Acode orange weather warning was in effect in several Dutch provinces yesterday due to storm Conall. The storm resulted in destruction and even caused a casualty in Gelderland.
According to the NOS, a 19-year-old woman tragically lost her life during what is being described as one of the strongest autumn storms in Dutch history.
The incident
The young woman died after being struck by a tree yesterday evening in the Gelderland town of Lochem.
She was cycling through the countryside at about 7:15 PM when tragedy struck.
The police will continue investigating the incident.
Op de Koopsdijk in Lochem is iets na kwart over zeven een persoon onder een boom terechtgekomen. Hulpverlening ter plaatse mocht niet baten, de persoon is helaas overleden. We doen onderzoek. Meer informatie is nu niet bekend. ^JH
Translation: A person fell under a tree on the Koopsdijk in Lochem just after a quarter past seven. On-site assistance was of no avail and the person unfortunately died. We continue to investigate. No further information is known at this time.
More destruction
Storm Conall is officially the 69th most severe autumn storm to hit the Netherlands since measurements began in 1910.
Its consequences were visible throughout the country: a houseboat in Leiden was blown against a bridge, and a tree fell onto a tram track in Amsterdam.
In addition, several trees fell in The Hague and ferry rides were cancelled in De Wadden.
Didn’t think the words “Dutch” and “poetry” were two things you’d hear in one sentence?
Well, turns out Dutchies can be quite the lyricists — at least during the Sinterklaas celebrations. 🎅🏼
After Sinterklaas’ (usually controversial) arrival in the Netherlands, the pepernoten, chocolate letter, and mandarin madness all culminate on December 5, which is pakjesavond! 🎁
But pakjesavond isn’t only Dutchies’ edge over the rest of the world’s Christmas celebrations (um, who wouldn’t want two festive holidays in December?).
It’s also an evening of bad rhymes, roasts, and awkward memories as everyone reads aloud their sinterklaasgedicht (Sinterklaas poem).
What is it?
Prior to pakjesavond on December 5, each person is assigned a family member or friend to write a poem for — which they’ll have to perform during the evening’s festivities.
Cute, right?
Before releasing the aww-sounds and thinking you’ve discovered a soft side to the Dutch directness, there’s a twist!
A sinterklaasgedicht isn’t your usual sobby poetry — there’ll be no declarations of great love or friendship.
Nope, the Dutch take this opportunity to remind friends and family of all the funny moments, stupid mistakes, and weird quirks of the designated recipient.
Yep, typical Dutch directness, even during the holidays. 🤣
So, when celebrating pakjesavond in the Netherlands, your real concern shouldn’t be whether you made it onto Sinterklaas’ nice list but if your friends and family remember that embarrassing thing you did two months ago. 👀
However, you can barely blame your friend or family member for bringing up an embarrassing mistake, as a sinterklaasgedicht is always written from the point of view of either Sint or his helper Piet.
Sneaky! 🙊
Why do they do it?
Sinterklaas poems have a long history in the Netherlands with the oldest known poem dating back to 1647.
In the 1800s, the poems took on an educational character and were given to young school children.
After a code yellow warning was issued for several Dutch regions on Monday, the weather delivers another blow (literally). Code yellow has now been bumped to code orange.
Due to storm Conall, some Dutch regions can expect very heavy winds today. 👇
What is a code orange? According to the KNMI (Royal Dutch Weather Institute), a code orange is issued when there is a high chance of dangerous weather, with risk of possible damage, injury or a lot of nuisance.
The culprit? Storm Conall
The NOS reports that code orange will be in effect this evening in these provinces:
North Holland
Friesland
Flevoland
Groningen
Drenthe
Overijssel.
The situation is a bit better in South Holland, Utrecht and Gelderland, where code yellow will apply.
🟠 Code oranje voor storm Conall, die vandaag zorgt voor zeer zware windstoten in het noorden van het land. Houd via de KNMI-app of de website in de gaten wanneer de weerwaarschuwing voor jouw provincie geldt. https://t.co/mVXrIU9BIw#Conallpic.twitter.com/v75OQgs1oF
Translation: Code orange for storm Conall, which is causing very heavy gusts of wind in the north of the country today. Keep an eye on the KNMI app or the website when the weather warning applies to your province.
In typical storm fashion, Conall will cause wind gusts of 120 to 130 kilometres per hour in the coastal regions, and 100 to 100 km/h inland.
