Source: LA Times

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The Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) projects a thirty percent increase in obesity rates by 2030 to 41% of the US population. The toll on our economy – a whopping half a trillion dollars over the next 2 decades!

That doesn’t seem to bother other branches of the government, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), whose Chairman Jon Leibowitz recently said that “it’s probably time to move on” from attempts to regulate junk food marketing to children. In a letter in The Wall Street Journal he further stressed that “the commission does not support legislation restricting food advertising to children.” (More on AdAge).

Another government agency, the USDA, is acknowledging childhood obesity and has recently allotted another few cents per meal for its school lunch program. But at the same time, the Farm Bill continues to perpetuate obesogenic crops through subsidies for corn (high fructose corn syrup), for example. Why would the same entity charged with increasing sales of farm commodities also be the one responsible for our children’s health?

Then we have Congress. Utterly clueless, our representatives recently voted pizza as a vegetable so it can be served more often school lunches.

On to the White House. While the First Lady has her heart in the right place, her program Let’s Move which originally focused on food and exercise, has mostly shifted attention to the easier of the two – working out. No enemies made when everyone can agree “we need to exercise more”.

Against this backdrop is a well oiled marketing and lobbying machine, representing the interests of mega corporations doing what they do best, maximizing their profit. There are no bad guys here. Everyone wants what’s best for their constituents. And when your shareholders demand more profit, by gosh, you the CEO of JunkFoodCorp, will figure out how to sell more. Never mind the collateral damage.

Many of you comment on this blog that the government has no right interfering with people’s decision of what to buy or eat. You are right. Nobody should tell you what you have to eat right now. But the government should have a say in creating a health conducive food environment for us. This includes a shift in subsidies to fresh fruit and vegetables, limitations on junk food marketing to kids, incentives for healthy food purchases by food stamp recipients, to name a few suggestions.

When will we realize that government regulation in business affairs comes to protect us as consumers, not turn us into a communist regime?  We better demand change, before we’ll collapse under the weight of our own … weight.

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If you had a doubt as to the true alignment of your representatives when it comes to childhood obesity, last week Congress showed that all you need to do is follow the money trail. Lobbies representing the biggest food advertisers have gotten to our elected officials and convinced them that marketing Apple Jacks to children is just fine.

Because a cereal that is 40% sugar by weight is a healthy way for little Sally to start the day. And a cereal with hyperactivity triggering artificial dyes is a wonderful way for little Johnny to get in the groove on a school day.

Here’s the story:

Two years ago, Congress asked 4 agencies to review the marketing practices of the food industry when it comes to children, and to provide recommendations. The interagency working group (IWG), comprised of members from the FTC, FDA, USDA, and CDC sat diligently and came up with a set of proposed principles that would not be written into law, rather VOLUNTARILY accepted by the food industry.

Food marketers were very upset, and demanded changes to the proposals. So a  few months ago, unwillingly, the IWG weakened these voluntary guidelines.

But that was still not good enough. Last week, Congress shot down the proposals through the use of some lame “cost benefit analysis” rule:

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 includes a provision that requires the Federal Trade Commission and the three agencies that are part of the Interagency Working Group to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed guidelines. The move, considered a major victory for food and beverage advertisers, effectively delays release of the final guidelines, originally expected by the end of this year. More here…

What’s the cost benefit analysis? Well, if the voluntary guidelines were to be adopted, billions of dollars in advertising would not be spent, and even more billions in revenue would not be made. But kids would consume less crap. That sounds like a great idea for America’s children. But it’s “bad for business”.

Expect a 2012 filled with junk food commercials planted in our kids’ brains, and then later in their stomachs. Sigh.

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The CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) likes stats. They run surveys on a myriad of topics. And they try to figure out not just how to control disease, but how to prevent it. When it comes to obesity and diabetes, the CDC would very much like to learn what are the causes.

They had a pretty good hunch, so they ran a survey to learn about the soft drink consumption habits of Americans. Here’s what they found: we drink way more sugary drinks than we should. In fact, the America Heart Association cites sugary soft drinks as the number one source of calories in America today.

