Health Check and the attack of Bizarro Beef

Let's go back to that press release from the Beef Information Centre where Heart and Stroke Foundation Registered Dietitian Carol Dombrow tells us that lean ground beef is a healthy choice,

"With ground beef burgers being one of the most popular meats in the summer months, having the Health Check symbol in place now helps consumers understand that lean and extra lean ground beef can be part of a healthy diet."

Now for the sake of today, let's pretend that we don't know that beef consumption increases our risk of cancer and therefore let's ignore the argument that regardless of "lean-ness", beef is a food we should limit.

Today I'd like to talk about fat.

Now I'm not personally, terrifically scared of saturated fat. Trans I avoid and unsaturated I maximize but saturated, the stuff of beef, I simply try to minimize.

Health Canada on the other hand, really doesn't like fat and it puts a blanket limitation on its consumption at 30% of your total daily calories and since the Heart and Stroke Foundation reports that it models its Health Check program off of Health Canada's recommendations, therefore they too recommend that you limit fat to 30% of your total daily calories.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation adds additional caveats to fat consumption in the directives we saw yesterday, "

"Look for a lower (10% or less) % Daily Value for fat, saturated and trans fat, cholesterol and sodium."

and

"Get less of these nutrients: Look for a lower % Daily Value (10% or less) for nutrients such as fat, saturated and trans fat and sodium"

So that seems pretty clear. Health Canada says that we should get less than 30% of total daily calories from fat and the Heart and Stroke adds that we should avoid foods containing more than 10% of our total daily fat value.

Now back to lean beef (and sorry, some math too).

Following the Food Guide and eating Health Check'ed lean beef women can have 150 grams a day and men, 225 grams a day.

Lean beef by definition is 17% fat (extra lean is 10%).

17% of women's 150 grams = 25.5 grams of fat.

17% of men's 225 grams = 38.25 grams of fat.

There are 9 calories per gram of fat.

25.5 grams of fat = 229.5 calories.

38.25 grams of fat = 344.25 calories.

Health Canada, as evidenced by our food labels, believes the average adult needs 2,000 calories daily (though that's likely too much for the average woman and too little for the average man).

If only 30% of our daily calories are supposed to come from fat, 30% of 2,000 calories would mean that Health Canada recommends that we get no more than 600 calories from fat daily.

Therefore, 229.5 calories divided by the recommended 600 total daily fat calories = 38% of the recommended daily intake of fat,

and,

344.25 calories divided by the recommended 600 total daily fat calories = 57% of recommended daily intake of fat.

So in case you didn't follow all of that the end result is that if you choose the Health Check'ed lean ground beef that Heart and Stroke Dietitian Carol Dombrow says can be part of your healthy diet and you actually restrict your portion to those recommended by the Food Guide (and let me tell you, that's not a ton of meat), then in that single serving if you're a woman you'll be consuming 38% of your total daily recommended intake of fat and if you're a man 57%, this despite the fact that the Heart and Stroke Foundation also recommends that you avoid choosing any item containing more than 10% of your total dietary fat daily value.

So I've got a few questions here.

Firstly the obvious one, can I have some of what the folks over at the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check are smoking because their world certainly seems much kinder and gentler than mine.

Secondly though, and this one's glaring. Even putting aside all of these astronomical numbers, can you explain to me why the Heart and Stroke Foundation has agreed to lend its good name to lean ground beef when extra-lean ground beef, with 41% less fat than lean ground beef, is readily available?

It make me wonder if that Marvel Comics bizarro code, "Us do opposite of all earthly things" is posted outside the Health Check offices.

[Though you should know, run those same equations with even extra-lean ground beef and the Heart and Stroke Foundation would still be giving its blessing for women to consume 22% of their total daily fat intake and men 33% from a single, approved, Health Check'ed portion, despite at the same time recommending not consuming more than 10% from any one choice]

Heart and Stroke Bashes Health Check on their own.

But because they apparently live in bizarro-world, they probably don't even realize they have.

On the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check website there's a sidebar linked to a PDF entitled, "A food label can tell you alot!".

If you click it you'll get a PDF explaining how to read a food label.

UPDATE July 24th, 2009: Health Check recently revamped their website and they've removed the PDF in question. Now the only guidance they provide is to choose items "lower" in %DV.

I've got nothing to criticize from their directions and would like to pull one of their directives out for my readers,

"Look for a lower (10% or less) % Daily Value for fat, saturated and trans fat, cholesterol and sodium."

Pretty good advice.

So good in fact, they've repeated it and published it in their October 2007 Healthwise newsletter where one of the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Registered Dietitians Alyssa Rolnick wrote a piece entitled, "Judge a food by its label". She provides a four step program to employ when reading food labels. Here's step 3,

"Step 3 Get less of these nutrients: Look for a lower % Daily Value (10% or less) for nutrients such as fat, saturated and trans fat and sodium."

UPDATE July 23rd, 2009: They removed this too.

So that sounds pretty clear. If an item contains more than 10% the daily value of sodium, the Heart and Stroke Foundation thinks you should avoid it, right?

Apparently not.

I created some tables to illustrate what I mean.

The tables were created by taking the Health Check criteria and plotting the allowable limits per item on sodium vs. what that would mean in percent daily value looking at both the current 2300mg recommendation and the 1500mg recommendation (coming from the National Sodium Policy Statement that the Heart and Stroke Foundation signed).

Let's have a peek:

Grocery Store Food Item	Health Check	%DV	%DV
	Allowable	Sodium	Sodium
	Sodium	2300mg	1500mg
ALL GRAIN PRODUCTS	480 mg	21%	32%
Canned Vegetables	480 mg	21%	32%
Frozen Vegetables	480 mg	21%	32%
ALL MILK PRODUCTS	480 mg	21%	32%
ALL MEAT PRODUCTS	480 mg	21%	32%
Store Pizza	480 mg	21%	32%
Veggie or Meat Pies	480 mg	21%	32%
Main Entrée Sauce	480 mg	21%	32%
Potato Salad	480 mg	21%	32%
Other Salad	480 mg	21%	32%
Tomato Juice	650 mg	28%	43%
Vegetable Juice	650 mg	28%	43%
Soups	650 mg	28%	43%
Store Dinner Entrees	720 mg	31%	48%
Store Mixed Dishes	720 mg	31%	48%

Yes, you're reading the table correctly. Not one item, not a single one, has criteria that would limit sodium to less than 10% of your total daily value - thereby allowing the food industry to happily market foods that can contain between 21% and 48% of your total daily recommended sodium intake as healthy, nutritious and approved by the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

But wait, it gets worse.

What about restaurants?

