What Have you "Tweetened" Today?

One of the comments last week asked that I please post some things that are positive and so for this entire week, I'm going to try to find things I can be positive about.

First off is the highest tech food diary I've ever come across, but for those of you net-savvy enough to try to tame it, I think it's probably the best I've seen.

It's called, "Tweet What you Eat" and it involves utilizing a service called Twitter.

Twitter is a service that allows specified friends to stay in touch via instant messenger and cell phone text messaging and Tweet What you Eat involves harnessing this capacity with a make believe private friend you'll know as Twye.

Once mastered, Tweet What you Eat will allow you to keep an itemized food diary on the fly using your cell phone and/or instant messenger service. Not only will it keep track of what you're eating, but due to the nature of Twitter, it'll keep track of the times you eat too (assuming you Twitter as you eat in real time) and in my mind the best feature of all, it'll allow you to set up reminders that'll get sent to your cell phone or instant messenger - something that may be extremely helpful in ensuring you don't miss any meals or snacks.

Tweet What You Eat has also begun to harness the power of social networking by creating what's likely the internet's first crowd sourced calorie database which can be utilized to automatically track your food's calories.

Also amazing is the fact that once you've entered Calories for your own food, enter that food again and the calories will appear automatically. If you're a creature of habit and eat things like the same breakfasts and lunches day in and out, you can have your own B1, B2, L1, L2 shortforms that'll be remembered as well.

Tweet What you Eat is a great addition to the online food diary world - I only wish Twitter were more intuitive for those of us who are no longer teenagers or techies.

To start keeping track of what you've Tweeten, first you'll have to set up a free Twitter account (click here) and once that's done, a free Tweet What You Eat account (click here).

Anyone out there using this service?

[Hat tip to loyal blog reader Ruth]

Lay off David Caplan

And I don't mean "lay off" in the firing kind of way.

Yesterday David Caplan was sworn in as Ontario's new Health Minister (taking over from George Smitherman).

Was the first question he faced in the press gallery about wait times, or perhaps more apropos, about how many Ontarians don't have a family doctor?

Nope.

It was whether or not as Health Minister he planned to lose weight.

Weight is a private matter. The insinuation of course is that perhaps he's not suited to his job because he does not possess a healthy body weight.

Does that mean a cardiologist with hypertension should look for something else to do?

His health is his business, and just because he has weight that may be healthy to lose does not make him any more or less suited to his job.

Whoever that reporter was, feel free to give me a ring and I'll be happy to give you a whole article about why questions like yours set back efforts at treating obesity as the chronic condition that it is, and how that in turn makes it easier for the government to slough off obesity as a problem of the individual, rather than one of our environment.

Behind the Sugar: Cereal Mascots

I always knew it wasn't just glamour and marshmallows.

Here for Funny Fridays is a behind the scenes peek at the difficult lives of sugary cereal mascots (warning, one or two profanities).

Have a great weekend!

Better Strap on your Hip Waders

'Cause I've got boatloads of quobesity for you to wade through.

Today's steam rises off a new product (not surprisingly endorsed by the Heart and Stroke Foundation's mis-information program's Health Check) called YoPRO.

Basically it's frozen yogurt with added protein.

The YoPRO website is a quobesity goldmine. It shouts out in CAPSLOCK,

"AT LAST, ICE CREAM IS A HEALTHY AND BALANCED SNACK!"

Why is ice cream good for you now? Let's ask YoPRO,

"As protein, calcium, potassium and iron, which are found in YoPRO, have been studied for many health benefits, this super premium, guilt - free indulgence is the perfect snack".

So what will this magical ice-cream do for you? According to YoPRO its ingredients will help with,

"Building immune system health

Facilitating healing of wounds after surgery or injury

Decreasing wasting tissues and speeding overall recovery during illness

Promoting healthy skin, hair and nails

Building and repairing muscles and tissues

Providing a source of energy

Muscle contraction

Nerve conduction

Building and maintaining strong bones and teeth

Helps to keep muscles strong (including your heart)

Assists in controlling blood pressure

Works with sodium to assist in maintaining proper water balance

Works with sodium to assist in proper nerve function

Is important for normal growth and building muscle

Delivers oxygen to every cell in the body

But my favourite quobesity by far comes from their FAQ page in the answer to the question,

"Is YoPRO high in calories?"

My answer's pretty simple - Yes. Bowl per bowl chocolate YoPRO has 30%more calories than Dairy Queen soft serve, 37% more than Breyer's All Natural Chocolate Ice Cream, and virtually the same number of calories as a Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar. But their answer is priceless,

"When looking at calories, it is important to look at where your calories are coming from. Are you getting any nutrients from those calories and is there a balance between carbohydrates, protein and fat?"

So I guess these magic health calories won't contribute to weight at all because they contain "balance" and "nutrients"!

So bottom line, if you think feeding yourself or your kids ice-cream as a snack is a good idea you might as well feed them YoPRO. On the other hand, if you think that perhaps there are snacks healthier than ice-cream, perhaps you should try something else.

Gee, what does this remind me of .....

Another Sign the Apocalypse is Nigh

So I've blogged about cheeseburgers in a can, bacon in a can, the car exhaust burger grill and smothering.

So what do I have today?

It comes from Scotland and it's called a "Munchy Box", and don't let the box fool you, it's not filled with pizza and the ten inch box pictured here only costs $10.

Wanna see what's in it (to truly appreciate the photos, click 'em to make them bigger)?



But don't think that's all - that's just the top layer. Here's more:



Oh, and if that doesn't look like enough food for you, you can opt for the 12 inch version.

Holy crap!

[Via 23x.net and hat tip to loyal blog reader Stefan]

He Ain't Heavy, He's my Canadian Public Service Executive

So thanks to a Canadian government public service executive that I have the pleasure of knowing I was tipped off to a report put out by the Association of Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada.

The report looked at various determinants of health and among them, obesity.

Specifically the report looked at self-reported rates of obesity (which are notoriously inaccurate in that people tend to report themselves as being lighter and taller than they actually are) and guess what? Being an executive in the public service in Canada's not too good for your weight.

How not good?

Well their rate of obesity is about 50% higher than the general population's rate. General population clocks in at around 23% obese while our public service executives clock in at over 36%.

That's not a small difference.

It's also not surprising. Having my office in Ottawa has had me involved in the care of many government executives and one thing's very striking about their lifestyles - there's a ton of travel and/or a ton of business meals. Consequently there's a ton of restaurants and if there's a ton of restaurants, there's probably a ton of Calories.

I wonder if they get danger pay?

[Hat tip to an anonymous and lovely bigwig who has done great and is no longer part of the 36%]

Philadelphia Police "Reward" Kids with Pizza and Slurpees

Here's the plan.

