FUZE – A Drink that Slenderizes? [Nutrition Impostor]

Fuze is a line of beverages that got its start in 2001 in Northern California but has expanded nationally in the past 10 years, especially after it was acquired by Coca Cola in 2007.

The idea is to provide a cool, new age beverage, that is portrayed as healthy because it is jacked up with vitamins.

Let’s see if the name lives up to its reputation.

What you need to know:
The drink has only 15 calories for a rather large serving – 14.5 ounces. But that’s because it is artificially sweetened. It has 200% of the daily value for vitamin C, and a few other vitamin and mineral values are very high. But that doesn’t mean that this product will help you lose weight. More on that in a bit.

Here is the ingredient list:
Water, Apple Juice Concentrate, Less than 0.5% of: Malic Acid, Natural Flavors, Garcinia Cambogia Rind Extract,  Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Acesulfame Potassium, Sucralose, Purple Sweet Potato Concentrate (Color), L-Carnitine, Dl- Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Black Carrot Concentrate (Color), Beta-Carotene (Vitamin A), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Chromium Picolinate.

As you can see, there is almost nothing real about this drink. Barely any fruit (5%). All the vitamins are added on. And artificial sweeteners that are plain bad for you.

The one good thing we can say about this drink is that unlike many of its counterparts, at least it is not artificially colored. The color comes from purple sweet potatoes and black carrots.

So why won’t you slim down with this drink? Because instead of drinking water, or unsweetened tea, your taste buds become accustomed to overly sweet things. As a result, you’ll crave sweet foods more, and have a harder time with naturally sweet fruit. For more information see Artificially Sweetened Beverages: Cause for Concern by Harvard Professor David S. Ludwig, MD.

What to do at the supermarket:
We’ve said it a million times, and we’ll keep repeating it. Tap water is your best hydration solution. It’s free, it won’t get you craving sweets, and with money saved you can buy real fruits.

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FUZE – A Drink that Slenderizes? [Nutrition Impostor]

76 Ways Sugar Can Ruin Your Health

In addition to throwing off your body's homeostasis and wreaking havoc on your metabolic processes, excess sugar has a number of other significant consequences.
Nancy Appleton, PhD, author of the book Lick the Sugar Habit[5], contributed an extensive list of the many ways sugar can ruin your health from a vast number of medical journals and other scientific publications.