Restaurant Food Item	Health Check	%DV	%DV
	Allowable	Sodium	Sodium
	Sodium	2300mg	1500mg
Side Salad	480 mg	21%	32%
Appetizer	480 mg	21%	32%
Soups	650 mg	28%	43%
"Small" Entrée	960 mg	42%	64%
Pizza	960 mg	42%	64%
Large Entrée	1,300 mg	57%	87%

Again here, not one single item is limited by the Health Check criteria so as to provide no more than 10% of the daily value of sodium and now restaurants can market foods that can contain between 21% and 87% of your total daily recommended sodium intake as healthy, nutritious and approved by the Heart and Stroke Foundation - that's 87% of the National Sodium Policy Statement's daily sodium recommendation in a single Health Check'ed food item.

If any of the readers out there have Alyssa Rolnick's email, I'd love to send her a copy of these tables and ask her for her thoughts. Clearly either her recommendation to avoid foods containing greater than 10% of total daily sodium values was wrong, or she must agree that the Health Check sodium criteria are woefully deficient. Either way, I'd love to hear her explanation.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a similar post, this time looking at fat.

I've been nominated for a blogging award

Apparently Weighty Matters has been nominated in the category of "Best Sci/Tech Blog" in the 2007 Canadian blog awards (they don't have a health category).

If you'd like to visit the other nominees I'll post a list here and if you'd like, you can click this link to vote.

The World's Fair
Eastern Blot
Climate Audit
xsamplex
Clangmann
A few ill things considered
jules.ca
winextra
Cyberbuzz
Mark Evan's Tech
Darkmatter
Internet Duct Tape

Thanks for the nomination Greg (though I agree with you, I'm not certain that my blog really fits the sci/tech award category.).

You can visit the rest of the categories and nominees here.

Heart and Stroke Thinks Cookies are Grains!

Yup, cookies.

If you click on the image above you'll see a screen capture of Health Check's nutrient criteria page for groceries. The column where I've highlighted cookies is their grain column and yes indeed, if you look carefully at the screen capture up there they also for reasons beyond me, consider potatoes a grain (last I checked they were a starchy tuber).

But let's get back to the cookies.

In what alternate universe would cookies qualify as a grain choice?

Interesting thing about cookies, Health Check and Canada's Food Guide. You see the Heart and Stroke Foundation are now on record stating that my concerns with Health Check are because I don't like Canada's Food Guide (published yesterday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal). And it's true, I don't like Canada's Food Guide, yet here's a statement that may shock you coming from me,

Canada's Food Guide does a far better job than Health Check's criteria at steering people to healthier choices.

Here's what the Food Guide has to say about cookies and a few other tidbits,

"Limiting foods and beverages high in calories, fat, sugar or salt (sodium) such as cakes and pastries, chocolate and candies, cookies and granola bars, doughnuts and muffins, ice cream and frozen desserts, french fries, potato chips, nachos and other salty snacks, alcohol, fruit flavoured drinks, soft drinks, sports and energy drinks, and sweetened hot or cold drinks."

So not only does the Food Guide not think that cookies are grains, it recommends that they be limited. It also recommends that muffins, granola bars, ice cream, french fries, fruit flavoured drinks and sweetened hot or cold drinks be limited.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation?

They use their Health Check logo to deceive Canadians into thinking that muffins, cookies, ice cream, french fries, granola bars, slush puppies and sugar sweetened milk are not only choices that shouldn't be limited but rather choices that are

"'nutritious', 'healthy', 'good for you' or 'approved by the Heart and Stroke Foundation.'"

- Carol Dombrow Registered Dietitian and nutrition consultant for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, Press release explaining how consumers interpret the Health Check

So again I've got to point out, if shopping with the Health Check is like shopping with the Heart and Stroke Foundation's dietitians, and if the Heart and Stroke Foundation's dietitians think cookies and potatoes are grains, that french fries, sugar sweetened milk and slush puppies are healthy, don't you think it's time for them to hire some new dietitians?

Oh and Heart and Stroke Foundation, please stop hiding behind the Food Guide because the fact is you don't even manage to follow the Food Guide's albeit meager nutritional recommendations.

Regular readers, this is indeed Funny Friday. It's one of those schadenfreude ones where cookies have magically become grains.

What a train wreck.

Have a great weekend.

UPDATE: July 23rd, 2009. In their newest (July 09) criteria Health Check has finally realized that cookies and potato chips aren't healthy! They've removed them from the health check program!

Is This New Product Healthy?

Hmmm?

Whole grains are the first ingredient.

Sugars (different types) are the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th ingredients (they total about 4 teaspoons) and make up slightly less than 50% of carbohydrates.

190 Calories.

Source of fibre.

Only 180mg of sodium.

Low saturated fat.

Zero trans fats.

Hopefully readers of my blog know that my post title question is rhetorical.

Putting whole grains into a pop tart doesn't make it healthy, it makes it just slightly less unhealthy than a regular pop tart.

Of course if I were Kellogg's I'd shrink the size of my bar by 20 percent, call them Pop Tart Breakfast Bars and apply for a Health Check because this product, aside from it's size, meets all of the new Health Check criteria for filled or coated grain-based bars.

Oy.

Health Check's Insignificant Revisions

So almost a full year after the release of the new Canada's Food Guide the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check has finally figured out what revisions it wants made to their incredibly poor, 16 year old, criteria.

Perhaps tellingly the revisions were released without fanfare or press release on their website this past Friday (UPDATE July 23rd, 2009: They removed the press release from their website) and despite noting,

"Health Check's Technical Advisory Committee, made up of dietitians and nutritional experts from across the country, have developed and recommended these changes."

a list of said dietitians and experts is nowhere to be found (Though I can't say I blame them, I wouldn't want my name attached to this mess either)

So what exactly did they change?

Not much.

Restaurant criteria stayed exactly the same.

Supermarket criteria had 6 minor adjustments:

1. Trans-fats can now only make up 5% of an item's total fat content.

[Contrast that weak limitation to these statements that the Heart and Stroke Foundation's own CEO Sally Brown made last year,

"Trans fats are a "toxic" killer that need to be removed from the food chain as soon as possible"

Sally Brown, National Post Jan. 11th, 2007

"We want this toxin - which is what it is - removed from our food supply"

Sally Brown, CNews, Apr. 5th, 2007

"The longer we wait, the more illness and in fact death will happen, so we know we have to get it out of our food supply"

"There is no safe amount of trans consumption"

Sally Brown, The Windsor Star, Jun. 5, 2007]

2. Breakfast cereals, waffles, and pancakes can now only contain 11grams or less of sugar (6 grams or less in cold breakfast cereals) per serving.

3. Breakfast cereals, waffles, and pancakes now must be "a source of fibre" (how much of course they don't specify)

4. Grain based bars (breakfast bars), muffins, snack breads and cookies may now only have 50% of their carbohydrates be sugar based.

5. A blanket fat reduction (including healthy fats) in the fats found in grain based bars, muffins, snack breads, cookies and dips.

and lastly,

6. A reduction in total sodium for dinner entrees purchased in groceries down to 720mg or less.

So to sum up:

They've recommended limiting but not eliminating trans-fats, a food additive that their own CEO called a toxin unsafe in any amount.

