With Easter steadily approaching, many of us may be keen on getting our fill of delicious Easter stollen. Unfortunately, if you bought one from a Jumbo supermarket, you may need to hit the brakes on that thought!

In a recent press release, Jumbo warned that some of its feeststollen (party stollen) may contain potentially carcinogenic compounds.

Yikes, which stollen?

If you’ve recently purchased a La Place Kleine Feest Stol (Small Party Stollen) with Amarena cherries, pistachio, and hazelnuts… well, you’d best be asking for a refund.

Product: “La Place Luxe Kleine Feeststol met Amarena Kers, Pistache & Hazelnoten 400g”
EAN code: 8718452752058
Best before: March 6, 2024 and March 12, 2024

If you’ve bought this stollen at the store or online and would like your money back, you can simply pop back and hand it over — no receipt needed!

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If your ideal Friday consists of a relaxing munch on a chocolate chip cookie, we would like you to hold up for a second. Specifically if you procured said cookie from a Jumbo supermarket.

Why? Jumbo is now warning that certain cookies may contain metal fragments.

They are asking that anyone who has bought these cookies do not eat them and instead return them to the store for a refund.

The cookies in question

So, which cookies should you be wary of? Jumbo is recalling the below own brand chocolate chip and double-chocolate cookies:

The recall applies specifically to packets with the following expiration dates and codes:

Product: Jumbo Chocolate Cookies
EAN code: 8718452181339
Expiration date: 05-09-2024

Product: Jumbo Double Chocolate Cookies
EAN code: 8718452671465
Expiration date: 13-9-2024

Does your packet match up? We’re afraid it’s time to replace your beloved cookie-munching time with a trip to Jumbo.

READ MORE | Cheapest supermarkets in the Netherlands: the ultimate 2024 guide

The good news is you don’t need your receipt to claim your refund for your potentially dangerous cookies — score!

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Done with Tinder? Adopt a dog! And then download a Tinder for them instead. Yes, one Dutch vet has made this possible.

However, unlike human Tinder, the “Tinder for dogs”, Fit2Breed, cuts right to the chase…

No more sick puppies

Hille Fieten, the creator of Fit2Breed, is a veterinarian and geneticist at Utrecht University who is sick of seeing overbred and sick dogs in her office.

From tiny snouts to curled ears, her work often has her treating dogs who are suffering due to overbreeding — so she decided it’s time that dog breeders make sure the dogs they are breeding are actually a good match.

It’s a match!

So, how does one dog match with another on Fit2Breed? Smart bios and seductive paw pics have nothing to do with it.

READ MORE | This American TikToker is sharing hella accurate truths about dating in the Netherlands (and more!)

Instead, the app will display the hereditary diseases of various dogs. If two dogs carry the same disease, they will likely pass it on to their puppies — so no match.

If the two dogs can avoid passing on a hereditary disease and produce healthy puppies, then ta-daaa it’s a match!

For now, the app is only available for the Kooikerhondje breed specifically.

Kerstin Ueckert of the Dutch Association for Kooikerhondjes tells the AD “In the past, it was often said that breeding is gambling. This system takes away a lot of that gambling.”

The next step is to make the app available to more dog breeds.

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Planning on enjoying a nice store-bought lunch today? Join the club, just make sure it’s not this one particular meal.

While many of us are trying to opt for leafy greens at this time of year in an attempt to take care of ourselves more, you have a good reason to drop this particular salad.

The government has released a safety warning after they found undercooked chicken in chicken ketjap salads sold at the supermarkets Boon, Coop, Dekamarkt, Dirk and Hoogvliet.

The salad weighs 450 grams and looks like the following:

You heard the government, it’s best to stay safe, “don’t eat the salad” and enjoy some bread.

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Dutch supermarket giant Albert Heijn will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products six months before a national ban comes into effect.

From July 2024, tobacco products can only be purchased from gas stations and tobacco shops. As of 2030, that will be further limited to just tobacco shops. With these steps, the government wants to discourage smoking as much as possible.

However, Albert Heijn has made the decision to implement the ban half a year early — and also extend it to vape products. The chain already stopped selling the products online in July 2023.

According to the supermarket, they want to encourage shoppers to live a healthier lifestyle. That’s a nice step — but can they quit with the plastic packaging too?

A good start

If you see cigarettes in your local store still on January 1, don’t stress. Some Albert Heijns are independently owned as part of a franchise. The owners can choose whether to stop selling in January or wait until July.

Surprisingly, this is not the first supermarket in the Netherlands to take the steps. German-owned Lidl also stopped selling cigarettes in Dutch stores in 2021.

Do you support limiting the sale of cigarettes? Tell us your opinion in the comments below!

Ah, is there anything better than ending a long day by scrolling through social media? Before you know it, you’ve forgotten the day’s worries — and aimlessly jumped between apps for three hours straight. Oops.

If this scenario sounds familiar to you, then you may be falling victim to the addictive designs and techniques used by manufacturers to make smartphones and apps addictive.

And you’re not alone: Research shows that 1 in 4 young people struggle with smartphone addiction. This must be fought, says the European Parliament.

The Parliament has spoken

In a parliamentary debate, a large majority voted in favour of a proposal made by Dutch politician Kim van Sparrentak.

The proposal aims to curb smartphone addiction by banning the addictive features and manipulative algorithms that have people glued to their screens for hours at a time.

Van Sparrentak tells RTL Nieuws that “if we don’t intervene now, [phone addiction] will have an effect on people’s mental health and even brain development of the generations of the future”.

What does this mean?

The next step will be for the European Commission to draft a bill that will lay out techniques that may be used to reduce Europe’s constant scrolling.

Possible features include a ban on addictive design features, such as continuous scrolling features and automatic video playback. Another option would be to have attention-seeking features such as notifications deactivated by default.