A police officer sees a child between the ages of 7-12 do a good deed.

The officer issues the child a "positive ticket".

The ticket consists of a coupon for a free Slurpee, Wendy's Frostie, Applebee's child entree or a slice of pizza, teaching the child that good deeds are rewarded with junk food. Oh, and that junk food is therefore considered a good choice by someone children look up to - police officers.

Strange plan for a State where the 18% rate of overweight and obesity in its children exceeds the national average (a number that jumps to a truly frightening 27% among Philadelphian low-income 2-5 year olds).

Sheer genius.

Oy.

[Update: My wonderful wife just informed me that during Ottawa's kindness week, our police officers give out coupons for junk food to children too. Consider this post my shot across the bow, more to follow on Ottawa's "kindness" tickets.]

[Via Slashfood]

Stephen Colbert Night in Canada (a MUST see!)

I definitely have a man crush on Stephen Colbert.

There, I said it.

God love him.

Leslie Beck says the Food Guide Makes you Fat

If you live in Canada, you've probably heard of Leslie Beck - she's one of our most well known dietitians and aside from writing books and running a practice, she's also a health columnist for the Globe and Mail.

Yesterday her column entitled, Supersized servings, supersized people had her discussing portions and how certainly one of the main contributors to global weight gain has been global portion size gain.

She also had this to say,

"The first step in downsizing portions is to become familiar with the number of food servings you need each day (Canada's Food Guide is available on the Internet). If you're trying to lose weight, you'll probably need to eat fewer servings than recommended."

Of course that means if you don't reduce the number of servings recommended by the Food Guide, you won't lose weight.

That means that the number of servings recommended by the Food Guide provides you with enough Calories to keep you overweight.

That means that if you're a healthy weight and eat the Food Guide's recommended number of servings it would follow that Leslie Beck thinks you're liable to gain.

Now I've been criticizing the Food Guide seemingly forever but Leslie is now the second prominent dietitian to come right out and say that following the Food Guide makes you fat (the other was former College of Dietitians director Samara Felsky Hunt as I blogged about here).

If you travel back in time a bit further you can also hear Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, telling the Canadian Medical Association Journal's Margot Andresen,

"the Guide isn't meant to be "a weight-loss tool or a diet system," but rather, a means of helping Canadians make healthier choices."

So for those of you keeping score.

Canada's Chief Public Health Officer says the Food Guide isn't a weight loss tool or a diet system and two of Canada's most prominent dietitians say that if you're one of the now minority of Canadians with a healthy body weight and you follow the Food Guide, you'll gain.

Great job Health Canada - that's one heckuva Guide.

[By the way, that graphic up top was sent to me by a loyal reader who wishes to remain anonymous - it's a testament to the fact that the only people who are truly benefiting from our obesigenic Food Guide are those involved in the food industry - more food = more sales. Please feel free to disseminate the graphic widely!]

Depressed? SAD? Read this.

Depression is an all too common medical condition and seasonal affective disorder is common too.

Ever wonder how severe your depression or seasonal blues are, or whether or not you should pursue treatment?

I recently found some great net based testing utilizing the very same tests that psychologists and psychiatrists administer to their patients - and like many things net-based, they're free. They can help you determine if you need help or in the event of ongoing therapy, can help to track progress. Now of course they won't take the place of the clinical judgment of a decent doctor, but they may be a good place to start.

Click here and the Centre for Environmental Therapeutics will serve you the option to take a Personal Inventory of Depression and SAD, or a Structured Interview for the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale with Atypical Depression Supplement, or your Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (regarding circadian rhythms).

Doctors reading my blog may want to let their patients fill these out in their offices as you can send the results to the printer.

Thank you internets!

Food at the Ottawa General Hospital

Today's installment in my ongoing Ottawa Hospital Food Series is the Ottawa General Hospital.

The fare was more of the same - no-name junk food, although at least on the surface there were a few healthier sounding options: Wraps, whole-grain sandwiches and Carribean crusted snapper.

Of course as evidenced at the Ottawa Civic, simply sounding healthy doesn't mean the nutritional breakdown's good - I mean who ever would have thought hospital soups (soups that are by the way sold at the General as well) would contain up to 3grams of trans fats and a day's worth of sodium? Therefore without a nutritional breakdown, it's hard to say how healthy the options really were.

Prices were interesting. You could have chosen the snapper for $6.99 or the cheesy bistro burger for $3.99.

And $1.25 for an apple?

Royal Gala Apples are $0.99/lb this week at Food Basics. That means my non-wholesale price on apples is roughly $0.33 per medium sized apple. So the General's cafeteria is selling them with an almost 400% markup?

That's a helluva profit margin!

Oh, and I finally got to see with my own two eyes the mind-boggling display of Health Check'ed Slush Puppies (made with sugar from juice which somehow magically is better for you than other sugars and which allows the Heart and Stroke Foundation to formally endorse them with their ridiculous Health Check).

And what was right next to the Slush Puppies?

A fridge dedicated to the energy drinks Rock Star and Full Throttle.

Interesting choices to sell in hospitals given that energy drinks have been implicated in hospital admissions for individuals with mental illness, supra-ventricular tachycardia (super-fast heart rhythms leading to emergency room visits), caffeine poisoning in adolescents and a constellation of risky and aggressive behaviors including unprotected sex, substance abuse and violence in College students.

All this really makes me wonder if there's any dietetic oversight in these institutions or whether it's simply the almighty dollar that's king?

Bacon of the Apocalypse

I bet this'll go great with the canned cheeseburger covered in a previous post.

It's Yoder's Bacon in a Can,

"With a shelf life in excess of 10 years, this bacon makes a perfect addition to your food storage program and it is great for every day use."

Per 3 slices 60 calories (66% from fat), 190mg of sodium.

Wanna see what it'll look like?

Here goes



Yum?

Fast Food's Latest, Greatest Invention!

As first reported on the Onion News Network, for Funny Friday I'd like to present the Yum! brand feedbag!

Have a great weekend!

Dr. Rahul Parikh's Open Letter to Lucas & Spielberg

I have often wondered how rich a company or person would have to be in order to not succumb to the pressure of licensing their movie/cartoon character/likeness to sell crappy food.

Witness the recent marriage of the latest Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas creation Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull despite their combined personal net worth of $6.5 billion, to Burger King in the form of an Indy Whopper (two quarter-pound patties topped with two slices of melted pepper jack cheese, four slices of bacon, spicy Cajun mayo, tomatoes, lettuce and onions on a toasted sesame seed bun) and to Mars with their Snicker's Adventure Bar.