They've recommended some blind fat reductions thereby ignoring the concept of some fats in fact being beneficial to heart health (something even our lowly Food Guide noticed).

They've still pretty much ignored sodium so for example pieces of bread, beverages or soups with 1/3 of your total recommended sodium intake are still just dandy with them.

They've recommended a small reduction in added sugar to a very small percentage of their categories and still ignore the fact that juice is simply a glass of sugar with a few nutrients, and with no limitations on its consumption thereby also ignore the recommendations of the world's experts in childhood obesity.

They haven't touched their restaurant criteria thereby they still allow for restaurants to push salt at you in total day's worth quantities in single, Health Checked meals.

They haven't put any limits on red meat consumption despite its clear cut link with cancer and the limitations recommended by the World Cancer Research Fund and the world's experts in nutrition including Harvard's Walt Willett.

They haven't made any distinction between whole grain consumption and refined and are therefore happy selling you products that are entirely refined (this despite the new Food Guide's weak but perhaps better than nothing recommendation we make at least half of our grains whole) thereby allowing you to, with their explicit blessing, increase your risk of developing type II diabetes.

They haven't stopped endorsing junk food as healthy choices thereby continuing to lull consumers into thinking that perhaps serving their children Health Check'ed cookies, muffins or french fries are just as good and healthy as fruit and vegetables (interestingly again here even our Food Guide recommends we limit the sweet stuff and certainly unlike the Heart and Stroke Foundation doesn't suggest in any way shape or form that cookies are healthy).

They haven't banned the use of cartoon characters to peddle their foods to children - a practice universally maligned among responsible children's and nutritional advocates.

Lastly of course, they still ignore obesity inducing Calories.

Forgive me if I don't applaud.

Drinking 2 chocolate bars at Dunkin' Donuts

That's basically what you'd be doing if you topped off your breakfast or snack with Dunkin' Donut's new Milky Way Hot Chocolate.

A collaboration with the Mars chocolate bar company, with 400 calories in a large you'd be closing in on the calories of 2 actual Milky Way bars.

Interestingly, you'd also be putting back 820mg of sodium - over half of what the National Sodium Policy statement recommended you should consume in a daytime.

The calories I understand, but who would have thought hot chocolate had so much salt?

The genetics contest called The Biggest Loser

It has become one of NBC's flagship shows.

Dozens of Americans meet at a ranch vying for half a million dollars during a weight loss contest.

The first 4 months they spend working out on the ranch all day long under the supervision of trainers and eating prepared low calorie meals.

Contestants compete in the requisite competitions, many of which involve the ridiculous "food temptations", but most of which involve feats of physical strength or endurance.

After 4 months on the ranch the remaining folks (people get voted off each week) go home and spend I believe an additional 6 months trying to lose weight on their own until finally they all return and get weighed and the person who lost the most weight (as a percentage of their initial weight) wins.

Perhaps the most dramatic part of the show are the weekly weigh ins on the incredibly over-sized scale that builds suspense by displaying the contestants' weights bouncing around for some time before finally displaying how much they've lost that week.

Weigh-in wise, week after week the numbers are dramatically fluctuant with some weeks folks losing more than 5% of the previous week's weight and others, virtually nothing. Those variations are simply a reflection of different degrees of hydration and they don't really interest me - what interests me is the fact that consistently, season after season, some people simply lose faster than others with a cadre of contestants usually losing weight twice as fast as another cadre of slower losers.

So the fast losers - do you think they're eating half as much and working out twice as hard? Do they have double the "willpower" of the people who simply don't lose quicker? Are they twice as motivated?

Of course not - as is clearly evidenced by the television show, everyone on that ranch is busting their butts exercising and eating low calorie meals as they all have the added motivational benefits of unlimited time and resources, millions of national viewers and let's not forget the $250,000 carrot dangling in front of them.

So what's the difference?

Genetics.

Weight loss is not simply a one to one relationship between how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn. The body's a big black box with food going in the top and coming out the bottom but in between there are dramatic between person differences in how calories are handled. The result of course- some people lose weight far easier than others.

My conclusion therefore?

The show's all about genes.

Oh, and there are two winners on the show by the way. There's the "Biggest Loser" from the folks who don't get voted off earlier on and then there's the person from the folks who were voted off who loses the most.

The two winners from last year?

Identical twins.

UPDATE: A reader pointed out that in fact the contestants cook for themselves on the ranch - certainly this would allow for more variability, but still not enough to account for such wide divergences in weight loss.

Come see me at the Women's Health Matters Forum & Expo

This coming Friday (January 18th), I've been asked to speak at the Women's Health Matters Forum and Expo being held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and being put on by Toronto's Women's College Hospital.

My talk is entitled, "Thinking Outside the Scale: Cultivating Healthy Attitudes about Weight, Eating and Body Image"and I'm speaking in Room 803B at 2:00pm.

They take their pranks seriously in Japan

Long week!

Funny Friday today comes from Japan where clearly they take their pranking pretty seriously.

New subscribers, if you're confused, Fridays are my day off the angry stuff.

Have a great weekend!

Former College of Dietitians Director Admits Following the Food Guide Causes Weight Gain

Though she might not realize she did.

Yesterday Samara Felesky Hunt, registered dietitian and former Director of the College of Dietitians, wrote a column in the Calgary Herald talking about dieting and weight loss.

In one breath she states,

"Following the guide will help meet your needs for vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, but also assist in weight loss."

But it was her next few breaths that I found revealing,

"For weight loss, focus each day on eating at least four servings of vegetables and at least three fruits. Eat whole grain carbohydrates and limit them to four to six servings for women and five to seven servings for men."

So really what she's doing is instructing her readers that if they want to lose weight they should in fact not follow the Food Guide.

She instructs women to consume up to 33% less grains than recommended by the Guide and men up to 40% less. She also qualifies which type of grain and does what the Food Guide does not - she recommends the exclusive consumption of whole grains.

Gee, wouldn't eating markedly less food than the Food Guide recommends suggest that actually following the Food Guide would not cause weight loss? Wouldn't it also suggest that in fact actually following the Food Guide would therefore likely lead to weight gain?

Lastly, if the Food Guide is such an evidence-based vehicle, why is it that this registered dietitian is qualifying its grain recommendations to steer folks directly and exclusively to whole grains when the Food Guide only steers you to make half your grains whole?

Simple.

It's a crappy Guide.

Canadian Government thinks Dietitians are Useless

Or so it might seem.

Do you work for the Canadian Government? If you do, perhaps you'd like to call your HR department and ask them why it is that the federal government's health care insurance plans don't cover the services of a registered dietitian and while I can't speak for all provinces, neither does the plan for the Province of Ontario's government workers.

That sure seems a bit incongruent doesn't it?

