Weighty Matters

Gadget Review: T-Fal Actifry Family Not So Deep Fryer

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Full disclosure: Was provided with a free tester from T-Fal

You know I wasn't always interested in nutrition. In fact I once couldn't have cared less about nutrition which might help to explain why I literally buried two deep fryers consequent to using them so often that they died and it was only at the insistence of my now-wife, then girlfriend, that I didn't replace the second one.

That is not until my parents bought me a T-Fal Actifry (which I reviewed way back when) for a birthday gift.

The premise is simple. It heats up real hot, has a rotating stirring arm, and consequently allows you to "fry" using just a small amount of cooking oil and in so doing, keep calories lower. Think of it like a self stirring wok of sorts.

Well T-Fal's been active and they've made a few newer units. One has dual cooking levels allowing you to cook multiple dishes at once and then there's the one I've been test driving which is a newer and much larger version of mine named the T-Fal Actifry Family (a good thing as my family is newer and larger than when I was gifted that first unit).

This time around I was determined to try to cook more than simply fries as while the unit truly puts baked oven fries to shame (just don't expect them to be as sinfully delicious as genuinely deep fried versions), at $250 a unit, that's an expensive french fry maker.

So I tried a bunch of dishes. I made my girls fried bananas, made some sloppy joes, fried up some chicken wings and drumsticks, and made homemade chicken shawarma.

From that batch I had 3 misses and one home run.

The bananas simply squished too much and the girls didn't find them particularly flavourful. The sloppy joes were a disaster. The turning arm isn't capable of breaking up ground meat so I ended up breaking it up by hand. It also wasn't able to stir together the various liquid ingredients as I added them. It also cooked unevenly with the meat nearest the centre burning some. The chicken was alright, but don't expect to leave the skin on as even if you do, the machine will strip it off during cooking - that said the meat was cooked evenly and was moist - but I'll stick with oven broiling.

The home run was the shawarma. The recipe is here but instead of the cumin, nutmeg and cardamom I followed the recipe for the Ras el Hanout from Epicurious for the spicing (the cookbook that came with the fryer called for Ras el Hanout which is how/why I looked it up). We coupled the recipe with homemade hummus and homemade pita and Israeli salad and the result was a unanimous keeper - from my visiting grandmother-in-law to my tiny kids, we all loved it.

At the end of the day I can wholeheartedly recommend the T-Fal Actifry as an awesome gift, and the family unit is really quite large - more than large enough to handle fries for everyone or a dinner stir fry.

I just wish the price were low enough that I could recommend it as a personal purchase - as it is, it's simply too expensive.

Is Home Cooking Really the Mount Everest of Parenthood?

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

nonplussed by NYTimes column: "we'll cook our own meals for a week!" makes it sound like climbing Everest. http://t.co/yJeNGseYGE
— Maryn McKenna (@marynmck) June 16, 2013

That's the very appropriate question in a sense being asked by author and journalist Maryn McKenna in response to a recent piece in the New York Times' Motherlode column where KJ Dell'Antonia, inspired by the work of folks like Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman, vowed to, for one whole week, eschew processed in place of home cooked.

I wholeheartedly agree with Maryn - the fact that one week of home cooking is seen as sufficiently challenging to warrant a New York Times Motherlode column is proof positive that when it comes to healthy living, society is well and fully broken.

Bring back home economics!

Parental "No" Files: Historical Landmarks Edition (you gotta see this to believe it)

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Everything that's wrong with society's constant need to shower kids with sugar encapsulated in one ad,

"During the War of 1812 young kids entered Fort York full of courage strength and pride. This weekend they'll leave full of cookies, cake and candy"

Worse than the event itself is the fact that its establishment likely didn't give anyone at the Fort York Foundation even a moment's pause - that's how normalized this practice has become.

[Thanks to Family Food Project's Edie Shaw-Ewald and blog reader Christine Hepburn for both taking the time to send me copies.]

Saturday Stories: Photoshop, Soda Bans and Darwin

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Photo from Civil Eats' piece linked below

A photo collection of celebrities before and after Photoshop. (Make sure you scroll right to the end to see Taylor Lautner's shot.)