Pediatrician Dr. Rahul Parikh took notice too, and in a bitingly funny, yet scathing open letter posted on Salon.com called on Lucas and Spielberg to stop allowing their characters to be licensed to junk.

Here are some excerpts but please do yourselves the favour and click on through as this is one letter worth reading (and sharing),

"In the 30 years since you've started making movies, one thing that hasn't changed is a kid's (or in my case, a grown man's) imagination and wonder. And who sparks that better than you?

But a lot of other things about kids have changed. Their health is one of them. Today, almost one in four kids is obese, putting them at risk for, among other things, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The epidemic of obesity is serious enough that we're predicting that this current generation won't live as long their parents and grandparents. That's incredible if you think about it.

Which brings me to why I wrote this letter. I'm a pediatrician, and every day I see overweight kids coming into my office. Getting families and kids to change how they eat is an uphill battle, and it doesn't get easier when big studios like yours wheel and deal with companies that peddle junk food and fast food.

....

Besides the fact that none of these foods is healthy, one has to ask if they're what your characters would eat. Would Lord Vader chug down a Pepsi before he wielded his light saber? (If he did, would he drink it with a straw or take off his entire mask?) Wouldn't Indy, now a senior citizen, have more than just a little bump in his cholesterol if he had scarfed down his namesake burger with fries and a soda? How could he be fit enough to chase down ancient relics while dodging boulders and outwitting Nazis?

....

So I'm asking you: Why do you still tie in your movies with junk food and fast food? I know that you and your corporate partners make millions from deals with conglomerate food companies and fast-food chains. But do you really need the extra cash at this point? Wouldn't it be better, in a corporate crusader kind of way, to change course? Stop these deals, or partner with somebody who thinks a little healthier?

....

If not, then perhaps a little truth in advertising, or in cinema, is in order. You should show us how your characters would look if they ate the food that you helped peddle. In that vein, you got Jabba the Hutt right. But Princess Leia in her skimpy steel bikini with cellulite? Indiana Jones having to hit the brakes during a car chase and find a glass of water so he can take his Lipitor? Now that I think about it, wouldn't Viagra have been the best tie-in for the new movie?"

Cheers to Dr. Parikh!

Jeers to Lucas and Spielberg!

Are there ANY healthy hospital cafeterias?

That's the question Dr. Rob Stevenson is trying to answer and to do it, he and his colleagues have launched the Canadian Healthy Hospital Cafeteria Project Survey (CHHCPS - pronounced 'chips').

They announced the project last week at the Canadian Lipid Nurses Network Conference in Halifax and it consists of ten simple questions based on principles of the Nova Scotia School Food and Nutrition policy (I can't speak to the principles of this policy as I haven't seen them).

If you work at a hospital, please take a few moments and fill out their questionnaire by simply clicking here.

Who knows, maybe there is a shining beacon on nutritional light somewhere on the North American hospital horizon.

But don't hold your breath.

(As an added bonus for today, here's a video of the situation out in Halifax that Rob pointed out and I blogged about before - it's hospital staff heading to a local high school for a healhty lunch while the students ironically head to the hospital for a deep fried one)

Restaurants Lie!

Shocker.

Ok, maybe not so shocking.

What am I talking about?

So what's the story?

ABC News in seven cities across the US set out to see if the items they purchased from the low-fat or low-calorie options in Chili's, The Cheesecake Factory, Taco Bell, On the Border, Applebee's and Macaroni Grill actually had the amount of fat and calories the restaurants' nutritional information pages said they did by sending them to an independent lab for analysis.

The results?

Some foods had twice the calories and fat that the restaurants claimed they did, and in a few rare cases some had less.

The lesson here?

When you eat out, even if you order "healthy" choices, even if the restaurant lists the calories, there's still a great chance you're getting more than you paid for.

The other lesson is for public health authorities and that is if in fact you legislate that calories be listed on menus, you'd better put in a mechanism for not only enforcement of the listing, but also validity.

Food at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO)

Continuing in my Ottawa Hospital Food Series I bring you the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario's (CHEO's) offerings.

What's remarkable about CHEO's offerings is that they can be broken down by time. If you're there between 6:30AM and 2:00PM Monday to Friday you can enjoy CHEO's Rainbow Cafe which according to CHEO's website offers hot and cold meals along with offerings from Pizza Pizza and Timothy's coffee.

If however you're at CHEO after 2:00pm or on weekends, well now you're stuck with the Oasis coffee shop open from 7:30AM to 11:00PM seven days a week. Don't worry though, you'll find much more than just coffee at this junk food Oasis. You'll find Mr. Sub, Pizza Pizza, Starbucks and plenty of potato chips, ice cream, sugary cereals, huge bottles of pop, supersized chocolate milks (they don't offer a 250ml only the 500ml, more calories than 2 cans of Coca Cola carton) and if you look carefully you'll see the People's Pantry line of "Perfect Portion" nuts that I complained to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency about their misleading and likely erroneous labeling.

Here's a quick tour:



But let's get back to the Rainbow Cafe. The Cafe's interesting because it was recently designated a "Centre of Excellence" by the EatSmart! program.

[UPDATE: The junk-food Oasis is also an EatSmart! location as evidenced by this picture a kind reader just sent me from their cell phone:


What's EatSmart!?

Well if it helps, in a prior post I renamed it EatStupid! and in a nutshell if within your cafeteria's kitchen you've got ingredients the program deems healthful, and if your cafeteria is clean, then you can brag about how healthy you are. Here's a quote from EatSmart!'s website,

"Through its "Award of Excellence" program, Eat Smart! Ontario’s Healthy Restaurant Program offers recognition to Ontario restaurants that meet exceptional standards in nutrition, food safety and smoke-free dining."

The reason the program's so stupid is because it doesn't actually steer people to healthy dishes and frankly doesn't even care if there are any - all it cares about is whether or not the ingredients in your kitchen could be combined together to make a healthy meal.

(By way of example, Denny's is an EatSmart! restaurant)

Want to know what the EatSmart! Centre of Excellence Rainbow Cafe offered patients and staff on May 29th?

Breakfast

CHEO's version of the McMuffin

CHEO's version of Tim Horton's Bagel BELT

One or two eggs with sausages, homefries and toast

Two egg omelets with home fries

Western omelet sandwich with homefries.

Lunch

Roasted Red Pepper and Cream of Chicken Soup (and if it's anything like the soups served at the Civic this one's not going to be a healthy choice)

Fish and Chips with Coleslaw

Sundried Tomato and Chicken Ravioli with Vodka Rose Sauce

Pesto Grilled Chicken on Garlic Ciabatta with Fries or Salad

Hamburger

Hot Hamburger (I believe that's a hamburger smothered in gravy)

Cheeseburger

Swiss Mushroom Burger

Bacon Cheeseburger

Chicken Fingers

And while it's certainly not a regular custom I'm aware of, there's the option of dessert with lunch:

Blackberry Crisp

Apple Crisp

Banana Cream Pie

Those are sure some "Centre of Excellence" choices huh?