The group drinking the most colas is teenage boys – with a daily consumption of 273 calories.

That’s almost 2 cans of coke per day!

Or 17 teaspoons of sugar added to their bloodstream.

Or 2.5 added pounds of weight per month.

Sigh…

Teenage girls drink less, just 10 teaspoons of added sugar per day. Only 1.7 pounds of monthly weight gain.

The data is from a survey the CDC conducted in the years 2005-2008. (Side note: It makes you wonder why the government took 3 years to publish this report…)

According to the American Beverage Association, a trade group counting Coca Cola and Pepsi as its gold members, caloric soft drink consumption has dipped in the last few years. Mostly because consumers are shifting to diet drinks, an unfortunate mistake that is the result of genius advertising.

What’s interesting is that the CDC stats above don’t take into account fruit juices. This may come as a shock, but even 100% natural fruit juices are very high sugar, placing them in the “treat” department alongside cola, rather than the hydration department together with water. Imagine how much higher the calories would be if we threw the morning OJ into the mix.

So, do you know what your family’s soft drink consumption stats are? How are you going to reduce those numbers?

What to do at the supermarket:

If you need encouragement, here’s a stat you will appreciate – an average family of 4 people will save $500 a year switching from soft drinks to tap water.

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We’ve talked about marketing to children in the past, especially how their young impressionable minds are manipulated by junk food and fast food commercials.

4 government agencies have created a set of VOLUNTARY guidelines for the industry, which they hope will help convince companies to promote their healthier brands.

These are now lightweight offices:

1. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
3. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
4. USDA

What did they ask of the industry:

• Encourage children to choose healthy foods
• Market foods to children that fall within reasonable limits for amounts of saturated fat, trans fat, added sugars and sodium.

As an example, cereals targeted at children would contain 2 or less teaspoons (8 grams) of sugar. Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, and many more contain 3 tsp and would not be “allowed” to be advertised.

Here’s the funny part:

1. The standards are voluntary and not regulations.
2. companies are not legally required to meet them.
3. the government has no way to enforce them.

So why is the industry so adamantly opposed to the guidelines?

Because 80% of products marketed to kids today fall short of these guidelines.

As a result, the industry has pulled out its big guns. After all, billions of dollars in revenues that are at stake. The industry has hired lobbyists to explain

1. how the guidelines are not required
2. that food companies have set their own standard a few years ago
3. healthy products like yogurt, bread, and cereal would now be banned from advertising
4. the new guidelines would cause a loss of 75,000 jobs!

This is all horse-doody if you ask us. Once again, the industry shows us that when it comes down to the bottom line, it’s the dollars that matter, not our kids’ health.

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A worrying read on the Civil Eats blog – our exposure to BPA (Bisphenol-A) is much worse than we think:

According to a new study, exposure to the gender-bending chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) is worse than previously estimated. The study, which appeared Monday in Environmental Health Perspectives, is the first to recreate the chronic daily intake of BPA in humans, which leaches into our food–our primary channel for exposure–via its packaging. Researchers showed this by feeding a steady BPA-spiked diet to mice, whereas previous studies have only used a single exposure. read more…

What you need to know:

1. Bisphenol-A  is a chemical compound used as a building block of several polymers and polycarbonates that in turn are found in plastic bottles and cans. Which means all of us are exposed to tiny amounts, whether drinking canned juice, milk from a baby-bottle, or any other product sold in a plastic container or a can.

2. The chemical has been sold since the 1940’s and starting in the 1960’s has been lining the insides of cans in order to extend shelf life.

3. 12 billion pounds of BPA are produced annually, for use in food packaging, PVC water pipes, electronics, and more. Demand is growing at 5% each year.

4. In 2008, more than 22 billion cans for food and more than 100 billion cans for beer and soft drinks were produced with BPA.

5. BPA behaves like the hormone estrogen once it enters the body and disturbs the normal working of certain genes. Estrogen mimicking chemicals like BPA are potentially harmful even at very low doses, such as those found in plastic bottles and cans.