Kristin Wartman on Civil Eats with a piece on soda and freedom that observes, "When Beyoncé tells us what to drink we listen; when Bloomberg does, there’s outrage."

An oldie but a goodie - Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins' open letter to Prince Charles in which he dances with Darwin. My favourite line of the piece has to be this one, "It may sound paradoxical, but if we want to sustain the planet into the future, the first thing we must do is stop taking advice from nature. Nature is a short-term Darwinian profiteer."

[And if you don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here's my more recent US News and World Report piece on whether or not we really need to refuel kids after "exercise"]

Ever Wonder What Dogs Think?

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Ze Frank does.

And today's Funny Friday are his thoughts therein in Sad Dog Diaries.

Have a great weekend!

(Email subscribers, head to the blog to watch)

Gadget Review: My Month with BodyMedia's LINK Armband

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

My past 28 days of use summary

A month ago the kind folks from BodyMedia sent me one of their LINK armbands to test drive. I was excited as I'm clearly into collecting and quantifying data - for instance I haven't missed an entry in my food diary for over 2 years and regularly log my workouts on Fitocracy.

I was curious to see if having access to real time activity data would change my own exercise behaviours.

For me the short answer is probably not. I did love the information I got from the LINK, I checked it regularly, but more to see how much I'd done rather than to push myself to do more. I also questioned the data some.

As far as what the LINK tracks it covers calories it thinks you burned, calories you tell it you ate, how long it thinks you were moderately or vigorously active, how many steps it thinks you took and how long it thinks you slept.

My iPhone summary for a particularly active day....and then the chicken wings got me

The LINK armband (it's the one the The Biggest Loser contestants use) sits just above your bicep via a stretchy band with a velcro fastening. It's not water proof so you've got to take it off in the shower and the band does get sweaty with vigorous workouts (but is washable). The other issue I had with it was as a shirt and tie wearing guy. I found it tough to put back on without taking off my shirt.

Tough to put on without taking off shirt

I have to admit, I notice wearing it. When I loosen it to the point of not feeling it periodically I will lose the connection to my arm (it sounds a few notes to say it's signing off) and keeping it tight I definitely feel it all day long and every once and a while the area in contact with the skin gets a bit itchy.

Following the data is easy if you have a Bluetooth enabled Smartphone whereby you simply press a button on the armband and your data will then stream live to your phone. You can also use your phone to upload your data to the website tracker.

Food wise I'm not using their food diary. Instead the LINK syncs with myfitnesspal (my current tracker) which is quite convenient. What I don't find convenient however is that communication is two way in that the LINK tells myfitnesspal that I've burned calories and myfitnesspal then tries to tell me to eat more to make up for them. For folks using a LINK in the context of weight management, this may well inspire, "because I exercised" over-indulgences.

As far as the data's accuracy, I personally think it's overestimating some. While I do workout an average of 4-6x weekly, I'm convinced it sometimes tracks my typing as activity. Apparently I'm not the only one thinking this way as Gretchen Reynold's NYTs piece yesterday speaking to the accuracy of a whole pile of these sorts of monitors references the armband that overestimated typing too.

The price for the unit seems quite fair in and around $100 depending on the retailer, but I am a bit surprised by the monthly fee for the website and app. My understanding is that the website will only provide you with very basic information without a subscription while the app won't work at all. Given the now highly competitive landscape of exercise trackers, and with this one being slightly less wieldy consequent to the armband (rather than a bracelet or something pocketable), I'd expect they'd be better off throwing in as many free bells and whistles as possible.

All in all I'm not sure if this gets my buy recommendation. I say I'm not sure because to be fair, I haven't tried out any other trackers. I think I'd be more comfortable recommending if it weren't for the subscription fees as all of my other complains and issues were minor.

That's my month long data summary up above - now if someone could just teach me how to sleep better.

Is Coca-Cola's Latest Calorie Dictionary Ad Purposely Deceptive?

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

You be the judge.

Below is the embedded copy of Coca-Cola's most recent anti-obesity advertisement. It's called, "Calorie Dictionary".

Watching Calorie Dictionary the inference is that it's incredibly easy to burn off the calories of a Coke.

