Which "Natural" Weight Loss Supplements Really Work?

Simple.

The ones laced with prescription weight loss drugs.

You see the thing is, there is far less regulation with nutraceuticals than pharmaceuticals.

With real drugs potency and ingredients are tested, studies are conducted to determine efficacy and safety and mandatory reporting of serious adverse effects exists.

The same can't be said about "natural" products.

Perhaps this is why on a weekly basis I get a report from Health Canada detailing the week's latest recalls.

This week?

This week's lineup includes:

Dan Bai Shou Shen Su (Found to contain undeclared thyroid hormones and sibutramine)

Karntien (Found to contain undeclared sibutramine and N-desmethylsibutramine)

Karntien Easy to Slim (Found to contain undeclared sibutramine and N-desmethylsibutramine)

More Slim (Found to contain undeclared sibutramine)

Soloslim (Found to contain undeclared sibutramine and illegal in Canada synephrine)

Honestly, if there really was a natural product that was both effective and safe for weight loss, do you think it'd be a secret? Of course not, quite the opposite as the company that made it would ensure that a copy of the studies proving the product's safety and efficacy were on every single physician's and reporter's desk in the world.

Bottom line?

When it comes to "natural" weight loss products. If your doctor doesn't recommend a particular weight loss aid it's safe to assume that to date it hasn't been proven to be safe and effective and therefore also safe to assume it's probably a waste of your money and potentially a risk to your health.

Oh, and if you think that doctors don't recommend "natural" products because of a global conspiracy to keep people ill, may I suggest you go to see the new X-Files movie.

Obesity is Still not about Exercise!

You need more proof that we're not going to put a dent in childhood obesity with exercise?

Fine.

Published ahead of print in the Archives of Diseases of Childhood is a simple study that looked at 300 children from 54 different schools in the city of Plymouth in the UK.

Dr. Brad Metcalf et al. followed the children for 4 years (from the age of 5 to 8) and looked for associations between the variables of physical activity, body mass index, body fat percentage and some metabolic blood parameters.

Guess what?

There was no association found between the amount the children exercised and their body mass indices or body-fat percentages over time despite the fact that amongst the children there was a ten fold difference in the amount of physical activity that did not in fact change over the course of the study.

That finding is so powerful I'm going to rewrite it big and bold:

Despite the fact that some kids were ten times more active than their peers, their 4 year long, ten-fold increase in exercise did not help them maintain healthier body weights or body fat percentages!

The exercise wasn't all for naught however as metabolic parameters were in fact better in the exercisers.

I wonder how many more studies need to come out before it becomes mainstream to know that exercise as a component of obesity is minor at best?

The Olympics have nothing to do with obesity

Maybe someone should mention that to Canadian Olympic gold medalist Silken Laumann.

Silken, when criticizing Canada for not funding amateur athletics as an explanation for our early dearth of medals, jumped onto the obesity horse to try to ride her point home,

"We have this perception that we are into sports, that we're a sports-minded country, but when you look at it, inactivity and obesity are a real challenge to this country"

Her comments spurred the Ottawa Citizen editorial board to readily agree and they stated that increasing funding for amateur athletics,

"not only would it increase the pool of future Olympians, but it would make a dent in rising obesity and diabetes rates."

Well I've got news for Silken and the Citizen - the country with the most medals of the games also holds the global gold medal for the highest national obesity rates (USA) while the country in second (China), holds the gold medal for gaining weight faster than any other nation in the world.

As I've blogged about over and over and over again, energy-in matters far more to obesity rates than energy-out.

I'd love to chat with Silken about this one day, as over the course of the past two years she's been quoted over and over and over again linking Canada's childhood obesity problem with a lack of sport. Unfortunately in so doing, Silken, whose voice carries a great deal of weight with Canadians, is perpetuating a belief that if acted upon (through the establishment of obesity prevention programs focusing on energy-out) will waste valuable time and resources that could instead be spent on helping Canadians with understanding and modifying their energy-in.

Menu Board Calories Hit the Funny Pages

I love it when Funny Fridays involve nutrition but today it's an extra special Funny Friday as today I've got a double header and both items are about menu board Calories.

First up we have Doonesbury. Amazingly, Gary Trudeau has now been writing his often biting, left leaning, comic strip Doonsebury for 40 years giving us his view of the world. This past week menu board calories hit his strip with Trudeau detailing how the posting of menu board calories at "McFriendly's" is affecting customers and regular pothead character Zonker. The series is remarkable too in that it means that menu board calories have hit the big time with the issue reaching a level of social conscious high enough to make the strip understandable and comical to its readers. Click the picture above to enlarge the strip enough to read.

Next up we have a youtube video that Marion Nestle posted a few days on her fantastic blog What to Eat. It was put together by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy and it involves them asking folks to figure out fast food calories using Big Food's answer to menu boards - brochures.

Have a great weekend!



[Hat tips to my mom and Cynthia for sending along the Doonesbury works]

Seriously? Deep Fried Green Beans?

Rob, BMI's fitness director, picked them up from me from a local supermarket.

According the the package they're called, "Mixed Vegetable Chips" and ingredients include sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, green beens, taro, non-hydrogenated canola oil, dextrin and salt.

I took the photo with the gum beside it to provide some perspective as to how small the container actually is.

Care to venture a guess as to the calorie content?

Would you be surprised if I told you that little container has just a hair fewer calories than a large supermarket bag of potato chips?

Having tasted them, if I'm going to spend the calories, I'll take the chips.

I wonder how many people out there buy them to be, "healthier"

(The label below - it's not for the whole container, it's for 100g. According to the top of the container, the net weight is 222g for 999 calories)

What Does the Greatest Olympian in History Eat?

Can't tell you how many people have been forwarding Michael Phelps' meal plan to me.

In case you're incredibly disconnected with the Olympics, Michael Phelps is a swimmer who has now won more gold medals than any Olympian in history.

NBC's coverage of Mr. Phelps is almost as prodigious as his breakfast and as part of their coverage they covered, you guessed it, his breakfast.

So what does a 23 year old swimming phenom eat?

Apparently nothing he cooks for himself.

He's been instructed to eat between 8,000 and 10,000 Calories daily.

