It’s another Friday!. Here is my commentary on 5 interesting nutrition related news of the week.
Water! Could it be the answer to childhood obesity?
In this very interesting study, researchers in Germany considered the effect of installing drinking water fountains and classroom lessons about benefits of water on preventing obesity among 2nd and 3rd graders in 32 elementary schools. The risk of being overweight was reduced by 31% in the group that got the water fountains and the lessons compared to those who did not. Water consumption was higher in this group, although the juice consumption in the two groups was similar. Body Mass Index (BMI) was also not different at the end of the study.
I think the idea is neat, although I do not fully agree with the conclusion that this type of intervention is effective in prevention of overweight. Encouraging children to drink more water instead of juice or other sugary drinks is definitely good idea but not the only factor in preventing obesity.
How do you get your toddler to drink more water instead of juice?
Now they will tell you what are “good” and “bad” foods
I recently discovered a great blog called Nutrition Unplugged written by a dietitian who discusses nutrition and food trends in a very simple, intelligent way. A recent post on this blog talks about a hot new trend called nutrition profiling which attempts to put foods into good and bad categories. The idea is simple – give consumers an easy-to-understand nutritional information label on the front-of-the box so they can quickly decide if they should be eating that food or not. There are already many different labels of this type becoming popular – I have written about Kellogg’s nutrition-at-a-glance label and a traffic light system of food labeling. Then there is the Nuval system which gives you a simple score between 1 and 100; higher score suggesting more healthy.
I am all for simplified food labeling. It is clear to me that the standard nutritional information label is not working for a majority of people. No one has time to read and understand the information, much less use it to compare different foods. Still, I worry about so many different types of so-called simple labeling systems getting out there without any standards or industry consensus. This will surely create a lot of confusion. Also the possibility of manipulating consumer choice by clever marketing is quite real. I am not suggesting more regulation by the government, but the food processing industry should quickly come to a common consensus. They should present data in a simple, objective way and stay away from implying “good” or “bad” by other subliminal messages on the box. Consumers are smart enough to make their own decisions!
First peanuts, now pistachios – when will this stop?
Even though the media has forgotten about it, I hope you still remember the recent Salmonella outbreak from the peanut factory in Georgia. Now there is news that a California company is recalling over a million pounds of pistachios due to a possible Salmonella contamination. Of course, this is much preferred to contaminated product going on the shelves and making people sick. But the question is how come our so-called modern food processing plants cannot keep Salmonella out! Turns out that the companies are not even required to inform the FDA in case of a suspected contamination. It is only after the fact when people get sick that the FDA launches an investigation. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all tried to prevent these incidents from happening in the first place? Will more regulation or oversight by the FDA solve this problem? What do you think?
Consumers are taking the fizz out of soda sales
In an encouraging trend, a lot of people are opting out of regular soda in favor of diet or other non-carbonated drinks. According to this story, number of people choosing regular soda fell by 15.6 million in 2008 compared to the 2003 number. I am pleased to realize that I am one of those 15.6 million! I would love to see a similar trend in potato chips and fries. Bottled water and energy drinks are increasingly the beverages of choice. This data is based on a survey of adults; it would be interesting to see if the same holds true for teens too.
Tropicana introduces Trop50 – Don’t fall for the hype
Fooducate, another favorite blog of mine, has an interesting commentary on a new “innovation” from Tropicana called Trop50. It is based on stevia and claims to provide the “orange juice goodness with 50% less sugar and calories”. In simple terms, it is diluted orange juice with a new sweetner; so I am not impressed by this so called breakthrough innovation!
Don’t get me wrong – we do like Tropicana, and use their vitamin D and calcium fortified orange juice regularly. It does contain sugar (fructose from the fruit) so we do watch the total amount our twins drink each day. We even came up with this idea of frozen OJ “ice cream” that the twins were crazy about for quite some time. But this new product seems a gimmick with a new marketing twist. If I were you, I would not pay a “100% price for 42% juice”. What do you think?
Enjoy your weekend!
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