They show various activities and then their apparent calorie counts. They also, at the beginning, note that the calorie values are for 5 minutes of the activity shown. Clearly though Coca-Cola expects the brief mention of 5 minutes to be forgotten as the bulk of their portrayed activities in real life are only momentary, like hugging a friend, falling, jumping out of a tree, or zipping up a dress which according to Coca-Cola respectively burn 7, 18, 11 and 12 calories. Seems to me that the message Coca-Cola is trying to hammer home is that calories are way easier to burn than you thought and that if you just move a teeny little bit, you can easily burn off their sugar water. Too bad it's not a truthful one.

According to the commercial if you spend 50 minutes (divided into 5 minute blocks) hugging people, swinging a sledgehammer, climbing fences, falling off mechanical bulls, jumping out of trees, running, shouting, lifting young children onto your back, diving to the ground, and zipping up a dress then you too will burn the number of calories you'd find in a 13.5 oz bottle of Coca-Cola.

Such nonsense, and more to the point, want to know what's way easier? Not drinking them.

(And if you wanted to burn off the much more ubiquitous 20oz bottle you'll need to combine 75 minutes worth of 7.5 minute blocks of those same ridiculous examples.)

So what say you? Purposely deceptive or a helpful part of the "solution"?

Could Truly Terrifying Rise in Anti-psychotic Meds for Children be Fueling Childhood Obesity?

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Of all of the drug related causes of obesity out there perhaps none is more powerful than the gain associated with anti-psychotics. In adults gains of literally dozens of pounds are regularly seen.

A recent story by Postmedia's Sharon Kirkey on a new study out of BC to be published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry reports that in Canada, despite a total lack of evidence suggesting their safety in children (and moreover an almost total lack of studies involving children at all), since just 1996 second generation child anti-psychotic use has quadrupled.

While there's no singular cause for obesity, for children prescribed these meds obesity may come close to an inevitability. If your young child is currently on anti-psychotic meds, especially if they're on them for sleep, please consider making an appointment with your prescriber to discuss if there aren't in fact alternatives available.

Parental "No" Files: High School Track Meets

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Today's guest post comes from University of Manitoba's Dr. Joyce Slater who last week dropped her 14 year old son off at a high school track meet. Judging from her email if you want your kids eating healthfully you'll either need to say "No" you can't go to the meet, or pack a lunch.

Hi Yoni - here’s another one from the “children’s foodscape”.

This morning I dropped my son off at his track meet and as we were entering the field, I noticed the “buffet” set up for the kids for the day.

The picture’s not great, but it does show the large chip display behind the sport drinks and 500ml+ juices. The red bucket had the traditional soft drinks, and on the far left were large chocolate milks. And yes, there was a flat of water bottles. Mains were “hotdogs” and “cheese dogs”. Desserts were chocolate bars, gummy candies and a cooler of cream “treats” (dairy group!!).

I expressed my dismay to which my son said “but there’s fruit and water!” I said that tiny bowl of fruit in the centre is dwarfed by all the other junk, and its main purpose is to say “hey, we have some healthy food so we’re covered off!” - to which he agreed. He also said he didn’t want the water because it was a waste of plastic. He did, however, work me down to a plain hotdog (he wanted the cheese dog - at 9:30 a.m.!)

Now, I’m not volunteering at the snack stand, and I applaud any busy parent or teacher who gives their time in the community for things my children benefit from. But talk about a mixed message we are giving our kids! Manitoba has one of the most progressive school nutrition policies in the country - guess it doesn’t apply to school track meets.

Joyce Slater
Winnipeg

Saturday Stories: Cancer, Paleo, Cardboard Boxes and a Must Read

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Reuters health report Debra Sherman was recently diagnosed with terminal stage 4 lung cancer. She's started a blog to discuss her experiences.

Lots of folks questioning the paleo narrative lately - here's an interesting piece from Scientific American. (Of course even were the narrative totally BS, I'd venture most folks' paleo diets are exceedingly healthful given the emphasis on actual cooking.)

The BBC explains why Finnish babies sleep in cardboard boxes (and perhaps why they have one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world).

A must read by Kasey Edwards, "When your mother says she's fat"

I Dare You Not to Love this Video

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Today's Funny Friday is the greatest cover ever of the Beatles' Don't Let Me Down.

Have a great weekend!

