Image: Wikimedia Commons

You wouldn’t think that, in a nation obsessed with dieting, the first thing to become in short supply was fat. Well, that’s the current situation. All over Norway, the store shelves have been pretty much stripped clean of butter for a month. People are in despair, since most of the baking and cooking in preparation for Christmas requires butter, butter and more butter.

One reason for this shortage is a chain reaction that started last summer: Plenty of rainy weather makes grass wet. Wet grass causes a poor harvest of winter feed. Cows get less nutrition and produce less milk. Less milk goes to processing, and… well you get the idea. Bottom line is, Tine BA, the leading dairy producer in Norway, is currently only able to produce about 70% of the demand. They are trying to increase the production leading up to Christmas by re-prioritising how the milk is to be used, but they don’t expect to be at normal capacity until January.

There is, however, another reason for the lack of butter that struck me as somewhat odd: The low-carb diet(!). That’s right, this diet fad has hit Norway with full force, and people desperate to lose weight are scoffing down that butter like it’s going out of style. Apparently, the low-carb diet dictates that you can eat all the fat you want, so butter has become the new healthy(?) drug of choice for diet fanatics everywhere.

Meanwhile, the media is all over this national Christmas crisis, with daily front-page stories on how the production is going, how to adapt your favourite Christmas recipes to use margarine instead, and even how to make your own butter. Small-scale producers and farm shops are making good money off the shortage, with some of them experiencing triple the amount of orders and struggling to keep up. There are also people who know how to make a few extra bucks off the shortage, including one person who put one pack of butter on auction at the Norwegian classifieds website finn.no – with a starting bid of NOK 300,-! Mostly as a joke, but also as a message to the low-carb congregation to leave the butter alone and eat lard instead.

The ad reads: 1/2 kg Tine butter to the highest bidder.
Description: Hello, dear low-carb person. I have come across some butter, and I am selling it to the highest bidder. This is quality butter from Tine, not to be missed. First come, first served.

Norway’s long coastline is prone to get hit with bad weather quite frequently, and it is not rare for the winds to reach hurricane strength. Yesterday almost the entire West coast of Norway was ravaged by one of the worst storms in years, codenamed "Berit". Berit caused damage as far north as Finnmark and as far south as Bergen. Several harbours and airports were flooded when water levels reached up to 4 meters above normal. In Hordaland, north of Bergen, a bus was blown off the road, and there are several reports of roofs or entire buildings being carried away.

The exposed Lofoten archipelago was, not surprisingly, hit the hardest. Several piers and airports were flooded, a number of boat sheds got blown to smithereens, waves crashed in through livingroom windows, a section of highway was washed to sea, and a small chicken barn suddenly became a chicken boat. A Christmas party at a local pub came to a sudden stop when water started seeping up through the floor and the whole building was rocking. On the island of Værøy, all 750 inhabitants are currently cut off from the world with no electricity, and with both the ferry dock and the helicopter pad destroyed. The airport has also taken heavy damage. The islanders and their mayor are keeping up the spirit, though, and they expect communications to be restored by Monday.

Fortunately, there are no reports of death or serious injury after the storm, much thanks to an efficient early warning system and good media exposure.

If you want to learn more about the naming system for storms in Norway, read our accompanying post Naming Storms (coming soon).

Via ABC Nyheter, NRK and VG.no

Roughly 1 500 asylum seekers have left Norway and travelled back to their home countries voluntarily so far this year. As many as 40 percent of them claim that they regret the decision to go to Norway in the first place, according to a recent study.

Many of those who return see that the development in their home country has gone unexpectedly well, and the stay in Norway has done little except put their lives on hold.

According to the study, many of the returned asylum seekers lied about their reasons for coming to Norway. A lot of them admit that they did not have the need for international protection, and that they, in all practicality, entered Norway as work immigrants.

The study will be used by the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) in their work to further encourage voluntary return from Norway.

Asylum seekers from Iraq and Afghanistan are under a special programme that will give them up to NOK 35 000 in financial support upon return, in addition to free tickets. However, this return programme will soon be under evaluation, as returning immigrants have cost Norway more than NOK 70 million for Iraq alone.

via fvn.no

Norway is currently the world’s best when it comes to the amount of patients surviving cancer, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Cervical cancer in particular puts Norway in the lead for survival rate. Breast cancer patients also have a good outlook as Norway is number one in Europe and number four worldwide. With colon cancer, Norway is third in Europe and seventh in the world.

There are several reasons for the good survival rates – better medication, better treatment methods, faster diagnosis, and good opportunities for discovering cancer in an early stage through mammography and pap smears.