Don't eat on a full brain

Here's a interesting study.

Simple experimental design. Take 165 undergraduate students and enroll them in a study you tell them is about memory and where as part of their reward for inclusion, they'll be given a snack. Ask half of them to memorize a 2 digit number and the other half a 7 digit number and once they've memorized their numbers ask them to go into a second room where they are faced with their snack choice - either a piece of chocolate cake or a cup of fruit salad. Track choice and then follow up with an exploration of the students' perceived reasons for making the choice.

The results?

63% of the students who were trying to remember the 7 digit number chose the cake compared with only 42% of those trying to remember the 2 digit number.

Students who chose the cake reported a stronger emotional decision making drive while those who chose the fruit salad reporter a stronger cognitive drive.

Researchers hypothesized that the difference was explicable on the basis of the 7 digit memory group having "lower levels of processing resources" with much of their cognitive brain power being spent on trying to remember their 7 digit number.

Moral of the story?

Don't eat on a full brain.

Shiv, B., & Fedorikhin, A. (1999). Heart and Mind in Conflict: the Interplay of Affect and Cognition in Consumer Decision Making Journal of Consumer Research, 26 (3), 278-292 DOI: 10.1086/209563

The worst dieting advice ever

"Don't eat when you're not hungry"
Hunger.

Despite living in a time of unparalleled abundance, hunger is still a major contributor to our health woes.

How?

Ever go shopping hungry? What happens? I know in my case my cart's a lot fuller on the days I shop hungry than the days I don't, and the choices often differ as well.

Ever stop to think what happens when you sit down to a meal hungry?

You shop.

You shop from your plates, your fridges, your freezers, your cupboards, or worse still, from a menu.

And just like shopping in the supermarket you're going to choose a great deal more and a great deal differently waiting until you're hungry to eat than if you'd sat down not hungry.

I'm also betting that my definition of hunger is likely broader than yours. As far as I'm concerned, hunger doesn't just come from your stomach, it also comes from your brain. Some folks like to call brain hunger, "appetite" and growling in your stomach, "hunger". I don't bother with the distinction. The drive to eat is second only to the drive to breathe in terms of importance to our survival. Consequently our body has many mechanisms and backup mechanisms in place to ensure that we do it. Just as there are a myriad of different physiologic pathways to encourage eating, so too are there a myriad of different sensations, emotions and rationalizations built in to encourage us to seek out food, specifically high calorie food.

So aside from stomach growling, brain growling consists of things such as cravings, compulsions, needs for a "taste" of a certain flavour/tartness/saltiness/sweetness, starting something and having difficulty stopping, and overt losses of dietary control and discretion.

When you're hungry it's easy to eat a full day's calories at a single sitting. The good news is, given the world we live in, hunger is entirely preventable and were you to go out of your way with well planned meals and snacks to ensure the hunger hydra doesn't rear its ugly heads, you can make it through the day in control of your portions, choices and your calories.

While it may feel unnatural to eat when you're not hungry I can assure you, it's the wise way to go and it's very easy to do.

Here's a basic hunger prevention strategy. Try it - you might be surprised at how well it works (note calorie range to represent minimums for women-men):

Breakfast within 30 minutes of waking, at least 350-450 calories with at least 15 grams of protein

Eating every 2.5 hours with between meal snacks of at least 100-200 calories a piece with at least 8 grams of protein

Lunch of at least 350-450 calories with at least 15 grams of protein

Dinner of at least 400-600 calories with at least 15 grams of protein

For every hour of sustained exercise add an additional 100-150 calories that are primarily carbohydrate based.

Saturday Stories

Dan Gardner (who's rapidly become one of my favourite columnists) on the changing face of Canadian demographics.

Marion Nestle explores how the fight against childhood obesity may well involve fighting big corporations.

In a related story to Marion's the New York Times discusses how Disney helped force the eviction of the same non-profit that forced Disney to offer Baby Einstein refunds.

Tooled around my friends and fellow bloggers Travis and Peter's new digs over at Science Blogs.

Watched a stunning HD video of the Milky Way by some guy named Charles up on Vimeo.

My wife's trying to poison me!

That's the title of one of this week's Old Jews Telling Jokes segments which is what's on today for Funny Friday (remember email subscribers you've got to head to the blog to watch).

Have a great weekend!

Will booze make you skinny?

Roll out the barrel because if you believe the news reports alcohol contains magical negative calories!

Yup a recent study is making waves in the media and blogosphere and the gist of the reporting is that a few alcoholic drinks a day may help control your weight - though of course that's not the whole story.