1. Sugar can suppress your immune system and impair your defenses against infectious disease.[6] [7]
2. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in your body: causes chromium and copper deficiencies and interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.[8] [9] [10] [11]
3. Sugar can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline, hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.[12] [13]
4. Sugar can produce a significant rise in total cholesterol, triglycerides and bad cholesterol and a decrease in good cholesterol.[14] [15] [16] [17]
5. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function.[18]
6. Sugar feeds cancer cells and has been connected with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, biliary tract, lung, gallbladder and stomach.[19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
7. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose and can cause reactive hypoglycemia.[26] [27]
8. Sugar can weaken eyesight.[28] 1
9. Sugar can cause many problems with the gastrointestinal tract including: an acidic digestive tract, indigestion, malabsorption in patients with functional bowel disease, increased risk of Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis.[29] [30] [31] [32] [33]
10. Sugar can cause premature aging.[34] In fact, the single most important factor that accelerates aging is insulin, which is triggered by sugar. 1
11. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.[35]
12. Sugar can cause your saliva to become acidic, tooth decay, and periodontal disease.[36] [37] [38]
13. Sugar contributes to obesity. [39] 1
14. Sugar can cause autoimmune diseases such as: arthritis, asthma, and multiple sclerosis.[40] [41] [42]
15. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections) [43]
16. Sugar can cause gallstones.[44]
17. Sugar can cause appendicitis.[45]
18. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.[46]
19. Sugar can cause varicose veins.[47]
20. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.[48]
21. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.[49]
22. Sugar can cause a decrease in your insulin sensitivity thereby causing an abnormally high insulin levels and eventually diabetes.[50] [51] [52]
23. Sugar can lower your Vitamin E levels.[53]
24. Sugar can increase your systolic blood pressure.[54]
25. Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.[55]
26. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs),which are sugar molecules that attach to and damage proteins in your body. AGEs speed up the aging of cells, which may contribute to a variety of chronic and fatal diseases. [56] 1
27. Sugar can interfere with your absorption of protein.[57]
28. Sugar causes food allergies.[58]
29. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.[59]
30. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.[60]
31. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.[61] [62]
32. Sugar can impair the structure of your DNA.[63]
33. Sugar can change the structure of protein and cause a permanent alteration of the way the proteins act in your body.[64] [65]
34. Sugar can make your skin age by changing the structure of collagen.[66]
35. Sugar can cause cataracts and nearsightedness.[67] [68]
36. Sugar can cause emphysema.[69]
37. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in your body.[70]
38. Sugar lowers the ability of enzymes to function.[71]
39. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson's disease.[72]
40. Sugar can increase the size of your liver by making your liver cells divide, and it can increase the amount of fat in your liver, leading to fatty liver disease.[73] [74]
41. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones.[75] [76] Fructose is helping to drive up rates of kidney disease. 1
42. Sugar can damage your pancreas.[77]
43. Sugar can increase your body's fluid retention.[78]
44. Sugar is enemy #1 of your bowel movement.[79]
45. Sugar can compromise the lining of your capillaries.[80]
46. Sugar can make your tendons more brittle.[81]
47. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines.[82]
48. Sugar can reduce the learning capacity, adversely affect your children's grades and cause learning disorders.[83] [84]
49. Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves, which can alter your ability to think clearly.[85]
50. Sugar can cause depression.[86]
51. Sugar can increase your risk of gout.[87]
52. Sugar can increase your risk of Alzheimer's disease.[88] MRI studies show that adults 60 and older who have high uric acid are four to five times more likely to have vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's.1
53. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalances such as: increasing estrogen in men, exacerbating PMS, and decreasing growth hormone.[89] [90] [91] [92]
54. Sugar can lead to dizziness.[93]
55. Diets high in sugar will increase free radicals and oxidative stress.[94]
56. A high sucrose diet of subjects with peripheral vascular disease significantly increases platelet adhesion.[95]
57. High sugar consumption by pregnant adolescents can lead to a substantial decrease in gestation duration and is associated with a twofold-increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant.[96] [97]
58. Sugar is an addictive substance.[98]
59. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.[99]
60. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.[100]
61. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.[101]
62. Your body changes sugar into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch.[102]
63. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.[103]
64. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).[104]
65. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.[105]
66. Sugar can impair the function of your adrenal glands.[106]
67. Sugar has the potential of inducing abnormal metabolic processes in normal, healthy individuals, thereby promoting chronic degenerative diseases.[107]
68. Intravenous feedings (IVs) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to your brain.[108]
69. Sugar increases your risk of polio.[109]
70. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.[110]
71. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.[111]
72. In intensive care units, limiting sugar saves lives.[112]
73. Sugar may induce cell death.[113]
74. In juvenile rehabilitation centers, when children were put on low sugar diets, there was a 44 percent drop in antisocial behavior.[114]
75. Sugar dehydrates newborns.[115]
76. Sugar can cause gum disease.[116]

It should now be crystal clear just how damaging sugar is. You simply cannot achieve your highest degree of health and vitality if you are consuming a significant amount of it.
Fortunately, your body has an amazing ability to heal itself when given the basic nutrition it needs, and your liver has an incredible ability to regenerate. If you start making changes today, your health WILL begin to improve, returning you to the state of vitality that nature intended.

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76 Ways Sugar Can Ruin Your Health

Kids’ Cereals Pack More Sugar Than Twinkies and Cookies

More than three-quarters of the cereals assessed fail proposed federal nutrition standards

Washington, D.C. – Parents have good reason to worry about the sugar content of children’s breakfast cereals, according to an Environmental Working Group review of 84 popular brands.

Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, at nearly 56 percent sugar by weight, leads the list of the 10 worst children’s cereals, according to EWG’s analysis. In fact, a one-cup serving of the brand packs more sugar than a Hostess Twinkie, and one cup of any of the 44 other children’s cereals has more sugar than three Chips Ahoy! cookies.

In response to the exploding childhood obesity epidemic and aggressive food company advertising pitches to kids, Congress formed the federal Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children to propose standards to Congress to curb marketing of kids’ foods with too much sugar, salt and fat.
But EWG has found that only one in four children’s cereals meets the government panel’s voluntary proposed guidelines, which recommend no more than 26 percent added sugar by weight. EWG has been calling for an even lower cap on the maximum amount of sugar in children’s cereals.

“When I went to medical school in the 1960s, the consensus view was sugar provided ‘empty calories’ devoid of vitamins, minerals or fiber,” said health expert Dr. Andrew Weil. “Aside from that, it was not deemed harmful. But 50 years of nutrition research has confirmed that sugar is actually the single most health-destructive component of the standard American diet. The fact that a children's breakfast cereal is 56 percent sugar by weight – and many others are not far behind – should cause national outrage.”
“Cereal companies have spent fortunes on convincing parents that a kid’s breakfast means cereal, and that sugary cereals are fun, benign, and all kids will eat,” said noted NYU nutrition professor Marion Nestle. “The cereals on the EWG highest-sugar list are among the most profitable for their makers, who back up their investment with advertising budgets of $20 million a year or more. No public health agency has anywhere near the education budget equivalent to that spent on a single cereal. Kids should not be eating sugar for breakfast. They should be eating real food.”

“As a mom of two, I was stunned to discover just how much sugar comes in a box of children’s cereal,” said Jane Houlihan, EWG’s Senior Vice President of Research. “The bottom line: most parents would never serve dessert for breakfast, but many children’s cereals have just as much sugar, or more.”
Studies suggest that children who eat breakfasts that are high in sugar have more problems at school. They become more frustrated and have a harder time working independently than kids who eat lower-sugar breakfasts. By lunchtime they have less energy, are hungrier, show attention deficits and make more mistakes on their work.

About one in five American children is obese, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has reported that childhood obesity has tripled over the past 30 years.

“It has been said that exploding rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes in today's children will lead them to be the first in American history to have shorter lifespans than their parents,” Weil said. “That tragedy strikes me as a real possibility unless parents make some dramatic changes in their children's lives.”

“Nearly 20 percent of our children and one-third of adults in this country are obese. Our children face a future of declining health, and may be the first generation to have a shorter lifespan than their parents. We must provide consumers with the information they need to make healthier choices and prevent misleading claims about the nutritional contents of food,” said Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). “Cereal is a prime example of this—we know that children do better in school if they have breakfast. But we also know that the type of breakfast matters. And yet, as the Environment Working Group’s report shows, many children’s cereals have sugar content levels that are above 40 percent by weight. Our children deserve better, and it is critical that we take action to combat America’s obesity epidemic.” Congresswoman DeLauro serves on the appropriations subcommittee responsible for the Food and Drug Administration and agriculture, where she oversees drug and food safety.

10 Worst Children’s Cereals Based on percent sugar by weight
1.) Kellogg’s Honey Smacks	55.6%
2.) Post Golden Crisp	51.9%
3.) Kellogg’s Froot Loops Marshmallow	48.3%
4.) Quaker Oats Cap’n Crunch’s OOPS! All Berries	46.9%
5.) Quaker Oats Cap’n Crunch Original	44.4%
6.) Quaker Oats Oh!s	44.4%
7.) Kellogg’s Smorz	43.3%
8.) Kellogg’s Apple Jacks	42.9%
9.) Quaker Oats Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries	42.3%
10.) Kellogg’s Froot Loops Original	41.4%

Some cereals are better than others. Nutrition expert Marion Nestle recommends:

1. Cereals with a short ingredient list (added vitamins and minerals are okay).
2. Cereals high in fiber.
3. Cereals with little or no added sugars (added sugars are ingredients such as honey, molasses, fruit juice concentrate, brown sugar, corn sweetener, sucrose, lactose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup and malt syrup).

