REALLY?! School food not fit for human consumption (IMHO)

I came across something very scary the other day

Had it not come from this package I probably wouldn't have known what it was... 

Yes, my friends. That is a "bean and cheese burrito" that is served to our children at school. Appetizing, right!? Just wait until you check out the USDA-approved nutritional content. 

Pay special attention to the sodium:

42% of your child's entire day's allowance of salt is in this burrito. Part of that surely comes from the deliciously gooey American cheese that's inside--which makes for a very tasty Fernando's El Extremo burrito--with authentic Mexican flavor! Mmmmmmmmm Go grab one at a school cafeteria near you!

REALLY, USDA!? REALLY?!??! Is this the best thing you can come up with to meet your standards for school meals?! Sigh...

The face on my roommate when I showed him what I found says it best

That, my friends, is the look of disgust. Good job, USDA!

The funny thing is I asked a coworker of mine what she thought of the food her daughter was receiving at school, and although she wasn't too impressed with it she told me that her daughter wouldn't eat a homemade lunch because that would make her feel different. OK, so you're willing to have food that isnt' fit for human consumption become part of your growing child's body, because you are afraid of her being teased when she comes to school with a bag lunch from home. Is this what the world has come to?

Parents: if you're not willing to stand up for what is right, if you're not willing to run the risk of your child being "different" because his/her parent actually cares about his/her health...then go ahead, let the government keep on doing what it's doing. Support dangerous subsidies that make producing "food" like this possible. Because clearly our kids are benefiting. But if you're not okay with your children getting pumped full of junk government cheese, make a stand. Do something radical, like PACK A HOMEMADE LUNCH. My mom did that for me (thanks, Mom!) and I turned out just fine.

I think we'd all agree that if we are ever to make a change in this country, it has to start as a grass-roots effort. Because if we're waiting for the government to catch up with the needs of the people...well, we're going to be eating a lot of American cheese-flavored Mexican burritos before that happens.

Really?! Bonus samples of sugary cereal in Gladware packages

I came across something I'd NEVER expect to see in the food packaging aisle in the supermarket last week:

I just don't get it: why, exactly, would a marketing exec think it necessary to include TWO, count 'em TWO, sample packs of Honey Bunches of Oats as a bonus inside a pack of (all things) Gladware containers?? Notice how the samples are not Bran Flakes or Grape Nuts.

Perhaps the thought process went something like this:

Marketing Exec 1: "Steve, sales for Gladware containers have fallen over the past quarter. We need to think of something to get these numbers up!"
ME 2: "But Bob, what are we supposed to do!? I mean, it's GLADWARE!"
ME 1: "I don't know, that's why we're paying you the big bucks, Bob! Think outside of the box for once!"
ME 2: "Outside of the box! The box...the...CEREAL BOX!!!"


REALLY?! Do I REALLY need samples of sugar-sweetened low fiber cereal with my BPA-free plastic containers? If I wanted cereal, I'd just hop on over a few aisles and BUY MYSELF A BOX. woah.

And these people earn 5x as much as I do...sigh...

Reminds me of the boxes of Cracker Jacks with the little baseball card inside--what exactly does a baseball card have to do with caramel popcorn? Obviously that was designed to entice little kids into begging their parents to buy the stuff--merely for the toy inside, right?! I'm sure the addictive nature of the sweet/salty popcorn had nothing to do with it. Ah hem. And of a more recent controversy, what's the point of the ubituitous toy inside the Happy Meal? Was that an evil plot on the part of McDonald's Corp to get children to bug the parents to buy the meal...meanwhile the secret lay in the substance abuse-like french fries whose flavor no one else can seem to mimic? Is it, then, a good idea to ban the use of toys as a marketing ploy in children's food? I think so.

I'm just not sure where I'm going with this post, other than to say including boxes of sugary cereal in a plastic container is  REALLY lame. They should have added some of the baby containers as a bonus--for the simple reason that they're ADORALE! There's a fool-proof way to attract sales from female consumers :)

REALLY!? Taco Bell/KFC accepts Food Stamps

Take a look at what I came across on my way to my internship site one day. I had driven past it a hundred times, but somehow never noticed the sign that is proudly displayed on the corner of Taco Bell/KFC: "Now accepting EBT cards" (read: FOOD STAMPS!)

A close-up. I just couldn't believe it!

I was flabbergasted to say the least. Why, exactly, should fast food, which has little to no nutritional value, be promoted by the government, let alone paid for under the Food Stamp Program!? Am I the only one who thinks this is absurd???

Now, I don't have anything wrong with food stamps, which is technically called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and was created while President Roosevelt was in office in 1939. It is considered one of a few "entitlement programs" (similar to WIC), and was designed to assist low/no-income families who struggled with "food security" (not knowing when the next meal would be, something that is highly correlated with poverty). But when the program was developed, many poor families were undernourished and often sick due to "food insecurity," so this was a way to provide solid meals and ultimately improve health. Quite a switch from the nutritional needs of the modern poor person. Food stamps has remained a controversial program, since the "approved" food list is extremely liberal. Pretty much anything edible is covered under the program. I remember as a child standing in line behind a man who has apparently saved up his stamps to buy lobster. Others were more "frugal" with their stamps, spending them on cartsfull of chips, soda, and candy. What is wrong with this picture?