6. Toxicity questions have been around for decades, raising safety issue, especially for babies who ingest a proportionally larger amount due to their small size. Potential problems include hyperactivity, learning disabilities, brain damage, and immune deficiencies.

7. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calculated that people consume 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight every day over the course of a lifetime. Over 40 studies have found adverse health effects in rats given less than one hundredth of that amount!

8. Over 200 animal studies that have linked BPA consumption in tiny amounts to a host of reproductive problems, brain damage, immune deficiencies, metabolic abnormalities, and behavioral oddities like hyperactivity, learning deficits and reduced maternal willingness to nurse offspring.

9. In 2008, Canada added BPA to its list of toxic substances and plans are to ban BPA from all baby bottles.

10. The FDA has zigzagged on BPA safety. In August 2008 it deemed BPA safe. However, in December 2008, the FDA’s own advisory board accused the FDA of weighing 2 industry-backed studies much more heavily than the hundreds of other independent studies. The FDA’s excuse: all the other studies did not meet the FDA’s guidelines for determining safety for human consumption, did not provide raw data, and a host of other “reasons”.

11. In March 2009, six manufacturers announced that they would voluntarily stop manufacturing bottles with BPA. Playtex Products, Gerber, Evenflo, Avent America, Dr. Brown and Disney First Years decided to so in order to preempt legal action being considered at the time by several state attorney generals.

12. In May 2009, Chicago became the first city to ban sales of baby bottles and sippy cups with BPA. Denmark became the first European country to do the same.

13. In October 2010, Canada declared BPA a toxin.

14. If you think you’re safe, 95% of the population has BPA in their bodies, according to urine sampling conducted by the Center for Disease Control, CDC.

15. There’s hope – Many Japanese manufacturers voluntarily stopped using BPA in 1997. In a 2003 study, BPA levels in people’s urine had dropped by 50%.

What to do at the supermarket:
Here are some tips on how to reduce your family’s  BPA intake:

1. if you have a baby or toddler, purchase BPA free plastic bottles.

2. If microwaving formula, do so in a glass bottle.

3. Opt for fresh or frozen products rather than canned.

4. Drink tap water instead of bottled water.

5. Eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.

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Sources of Salmonella Poisoning

The CDC has just published a report on food safety, zooming in on Salmonella. In the past 15 years, the government and food industry have NOT been able to reduce the number of incidents of poisoning from this germ. Compare that to a 50% reduction in e-Coli infections.

Some stats:

1. Each year, roughly 1 in 6 people in the US gets sick from eating contaminated food.

2. Each year, 1 million people get sick from eating food contaminated with Salmonella.

3. Salmonella poisoning is directly responsible for  $365 million in direct medical costs annually.

4. In 2010, 54% of the total hospitalizations and 43% of the total deaths related to food safety were caused by Salmonella.

This is the CDC’s explanation of why Salmonella is such a challenge:

• It is found in many different types of foods: meats, eggs, fruits, vegetables, and even processed foods such as peanut butter.
• Contamination can occur anywhere: from fields where food is grown to cutting boards in kitchens.
• What we eat and how we eat have changed: foods coming from one central location are widely distributed, meaning that sickness can spread quickly; we eat more meals outside the home; and more foods and ingredients come from all over the world.
• Some policies and procedures that can make a difference in reducing contamination take years to put into place.

The government is trying to implement more policies from “farm to fork”, but so far they don’t seem to be working for Salmonella infections.

What you should do to keep safe:

1. Separate. Keep raw meat, poultry, and seafood separate from ready-to-eat foods. This requires frequently washing your hands and dishes while working in the kitchen to cook up a meal.

2. Cook. Use a food thermometer to ensure that foods are cooked to a safe internal temperature: 145°F for whole meats (allowing the meat to rest for 3 minutes before carving or consuming), 160°F for ground meats, and 165°F for all poultry. Most people don’t realize that pultry has to be heated the MOST!