But of course even if the Rainbow Cafe were to change their menu today and actually include healthy and nutritious choices (and before you start telling me there's nothing wrong with grilled chicken or ravioli with rose sauce I'd want to see a nutritional breakdown), you're right out of luck if you happen to go or work at CHEO after 2:00PM or on weekends.

Oh, and let's get real here - even if there were multiple nutritious options available at CHEO, the hospital administrators sold their souls to Pizza Pizza, Mr. Sub, Starbucks and Timothy's for a reason - junk sells. Really, when faced with the option of a slice of pizza, bag of chips and a sugared soda special, are there many parents out there that would force their sick child to opt for a healthier choice even if by some miracle something other than simply a salad were available?

Gee thanks CHEO for looking out for my children's best interests.

(Oh, and did you notice whose logo is on the EatSmart! certificate? Good ole Heart and Stroke Foundation. Thanks Heart and Stroke Foundation - great work once again)

[Real thanks to my undercover videographer, my wonderful wife, who also reports that at Pizza Pizza you are not allowed to substitute bottled water in place of the 591ml pop in the meal deal or purchase their salads individually and that with the exception of the plain garden salad, the cost of a Mr. Sub salad (which you are allowed to purchase individually) is greater than or equal to the cost of the pizza, pop and chips deal offered right beside it.]

Big Food Turns Seagull to Life of Crime

Corrupting even the wildlife....

Today for Funny Friday is a shoplifting seagull.

Have a great weekend!



[Very belated hat-tip to friend and colleague Geeta]

NYC's Starbuck's Calorie-Inclusive Menu Boards in the Wild

Thanks to Flickr users pnoeric and scalleja who kindly shared their photos with the world, below are some shots of New York City Starbucks' menu boards.

Click them to see the more than a Big-Mac calories Venti White Chocolate Mocha, and then the more than a Quarterpounder calories everything baked.

Ya think that might affect orders?

Health Check - The Food Guide Made Us Do It!

That's basically their new advertising campaign (paid for of course by the money raised by selling the Health Check logo).

Yesterday's full colour ad in the Ottawa Citizen actually took up 3/4 of a page and given that I've advertised in the Citizen, I'd venture that the one time cost was in the neighbourhood of $7,000-$10,000.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Health Check it's the now nationally maligned Heart and Stroke Foundation mis-information program that sells companies the right to promote their products as healthy and formally endorsed by the Heart and Stroke Foundation even if those products contain flabbergasting amounts of salt and sugar and pays no heed whatsoever to decades of medical evidence suggesting refined carbohydrates and beef are not only unhealthy choices but in fact choices that increase the risk of developing heart disease.

The program was soundly slammed by both the CBC in the Marketplace expose Hyping Health that demonstrated foods with Health Check failed to classify themselves as healthy in the far more robust Yale's ONQI and Hannaford Brothers Guiding Stars food labeling programs, as well as in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

So what has Health Check decided to do about it?

Change their criteria to base them off of sound science?

Heaven forbid.

Instead they've decided to throw money at advertising in the hopes that Canadians have short memories.

They've also decided to formally get married to the Food Guide as evidenced in the ad above that starts with the line,

"With nutrient standards based on Canada's Food Guide"

So in effect they're saying, "don't blame us if our recommendations stink, they're simply based off the Food Guide."

"Simple" is indeed an excellent adjective to describe the brain trust behind Health Check's design.

Oh, and I love their new slogan too,

"Put Your Heart Into It - Check for Health Check"

Yeah, that sounds about right. They want you to trust in your heart's belief that the Heart and Stroke Foundation is looking out for your best interests and then shop with Health Check. What they don't want you to do is actually put your brain into it because if you do decide to use your brain you'll likely come to the conclusion that Health Check's not such a healthy choice.

Hike to Help the Bruce Trail!

When I was growing up, my father would take me hiking on the Bruce Trail - Canada's oldest and longest public footpath that runs in Ontario from Tobermory all the way down to Niagara Falls. That photo up above is me and my dad on the trail circa 1983.

The first time I saw Niagara Falls was after I had walked there.

Now I didn't walk the full 850km in one go, but rather we whittled away at it, weekend by weekend until I became hiker #1139 to complete it.

It was my weekends on the Bruce that likely made hiking a passion for me and since then I've put my boots down all over the world, even hiking the Alpine Pass Route in Switzerland, from Lichtenstein to France clear across the Alps (some of my toenails fell off during the course of that one).

The Bruce Trail Conservancy has been working actively to try to purchase all of the land the trail runs on so as to protect it for future generations and while they've purchased over half of it, there's still a long way to go.

This summer you've got a unique opportunity. Almost simply by hiking you can help the Bruce Trail Club raise up to $50,000 for land purchasing.

How? As part of their "Boots on the Bruce" campaign bootmaker Keen has agreed to donate $5 to the Bruce Trail Conservancy for every pair of boots or shoes photographed on the Trail (any make'll do - they don't have to be Keen).

So really all you've got to do to help is head over to the Bruce Trail Conservancy site and figure out a hike (clicking here gets you to a page with 40 of the most beautiful hikes). Hike. Take a picture of your boots and upload that photo to Keen's Boots on the Bruce page, and suddenly, you've helped future generations enjoy one of North America's most beautiful hiking paths.

[Hat tip, thanks and love to my Dad whose bootsteps I'll try to follow with my own children]

"Bad Food on Campus"

So my series on Ottawa Hospital Food sure has sparked some talk.

Happily I received many a call from dietitians and doctors at the Heart Institute who strongly supported my contention that Heart Institutes' shouldn't be serving unhealthy foods.

I also received a bunch of emails and for today's post, I'm going to include one in it's entirety (with the author's permission). It's about food in Canadian Universities and I think it does a great job highlighting shortcomings therein and in the end those in our atrocious Food Guide.

Oh, and that picture up above. That's from the cafeteria at the University of Guelph (click it to get a better view of all the healthy goodness).

Here's the letter,

"Hello,

I think you are doing great work by exposing the poor nutrition in hospital food. You may also want to expose the poor nutrition offered on University campuses.