The study's a big one. It looked at 19,220 American women aged 38.9 years or older who had a baseline normal BMI and followed them for 12.9 years and tracked alcohol consumption and self reported exit weight.

As with any long term prospective study, the authors tried valiantly to control for potentially confounding variables and they adjusted for age, race, baseline BMI, smoking status, non-alcohol energy intake, physical activity, menopausal status, postmenopausal hormone use, multivitamin use, comorbid medical conditions, and macronutrient distribution. They then stratified results into alcohol intake by grams with a 5 level subdivision.

The results?

Firstly it's important to note that statistically all groups of women gained weight. Average weight gain for the women who didn't drink at all was 3.63kg over 12.9 years and for those drinking an average of 30g or more of alcohol daily the average weight gain was 1.55kg. That's a difference of 4.6lbs over nearly 13 years.

So best case scenario is the study has indeed accounted for all variables and the association is causal and if you're a woman, drinking 2 glasses of wine daily will help you not gain roughly a third of a pound extra per year.

Worse case scenario? The study proves just how difficult it is to study nutritional variables and that it's one of those association doesn't prove causality pieces.

The lead author, Dr. Lu Wang, very kindly responded to a few email questions regarding potential confounding variables and both in the paper and in her emails made it very clear the authors did a truly bang up job trying to control for everything they could think of. At the same time Dr. Wang readily admitted that there are,

"an endless list of potential confounders."

Given we're talking about a difference of only 4.6lbs over more than a decade of time, it would therefore certainly be possible there's some subtle difference or differences other than alcohol intake to account for the results.

But does that matter?

Ultimately research on heart disease and moderate drinking in women has already suggested benefit to tempered imbibing and with this study, perhaps there's more. More to the point of this post though, the press' reporting on this story has been abysmal with some articles suggesting that alcohol will cause weight loss, others not noting the small actual absolute differences seen in the study and sadly most of the articles doing a better job of reflecting the media's need to sensationalize study results than to practice good science journalism.

So will booze make you skinny? Nope. But maybe, just maybe it'll make you ever so slightly less fat.

Wang, L., Lee, I., Manson, J., Buring, J., & Sesso, H. (2010). Alcohol Consumption, Weight Gain, and Risk of Becoming Overweight in Middle-aged and Older Women Archives of Internal Medicine, 170 (5), 453-461 DOI: 10.1001/archinternmed.2009.527

Do artificial sweeteners enhance fullness?

Judging by our growing waistlines probably not, but I'm reporting on this study to support a point.

The study, a small one published in the journal Diabetes Care in December of last year, investigated blood levels of GLP-1 (a satiety peptide which when produced increases satiety), glucose and insulin in 22 healthy weight individuals following the ingestion of diet soda or carbonated water prior to the consumption of 75grams of glucose.

The findings?

Following ingestion of artificially sweetened beverages the subsequent ingestion of a sugar load led to enhanced release of GLP-1.

So can anybody draw real life conclusions from this study?

Nope. The study's small, it didn't look at actual satiety and there are many more components to diet soda than just artificial sweeteners.

So why did I bother to post?

When it comes to artificial sweeteners it seems to me that the media and blogosphere tends to report based on the visceral belief that artificial sweeteners must be bad for us and that belief supersedes good evidence based reporting and leads folks to report on bad, preliminary or weak studies as evidence that sweeteners are unhealthy. The corollary to this is that bloggers and the media, while regularly trumpeting results from small studies as vilifying for sweeteners virtually ignore studies that suggest perhaps sweeteners aren't so bad or in some cases perhaps even good.

Me?

While I don't have any disclosures to make regarding ownership of shares or income streams from the sweetener industry my take on the weight of the evidence places the consumption of excess amounts of sugar as a riskier behaviour than the consumption of artificial sweeteners.

The point of this post? To remind my fellow nutrition bloggers, writers and readers that evidence trumps belief.

Before/when writing/reading a blog post or article consider the underlying study and ask yourself whether or not it's important enough to care about. Rat and mice studies, studies with very small numbers of folks, poorly controlled studies - certainly they can be interesting and can also point the way to future research, but please don't hang your hats on them.

Brown RJ, Walter M, & Rother KI (2009). Ingestion of diet soda before a glucose load augments glucagon-like peptide-1 secretion. Diabetes care, 32 (12), 2184-6 PMID: 19808921

Heart and Stroke Foundation Health Checks candy!

Actually more like candy fortified with extra sugar.

"But Yoni, the advertisement for the Del Monte Fruit Twists says says there's "no sugar added"."

I beg to differ.