This means that our favourite apps, such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, soon may be no more — at least not in the way we know them.

What do you think about this plan to combat phone addiction in Europe? Tell us in the comments!

The Netherlands is known internationally for its liberal stance towards drug use, which begs the question: what are Dutchies’ drugs of choice?

Thankfully, new research by the Trimbos Institute has given us the low down on the Dutch’s favourite way to get high.

And the winner is… you guessed it

The most popular drug of choice is laughter — just kidding, it’s cannabis, obviously.

According to the Trimbos Institute, cannabis was the drug of choice for over one million Dutchies in 2022. One in four 18 to 24-year-olds lit it up last year.

The researchers also concluded that people are actually becoming a bit too comfortable with the casual use of cannabis.

In fact, nearly a quarter of users were found to have a problematic relationship with the use of the drug.

Runner up? Ecstasy

So what do the Dutch turn to once the cannabis clouds start looking a bit boring? Something that’ll make anything look pretty, ecstasy.

Thanks to the return of festivals after a corona-induced draught, ecstasy use has risen to pre-pandemic levels, making it the second-most popular drug in the Netherlands.

READ MORE | Taking drugs in the Netherlands: ecstasy use in Holland

Just how popular? The Institute found that 550,000 people in the Netherlands popped a pill last year.

A rise in drug use

However, ecstasy isn’t the only drug in the Netherlands enjoying some love.

In fact, the country experienced an overall rise in drug use last year, with the percentage of cocaine, ketamine, mushroom, and LSD users increasing across the board.

The only drug to see a drop in popularity? Laughing gas.

Perhaps laughter isn’t the best drug, after all.

Receipts:

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The University Medical Centre in Groningen (UMCG) has a new employee: a chat robot! Yup, Patients at the Dutch hospital can now ask written questions and have them answered by artificial intelligence (AI).

This will make the lives of the UMCG doctors significantly easier. Out of the 1,200 health-related questions they get asked weekly, a good chunk can now be answered by a friendly bot.

The UMCG is the first hospital in Europe to use AI in this way, reports the NOS.

How does it work?

The questions that AI answers are those that are admin-focused — about things such as correct medication use or test results. To help out patients, the chatbot accesses the their files and makes use of its pre-programmed medical knowledge. 

READ MORE | Yikes! This is how much more you’ll be paying for health insurance in 2024 

Natuurlijk, the answers given are subject to rules, and the bot can only share general medical information — not personalised advice. For extra safety, an employee checks each answer before it is sent. 

Thanks to this innovative method, doctors gain more time for case-specific, personal patient details, and hospitals can better deal with the shortage of healthcare workers.

More informative and more polite

For privacy reasons, this isn’t the type of AI that learns more as it receives more information. The data stays within the electronic file of the patient and is never used for any other purpose.

The doctors also claim that the AI is more polite than them — which says a lot about Dutch doctors…

Healthcare workers are used to answering questions between different parties, so they can sometimes be a little curt. In comparison, the chatbot gives more informative and comprehensive answers and does so more empathetically.

What do you think about using AI in healthcare? Tell us in the comments!

Happy New Year (almost)! Starting January 1, health insurance premiums across the Netherlands will rise.

As RTL Nieuws reports, some of the most common Dutch insurance policies — including Zilveren Kruis, VGZ, CZ, and Menzis — are increasing by a whopping €5 to €8.50 per month.

Not as bad was we thought — but not great

On average, the cost of a basic policy in the Netherlands will go up by €9 in 2024, reaching €147.35 per month.

READ MORE | Dutch health insurance in 2024: what’s new?

While this will hurt our wallets, the good news is that this is less than the Dutch government had previously predicted. In September, they estimated that all premiums would increase by an average of €12 per month.

However, while insurance policies are only rising slowly, the maximum healthcare allowance (zorgtoeslag) is set to “decrease sharply”.

READ MORE | 9 things you need to know about Dutch health insurance as an international

In 2023, depending on their income, individuals could receive a maximum of €154  per month from the government to help pay for health insurance. In 2024, this allowance will be limited to a maximum of €127 per month.

Time to switch it up

So, after hearing this news, do you feel like switching your own health insurance policy? If yes, we don’t blame you.

Just make sure to do so before the deadline of December 31. Also, if you just take out a new health insurance from a different company, you won’t even need to cancel the old one. Handy!

Are you surprised to hear about the increase in health insurance costs? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Could this potentially life-saving playful new invention for medication transform the healthcare industry?

This Leiden-based startup, Doser Medical, has made customisable “Nespresso machines” for patients — a 3D printer that pops out bespoke pills depending on its settings.

Customisable colours and dosage

Thanks to this invention, it will be possible for sick kids to choose the pills’ taste, shape, and colour, depending on their preference.

Once you select the type of pills you want and then press “play”, you’re ready to roll.

READ MORE | World premiere: Dutch university invents facial scanner that can identify genetic disorders

However, the machine doesn’t just make the experience of medicating more fun. It can also be crucial for the medication’s effectiveness.

That’s because when it comes to children, dosage is imperative. This Nespresso machine allows doctors to personalise the patient’s treatment plan to a T.

High-quality 3D printer

In January 2024, Dose Medical is all set to showcase the product at the CES tech fair in Las Vegas.

The “high-quality 3D printer” has been developed while the “filling material has been proven effective”, according to the AD.

As for its “commercial validation”, that stage is predicted to be completed within the next year. After that, they can get this medical show on the road.

When it comes to any innovation, time is of the essence. The company’s CEO, Arjen van Unen, believes now is the best time for medical professionals to have access to tools that allow for “exceptional patient care”.

Could this invention be a game-changer for the medical industry? Share your thoughts in the comments below!