The code applies from 6 PM tonight and will unfortunately disrupt more than just your hairstyle.
Traffic jams and a busier rush hour are expected, especially in the Randstad area. KLM has also cancelled 72 flights from Schiphol.
Dutch supermarkets may lure you in with an array of colourful fruits and veggies, but don’t be fooled — cookies and chips are lurking in the next aisle, ready to sabotage your good intentions.
To answer that, the government ranked some of the most popular stores based on how healthy their products are and their efforts to encourage healthier choices for consumers.
Each segment contains food groups that provide health benefits and essential nutrients. Foods that do neither? Those are excluded from the wheel.
Yep, fruits and veg are a big part of the wheel! Image: Depositphotos
According to guidelines, no more than 15% of your daily food intake should be outside the wheel — but supermarket sales show that not all consumers are sticking to this advice. 👀
For example:
At Aldi, 28% of sales fall within the wheel.
At Dirk, 32% of sales fall within the wheel.
At Lidl, 37% of sales fall within the wheel.
Jumbo and Albert Heijn claim that 40% of their sales fall within the Wheel of Five, but they only report their sales from private labels.
According to Charlotte Linnebank, director of Questionmark, a European foundation researching food systems, this gives a distorted picture since “it is precisely the A-brands that often offer unhealthy products”.
The healthiest supermarkets: ranked
In 2018, Dutch supermarkets signed the National Prevention Agreement, committing to encourage their consumers to purchase more products from the Wheel of Five.
However, by offering discounts on unhealthy products, supermarkets contradict their commitment, as these acties make us consume more of these items than intended.
The colourful packaging of unhealthy foods also attracts people to it. Image: Depositphotos
Based on these parameters, researchers have created a list ranking each supermarket’s efforts to become healthier for consumers… And the results are in. 👇
1
Eco Plaza 👑
2
Lidl
3
Dirk
4
Jumbo
5
Aldi
6
Albert Heijn
7
Plus
Yep, the infamous and much beloved Albert Heijn ranks second to last on the list. 🥲
Albert Heijn and Jumbo both resist the results of this research, claiming that the system used in the scoring does not do justice to their efforts to help people achieve healthier lifestyles.
Do you feel as though this list reflects the reality of these supermarkets? Let us know in the comments below.
You haven’t really been a student in the Netherlands until you’ve had some housing troubles. No one knows this better than Vos Vissers, who has to commute four hours each day to get to and from university.
While Voss attends a Dutch university, he technically isn’t a student in the Netherlands — at least not in his free time. He still lives in his German hometown, since finding a room in Utrecht is simply impossible.
The daily grind
The second-year journalism student describes his daily commute to the AD. It starts at about 7:30 AM in Kranenburg, Germany, a town right across the border.
The bus is the first mode of transportation on Vos’s list — if it shows up. If it doesn’t come or happens to arrive early, he has to wait an entire hour for the next one. 🚏
After taking the bus across the German-Dutch border, Vos hops on a 50-minute long train to Utrecht, followed by a tram to his university campus.
His total travel time? A whopping four hours. We just hope his teachers have a relaxed lateness policy.
Potential new roommates have to toe the line between not being too nice (and seeming fake) and not being too reserved.
And you better hope one of the room applicants isn’t already friends with the residents. In that case, your chances are zero.
There might be hope for Vos
Considering the fact that Vos is still making his 4-hour journey a year and a half into his studies, he has to be an incredibly optimistic and determined person (or at least incredibly passionate about journalism).
But the good news is that he might have things to look forward to.
In the coming year, Utrecht will see the largest increase in the amount of student rooms in the entirety of the Netherlands, with hundreds of new accommodations being announced.
A lot of the time, it’s not entirely clear what the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) was, what it did, and whether we should be proud or ashamed of it.
The VOC (Dutch East India Company) is crucial to Dutch history. If you’ve lived in the Netherlands for a while, chances are you’ll have heard of it.
Let’s take a deep dive into the world of the VOC. For over 200 years, the VOC brought the Netherlands international power and wealth while exploiting local populations, creating colonies, and trading in human beings.
The story of the VOC is complicated, and this is not an exhaustive history of it (if you want that, there are plenty of books to choose from). This article offers a primer on the VOC: a less-than-casual introduction. Enjoy!
How did the VOC begin?
The VOC was established in 1602 with the goal to trade with Mughal India, where most of Europe’s cotton and silk originated. Quickly, the Dutch government gave it a 21-year monopoly on the spice trade with South Asian countries, and the company took off from there.
