By Sarah Kliff (Washington Post) California’s strict school nutrition standards — soda bans, low calorie foods in cafeterias and limits on fat content — appear to have had a significant impact on what teens there eat.
A study of about 700 teenagers, published this week in the Archives of Pediatric Medicine, found California teens to be consuming 158 fewer, daily calories than comparable high school students in other states. Keep in mind, that counts all the food eaten outside of school, indicating that California teens aren’t loading up on junk food after heading home.
via Have California schools cracked the code on obesity? – The Washington Post.
(EurekaNet) According to a recent study headed by scientists from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of Granada, eating commercial baked goods (fairy cakes, croissants, doughnuts, etc.) and fast food (hamburgers, hotdogs and pizza) is linked to depression.
Published in the Public Health Nutrition journal, the results reveal that consumers of fast food, compared to those who eat little or none, are 51% more likely to develop depression.
Furthermore, a dose-response relationship was observed. In other words this means that “the more fast food you consume, the greater the risk of depression,” explains Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, lead author of the study, to SINC.
The study demonstrates that those participants who eat the most fast food and commercial baked goods are more likely to be single, less active and have poor dietary habits, which include eating less fruit, nuts, fish, vegetables and olive oil. Smoking and working more than 45 hours per week are other prevalent characteristics of this group.
By Sybille Hildebrandt ( ScienceNordic) Antioxidants, dietary supplements, vitamin pills – many people take them every day in the hope that they are good for their health.
But a new Danish study of all relevant trials carried out around the world shows that taking antioxidants in the form of vitamin A, E and beta-carotene is a risky business for us.
These antioxidants increase mortality – the risk of sudden death is higher for people who take these dietary supplements than for those who do not.
The results of this study have just been published in the scientific journal Cochrane Library.
via Confirmed: vitamin pills can cause sudden death | ScienceNordic.
By Marni Jameson (Orlando Sentinel) Epcot’s new Habit Heroes attraction, which tackles childhood obesity, has landed in big fat trouble.
Shortly after its unofficial opening last month, the interactive exhibit was blasted by critics for stigmatizing fat kids. Now, Disney has closed the Innoventions exhibit for “retooling.”
The official opening date of March 5 has been postponed indefinitely, according to officials from Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The health insurer partnered with Disney to create the exhibit, which takes visitors through a series of interactive experiences to fight bad habits.
“Habit Heroes is currently in a soft-opening period, which gives us a chance to collect guest feedback and test and adjust the attraction prior to its opening,” said John W. Herbkersman, spokesman for Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
And feedback they got.
“We’re appalled to learn that Disney, a traditional hallmark of childhood happiness and joy, has fallen under the shadow of negativity and discrimination,” came a heated response from the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.
via Disney Habit Heroes closes: Disney’s Epcot exhibit Habit Heroes closes – OrlandoSentinel.com.
Costco's 'Mini-Piglet'
By Curtis Cartier (Seattle Weekly) Feast your eyes on the Mini Piglet! This pressure-formed pig-shaped pork monstrosity is a revolution in culinary alliteration (looks and tastes like the animal it began as). And it’s on sale at Costco right now!
via ‘Mini Piglet’ Is Costco’s Most Horrid Meat Abomination – Seattle News – The Daily Weekly.
(WTAE-TV) Police in Ross Township have arrested a man after they said he stole a sandwich from a restaurant and then tried to flee in a forklift parked nearby.
via Police: Man Steals Sandwich, Flees In Forklift – Pittsburgh News Story – WTAE Pittsburgh.
By Rita Rubin (MSNBC) A recent update of U.S. nutritional guidelines — what used to be known as the food pyramid and is now called “My Plate” — calls on Americans to eat more fresh foods containing potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium.
But for a typical consumer, the simple act of adding more potassium to your diet could tack on hundreds more dollars to your annual grocery bill, scientists reported Thursday in the journal Health Affairs.
That could make it tough for many Americans to meet healthy diet recommendations during lean times — and the government should do more to help, according to lead author Pablo Monsivais, an assistant professor of public health at the University of Washington.
via Study: Healthy eating adds up on grocery bills – Health – Diet and nutrition – msnbc.com.
By Walter Brasch (Spectrum) “Pssst.”
I walked straight ahead, looking neither right nor left in a darkened alley illuminated by a half-moon.
“Pssst.”
I quickened my pace, but there was no avoiding the shadowy figure.
“Ain’t gonna harm ya. Jus’ wanna sell ya somethin’.”
I hesitated, shaking. Stepping in front of me, he shoved a hotdog under my nose. “Ten bucks each,” he whispered ominously through his throat.
“Ten bucks?!” I asked, astonished at the cost.
“You want it or not?”
With Michele Obama (who chose to attack obesity rather than poverty, worker exploitation, or even hunger and malnutrition), supported by publicity-hungry legislators, hotdogs were the latest feel-good food to come under assault. A medical association whose members are vegans had spent $2,750 to place a billboard message near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The picture showed four grilled hot dogs sticking out of a cigarette box that had a skull and crossbones symbol on its face. An oversized label next to the box informed motorists and fans of the upcoming Brickyard 400, “Warning: Hot dogs can wreck your health.” The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine claimed that just one hot dog eaten daily increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 21 percent.