The thing about hospital food is that when you leave the hospital, you can go home and cook nutritious meals for yourself. Thousands of Canadian university students do not have this option. This past school year, I lived in a university residence for the first time. I cannot describe adequately how shocked I was about the poor quality of food offered. We had pizza at least three times per week, mashed potatoes that were stretched with a paste of flour and water and most meats were processed deep fried cutlets. The food had so much sodium that it burned my tongue. Although there was a salad bar, most of the contents were mayonnaise salads and leftovers. Fresh vegetables were scarce and often wilted.

Although I am considered obese with a BMI of 38, I have always been conscientious of consuming healthy food. Never before was I in a position where I had no choice but to eat deep fried, high sodium, high calorie food every day. As you would expect, I quickly gained 25 lbs within 3 months of living in residence. Thankfully, I have lost those 25 lbs since returning home.

Not everyone is prone to weight gain as I am. Many of the students were able to maintain their weight or only gain a few pounds extra, but their health was deteriorating. Others had BMIs of over 40. I met many young students who were suffering from high cholesterol and high blood pressure. People in their early 20s should not be suffering from high blood pressure and high cholesterol and I am positive that their health problems are associated with the type of food they are forced to eat while living on campus. I must insist the proper word to use is ‘forced’ because there are rarely kitchens available for student use and depending upon the university, a zero vacancy rate off campus.

Perhaps the most striking thing about my experience with campus food is how these cafeterias proudly conform to the Canada Food Guide. When the cafeteria worker dishes out a dinner platter that consists of a cup of white rice, a cup of white pasta, a cup of mashed potatoes, 2 oz of deep-fried, breaded meat, a scoop of frozen peas and carrots, a bowl of something called pizza soup, and a bowl of ice cream all while pointing to the Canada Food Guide for justification—then something is very wrong."

Are you a University student or have similar campus stories? Do you want to send me some pics of the "healthy" food at your cafeteria? Feel free!

[Thanks very much to the reader who sent me such a thoughtful and interesting letter]

World's Least Healthy Beverage?

Seen by me first on Marion Nestle's What to Eat I bring you Baskin-Robbin's Heath Shake.

Here's the unholy breakdown:

1,560mg sodium (more than a day's worth of Blood Pressure Canada's recommendations)

266g of sugar (66.5 teaspoons - 1.5 CUPS OF SUGAR!)

2,310 Calories (that's the equivalent number of calories in either 15 Twinkies, 8 1/4 Snickers bars, 4.3 Big Mac's, or over 1/2 gallon of Ben and Jerry's ice cream)

And yet people (McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner) still make arguments against putting calories on menu boards.

Blogger's Choice Awards

A rare Saturday post.

Just wanted to let you folks know that Weighty Matters has been nominated for Best Health Blog in the Blogger's Choice Awards!

If you'd like to vote for me, click here (you've got to create an account with Blogger's Choice first and then go back to actually vote but hey, it's the weekend, you've got time)!

Thanks Tiana for the nomination.

Have a great weekend!
Yoni

Welcome Ottawa Citizen, National Post and Chicago Tribune Readers

I want to welcome the folks arriving from the article in the Ottawa Citizen, the one in the National Post and from the online Chicago Tribune feature and the brief feature on the A Channel (viewable below).

I'm a Canadian family doctor with a focus in obesity medicine and my blog Weighty Matters tries to look at obesity, the media and nutrition from what I feel to be a common sense, realistic and hopefully at least sometimes, a humourous manner.

The commotion today has to do with my series on Ottawa's Hospital Food and how woefully unhealthy many of the choices sold by our hospitals to captive patients and staff are.

Enjoy yourselves, poke around and hope to see you again soon.

Best regards,
Yoni

If Facebook were Real

I haven't got into Facebook.

The first time I logged on I found out that from my entire high school graduating class only 6 were on Facebook so I deleted my account.

My wife on the other hand loves to "Facebook" (apparently it can be used as a verb).

Well, what if Facebook were real?

Today apparently is Facebookers' (now it's a collective noun) Funny Friday.

Have a great weekend!



[Hat tip to fitness director Rob who I'm sure loves being poked]

Food at the Ottawa Civic Hospital

Continuing with my Ottawa Hospital Food Series, today I bring you The Greenery, otherwise known as the Ottawa Civic's cafteria.

Not surprisingly, much of it was junk.

Poutine.

Bacon Cheeseburgers.

Chicken fingers.

Chicken wings.

Pizza.

Sugared soda.

Giant muffins.

Potato chips.

And that's just the obviously unhealthy stuff.

While I was recording my brief video some folks alerted the cafeteria manager who cut my taping rather short.

She was extremely pleasant and helpful and clearly was very sincere in her desire to provide a good dining experience for the cafeteria's patrons.

She was excited to tell me that the cafeteria offered smaller poutine/french fry portions in 4oz containers - but was unable to tell me why it was important for a hospital of all places to serve poutine.

[conservatively 4oz of poutine (for my international readers poutine is french fries, smothered in gravy, smothered in cheese curds) would have a minimum of 1,000mg of sodium and likely a fair amount of trans fats.]

She was also excited to tell me that they've recently posted nutritional information on their soups. While I don't have a picture, the information was located on a laminated card that was actually not visible as it was tucked between items and was on its side.

I took a look at the nutritional breakdown when I got home and my jaw still hurts from hitting my counter. Here's a smattering (or you can click here to see them all):

Cheddar Cheese and Bacon Soup - 170 calories (that's fine), 10grams of fat (45% of it saturated and 30% (3g) of it trans) and 1,150mg of sodium.

Hearty Chili Style Mix with Beef - 230 calories, 1,540mg of sodium, 2 teaspoons of sugar.

or how about one that sounds like you couldn't go wrong:

Garden Vegetable Soup with 70 calories but 970mg of sodium!

Breaking out my calculator I found that the average amount of sodium in a soup choice at the Ottawa Civic cafteria is a brain swelling 957mg. That's 42% of your total daily Health Canada recommended daily maximum and 64% of your total daily Blood Pressure Canada recommended daily maximum in a tiny bowl of soup that you just bought at a hospital of all places and in many cases it came with an artery clogging amount of trans fats for added bad measure!

Is there really a good reason why a hospital would serve soups with 3 grams of trans fats and a day's worth of sodium?

Boy oh boy, after seeing the nutritional breakdown for soups I'd sure hate to see the breakdown for the burgers, fries, pizzas, liver steaks with onions, giant gobs of mashed potatoes and other cafeteria fare - good news I suppose that I'm told they don't have those numbers.

Ignorance surely is bliss.

Oh, and of course there's a Second Cup at the Civic serving gigantic as-many-calories-as-a-Big-Mac muffins and other wonderful sugar laden foods.

I've got to ask again, why are our hospitals serving such unhealthy foods?

I can only think of two arguments. The first is the, "we need them to make money" argument.