With the exception of natural flavour, colour and pectin the only ingredients are fruit concentrates. Wanna guess what the main ingredient of fruit concentrates are? Sugar. So much sugar that in each and every Health Check'ed serving of Fruit Twists there's 3 teaspoons of the stuff which account for nearly 70% of each serving's weight and 80% of each serving's calories. Buy hey, it's "natural" sugar, right?

According to the copy,

"Get your daily servings of fruit in a convenient and delicious way with new Fruit Twists"

Fruit?

Let's compare blueberries with Blueberry & Raspberry Del Monte Fruit Twists. Gram per gram the Health Check'ed Twists have 600% more calories and 666% more sugar (Hmmm). Put another way, if you wanted to consume the equivalent number of calories from berries as you'd get from a two Twist "serving" you'd need to eat 3/4 of a cup of blueberries (and that 3/4 of a cup still won't give you the sugar of the two tiny Twists).

But as with virtually everything Health Check'ed it gets worse.

Given that the Twists look exactly like Twizzlers, I decided to compare the two. Comparing Del Monte Fruit Twists - endorsed by the Heart and Stroke Foundation's stellar dietitians - with Twizzlers, gram per gram we see identical calories and get this, 40% more sugar in the Health Check'ed Twists.

So once again here we have the dietitians from the Heart and Stroke Foundation discouraging the consumption of actual fibrous, nutritious, satiating fruits and berries by promoting and endorsing a heavily processed product that's basically just a sugar-sweetened Twizzler.

They sure seem like a smart bunch.

As far as I'm concerned, the misinformation the Heart and Stroke Foundation is providing Canadians should be downright criminal but sadly there's no law that prevents them from abusing the public's trust.

Convicts and soldiers to be force fed Omega 3s?

As usual there are lots of news stories about Omega 3s (including last week's that some omega 3 supplements may contain high levels of PCBs) but two really caught my eye.

The first detailed a hypothetical plan to force feed convicts omega 3 supplements as a means to reduce violent and aggressive episodes. That plan is being born out of the results of a recent study titled, "Effects of nutritional supplements on aggression, rule-breaking, and psychopathology among young adult prisoners".

The study tracked 221 adult prisoners and randomized them to receive either placebo or a nutritional supplement containing 25 vitamins and minerals along with omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Staff then tracked aggressive and rule breaking behaviours.

The authors found that the supplemented group saw their aggressive and rule breaking behaviours decrease by 34% versus a 14% increase in the control group.

Sounds really impressive until you see the absolute numbers whereby we're talking about 11 incidents per 1,000 prison days in the supplemented group vs. 9.7 incidents per 1,000 prison days in the control. I also have to question the blinding in this study in that fish oil capsules are absolutely noticeable, even enteric coated ones, when you burp. Oh, and no, this wasn't truly an omega 3 study given the supplements had many other vitamins and minerals in them.

So colour me unimpressed.

The second story I mentioned? Apparently the American Department of Defense is considering force feeding the US military omega-3 supplements as a means to, "enhance stress resilience, wellness, and military performance".

Now I'm not sure on which study they're basing their recommendations but hope if they do use them on the military that it doesn't hinder their troops' combat skills by rendering those fighting men and women less violent and aggressive.

Zaalberg, A., Nijman, H., Bulten, E., Stroosma, L., & van der Staak, C. (2009). Effects of nutritional supplements on aggression, rule-breaking, and psychopathology among young adult prisoners Aggressive Behavior DOI: 10.1002/ab.20335

Saturday Stories

The Toronto Life has a great piece on what many might construe as over-parenting.

The Globe and Mail starts off what's bound to be decades of thought over just how broken Canada's Health Care system is and what needs to be done to fix it.

Maclean's' Colby Cosh takes the Globe and Mail to task for their reporting on relief homeopathy work in Haiti.

CanWest's Sharon Kirkey does a phenomenal job tackling a subject dear to my heart - it's about energy in, not energy out when it comes to weight loss.

The Jewish Journal has an absolutely fascinating piece on Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds detailing responses from screenings in Germany, screenings to holocaust survivors, interview with Tarantino on the influence (or lack thereof) of Israel on the narrative, Simon Wiesenthal folks questioning whether the movie trivializes the holocaust etc.

The Muppets' Beaker covers Dust in the Wind.

Who doesn't love the Muppets?

Today's Funny Friday video features Beaker playing Kansas' Dust in the Wind. Unfortunately he forgot to turn off comments. The internet is a cruel, cruel place.

Have a great weekend!

CBC Says Eggos aren't products while Kellogg's breaks committment not to product place!