Breakfast as reported by Bob Costas consists of,

"Three sandwiches of fried eggs, cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onions and mayonnaise, add one omelet, a bowl of grits, and three slices of french toast with powdered sugar, then wash down with three chocolate chip pancakes"

You can eat like Michael Phelps too....provided you're 23 years old, 6 feet 4 inches tall and have been swimming 5 hours a day since the Athens Olympics in 2004. If that doesn't sound like you, I'd recommend cutting back some on the calories.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in - here's a clip from NBC.

The Oreo Episode of 7th Heaven

Can't say I've ever watched the show, but thanks to a post by Parke Wilde on his wonderful blog US Food Policy, I'm pretty sure I don't want to.

His post was about their 218th episode entitled, "Secrets" - an episode whose entire premise is that eating cookies leads people to tell each other their secrets. The thing is, it's not just any cookie that loosens lips, it's specific to Oreos due to presumably paid product placement.

I've included Parke's clip below, along with one other, but some background before you watch the clips.

Oreos are owned by Kraft.

Kraft is one of those corporations who have managed to appease critics and politicians by crafting their own voluntary guidelines regarding targeting children with junk food advertising.

They pledged not to target children back in January 2005 and specifically made mention to Oreos.

So when was that 7th Heaven episode aired?

April 17th, 2006.

Of course Kraft will say that 7th Heaven is a "family" show and therefore they're not exclusively targeting kids. Gee thanks Kraft.

The FCC is investigating but of course without any regulatory teeth, I'm not sure what they expect to be able to do.

Still think "voluntary" is a good idea?

Stupidest Obesity Headline Ever?

Not the one above this post, but rather one by Reuters published on August 6th, 2008.

The article had to do with a study recently published in Obesity that looked at predictions for overweight and obesity in the US for the coming few decades.

The hypothetical study wanted to address the question of what might happen to healthcare expenditures attributable to weight and weight related disease if rising rates of obesity continued unabated.

Certainly if you simply draw a straight line on a graph eventually everyone on the planet will be overweight or obese, but natural phenomena do not occur in straight lines and natural distribution will ensure that eventually we will hit a zenith.

The authors knew this too and simply put it together as a hypothetical question.

Reuters perhaps took it a little too seriously with their alarmist headline,

"All U.S. adults could be overweight in 40 years"

For their efforts Reuters has earned my first quobesity post in some time.

Don't Watch on a Full Stomach

Today for Funny Friday, an absolute classic Saturday Night Live skit with Will Ferrell and Juliana Margulies.

How they manage to keep straight faces for the few moments they do before cracking up is beyond me.

Have a great weekend!

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Leslie Beck Bashes Juice

And rightly so!

In her (for my non-Canadian readers, Leslie is a prominent Canadian registered dietitian) most recent column Leslie reviews a number of studies that rolled out of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Her conclusions, while certainly not shocking, are bang on,

"You need to count calories (not grams of fat), lay off sugary drinks and increase your consumption of fruits and vegetables if you want to ward off Type 2 diabetes"

and,

"Soft drinks, fruit drinks and even fruit juice supply extra calories that can promote weight gain. Research suggests we don't register the calories we drink as well as the calories we eat. Liquid calories don't fill us up, so we don't compensate for them by eating less food."

So why am I bothering to post about this?

Because unfortunately too many allied health professionals are still snowed by the juice industry and fewer still are willing to openly call for the limitation of juice despite the fact that evidence-based nutrition would encourage you to consume your fruits and vegetables, not drink them.

Kudos to Leslie for publicly bucking that trend!

Update on Hospital Cafeteria Food

Just thought I'd bring you an update on what's gone on with the hospital food issue.

Following Don Butler's excellent piece on my hospital food adventures in the Citizen the Canadian Medical Association Journal invited me and that doc I've blogged about from the East coast Rob Stevenson, to co-author an editorial about our experiences.

That editorial, available online was posted last week and in turn that led to a flurry of activity and potentially even some change.

The day after the editorial was published the Quebec Minister of Health Dr. Yves Bolduc announced (link is in French) that he would see to it to ensure that healthy foods would in fact be served in Quebec hospitals. There were also a myriad of articles across the country covering what to most allied health professionals is a no-brainer issue and I was thrilled to see in the comment sections for these articles, it's a no-brainer for most Canadians too who see improving hospital cafeteria options as an obvious, necessary and medically responsible thing to do.

A few days ago I was invited onto Steve Madely's show (hosted by Mark Sutcliffe) to talk a bit further and I was pleasantly surprised that the interview was pretty lengthy and really allowed me to flesh out the issue for the listeners. If you're curious, you can click the player below to hear it (if you're an email subscriber and the player doesn't work, just head over to the blog):

Lastly this coming weekend Dr. Barry Dworkin has invited me onto his now nationally syndicated show Sunday Housecall to discuss this an other issues (you can listen online by clicking here at 3:30pm Sunday August 10th or tune into CFRA in Ottawa).

Who says a few loud voices can't affect change?

Shocker - Kids' Meals in Restaurants have too many Calories!

Apropos to my post from yesterday is a story that broke embargo at noon and honest to goodness, I had no idea it was going to hit.

It was from one of my favourite groups, the Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the non-profit nutritional advocacy group who also publish the informative and surprisingly affordable monthly newsletter Nutrition Action (ad free and only $24 per year).

What did they do this time?

They calculated the Calories in 1,474 different kid meals available at big chain fast food and semi-fast food restaurants.

The results?

93% of them had more than a third of the Calories an average child would need in a daytime and 86% were too high in sodium.

So going back to yesterday...if activity rates haven't changed in the past 30 years and obesity rates have tripled.....and if restaurant meals for kids have too many calories as do restaurant meals for adults....and if eating out Calories now account for a full 1/3 of daily kid Calories ya think there be a connection?

Darn tootin'!

Oh, and about the recommendation that when you eat out you should just substitute for healthier fare - two comments. Firstly, healthier does not mean lower in Calories and many foods thought of as healthy may in fact be surprisingly unhealthy. Case in point, substitute chocolate milk for soda and you might well be providing your children with more Calories, saturated fat and sugar than the small soda had in the first place. Secondly, how many of you think your kids will let you get away with ordering Burger King's new apple fries in place of real ones? In addition to? Maybe. In place of? Forget about it.