(email subscribers head to the blog to watch)

Yesterday the Pope Blessed the Clean Your Plate Club

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Yup.

Yesterday Pope Francis made the case for the preservation of one of the unhealthiest clubs around - the clean your plate club - saying that, "throwing away food is like stealing from the table of those who are poor and hungry".

Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but I sure wish he'd have asked people to serve and make do with less food rather than bless the consumption of whatever's on your plate simply because it's there. Given this day and age's portion sizes eating what's there will be more likely to have us treating our bodies like dumpsters than temples.

I know Pope's are supposed to be infallible, but being Jewish I'm quite comfortable doubting (and encouraging you to ignore) this particular message.

Food Frequency Questionnaires Suck Say Who's Who of Obesity Researchers

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Hot off the heels of my blog post about giant pears, last week a letter to the editor of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition was published. It was signed by some very familiar names in obesity research and its title is also its summary, "Self-report-based estimates of energy intake offer an inadequate basis for scientific conclusions".

The letter was triggered by a recently reported and heavily publicized study that suggested energy intake has decreased significantly since 2003-2004 - with an average reported decrease of 98 cals/day. The letter's authors note that the data used to come up with the exciting decrease has been shown to be flawed before, and moreover, that it would appear as if bias in reporting of energy intake may be increasing (perhaps due to increased attention and bias versus those with obesity). They also note that were it in fact true the population ought to have lost an average of nearly 8lbs since 2003.

Their final conclusion is firm and one I agree with in regard to studies designed to look at ways to prevent or treat obesity,

"Going forward we should accept that self reported energy intake is fatally flawed and we should stop publishing inaccurate and misleading energy intake data."

Signed,

Dale Schoeller
Steven Blair
Steven Heymsfield
David Allison
James Hill
Richard Atkinson
Barbara Corkey
Nikhil Dhurandhar
Eric Ravussin
Kevin Hall
John Kral
John Foreyt
Diana Thomas
Edward Archer
Michael Goran
Berit Heitmann
Barbara Hansen

[And for good measure, up above is another of my collection of photos of gigantic fruit - this time a 10oz plum bigger than an apple.]

Did You Hear the One About the McDonald's CEO Losing Weight Eating McDonald's Everyday?

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Yeah, I did too and that's him up above.

His 20lbs McDonald's fueled weight loss has been all over the news.

But here's the thing. At the end of the day if the bioavailable calories you consume are less than those that you burn you lose.

The fact weight can be lost eating at McDonald’s everyday is not news, but the fact that the news is covering it is. What the coverage suggests is that the world still doesn’t understand weight management because if it did there wouldn’t be news stories on the guy who ate fewer calories than he burned and lost weight.

1.5 Trillion Calories!

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

According to press releases and nonsensically breathless articles like this one out of Forbes, last week's announcement from the food industry that they'd removed 1.5 trillion calories from the food supply was huge.

But is it?

When broken down by person it amounts to 14 fewer calories purchased per person per day last year from vending machines, convenience stores, drug stores, grocery stores, supermarkets and mass merchants.

And that's not a bad thing and were it truly consequent to the food industry shaving calories off their products it'd certainly be worth our giving them a gentle pat on the back, but I guess I'm stuck trying to understand both the market forces that may have led to the reduction, as well as whether or not the reduction occurred despite the food industry's best efforts, not because of them.

Could the reduction not simply reflect shifting societal attitudes and norms and in fact have occurred despite the food industry's persistent, tenacious, merciless and at times deceitful and ethically questionable marketing of salt, sugar and fat?

I'm curious too to see the independent non-industry analysis of these results which is currently being undertaken by Dr. Barry Popkin and his colleagues.

All that said, 14 fewer calories per day aren't likely to take us too far given that estimates suggest we're eating 500 more calories per person per day since the early 1970s. Still plenty of work to do on the remaining 486.

Saturday Stories: Drug Edition! Oxycontin, Cocaine and Coca-Cola

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 09:30:00 +0000

No doubt one of my favourite TV shows of all time was The Wire, a David Simon series on drug culture and policing in Baltimore. In this great piece on The Raw Story he "eviscerates the dystopia creating war on drugs".

A fascinating (long) piece from the New York Times on how cocaine overlords make money.