After all, we know that the government worked closely with the Dietitians of Canada in the creation of the Food Guide and putting aside my various condemnations of the Guide's non-evidence based recommendations, doesn't it strike you as odd that while the government might feel dietitians are valuable contributors to counsel Health Canada on nutrition that they don't insist their insurers pay for individual dietetic consultations for their employees?

It's also odd given that the Canadian Government is well aware of the perils of obesity and the role of a healthy diet in the prevention of chronic disease.

David Butler Jones, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer has been heard to state that,

"with the rapid increase in obesity in young people, that this generation currently in childhood will be the first ever to experience poorer health than their parents"

and that,

"by increasing their levels of physical activity, improving eating habits and achieving healthy weights, Canadians can help ensure good health and prevent many chronic diseases, including some cancers, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke."

Tony Clement, our Minister of Health has stated,

"More than ever, Canadians understand the consequences of an unhealthy diet. We know that a bad diet and no exercise can lead to serious conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and certain types of cancer."

And it's not as if the government's insurance plan doesn't cover complementary health care and paramedical services. Both the federal and the province of Ontario's plans cover psychologists, optometrists, chiropractors, chiropodists, audiologists and naturopaths. I'm told they even shell out for homeopathic consultations, a highly contentious practice desperately lacking in evidence-based results covered elegantly in the Guardian by Dr. Ben Goldacre and with mirth yesterday regarding its use in obesity treatment by Dr. J. on Calorie Lab.

If you'd like to complain to Tony Clement feel free to click on his name to send his office an email.

If you're looking to email David Butler-Jones, while according to his website the Chief Public Health Officer "welcomes your comments and suggestions", his office's website doesn't provide an email address to which to address them. Instead they provide a fill in the blank form to fill out and Dr. Butler-Jones' snail mail contacts. I was however able to find his phone number in the Government directory and so if you'd like to call him to discuss this just buzz (613)954-8524 or fax him at(613)954-8529.

If you work for the Canadian government, please share this post with your colleagues.

Anyone out there up for a petition?

UPDATE: A kind reader has forwarded Dr. Butler-Jones' email. Click his name if you'd like to share your thoughts.

UPDATE 2: Another kind reader has informed me that really the person in charge of these type of decisions is Mr. Vic Toews from the Treasure Board. If you'd like to email Vic Toews simply click his name.

I have something nice to say about Starbucks!

Who would have thunk it?

Starbucks has gone and created a fancy coffee that's not the caloric equivalent of a quarter-pounder.

It's called the "Skinny Latte" and it's made with skim milk and sugar-free syrup. They come in multiple flavours including cinnamon dolce, mocha, vanilla, hazelnut and caramel.

A tall version of any will run you about 90 calories.

Nice to have a lower calorie fancy option.

[Interesting side note:

CalorieLab reported on a Starbucks blog where a barista complained about the use of the term "skinny" and how she felt it was a politically incorrect term to use as it might be upsetting to folks who work at Starbucks who aren't skinny.

I wonder if she also worries about the use of the Starbucks cup-size terms short and tall?]

Trans Fat Hypocrisy Continues at the Heart and Stroke Foundation

Some of my longer term readers may remember a post from a while back that contrasted the messages of the Heart and Stroke Foundation's CEO and Chairperson of Canada's trans-fat task force Sally Brown taken from before and after Tony Clement announced that our government was not going to adopt the task force's consensus recommendation to regulate trans-fats in our food supply in place of a please, pretty please wait and see gift to the food industry.

Well that hypocrisy continued a few weeks ago when the first "report card" came in. Sally Brown had this to say in the Heart and Stroke Foundation's press release on the report,

"Many companies have made significant progress in reducing trans fats, which we applaud, but other companies do not seem to be getting the message."

"At the end of the day, this first report on trans fat is mixed".

Clearly this shouldn't have been a surprise to her as prior to the official government stance she had been quoted as saying,

"if you don't regulate it, it'll be piecemeal"

A point not lost on MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis who a few weeks ago in a meeting of the Standing Committee on Health stated,

"That's my point. The task force said to put in place your regulations so that by June 2008 industry must be in compliance. You are now letting them off the hook until the spring of 2009; then you're going to assess, and then you're going to see if mandatory.... Look at how much time is wasted, when you have the facts, you have the correlation, and you know what works.

Who got to you? Why the delay? It's not industry. Who got to you, or the minister? What happened?"

I'd love to pose those same questions to Sally Brown and also to Stephen Samis, the Director of Health Policy for the Heart and Stroke Foundation who in this CBC video from April 2007 clearly made the case for a regulated approach:


If anyone knows where the Sally Brown from before has gone perhaps you could discuss her own quotes with her, more specifically the quotes she gave before she decided that along with the government the Heart and Stroke Foundation would apparently prefer to sit idly by while the industry enjoys their 2 year get out of jail free card.

"Taking all the evidence into consideration, the task force agreed to a regulatory approach to effectively eliminate transfer in all processed foods"

Sally Brown, CBC News Jun. 28, 2006

The task force took many factors into consideration and was careful in choosing the limits and timeline that it did"

"When you're changing public policy, you have to come up with a solution that is doable, practical but meets your outcomes and that's what we very much tried to do"

"We believe if these regulations were promulgated, Canada would become a world leader in this area"

Sally Brown, Vancouver Sun Jun. 28th, 2006

"The problem is, without regulations, we won't get everyone on board and it's harder to get product changes. Unlike french fries, with something like doughnuts and chocolate bars, you have to take it out of the formulation which is more difficult. We needed regulations uniform across both sectors"

Sally Brown, Vancouver Sun Nov. 1st, 2006

"Trans fats are a "toxic" killer that need to be removed from the food chain as soon as possible"

"We know that the government is taking our recommendations very seriously, but we also know that they're getting some push back from industry who traditionally don't like regulatory approaches"

"Our argument is, if you don't regulate it, it'll be piecemeal"

"We also say that by regulating it, you're sending a signal to the marketplace to ... create healthier oils."

"We think we've given the government a great opportunity to implement what was a consensus report," she said. "[The food industry] supported all the recommendations, they're ready to act. Now we need the government to act."

Sally Brown, National Post Jan. 11th, 2007

"We don't understand why the federal government has not moved on this important health issue,"

"We want this toxin - which is what it is - removed from our food supply"

"Canadians are consuming on average 2.5 times the daily limit, and in some age groups, much higher than that"

Sally Brown, CNews, Apr. 5th, 2007

"could account for between 3,000 and 5,000 Canadian deaths annually from heart disease"

"The longer we wait, the more illness and in fact death will happen, so we know we have to get it out of our food supply"

"There is no safe amount of trans consumption, but many of these foods are well past recommended limits."

Sally Brown, The Windsor Star, Jun. 5, 2007

I miss you old Sally Brown.

Marilyn Manson's take on the Food Pyramid

I'm not sure I could call myself a nutritional blogger if I didn't post Marilyn Manson's homage to the American Food Pyramid.