Easy bottom line here. Worried about your kid's weight? Don't (or only very rarely) take them out to eat.

[BTW, if you live in Ottawa, check out CJOH at 6:25pm where I may well be chatting about this and potentially other nutrition news]

Obesity is NOT about inactivity

I've been saying that forever - the math just isn't there.

Thankfully other people have been out there proving it.

People like Drs. Westerterp and Speakman who in May of this year published a fascinating paper in the International Journal of Obesity.

The paper looked at energy expenditure experiments conducted since the 80s. The experiments were gold-standard style as they used doubly labeled water to track results. Many health professionals, the media and the general public might assume that since obesity rates have risen dramatically since the 80s, energy expenditure (the scientific term for activity) must have declined in turn.

Imagine their surprise to read this paper which showed that not only has the developed world's average daily energy expenditure remained the same, it does not differ significantly from that of the third world (a conclusion also reached in that paper I blogged about that compared the energy expenditure of suburban Chicagoans to Nigerian subsistence farmers).

Given that there are ultimately only two components to energy balance (in and out), and given that "out" over the course of the past 30 years has remained the same, once again I'm going to say if we want to see any progress in the war on obesity it's going to have to come from shifting the focus to "in".

I've Seen this Look Before

It was back in 2006 in the Canadian House of Commons.

Granted the look then also included some anger.

It came from Health Canada officials who were called back by the Standing Committee on Health following my testimony on the Food Guide's inexcusable shortcomings.

About a minute or two after I sat down in the gallery all of a sudden all 4 Health Canada folks turned around and gave me a withering glare.

Can't say I blame them either, I certainly hadn't made their lives any easier.

Fortunately for me, I don't wither easily.

So today for Funny Friday I bring you the dramatic kitty in what I'm sure will end up being a viral internet classic (the video, not this post).

Have a great weekend!

Google Walk

Two Google Map mashups in two days!

This one's by Google themselves.

Basically in North America, if you go to Google Maps and put in two locations you've now got the options for driving directions or walking directions!

Google states that their walking directions will try to be direct, flat, and if available, uses pedestrian walkways.

Of course you'd better hope that Mr. T.'s not driving around your neighbourhood as evidenced in this fabulous ad for Snickers.



Thanks Google!

I Have Something Nice to Say about the Heart and Stroke Foundation

My internal sources over at the Heart and Stroke Foundation tell me that the higher ups over there think the reason I'm so critical of their atrocious mis-information program (Health Check) is due to the Foundation's vocal support of another mis-information program - Canada's Food Guide.

While there's no doubt that the Foundation's support of the Food Guide wasn't an evidence based move, my disgust with Health Check isn't personal - it's professional.

Proof comes here where I've got something nice to say about the Heart and Stroke Foundation as they've cofunded (along with the University of British Columbia) a fantastic new google mashup for Vancouver that helps cyclists pick the best routes.

The mashup, allows google style directions but includes information pertinent to cyclists including:

Major streets vs. alternative streets and dedicated cycling paths

Least traffic pollution

Least elevation gain

Most vegetated route

Shortest path route

Restricted maximum slope

If you're in Vancouver and you're a cyclist be sure to check it out by clicking here. If you're in the rest of the country, let's hope the Heart and Stroke Foundation helps roll it out to the rest of us.

Thanks Heart and Stroke Foundation

Is Exercise Necessary for Weight Maintenance?

Yes, but the much more important question really is why?

Today a new paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine again suggests that exercise is crucial for long term weight maintenance, but I think misses the boat on why.

The paper, written by one of the giants in exercise and its role in obesity treatment and prevention Dr. John Jakicic and colleagues, follows 201 women for 24 months randomizing them into one of 4 different exercise arms (having to do with intensity and duration) and giving all of them Calorie reduced diets.

They then subdivided the results into groups representing percentages of maintained weight loss at 24 months and analyzed scads of data.

Their results and conclusions?

The folks who maintained a weight loss of greater than 10% of their starting weights exercised more minutes per week than those who did not. The authors concluded that the magic number of weekly exercise minutes for weight maintenance therefore were 275 (an average then of 40 minutes daily or an hour 5 days a week).

The thing is, I don't think that's the whole story.

Looking more carefully at the data we can see that on a weekly basis the folks who exercised the most burned only 1,145 more Calories than the folks who exercised the least (illustrating that exercise really doesn't burn boatloads of Calories given that to burn those additional Calories those folks on average exercised 3.5 hours more a week). That's only an average of 163 Calories more burned daily - not much to write home about.

No, for me the story is elsewhere in the data.

Looking at those who exercised the most, on a daily basis they were consuming 444 Calories less than those exercising the least. Extrapolating that and those folks were eating 3,108 fewer Calories a week! That's almost a full pound of Calories less a week! They also had much better scores on an eating behaviour inventory meant to assess weight control eating behaviours.

Translation?

The folks who exercised the most, ate the least and controlled their eating the best and in fact the magnitude of their dietary interventions at 24 months were 3 fold higher in Caloric impact than their exercise interventions.

My conclusion?

Exercise works and is integral to most for weight maintenance, but not via its direct Calorie burning capacity (which is small), but rather through its remarkable ability to cultivate healthy attitudes about weight management and in so doing, support dietary restraint and thoughtfulness for the long run.

Therefore to truly harness the power of exercise, we need to explore how exercise leads these folks to consume less Calories and stick to weight control eating behaviours. If we can figure that out, perhaps we can create interventions that do not in fact necessitate seemingly other-worldly amounts of daily exercise.

Proof NYC Menu-Board Calories Change Behaviour

No, it's not the incredibly quick publication of research - it's a buried statement in an MSNBC news story.

The story of course is about Calories on NYC menus and the "sticker shock" many patrons have when realizing their beloved meals out contain enough Calories to feed a family (as evidenced by the insane numbers in the IHOP menu posted up above).

While certainly many of these stories talk of individuals who will no longer consume their more-Calories-than-a-BigMac muffins and fancy coffees, this piece included another important piece of information.