Among the best simple-to-prepare breakfasts for children are fresh fruit and high-fiber, lower-sugar cereals. Better yet, pair fruit with homemade oatmeal.

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Kids’ Cereals Pack More Sugar Than Twinkies and Cookies

Nutrition That Rocks: Using Media to Solve the Childhood Obesity Epidemic

Childhood obesity means more than just fat kids. It means that about one-third of American kids—despite eating too many calories—are not getting the proper nutrition.

The repercussions are serious: a poor diet affects emotional health, physical fitness levels, bone density levels, diabetes risk and longevity. In a nation of extreme wealth and obesity, we are poised to die like the Romans.

Childhood obesity’s quick gains over the last few decades are the result of many culprits: food company lobbyists, fewer families cooking meals, food standards that haven’t evolved since 1995, stringent school curriculums that have reduced unstructured play, government policy that subsidizes corn and soy to make junk food cheaper than healthy food, the concentration of fast-food restaurants around schools.

Where do we even begin to improve kids’ health?

While we can back the research on childhood obesity with decades of large-scale studies, the impact of the media is more elusive to study, yet omnipresent. Celebrity babies are now news, and despite the obesity epidemic, the actors we see on our screens weigh even less than before. The tools used to convince us that we need something totally useless are quite rudimentary: songs, shock, characters, and ideal people.

Although new television networks, government programs, and private organizations have created positive content, McDonald’s continues to serve over 54 million people per day. McDonald’s is also the number one advertiser of food. Media is so powerful it is able to override people’s common sense.

Our consumer culture— the need to have the next big thing and with little factual information
presented—is one of the major forces behind obesity. Kids consume about 7.5 hours of media per day. Kids expect instant access to information. They expect to be entertained, or they will change the channel.

Even with all this media, we don’t teach kids how to interpret what they see. Preschool children cannot distinguish between commercials and programming, even with separation devices such as “We’ll be right back after this.” Young elementary-age children lack the ability to understand the persuasive intent of television advertising (APA, 2004).

Selling to kids is a $330 billion industry (Schor, Born to Buy). For these flaws, and its high usage, media is often blamed for contributing to the obesity problem.

Utilizing the influence of media to promote healthy habits is our weapon in fighting childhood obesity. Our pacing needs to be fast, our stories need to be compelling, our characters need to be interesting, our songs need to be well-written…all using less money.

I built my company around this idea, using the same tools normally used to sell junk food to get kids excited, engaged and learning about healthy habits. I have three touring productions and two CDs of heart-pumping, Top 40-sounding educational music on the market. My job is to ignite a passion in people to participate in this movement, from kids requesting healthier foods, to parents providing healthier options, to schools taking action on their wellness policies.

I call myself The Rockstar Nutritionist, armed with my credentials as a registered dietitian and my experience as a rock band singer/songwriter. I join the ranks of even more accomplished activists like Jamie Oliver, Robert Kenner, and Morgan Spurlock who have made health media mainstream. We are using our combined voices to create useful, meaningful media that solves a social problem. Join us.

Healthy Tips for Parents to Make Healthy Fun
1. LEAD BY EXAMPLE Help raise a healthy eater by being one yourself. Choose wheat bread over white, eat fruit for dessert, and snack on sliced vegetables instead of chips. Try new healthy foods.

2. COOK YOUR OWN FOOD Fast food and restaurant meals are loaded with hidden salt, sugar and fat. When you cook at home, you control the ingredients that your children put into their bodies.