Readers will likely remember just a few days ago when I commented on product placement by Kellogg's on CBC Kids' morning shows with Yamma Mamma talking about healthy breakfasts while the camera provided multiple plate and product shots of an Eggo Waffle.

Comments on the blog were mixed. Some thought I was out to lunch, some thought I was bang on, while one person demonstrated incredible ignorance by invoking Godwin's Law by suggesting that my depiction of product placement was at a level comparable to how I might complain about Nazi propaganda.

The CBC wrote me back and while they didn't suggest I was on a Nazi witch hunt, they certainly didn't agree that the Eggo shots were in fact product placement,

"At no time are brand-name products promoted. In the example cited, we focus on the importance of a complete, balanced breakfast even within the time, cost or other constraints faced by many people.

In other words, a waffle matched with fresh fruit, nuts, yogurt and/or milk and juice represents a nutritious, enticing choice for kids."

But isn't that what product placement is? Not mentioning a product by name but placing it in the show - in this case a round, commercially produced, breakfast waffle product into a show that explicitly suggests it's a healthy choice?

A new and interesting twist to all of this came by way of Dr. Brain Cook.

Brian's a researcher for Toronto Public Health and his area of expertise is advertising to children. When he read my blog piece he wrote to inform me of Kellogg's commitment to the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative.

The initiative very clearly states,

"Kellogg will implement the Product Placement principle by not paying for or seeking out promotional product placement (i.e., embedding our products within program/editorial content, as distinguished from sponsorship of programming) for our products in any medium directed primarily to children under 12. Kellogg does not currently engage in this type of marketing directed to children under 12."

I've written to Johanne Trudeau, the Director of Nutrition Marketing for Kellogg's Canada for comment and will keep you posted.

The whole thing seems pretty clear to me.

1. Kellogg's paid for segments involving Yamma Mamma and healthy breakfasts on CBC Kids.
2. The segments included Eggo product placement (and perhaps other Kellogg's products, I'm only aware of the one example).
3. According to Kellogg's, product placement in kids shows is an advertising modality that they themselves report voluntarily avoiding.
4. The CBC disagrees with Kellogg's in that according to the CBC who report explicitly banning advertising on Kids shows, product placement isn't an advertising modality.

Can't wait to hear what Kellogg's has to say.

(Podcast) You shouldn't need a PhD to go grocery shopping.

Regular readers of my blog will certainly already be aware of Health Canada's push to fortify the global food supply.

In researching the story I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Valerie Tarasuk from the University of Toronto. Dr. Tarasuk is a Professor of nutrition and a former member of Health Canada’s expert advisory committee on dietary reference intakes.

No thanks to me (I just ask the questions), the interview's fascinating and really a great tour of many of the issues surrounding discretionary fortification. Dr. Tarasuk is a clear and cogent speaker and is quite entertaining to boot - it was certainly one of the most enjoyable interviews I've ever conducted.

Click below to download the audio file, or you can listen on the embedded player (won't work with email subscribers) and hear Dr. Tarasuk rip apart Health Canada's proposed gift to Big Food the world over.

Click here to download this podcast or click here to subscribe in iTunes!

Sara Lee takes the cake on outlandish omega-3 claims

Here's a great example of why front-of-package health claims should be banned entirely - Sara Lee's Soft and Smooth Plus DHA bread. According to the press release per slice there's 6mg of DHA.

Sara Lee Soft and Smooth Plus' marketers try to gussy up the importance of 6mg by noting 2 slices worth is,

"is at least 10 percent of the Institute of Medicine’s suggested daily amount for kids, depending on age, ranging from 1-13 years old"

Sounds like a fair bit, no?

Except for one thing, the Institute of Medicine doesn't have a suggested daily amount of DHA for kids.

Page 469 of the very reference that Sara Lee Soft and Smooth Plus' marketers point to as proof states,

"Because of a lack of evidence for determining the requirement for n-3 fatty acids during childhood, an AI is set based on the median intake of α-linolenic acid in the United States where a deficiency is basically nonexistent in non-institutionalized populations (Appendix Table E-11), and rounding."

Translation? There isn't enough evidence to recommend a particular DHA intake in kids so instead the Institute of Medicine has created an arbitrary number for what they're calling an "adequate intake" based on the average intake of α-linolenic acid in the population. Sara Lee's Soft and Smooth marketers then took 10% of that arbitrary number and claimed that it was the Institute of Medicine's "Kids Suggested Daily Amount".

Soft and smooth marketing? I'd say. Slippery too.

Looking at the front of the bag of bread one can see a cartoon head replete with brain beside the bag's DHA announcement and I imagine the back of the bag has some quotes about DHA and childhood brain development.