With the switch to the EBT card (from paper stamps) in 2004, the SNAP program began being accepted at farmers' markets around the nation. This received much praise, as it was an effort to increase fruit and vegetable intake in a population known to have very poor intake which has likely led to a disproportionate number of poor being afflicted with obesity (and related diseases). In 2008 over 750 farmers' markets accepted EBT cards.

Over 40 million people currently benefit from the SNAP program, which is why it angers me that in the wake of an obesity epidemic the government program is basically encouraging its beneficiaries to consume fast food. Counter-intuitive, anyone?? In fact, the banner on the SNAP website says "We help put healthy food on the table for over 40 million people each month." REALLY? Are you sure about that? Because last time I checked people can and are buying fast food with their EBT cards. Is this really what I want my tax dollars to be spent on?

This program has been in existence for nearly 80 years and has remained virtually the same in those 80 years, despite drastically different nutritional needs of the population served. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, since apparently our own elected leaders can't manage to make a difference. Case in point: it takes a Brit to come to this country to instill change in the American food system, starting with notoriously bad school food. Why can't we attenuate this sort of change on our own? Where's all the change we were promised???

REALLY!? McDonald's ad in local dietetic association newsletter

I've come across many disturbing/ironic nutrition-related things of late, and sometimes I wonder if the people who come up with these ideas think I am/the average person is... an idiot. Here I introduce to you a weekly column called "REALLY?!"

On page 5 of the California Dietetic Association newsletter, I came across this advertisement from McDonald's. The tag line "wonderfully wholesome" refers to the four menu items pictured on the ad: fruit and maple oatmeal, fruit and walnut salad, fruit and yogurt parfait, and apple dippers (um, where are the vegetables?). That's four items...FOUR...from a menu of over 145 items. We all know there are more than four "wholesome" offerings on their menu (let's not forget all of the veggie salads which come complete with artery-clogging dressing), but one would assume these four to be some of the healthiest options out there.

REALLY, California Dietetic Association, REALLY?! Am I, and other dietitians/health professionals, that stupid to think that McDonald's actually serves wholesome food?? Could you not have found a different company from which to earn advertising income?

Let's start with the least egregious thing pictured here: fruit and walnut salad, two of nature's bounties, right? Not when McD's gets its hands on them. At 210 calories and 25 grams of sugar for a *snack size* serving, you might want to shy away. But the worst part is that the "yogurt dipping sauce" is full of sugar. Next up: the apple dippers. Fresh apple with...what's that?? artificially flavored caramel dipping sauce. What's wrong with just plain apple? sigh... Let's now tackle the fruit and yogurt parfait. "Parfait" is French for "perfect" so this must be the perfect snack, non? Guess again. 160 calories (not bad), 85mg sodium (why do they insist on putting salt in a sweet product?!), and 21 grams of sugar. Doesn't sound so bad! Except when you compare it to vanilla ice cream, which has less calories, less sodium, and less sugar per serving. Speaking of sugar, two out of the top three ingredients in the parfait are sugar and fructose (sugar). I saved the best for last: fruit and maple oatmeal. Mark Bittman tore this apart in his NYT article. He talks about how this "oatmeal" has more sugar than a candy bar per serving, and has virtually no fiber (real oatmeal contains quite a bit of soluble fiber per serving--the reason why it's so good for your cholesterol). With nearly 300 calories, 180 unnecessary milligrams of sodium (twice that of the parfait), and 32 grams of sugar, you're better off ordering a bowl of ice cream for breakfast.

So, again I say to you, dear California Dietetic Association: REALLY?! Do you really think I'm so dumb that I'm going to give you my money so you can stay "in bed" with industry? Do you really think McDonald's is in the business of offering healthy food? Do you really think I'm going to recommend my clients patronize a multi-billion dollar industry that has single-handedly destroyed the health of America because you made some money off of selling a few square inches of ad space? Guess again.

Carding Kids for a Can of Coke? Crazy! (or, is it??)

There are many good things about living in San Francisco. The weather is pretty decent 9 months out of the year, fresh, inexpensive produce abounds, the people are friendly, and the city is small enough that I can get across town in 30 minutes but big enough that I'm always discovering a new little hole-in-the-wall place to go to or a neighborhood to explore.

One of my newest discoveries of why I love SF has little to do with these previous attributes, except for the one about the people. Not only are the people here nice, they're SMART. Like REALLY, REALLY, SMART. Not surprising, since arguably three of the state's best colleges are located in the area. Between UCSF, UC Berkeley, and Stanford, we have a great concentration of brilliance per square mile. Throw in the students and faculty at UC Davis a mere 75 miles away and you have a force of intelligence to be reckoned with.