People are choosing lower Calorie options.

The part that leads me to believe that?

The part where the story reports that T.G.I. Fridays had run out of the "suddenly popular" 290 Calories Bistro Sirloin Salad (the article states it's the "Classic Sirloin" but that's not possible as the Classic Sirloin without sides contains 520 Calories) even before the dinner rush had arrived.

MSNBC also had another tidbit on their site I found interesting.

It's a vote where the question asked was,

"Do you want to know the calorie counts of every cookie, muffin and morsel at the restaurants you go to?"

The politicians who read my blog may find these results particularly interesting.

Out of the 28,587 responses at the time of my visiting the poll an overwhelming 79% said,

"Yes. More information leads to smarter choices."

Sad News - Randy Pausch has Died

I blogged about him back in April.

He's the computer scientist who inspired the world with his moving, insightful and surprisingly positive approach to dealing with a terminal diagnosis.

Unfortunately he died on Friday.

Rest in peace Dr. Pausch, and thank you.

[If you're so inclined, his family has suggested the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network for donations as a tribute to Dr. Pausch. You can donate by clicking here]

From the Scientists at Domino's Pizza

I do often love the Onion.

Today for Funny Friday I bring you an interview with ONN and the scientists at Domino's - they were trying to understand where people would draw the line with unappetizing, unhealthy and frankly in many cases bizarre Domino's creations.

Have a great weekend!

A Personal Request

Today I'm taking a day off nutrition blogging to ask you for your help.

On October 5th I'm running in the CIBC Run for the Cure, a charity run supporting breast cancer research.

Last year 53 communities and 170,000 Canadians participated and together helped to raise $27 million for breast cancer research, education and awareness programs.

My office at BMI has made the Run for the Cure our annual charitable cause and I'm proud to say that over the course of the past 4 years we have raised nearly $100,000 for the Run.

If you're a regular reader of my blog (or even just a passer-by) you'll know that I put a tremendous amount of work into my daily posts. I do it because I love to do it. My blog's not monetized (and never will be) and doesn't have ridiculous ads promoting dubious weight loss solutions and nobody pays me for my opinion.

All that said, if you enjoy my blog, please consider donating to my Run for the Cure efforts.

To donate click the pink button below which will take you to the CIBC Run for the Cure website. You can choose to give anonymously, you can use a credit card and if you donate more than $10, you'll receive a tax receipt.



Thank you and back to normal programming tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Yoni

Coca-Cola Lies to Doctors?

Sure looks that way to me.

The ad pictured above appeared on page 1632 of the June 17th edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The ad leads,

"Can't remember the last Coca-Cola ad targeted at children? There's a reason"

Reading the paragraph below,

"Parents tell us they prefer to be the ones teaching their children about beverage choices. That's why for over 50 years we've adhered to a company policy that prohibits advertising soft drinks to children."

Then they go on to brag about their voluntary efforts,

"And as a founding member of Canadian Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, we'vre recetnly extended this policy to include all forms of media, including broadcast, print, the web and beyond."

So what's my issue?

Well I can remember boatloads of Coca-Cola advertisements targeting children. From the famous Mean Joe Green football jersey commercial, to Santa Claus, little stuffed vending machine animals, animated polar bears, video games and recording and sports idols.

Thankfully, youtube remembers them as well and a smattering of them are posted down below (email subscribers, you'll have to actually visit the blog by clicking here as embedded videos don't make it into the email).

Visiting the Coca-Cola company's website you'll find that there's a lot of small print attached to their pledge but basically it comes down to this - it only applies to programming that is specifically geared towards children under the age of 12. I suppose that means targeting children during any family friendly shows (American/Canadian Idol, sports, some prime time stuff) is fair game and I suppose it also means Coca-Cola thinks your 12 year old is an adult.

What a beautiful example of how Big Food sponsored voluntary "regulation" through grandiose sounding endeavours such as the "Canadian Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative" aren't worth the paper they're written on.

MEAN JOE GREEN


SANTA CLAUS






CHRISTMAS (Entire commercial with 12 year olds)


STUFFED VENDING MACHINE ANIMALS


POLAR BEARS











NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK


CHRISTINA AGUILERA


MICHAEL JORDAN


YAO MING & LeBRON JAMES


GRAND THEFT AUTO (Videogame)

The Heart and Stroke Foundation Still Backpedaling on Trans-Fats

For long time readers, the Heart and Stroke Foundation hypocrisy highlighted here is not exactly going to be news. Newer readers on the other hand may find it surprsing.

You see the Heart and Stroke Foundation and most specifically their CEO Sally Brown are heavily entrenched in the war against trans-fats.

Only thing is, appeasement appears to be their battle cry.

Yesterday the trans-fat monitoring program coadministered by Health Canada and the Heart and Stroke Foundation released their year two findings.

The results?

Not surprisingly the non-regulated approach to removing trans-fat, referred to by Sally Brown in the past as a toxin unsafe in any amount, from our food supply is piecemeal at best. Still plenty of major transgressors and with no teeth to bite them and no incentives or disincentives other than market pressure (which does in fact amount to something - trans-fat free labels help sell foods), not much hope that anything real is going to happen anytime soon.

Of course none of this is a surprise to the Heart and Stroke Foundation's CEO Sally Brown as you'll see below, yet over the past few years, she has been very vocal about her support of this ridiculous voluntary approach afforded to industry.

One ray of light though - perhaps not everyone at the Heart and Stroke Foundation is as comfortable as Ms. Brown at dismissing the absolute need for regulation as Mr. Stephen Samis, the Scientific Director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, last night on CBC televsion stated,

"We still do believe that the best way to regulate this across the country on a national scale is through regulation."

Below are a collection of posts from Ms Brown issued before the government decided to give Big Food the unconscionable gift of self-"regulation".

Frankly I feel badly for Ms. Brown, as I can't imagine that the woman who made the quotes below is truly ok with the charade of effort that has come to pass over the course of these past two years.