I have a tough time with that argument. Frankly folks in hospitals are fairly captive. There simply isn't anywhere within walking distance (aside from the chip truck that parks by the Heart Institute) to buy food and therefore if the hospital decided to eliminate unhealthy foods from its premises, people would still need to eat and with some effort, thought and creativity I'm quite confident that the cafeteria could manage to serve up exclusively nutritious fare.

The second argument is the, "patients and their families need comfort foods".

I don't buy that argument either. Really the hospital is divided into 4 categories of folks:

1. The non-urgent emergency room folks who certainly don't need comfort because their problems aren't urgent.
2. The urgent emergency folks whose problems are too overwhelming to worry about food at the moment.
3. Admitted inpatient folks - who may well need comforting but their families and friends can certainly bring in any foods from the outside that they want including comforting junk.
4. Allied health professionals and hospital staff where again, comfort's not an issue.

At the end of the day it's pretty simply math for me.

A hospital should not be serving foods its doctors and dietitans wouldn't recommend to their patients.

Or at the very least they should post nutritional information such as calories, trans fats and sodium smack dab on the menu boards so that patients have a fighting chance of navigating through the far less than ideal options.

Sure is a shame you've got to fight to eat healthy in a hospital.

Congratulations to the Try-a-Tri'ers!

This past Saturday was the 4th annual Somersault Events' Dr. Freedhoff Try-a-Tri challenge.

Terry from Somersault changed the name after hearing about the "challenge".

The challenge was pretty simple - if my office inspires more than "x" people a year to try a triathlon then I have to run one too.

Every year we raise the number of people in the challenge and believe it or not, this year the number for me to run was 60!

I wanted to post my sincere congratulations to everyone who came out and competed. Seeing folks who never thought they'd ever run triathlons finish is yet another reason why I've got one of the best jobs ever.

For proof that I was there and ran, here's a video of me finishing. I'm posting it more for the reaction of the videographer (our fitness director Rob) who quite clearly demonstrates the appropriate response to hearing the adjective "famous" used to describe me.

The Food at the Ottawa Heart Institute

My regular readers will remember a ways back I blogged about the QEII hospital in Halifax where a cardiology resident wrote an opinion piece about the state of the cafeteria's food there.

Well, I've decided to take a tour of our local hospitals and last week I took advantage of being at the Ottawa Heart Institute (OHI) giving a talk and I brought my new toy - it's a Flip video camera that's roughly the size of a cell phone that dead easy to use and at least a little bit inconspicuous.

My goal was to record the dietary fare at the OHI. The picture of the frying bacon on the grill above in the Heart Institute's Cafeteria (named Tickers) sums things up fairly well, but I'll run it down for you a bit further.

One of the first things you see when you walk through the Heart Institute's main doors is a Tim Horton's replete with its many varieties of deep fried donuts. More interesting are their non-donut options - here's a smattering along with some of their nutritional information:

Sausage, Egg and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich - 500 calories, 34grams of fat and 920mg of sodium.

Turkey Bacon Club - 440 calories, only 8 grams of fat and a blood pressure bursting 1730mg of sodium (that's more than Blood Pressure Canada recommends in an entire day for a healthy individual let alone a patient at the Heart Institute)

Hearty Vegetable Soup - 70 calories, 0.4 grams of fat and, wait for it, 1,060mg of sodium

In fact if you were a patient or a visitor at the OHI and you didn't particularly like the cafeteria or the hospital's food and instead decided to eat at Tim Horton's for breakfast, lunch and dinner and you chose the options with the lowest amount of sodium, you'd still almost certainly consume over 3,000mg of sodium. If you weren't being careful it'd be no trouble at all to clear 4,000mg.

Ok, so maybe an argument could be made that Tim Horton's is just there for snacking rather than meals and that instead OHI's Tickers has the healthy fare.

If only that were true.

Eat at Tickers too often and heaven help your tickers. While there may be a healthy option here or there, the bulk of the food served at Tickers is junk food. Burgers, fries, pop, ice cream, pastries etc., and I could not find a nutritional breakdown anywhere. That's really a shame given that many of the folks eating at Tickers will be patients and their relatives, all of whom clearly have risk factors for heart disease and therefore don't need to incur any additional dietary peril - I wonder if they'd appreciate a means with which to evaluate their choices?

Hey Heart Institute MDs - isn't sodium something you recommend we reduce?

Certainly the hour long lecture entitled "Salt and Hypertension" available on your website suggests you do.

Funny, I didn't see a slide that suggesting folks reduce their dietary salt intake by avoiding the food sold at the Heart Institute!

Below's a choppy video tape I took at the OHI. Hopefully I'll get more skilled with the equipment as this series progresses.

(Future editions of this series will cover the Ottawa Civic, the Ottawa General, the Queensway Carleton, the Royal Ottawa and the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.)

Please Don't Buy this for your Child

Just what every child needs - a scooter after all, walking's for suckers.

Buy this for your kid and you can feel confident that you're setting them up for needing one of these as an adult.

[Via Gizmodo]

Coolest Thing you'll see Today

It's not exactly funny for Funny Friday but it's just too cool to not blog about.

It's a time lapse movie of graffiti drawn by an Italian graffiti artist (and I mean artist) named Muto.

Have a great weekend!

Obesity Allows Artist to Hit the Jackpot

Today I'll be quoted in the National Post talking about obesity rates and likely some relationship will be drawn to the incredible indirect and direct health care expenditures attached to it.

Well today I've got a more positive spin on how obesity helped one man hit an incredible payday.

Tuesday night Christie's auction house sold a painting by Lucien Freud entitled, "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping".

According to CNN, The painting was painted over a period of 9 months back in 1995 and it's of Ms. Sue Tilley, a British governmental benefits manager.

With the sale Freud gained the honour of his painting selling for the highest dollar value of any painting ever painted by a living artist.

His obese payday?

$33.6 million dollars.

That's $3.73 million a month or $124,000 per day for the 9 months he spent painting it.

Unfortunately Ms. Tilley didn't get paid quite as well - she took home a comparatively anorexic $51/day.

[Hat tip goes out to my mom]

UPDATE: I received a phone call today from someone who felt this post was offensive to folks with weight to lose.

Frankly I don't see it.

I definitely don't understand art, that I'll readily admit and I can't fathom how any painting of anything is worth 33.6 million dollars.

I think it's a great painting and wonderful that the model wasn't self-conscious about her weight as frankly body image need not be tied into weight, but the post was really meant to highlight the tremendous value that society has placed on weight as evidenced by the incredible dollars spent on a portrait of an obese woman lounging on a sofa.

Anyhow, if anyone else was upset by this post feel free to let me know in the comments.

