Huntington, West Virginia is the sickest city in the country. The stats show that almost half its inhabitants are obese. Diabetes rates are very high; people are suffering from heart ailments and other assorted maladies.

British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who has already revamped the UK’s school lunch system is now attempting to achieve same in the home country of fast food.

Will he succeed? A new reality show, Food Revolution, will start airing on ABC in March. It will follow Jamie’s attempt to undo decades of damage, all with his cooking skills, charisma, and passion to improve people’s lives.

Should be interesting.

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Yogurt.

- Say who?

Harry Belzer.

- Who is Harry Belzer, and how did he come to this conclusion?

Mr. Belzer is a senior executive at NPD group, a market research group, who’s been following the food industry for decades:

“We started off with about 17% of all Americans eating yogurt in 2000, and we end the decade with something like 28% consuming yogurt on a regular basis,” he said. “No other category has seen that kind of increase in the absolute number of people using the product.” read more from the REFRESH blog…

Indeed, yogurt is a $4 billion industry with a substantial portion of supermarket dairy refrigerators dedicated to hundreds of varieties.

What you need to know:

Yogurt is healthy. This is largely based on the live & active “friendly” bacteria that help our intestines and keep us “regular”. While all yogurts have these probiotics, some are better at marketing their presence than others.In Europe, people have been enjoying the flavor and health benefits for centuries, but the US was relatively indifferent.

The problem with yogurt reaching mass market in America was its tart flavor. Not sweet enough. Food companies started to add fruit purees, sugar, colorings, and other goodies in order to make the products more appealing to American taste buds.

Oh, and a marketing blitz too.

Key marketing messages: Healthy, portion controlled, convenient, endless flavors, no cleanup.

Today yogurt enjoys a health halo status few foods reach. But most people who consume flavored brands regularly don’t notice the added junk that’s put in many products. Here’s an example of a strawberry yogurt from a leading brand:

Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Low Fat Milk, Sugar, Strawberries, Modified Corn Starch, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Nonfat Milk, Kosher Gelatin, Citric Acid, Tricalcium Phosphate, Natural Flavor, Pectin, Colored with Carmine, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3.

Who needs all that sugar and High Fructose Corn Syrup? Gelatin? corn starch?

Here’s what strawberry yogurt should contain:

Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Low Fat Milk, Strawberries, optionally – 1 tsp of sugar

What to do at the supermarket:

Buy PLAIN YOGURT. Not white yogurt that is lightly sweetened. Not Vanilla flavor. They’re all full of added sugar. Buy plain yogurt and sweeten it on your terms! Whether you add strawberries, a teaspoon of honey, or mix in some granola, you’ll be better off. Plus, plain yogurt can be purchased in bulk sizes, this providing an additional saving.

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Just when we thought we had covered all the nutrition rating systems out there, here’s a new system being implemented at Whole Foods Market stores nationwide. ANDI, short for Aggregate Nutrient Density Index, is the brainchild of author, MD, and founder of Eat Right America, Dr. Joel Fuhrman.

The ANDI system is a part of a bigger initiative by Whole Foods, entitled Health Starts Here, which encompasses not just making healthy food available, but also providing education on what to do what with that food (culinary lessons, 28 day programs to jump start healthy eating habits…).

The healthy eating principles WFM is promoting are:

• plant based diet
• whole foods (less processed flours, for example)
• low fat – or the right fats (unsaturated, more from plants and less from animals)
• nutrient dense (that’s where ANDI comes in)

The ANDI score, based on a Dr. Fuhrman’s Nutrient Density Scoring System analyzes many nutrients in a food product

Calcium, Carotenoids: Beta Carotene, Alpha Carotene, Lutein & Zeaxanthin, Lycopene, Fiber, Folate, Glucosinolates, Iron, Magnesium, Niacin, Selenium, Vitamin B1 (Thiamin) Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Zinc, plus ORAC score X 2 (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity is a method of measuring the antioxidant or radical scavenging capacity of foods).

The data for whole foods such as produce, grains, and legumes is relatively easy to analyze based on USDA databases. It is much more complicated to get accurate info for packaged or processed foods, especially because the ingredients in a processed food interact with each other and change the nutrition profile of a product.