Here's some of what she had to say before she decided or was forced to kowtow to either Big Food or governmental pressure:

(By the way, the formal press release? Conducted at a Swiss Chalet. Nice to know the government and the Heart and Stroke Foundation think eating out is a good plan)

"Taking all the evidence into consideration, the task force agreed to a regulatory approach to effectively eliminate trans-fat 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

BRING BACK THE OLD SALLY BROWN!

Canada - Lighter than America

Not a huge surprise, but thanks to David Eaves (of the interesting blog Eaves.ca) we can see that if obesity rates in Canadian Provinces were ranked alongside American States, our Provinces place first through fifth.

Before you get too excited, Nunavut and the North-West Territories fall into 30th place.

Regardless of how you want to look at the data one thing's for sure - North America is one big continent and it's only getting bigger.

[Hat tip to Mark Schrimsher from CalorieLab who also created the original map that David worked off of]

Something for Everyone

Even us Canadians can't escape the swing of an American election campaign and no matter who you're routing for, there's something for everyone in this great JibJab Funny Friday compilation.

(Keep your eyes peeled and you may see someone you don't expect in it)

Have a great weekend!

[Hat tip to my sister who was the first of many to send this my way]

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

Shocker - Kids' Foods aren't Healthy

Maybe that's why we're recommending they take cholesterol lowering medications at age 8?

A study, published in the July edition of Obesity Reviews, looked at 367 food products targeting Canadian children (products whose packaging had a cartoon on the front of the box and/or were tied to children's movies, TV shows or toys). The products did NOT include obviously unhealthy fare such as candy, soft drinks and baked goods. What the study analyzed was the food claims made on the label versus the actual product's nutritional value.

The results?

89% of products were classifiable as of, "poor nutritional quality" due to high levels of fat, sodium or sugar.

More importantly, 62% of those products deemed of poor nutritional quality had front of label claims (Health Check?) that made positive nutritional comments about the contents of the package.

The lesson learned here?

Our government needs to do more to regulate health claims on foods. Busy parents with or without a background in nutrition don't necessarily have the time (especially with kids in tow), to analyze each food label for themselves while shopping in a supermarket. Canada needs a robust front of package labeling program based on evidence based nutrition like ONQI to help protect Canadians against the outlandish claims that Health Canada allows on our food packaging.

And we need it yesterday.

Another Nail in the Low-Fat Coffin

Hot off the presses.

322 obese folks randomized to one of 3 diets for 2 years: Low-fat, Mediterranean or Low-Carb.

An amazing 84.6% adherence rate at 2 years!

The results?

Not spectacular in terms of actual amount of weight loss but significant in terms of who lost what.

3.3kg in 2 years for study completers in the low-fat group.

4.6kg in 2 years for study completers in the Mediterranean group

5.5kg in 2 years for study completers in the low-carb group.

Metabolic parameters were also better in the Mediterranean and low-carb groups versus low fat for cholesterol numbers, fasting insulin and glycemic control.

Bottom line?

Blindly low-fat diets do not appear to be as effective for weight loss OR for health as other dietary approaches.

National eating guidelines and guidelines from medical organizations need to start changing their recommendations and letting go of an outdated and now unsupported approach for the blanket reduction in dietary fat as either a means to improve health or weight loss.

It's my opinion that blindly low-fat diets, whether for weight-loss or for health, are dead horses as far as the evidence is concerned.

How much ya wanna bet people keep beating them?

Should 8 Year Olds be on Cholesterol Lowering Medication?

In case you hadn't heard, last week the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that kids between the ages of 2 and 10 be screened for cholesterol problems if they have risk factors for problems therein.

Risk factors would include strong family histories, obesity, high blood pressure or diabetes.

The Academy goes on to recommend that for kids over 8 with high cholesterol, medications be considered.

On the one hand, perhaps that makes sense. We know high cholesterol to be a risk factor for heart disease and these kids therefore have at least two risk factors. Presumably lowering cholesterol will therefore reduce long term cardiac risk in these children.

The problem is, given that generally we haven't been treating 8 year olds with cholesterol lowering medications, we actually don't know that there will be a long term benefit, we just assume there will be one and that there won't be any surprising long term complications from starting these drugs during years that their bodies and brains are developing.

On the other hand, by giving these kids drugs, at least in kids whose secondary risk factor is not a strong family history (in which case they may well have genetically high cholesterol levels), we're not addressing the root cause of their effectively middle-aged bodies - lifestyle.

Given that 8 year old kids don't cook for themselves, don't shop for food for themselves, don't pack their own lunches for themselves and all in all live the way their parents have taught and allowed them to live, I think it's a crying shame that there's no pill that we can prescribe to their parents to help them learn, set, live and lead better examples.

Chatelaine Sticks it to Health Check

Canada's answer to Cosmopolitan has something not nice to say about Health Check, the Heart and Stroke Foundation's mis-information program?

Yup!

On page 71 of the August issue of Chatelaine is an article entitled, "How to Decode Food Labels". It's a 4 step process, and unfortunately the article's not available in full online.

Here's step four (emphasis mine):

"DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE

Marketing symbols like Health Check and PC Blue Menu can be distracting, but stay vigilant. These designations don't have to follow standardized criteria the way nutrition labels do. "Just because it has the stamp doesn't mean it's the best option out there," says Yong (a Vancouver dietitian), who recommends going the extra mile by comparing and contrasting the food labels of similar products to find your healthiest bet."

I love the fact that Chatelaine magazine, not exactly a magazine known for its health reporting, is able to see through the smoke and mirrors of Health Check's deceptive advertising and hits the nail right on the head rightly labeling Health Check a, "Marketing symbol".

The most ironic part?

Remember how a few months ago I blogged about the fact that rather than fix their awful program the Heart and Stroke Foundation has apparently elected to simply spend money on huge advertisements?

Well, not 6 pages after the Chatelaine swipe are not one, but two Health Check ads. One is a full page (page 78) and the other a half page right beside.

I'm guessing they'll be getting some discounted ads in the next issue.

[Congratulations to blog reader and friend Brad, his wife Tracy and their son Jack on the birth of future Weighty Matters reader Wilson]

The American Heart Association Gets It!

Or do they?

A few weeks ago, the American Heart Association released a position paper and call to action on the matter of obesity.