I first saw it posted on Parke Wilde's US Food Policy blog and then on Marion Nestle's What to Eat blog.

Here it is for your viewing pleasure this first Funny Friday of 2008.

Perhaps it was Manson's background in journalism (no kidding) that helped him see through some of the political reasoning behind the pyramid's dairy recommendations.

Have a great weekend!

So you say you want a resolution?

It's that time of year again.

The gyms are full, the fast food joints are slightly less busy and folks everywhere are trying to live healthier.

For many folks the resolutions are quite general,

"I'm going to lose weight",
"I'm going to exercise more",
"I'm going to eat better"

While there's nothing really wrong with any of those resolutions, I'd argue they're great intentions crafted far too broadly for long term success.

The answer?

Be specific.

The more specific you can make your resolution the better and make sure that the resolution has the "how" in it as well. You might think ok, I'll make my weight loss resolution more specific and say,

"I'm going to lose 15lbs"

and while that indeed is more specific in amount (though you know I don't like numerical weight loss goals), it still doesn't address how exactly you're going to do it.

Here's an example of a specific fitness resolution,

"Everyday when I get home from work I'm going to take a 10 minute walk"

Here are a couple of eat healthier ones,

"Before I buy anything I'm going to look at the food label and I'm not going to the supermarket without a shopping list"

Here are a few weight loss ones,

"I'm going to keep a food diary for at least a month to start looking for calories I can lose without missing them"

"I'm going to eat every 2-3 hours and will set alarms and reminders to help me do it"

"I'm going to include protein with every meal so as to minimize hunger"

"I'm going to eat within half an hour of waking and have at least 350 calories for breakfast"

So you say you want a resolution?

Don't forget the specifics and the hows. Oh, and keep it simple. Small steps might get you somewhere - flying leaps tend to land you on your face.

Happy New Year

I Have no Words to Describe This

Let me apologize in advance for this week's Funny Friday installment.

If juvenile humour isn't your thing, definitely don't click the video.

If any of my readers are from Japan, I'd love an explanation of what the heck is going on.

Folks, I'm taking a week off blogging next week so I want to wish those of you celebrating holidays happy ones and I'll be back in the New Year and already I've got some posts lined up about further hypocrisies over at the Heart and Stroke Foundation, a nice quobesity from the American Beverage Association and more.

Thanks for tuning in this year!

Have a great week!

The New Obesity Map

Boy this study had legs.

Researchers at the University of Alberta did a study whereby they mapped Canadian obesity rates in relation with fast food restaurant density.

What they found was

"was actually a fairly strong relationship, a strong correlation between the two, that those cities that had higher obesity and overweight rates tended to have a higher density of at least the larger fast-food restaurant chains, so there were more restaurants per person in those cities".

The media loved it!

You Want Size with That?
- The Toronto Star

Fast food fuels fat cities; As restaurant tally rises, obesity rates follow, study suggests
- The Toronto Star (must have been a later edition)

Survey Links Restaurant Numbers, Fat
- The Vancouver Province

Fast Food Helps Put Hamilton on Obesity Map
- Hamilton Spectator

Where's the beefiest?; Closest to the highest density of fast-food outlets, one new study into obesity in Canada suggests.
- The London Free Press

Obesity rates lower in cities with fewer fast-food restaurants: Study
- The Calgary Herald

Weight may be linked to geography: study
- The Daily News (Halifax)

'Obesity map' plots fattest, greasiest cities
- The Saskatoon Star

More fast-food equals higher obesity: research
- The Edmonton Journal

More fast food choice makes for fatter cities, study confirms
- The National Post

Study finds greasy cities create chubbier residents
- Times Columnist (Victoria)

Greasier the city, fatter its residents; New research. 'Strong relationship' between flab and access to fast food
- The Gazette (Montreal)

Cities with more fast food are fatter; Edmontonians thinner than us
- The Calgary Herald

Greasier the city, the fatter its citizens; Study links greater obesity to more fast-food outlets
- The Windsor Star

Fast food cooks up portly people
- The Edmonton Sun

More fast food = fatter folk
- Edmonton Rush Hour

When it comes to obesity, location matters
- The Globe and Mail

You Are What You Eat
- The Daily News (Kamloops)
- The Daily Courier (Kelowna)
- The Welland Tribune
- The Brantford Expositor
- The Belleville Intelligencer (I didn't make up that name)
- The Toronto Sun
- The Sudbury Star
- The St. Catherine's Standard
- The Simcoe Reformer
- The Penticton Herald
- The North Bay Nugget
- Cornwall Standard Freeholder
- The Record (Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo)
- Winnipeg Free Press
- Prince George Citizen
- Times and Transcript (Moncton)
- Woodstock Sentinel Review

Best part of this whole business?

The quote by the study's author, Dr. Sean Cash, a fine young economist that I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with a few years ago at an obesity think tank. When asked what to make of the study this was his quote,

"I wouldn't say our study proves anything"

You see, some cities with high densities of fast food outlets had low rates of obesity and some cities with low densities of fast food outlets had high rates of obesity. Moreover there are literally dozens if not hundreds of other variables that may have influenced the results and even if the relationship was solid, it doesn't answer the question of chicken or egg.

Gee, you sure wouldn't guess that from the headlines would you? Well maybe if you lived in Vancouver as the Dr. Freedhoff award for journalistic integrity goes out to one lonely newspaper, The Vancouver Sun. Here's their headline:

"'Obesity map' shows strong link to fast-food access; But study doesn't prove anything, creator says"

Don't move yet.

[Hat tip to Rob our fitness director for noticing Sean's quote]

Holiday Eating Strategy

Many of my newer patients are worried about Christmas.

They're worried about the family gatherings, the meals out, the eggnog, the celebrations etc.

They worry because every time they've tried to "be careful" or "be good" during the holidays they've either eaten foods they feel they "shouldn't" or they've succeeded at being "good" at the expense of feeling bitter.

Well I've got news for you - life includes Christmas (and the myriad of other religious holidays and life events that involve celebrating with food).

If your eating plan or weight management strategy is such that you can't celebrate with food or one that makes you feel guilty if you do, it's probably time for you to do some thinking and ask yourself the question I often tell folks to ask themselves, "Could you live like this forever?".

The fact is who in their right mind would forever deny themselves the ability to comfort and celebrate with food - a function of food that is integral to our human existence.

What would I recommend?

Simple.

Eat because it's Christmas, but not because you're hungry.

One of the most common mis-strategies employed by folks trying to watch their weight over a celebratory season is the, "I'll eat less all day long because I know I'll be eating more at night" approach. I think that's an awful strategy because inevitably what happens is they then arrive at their evening affair hungry.

Do we behave differently when we're hungry? Of course, and anyone who's ever gone to the Supermarket hungry can attest to the influence hunger has on their food buying decisions.

