Five for Fridays - Aug 21, 2009

Hello everyone! Can’t believe summer is almost over and it is back-to-school time. Hopefully you are all set with your back to school shopping and preparations. Good luck and be safe in the first week of crazy school traffic!

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another Five for Fridays! Here are 5 interesting nutrition stories of the week that caught my eye. Enjoy and drop a comment to let me know what’s on your mind.

Overloaded with information Canadians find barriers to healthful eating

The 9th Annual National Report Card on Health Care from the Canadian Medical Association has some interesting insights into barriers to healthful eating. Over 90% of the respondents to a survey believed that healthy eating can greatly reduce the health problems associated with aging. But nearly 3 in 4 thought that healthy food products cost too much. About half thought there is an information overload when it comes to healthy eating. Quite a few believed that it is hard to find time to eat healthy and it takes too long to prepare healthy food. Nearly 1 in 4 did not know how to prepare healthy foods.

I think that a lot of these barriers are psychological. It does not really take that long to prepare simple recipes if you know what you are doing. In fact, people spend far too much time watching TV and cooking shows than actually cooking their own food! And if you cut down on meat and processed foods, you can actually reduce your grocery bills even though fresh produce costs a lot these days. I will not go so far as calling these “barriers” as excuses, but I think people need to do a little soul-searching. With determination and a little practice, I believe it is possible to eat healthy. What do you think?

Growing employee morale in a vegetable garden

It is a tough economy, benefits and perks are disappearing, people are insecure and morale is down. Now a few small companies have come out a way to provide an outlet to their employees in company-sponsored vegetable gardens. In exchange for their time in the garden, employees can get a share of vegetables which reduces their food bills while giving them a sense of accomplishment. I think it is an interesting idea but runs the risk of fizzling out if they can’t get a critical mass of people who are passionate about it. Also, they need to integrate it with other health and wellness programs. They should even consider starting clubs and communities of interested employees and encourage them to share tips, recipes and other health related information. And if the weather permits, get out of the conference room and have an outdoor meeting in the garden!

If you are a small business owner, would you consider this idea? And if you are an employee, how about showing some initiative and proposing to your employer?

Yeast producer bets on vitamin D deficiency with a new innovation

A Canadian yeast supplier is betting on news about vitamin D deficiency by introducing a type of baker’s yeast marketed as Eagle VitaD^TM which also delivers vitamin D to baked products. Get ready to see claims like excellent source of vitamin D on baked foods like breads in your supermarket! I am all for new product innovation, but this idea does not solve the root cause of vitamin D deficiency in the first place. The fact that our kids are getting poor nutrition and do not participate in outdoor physical activity cannot be solved by eating vitamin D fortified baked foods. Also, keep in mind that these food products may be rich in sugar and saturated fat. They do plan to offer the new product without raising prices to bakers, but there is no guarantee that the price of bread claiming to be an excellent source of vitamin D will not go up! In my opinion, not worth paying more for this innovation.

Food trends in 2009

Although we are past the half year mark in 2009, I think these food trends reviewed by Dietitian Janet Helm are likely to stay popular next year as well. A lot of them are driven by the tough economy. Comfort foods, cooking from scratch, wasting less and buying local. There is also a growing interest in healthy and nutritious options – desserts with low sugar, super-foods, on-the-go ready nutrition and beauty foods. Interestingly enough, there is still enormous potential for processed foods, although the prediction is for miniaturized, customized and home-delivered products. These trends reflect the growing niches in food marketing to satisfy consumer demands while keeping a close eye on cost. Processed food is not going to disappear for sure!

Kohlrabi: funny name for a nutritious turnip

Cathy from Life Less Sweet wrote a post this week introducing kohlrabi, a vegetable from the cabbage family. It is quite popular in Asian countries. Nutritionally rich in fiber and vitamin C, you can cook it in many different ways including Cathy’s recipe for roasted vegetables. It should also go well in a spicy curry sauce. And I wonder if you could even try blending it in a vegetable juice. I will need to check it out, maybe we can find it in our local Whole Foods.

Enjoy your weekend! And let me know what you think.

Photo source -netjer-lelahell on Flickr via everystockphoto
©2009 Littlestomaks.com

Spread the word