Here is a table with some sample scores. The highest score is 1000, the lowest is close to zero.

This is a very interesting table, especially if one compares it to NuVal ranking which goes from 1-100. Take a look at these 4 healthy products and their scores:

• Kale – 1000
• Orange – 109
• Whole wheat bread – 25
• Olive oil – 9

A naive shopper may be led to believe that kale is the only product worth consuming. But all 4 of the aforementioned are healthy and needed by our bodies. Dr. Fuhrman addresses this:

Keep in mind that nutrient density scoring is not the only factor that determines good health. For example, if we only ate foods with a high nutrient density score our diet would be too low in fat. So we have to pick some foods with lower nutrient density scores (but preferably the ones with the healthier fats) to include in our high nutrient diet.

So wouldn’t it be more practical to create a scoring system that doesn’t require people to analyze a score , the product type, the required nutrients and then decide? The entire point is to simplify life for consumers, not complicate it!

Whole Foods is perceived as a healthier, albeit expensive, grocery retailer. But recently John Mackey, WFM CEO and founder, openly admitted that his chain sells lots of junk food. The Health Starts Here program may be a signal that Mackey is retuning to the roots of what WFM stood for in the seventies when just starting out.

The ANDI scores are an interesting first step in trying to help consumers better choose healthier foods, and it will be very interesting to see consumer response. We expect Whole Foods will continue to introduce and test additional tools to help their customers.

What to do at the supermarket:

Don’t let the Whole Foods health halo confuse you, as organic junk food is still junk food. Stick to the less processed products, of which Whole Foods has copious amounts, including in bulk (cheaper).

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We recently wrote about chocolate milk with too much sugar being served in school lunches. We also covered a chocolate drink that’s better left on the shelf. But as parents, we can’t ignore the fact that kids LOVE sweetened milk. So what alternatives are there for breakfast, suppertime, or afternoon snack companion?

We decided to compare 3 options – ready to drink chocolate milk, powder, and syrup. For simplicity, we checked the category leader – Nesquik – which has all these options available. We only had powder at home, so we went to Nesquik’s website for more info. Unfortunately, the Nesquik website does not include ingredient information, which always means there’s something to be ashamed of… Read more…

This is a guest post by Melissa Marek, RD LD

Fiber is an extremely important part of your daily diet. Its best known benefit is its ability to help keep our bowels moving. Eating enough fiber will help prevent constipation. The added benefit is that it also plays a role in protecting against diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. If that isn’t enough reason to get a daily dose of fiber, it also helps with weight management by helping to keep you fuller longer.

In order to make sure you are getting enough fiber, it helps to understand where it comes from and where you can find it. Fiber comes mainly from plant cell walls, the parts that cannot be digested by the enzymes of the GI tract. For that reason, fiber can be found in plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, and grains.

To best benefit from fiber, the recommended daily amount is 21-25 grams per day for women and 30-38 grams per day for men. This is not a difficult goal to meet, but remember that when adding fiber to your diet, you will need to increase your fiber intake slowly and more importantly, increase your fluids. If you don’t drink enough fluids you may suffer from constipation, the very thing that fiber helps alleviate.

To better comprehend the benefits of fiber and how to best meet daily requirements, it helps to understand that there are different types of fiber. They come from different sources and, accordingly, help with different things.

SOLUBLE FIBER may help lower blood cholesterol, especially LDL (bad) cholesterol. It also helps control blood sugar in people with diabetes. You can get soluble fiber from oats, oat bran, dried beans and peas, nuts, barley, flax seed, oranges, apples, carrots, and psyllium husk.

INSOLUBLE FIBER moves bulk through the intestines, which helps prevent constipation. It also controls and balances the pH in your intestines. Insoluble fiber can be found in fruit skins, root vegetable skins, dark green leafy vegetables, whole wheat products, corn bran, seeds and nuts.

Soluble fiber, as it name alludes, becomes a jelly-like mass when mixed with water and ferments in the intestinal tract, but insoluble fiber just absorbs the water and bulks up stool.