Do you think that sitting down to a meal hungry is any different? Nope, it's just that now instead of shopping from the aisles you're shopping from the menu, the table, your plate, the cupboards, the fridge or the freezer and rest assured you'll shop differently.

While you may well still eat more calories than a regular old day even if your hunger was prevented, without a doubt if you're hungry and faced with celebratory high calorie options the number of calories your hunger will lead you to over consume at dinner will greatly out weigh the number of calories you would have had if you had eaten regularly all day long and then sat down to a celebratory meal not hungry.

So this long winded post boils down to this. If you're not hungry at a celebratory meal or a restaurant meal you'll be able to pick foods thoughtfully and certainly having more indulgent foods for celebration is a very appropriate and human thing to do. On the other hand if you're hungry when you sit, well now you've got a great reason to eat (celebration) and you're combining it with a preventable reason to eat (hunger) and the synergy between those two eating motivations is going to have you eating far more than if you simply stuck with celebratory food.

Willpower is the absence of hunger.

The McDonald's Report Card

What's the best way for McDonald's to ensure that you spend your hard earned fast food dollars at their cash registers? Hook you when you're young.

McDonald's has had a long history of child-directed advertising, with much of it not in the formal guise of advertisement.

Well, here's a new one - team up with a local school board and offer free McDonald's foods as rewards for good grades.

A number of bloggers have already written about this.

Michael Long from Rudd Sound Bites is,

"worried about how it explicitly links performance and self-esteem with eating fast food"

Marion Nestle from her What to Eat blog was wary about what else was in store from public-private partnerships with the food industry and steered people to the New York Times article which is critical of what they labeled as, "the commercialization of educational culture".

Me, I'm not too upset with McDonald's. As I often remind folks here and in my talks, the food industry's job is to sell food, not to look after your health. While it might to many be an unappetizing and disingenuous way to promote themselves, I really don't think you can fault McDonald's for finding an innovative way to not only get customers through the door, but to link themselves with the tacit endorsement of schools in the promotion of the message that eating at McDonald's is something one should consider so great as to be a reward (and of course not just for scholastic accomplishments but for anything you might feel's worth celebrating with your child).

No, the folks that I'd call to question are the members of the Seminole County School Board, a school board with at least a decade long tradition of selling out to Big Food whereupon according to the New York Times article prior to McDonald's picking up the $1,600 report card printing tab, Pizza Hut used to do it offering a personal pan pizza as a reward and with their logo in place of Ronald.

If anyone is interested in writing to the school board, click right here and you can send an email to all of the members of the board and the board's superintendent, though I'd wager that with all the publicity to date, when this contract runs out, so too will fast food report cards.

Big Milk's Mouthful of Foot

For those of you who may be new subscribers one of my recurring features is something I call, "Quobesities".

I define a quobesity as,

"quotes that in one way or another embody what's wrong and hopefully, occasionally, what's right with relation to our attitudes and knowledge about weight and weight related matters."

Yesterday there was a beauty in the New York Times. This one was from Bruce W. Krupke, the executive vice president of New York State Dairy Foods, a trade organization paid for by milk producers. He was writing the Times to complain about their December 10th editorial piece, Junking Fat Food in Schools which detailed an amendment to the farm bill that called for the limitation of milk in schools to be low-calorie milk.

Why would milk be considered "junk food"?

Because frankly in some cases it is, like for instance the 3 Musketeers Slammers that I detailed in a previous post that at 340 calories provides your children with over 10 teaspoons of sugar and more than double the Calories of a can of Coca Cola.

So what did Mr. Krupke have to say?

"Senator Harkin has included in his amendment provisions to limit container sizes (the 16-ounce container sold in vending machines is outlawed), to eliminate whole and 2 percent milk, and to impose serving-size calorie restrictions. In his quest to dictate what can be sold in schools, milk has been caught up in his net.

Drinking milk is not contributing to children's obesity. Milk has essential vitamins and nutrients essential for good growth and health."

Damn that Senator Harkin and his evil "net", doesn't he know milk has nutrients!

Unfortunately in many cases vending machine milk also has added sugars, chocolate and insanely large serving sizes (like the 14oz, 340 calorie, 10+ teaspoons of sugar Slammers in the picture above that Mr. Krupke would apparently love to see increase in size by 2oz).

So can Mr. Krupke really believe that providing children with 16oz servings of sugar sweetened candy-milk is a healthy choice and one that doesn't contribute to childhood obesity?

Well, here is another quote from Mr. Krupke that probably does a better job at explaining his objections. This quote is from his article in the New York State Dairy Food Inc.'s September newsletter,

"Another example of policy shift was with the introduction of bills aimed at creating “healthier” food choices for kids in schools by mandating package size restrictions while tying them all into calorie and sugar limitations. These bills if passed would be a disaster for milk and ice cream companies. Fortunately our lobbying efforts combined with other groups kept the bill at bay."

Mr. Krupke, your touching concern for our children is duly noted.

If I didn't have ethics, I'd be rich!

I collect antique weight loss gizmos, doodads and quackery objects.

I've got one of those jiggly machines from the 20s that wraps a belt around your waist and vibrates. I've got a rolling pin with suction cups from South America circa 1900 that was supposed to suck the fat off. I've got old pill bottles, books and lotions.

Sometimes people ask me if they worked, or more commonly they ask me about some new-fangled doodad.

I explain to them that while I don't have a study proving that they don't work, if they did work, I'd undoubtedly have a study on my desk telling me so and a drug rep knocking at my door trying to convince me to prescribe them.

That being said, the placebo effect is very powerful, as is the suffix MD which is why I'd love to see regulation in the weight loss industry so that the less ethical MDs out there who may be capitalizing on folks who are desperate to lose weight would have someone to answer too.

I can dream can't I?

Today for Funny Fridays I've got Penn and Teller's Bullsh!t demonstrating the power of both placebos and pressed white lab coats.

Have a great weekend!

Do 3 Year Olds Really Need Pizza Day?

My 3 year old daughter goes to pre-school 3 half days a week.

At the beginning of the year we received a letter from the school asking us for $45 to pay for her monthly pizza day.

"What's Pizza Day?", we asked ourselves.

Well, pizza day is a day where the school orders pizza for the kids and serves them that along with pretzels, cookies, juice and carrot sticks.

We didn't pay.

On pizza day we send our daughter to school with homemade pizza on a whole grain whole wheat pita, watered down juice in a sippy cup, yogurt and fruit.

And guess what, she's young enough not to care; she's 3 and peer pressure and conformity haven't really hit her yet.

I think the more important question to ask is, "Do 3 year olds really need pizza day?".