3.Chill. Keep your refrigerator below 40°F and refrigerate food that will spoil.

4. Step aside. Don’t prepare food for others if you have diarrhea or vomiting.

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Consider these 3 frightening facts:

1. The food industry spends close to $2 Billion a year advertising foods to kids
2. Cookies and cakes, pizza, and soft drinks are the top sources of calories in the diets of children 2 through 18.
3. Chips and french fries comprise half of all the vegetables kids eat.

Somebody’s got to do something, right?

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission published a proposal with guidelines for marketing food to children. This, part of a cat and mouse game with the junk food industry, trying to limit kids’ exposure to commercials for foods and beverages of low to negative nutritional value.

The proposal was put forth by the  Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children (Working Group), comprised of representatives from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Here are 2 principles they’ve put together, which in theory sounds fantastic:

A - Foods marketed to children must make a meaningful contribution to healthful diets, and contain at least one of the healthy food groups:  fruits & veggies, whole grains, low fat or fat free dairy, fish, extra lean meat, eggs, nuts & seeds, beans

B -  foods should minimize intake of nutrients that could have a negative impact on health or weight. For example, 0 trans-fat.

The proposals are now entering a “waiting for comments from the public” phase, where we can all say our piece, but mostly lobbies for the foods industry will.

As expected, food advertising agencies have already warned:

If companies were to comply with these proposals, the restrictions are sufficiently onerous that they would basically block a substantial amount of advertising.

Duh. That’s the whole point!

Before we congratulate the inter-office working group on these proposals, let’s remind ourselves that there is no legal obligation for the food industry to follow these proposals once they are formally adopted by the government in 2016 (5 years! Boy the government works slowly).

No matter what the government regulators do get approved, creative marketers will always find a way to get to our kids. And with so many technology based options to touch kids these days (facebook, youtube, video games) don’t doubt for a second that children will continue to be exposed to massive amounts of junk food ads before they can even spell Froot Loops.

So your best bet is to fooducate your kids from an early age about the meaning of advertising and commercials, and help them critically view messages aimed at them.

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The American Heart Association’s Circulation Magazine just published a report which concludes with something everyone already knows:

Consumption of added sugars among US adolescents is positively associated with multiple measures known to increase cardiovascular disease risk. read more…

Researchers from the CDC and Atlanta’s Emory University studied thousands of teens’ sugar consumption rates over the course of five years and correlated that to incidence of coronary disease and its predictors. They discovered that

• The average teen consumes 28 teaspoons of added sugar per day. That’s almost 500 calories worth!
• Those consuming the most sugar (30% or more of total calories) had almost 10% more bad blood cholesterol and 10% less good cholesterol than those who ate the least added sugar (less than 10% of total calories).
• Overweight and obese teens who ate the most sugar also had the most insulin resistance.

What you need to know:

Is anyone really surprised? The food industry (and any industry, actually) loves teens. They are impressionable and can be converted to loyal lifetime customers. And they have their own money to spend, in many cases.

So where does the added sugar come from? The study didn’t go into those details, but we all know that soda pop plays a big factor. A standard vending machine bottle of Coke has 20 fl oz of drink, to consumed by one person. It has 240 calories, or roughly 15 teaspoons of sugar in it! Drink two of those a day, and you’re all set…

Of course there are tons of other sugar sources out there as well – breakfast cereals, snacks, energy bars, etc…

What to do at the supermarket:

If you are a teen and reading this – kudos! It’s never too early too start taking an interest in nutrition. The quickest and most effective way for you to slash you sugar intake is by going cold turkey on all beverages. From now on – only tap water.

If you’re thinking diet soda, think again.

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Yesterday we participated in a conference call hosted by Produce for Better Health Foundation, discussing how America has progressed in produce consumption over the past decade. A distinguished panel presented quite a grim picture:

1. America’s  fruit and vegetable consumption remains far below recommended levels
2. Only 8% of us reach our fruit goals.
3. Only 6% reach the veggie goals.
4. While we eat a third of our food away from home, those meals account for only 11% of fruit & veggie consumption.
5. Eight of the states with the lowest fruit and vegetable consumption are also in the top 10 states with the highest obesity rates.