The paper, entitled "Population-Based Prevention of Obesity: The Need for Comprehensive Promotion of Healthful Eating, Physical Activity, and Energy Balance" is available online and it details how medical professionals and organizations like the AHA can get involved in the fight against obesity.

The paper rightly reports that rather than target the individual, we need to target the environment in an approach akin to the one taken in the fight against tobacco, and that everyone can play a role.

In an interview the paper's lead author, Dr. Shiriki K Kumanyika had this to say to Medscape's Heartwire,

"The main point of the statement is that we need to place more emphasis on population-based and preventive approaches than we have to date"

"It's inefficient to put all your eggs in the basket of screening and treating the individual"

But perhaps it's Dr. Kumanyika's comments on why this is important to the AHA that I felt were most on the money,

"This statement is about putting the information in one place and telling people who don't think it's their business that the level of advocacy and awareness we need also applies to them. We can't afford to have anyone working on cardiovascular disease who, if asked by the person next to them on the golf course or next to them in the hospital, doesn't really get it that obesity is not just a bunch of people who overindulge."

"We can't afford to have the people who are involved in treatment think that's the only solution. They also have to convince people to do things that are a lot harder, because they're getting right to the heart of how people live, they're getting into vested interests, and there's not necessarily a profit motive. But cardiologists are very, very authoritative and influential people. People will ask their cardiologist for an opinion, and we want them to know what they should say."

I agree wholeheartedly with everything she said and think that the position piece is excellent.

So what was my off the cuffness about at the top of this post?

Well after all that when I look on the AHA's website, under the section entitled, "Diseases and Conditions", despite their call to action on educating the public and professionals about obesity, despite the opening salvo of their position piece,

"Obesity is a major influence on the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and affects physical and social functioning and quality of life. The proportion of adults and children who are obese has reached epidemic proportions",

obesity is not listed as a disease or condition important enough to the AHA to highlight on their homepage (click my image above to enlarge).

If the AHA really wants their members to get that obesity is not just about individual overindulgence, how about they come right out on their homepage and declare that it's a chronic disease condition and should be treated with the same degree of concern and respect as diabetes, hyperlipidemia and hypertension as a valid target for both treatment and prevention efforts?

This is Parkour

So today's Funny Friday isn't so much funny as it is awesome.

Parkour is the term given to the sport of urban gymnastics.

Not sure what I'm talking about?

Watch the video.

Makes me feel uncoordinated within 2 seconds of watching it.

Have a great weekend!

Will the "Grocery Store Shrink Ray" Shrink Us?

One of the internet's best blogs has got to be The Consumerist. It's a blog that takes on the corporate world's shadier and less friendly dealings. I read it daily.

Over the course of the past few months they've had a series of posts on what they've dubbed the, "Grocery Store Shrink Ray" referring to the fact that as energy prices increase Big Food is responding by zapping their foods with a shrink ray and then charging the same amount.

The picture above shows how Babybel cheese has shrunk by 9% (but the price remained the same) and on the Consumerist site there are before and after shots of shrink rays hitting Yoplait yogurt, Apple Jacks, Cocoa Crispies, Corn Pops, Fruit Loops, Honey Smacks, Tropicana orange juice, Brighams Ice Cream, Edy's Ice Cream, Garden Salsa Sun Chips, Arizona Ice Tea, Arby's and even draft beer!

So the question that leaps to my mind of course....if the food we're sold gets smaller, will we?

Movie Popcorn Just Got Worse!

I think most people know that as far as nutrition goes, movie popcorn is killer. Even without butter, large movie popcorns can run you well over 1,200 calories.

So how did movie popcorn get worse?

Well at least at Cineplex now we're being offered free packets of "flavouring" to shake onto our popcorn.

Having recently been at the movies my wife and I shared a small popcorn and we decided to try the white cheddar shaker.

Turning it over pre-shake I was astounded to learn that basically it was a packet of flavoured salt - 1,470mg or roughly a day's worth.



They're serving it to kids and seniors too - more than a day's worth.

But no MSG....

Gee thanks Cineplex!

[Kevin and Brad, please consider this my formal nomination for the next National Salt Lick Award.]

Pringles are only 42% Potato?

So what the heck makes up the remaining 58%

Last week Britain's High Court decided that Pringles were exempt from Britain's value added tax in a decision that will likely save Pringles' makers Proctor & Gamble millions of dollars.

During the case the Pringles lawyers sure painted a tasty picture of Pringles - here is how they describe a Pringle",

"The appearance and taste of a Pringle is not that of a potato crisp. It has none of the irregularity and variety of shape that is always present in crisps. It has a shape not found in nature, being designed and manufactured for stacking"

"A Pringle does not taste like a crisp, or otherwise behave like one"

And they called on the court to note that Pringles' colouring and texture,

"betrays its doughy origins"

In the end the High Court ruled that Pringles were,

"not made from the potato"

So about that 58%?

Potato flour, corn flour, wheat starch and rice flour together with fat and emulsifier, salt and seasoning.

Delicious?

[Via the UK Times]

Calgary Stampede Serves New Zealand Beef?

Thanks to my Calgarian friend Julie the strange world we live in column just grew one item longer.

Julie's one of those multi-tasking folks...CBC reporter, chef, cookbook author, blogger, mom etc. and apparently she's kicked up something of a sh*tstorm when her reporting uncovered the fact that the beef at the Calgary Stampede, one of Alberta's premiere tourist attractions, comes from New Zealand and Wichita Kansas despite the fact that beef is, as aptly reported by Julie, "Alberta's signature agricultural product".

Another example of how at the end of the day sadly it's all about the almighty dollar.

[Be sure to check out Julie's remarkable blog Dinner With Julie where she's been chronicling through photographs, prose and recipes ever dinner she and her family eat for the year (she's up to day 188)]

We're all Doomed!

So Rob our fitness director sent me this video and I watched it duly amused figuring it to be a satire of just how lazy our world has become.

I was wrong though.

It's not a satire.

It's real.

Today for Funny Friday I bring you Interactive Toy's remote controlled cooler.

Click here to buy your very own - only $79.

Have a great weekend!

Super-duper Yogurt Cures Cancer and Heals Blindness!