It's not as if they're going to know any different. It's not as if they wouldn't be just as happy with fruit salad day, or pita and hummus day, or simply not having a special food day that at the age of 3 teaches them about the culinary rewards of junk food. After all, they're 3 and they're simply happy to be 3. Certainly if the kids were older and they had a concept that pizza days were in fact a possibility and something to look forward too I'd have an easier time with them (though I'd still have a tough time with the need for the pretzels, cookies and apple juice), but again I've got to reiterate, these kids are 3 - they're not quite forward thinkers yet.

I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't gone to the school to talk to them about it. Many of our friends' children are in our daughter's class and many of them are happy about pizza day. For them it's a day where they don't have to pack a lunch and for some a day that they're pleased because at least their children will eat their lunch that day.

I'm truly split about whether this is something worth bringing up with the school or just leaving it alone. Any thoughts out there?

Exercise - the Videogame?

This one's for the Nintendo Wii and it's called Wii Fit and currently it is the number two selling video game in Japan (it's not available in North America yet). For those of you who don't know, the Nintendo Wii is a video game console whose controllers have motion sensors and so games on the Wii are played more actively.

With Wii Fit we see the addition of a balance board sensor.

While I can certainly envision its use in areas like stroke rehabilitation, Wii Fit just doesn't do it for me. I'm a gamer (at least I used to be before having children) and these really don't look like games to me.

My advice? If you want exercise, go outside and play. If you want to play video games, play video games. Please don't waste your money on a product that will do little for you in the way of exercise and as far as fun quotient goes....well, I don't want be seen as a stick in the mud, so here is Sarcastic Gamer's overdubbed parody of the original Wii Fit trailer.

Go outside!

Diabetes - the Videogame?

Wow - someone's really been thinking laterally.

While type II diabetes is the one making most media headlines these days, type I diabetes is still a devastating diagnosis for many young families. Given that the disease often hits when children are far too young to understand the medical consequences of high blood sugars, finding ways for them to improve their glycemic (sugar) control is paramount for parents given that we know, the higher the sugars, the greater the damage from the disease.

Enter Glucoboy - as far as I'm aware, the first videogame based glucometer (blood glucose meter). It works with both the Nintendo Game Boy Advanced and the Nintendo DS and when you plug the glucometer into the Nintendos, something magical happens - it gives kids a tangible reason to care about their blood sugars whereby,

"test results are converted into Glucose Reward Points (GRPs) that can be used to unlock games, or converted to in game currency. For example, in the included Knock ‘Em Downs game, GRPs can be converted into tokens. In the game, tokens can be spent to purchase items."

Hopefully the company, Guidance Interactive Healthcare, will continue to develop more glucometer based games.

If you're interested in learning more or buying your own, feel free to visit their website at www.glucoboy.com.

Currently the device is available in Australia for AUD $299. A small price to pay for a healthier child.

More on the Useless Ontario School Trans-Fat Ban

So did you think I was being too harsh on Ontario's Premier Mr. McGuinty with my criticism of his school trans-fat ban?

Turns out, I was being too easy.

Someone pointed me to one of the pieces that the CTV had done on the ban and sent me both the link to the video and some screen captures and asked for my thoughts.

That picture at the top of this blog, those are the foods that Dalton McGuinty tells a bunch of students will,

"Give us energy, help us stay awake in class. Right?"

Well they sure would "Give us energy".

The muffins...they look to me like a commercially baked cranberry (let's assume low-fat) and some kind of a raisin bran version. They also look to me about the size of a small cake. If we use Tim Horton's nutritional information as a yardstick, the raisin muffin likely has in the neighbourhood of 390 calories (the equivalent number of calories as 1 litre of Coca Cola) and 790mg of sodium (2/3rds of your child's daily requirement). The low-fat cranberry one's not a heck of a lot better with 290 calories and 750mg of sodium. They also contain on average 8 teaspoons of added sugar.

The Quaker Oatmeal to Go? 220 calories and 5 teaspoons of sugar. Roughly identical numbers to a bar of Hershey's Milk Chocolate.

The Special K bar? 90 calories, one third of them directly from sugar. Pretty much an identical breakdown to a 100 calorie Kit-Kat bar, and as my friend Julie from It Must Have Been Something I Ate once wrote the Special K bar,

"contains gram for gram more sugar and less fibre than Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookies"

I won't knock the apples or the raisins. Both have in the neighborhood of 50 or so calories.

Brilliant choices Dalton!

Some folks in the comments section over at the CTV blog where my blog is often picked up were really quite upset with my criticisms.

One individual wrote,

"Oh please. We've got to start somewhere, don't we? These people who want all or nothing solutions bother me."

and another wrote,

"It is unfortunate that a medical professional would share such a negative and limited view. Healthy adults begin with healthy kids and youth. Schools are an ideal place to support and promote healthy choices."

Would you like to see what your schools promote as lunch time choices?

Remember, this so-called at least do something solution of banning trans-fats will not in fact change menus, it'll just require the use of foods and oils that are trans fat free.

Below are some other screen captures from that very same CTV story showing a school cafeteria working doling out of an enormous mound of onion rings to go with a cheeseburger with it's huge refined flour bun and a giant spinning tower of pizza.




So for those folks who were upset with me, do you honestly think that removing trans-fats from the obscenely unhealthy foods being served to our children in schools is going to make a difference or shouldn't we be removing in fact the obscenely unhealthy foods? Also, in our ever growing epidemic of childhood obesity, do you think that providing our children "snacks" that have the caloric equivalent and nutritional benefits of chocolate bars, cookies and litres of soft drinks is a good idea?

Again, I've got to reiterate. Firstly if Mr. McGuinty truly feels that trans-fats are unhealthy enough to remove from our schools then he should be fighting to remove them from the Province. Regarding the kids whose health he feels is too important to ignore, what percentage of foods do they eat in school versus foods they bring to school or buy off school grounds? Secondly, to discuss the removal of trans-fats as part of a strategy to reduce childhood obesity is at best misguided and at worst the willful manipulation of public sentiment by preying on people's fears and love of their children for personal political gain. While I will often champion small changes in the fight against obesity, this one has no scientific legs and frankly I would have hoped, an insult to the intelligence of the voting public.

Don't shoot the messenger.

[Hat tip to Lorne from our office]

Stay in School

Oy.

Why agree to go on a game show that demonstrates you're not smarter than a 5th grader if you're not smarter than a 5th grader?

Today for Funny Fridays, here's a young lady named Kellie Pickler who is a recording artist and a former contestant on American Idol.

She's not smarter than a 5th grader....

Oh, and the host demonstrates his redneckness as well (it's Jeff Foxworthy afterall).

Have a great weekend!

[Hat tip goes out to Arya!]

Ontario's Useless Trans-Fat Gesture

So a couple of days ago Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty issued a press release detailing the Ontario Liberals coming ban of trans-fat in school cafeterias.

Should we be clapping?

Um, let me help you with this one.

Is it helpful to ban trans-fat in school but still have it sold in the variety stores and fast food outfits right across the street? Is it helpful to ban trans-fat in schools but still have it dripping in the products that parents pack in their kids' lunches?