Sounds nice and simple, but the VOC soon became the first conglomerate company: a fancy way of saying they did many different things (like shipbuilding, slave trading, and colonisation) under the same company name.
What was the VOC?
In the early 1600s, the VOC became the first company listed on the stock exchange. Along with its worldwide reach and transnational employees, this is among the reasons the VOC was a forerunner of modern-day multinational corporations.
The VOC had powers that a corporation today would (hopefully) never have: it could wage war, take and execute prisoners, coin money, negotiate treaties, and establish colonies. And so it did.
As much as modern-day corporations like Google and Shell have way too much power, the VOC was on a whole different, scary level.
Where did the VOC operate?
The VOC started operating in India and South Asia in general. Over the next century, it expanded its operations to Mauritius, South Africa, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Not all of these locations were the sites of permanent settlements or even permanent trading posts: but listing them all here gives us an indea of how massive this company was.
How did such a transnational company work in the age before instant communication? It was, in fact, far more than a company — it was also a war machine.
What was happening in the Netherlands when the VOC was in operation?
The VOC was ostensibly founded after a Dutch ship returned from South East Asia filled with very profitable spices in 1596. What was going on in the Netherlands that would have made this massive company worth investing in?
Basically, the Netherlands was under threat. It had just declared its independence from Spain in 1581, forming the Dutch Republic. Quite an ambitious move, considering that the Spanish had the force of half of Europe behind them at the time.
Given this vulnerability, you can see the advantages of drawing wealth from outside the tiny Dutch Republic and using it to shore up the newly established country against foreign control (while, of course, controlling other countries — but we’re not talking about morality or even ideological consistency here).
The VOC was also an instrument of war. Image: Pixabay
The VOC created the shareholding system (and also global capitalism)
The VOC is considered the first modern multinational company and first made use of many of the features we associate with modern corporations: think shareholders, corporate identity, legal personhood, etc.
This collection of innovations meant that the VOC could mobilise wealth in a way that only monarchies could before, giving it unprecedented power.
The VOC was also innovative when it comes to acquiring this wealth. It formed Amsterdam as the financial capital of the contemporary world, by allowing public members to invest in the company (rather than in things the company was doing).
The VOC and war
Of course, a massive company like the VOC attracts attention — and because of its dominance in international trade, that attention was mainly negative.
It got into conflict with the British East India Company for obvious reasons: they were both going for the same thing.
Because of the weird space that the VOC occupied — part company, part state — its trade objectives often aligned with military goals.
For example, in 1667, when the Treaty of Breda was signed, ending the war with Britain, the VOC acquired sole control over the nutmeg trade.
Wars also played a role in the colonisation of different areas. In South Africa, a prolonged, low-level conflict with the local Khoikhoi population eventually resulted in the Khoikhoi society breaking down and expanding European settlements in the area.
There were also three wars between the VOC and the Javanese in Indonesia, and in 1641, the VOC took control of Malacca from the Portuguese.
The VOC and colonisation
One of the problems with the VOC is that people in the Netherlands aren’t sure what it was. A business? A force for colonisation? A slave-trading enterprise? A force for bureaucracy in the world? The truth is that it was all these things and more.
The Dutch East Indies were crucial for the VOC. Image: Hariboneagle927/Wikimedia Commons/CC0 1.0
The Dutch East Indies: what did the VOC do?
Colonisation in the Dutch East Indies is an intriguing topic because when you boil it down, “true” colonisation of the area only began once the VOC failed financially and was nationalised in an attempt to save it.
Territories that had belonged to the VOC became part of the Dutch Republic’s territory — but this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider the colonisation that was taking place before the nationalisation process.
For example, the VOC grew cash crops in Jakarta in the early seventeenth century (then known as Batavia by the Dutch).
This was a clear move from trading spices to growing crops. That way, they could also profit from land that was not theirs. The VOC also took over the surrounding territory to safeguard these crops, increasing their power in the area.
A few replicas of VOC ships remain up for display in the Netherlands. Image: Depositphotos
By the late seventeenth century, the VOC had become deeply embroiled in the internal politics of Jakarta, despite their initial intentions not to get involved in domestic affairs.
They encouraged divisions between the different kingdoms in the Indonesian archipelago (again, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the phrase ‘divide and conquer’ before) and took part in two wars against the kings of Mataram and Banten.