3. EAT TOGETHER AS A FAMILY Turn off the television and cell phones. Engage your child in conversation. Kids who regularly eat family meals perform better academically and have better overall nutrition.

4. USE THE GROCERY STORE AS A CLASSROOM As you go through the aisles, discuss with your child where foods come from – how they are grown, processed, and packaged. Encourage them to select a new healthy food with only one ingredient, like colorful raw peppers.
 
5. MAKE HEALTHY EATING FUN Cut healthy foods into kid-friendly shapes like triangles, rectangles, circles and hearts. Give healthy foods fun names! Peanut butter filled celery sticks with raisins on top become “Ants on a Log” and wheat toast cut into strips and dipped in soft-boiled eggs become “Eggs & Soldiers”. Encourage your child to invent new healthy snacks.

6. COOK WITH YOUR KIDS Give your child food preparation responsibilities like peeling potatoes or measuring flour. They are more likely to accept a new food if they have had a hand in creating it.

7. DON’T GIVE UP Disliking new food is normal. It can take 10 tries before a child will accept a new food. Try offering one new food at a time, serving something your child likes along with the new food, and introducing new foods at the beginning of a meal when your child is very hungry. Avoid lecturing or forcing your child to eat. Help your child learn vocabulary for trying new foods by describing the taste, texture, and smell even if they don’t like it.

8. LISTEN TO YOUR GUT Eating the right amount of food is important. Teach your child to recognize a healthy portion and to listen to their internal cues for fullness. The time to stop eating is when you start feeling full, not when all the food is gone.

9. REWARD WITH ATTENTION, NOT FOOD Don’t reward good behavior with food. Show your love with hugs, kisses, conversation, reading books, and taking walks.

10. ONLY OFFER HEALTHY CHOICES Don’t offer a child the choice between the carrot or a cookie; they will always choose the cookie. Provide choices within healthy options, like “Which would you like for dinner: broccoli or cauliflower?” instead of “Do you want broccoli for dinner?”

11. MINIMIZE SCREEN TIME AND ENCOURAGE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY Limit time with TV and video games to two hours per day. Spend at least an hour per day doing something that makes you sweat. Spend time together as a family doing something active like riding bikes, jumping rope, walking the neighborhood, or hosting a living room dance party.

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Nutrition That Rocks: Using Media to Solve the Childhood Obesity Epidemic

How Much Should You Exercise?

Are you getting enough exercise?
What are your fitness goals?  Is it to lose weight, get healthy, maintain your weight?  Whatever the goal, there are a few guidelines to help you achieve your fitness.  Of course a clean and healthy diet is a major part, but working out is the other half of the puzzle.  See if you're meeting your exercise needs.

If you want to:

Lose Weight.  Creating that caloric deficit is major work.  To lose weight, you should workout for one hour per day, at least 5 times a week.  You also need to get your heart pumping.  This means that light-intensity exercise like walking or household chores doesn't count.  Get your heart rate up with high-intensity exercise, like intervals.

Maintain Weight Loss.  Studies have shown that people who lost a significant amount of weight, were able to maintain their weight loss with a healthy lifestyle and at least one hour of exercise daily.  The FDA recommends to workout at least one hour a day and up to 90 minutes 5 times a week to maintain weight loss.  

Stay Healthy.  Regular exercise and fitness routine is a vital way to lower your risk for cancer and other diseases.  The American Cancer Society recommends you get up to 45-50 minutes of exercise 5 times per week to lower your risk for breast cancer.  Interesting!  The American College of Sports Medicine suggests that all adults under 65 exercise for 30 minutes a day, 5 times a week (at least moderate-intensity cardio) or intense cardio for 20 minutes daily, 3 times per week.  This will lower you risk for heart disease.

Working out for 300 minutes weekly takes commitment.  So don't be hard on yourself.  Take one day at a time, but do set goals for yourself! Whether it's a daily or weekly goal.  It's alright to break up the exercise if you can't get an hour in each day.  Just make sure you are doing moderate to high-intensity.  You can do it!