Surprise! Protein's more filling!

Ok, maybe it's not a surprise, but today at least, it's sure going to be news (and perhaps I'll be the first to break the embargo at 12:01AM - thanks Blogger for allowing scheduled posts!).

It's going to be on radio, print and television - the results of the first prong of the DiOGenes study. DiOGenes is a multi-pronged study spearheaded over in Europe and today's spear has to do with trying to answer the question, "What's the best diet to help maintain weight loss?".

This study was an enormous undertaking as it looked at whole families, in 8 different European countries for between 6 and 12 months and randomized their dietary intakes to compare weight gain with diets high or normal in protein and high or low in glycaemic index carbohydrates.

In total, the study aimed

"to recruit a total of around 850 obese/overweight parents (BMI>28) from the 8 participating centres, corresponding to 450 families with an estimated 450-1050 children, where at least one child in each family is overweight."

Mandatory too was an 8 week run-in weight loss phase where adult family members were required to lose 8% of their body weight before their family was admitted into the study.

The results weren't particularly surprising. Dietary protein helped maintain weight loss while GI index did not.

I think the most important part of the whole paper was a quote in the introduction that does a great job explaining why the world's getting so big so fast,

"Given our genetic background, it is essentially infeasible for humans to self-regulate food intake under current environmental circumstances."

What this basically states is that in 2008, the default is weight gain, and I can't agree more. People haven't changed in the past 100 years, but our environment sure has and the reason we're gaining weight so quickly now is that since weight gain is the default, that means by definition maintenance of a healthy body weight in our current environment has actually become a skill. And just like other skills (martial arts for instance), just because your minds' eye might know what it looks like to do a jumping, spinning hook kick, it doesn't mean you can simply jump up and do one.

To extrapolate a martial arts analogy to healthy weight think of it this way: Just because your minds' eye might know what a healthy lifestyle looks like, to expect yourself, without instruction, to be able to simply jump up and happily live with one is often too much to ask (people do it unhappily all the time - that's called dieting).

Not surprisingly this study was funded by Big Food and here's one time where I think it's a great partnership. Here's an opportunity for Big Food to help by using their study to help pave the way to the creation of new food products that may be useful in preventing weight gain/regain.

Hurray for Big Food!

(there's something I don't say very often)

[BTW, I'll likely have a 5-10 second sound bite on CTV's National News tonight in Avis Favaro's story on this study should any of my Canadian readers want to watch]

Dairy Still Doesn't Help with Weight Loss

Not a magazine goes by it seems without a dairy ad extolling milk's (or another dairy product's) role in weight loss - this of course despite the fact that Big Milk in the US admitted that there was insufficient evidence to suggest or refute that milk has any weight-related benefits after being confronted by the FTC.

Well guess what? A new meta-analysis came to a different conclusion - it came to the conclusion that dairy products do not help with weight,

"Of 49 randomized trials assessing the effect of dairy products or calcium supplementation on body weight, 41 showed no effect, two demonstrated weight gain, one showed a lower rate of gain, and five showed weight loss. Four of 24 trials report differential fat loss. Consequently, the majority of the current evidence from clinical trials does not support the hypothesis that calcium or dairy consumption aids in weight or fat loss."

So back to the FTC - if Big Dairy admits there's not enough evidence, and if the evidence suggests in fact there's enough evidence to prove dairy is not a magic food covered in pixie dust that disobeys the laws of thermodynamics without affecting dietary consumption, why then are there still so many ads from Big Milk tied to weight?

Big Milk's new slogan by the way?

"Milk your Diet"

It's part of their,

"Campaign for Healthy Weight"

I've got to ask again, did Big Milk lie to the FTC?

500th Post!

Today marks two occasions.

Today's post is the 500th post of Weighty Matters and consequently I'd like to take the time to thank the folks out there who are taking the time to read it - it's only fun to write because of you.

Today is also my wedding Anniversary and consequently I'd like to take the time to thank my wonderful wife as without her, there'd certainly be no blog, I'd likely not be doing what I'm doing, I wouldn't have my two wonderful girls and my life would definitely not be as happy.

Thanks honey, I love you.

Yoni

(Back to my regularly scheduled ranting tomorrow)

Who Knew? Kermit's Post Muppet Show Despair.

Poor Kermie.

Life without the Muppets has clearly been hard on him.

For today's Funny Friday, here's Kermit's rendition of Elliot Smith's Needle in the Hay.

(for fans of the movie the Royal Tenenbaums, this is a must see video)

The Heart and Stroke Foundation Needs Remedial Math!

You know, the fact that I think the Health Check program is nutritionally bereft and a national disgrace is debatable for some and indeed there are folks out there who disagree with me and think Health Check's great.

I think they're wrong of course (and so too does nutritional evidence) and certainly I've posted plenty on why Health Check stinks in the past.

Of course even the folks who disagree with me the most aren't going to be able to squirm their way out of acknowledging that math is certainly not Health Check's strong point.

Today I'd like to look at a page I've scanned in from Health Check's recent publication, "A Woman's Guide to Healthy Eating and Active Living" that my wonderful wife picked up for me at Sobey's.

Click the page for a larger view (the red highlighted areas are my added emphases)


So here the fantabulous dietitians of the Heart and Stroke Foundation are once again endorsing the consumption of beef. According to them,

"Choosing leaner beef is part of healthy eating"

"Beef, Goodness in Every Bite"

and,

"Eating well is easy by adding lean beef to your busy mealtimes"

Now let's put aside the fact that eating beef is certainly NOT a part of healthy eating (for more information click on the Beef tag at the end of this post to see my various concerns regarding beef). Instead I want to focus on lean ground beef.

I've gone through this math before on my blog, but for the sake of the Heart and Stroke Foundation (clearly they need some help), let's go through it again:

Following the Food Guide and eating Health Check'ed-dietitian-approved lean ground beef women are allowed 150 grams a day and men, 225 grams a day.

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

17% of a woman's 150 gram allotment = 25.5 grams of fat.

17% of a man'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.

However, 229.5 calories divided by the recommended 600 total daily fat calories = 38% of the recommended daily intake of fat, while 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 Dietitians say, "is part of healthy eating" and you even 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%.

That sure sounds like a lot.

Apparently that's even a lot for the Heart and Stroke Foundation given that highlighted on the left hand side of the page is there admonishment not to consume foods containing more than 10% of your total daily recommended value of fat.

So here we have the left hand telling us no more than 10% and the right hand telling us 38%-57% is just dandy.

Brilliant work Health Check!