After the VOC collapsed in 1800, the trading posts and colonies in the Indonesian archipelago became nationalised as the Dutch East Indies.
How the VOC colonised South Africa
In the Cape, colonisation took place over almost two centuries.
First, Dutch settlers in South Africa were outnumbered by the local Khoikhoi population — for context, there were 200 Europeans and about 20,000 Khoikhoi. So the Khoikhoi initially didn’t have much of a problem with that.
The Cape acted much more as a trading hub than a colony. Slowly, though, the VOC’s plans for expansion became apparent: their transportation of slaves to the colony was just one symptom of their plans to settle a large colony of Europeans there.
In the 1660s, conflicts broke out between the Khoikhoi and the Dutch, and the Dutch burghers expanded their farms outwards. But in 1713, 90% of the Khoikhoi were killed by smallpox.
The VOC controlled the Cape. Image: Htonl/Wikimedia Commons/GFDL
By the end of the eighteenth century, Khoikhoi society had disintegrated, and 20,000 Europeans were living in the Cape. In 1795, the British ceded the territory when Napoleon invaded the Netherlands during the Napoleonic Wars.
At the end of the wars, the Netherlands formally handed over the Cape Colony to the British, whose colony it remained a part of until 1931.
The VOC and slavery
The VOC also took part in slavery and slave trading during its two hundred years of activity. It exploited workers in the East Indies, sometimes engaging in slavery from its inception. However, its use of slaves picked up when it took control of the Cape in South Africa.
After realising that the backbreaking work of settling would need to be done by slaves, the VOC deliberated over enslaving the local Khoikhoi population, even though it vastly outnumbered them.
When they determined that if they annoyed this group, they could easily be kicked out, they decided instead to import slaves from Mauritius and the Dutch East Indies.
VOC slavery in the Cape
For much of the seventeenth century, the number of slaves in the Cape remained low — about one thousand at a time. Slaves mostly were taken from Ceylon, Madagascar and Malaya.
Because the population was mostly male, it was constantly renewed with new slaves. In the eighteenth century, this number jumped to about 17,000 as the international slave trade increased.
Most of the slaves in the Cape came from either East Africa or the VOC’s territories in the Dutch East Indies.
VOC slavery in the Dutch East Indies
Slavery was also part of how the VOC operated in the Dutch East Indies, but the story there is more complicated.
In their operations in South Africa, the VOC specifically transported slaves from other regions to exploit while building their colony. The VOC mainly used local slaves or slaves from the area in Asia.
On top of that, some of these slaves would have been already enslaved by their local community.
But the presence of the VOC heightened the demand for slave labour, so just because slave labour was part of life in some Asian countries before their existence, the VOC is not absolved of guilt.
How the Dutch East India Company ended
Given that the VOC was so big, you would imagine that its end would have been quite catastrophic to the status of the Netherlands worldwide.
You might also wonder what happened to this company to make it collapse in 1800 — after all, controlling a lot of the spice trade gives a company a fairly hefty advantage.
The VOC’s wealth (adjusted for inflation) was enormous. Image: Visual Capitalist/Visual Capitalist
Commercial problems in the VOC
There were many problems with the VOC’s operation in Asia — some of which did work in its favour in the beginning. However, as time progressed into the eighteenth century, cracks began to show in the VOC’s commercial prowess.
One problem was that it brought all the goods it traded between Asia and Europe first to its trading posts in Asia to be sorted or stored.
This was an advantage for the VOC at the beginning of its trading journey because it had had a better understanding of Asia commercially in a centralised place than its competitors did.
However, it also meant that other companies were making faster journeys and providing fresher goods. For example, the British East India Company would trade directly between Europe and, for example, China.
The Dutch East India Company staff
Another problem was its staff. The VOC was, frankly put, a terrible employer. Like many modern-day multinational companies, it offered low wages.
Not only that, but it also forbade its staff to engage in private trading, meaning they had no opportunity to increase their wages legally.
Of course, many of them did: the VOC suffered huge amounts of corruption among its employees, mostly because making the journey to Asia wouldn’t have been financially worth it for them without this extra income.
The financial bounty had to be good because we’re talking about a fairly dangerous time for travelling the world. War, illnesses, malnutrition, and some nice venereal diseases killed plenty of VOC staff.
The VOC did not understand maths
Finally, there was a mathematical problem: the VOC paid its shareholders dividends over the profits they made from 1730 onwards.
Let’s say that again: the VOC decided to pay its shareholders more than it made. We are not businesspeople, but this is unequivocally a bad idea.