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How Much Should You Exercise?

Should you eat Trans Fats?

Trans fats are a completely an artificial invention that studies have linked to an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes. Trans fats turn the dietary fat in foods into especially hard to move body fat on your belly, in your heart and everywhere else that matters. They are created by combining of vegetable oil (a liquid) with hydrogen to create "hydrogenated" or "partially hydrogenated" oil are known as trans fatty acids. Once infused with hydrogen, the liquid vegetable oil turns into a solid at room temperature. Historically, the food industry has loved trans fats because they are cheap and help food stick around until cockroaches inherit the earth. Once they're inside your body, however, the enzymes that break down fat in your body can't effectively handle artificial trans fats. Trans fats are the equivalent of the hairballs women leave behind in the shower drains: They clog your pipes. So check ingredients lists for trans fats or in other words "hydrogenated" or "partially hydrogenated." Processed baked goods such as shortenings an margarine are the two of the most common ways in which trans fats find their ways into our bodies.

Should you eat Trans Fats?

Will Eating fat make you fat?

Eating too much of anything will make you fat, but dietary fat itself doesn't have any magic weight-gain properties. However, fat does contain more calories than either carbohydrates or proteins; per gram, carbohydrates and proteins provide about 4 calories, whereas fats yields 9 calories per gram. So the more fat you eat, the more calories you consume in downing too many calories every day will put you on the fast track to growing a big old gut.

But in general we are far, too afraid of fat. It's a fact of life and a critical part of our body. It encases our internal organs, courses through our veins, and provides a nice cushion wherever we take a load off of our feet. It's even where you never expected it, it's inside our skulls, were it provide 70% of our protective coating for our brains and makes up to 60% of our grey matter. The main reason you shouldn't fear fat is that as long as you are eating the appropriate number of calories every day, your body won't store it in the soft spots but rather burn it for energy. Research even shows that diets containing up to 60% fat are just as effective for weight loss as those in which that provides only 20% of the calories. The bottom line is that fat is filling and flavorful, both of which can help keep your belly from feeling deprived.  And that means that you can eat natural fat in meat, cheese, milk, butter, avocados, nuts, and olive oil without batting an eye.

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Will Eating fat make you fat?

New study is wake-up call for diet soda drinkers

Sorry, soda lovers - even diet drinks can make you fat.

That's the word from authors of two new studies, presented Sunday at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.

"Data from this and other prospective studies suggest that the promotion of diet sodas as healthy alternatives may be ill-advised" Dr. Helen Hazuda, professor of medicine at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, said in a written statement. "They may be free of calories, but not of consequences."

Consequences like weight gain.

For one study, researchers at the center followed 474 diet soda drinkers, 65 to 74 years of age, for almost 10 years. They found that diet soda drinkers' waists grew 70 percent more than non-drinkers. Specifically, drinking two or more diet sodas a day busted belt sizes five times more than people who avoided the stuff entirely.

And as waist size grows, so do health risks - including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic conditions.

Just how does diet soda make you fat? The other study may hold the answer. In it, researchers divided mice into two groups, one of which ate food laced with the popular sweetener aspartame. After three months, the mice eating aspartame-chow had higher blood sugar levels than the mice eating normal food. The authors said in a written statement their findings could "contribute to the associations observed between diet soda consumption and the risk of diabetes in humans."
But how?

"Artificial sweeteners could have the effect of triggering appetite but unlike regular sugars they don't deliver something that will squelch the appetite," Sharon Fowler, obesity researcher at UT Health Science Center at San Diego and a co-author on both of these studies, told the Daily Mail. She also said sweeteners could inhibit brain cells that make you feel full.

So if sugar soda is no good, and diet soda isn't either - what should we be drinking?

Dr. Hazuda told the Daily Mail, "I think prudence would dictate drinking water."