And today's truly must read piece from Human Journalism, The “Coca-Colization” of Mexico, the Spark of Obesity (and they have the gall to say they're working hard to be part of obesity's solution)

For my Ottawa readers - CHEO is conducting a study to validate a new kids food menu. If you've got (or are) a kid between the ages of 10-17 and want more details, click here.

[And if you don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here's this week's US News and World Report column on which you should treat first - weight or depression as well as a brief piece I did in support of a talk I'll be giving in Vermont...this on the world's unwitting sugar soldiers]

Brilliant Burger King Advertisement Unveils Hands Free Personal Trough

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Fri, 31 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Sorry to advertise for Burger King....but this ad must be shared and Funny Friday's definitely the day to share it.

Have a great weekend!

(email subscribers head to the blog to watch)

[Hat tip to friend and blog reader Jesse Elliot]

Badvertising: Cookies, They're Not Just for Breakfast Anymore (Bear Paws Morning Snack)

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Thu, 30 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Today's is a guest posted Badvertising example found by Toronto dietitian and fellow public health crusader Rebecca Davids.

I've blogged in the past about breakfast cookies - and with Dare's Bear Paws Morning Snack cookies can now claim their rightful role as snack food too.

Wonder when I'll be blogging about the world's first dinner cookie?

Hi Yoni -

Have you seen this yet?

They're Bear Paws - "Morning Snack" - and yes, this is actually what they are calling the cookie with a 'yogurt' filling. Funny, I usually like my yogurt from the fridge, not packaged between sugar, more sugar and processed flour.

Apparently, the kids in the commercial (and by default, all kids) need a cookie snack to 'keep them going" in the morning because they like to play. Parents should 'feed the fun'

Feed the fun?? Seriously??

Very interesting focus on the morning snack as well - I'll say when my kids were in kindergarten, their teachers used to make kids eat their "healthy" snack in the morning and save their "junky" snack for the afternoon. Notice how the assumption was all kids showed up with a 'junky' snack... but I digress. I'm just dismayed at the additional level of up-marketing this product to the level of a 'healthy, morning snack". I see how that will feed right into a parents desire to give their kid 'healthier' versions of snack foods.

OK - enough rant from me.

Best,

Rebecca Davids, MSc, RD

PS - An interesting addendum as we were discussing this product at an RD meeting yesterday. A dietitian mentioned that she's seen these products pop up on child care menus at morning snack. Unfortunately, Dare's marketing tactics seem to be working.

For those keeping score, even Dare thinks they're cookies as that's what they're calling them on their nutrition facts panel online:

And if you really want to see awful, check out this frankenfood's commercial:

If the Food Industry Supports it, Your Public Health Intervention Likely Needs Work

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Wed, 29 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Photo from McDonald's website highlighting last year's McHappy Day to support Ronald McDonald House

You can pretty much rest assured that your public health intervention is weak if the food industry thinks it's a great idea and throws its support or backing behind it.

Cases in point.

A few weeks ago I was part of a round table discussion on public private partnerships between the food industry and public health. With me on the panel was Mr. Richard Ellis who in turn is McDonald's Canada's Senior VP of Communications, Public Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility.

I've embedded his few minute speech below, but for me his highlights were the public health interventions he reports McDonald's strongly supports that presumably are also proof positive for him that food industry partnerships serve the public good "in pursuit of a common goal".

Let's go through the public health partnerships championed by McDonald's and reported by Mr. Ellis one by one:

1. The Building Trust Initiative

The Building Trust Initiative as put forth by Canada's Institutes of Health Research was straightforward. Their aim was to literally build "trust" between the public health sector and the private sector. I did not participate in a primary workshop, but I did attend a brief conference based session and can tell you there was a clear and wholly unhidden agenda. The Building Trust workshops weren't designed to suss out whether trust was deserved or useful to public health, but rather were workshops truly designed to find means to inspire and cultivate trust.

Mr. Ellis, in his presentation, explained what was valuable to him personally consequent to the Building Trust workshops. He reports having been able to, "build a lot of great relationships", and reported that "when we meet each other as individuals we look beyond the brand and we see that we're all caring people who want to facilitate some broader system change".

And those relationships are precisely what's in it for the food industry.