These numbers are even sadder given that fruit and vegetables include not just fresh produce but also frozen, canned, cooked, and also 100% juice (which we think is a grave mistake).

The National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance was created in 2001 with a goal to increase consumption of produce. Nine years later, it appears nothing really changed. You can read the full report card [PDF], but it’s like having a kid who funked first grade come home.

There is some silver lining. Kids are consuming slightly more fruit and vegetables than 10 years ago. Fast food establishments are offering fruit for dessert. Unfortunately, it’s a tiny improvement.

What you need to know:

“A diet high in fruits and vegetables helps maintain a healthy weight and reduces the risk of several serious, chronic diseases. The NFVA report card illustrates the continued need to make our homes, worksites and communities places where the choice of healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables becomes the easiest choice,” said William Dietz, M.D., Ph.D., director of CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity. “We need to continue our effort in making the healthy choice the easy choice.”

So why are so many Americans failing?

Many reasons exist for this poor performance. Junk food is cheaper than fruit and vegetables. It has better shelf life, it has been engineered to taste good, and is marketed to consumers relentlessly.

Another reason is that many people perceive fruits and vegetables as dull tasting and boring. This is not untrue. Produce in this country is designed for extended shelf-life and size, not taste. Visit Europe and you’ll see apples half the size of ours, but boy do they taste good!

Lastly, there is a marketing issue. Since there is no processing to be done, fruits and veggies are commodities. They cannot be branded. And if you can’t brand something, how can you market it?

Comparing the marketing budget of even a medium sized food company to that of government and non-profit organizations pushing produce is an exercise in futility. When was the last time you saw a commercial for kale? An orange (not OJ)?

All the above issues tie in to one main problem, which was succinctly pointed out in the conference call is as follows:

US agriculture policy is NOT aligned with US health policy!

See the spending chart above. Subsidies are going to feed the cows, chickens, and hogs that will become our meat, not to fruits and vegetables.

Will the government fix this? Not if the usual agriculture / fast food lobbies will have their say. America wants it meat for cheap, that’s what they’ll say, while making sure the politicians they support keep their seats warm in Congress.

What to do at the supermarket:

Don’t wait for the government to help you get healthy. Buy fruits and vegetables. Have them prominently located on the kitchen counter or in the living room. Wash, peel and cut something every afternoon for the kids while they’re watching TV. Set a good example by preparing and eating produce several times a day. And if you don’t like the taste of supermarket produce, find a local farmer that you can buy from directly.

We’re doing our share by reminding users of the fooducate iphone app to consider fruit as a snack option (see screenshot below)

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Bleak results from a CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) telephone survey on adult produce consumption:

Only a third of Americans consume 2 or more serving of fruit a day. And sadly, orange juice is the top fruit source.

Only a quarter consume three or more servings of vegetables daily. The number one veggie is potato (you can probably guess in which form factor…)

California ate the most fruit and Tennessee was best with vegetables. Oklahoma was at the bottom for fruit and South Dakota had the lowest vegetable consumption. More from USA Today…

What you need to know:

The produce section holds the key to your nutritional well-being. Not only are vegetables and fruit rich in nutrients, eating more of these fiber rich foods will leave less room for the fattening, artery clogging, blood pressure raising alternatives.

From Harvard’s School of Public Health:

Most people should aim for at least nine servings (at least 4½ cups) of vegetables and fruits a day, and potatoes don’t count. Go for a variety of kinds and colors of produce, to give your body the mix of nutrients it needs. Best bets? Dark leafy greens, cooked tomatoes, and anything that’s a rich yellow, orange, or red color.

What to do at the supermarket:

Challenge yourself the next time you’re at the grocery store to buy just one more kind of fruit or vegetable than you normally would, and see how to incorporate it into a recipe or just eat as is. Do this for a few weeks, and you’ve upped your vitamin and mineral intake.

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