Looking at Sara Lee's Soft and Smooth Plus product partner's website (Disney), you'll learn,

"With New Sara Lee® Soft & Smooth® Plus, moms can enjoy knowing they are serving a great tasting, soft textured made with whole grain bread their little ones will love, plus providing DHA Omega-3 which helps to support healthy brain development.

DHA is important for brain and eye development particularly during the first two years of life and early childhood. It is important that children consume adequate amounts of DHA in their diet to support brain and eye growth and development during the early years of rapid development. DHA ensures that cells in the brain, retina, heart and other parts of the nervous system develop and function properly."

To help push their message even harder, Sara Lee's Soft and Smooth Plus marketers even purchased their own MD spokesperson in one Dr. Alanna Levine.

According to Alanna Levine's homepage, not only is she a designated spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, she's also a member of the National Association of Medical Communicators, and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Communications and Media. Oh, and she's also a self-professed, "Parenting Expert".

She sounds great. She's is a pediatrician, an "expert parent" and someone incredibly well versed in medical communication and public speaking with exposure on shows like Fox News, the Tyra Banks Show and CBC's Early Show. Someone like that would never steer you wrong, would they?

For the sake of discussion let's ignore the fact that Sara Lee's Soft and Smooth Plus' marketers took soft and smooth liberties with the Institute of Medicine's report on DHA requirements. Instead let's take a quick look at those 6mg of DHA per slice and compare them to what you might find in let's say salmon.

So how many slices of bread would your child need to eat to consume the equivalent amount of DHA as you might find in let's say a child sized, 2.5oz serving of salmon? An astounding 13.5 loaves or 268 slices.

And how much salmon would you need to convince your child to eat to consume the 6mg that a slice of Sara Lee Soft and Smooth Plus contains? My calculations peg that as a piece of salmon roughly 1/12th the size of a single, solitary, lonely pea.

So tell me Dr. Alanna Levine, MD, pediatrician to the stars, brilliant spokesperson and expert parent - don't you think that suggesting that Sara Lee Soft and Smooth Plus bread is a useful means to help your child consume more DHA is more than a touch disingenuous?

Me? I would imagine "parenting experts" and pediatricians would be much more interested and capable of helping find ways for parents to actually feed their children fish, a pea sized serving of which would have the DHA equivalent of 12 slices of Sara Lee Soft and Smooth Plus bread, than push bread with significantly less DHA per slice than you'd find in a single flake of fish.

It's cases like these that are exactly what's wrong with front-of-package nutrition claims and as far as doctors go, I would have thought we make a good enough living on our own than to sell our good names for the promotion of products of questionable benefit.

[BTW - I tried to contact Dr. Alanna Levine, MD for comment but never did hear back from her.]

Kids' CBC blantantly shills for Kellogg's Eggo Waffles as part of a "healthy breakfast"

CBC Policy 1.3.8: Advertising Directed to Children Under 12 Years of Age,

"The CBC/Radio-Canada does not accept advertising of any kind in programming and websites designated by the CBC/Radio-Canada as directed to children under 12 years of age."

Seems pretty clear to me. No ifs, ands, or buts, the CBC does not accept advertising of any kind for kids under 12.

I guess Kids' CBC is aimed at kids over the age of 12?

I imagine most teenagers and adults can't tear themselves away from the antics of Sid, Mamma Yamma and the Doodlebops.

Why do I say that?

Well the CBC have partnered up with Kellogg's and just last week as part of their product placement agreement Sid, Mamma Yamma and a child guest all sat together to shill for and eat Eggo Waffles in a segment about "Healthy Breakfasts" complete with plenty of plate shots and close ups. There's also that website up above.

So is product placement technically advertising? Absolutely, only it's worse than plain old ads. Product placement takes trusted characters that children and parents have come to know and love and uses them to serve as corporate shills to give the products placed the gleaming sheen of trustworthy endorsement.

The CBC's Kim Wilson the Creative Head of Children and Youth Programming at the CBC explains in the January 2010 Production Notes,

"The spots are called, "Mighty Mamma" and feature Mamma Yamma as a superhero of breakfast proportions who helps kids (and our hosts) learn about breakfast foods and keeping active."

So with Eggo Waffles what has Mamma Yamma endorsed?

If your child eats the recommended serving of 2 Eggo waffles, Yamma Mamma is recommending your child consume: 190 calories of refined white flour containing 430mg of sodium and 32 other ingredients including multiple polysyllabic preservatives and artificial colours.

Funny, when my wife makes waffles at home she uses 6 ingredients, the names of all of which even our 5.5 year old can both read and pronounce, including whole grain whole wheat flour and virtually no salt.