By building personal relationships suddenly when faced with industry unfriendly considerations public health folks may find it more difficult to be vocal which in turn benefits industry and may help to protect sales. I experienced this phenomenon personally and I blogged about it regarding a meeting I once had with David Moran, a very nice and seemingly sincere man who at the time was also Coca-Cola Canada's Director of Public Relations.

2. The %DV Program

When it was launched I refered to the %DV program as, "the most useless nutrition campaign in history".

Briefly the campaign promotes nutritionism. It explicitly encourages Canadians to look at nutrition facts panels and decide if a food is a good choice or not on the basis of what percentage of a very limited number of nutrients are in a food.

The campaign undermines efforts at more rigorous nutrition fact panel reform and plays right into a food industry that likes to sell food on the basis of health halos which suggest because of the presence or absence of a particular nutrient suddenly the food is a healthful choice.

[I notice for instance McDonald's now has the number of grams of whole grains listed on their sandwich boxes as if to suggest your sandwich choices there are always wise ones.]

3. The Sandbox Project

According to the industry supported and included Sandbox Project their mission is to,

"provide the leadership to act as a catalyst for change in Canada. We will work directly with parents, business, health industry leaders, governments and non-governmental organizations to raise awareness, pursue research, collaborate to develop solutions and better public policy."

And while the project is young their recent response to Ontario's Healthy Kids Working Group suggests a very industry friendly agenda.

Included in their response is their assertion that the medical literature reports providing children with health education causes harm, that the panel's concerns regarding the rising weights of children is unfounded, that the report's emphasis on the food industry's marketing to children was overdone, and that the time to act is not now.

4. British Columbia's Informed Dining Program

Simply put the Informed Dining program is a farce that provides people with permission to eat out. It involves restaurants signing on to hand out detailed nutritional information to consumers who ask (or hanging up large detailed posters) and currently the National Restaurant Association is using the existence of this program as a means to try to prevent the legislation of calorie postings on menu boards.

The fact is no one uses pamphlets. Really. Pretty much no one. One study conducted in 2011 tracked 4,311 consecutive patrons of McDonald's, Burger King, Au Bon Pain and Starbucks where information pamphlets, kiosks and posters were available. 6 customers out of 4,311 used them.

Canadians eat out far too often. Providing them with permission to do so and ensuring they don't in fact utilize information is for the food industry what Informed Dining is all about - that and forestalling the legislated posting of menu board calories.

5. Ronald McDonald House

There's no denying that Ronald McDonald House provides wonderful services to those who use it. There's also no denying that it serves McDonald's as a tremendous goodwill generator and more to the point of this piece as a means to market food to children, to introduce children to the good deeds of McDonald's, to provide a reason to eat at McDonald's, and to create incredible and fierce brand loyalty.

Looking at these five reported interventions as examples - sometimes food industry public health partnerships will involve programs that directly increase sales or improve brand loyalty (Ronald McDonald House), sometimes partnerships will put a public face on a corporate entity and in turn may well soften criticisms (Building Trust Initiative), sometimes partnerships will promote messages which in turn might serve to help to protect sales (The Sandbox Project), sometimes partnerships will serve to deflect potentially industry negative legislative efforts (Informed Dining), and sometimes partnerships will serve to or to foment industry friendly confusion or obfuscation (%DV).

And I want to be clear here. I don't think publicly funded corporations are evil. To be evil would require a corporation to have the luxury of pursuing ideals regardless of balance sheet impacts and that's a luxury corporations simply do not have. If profits and health collide I've got great faith that the food industry will lend a hand.

At the end of the day here's a truth.

A public corporation cannot invest in a program or intervention that in turn would ultimately serve to decrease sales more than not being involved in that same intervention. Doing so would not only be an affront to their shareholders, it'd be grounds for their lawsuits.

Mr. Ellis seems like a genuinely nice man with real concerns for the well being of others. McDonald's seems like a genuinely profitable publicly funded corporation with real concerns for the well being of its balance sheet.

Don't confuse one for the other.

[I left out discussion of McDonald's involvement with the WWF out of this post as I don't feel sufficiently informed therein to comment with any authority]

Taken 36 Years Apart - 2 Different But Equally Disturbing NASCAR Photos.