I recently took advantage of this when I attended two nutrition conferences in the past two weeks, one called the "Sugar Symposium" the other "The Sun Food Agenda" (the latter I will discuss in a separate post). The Sugar Symposium was the brain child of UCSF COAST (Center for Obesity Assessment, Study, and Treatment), UC Berkeley, and UC Davis. Among other things, what amazed me the most was the fact that I sat through 6 hours of lecturing about sugar biochemistry, brain chemistry, and the application of the mounting evidence of the realities of sugar addiction... without losing attention! The conference was absolutely fascinating, and by far the best part was Dr. Robert Lustig's diatribe against sugar at the end.

Dr. Lustig is traditionally known as the Chief of Pediatrics at the UCSF Medical Center, but I lovingly refer to him as the Chief of Nutrition Badassess. To summarize his schpeel is to not pay proper homage, but alas I don't have enough time to divulge all the details!

Note that when I refer to sugar in this post, I'm referring to a certain kind of sugar called fructose. Yes, you may recognize fructose as a carbohydrate that is found in fruits, but I'm not talking about that kind of fructose. I'm referring to the highly processed corn by-product called HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) which is a fairly recent invention that is manufactured in a laboratory, not something found in nature. You may have heard about or seen commercials from the Corn Refiners Association touting HFCS as "healthy in moderation," and "natural" like table sugar (sucrose) but after you read what I learned at the symposium, you might start to think differently.

Basically, this is what he said:

1) Sugar (specifically fructose, like that found in highly processed foods including soda) is just as bad for you as alcohol when consumed in excess. Fructose is metabolized in the liver at an unregulated rate (all of the fructose you eat gets absorbed, which is not the case for other sugars) and turns into little droplets of fat, as does alcohol. When people consume excess alcohol for long periods of time, they often develop a condition called hepatic steatosis, or alcohol-induced fatty liver disease. Not surprisingly because of the way fructose is metabolized, we're now seeing fatty liver disease in people (typically obese) who consume a large amount of fructose.

Fructose is damaging to the liver just like alcohol.

2) Because of government subsidies encouraging farmers to grow excessive amounts of corn and soybeans (what we like to call commodity crops), fructose (most commonly found in the form of high fructose corn syrup) is very inexpensive, readily available, and highly preferred as a sweetener over cane sugar since it is very sweet and very cheap. As such, it is found in many products, even ones that you wouldn't think would have sugar in them. It appears that sugar is seemingly added to food products just for the heck of it! (A conspiracy theorist could say it's just an attempt for food manufacturers to capitalize on the addictive nature of fructose) As compared to alcohol, you can often buy a 6 pack of beer or bottle of wine for less than a bottle of water. We all know how much cheaper a 2 liter bottle of soda is than the equivalent amount of water. Interesting...

Fructose is very cheap (soda is less expensive than bottled water) and readily available, just like alcohol. It is found in every corner store, just like alcohol.

3) Sugar consumption triggers pleasure centers in the brain that, when consumed in excess for many years, can simulate an addictive quality, just like alcohol. There is evidence that when people "come off" of sugar, their bodies rebel, just as an alcoholic would experience when starting rehab.

Fructose is physiologically addictive like alcohol.

4) Drinking a lot of alcohol causes people to gain weight in their mid-sections, which we affectionately refer to as the "beer belly." Fructose does the same thing (because it turns into fat droplets in the liver), so now we're seeing people with "sugar bellies."

Fructose will give you a "sugar belly," just like alcohol causes "beer belly."

5) Alcoholism is more common in lower socioeconomic populations (ie the poor) presumably because it is so addictive, inexpensive, and readily available. Sugar addiction is also common in the same population, presumably for the same reasons.

Sugar addiction disproportionately affects the poor, who also suffer from higher rates of obesity and other chronic illnesses.

In summary, I was in awe at Dr. Lustig's presentation. After making those shocking comparisons between fructose and alcohol, he then made some suggestions for regulating fructose. Can you imagine carding a teenager when they go to buy a soda, or to have quotas on sweetened beverages/snacks? Lustig think that's the way to go. He also believes in taxation on sugary foods (similar to a "fat tax") in an attempt at making a bag of cookies more expensive than a bag of apples. Related to that, he would love for the government to discontinue the subsidies on corn and soybeans, and instead encourage farmers to grow more fresh fruits and vegetables, which would make them less expensive. Lustig doesn't believe that educational programs are effective, and that our only way at winning this "war on obesity" is to have government intervention which will strongly encourage people to not buy the sugary foods by means of heavy taxation and regulation. After all, this was coming from the man who was responsible for San Francisco banning toys from Happy Meals (which I happen to support).

Personally, I'm not a big fan of "big brother" or the "food police," but when you look at the similarities between fructose and alcohol, it's pretty scary! We'd all agree that alcoholism is a public health concern, but very few people would consider obesity in the same light...until now, perhaps. I had never thought of sugar as something as physiologically addictive and damaging as ethanol, and I, for one, will never look at a can of Coke the same way again.

PS: For a laugh, check out SNL's parody on HFCS :)