The Committee isn’t the only one destroying Americans’ rights to eat junk food. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which seems to come up with a new toxic food every year, once declared theatre popcorn unhealthy. Many schools banned soda machines. Back in 2011, McDonald’s reduced the number of french fries in its Happy Meal and substituted a half-order of some abomination known as applies. Even cigarette company executives, trying to look professorial at a Congressional hearing, once said that smoking cigarettes wasn’t any worse than eating Twinkies. However, smoking a Twinkie could cause heart and lung diseases, cancer, and diabetes.
Nevertheless, in Michele Obama’s second term as First Anti-Fat Lady, I was desperate for my daily fix of hot dogs, and my would-be supplier knew it. I leaped at my stalking shadowy figure with the miracle junk.
“Not so fast!” he growled, pulling the hotdog away. “Let’s see your bread.”
“I don’t have any bread,” I pleaded. “Not since a zoologist at Penn concluded that hummingbirds that ate two loaves of bread a day got constipation.”
“Not that bread, turkey! Bread! Lettuce!”
“I haven’t eaten lettuce in three years since the government banned it for having too many pesticides, and the heads that remained were eaten by pests.”
The man closed his trench coat and began to leave.
“Wait!” I pleaded, digging into my pockets. “I’ve got change.”
He laughed, contemptuously. “That’s not even coffee money.”
“I don’t drink coffee,” I mumbled. “Not since the government arrested Juan Valdez and his donkey for being unhealthy influences on impressionable minds.”
I grabbed for his supply of hotdogs, each disguised in a plain brown wrapper, each more valuable than a banned rap record. He again pulled them away.
“I ain’t no Salvation Army. You want ’dogs, you pay for ’dogs. I got thousands who will.”
“I need a fix. You can’t let me die out here on the streets.”
“If it was just me, I’d do it. But there’s the boys. They keep the records. If I give you a ’dog and bun, and don’t get no money, they’ll break two of my favorite fingers. I don’t cross nobody. And I don’t give it away.”
“Please,” I begged. “I need a ’dog. It’s all I have left to live for. I don’t care about colorectal cancer. Without hotdogs, my life is over. You can’t let me die out here on the streets.” He shrugged, and so I suddenly got bold. “Give me a ’dog,” I demanded, “or I’ll tell everyone you have the stuff. You won’t be able to meet the demand. The masses will tear you apart like a plump frank.”
“You wouldn’t do that to a guy just trying to make a buck, would you?”
“Two ’dogs with mustard and onions, and I keep my mouth shut. No ’dogs and I scream like a fire engine.” He had no choice.
Walking away, he stopped, turned back, and called after me—“Tomorrow. This corner. This time. Two ’dogs. Twenty bucks. I’ll see you every night.”
I didn’t reply. He knew he had me.
[Rosemary Brasch, who likes hotdogs, assisted on this column. Walter Brasch says he prefers hamburgers, but will defend to the death the right of Americans to eat what they want. His latest book is Before the First Snow, a look at a part of America, as seen by a “flower child” and the reporter who covered her story for more than three decades, beginning in the 1960s.]
By Dan Koeppel (Science) Our standard supermarket banana, a variety called Cavendish, may be at the brink of disaster. Chosen for its resistance to a fungal pathogen that wiped out its predecessor, the Gros Michel banana strain, the popular fruit has long battled a related fungus, which has all but devastated the banana industry in certain parts of the world. Now, it appears the Cavendish variety is facing a new threat—the very same fungal disease that drove Gros Michels off the market.
Cavendish bananas account for about 45 percent of the fruit’s global crop, with an annual export value of US$8.5 billion, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. It was chosen to replace the original Gros Michel banana after a deadly fungal infection, known as Panama disease (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Cubense), wiped out much of the world’s banana crop in the first half of the 20th century.
Farmers adopted the Cavendish variety because it appeared to resist the blight, as well as about a dozen other banana diseases that also threaten the worldwide crop. But it wasn’t long before it too started suffering from disease. In the late 1980s, a mysterious malady began to wipe out Asian Cavendish plantations. Soil samples were sent to plant pathologist Randy Ploetz of the University of Florida’s Tropical Research and Education Center, who made the shocking identification: Panama disease was back, in the form of a new strain, which he dubbed Tropical Race 4.
By Daniel B. Wood (Christian Science Monitor) California and Arizona farmers — producers of half the nation’s citrus and 90 percent of its vegetables and nuts — are struggling with an acute labor shortage. The situation, worsened by crackdowns on illegal immigration since 9/11, also extends to other states and is no longer just a matter of possible price increases on lettuce, oranges, or almonds, farmers say. Rather, it is a turning point in the nation’s ability to produce its own food – and possibly the loss of major parts of its agriculture industry.
“We are trying to sound the alarm without being alarmist, but the situation has become extremely serious,” says Tim Chelling of the Western Growers Association, whose members grow, pack, and ship half America’s produce. “We are now talking of losing the production of key commodities to foreign competition. America’s produce industry is facing a crisis.”
Although the shortage was worsening before 9/11, it’s now extreme, Mr. Chelling and the three California farmers say. Without an emergency guest-worker program, they will be dramatically short of the minimum number of workers needed to harvest the current crop. Without long-term immigration reform that acknowledges America’s reliance on foreign workers, farmers will not be able to make ends meet, they say.
Mr. Cunha, for example, says Central Valley raisin growers need 50,500 pickers and have only 15,000. In the last harvest, $150 million to $300 million in grapes were ruined because they could not be picked and laid out to dry before the period of necessary seasonal sunlight passed. This year predictions are worse.
via A drought of farm labor / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com.
