Longtime Fooducate readers know that one our first recommendations for nutrition newbies is to cut down on soda and juice consumption. These are useless, empty calories that cost families loads of money and provide only negative nutritional value. Here are two trending stories on this subject matter.

1. Soda tax directly linked to improved health. The Archives of Internal Medicine published a study by leading obesity researcher Barry Popkin that shows how price changes in various foods affect purchase decisions and ultimately personal health. Raising the price of pizzas and sodas led to a decrease in consumption. But lowering the price of healthy foods had an interesting effect – people used the money they saved on the healthy foods to buy more junk.

2. Sugar is back in vogue. Respected and independent nutrition experts such as Marion Nestle and Michael Jacobson point out that there is no scientific evidence of differences between the way our bodies metabolize high fructose corn syrup and sugar. (Both are equally BAD in the huge quantities we consume).  The Corn Refiners Association has repeatedly tried to assuage consumer fears that HFCS is safe.

And yet, HFCS remains the villain ingredient de-jour.

Brand marketers are quick to respond to consumer phobias, whether justified or not, and an ever growing number of products have now switched to sugar:

Hunt’s ketchup, Gatorade and Wheat Thins are all permanently ditching corn syrup for sugar. Heinz has created a sugar-sweetened version of its iconic ketchup, while Pepsi and Mtn Dew launched limited-time, sugar-sweetened versions of their colas. read more at Ad-Age…

Some brands, like Pepsi and its Mountain Dew, are building entire marketing campaigns around the switch. Others are keeping quiet. It’s a double edged sword – if a brand boasts “real sugar” in some of its products, but the others still contain HFCS, the manufacturer could be hurting its own overall sales.

What you need to know:

Whether sugar, HFCS, or honey – the calorie count is the same. Sweet is fine when you control how much is added. But getting 6-12 teaspoons just by drinking a soda pop is ridiculous. Think about it – would you ever add more than 2-3 teaspoons of sugar to a beverage you manually prepare?

What to do at the supermarket:

Go easy on the soft drinks and save the sweet calories for real candy and desserts. The simplest way to do this is by getting used to skipping the beverage aisles in the supermarket. in 12 months, you’ll save $500 for a family of four.

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Marketing genius or smoke and mirrors? Triscuits, those slightly salty wheat thins,  are being sold with a small surprise inside. No, not a toy from China, rather a small bag filled with … seeds!

Kraft is encouraging its customers to connect with real, natural, local food by no less than growing it at home or at a community garden. Their  “Home Farming” website invites people to join the movement and plant herbs and veggies.

While cynical observers may play this down as a marketing trick by a company famous for processed foods (cheese “products“, anyone?), we think this is a great idea. Getting people to connect to the soil and appreciate the hard work it takes to bring forth food from the land is a wonderful idea, even if the instigator has additional motives.

As for Triscuits themselves, they’re for the most part a better than average snack option in the savory category. Take for example the BAKED WHOLE GRAIN WHEAT ORIGINAL, which has only 3 ingredients – whole wheat flour, vegetable oil, and salt. A serving is only 120 calories, with 1 gram of saturated fat (relatively low) , 3 grams of fiber (very good), and 180mg of sodium (8% of the daily max).

The problem is that a serving size is defined as 28g (one ounce), but people don’t know how many Triscuits that works out to. So how will they know when to stop?

The number, after counting, is 7 Triscuits per serving. SEVEN. That’s a mighty tiny serving, don’t you think?

This before we dress up the Triscuit, for example with some cheese (more saturated fat and calories), as shown in the product package.

What to do at the supermarket:

When looking for savory snacks, check the side panel for important information:

1. How big or tiny is the serving size? Does it represent what you’d normally consume in an “eating event”.
2. Look at the ingredient list to see that it does not contain any surprises such as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (trans fat) or “flavorings”.
3. Read the nutrition facts panel to understand how many calories you’re getting and their breakdown protein/fat/carbs.

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2. It wasn’t until the early 20th century that potato chips expanded from restaurant food and started selling in bags.

3. Flavored chips were born in the 1950’s by a small independent manufacturer who then sold the concept to the larger corporations.

4. As junk food goes, potato chips contain only 3 ingredients (potatoes, oil, salt) and are considered by some nutritionists the lesser of savory evils.