What this meant in practice was that the VOC did not have enough liquidity to finance its operations for the last seventy years it was active — it relied on short terms loans to do so. Eventually, things would have to change.
The war weakened the VOC’s control of the Asian trading posts. The VOC was a complete financial mess after the war. As was the Dutch Republic, which didn’t exist for almost thirty years after the Anglo-Dutch War ended.
From 1799, the VOC’s contract was not renewed, and it ceased to exist. After the Congress of Vienna in 1814, some of the Netherlands’ territories in Asia were returned to it, and these became colonies of the Netherlands.
Reception in Dutch society now
The VOC was a huge part of how the Dutch Republic functioned for almost two hundred years. Today, it affects the national image of the Netherlands, what we have in our museums, and what lines the national coffers.
The “VOC mentality”
As we move into an era where colonialism is (thankfully) viewed as a negative thing, the image of the VOC in the Netherlands has become complicated and fraught with conflict. In 2006, the then-prime minister Jan Pieter Balkenende coined the term “VOC mentality” in a speech about Dutch commercial thinking and innovation.
Many people were offended by this association of the VOC with purely positive characteristics, without acknowledging the harm it caused over its two centuries of operation.
Dutch colonialism in society
In general, the Netherlands’ colonial history has received much attention over the last decade. From the annual Zwarte Piet debates to the Mauritshuis’ decision to take down its colonial founder’s bust, the country is (very) slowly coming to terms with its past.
Part of the reason this reckoning is taking so long is that for a lot of Dutch people, the VOC’s trading prowess coincided with, and in part caused, the “Golden Age” of the Dutch Republic to occur.
This was a time when a very small country held superpower status over much of the world and fended off its much larger and better-equipped enemies in Spain by controlling other parts of the world.
And in a world where global power is still glamorised and coveted, it is understandable (though not excusable) that many people want to hold on to the memory of the VOC nostalgically.
List for further reading
Dutch Colonialism, Migration and Cultural Heritage – Gert Oostindie
Dutch South Africa: Early Settlers at the Cape – John Hunt
Four hundred years on: the public commemoration of the founding of the VOC in 2022 – Leonard Blussé
The VOC and the exchange – Henk den Heijer et al.
Batavia: Een koloniale samenleving in de 17de eeuw – Hendrik Niemeijer
What did you already know about the VOC? Let us know in the comments below!
A violent incident at a secondary school in Bladel, North Brabant, on Monday morning led to the arrest of five members of the same family. Among them were three brothers, along with their sister and father.
According to the AD, the family allegedly caused a disturbance involving school staff on the premises.
Tensions rise before police arrive
Let’s start from the beginning — since we’re all wondering how this started.
The trouble began when the two brothers who attend the school confronted a fellow student over an ongoing conflict. In his defence, the student hid under a table.
As Omroep Brabant reports, staff noticed the tension and attempted to intervene. The result? A new fight broke out, this time between the siblings and janitors.
Things got even worse when the sister of the two brothers also jumped into the mix.
In the meantime, police had been called, and the three siblings eventually got arrested.
It doesn’t end there…
The situation took another turn when the father and eldest son arrived at the school after hearing about the altercation.
Once they found out about the kids’ arrests, both reacted aggressively. “They went completely berserk”, says school principal Maarten De Veth.
The father had to be restrained with a taser in the middle of the schoolyard. Ultimately, both the father and the eldest brother were arrested as well.
The family has been said to cause unrest in the past, but there are also rumours that the children have had to endure discriminatory remarks and bullying.
Support for the students
Many students of the school witnessed the violence taking place, so after the incident, all students were sent home for the day.
Headmaster De Veth emphasises that the perpetrators are temporarily not welcomed at school.
It’s a great time to fly a kite, a bad time to… do literally anything else outside. The KNMI (Royal Dutch Weather Institute) warns residents of some Dutch provinces of strong winds on Wednesday, November 27.
Wanna know if you’re affected? Let’s find out.👇
Keep your hats… off
According to the AD, Dutch coastal regions have had an ongoing code yellow warning since Monday.
On Wednesday, the following areas will share their struggle:
Experts also warn that the wind may affect road and air traffic. Needless to say, cycling won’t be the easiest task either. Maybe stick to public transport until Thursday rolls around. 🚃
How do you survive the windiest Dutch days? Let us know in the comments!