From CBS News
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New study is wake-up call for diet soda drinkers

Sign of Hope? Fast Food Chains Launch “Kids Live Well” Menu Items

The National Restaurant Association has just launched a program called “Kids Live Well” that includes changes to kiddie meals being served by 19 franchises in over 15,000 locations across the country. The list includes big chains like IHOP, Burger King, and Denny’s.

So what are the improvements?

To join “Kids LiveWell,” restaurants agree to offer and promote a selection of items that meet qualifying criteria based on leading health organizations’ scientific recommendations, including the 2010 USDA Dietary Guidelines. The criteria include the following components:

- Offer a children’s meal (an entrée, side and beverage) with 600 calories or less; two servings of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and/or low-fat dairy; with limits on sodium, fats and sugar;

- Offer at least one other individual item with 200 calories or less, with limits on fats, sugars and sodium, plus contain a serving of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein or low-fat dairy;

- Display or make available upon request the nutrition profile of the healthful menu options; and

- Promote/identify the healthful menu options.

Here is an example: At Burger King, the default kid combo when ordering a burger used to be fries and soft drinks. Going forward parents will be asked what they prefer for their child. Maybe apple slices and milk. Or juice.

Will this move help the fight against obesity?

Probably not. But for families on road trips this summer with only fast food options when stopping along the freeway, there may be some slight nutritional relief.

According to Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

Most restaurants already offer one or two healthy choices—but they are present amidst a minefield of high-calorie, salty, high-fat options.

Which means it is still much easier for parents (and the kids) to opt for the greasier choice, rather than the healthier one. Let’s admit it, who wants to eat mealy apple slices compared to a fresh batch of hot fries?

Bottom line: Kids Live Well is a nice PR move by the industry. It does not require massive menu changes by restaurants so it was cheap to implement. Regardless, if employees and parents will now be slightly more aware that at least one good choice awaits, the campaign has some redeeming value.

By Fooducate
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Sign of Hope? Fast Food Chains Launch “Kids Live Well” Menu Items

Cheesy Poofs: From Southpark to Wal-Mart

From Fooducate



We talk a lot about fake food being sold to consumers. But today’s post is about a fake fake food that has been brought to life as a real fake food.

It’s hard to believe, but Southpark is celebrating its 15th season. While our favorite character (guess who) has been gone for many seasons, the comic series is arguably as biting and funny as when it kicked off in the late nineties. As part of the birthday celebration, Cartman’s favorite animated snack is coming to life this week. PepsiCo’s Frito Lay division has manufactured a limited edition of Cheesy Poofs, no doubt an artery clogging, greasy, artificially colored and flavored snack.

From Frito Lay’s perspective, this is a great opportunity. Southpark’s audience is mostly guys aged 15-35.

“It’s fair to say the viewers of programs on Comedy Central overlap well with consumers of our products,” said Chris Kuechenmeister, a spokesman at Frito-Lay in Plano, Tex. read more…

The $2.99 per 3 servings snack will be sold at Wal-Mart starting next month for a limited time. If anyone get their hands on this product beforehand, please send us some pics of the nutrition label and ingredient list. We’re interested to see how much of Cartman’s weight problems can be attributed to his favorite snack.
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Cheesy Poofs: From Southpark to Wal-Mart

High Fructose Corn Syrup Promotes Obesity and Liver Damage

By Natural Society

Two new studies have added more reason for concern that high-fructose corn syrup causes significantly more harm to the body than its mere sugar content would suggest.

High-fructose corn syrup contains 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. In contrast, table sugar (also known as sucrose) contains a 50-50 split.

In the first study, published in the journalPharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, researchers from Princeton University found that rats consuming high fructose corn syrup gained more weight and developed more cardiovascular risk factors than rats consuming equivalent amounts of sucrose.

“Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn’t true, ” researcher Bart Hoebel said.
Hoebel and colleagues fed two groups of rats an identical diet, supplemented with one of two sweetened beverages. One beverage consisted of a sucrose solution in concentrations similar to those found in many sweetened beverages. The other consisted of a high-fructose corn syrup solution at roughly half the concentration of a typical soda. The researchers found that the rats consuming the corn syrup solution gained significantly more weight than the rats consuming the sucrose solution.