Ok, maybe not, but you've seen them - claims like the one in the scan above clipped from this month's Chatelaine. It reads,

"You balance it all and then some. You're a super woman. That's why there's new Maximmunite, a delicious probiotic drink with 10 billion active probiotic cultures per serving that helps strengthen your body's immune system"

Well in the States at least, the Centre for Science in the Public Interest has had enough. Yesterday they filed a formal complaint with the FDA to try to reign in some of the more ridiculous claims made by products including yogurt.

Claims such as Crystal Light Immunity Berry Pomegranate that makes the same claim as the Maximmunite above of helping,

"maintain a healthy immune system"

Minute Maid Enhanced Juice Blend Omega-3 DHA Pomegranate Blueberry Flavored Blend of 5 Juices that purports to,

"help nourish your brain"

Sunsweet PlumSmart for Digestive Health Plum Juice Extra with Fiber that claims to,

"keep your digestive system healthy"

And Minute Maid Enhanced Juice Active 750 mg Glucosamine HCL that they report helps,

"protect cartilage and joints"

Basically CSPI wants Big Food to have to prove their product can in fact deliver on their claims. Perhaps they said it best in their press release on the matter,

"When companies claim their products will “maintain a healthy immune system,” consumers believe this means those products will help ward off disease. But while vitamins A, C, and E are important for the functioning of just about every system in the human body, there’s little evidence to suggest that drinking Crystal Light will have any impact on the average person’s immune system."

Wanna read more about baseless and potentially fraudulent yogurt claims? Click here to head over to the websites of Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins LLP to read their press release about the class action lawsuit they've launched against Dannon with regards to their yogurts Activia and DanActive.

Mmmmmmm, brain nourishment....

It Ain't About Gym Class

If figuratively beating a dead horse actually counted as exercise I'd likely be one of the fittest guys in the world.

Here's yet another story on gym class and how the school based energy-out component of pediatric obesity is not in fact particularly important.

The story's about Dr. Kevin Harris, a pediatric resident at B.C. Children's Hospital who presented his findings on gym class' ability to change BMI. Dr. Harris and his fellow researchers looked at 13 trials of 6 months to 3 years duration involving over 10,000 children.

His quote says it all:

"Phys-ed and physical activity are tremendously important but this research shows phys-ed doesn't change BMI. So while the overall health benefits are established, phys-ed shouldn't be looked at as a central component of any obesity strategy"

Hmmm, if energy-out interventions don't help, what else could we try?

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, it's time to look at the energy-in?

UPDATE: Kevin's work has now been published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Click here to read his study.

Montreal to get Public Bike System

Though calories burned through exercise aren't usually much to write home about, exercise as a determinant of health is tremendously important.

One of the most challenging things about exercising in this day and age is that we all lead such incredibly hectic lives - that's why I'm such a strong proponent of what I'd call functional exercise whereupon it's exercise that doesn't feel like exercise. Things like gardening, biking to work, family walks etc. all fit into that category and interventions like the one proposed for Montreal can help - a public bike system whereby for a small fee you can simply rent a bike, bike to your destination and then drop the bike off at one of their other locations.

This type of system is hugely popular in Europe including Paris and hopefully will be rolled out (no pun intended) to more Canadian cities.

Lessons I Learned From Watching Kung Fu Panda

Kung Fu Panda is an animated Dreamworks kids movie that to date has grossed more than $631,000,000 worldwide (updated January 2012). It features the voices of Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie and Lucie Liu.

The hero is an overweight panda bear named Po that learns Kung Fu.

I didn't take my kids to see it but did watch it myself as I was tipped off that it might be something I'd want to blog about.

Wanna know what some of the take home messages included?

Fat people are clumsy and fun to laugh at

As evidenced by Po's belly being the punchline of the majority of the movies jokes with of course the requisite sight gags of his belly knocking over bowls of food and his weight snapping a pole vault, a tree and more.

Fat is something that a person can be judged on,

"That flabby panda can't possibly be the dragon warrior. You were about to appoint the tigress and that "thing" fell in front of her"

"One would think master Ugway would at least choose someone who could touch his toes...or at least see his toes"

Fat people eating are disgusting

As told by Po when Shifu finds him eating Monkey's almond cookies

"Yeah, I know, I disgust you"

Fat people will do anything for food and get angry if food is taken away from them

Shifu trains Po by having him try to catch and defend his dumplings culminating in a "fight" with Shifu over the last dumpling (the fight's embedded below); that it's only Po's gluttony that provides him with sufficient incentive to truly become the Dragon Warrior.

The nice way to look at the ending is that size in the end doesn't matter.

What a shame that arriving at that conclusion comes at the expense of the gross perpetuation of the last socially acceptable form of stereotyping, with the message really being, that despite the fact that Po's obese, he's managed to overcome it's obvious limitations and flaws to become a useful and productive member of a team.

My New Favourite Gameshow?

It's from the UK and it's called "Distraction".

Goal is to answer questions without being "distracted".

Today for Funny Friday - is it easy to answer buzzer questions when the buzzer is surrounded by cacti? Oh, and if you think it seems only mildly silly at the beginning....make sure you watch through to at least the 30 second mark.

Have a great weekend!



[Hat tip to BMI's fitness director Rob]

Vending Machine Salmon with Julienne of Vegetables & Chive Sauce?

Yup!

In my adventures around hospital cafeteria food I found myself exploring the Compass Group's website (world's leading provider of retail food service delivery) and I also enlisted some folks from my office to do so. Lorne, our director of operations, came across something they call, "Steamplicity".

Basically it's a vending machine that cooks meals using steam, and where I see great promise for a system like this is in those hospitals where their cafeterias close at 2pm and aren't open on weekends.

If you've ever worked a night shift in a hospital you'll know that pretty much every night there's a group of docs and nurses ponying together to order something from takeout and I'd be willing to wager there's not a nursing station in North America that doesn't have a dedicated drawer of take out/delivery menus.