The term DIETARY FIBER, which appears on nutrition facts labels is merely a sum of the soluble and insoluble fiber content in a product, per serving.

A common source of fiber is whole grain. Whole grain refers to the entire grain seed (bran, germ, & endosperm).  Whole grain foods are an important source of not only fiber, but also of vitamins, minerals and other health-promoting compounds that you won’t find in a refined grain.

HOW MUCH SHOULD I BE EATING?

According to the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 3 or more ounce-equivalents of whole grain products per day is ideal. You can meet this requirement by adding barley, buckwheat, bulgur, corn, millet, rice, rye, oats, sorghum, wheat and wild rice to your daily diet.

What does a one-ounce equivalent of whole grains look like?

• 1 slice 100% whole grain bread
• 1/2 of a 100% whole grain English muffin or bagel
• ½ cup hot cooked oatmeal (Rolled oats or quick oats)
• 2 cups popped popcorn
• 1 ounce baked tortilla chips (About 15 chips)
• 1/3 cup cooked whole wheat pasta
• 1/3 cup cooked brown rice, bulgur, sorghum, or barley

TIPS TO INCREASE YOUR FIBER INTAKE:

• Sprinkle flax meal, wheat germ,  or nuts/seeds onto your cereal, cottage cheese, yogurt, or even frozen yogurt
• Add fresh or dried fruits to your cereal or yogurt
• Substitute whole wheat flour for at least 1/3 of the all purpose flour in baked goods
• Add frozen vegetables to soups or casseroles
• Add beans into a salad, soup, or stew
• Cut prunes into pieces and mix them into yogurt, cereal, or pancake mix

What to do at the supermarket:

Packaging for fiber rich foods now often contain a label promoting its fiber content. These labels make finding fiber-rich foods easy so shoppers don’t have to go through the hassle of checking out the food label or searching for the fiber content. But what do these regulated fiber claims mean exactly?

• 100% Whole Grain or 100% Whole Wheat: The product doesn’t have any refined white flour
• Good source of fiber:  There are at least 3g per serving
• Excellent source of fiber:  There are at least 5g per serving
• When reading the ingredient statement, a whole grain should be listed FIRST!

Here’s a handy list of fiber rich products:

• Oats
• Oat bran
• Grains (Barley, bulgur, Kasha, Amaranth, Quinoa, Couscous)
• Polenta
• Brown rice
• Whole wheat breads and pastas
• Fresh fruits (Oranges, pears, dried figs, apples, berries, raisins)
  —> Choose whole fruits (fresh, frozen, or dried) over juices, which have most of the fiber removed
• Fresh vegetables (Winter squash, peas, eggplant, beets, cabbage, broccoli, artichoke hearts, corn)
• Potatoes & sweet potatoes
• Dried beans
• Nuts

Melissa Marek is a graduate of Texas A&M University with degrees in both Nutritional Sciences and Food Science & Technology.  She has experience with recipe analysis for magazines and restaurants as well as with nutrition facts labeling for large corporations and private label companies. She is a registered dietitian at Axxya Systems, makers of Diet Analysis and Food Labeling software products. Contact her at mmarek [at] axxya [dot] com.

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This is a guest blog-post by  Professor Timothy D. Lytton

In my previous posts I have proposed that the FDA regulate front-of-package nutrition labels by better enforcement of existing regulations and by setting minimum standards for labels that rate the overall nutritional value of foods. By contrast, the Center for Science and the Public Interest as well as the Fooducate Blog have advocated that the FDA develop and impose on the food industry “a simple, uniform science-based system [that] would bring consistent and reliable information to the marketplace and help consumers choose more healthful diets.”

However, the high level of complexity involved in designing nutritional rating systems gives rise to two reasons to prefer a regulatory approach that merely sets minimum-standards.