5. Potato chips were sold for over $15B (!!!) last year worldwide. They tally up about one third of all savory snacks.

6. While we call them potato chips, our overseas friends use the word crisps.

7. A single serving of potato chips, 1 ounce, contains only 150 calories, 10 grams of fat and 180mg of salt. That’s less than 10% of the daily calories of most people, about 15% of the fat, and 8% of the maximum sodium intake.

8. Problem is that most people don’t stop at one serving. Honestly, are 11 chips enough for you? People can wolf down 5 times that amount in sitting, dip not included…

9. One of the most popular flavored potato chip varieties is Sour Cream and Onion. Compared to just 3 ingredients in the original version, this one has 20 ingredients including MSG, Palm oil, and artificial colorings.

10. Just in case you were wondering, this national holiday does not appear in congressional records. It’s just another made up holiday by snack food industry marketing geniuses.

What to do at the supermarket:

Potato chips don’t have to be a daily ritual with your lunch sandwich. However, if you do buy them, choose potato chips that have been minimally processed -  Stay with the plain, unflavored chips as they have no additives and colorings. Buy single serve 1 oz. bags of chips so that you won’t be tempted to eat more than one serving at a time.

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Have a happy, safe, and nutritious weekend!

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This is a guest post by Lisa Cain, PhD, a.k.a Snack-Girl

Do you have a food fight with your child after school?

Is he starving because he tossed out his uneaten lunch? Was he  having too much fun in the school cafeteria and simply forgot to eat?

You’re not the only family where this happens. That’s why the after school snacks are tricky – kids are uptight, you haven’t prepared anything special, and the temptation to open up a bag of processed junk is just too high. As a result, afternoon snacks tend to fall into the treat category more than parents would like to admit. Cookies, candy, chips, along with “healthy” packaged snacks like fruit snacks are very common.

A recent study has shown that kids are eating 27% of their daily calories from snacks.  If a third of daily calories are coming from non-meals, parents need to be vigilant about the composition of those snacks.

We all want to ensure our kids don’t get too cranky before dinnertime. But, we should try to feed them something that will feed their brains (homework time!). What can we feed them without a war? Here are 5 afternoon snacks that have promise as peaceful substitutes for unhealthy treats. Replace brownies, potato chips, candy, pizza bites, and ice-cream with these suggestions:
Replace brownies with No bake brownie balls
Replace chips with Ants on a log
Replace candy with Chocolate covered raisins
Replace frozen pizza snacks with the Tiniest and Yummiest Pizzas on the Planet
Replace ice cream with DIY yogurt

Lisa Cain, Ph.D., is an avid snacker, foodie, published author, and mother of 2. An evolutionary biologist by training, she has become obsessed with how food contributes to our overall health. Check out snack girl for other healthy snack ideas.

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In a blow to consumer in the UK, and possibly in the US, The Food Standards Agency (same as our FDA) has decided to back off their proposed traffic light nutrition labeling on the front of food packages. According to the Daily Mail:

The FSA board yesterday supported a plan that will allow food companies to decide for themselves whether they want to use the colour-based system or a number of alternatives.

The net effect is that families will continue to be confronted by a range of confusing nutrition labelling schemes that are difficult to decipher.

Tesco and other leading industry figures have spent millions of pounds trying to kill off traffic light labelling.They have developed alternative schemes which critics insist only serve to confuse customers.

The decision by the FSA is a major climb down by the Government watchdog. Its support for traffic light labels was central to a wider policy to tackle the problem of rising obesity and ill-health. Read more…

What you need to know:

This is an unfortunate happening that is bound to have a ripple effect on our labeling regulations as well. The FDA is getting more aggressive with the food industry’s misleading health claims. The next step would be to create a standard front of pack labeling system that would serve consumers by not only embellishing positive traits of a product, but also warn about high levels of negative nutrients such as sodium, sugar, and saturated fat.

The “problem” with the traffic lights is that they were scaring off customers. People would see one or two reds and decide not to buy a product. That’s why the industry came up with various multicolor solutions where the color itself is meaningless, for example GDA (guideline daily amount).

What to do at the supermarket:

Until the government regulatory bodies figure out how to save us, let’s help ourselves by learning to read nutrition labels and ingredient lists.

