Parents Are Paying Attention

The parents have spoken. Well, at least their dollar allocation at a fast food restaurant is doing plenty of talking. A new study published in the online issue of Pediatrics shows that nutritional information increases the chances that a parent will choose a lower calorie options for their children.

“Findings revealed that parents who received menus containing calorie information selected items containing an average of 102 less calories for their children when compared to food choices made by parents whose menus did not list calorie content. Parents whose menus did include nutritional information chose meals containing approximately 570 calories, while those having menus that did not list calorie information chose meals containing about 670 calories. Unfortunately, the results of the analysis showed no difference in the calorie content of the food choices made by the two groups of parents when selecting meals for themselves.”

Hey, at least we’re starting to do it for the kids.. Parents always put themselves second.

In other child obesity news, the Massachusetts state House of Representatives is planning to pass a bill that directs the state Department of Public Health to set regulations that would ultimately push schools to sell healthy snacks in vending machines instead of junk food.

Let’s give it up to January as the unofficial prevent early onset of diabetes in children month.

Shake It Like a Hypertension Causing Salt Shaker

Even though he doesn’t practice the healthy lifestyle he preaches (according to the NYTimes, his favorite snack is Cheez-its, he dumps salt on saltines, and houses PB&B—peanut butter and bacon—sandwiches), Michael Bloomberg has inadvertently been increasing New Yorkers’ life expectancy and health conscientiousness. It started with the ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, went on to the trans-fat battle, continued with calorie disclosure, and has now arrived at salt—and for good reason.

“Many processed foods contain too much salt, and sauces, spreads, and processed meats are the top offenders, new research shows..

Sauces and spreads, at 1,283 mg per 100 g, and processed meats, at 846 mg per 100 g, were the categories with the highest average sodium content.

Sodium content was lowest for cereals (206 mg per 100 g) and fruits and vegetables (211 mg per 100 g). Nearly two-thirds of the 33 food categories had average sodium concentrations that were higher than the maximum standards set by the UK Food Standards Agency, while breads, processed meats, sauces and canned vegetables included many subcategories above these targets.”

For your reference, a food is considered high in sodium if it contains more than 500mg per 100g.

Salt reduction programs can help Americans slow the onset of or even avoid chronic diseases such as high blood pressure at a fraction of the cost of hypertension drug therapies.

Salt, among its laundry list of attributes, is most notably a great preservative and taste enhancer. Sure, the food manufacturers might not be too pleased that they now have to change around formulas, but the drug manufacturers might be the most resistant to potential sodium regulations. Without chronic illnesses like high blood pressure constantly turning around profits, the drug companies won’t make as much money on hypertension medication.

World domination might have to wait until tomorrow night, Pinky. Hopefully they’ll keep those ridiculous commercials around for satirical value.

Dining Out 101

It’s no secret that dining out can pack on the pounds. Turns out there are even some lawsuits based upon restaurant negligence to disclose the ingredients in some of their dishes.

The truth is, nobody’s being force-fed. If you go out and eat something that looks and tastes like a heart attack with a side of high cholesterol, you have nobody to blame for eating it but yourself. I do, however, agree that there is a level of social responsibility that restaurants and food manufacturers alike should take upon themselves, given the alarming statistic that 2 out of 3 Americans are overweight.

Here are some things you can look out for:

-It’s time to join Bloomberg on the salt-less bandwagon. Some restaurants serve meals that include more a day’s worth of sodium. Soup, shrimp, and appetizer dips are the most popular high-sodium offenders. If you have to eat salt, counter it with some Potassium like a banana or cantaloupe.

-Vitamin water has almost the same amount of sugar as soda. This is not a surprise, what else do you think that carboholic’s-delight-in-a-bottle could be?

-The “healthy alternatives” section of the local Generic Possessive Noun’s restaurant chain may not be as healthy of an alternative.

“A recent E.W. Scripps lab investigation found that “responsible” menu items at chains ranging from Chili’s to Taco Bell may have up to twice the calories and eight times the fat published in the restaurants’ nutritional information.”

Saturday Night Partay: Pepsi Dumping Into the East River

Sometimes simply insisting Americans cut junk food out of their diet using their own devices doesn’t accomplish anything positive. Sometimes all you need is a good stimulus to get people to be more health conscious. And it’s no secret that hitting a consumer’s bottom line always invokes a response. That’s why New York Governor Robert Patterson and the CSPI are pushing for a soda tax.

“Soda consumption harms taxpayers. Taxpayers in New York State and elsewhere are already paying a heavy price for out-of-control soda consumption, since taxpayers subsidize much of the treatment of obesity, diabetes, and other expensive health problems.”

Unlike it’s more nutritious beverage counterparts such as milk and juice, all soda provides the consumer is empty calories, an expanding waistline, and, according to one study on processed foods, depression. Also, obesity costs the country $95 billion a year in medical expenses, most of which are fronted by Medicaid and Medicare.

On the one hand, this is just another way to squeeze New York residents dry to support the constantly subpar budget. On the other hand, soda could be the next pack of cigarettes, the benefit being a healthier lifestyle for the general population. Guess we’ll just have to stick with the antioxidants in red wine. Stay thirsty my friends.

Criticize and You Shall Receive

The guessing game as to which food product will be recalled next will soon become much easier to play. The FDA finally realized that creating a website and updating the information on it daily is so easy nowadays that a monkey—or a behind the times governmental agency that oversees the food and drug industries—could do it.

The new addition to their website is part of a rebranding effort by the FDA to make themselves more available to the general public (something that hasn’t been the case despite the fact that, ironically, they are a governmental organization, all of which exist to help the general public). The organization’s critics have said for years that the organization is too slow to report recalls and disclose drug safety issues.