First, there is little reason to suppose that government policymakers will be able to create a system that is superior to those developed by research scientists in academia and industry. Disagreement among experts in industry and academia as to the best approach to nutrient profiling—even after millions of dollars of investment and years of research—is significant and ongoing. By contrast, merely setting minimum standards is a less complex task that is more likely to generate consensus among experts, who do agree on many basic principles of nutrition. Setting minimum standards is a common regulatory tool well within the expertise of the FDA and likely to elicit few complaints about the agency acting beyond the powers delegated to it by Congress.

Second, allowing for experimentation and competition among private-sector groups is likely to advance knowledge in the area of nutrient profiling and food labeling more effectively than the development and imposition of a single, centralized government scheme. Minimum government standards will create space for genuine experimentation and competition aimed at advancing knowledge while eliminating merely profit-driven research and the use of front-of-package nutrition labels as just another marketing strategy. There is also reason to believe that market incentives, under certain circumstances, will produce high quality scientific information. While allegations of conflict of interest and “junk-science” surround manufacturer-sponsored front-of-package labels, such as Smart Choices, the same is not true of shelf labels developed by or for retail stores. The Guiding Stars and NuVal labels have been singled out for the scientific integrity of their ratings, even among critics of nutrient profiling generally. One reason may be that retail supermarkets are less interested in selling any particular type or brand of food, including their own their own store brands, than in attracting consumers into their stores. Whereas manufacturers have an incentive to adopt nutrient profiling schemes that favor their products—regardless of the product’s nutritional value—retail supermarkets draw customers into their stores by offering them reliable nutrient profile labels that, for some consumers, enhance their shopping experience.

The most effective role for government in the regulation of front-of-package nutrition labels is not to supplant private sector experimentation and competition but rather to ensure that it is not corrupted by unscrupulous companies willing to put profits ahead of scientific integrity.

Timothy D. Lytton is the Albert and Angela Distinguished Professor of Law at Albany Law School where he teaches regulatory law & policy, constitutional law, administrative law, and tort law. His article “Signs of Change or Clash of Symbols? FDA Regulation of Nutrient Profile Labeling” (forthcoming in Health Matrix, vol. 19, no. 2) is available online by clicking here. He is also working on an article about regulation of nutrition standards for school food. For more information, visit his Albany Law School faculty website.

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The American Heart Association wants you to be healthier. And in a new, online campaign, dubbed My Life Check, the organization is introducing 7 factors that will help you live longer:

1. Stop smoking
2. Get active
3. Lose weight
4. Eat better
5. Manage blood pressure
6. Control cholesterol
7. Reduce blood sugar

No big surprises in the list. Smoking is a killer that everyone acknowledges. Most of us live a sedentary lifestyle and would do better to get physical activity into the daily routine. Losing weight and eating better seem like the same thing at first, but are not necessarily so. To lose weight you just need to cut calories, but that does not mean you are eating healthfully. Case in point, the recent Taco Bell Drive Thru Diet, where a young lady lost 50 pounds by eating at a fast food establishment. Eating better means incorporating nutrient dense foods into the lowered number of calories you are consuming as part of your diet. Nutrient dense foods are fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean cuts of meat, legumes, and dairy products.

These first 4 activities can be handled by yourself, with help and advice from registered dietitians to create a weight loss plan that fits your personal needs.

The last 3 suggestions in the list require a visit to the doctor’s office for a checkup and some tests (blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar), something we should do once a year if we’re healthy and young, and more often if not.

The program is sponsored by the “Pharmaceutical Roundtable”, which in the AHA’s words is:

the first roundtable in the pharmaceutical industry and one of the most exciting developments in cardiovascular research in recent years. This innovative forum provides an opportunity for an ongoing exchange of ideas and information between our medical leaders and those from prestigious pharmaceutical companies.

All the big pharma companies are members and will be more than happy to provide you with pills, shots, and treatment plans to help you get better.

Other features of the program include an online quiz you can take to assess how you are faring in each of the seven steps to a healthier heart.

What to do at the supermarket:

It’s much cheaper for you, not to mention healthier, not to be in a position to need the help of the pharmaceutical industry. You don’t want to get to the stage where drugs are what keep your heart healthy. So start making smart food choices NOW, for yourself, and even more importantly, for your children.