(Oh, and of course I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the admonishment not to consume more than 10% also applies to sodium, yet doing the math on sodium, Health Check allows single items to contain between 21% and 57% of current daily recommended maximums and between 32% and 87% of those the Heart and Stroke Foundation themselves endorsed in signing the National Sodium Policy Statement)

Any of my readers grade school math teachers that want to do a good deed? Maybe you can give the HSF a call and offer your help.

Walking Clear Across Canada (Virtually)

Canada's a big place.

Walking across it might take some time.

I don't have much in the way of time.

Doesn't mean I can't do it.

Thanks to the Trans Canada Trail new website feature, by entering my steps daily, I can do it from the comfort of my own province and still walk the roughly 18,000km of trail (11,184 miles).

Want to walk across Canada too?

Simply sign up for a free account here and log your steps daily.

Last one to the East coast's a rotten egg.

[Hat tip to our fitness director Rob]

The World Gets Sweeter

I had meant to blog about this ages ago but it got lost in bookmark limbo.

It has to do with a book, McCance and Widdowson's The Composition of Foods that has been collecting information in Britain about just that, the composition of foods (ingredients).

Not sure who it was that noticed it first, but low and behold, food's getting sweeter (and likely as a consequence higher in calories).

Keep in mind, the graphic above refers to British cereal (compositions vary the world over) however I would be shocked to learn that the same weren't true in North America.

And of course, it's not just mass produced items - can anyone out there remember fruit and berries that taste as sweet as today's do?

Strange world and only getting stranger.

[Via The Daily Mail]

Dietitians of Canada Officially, Formally and Happily Sell Out

According to their vision statement, the Dietitians of Canada purports itself to be,

"the voice of the profession"

I think they forgot to mention they're also quite comfortable being the mouthpiece of Big Food.

While I recognize that physician groups aren't immune from conflict of interest (primarily stemming from Big Pharma), I know as a physician I'd be fairly uncomfortable to land on the Canadian Medical Association's website and find advertising there from drug companies.

Imagine my surprise when learning that the "Members only" section of the Dietitians of Canada (DoC) website does in fact have Big Food advertisements as evidenced in the screen captures below (click them to open them in a large window) where the first shills for President's Choice Blue Menu products and the second for eggs:



Apparently if you keep refreshing the page, new ads pop up.

But let's put internet advertising aside, we can chalk that up to poor judgment, (UPDATE - Poor judgment shared by the Canadian Medical Association where I also found some internet drug ads) I mean after all, it's not like it's a clinical practice guideline or a resource manual for the profession.

Ummmm, about the DoC professional resource manuals....

After a bit more sniffing on their website I came across this link to the Dietitians of Canada 2001 National Nutrition Month Resource Manual for Dietitians (I realize it's 2008, but this is still featured prominently on the DoC website and is one of many Fact Sheets explicitly endorsed and implicitly steered by Big Food).

Read through it and you'll find it was sponsored (paid for) by the Canadian Sugar Institute, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency, the Dairy Bureau of Canada and Kraft. Ominously the Canadian Sugar Institute was referred to as an "internal sponsor" while eggs, dairy and Kraft were merely, "official sponsors".

Think the sponsors were just silent spectators?

Then how come there's giant pictures of dairy products throughout; 3 pages on encouraging Canadians to drink more milk (replete with a section on getting the lactose intolerants to drink milk too); and two pages devoted to encouraging Canadians to eat more eggs?

There's also messaging that sugar is a carbohydrate just like fruit and this great quobesity,

"With the exception of dental caries, there is no evidence to show that sugar causes health problems. There is no specific limit or recommendation to reduce the amount of sugar we are currently eating."

Did the Dietitians of Canada really just steer their members as the "voice of their profession" to educate the public that sugar doesn't contribute to health problems and that you can eat as much of it as you want and not worry?

Looking at the 2008 Nutrition Month page that details some information about sponsors, DoC spells out who'll they'll happily take money from:

"Food products and Manufacturers", "Food Retailers".

No real limitations there either - basically if you makes or sell a food that can conceivably fit in Canada's Food Guide, you're welcome to play.

Marion Nestle, world-renowned nutrition expert (don't believe me, click here and check out her rather ridiculous C.V.) on her wonderful blog What to Eat details the equivalent practice within the American Dietetic Association (ADA). Here's a recent excerpt with her call to action for her fellow ADA members (feel free to mentally swap DoC for ADA),

"Respected ADA colleagues: as long as your organization partners with makers of food and beverage products, its opinions about diet and health will never be believed independent (translation: based on science not politics) and neither will yours. Consider the ADA’s Nutrition Fact Sheets, for example, each with its very own corporate sponsor (scroll down to the lower right hand corner of the second page to see who paid for the Facts). Is the goal of ADA really the same as the goal of the sponsors–to sell the sponsor’s food products? Is this a good way to get important scientific messages to the public? ADA members: how about doing something about this!"

Now I know that I have many Canadian readers who are registered dietitians. What do you think about the involvement of the food industry with DoC?

[Hat tip to a concerned dietitian who threw the screen caps my way]

The Urban Legend ER

Ever wonder what the emerg would look like if urban legends were true?

Well today on Funny Friday you need not wonder any longer.

(Fair-warning - occasional random profanity)

Have a great weekend!

World's Greatest Star Wars Product

I know, I know, TV's bad and contributes to obesity and so do video games.

I don't care.

I want one of these!

(Yes, I'm a nerd)

Any remarkably generous multi-millionaire readers out there who want to donate one?

Only $2,9995.

Health Check's Latest Atrocious Product Endorsement

Yup, Health Check, the nationally disgraced Heart and Stroke Foundation front of package labeling program, is at it again.

Today's inappropriately labeled-as-healthy product is Chapman's Dark Chocolate Rapture YogurtPlus.

Per half cup you'll be getting 3 teaspoons of sugar, 3 grams of fat, 85mg of sodium and 150 calories.

I'm sure a great many consumers will be thrilled to have a "healthy", Heart and Stroke Foundation endorsed alternative to ice cream.

Well, they shouldn't get too excited.

Comparing the Chapman's frozen yogurt to another Chapman's product, Chapman's Original Dutch Chocolate ice cream you'll find that the Chapman's Health Check'ed frozen yogurt contains an identical amount of sugar, 2 grams less fat, an identical amount of sodium and 25% MORE calories than an equivalent portion of ice-cream.

Comparing it to Chapman's Premium Vanilla Fudge Chunk ice cream described on Chapman's website as,

"the essence of indulgence"

you'll still find that the Health Check'ed yogurt has an identical amount of sugar, more sodium and more calories.

Gee thanks Heart and Stroke Foundation.

UPDATE July 23rd, 2009: Health Check's finally realized that dessert probably shouldn't get a Health Check and have removed the category that included this ridiculous product from their program!