The day has come where it behooves you to regularly check the FDA Basics at www.fda.gov.

Bloomberg Continues Commitment to Health Crusade, Remains Hypocrite

Salt, the age-old preservative and all-purpose taste enhancer, is getting the shaft. Your blood pressure, and your belly, will soon have the great city of New York and it’s unprecedented thrice term mayor, Michael Bloomberg to thank for being so trim. New York City announced it’s national campaign to convince restaurants and food manufacturers to reduce the amount of salt they put in their food products.

“The plan, for which the city claims support from health agencies in other cities and states, sets a goal of reducing the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant food by 25 percent over the next five years.

Public health experts say that would reduce the incidence of high blood pressure and should help prevent some of the strokes and heart attacks associated with that condition. The plan is voluntary for food companies and involves no legislation. It allows companies to cut salt gradually over five years so the change is not so noticeable to consumers.”

Hopefully restaurants and food manufacturers won’t just laugh in Bloomberg’s face given his very famous salt (and sweet) tooth despite a “healthy” lifestyle has been the mayor’s major platform since he first took office what seems like decades ago.

The recommended daily allowance for sodium only encompasses the natural salts found in foods. Anything added to that, even from the saltshaker on the table, is more than your body needs. Canned and dehydrated soups have 630-1300mg per cup, soy sauce has 1350 per Tbsp., and a slice of pizza can top out at almost 1500 mg per slice.

The CSPI has been actively working on this campaign as well, fully supporting the New York City’s crusade against sodium chloride and is even so bold as to call salt the most dangerous food ingredient in food supply.

They All Lied About Their Calorie Counts—Shocking

Underestimating your employee’s abilities may end up in a pleasant surprise. Underestimating government mandated calorie counts will result in frustrated consumers.

“A study of meals from 10 restaurant chains including Ruby Tuesday and Wendy’s found calorie counts averaging 18 percent more than the values listed by the restaurants.. Diet meals made by Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers, Healthy Choice and others averaged 8 percent higher than the numbers on the label.”

Sure, the difference isn’t huge, but it’s still a difference. Just because large chain restaurants and food manufacturers feared their sales would decrease doesn’t give them the right to make a fool out of the consumer. But fast food chains can’t complain about sales in their less affluent areas, apparently calorie counts have no bearing on the minds of those customers, especially in a tough economy.

“It will take more than a bunch of numbers to keep the area’s less affluent consumers away from cheaper treats. A different NYU study of poor neighborhoods with high obesity rates focused on calorie counts at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken. It showed that caloric disclosure made little or no difference in those markets, and sometimes even augmented the load to the mid-section!”

The good news is that consumers are taking notice of the calorie counts—and putting them to good use! A Stanford University study found that customers are buying 6 percent fewer calories per transaction. Those who used to average 250 calories per order cut their calorie consumption by 26 percent.

We all deserve a pat on the back for diligently following the proverbial Man’s suggestions and consider the effects certain foods have on our bodies. Mazel.

Denver Airport Delicacies

If you’re in Denver Airport anytime soon and find yourself in need of a nosh, make sure to stick with prepackaged food. FDA inspectors found live and dead roaches and Listeria at the Denver kitchen. Don’t worry, LSG Sky Chefs, a company that prepares food for major airlines, claims that it’s now clean. Just like that.. Poof!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34706032/ns/health-food_safety/

“According to an FDA letter to the company, inspectors who examined the Denver facility found live and dead roaches “too numerous to count” in several areas of the kitchen, including at least 40 live insects in the silverware station.

The FDA said inspectors saw employees touching food with bare hands or while wearing unwashed gloves. They also noted problems with the building, including water dripping from the ceiling into utensil-cleaning areas and holes in walls that could house insects or vermin.”

Hard to believe that his is a major U.S. airport because the description above leads one to believe the description above is for a chicken coop in the middle of Cambodia circa 1946.

Fortunately, no one reported becoming ill after eating this food and LSG surprisingly took the reins to clean up the swamp kitchen. They fired the general manager and head chef and, after chemical treatments failed to kill the existing Listeria in the kitchen floor drain, they replaced the pipes and drain.

Whether it’s their bottom line or their willingness to correct a serious oversight, LSG’s practices post-FDA inspections should be the standard, not the anomaly when it comes to a food company’s social responsibility.

The Caffeine High: A Love, Hate Story

Do you have trouble going to sleep sometimes or feel jittery during the day? Is your mind constantly in motion that it causes headaches? Before the doctor prescribes a pill whose side effects include but are not limited to diarrhea, vomiting, suicidal thoughts, and discourage driving or operating machinery, consider another cause: caffeine. Not limited to soda, energy drinks and your daily cup of coffee, added caffeine lingers in gum, chocolate and candy, yogurt, ice cream, and, briefly, in potato chips.

NOT surprisingly, the FDA merely requires caffeine to appear on the list of ingredients without insisting on disclosure of how much is present and plastering it all over the front label like they would Caffeine Free. How convenient, good thing food science buffs are pushing for that to change.

Excess caffeine’s laundry list of no-brainer side effects include: ADD, insomnia, and increased blood pressure. It could also potentially cause issues with fetuses such as low birth weight or miscarriages.

The Potential Solution: While some manufacturers such as Coke and Pepsi have voluntarily begun listing caffeine content on their products over the last few years, some organizations are pushing for standardized labels that show exactly how much caffeine is added to a product (the naturally occurring amount varies so it’s hard to be exact) and make consumers aware of exactly how that will affect them.

Changing regulation, even the simplest ones, if a painfully slow process. However, the more power we have as consumers at the point of purchase, the less power food giants will have to pump superfluous additives into our foods and bury their existence in the painfully non-understood ingredients list.