Shame on you CBC.

Want to complain? I sent my complaints to the CBC Kids' department and copied them to the CBC's ombudsman. You can do the same by clicking here.

[Hat tip to a concerned parent whose 6 year old immediately following the segment asked her if they could buy some Eggos]

Saturday Stories

Everthing you ever wanted to know about The Bloom Box - the future of home energy? Via Mashable

The Atlantic Monthly asks who has better local produce, Whole Foods or Walmart?

The New York Times takes a contrarian look at dietary salt reform.

Marion Nestle and David Ludwig make the case for banning all front-of-package labels in the month's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The New York Times on bribery and Big Food.

Dan Gardner continues his critical look at the Olympics - in this week's column he tackles the cost/benefit of it all.

[BTW - will be on Dr. Barry Dworkin's Sunday House Call radio show tomorrow from 4-5EST chatting about Codex and Canada's drive to fortify the global food supply and taking calls. You can listen online at www.cfra.com]

NASA readies their most ambitious mission to date!

To meet girls.

Today's Funny Friday comes from those brilliant folks over at the Onion News Network and on NASA's mission to meet that hot girl at the laundromat.

Have a great weekend!

Coca Cola's Amy Laski explains why Coke is great!

What a heart warming story.

In a response to Dan Gardner's excellent column that called out Olympic sponsorships like Coca Cola and McDonald's as an anathema to the spirit of healthy living, Coca Cola's Canadian Communication Manager Amy Laski wrote a letter to the editor that detailed why Coke is great and why Coca Cola couldn't possibly be a player in obesity.

Her first argument? Coca Cola has been sponsoring the Olympics since 1928 but obesity rates really only started their spectacular rise in the very early 70s. Clearly if Coke's sponsorship of the Olympics had an impact on obesity, we should have seen obesity rates rise in the 30s and onwards.

Now that's a brilliant argument isn't it? I've actually never heard that one. Bravo Amy! Because people drank just as much Coca Cola back in 1928 as they do now, right? No? They didn't drink as much Coca Cola as now? Would that matter? I wonder what that graph up above would think about your argument?

Next Amy tells us that between 1999 and 2008 people consumed fewer soft drinks while at the same time physical activity dropped and so it couldn't be soft drinks and it must be inactivity that's led to rising obesity rates, right? Because really the only two variables in obesity are the amount of Coca Cola you drink and how active you are? And obesity only became a problem in and around 1999?

Amy also points out, in an argument reminiscent of the bad old days when doctors helped Big Tobacco in their attempts to convince the public cigarettes weren't bad, that Coca Cola created a "red ribbon panel" partnering up with the Heart and Stroke Foundation, ParticipACTION and the Canadian Diabetes Association and holds that out seemingly as proof of their great intentions (and at the same time highlighting just exactly why these organizations shouldn't be making deals with Big Food devils). I mean really, how could Coca Cola and soft drinks be bad if the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Canadian Diabetes Association and ParticipACTION have teamed up with them? It's innocence by association don't you know?

Lastly Amy notes that soft drinks contribute 2.5% of total daily Canadian calories and then tries to slough that off as nothing.

2.5% of total daily calories consumed by Canadians come from soft drinks? That ain't nothing! The average Canadian currently consumes 2,400 calories. Now that's probably a very lowball figure as it's based off of always overly conservative dietary recall data. But even using that lowball figure that means each and every Canadian consumes 60 calories or two thirds of a can of a soft drink like Coca Cola daily. But of course not everyone consumes soft drinks. I bet between young children and folks who are watching their health or their weight it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to suggest that 33% of the population almost never drink soft drinks which means then that average soft-drinking Canadian consumes a can daily.

What happens if you drink a can of Coke daily for a year? Well you'd end up slurping up 32,850 calories along with nearly 40 cups of sugar. Drink a Coke a day for a decade and that'd translate to 94 pounds worth of Coca Cola calories and 400 cups (>200lbs!) of sugar.

Yeah, 2.5% of total daily calories is nearly nothing.

Reading her letter led me to wonder - is Amy Laski stupid, or does she just think we are?

food with a lower-case "f"!

Though most of us call it, "processed food" in this case Mrs. Q.'s going to show us it's, "school food".

Who's Mrs. Q.?

She's an anonymous teacher, at an anonymous school, in an anonymous State, who's taken it upon herself to eat school lunch, "just like the kids", every day in 2010.

She's also blogging about her experience.

Her blog, Fed Up: School Lunch Project describes what we're feeding our children and while her school's in the States, there's no reason to believe things are any better here in Canada.