(Thanks Greg Miller for the hat tip)

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Inadequate Public Funding and the Sale of Competitive Foods as a Revenue Source

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

First Lady Michelle Obama’s recently launched Let’s Move campaign to reduce childhood obesity has put a spotlight on reforming school food.

The primary reason for the abundance of unhealthy foods in schools is inadequate public funding of school meals and schools in general. Unfortunately, the sale of unhealthy foods, popular among students, is an essential source of revenue for many schools.

Today, most schools are dominated by foods that are high in sugar, fat, and salt. These items—pizza, burgers, French fries, cakes, snack foods, soda, and candy—are sold in cafeterias, vending machines, and school stores. In addition, students sell these foods to raise funds for extra-curricular activities, parents provide them for in-class birthday parties, and teachers give them out as rewards.

Unhealthy Foods in the Cafeteria

School food services sell unhealthy kids’ favorites as a la carte items in the cafeteria to make up for inadequate school meal subsidies. Additionally, they have incorporated them into the subsidized meals themselves in order to avoid losing student participation in the meal program. (The Federal funding is paid per participating child).

Here’s how it works:

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) requires participating schools to provide free and reduced price lunches to all income-eligible students. The NSLP then reimburses schools for every free and reduced price lunch served by the school. In addition to these reimbursements, USDA provides schools an allocation of surplus agricultural commodities, and local school food authorities can make agreements with food companies to either process the commodities into ready-to-serve foods such as pizza or French fries, or exchange the commodities for foods that meet USDA nutrition standards. Meal programs also earn revenues from the purchase of reduced and full price meals.

Federal reimbursements, the savings from surplus commodities, and revenues from reduced and full price meals do not generally cover the operating costs of most school food service programs.  While some states provide additional subsidies, they are inadequate to make up the shortfall.  And many local districts provide no funding at all, expecting food services to be financially independent.

Schools attempt to make up this shortfall by selling food outside of the NSLP on an a la carte basis.  Foods sold to students in school outside of federally-subsidized meal programs are known as “competitive foods.”  Competitive foods range from more nutritious foods such as fruit, salad, and milk to less nutritious foods such as French fries, soda, and candy.  They may be sold by the food service program as a la carte items, by the school administration in vending machines and school stores, or by student groups in fundraisers.

Competitive foods are sold in most schools. A 2005 survey conducted for the USDA found that competitive foods were sold in cafeterias as a la carte items in 75 percent of elementary schools and over 90 percent of middle and high schools and in vending machines in 27 percent of elementary schools, 87 percent of middle and junior high schools, and 98 percent of high schools.[i]

Competitive foods are a source of substantial revenue for many schools. A 2005 United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that many schools generated substantial revenues from the sale of competitive foods.  The GAO estimated that in 2003-2004, thirty percent of all high schools generated more than $125,000 per school from the sale of competitive foods, 27 percent of middle schools generated more than $50,000 per school and 32% of elementary schools generated more than $5,000 per school.[ii]

Revenues from a la carte sales of competitive foods help offset food service operating losses due to inadequate public funding.  The GAO reported that in 2003-2004, twenty percent of food service programs that sold a la carte items made over $125,000 per school, and over 65% made over $25,000.[iii]

But here lies the problem – Revenue from a la carte sales does not help to offset operating losses if it merely shifts students from reimbursable lunches to a la carte items.  In order to cover costs, school lunch programs need to keep up their volume of reimbursable lunches while at the same time generating additional revenue from a la carte sales.  This is what leads schools to offer the popular a la carte items—pizza, burgers, French fries, etc.—in reimbursable school lunches.[iv] Thus, there is an incentive to include less healthy food within NSLP meals while selling it also a la carte.

Unhealthy Foods Sold in Vending Machines, School Stores, and Bake Sales

Outside of the cafeteria, school officials, students, and parents sell less healthy foods for which there is high student demand in order to raise money for school programs that lack adequate public funding, such as sports and arts programs.

