,964.52 points, up 1.7% week-on-week. He said sentiment improved following the IMF Executive Board’s approval and noted that the Fund reported Pakistan had met 8 of 13 structural benchmarks while introducing 11 new ones going forward. The IMF also revised down its GDP growth projection for FY26 to 3.2% from 3.6% earlier, while raising its fiscal and external sector outlook for subsequent years.
In other developments, the government approved a concessional tariff of Rs22.98 per unit on additional electricity consumption from the benchmark year to promote industrial and agriculture sectors. In the latest T-bill auction, the government raised Rs982 billion against a Rs1,055 billion target, with yields largely flat across tenors. State Bank reserves increased by $12 million to $14.6 billion.
Toronto, December 13, 2025 — The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) concluded its national AGM today. This event marked President Sean O’Reilly’s first year in office, and charted a focused path forward as federal public services face deep cuts, accelerating outsourcing, and rapid technological change.
Over 800 delegates, stewards and board members from across the country gathered to assess the year’s progress and set priorities for the months ahead. O’Reilly highlighted that, over the past year, PIPSC has invested in steward training and digital modernization, thereby creating a stronger foundation for the challenges ahead.
“This AGM marks a turning point,” said PIPSC President Sean O’Reilly. “We’ve rebuilt our internal strength, we’ve shown governments that we are a serious, solutions-focused voice, and we’re ready for the difficult period ahead. Our members deliver the critical services Canadians rely on every day, and we will defend that work with clarity, determination and unity.”
A major theme of the AGM was the union’s response to the federal government’s newly signaled cuts to the public service. PIPSC emphasized the real risks these cuts pose to Canadians, from slower inspections to weaker emergency response to delays in scientific and regulatory work. These decisions are not just reducing headcount; they’re weakening the systems that keep this country functioning. At the same time, new return to office (RTO) mandates are adding instability and stress.
Delegates reflected on the national Lobby Week that saw members meet MPs across the country to raise concerns about cuts, outsourcing, and workforce adjustment (WFA) pressures.The AGM also showcased PIPSC’s leadership on federal science and artificial intelligence. The union’s recent Science Roadmap report revealed significant strain in labs and research programs across government, while PIPSC continued pushing for responsible, evidence-based AI adoption that supports rather than replaces professional expertise.
PIPSC celebrated important member-driven wins this year, including the successful CRPEG strike — the union’s first in more than 30 years — and membership growth in specialized groups, such as Crown Counsel in Newfoundland and Labrador.
As the AGM closed, PIPSC reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening public service capacity, protecting evidence-based decision-making and advocating for the resources professionals need to serve Canadians effectively.
PIPSC represents over 85,000 public-sector professionals across the country, most of them employed by the federal government. Follow us onFacebook, onX (formerly known as Twitter) and onInstagram.
Google LLC is seeking to expedite scientific and medical studies by partnering with Japanese universities and offering the assistance of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technology and donations.
The U.S-based tech giant will donate $1 million (150 million yen) to a research project at Tohoku University aimed at reducing the risk of dementia using artificial intelligence.
Google similarly announced its ongoing collaboration with Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) on Nov. 17.
Google and the CiRA are currently proceeding with a joint verification test on an AI-driven system designed to autonomously propose scientific hypotheses.
These academic partnerships were announced at an event held in Tokyo as part of Google’s recent efforts to beef up investment in the “AI for Science” field. Google has increasingly been pouring resources into scientific surveys and ventures.
Researchers at Google were among the laureates of not only the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded to an AI-adopted study team, but also the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics, which recognizes quantum computing research.
Known by the name of AlphaFold, an AI model of Google is currently utilized by more than 3 million scientists worldwide, including 150,000 from Japan, in a quest to illustrate protein structures that were previously difficult to analyze or predict.
Google is already establishing itself as a major platform in the science domain, beyond its original area of expertise.
Pushmeet Kohli, an official from the Google DeepMind team, who is responsible particularly for AI development for scientific purposes, emphasized in an interview that the non-human form of intelligence will help accelerate science and thereby lead humanity into a new era.
Kohli likewise stated that science discoveries made by AI will, in turn, have a commercial impact at some point in the future.
On the day of the announcement, Shinji Okuyama, president of the Japanese arm of Google, revealed a series of endeavors to extend support to university and college labs, with an eye toward further speeding the trend along.
The project at Tohoku University will utilize an AI model to reproduce past sights of towns and cities through images and videos by referring to old photos and other records.
Making the most of the AI-generated materials, it will examine whether stimulating people’s cognitive functions can lessen the risk of dementia.
Working with Kyoto University’s CiRA, Google embarked on a validation trial in September for the “AI co-scientist” system.
Interpreting and analyzing data from both inside and outside the CiRA, the digitized colleague can reportedly suggest adequate hypotheses for a range of research objectives, inclusive of the next-generation way to efficiently produce induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.
Hirohide Saito, a biological professor at Kyoto University, took the stage during the presentation session organized in the capital’s Shibuya Ward on Nov. 17.
“Teaming with the system makes me feel as if I have an additional, exceptionally skilled scientist in my lab,” Saito said while praising Google for its technology. “I am seeing firsthand how powerful it is, just as I did at the advent of AlphaFold.”
Saito continued, “The use of AI will become an essential part of science from here on out.”
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