What really blows me away - and I'm not talking about the obvious how can we serve kids the stuff we teach them is bad for us? What really blows me away is the fact that people make arguments about why it is we can't possibly change what the kids are eating because it'd be too difficult and/or too expensive.

Really? You want to save money on the backs of our children's health? We shouldn't try because it'd be challenging?

Great lessons for our kids there.

Oh, and for the Canadian readers, too expensive? Can't just look at school bottom lines as we live in a country with socialized medicine where the effects of poor diets indeed hit the country's bottom lines (and bottoms).

Too expensive to reform school food in Canada? I'd argue we can't afford not to.

In case you're wondering what good school food looks like, Mrs. Q. provided a link to Madison Wisconsin's REAP Program. Have a peek and see what can be done.

Just because something's tough to do, doesn't mean we shouldn't figure out a way to do it.

Food with a capital "F"!

I'm sure you've heard of Jamie Oliver. He's a 34 year old chef from England who has launched one of the world's more effective campaigns for healthy eating.

The crux of his message? Cook. Don't pick up takeout. Don't reheat boxes. Cook. Take actual whole foods, spend a few moments in your kitchen, and cook.

If you were only allowed to choose one intervention to make to improve your health there's no doubt it should be to cook.

Great chance too that it'd have a positive impact on your weight.

Are cooking classes mandatory in Canadian schools? Nope.

Are there free government sponsored cooking workshops? Nope.

Is the government considering a means to subsidize whole foods, the building blocks of cooking? Nope.

Would any of those measures be difficult to implement? Nope.

Should we hold our breath until they happen? Nope.

Sadly I don't think things have got bad enough to warrant our government actually taking food seriously. Yet Jamie's right to label this a catastrophe.

You know there is this bad habit of folks stepping back and saying that all of this is too complicated. That healthy eating is too complicated, that obesity is too complicated. That everything is too complicated to turn around. Consequently it seems public health efforts are paralyzed.

You know what, yup this stuff is complicated. How we got to this point is complicated. Food labeling is complicated. Nutrients are complicated.

Cooking on the other hand isn't all that complicated and its impact would be immense.

Combine Jamie Oliver's perfectly aimed recommendation to ensure every graduating high school student knows how to cook at least 10 healthy, affordable meals, with Michael Pollan's 7 word manifesto,

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

and we'd be saving innumerable lives.

Jamie's wish?

"My wish is for you to help a strong, sustainable movement, to educate every child about food. To inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity."

Watch Jamie's speech from TED 2010. Set aside the 20 mins and if you don't have time today, bookmark this post and come back when you've got a moment.

Stay tuned tomorrow when I show you what we're up against in the schools.

Top 10 rules for writing a critical blog.

Think of it as Critical Blogging 101 - but first a back story.

So there's this guy named Drew Harvey and he doesn't seem to like me very much.

Apparently Drew believes that my criticism of the Food Guide contributes to the obesity epidemic and he "questions my motives" for being critical and calls them "self-serving" on his blog.

Now I didn't bother engaging Drew on his argument. Basically it boiled down to yes, industry is involved in the creation of the Guide but hey, the Guide suggests you eat lots of fruits and vegetables so how can it be bad or obesogenic and criticizing it only pushes people into the arms of pill pushers and diet peddlers.

So while I didn't weigh in myself what I did was punt his blog out into the ether by linking to it on Twitter and Facebook figuring that some of my friends and readers might have something to say, and in responding to them Drew ended up leading a real-time seminar on how not to host a critical blog.

While watching the scramble that ensued, I thought perhaps going over some dos and don'ts of critical blogging might make for a good post. So here are some rules that are well worth considering if you're planning on writing an opinionated blog:

1. Do your homework.

Before you choose to blog about someone or something make sure you really understand what they're saying or doing.

For example, if you want to criticize me regarding my take on the Food Guide it's probably best to really understand my take on the Food Guide.

2. Have an evidence-based leg to stand on.

If you're going to attack someone or something the most important thing to have on hand is evidence supporting your position.

As one deleted commenter on Drew's blog noted, a straw-man argument (creating the illusion that you've check-mated someone else's argument by substituting a distracting and easily refutable argument that the someone else didn't actually make) isn't an evidence base.

In Drew's case he creates a straw-man argument by suggesting I must have ulterior motives because I criticize a Guide that promotes the consumption of healthy-for-you fruits and vegetables, and given that fruits and vegetables are low-calorie options, following the Guide couldn't possibly make you fat. In turn that doesn't actually speak to my criticisms of the Guide but does serve to try to paint me as a ridiculous man of straw who's easily blown down.