Mr. McGuinty was quoted as stating in response to why they're pushing for this "ban",

"Our kids' health is just too important to risk."

If it's too important to risk in schools, why is it alright to risk it in the rest of the province? And what about everyone else's health? Trans-fats were referred to by the government's trans-fat task force as a toxin in our food supply that was unsafe at any level. If it's not safe in schools, why is it safe to have in our hospitals, daycares, nursing homes, government offices, supermarkets and restaurants?

He also states that one of the drives to do this is the effect of trans-fats on obesity rates. That one really irritates me as the evidence linking trans-fats specifically to rising rates of obesity is dodgy at best with most of it coming from animal studies that are far from conclusive. All he's doing is playing on Canadians' fears by throwing out the words "obesity" and "trans-fats" so he can make political hay.

Here's some free advice - if you're worried about obesity how about do something about the currency of weight? How about legislating for the inclusion of calories on menus and pushing for a Food Guide that recognizes that in Canada it's now considered abnormal to have a healthy body weight?

Bottom line - if it's not safe in the schools, it's not safe in the province. Get off the trans-fat fence and sit either on the side that feels our worry on trans-fats is overblown or on the side that thinks we should ban them outright. Impaling yourself on a fence post doesn't help anyone.

Shame on you Mr. McGuinty for such a blatant and useless attempt at manipulating the public into thinking you care.

ONQI - The New Word in Nutrition

It stands for Overall Nutritional Quality Index and it'll do for you what the Health Check doesn't - steer you to more nutritious choices and do so with rigorous scientific underpinnings.

Developed by 12 of the world's leading nutritional experts in a manner explicitly designed to shield them from the influence of industry, ONQI is the dead-simple product of the complex algorithm developed by these experts which rates a food on a scale of 1 to 100 - the higher the number, the healthier the food.

The expert panel included Dr. David Katz co-founder and director of the CDC funded, Yale University - Griffin Hospital Prevention Research Center, Dr. Walter Willett chairman of nutrition at Harvard sine 1991 and regularly featured researcher on this blog, Dr. Rebecca Reeves past president of the American Dietetic Association, Dr. David Jenkins from my alma mater the University of Toronto and the inventor of the glycemic index and 8 others who I haven't been able to identify from the various news articles yet.

Dr. Willett had this to say at the press conference,

"Given the rising toll of nutrition-related health conditions in the U.S., in particular obesity, it is important to provide consumers with a simple standard regarding food choices that is as reliable as it is easy to understand. The ONQI is a labeling system that can help everyone make healthier choices in every food category quickly and easily"

Dr. Katz explained how ONQI works,

"People can improve their diets, and their health, both by changing the categories of foods they eat most - for example, by eating more fruits and vegetables - and by making better choices within a given category, including snack items and desserts. The ONQI is designed to do both. You can, in fact, compare apples to oranges (oranges win), or apples to marshmallows. But of more practical value you can compare one box of kid's breakfast cereal to another, cut right past all the marketing hype, and get to the truth at a glance."

If you want to see Dr. Katz talk about it, click here.

Awesome!

World's Best Beverage?

I simply can't wait for Friday to post this.

It's just too good.

So today, for Funny Tuesday (and due to the fact that for the second morning in a row I've got to deal with my snowy driveway) may I present to you, Brawndo!

Firstly let me assure you, it is in fact an actual product.

After watching their online commercial, I have decided that I absolutely adore their product - so much so that the next time I want a sugar-laden, caffeinated "energy drink" I will absolutely reward Brawndo's truthiness with my hard earned cash.

Prepare to be amused.

Sign of the Times

If this isn't a sign of the times I don't know what is.

Going through my spam folder yesterday.

Seeing all the usual suspects:

"No Erectile Dysfunction

Make your woman feel happy on holidays! Increase your willy!

Viagra $1,41 per pill. 100mg x 10 pills = $59.95."

Then I came across this one:

Fiber, whole grains may cut pancreatic cancer risk

So I clicked it thinking that perhaps it had been filtered in error.

Of course when I clicked it, it was still just someone trying to sell me Viagra.

I wonder if they know something I don't?

Support the Writers Strike Part II

Another week without the Colbert Report and the Daily Show.

At least this week was a less angry one.

New subscribers (there were a bunch this week), Fridays are my day off getting frustrated. Fridays are "Funny Fridays"

Email subscribers - usually you've got to head to the blog to view the clips.

Today for Funny Friday it's the writers from the Colbert Report and their take on the Hollywood writer's strike.

Have a great weekend!

Calories for your Phone

Once upon a time I was quite techno-savvy. Now I know I'm getting old because technology's way ahead of me.

For those of you who are technologically advanced enough to access the net on your phones and PDAs, I'm pleased to report that Calorie King, my favourite calorie database, has created a webpage geared for mobile users. No graphics, no ads, it's completely streamlined to help you save bandwidth and it'll allow you to look up any food from their enormous and every growing database.

So until there are calories on menu boards, at least in the big chains, use Calorie King mobile to help inform your choices.

http://www.calorieking.com/mobile/

Dr. Arya Sharma's Blog

Today I'm going to direct you to Dr. Arya Sharma's blog.

Arya is a friend, the Scientific Director of the Canadian Obesity Network and the Medical Director of Edmonton's Weight Wise - Canada's largest tertiary care bariatric centre.

Arya only recently picked up the reins over there and despite a ridiculously heavy workload, he's somehow finding the time to blog.

His more recent post, "Is Reducing Global Warming the Key to Preventing Obesity?" is a very interesting take tying together dietary over consumption, the over-processing of foods, obesity and global warming whereby he asserts that,

"Each calorie of food you eat may have consumed 10 to 50 calories in fossil fuels"

and that,

"Processing 1 pound of coffee requires more than 8,000 calories of fossil fuel, the equivalent of one quart of crude oil, 30 cubic feet of natural gas or 2 1/2 lbs of coal. It has been estimated that the CO2 emissions attributable to producing, processing, packaging and distributing the food consumed by a family of four is about 8 tonnes a year."

Some very interesting reading.

Hope you enjoy it, and welcome to the blogroll Arya.

Thank God for Fast Food.

Literally.

So here's an interesting societal statement.

Want to know what the 9th best selling book on Amazon.com's "prayer" category is, even though it's not even actually available yet?

It's Peanut Butter and Jelly Prayers by Julie Sevig and according to the press release ahead of its November 30th, launch, it's a book written for,

"the 21st century version of family mealtime"

So what exactly is the 21st century version of family mealtime?

Well, here's a prayer from the book that might help you figure that out,

"We want it fast, we want it now,
Thank you God, for the cow!
For Burgers, fries and all we chew!
For all who work at this drive-thru!"

Good lord we're in trouble.

[Once again, hat tip to Brad from the Canadian Obesity Network. Don't know if I've ever had back to back hat tips before]