Competitive foods sold in vending machines, school stores, and fundraisers provide funds for a wide range of school programs and expenses, including athletic equipment, facilities, and uniforms; arts programs such as band and chorus; student field trips; school assemblies; playground equipment; textbooks and school supplies; library supplies; computer equipment; staff development; student rewards and incentives; scholarships; construction of new facilities, and general school overhead such as facilities and grounds maintenance.  Like school food service directors, school officials, teachers, parents, and students seeking to promote educational programs and fill budget gaps also have incentives to sell competitive foods that appeal to students, and this often means more unhealthy food in schools.

There have been efforts to regulate competitive food in schools. The NSLP regulates a subset of competitive foods known as “foods of minimal nutritional value.”  These are foods that provide less than five percent of the recommended daily intake of any of eight specified nutrients per serving, and NSLP regulations prohibit their sale in foodservice areas during mealtimes.[v] Examples of FMNV include soda, chewing gum, and hard candy.  In addition to federal regulation, by 2003, more than half of the states imposed additional restrictions on competitive foods, and an estimated 60 percent of schools had instituted school-level policies on the sale of competitive foods.[vi] In 2004, Congress mandated that by 2006 every school participating in federally subsidized food programs establish a local wellness policy that includes nutrition guidelines for all foods available on school campuses.[vii] There are indicators that most schools have complied with this requirement; however, it is too early to judge how comprehensive these local wellness policies are or what their impact has been.[viii]

In the meantime, schools continue to sell unhealthy foods to make up for inadequate public funding. Recently, a New York City school policy advisory board voted to overturn a nine-month-old ban on most fund-raising food sales in city schools to allow the sale of popular items like Pop-Tarts and Doritos as well as monthly “no-brownies barred Parent-Teacher Association bake sales.”

While money alone will not be enough to improve school food, without it schools will continue rely on the sale of unhealthy foods as an essential source of revenue.

It is time to put the nation’s money where its children’s mouths are.

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 “An Educational Approach to School Food: Using Nutrition Standards to Promote Healthy Dietary Habits” is available online by clicking here.

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.

For more information, visit his Albany Law School faculty website.

Suggested further reading: Free for All: Fixing School Food in America by Janet Poppendieck.

[ii] Government Accounting Office, School Meal Programs: Competitive Foods are Widely Available and Generate Substantial Revenues for Schools (August 2005), pp. 27-28.

[iii] Ibid., p. 30.

[iv] Janet Poppendieck, Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (University of California Press, 2010), p. 41.

[v] Ralston et al., p. 31.

[vi] Ibid., p. 31.

[vii] Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, Pub. L. No. 108-265, §204, 118 Stat. 729, 780-81 (2004).

[viii] Jamie Chiriqui, et al., Local Wellness Policies: Assessing School District Strategies for Improving Children’s Health (2009), pp. 10, 81.

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A recent survey by Foodminds, a PR firm working with food companies, provides some interesting  stats on the triangular relationship consumer-brand-regulator. Americans clearly welcome increased government involvement in food and nutrition issues, particularly when it comes to labeling. Among the interesting findings:

93% of shoppers ranked the Nutrition Facts panel as a very or somewhat useful tool, followed by front-of-pack information (low fat, high in fiber, etc.) at 88%.

86% of consumers are interested in the government implementing objective  front-of-pack labeling. This includes information about calories and beneficial nutrients.

58% support  government bans of junk food advertising to kids.65% of shoppers reject proposed taxes on junk food and beverages.

64% said if their favorite food had a warning label on it, they would either eat less or stop buying the product entirely.

Wow. That last stat is amazing – almost two thirds of Americans would cut down on their FAVORITE food? And all it needs is a warning label? Seems like wishful thinking, although some will say that severe warnings on Cigarette packs have reduced smoking.

What to do at the supermarket:

You don’t nee warnings on products to know what to stay away from. A quick glance at the ingredient list can tell a lot – the longer it is, the more processed the product and the less nutritiously worthwhile it is. A look at the nutrition facts panel gives you the whole picture. A product may be low-fat but very high in sugar. Now that won’t help you very much will it?