3. If you can't take the heat, don't turn on your oven.

Simply put, don't ever publish a post critical of someone or something without the expectation that people will disagree with you and potentially even write some nasty things in your comments.

Turning off commenting like Drew did on Saturday isn't a great plan either.

4. Don't mess with your comments.

Or better yet, choose a blogging platform that doesn't allow you to.

Blogger, the platform I use, allows me to delete comments but not to edit them, and as I spell out on the sidebar of my blog, the only comments I actively delete are those containing profanities or spam.

Drew, when faced a whole slew of inflammatory comments chose first to delete the ones he didn't like, but then things got really weird. He went on to: Post-edit his own comments; amazingly added my name to comments that I didn't write (and I thought I had chutzpah); deleted every single one of the comments; only to finally bring back a carefully selected few.

Unfortunately this left behind an incoherent jumble on his blog with comments referring back to comments that are no longer there and leading one of his commenters to ask,

"How would anyone ever follow anything on here with any semblance of a 'conversation' of ideas if they just showed up now?"

5. Don't misrepresent yourself.

One of the first comments that Drew deleted questioned his websites' representations of himself as a, "professor of nutrition, physiology and behavior modification", and, "a leading author, researcher, and lecturer in the areas of nutrition, exercise, and weight management".

I won't bother raking Drew through the muck of the deleted comment but what I will say is that you'd better be able to healthily defend all of the statements you make about yourself on your website or at the very least have a track record that speaks for itself.

6. Don't be surprised if the person you're attacking decides to write back.

This blog is an open forum and I encourage anyone who thinks I'm out to lunch to tell me so in the comments - anonymously or otherwise.

Over the years there have been some great comments written by folks who think I've wronged them. Perhaps the best example of this would be Canadian reality TV trainer Nadeen Boman's very thoughtful comment on what I see as her negative contribution to body image in Canada. Hers was the 4th comment in and it led me to write a followup post asking if people agreed with her.

Oh, and if you do decide to allow anonymous posting on your blog you shouldn't be be upset or surprised if people choose to use it.

7. Not every squeak deserves a roar.

You’ve got to pick and choose your battles. Depending on the degree or the source of the squeak you might not want to bother with a post or a response as in some senses that may validate the argument of the person who’s squeaking.

8. Don’t feed the trolls.

A troll is someone who leaves comments or posts that are meant to goad you into roaring at a squeak. For instance it’s highly likely that someone in today's comments will talk about how they’re not going to write a full comment because that would validate my squeaking. If you want to see some non-hypothetical trolls have a peek at the comments left on yesterday's post.

Trolls are best left ignored.

The worst thing you could do? Lose your cool and respond with a gigantic knee jerk as that'll likely just serve to make you look foolish.

9. Don’t break the law.

Libel and defamation are serious charges, and while truth and fair comment are strong defenses, you’d still better make sure that what you’re writing is truth or fair comment.

Drew’s opinion that I shouldn’t be criticizing the Food Guide is indeed fair comment. On the other hand suggesting I have ulterior motives for my criticisms might be construed as libel, while adding my name to comments I didn’t write is just plain illegal.

10. Keep your cool and be able to admit you’re wrong.

I know I've lost my cool on the blog from time to time and I've probably looked pretty silly doing so. That said, I try my best.

More important than keeping your cool is having the ability to admit when you’re wrong. Case in point on my blog? For a recent example check out my post and the comments regarding UFit. While I wasn’t wholly wrong, I certainly was partially wrong, something I owned up to quickly in the comments and the post when it became clear that I wasn’t fully informed (goes back to the Do Your Homework rule).

Bottom line?

Blogging's rapid fire. It's easy to take shortcuts and not do your homework. Remember too that there's no one easier to convince you're right than yourself. While at times blogging can certainly feel like a blood sport, you should still strive to keep your wits about you, play hard and play smart.

Lets hope I didn't make Drew sweat or swear too much this weekend.

Drew, like rule #6 points out, you shouldn't be surprised if the person you're writing about writes back. I guess an addendum there is that you shouldn't be surprised if the person you're casting aspersions about on your blog as having shady, self-serving motives decides to mess with you.

That said Drew, if you're reading this and you want to debate the Food Guide's pros and cons, please feel free to leave angry comments on your or my blog but perhaps first take the time to actually read my series on the Food Guide rather than just its landing page. Given that apparently you're concerned by my understanding of the Guide's fruit and vegetable recommendations and the Guide's calorific nature, why don't you start by reading the post I wrote on the Guide's fruit and vegetable recommendations, followed by this post, and this post on why the Food Guide's certainly obesogenic.