In a followup experiment, the researchers compared metabolic changes in rats fed only rat chow with rats fed chow plus a high-fructose corn syrup solution. All the rats consumed the same amount of calories.

After six months, the rats in the corn syrup group had gained 48 percent more weight. They also underwent an increase in fat deposition (especially in the abdomen) and a drop in circulating triglycerides. These changes are consistent with metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms that predispose humans to cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Every rat consuming high-fructose corn syrup became obese. In contrast, rats fed a high-fat diet did not become obese in all cases.

Another study, conducted by Duke University researchers, once again implicates high-fructose corn syrup in a heightened risk of liver damage.

Previous research has suggested that large amounts of fructose liver in the same way as excessive alcohol consumption. Another study linked high-fructose corn syrup specifically with a form of liver scarring known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

The new study, published in the Journal of Hepatology, found that high-fructose corn syrup worsened the effects of NAFLD.

“We found that increased consumption of high fructose corn syrup was associated with scarring in the liver … among patients with NAFLD,” researcher Manal Abdelmalek said.

The researchers analyzed the diets and livers of 427 adults with NAFLD, and found that only 19 percent of them never consumed fructose-containing beverages. In contrast, 52 percent of participants had between one and six servings of a fructose-containing beverage per week, while another 29 percent had at least one serving per day. The higher patients’ fructose intake, the worse the scarring of their livers.

“We have identified an environmental risk factor that may contribute to the metabolic syndrome of insulin resistance and the complications of the metabolic syndrome, including liver injury,” Abdelmalek said.
Abdelmalek noted that NAFLD is a severe problem that cannot be treated and may lead in some cases to liver cancer, liver failure and a need for liver transplant.

Researchers are still unsure why high-fructose corn syrup appears to damage the body more than its extra 5 percent fructose content would suggest. Some have hypothesized that the negative effects come from the massive quantities in which it is consumed — high-fructose corn syrup is found in nearly all processed foods.

Other researchers have observed that beverages made with high-fructose corn syrup contain high levels of reactive carbonyls, which can damage cells. Still others have noted that the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup is chemically unbonded and thus spreads through the body more freely than the fructose in table sugar.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Promotes Obesity and Liver Damage

Harvard Study Links Potato Chips & Soda to Weight Gain

From Fooducate

A study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found a correlation between several bad habits and weight gain:
Within each 4-year period, participants gained an average of 3.35 lb (5th to 95th percentile, −4.1 to 12.4). On the basis of increased daily servings of individual dietary components, 4-year weight change was most strongly associated with the intake of

• potato chips (1.69 lb),
• potatoes (1.28 lb),
• sugar-sweetened beverages (1.00 lb),
• unprocessed red meats (0.95 lb), and
• processed meats (0.93 lb)

There was an inverse association linked to the intake of

• vegetables (−0.22 lb),
• whole grains (−0.37 lb),
• fruits (−0.49 lb),
• nuts (−0.57 lb), and
• yogurt (−0.82 lb)

What you need to know:
What do these numbers mean? One could argue that eating potato chips means you’ll get fat. But it’s hard to prove causality in these types of studies. Perhaps the people eating chips and soda were less health conscious than those eating yogurt and veggies.
This brings up the issue of calorie quality vs. calorie quantity:

“For diet, conventional wisdom often recommends ‘everything in moderation,’ with a focus only on total calories consumed,” says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and lead author of the study. “Our results demonstrate that the quality of the diet — the types of food and beverages that one consumes — is strongly linked to weight gain.” read more at NEJM…

Finally, it’s interesting to note that potatoes (not just potato chips) are associated with weight gain. While potatoes in and of themselves are a healthy food, their main use in the American diet is as french fries.

Harvard Study Links Potato Chips & Soda to Weight Gain