The Netherlands is such a small country, and yet it has always played an important role in history. In fact, it has had a massive impact on many aspects of our everyday lives that are still common to this generation.
I’m not talking about colonialism, wars, or international trading. I’m talking about booze, food, sex, and legal rights!
It’s time to pay our respects to the Dutch for all these “little” things they thought about doing before anybody else in the world.
Buckle up for seven fun facts that demonstrate just how great the Netherlands is… kind of. 🥴
1. The Dutch invented gin
This delicious drink has the Dutch to thank for its existence. Image: Freepik
This is probably my favourite Dutch fun fact. Despite being known as a British drink, gin was invented in the Netherlands in the 17th century.
At the time, it was produced as a medicine to treat stomach aches, gout, and gallstones. They also added juniper in it for the flavour and its medicinal properties.
A medicinal cocktail recommended by doctors… sounds like the perfect excuse to have a glass this weekend! 😏
Gin was given to British soldiers during the war. They started bringing it home, and it did not take long before they opened their first distillery. This is how they kind of took over the glory of the drink.
2. The Dutch created orange carrots
Just look at those orangey hues 🤩. Image: Unsplash
Well, technically, orange carrots were first cultivated in the Netherlands. But, before the 16th century, carrots were actually not orange at all! They were either purple, red, or white(ish).
While those kinds still exist today, they are not as popular or easy to find in Europe (as you may have noticed…). The Dutch were the first to create orange carrots by crossing different crop varieties.
As you know, the Dutch are quite fond of the colour orange. And, just like for everything else, it is thought that orange carrots were a tribute to William of Orange, founder of the Dutch independent state (although there is no actual proof of that).
3. The Dutch were the first to legalise gay marriage
Free love, the Dutch believe in it! Image: Unsplash
I know, this is quite an obvious one, but it couldn’t possibly be left out of the top seven. The Dutch were the first in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001.
They set the example for the rest of the world, and since then, more and more countries have been following suit.
4. The Dutch were the first to add rats to the police force
Freeze punk! Image: Pexels
All jokes aside, I do mean actual rats. The police forces in Rotterdam have been training and using rats since 2013.
They use them for their great sense of smell, to find drugs, gunpowder or explosives, for example, as it is much cheaper than doing tests in laboratories.
They are also much faster at finding results than employees in a lab, as they would take about two hours, while rats only need a few seconds.
The first rats to join the Dutch police squad were named Derrick, Magnum, Poirot, and Thomson after famous fictional detectives — because the Dutch police also have a great sense of humour.
5. The Dutch discovered viruses and bacteria
Yep, the Dutch were among the first to spot these little buggers. Image: Pixabay
While this may be less sexy than rats, it’s still a massive step for humankind!
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek was one of the world’s first microbiologists and discovered the existence of bacteria (generally speaking) with his microscope in the 17th century. He is known as the “father of microbiology.”
His pioneering work on microorganisms took place during the Dutch Golden Age of exploration and discovery, which stretched out from the early 1590s until the 1670s.
6. The Dutch invented cocoa powder
Cocoa powder — another one of many Dutch inventions. Image: Pexels
Does the name Van Houten, written on a box of cocoa powder, ring a bell? That’s because he was the one to invent it in the early 19th century!
In 1828, Van Houten invented a cocoa pressing method, which ended up giving us cocoa powder, easily soluble and full of flavour.
This cocoa powder was exported to France, the UK, and Germany from 1870 onwards. Although cocoa was known long before that, cocoa powder was a revolution because it was so easy to dissolve and mix in water or milk. 🥛
However, the Brits are claiming that it was invented by the British upper class, with the first recipe found dating from 1800.
Personally, I don’t care much, as my gluten intolerance doesn’t allow me to eat them anymore. But I am sure the rest of you are just thankful for their existence, no matter where they originated from.
Do you know any other fun facts about the Netherlands? Let us know in the comments below!
According to the 2022 report, 50% of the Dutch population was classified as overweight at that time. That means this figure will increase by 14%, reaching 64% by 2050.
In a country known for its tall and athletic bikers, these statistics are quite surprising — so let’s discuss them. 🤔
Age does matter
The RIVM predicts that those aged between 18 and 44 will have the largest increase in weight, with younger age groups facing the biggest problems.
In 1990, only 17% of ages 20 to 29 were overweight, but by 2020, this percentage had risen to 32%.
The RIVM points out that losing excess weight is very difficult and that individuals who are overweight naturally face an increased risk of health problems.