How great would it be to actually be able to instead go downstairs and order a hot, healthy meal? Meals like Oriental Rice with BBQ Chicken, Mediterranean Chicken & Ratatouille Vegetables, Mild Vegetable Curry and Rice, Haddock with a Penne Pasta Mornay, Broccoli and Cauliflower Mornay, Mediterranean Vegetables with Olives & Mozzarella and of course Salmon with Julienne of Vegetables & Chive Sauce? That's the promise of Steamplicity.

Now of course I don't have any nutritional breakdowns to look at, and the photograph on the menu has a big steaming pile of white refined rice, but certainly I can't imagine it would be that difficult to have Steamplicity make some truly healthy options.

I'm not sure if Steamplicity is set up as a standard vending machine or if it's more for institutional meal preparation, but given the existence of the unit itself, how hard could it be to set it up for vending machine style use?

See, even good news from Big Food!

So that rounds out good news week....maybe I'll do another one someday, but not next week. Next week I've got a bunch of angry posts planned.

World's Greatest Kids Curly Hair Conditioner!

Sometimes there's a product so spectacular that even though it has nothing to do with food, I have to post about it.

Today it's Johnson's Buddies Easy Comb Conditioner.

With my exceedingly curly haired almost 4 year old, bathtime brushing could be an ordeal for both of us (perhaps leading me to need comfort food?).

Now however, it's a breeze as this stuff has the brush literally sliding right through the hair.

It's phenomenal.

Not sure what's in it, but don't really care. It's that good.

Parents of curly haired little girls - you're welcome.

Food Guide Labeled "Obesogenic" by Someone Other Than Me!

Continuing with positive development week, yesterday through the magic of Google (disclosure - I own shares), I came across something that excited me very much.

It was an abstract that was presented at the Atlantic Networks for Prevention Research conference in St. John's Newfoundland last summer.

The conference was put on by some of the who's who in prevention in Canada including the CIHR.

So what was so exciting?

The abstract was entitled, Dietary intake, the new "CFG" and NS Youth and here it is in its entirety (some sections highlighted by me),

"Investigation by the Physical Activity and Dietary Intake of Children and Youth (PACY) research group reveals many Nova Scotia youth (males and females in grades 7 & 11) fail to meet minimum recommendations outlined by Health Canada in Canada’s Food Guide (CFG) to Healthy Eating (1992). The newly released food guide (2007) recommends an increased number of daily servings for youth for grain products, meat and alternatives and vegetables and fruit. The number of NS youth which don’t meet the new minimum recommendations has increased.

If strong education and messaging regarding the need to reduce intake levels from energy dense food sources isn’t implemented, the new guide may serve to further increase dietary intake in this population, rendering the new CFG more obesogenic for youth than the previous version.

Policy and programmatic implications will be discussed."

So why am I excited?

I'm excited because here is evidence that nutrition professionals are using critical thinking to analyze the impact of the Food Guide rather than simply accepting Health Canada's recommendations as sacrosanct. I'm also excited because here's a group of nutrition professionals focusing on the "energy-in" component of childhood obesity rather than futilely discussing "energy-out"

So for the score keepers out there, that's two prominent media friendly dietitians who have stated following the Food Guide leads to weight gain and here's 6 more University researchers and nutrition professionals who agree.

Oh, and me of course.

If I were in Vegas I'd be willing to bet there are going to be more.

Wanna know why?

Because our Food Guide's obesogenic, that's why; momentum coupled with evidence is hard to resist.

Kudos to all the involved researchers - Matthew Durant - Acadia University; Phil Campagne - Dalhousie University; Rene Murphy - Acadia University; Laurie Rehman - Dalhousie University; Angela Thompson - St. Francis Xavier University; Laurie Wadsworth - St. Francis Xavier University

[Interesting sidebar - the senior scientist involved in this analysis is Dr. Laurie Wadsworth who also happens to sit on Health Check's technical advisory committee. Here's hoping she takes her critical thinking approach and applies it to Health Check as well]

Nova Scotia's School Food Policy

Working on an editorial with Dr. Rob Stevenson (hospital cafeteria crusading cardiologist out in Halifax) I have had the opportunity to review Nova Scotia's School Food Policy and for the most part, I've got nice things to say.

Unfortunately almost by definition the policy will have to follow Canada's Food Guide and consequently there are bound to be flaws and while I do have some issues with the specific foods mentioned in the accompanying document Food and Beverage Standards for Nova Scotia Public Schools (a fat-phobic, juice loving, calorie-ignorant document), the policy statement clearly shows both caring and thought.

Here's some of Nova Scotia's progressive thinking,

"School food and beverages should be served and sold primarily for the purposes of providing nutrition rather than for revenue generation"

"The business world is keenly aware of the potential to build preferences and cultivate brand loyalty by targeting schools that house a captive and impressionable audience of future consumers. Partnerships between schools and businesses can be mutually beneficial. However such partnerships work best when designed to meet identified health and educational needs rather than commercial motives"

"Schools will not use deep fat fryers to prepare food"

"When possible, schools should integrate nutrition education into other subject areas and activities beyond the classroom."

"School schedules should recognize that students need nourishment every 3-4 (I recommend 2-3) hours, based upon the time they would have last had an opportunity to eat. For example, students may benefit from a 10 minute break to eat a snack scheduled separately from recess, if possible."

"Effective September 2006, school staff and volunteers will not use food as a reinforcer or withhold food from students as a consequence."

But it's certainly not without warts and while certainly worthy of praise, there are two large areas where I feel Nova Scotia dropped the ball: They don't put a limitation on juice, despite calls from both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Pediatric Society to limit its consumption, and they recommend that children wait until they're hungry to eat.

As I've noted in this blog many times before, waiting until you're hungry to eat is not necessarily a great plan. We make different choices when we're hungry, both in terms of dietary content and quantity. If you don't believe me, head to a supermarket hungry or go to a restaurant hungry and compare your purchases and meals to going back on days you're not hungry. Good thing the policy includes snacking as consequently the likelihood of real hunger is markedly diminished through the use of snacks.

Me, I believe wholeheartedly in eating pre-emptively to avoid hunger rather than trying to outsmart over a hundred million years of evolution that has taught my body that if I'm hungry and I don't eat a lot, the ice age will get me.

All in all though, some forward looking thinking and free-from-industry recommendations.

Kudos to Nova Scotia.