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Tue, 28 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

1975

2011

Discount GoodLife Gym Chain Fit 4 Less Offers Free Workout and What?

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Mon, 27 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Pizza.

Thanks to Tosha Rhodenizer, YMCA vice-president of health, fitness and recreation for sending this craziness my way.

Wondering if it's a local one-of or a chain wide inanity?

Either way, someone out there seems a bit confused, no?

Saturday Stories: Psychiatry, Abercrombie and Fitch, and Big Food

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Sat, 25 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Maia Svalavitz in Time Magazine with a brave and personal discussion of psychiatry's new diagnostic bible.

The Militant Baker and her open letter to the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch along with some brilliant photographs.

A great piece by Patrick Mustain in Scientific American, "Dear American Consumers: Please Don’t Start Eating Healthfully. Sincerely, the Food Industry"

A bonus piece: If you want your heart to warm some and to be proud of at least two of your fellow human beings, read this. I mean it. Read it.

[And if you don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook, here's my quick 6 minute "Nay" in opposition to public private partnerships between public health and the food industry as it played out a few weeks ago at the Canadian Obesity Network Summit]

Guessing There's Not a Mom on Earth Who Wouldn't Want Their Husbands To Try This

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Fri, 24 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Giving birth.

Or at least trying out a labour pain simulator.

And that's today's Funny Friday.

Have a great weekend!

(email subscribers head to the blog to watch)

An Open Letter to All Science Bloggers, Tweeps and Facebookers

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

Photo by Will Lyon, Via Flickr

Dear Colleagues,

That photo up above? That's the state of information on the internet. And us? With our tweets, blog posts and Facebook updates, we're effectively our readerships' valves where our jobs are to turn the torrent into something drinkable.

And being a valve I think comes with a simple obligation.

Before we tweet, post or update with links to, or commentary on, a press release, newspaper article or scientific abstract, I think it's our valvular duty to our readers and followers to read the source story's actual study and evaluate it critically to determine whether or not we're publicizing worthwhile information.

Sadly - and at times we're all guilty of this - many readers and followers don't get past the headline, or the 140 characters, or the update, let alone even make it through a story's first paragraph, and I'd venture nearly none pull and read the source study. Instead they take our link, retweet, or update as confirmation that we agree with the piece and feel that the study was a valuable addition to the literature, and as you all know, despite the existence of peer review, simple publication by no means guarantees quality.

And I know it's incredibly tempting to retweet a press release, news story or a blog post about a study that neatly confirms our own confirmation biases, but please, before we do, it's that much more important for us to first read the actual study and evaluate it just as critically (if not more so) as we would those studies that don't complement our own personal beliefs and narratives.

Now I'm not suggesting that we all have to come to the same conclusions, nor that we're all going to do a bang up job in our critical appraisals, I'm just suggesting that we owe it to our readers to ensure that the information we provide is information that we've personally and carefully curated (or at the very, very, least disclose right off the bat we haven't actually read or evaluated the study at hand).

The fact of the matter is, people follow our work because they trust us and it's up to us to ensure that we're deserving of that trust.

Simply put, you've got to read it before you tweet it.

(P.S. - because this blog post doesn't in fact refer to a particular study, please feel free to share it far and wide without the need for further review)

Warmly,
Yoni Freedhoff

Why This Pear Makes Me Wary of Food Frequency Questionnaires

yonifreedhoff@gmail.com (Yoni Freedhoff) — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:30:00 +0000

I'm skeptical of food frequency questionnaires.

For those of you who don't know what they are, an FFQ serves in many research studies as the underpinnings of diet history whereby research subjects recall what they've eaten which serves as the basis for the diet aspect of the study at hand.

That pear up above?

It wasn't an exotic variety - it was a Bartlett. It weighed 0.9lbs (60% more than a "large" pear is supposed to) and contained more calories than a Mars bar.

I've also had oranges larger than grapefruits, plums larger than apples, and grapes the size of golf balls.

Coupling the facts that we often forget what we've consumed, that our eyes are terrible scales, and that food has grown dramatically over the years (even foods like fruits), I can't help but question the veracity of FFQs.

Has made me wonder whether or not a photo diary to go along with an FFQ would reduce error.

Might make for a good study.