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Yoplait has a new Greek style yogurt out. There’s a massive marketing campaign tie in to the new Clash of the Titans movie and Athena portraying actress Izabella Miko. Strong woman eats good yogurt. Greek gods, Greek Yogurt, Yadda yadda…

The yogurt pack prominently displays “2X Protein..of the leading yogurt”. Wonder what that means. We decided to take a look inside the nutrition label and ingredient list to see if this yogurt is really healthy or just some more mythology…

What you need to know:

A serving is 6 ounces (170 grams) and will set you back 130 calories, none from fat. The sugar count is 18 grams, much lower than a standard Yoplait Strawberry Yogurt (27 grams). Of the 18 grams, 9 are naturally present in yogurt in the form of lactose. So the added sugar count is 9 grams or just over 2 teaspoons.

There’s no fiber, though you’d expect some from the fruit. There’s 12 grams of protein here, much more than in the standard Yoplait (5 grams). But protein is not an ingredient most people lack in the US. We get plenty of protein from other sources during the day. And the claim that it’s twice the protein as other leading brands is misleading, because Chobani Greek yogurt has 14g.

Here’s the ingredient list:

CULTURED PASTEURIZED GRADE A NONFAT MILK, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SUGAR, STRAWBERRY PUREE, KOSHER GELATIN, LEMON JUICE CONCENTRATE, COLORED WITH BEET JUICE CONCENTRATE, CALCIUM CHLORIDE, , VITAMIN A ACETATE, VITAMIN D₃.

The first and obvious ingredient is milk. Non-fat milk in this case. The second is an ingredient called milk protein concentrate, made by ultra filtering milk to take out the lactose and then dry it up into a powder. There’s a lot of controversy around this ingredient as it is mostly imported from countries with dubious food safety records, and may not even be from cows (think yak and water buffalo). So why add protein in this manner to the yogurt, when in any case it’s not something consumers really need?

Ingredient number 3 and 4 are sugar. Well actually number 4 is strawberry puree, but it’s lost all its fiber and vitamin C, so all you’re getting is a bit of strawberry flavor and a lot of sugar. By the way, the strawberry puree is not red enough, so there is added coloring from the beet juice concentrate. That’s fine, at least it is a natural colorant, and not some artificial dye or bug juice.

The gelatin adds a thickness or consistency that would not have been required from a full fat yogurt. It’s kosher, which means it was not derived from animal sources.[UPDATE: see comment below]

The last three ingredients are fortifications of calcium, vitamin A, and vitamin D. Always better to get them directly from food in which they are naturally present, not from add-on.

Summary: This yogurt is a better choice than the standard Yoplait option.

What to do at the supermarket:

As far as yogurts go, choose plain. It has less ingredients and less sugar. It lets you add fresh nutrient rich fruit of your choice giving you the added benefit of fiber and vitamins directly from the source, no fortifications.

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European researchers are worried about antimony, a toxic chemical element, appearing at possibly unsafe levels in various juice brands:

Writing in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring, scientists at the University of Copenhagen studied antimony levels in 42 juice drinks and found antimony concentrations above EU limits for drinking water in eight of them.

This discovery is of concern to the soft drinks industry because antimony is a suspected carcinogen that resembles arsenic on a chemical level. read more…

What you need to know:

Antimony is a toxic chemical element. In small doses, it can cause headaches, dizziness, and depression. Larger doses can lead to violent and frequent vomiting, and death in a few days.

So how does antimony get into juice drinks? The answer may lie in the containers, not the liquid itself.  Antimony leaches from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles into liquids stored within.

And why, dear lord, one asks, is a toxin used in food bottles?

Turns out that antimony is used as a catalyst in the production of plastic bottles. Despite it’s role solely as a facilitator of a chemical reaction, there’s always a minuscule bit of antimony that is left over in the resulting bottle.

There are strict standards as to how much antimony is allowed in water to be considered safe. In the US it’s 6 part per billion (ppb). In the EU – 5 ppb. But this is a definition for water in general. There are no standards specifically for bottled juices.

The British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) responded to the study claiming that the 44 ppb found in several bottles does not mean they’re unsafe, as

“there is no read across between the levels of antimony permitted in drinking water and those that might be acceptable in a fruit juice or a juice drink. It is not uncommon that different product types should have different regulatory requirements.”

What to do at the supermarket:

Another reason to fret about buying and consuming plastic bottled drinks? Not really.

We wouldn’t put antimony at the top of our list of worries. There are plenty of other good reasons to switch to tap water, including weight lost, money saved, and planet greened.

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