Our usual basket of advice includes buying mostly unprocessed products and preparing meals and snacks at home. When you do buy prepared foods, a short ingredient list is usually a sign of a better product for you. Try to ignore front of package health claims and marketing speak, because in many cases they only present half the truth – a low fat product may be very high in sugar to compensate.

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A bit of comic relief to kick off the weekend (original appears in  SFoodie)

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We just got off the phone with Tom Vilsack!

The Fooducate blog was honored to be invited to a first ever blogger conference call with U.S. Department of Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack earlier today. The call was in celebration of the USDA joining as a partner in the  “Fuel Up to Play 60” partnership between the National Dairy Council and the NFL.

The idea of the program is to educate and empower kids to make healthier food choices as well as exercise 60 minutes a day. Over 60,000 schools have signed up to the program so far.

This is a win-win for everyone involved. The star power of the NFL athletes is a huge magnet for kids who move their bodies more. And obviously the dairy council is happy because low-fat milk is getting pushed to the schools instead of other, less nutritious beverages.

And while we commend this shift from soda pop to milk, we take point at the “flavored milk” options that are sneaking in tons of sugar to kids through the back door. The most popular flavored milk is, of course, chocolate milk. It’s also a drink that Mr. Vilsack admitted that he loves, deferring a question about the sweetness by blogger Eddie Gehman Kohan of ObamaFoodorama.

Unfortunately, an 8 oz. single serve bottle of chocolate milk has THREE TEASPOONS of added sugar. While consuming this once a day will not have a huge caloric impact (3 teaspoons = 12 grams = 48 added calories), the uber-sweetness has an unwanted side effect – suddenly apples, pears, bananas, and even the chocolate milk prepared at home (milk+cocoa powder) don’t see so tasty anymore. They’re not sweet enough.

In the Q&A part of the call, I asked Secretary Vilsack why not work with the Dairy Council to move the manufacturers to lower sugar levels. The response from Jean Ragalie, the Executive Vice President of Health and Wellness at NDC, was :

1. the sugar in chocolate milk is only 2% of added sugars consumed by kids, so it is insignificant. (Update – here is the exact data: Flavored milk accounts for less than 3.5 percent of added sugar intake in children ages 6-12 and less than 2 percent in teens. To put this in context, soft drinks, fruit drinks and tea provide a combined 31.5 percent of total added sugar intake for children ages 6-12 and 40 percent for teens according to NPD Nutrient Intake Database (2 years ending Feb, 2009))
2. studies show that children drinking chocolate milk are not gaining any more weight than others, but are getting more milk in their bodies, which is important due to milk’s inherent nutrition.
3. Lastly and most disturbing, Secretary Vilsack summed in a nutshell: Kids won’t drink chocolate milk unless it’s this sweet.

It’s a vicious cycle. The kids get hooked on super sweet tastes starting with their morning cereal, then their candy bars during recess, followed by chocolate milk that must be as sweet. And more sweet as the day winds down at home.

No wonder the fruit served at lunch alongside the chocolate milk tastes so bland.

We suggested in the past, and still do – NDC, USDA – please work together to “convince” manufacturers to reduce the sugar in their flavored milks. Build a voluntary incentive plan to have manufacturers remove half a teaspoon of sugar  every school year for the next 3 years, and we promise to shut up about this matter.

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This is a guest blog post by Carol Harvey, director of nutrition labeling at Palate Works. She recently visited the San Francisco Fancy Food Show.

For 35 years, the Fancy Food Show has been the trade show of all things tasty, gourmet and upscale. Many food products are launched there, including an increasing number dished up as “healthy” or “better for you,” due to evolving consumer demand.

In fact, the “top 5 food trends” for 2010 just announced by NASFT (the trade association that produces the show) include “good-for-you foods”. This “trend,” brewing for most of the 20 years that I have been attending the show, has proven a smart business move for a number of brands.

Whether any of the 100,000+ exhibited products really nailed the “taste + nutrition” prize was my focus again this year in San Francisco. And once again, how a company uses nutrition claims separated those that know their nutrition and labeling from those that don’t. Here are three examples. Read more…