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Banning Toys in Happy Meals…What Do You Think?

As always, we love feedback from our customers…what do you think of the new ban in Santa Clara County on toys in McDonald’s Happy Meals?

Here’s a short synopsis of the ban from the foodconsumer.org:

Santa Clara County Bans Happy Meals With Toys

Santa Clara County will soon ban Happy Meal toys and other promotional items that are used to promote sales of high calorie children’s meals unless the restaurants meet nutritional

guidelines approved by the County Board of Supervisors.

The Board passed the ordinance by a 3 to 2 vote. Ken Yeager, the sponsor of the measure, was cited as saying that the ordinance prevents restaurants from “preying on children’s love of toys” to sell unhealthful food.

Opponents like Donald Gage said parents should be responsible for their children who actually don’t have the purchasing power.

Dr. Dan Delgado, director of a county program aiming to fight childhood obesity

, was cited as saying that toys encourage children to eat unhealthy food which helps cause obesity.

A spokesman for the McDonald’s said foods served at the chain restaurant offer many nutrients that children need.

A health observer told foodconsumer.org that one unhealthy meal without an ideal nutrition profile would not do much of any harm.  What may be really detrimental is that you eat junk food as a habit.

Recipe of the Week! Chicken “Salad”

I made this the other night when I was desperate to a) use up one boneless, skinless chicken breast, b) get my daily greens and c) not have to go grocery shopping after work. It came out so well I figured I wanted to share!

You’ll need:

-1-2 tbsp olive oil

-1 large boneless skinless chicken breast, or two small ones, equaling roughly one pound total

-2-4 garlic cloves, minced

-Freshly ground black pepper

-Paprika

-1 bag salad greens (I like the 50/50 mix from Fresh Express)

- ½ to ¾ cup each: carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumber, bell pepper (any color, though I like the red, yellow, or orange varieties best), onions, any other produce you might want to thrown in (radishes, tomatoes, jicama, daikon, whatever you’d like!), cut into bite-size pieces

-Your fave salad dressing (mine’s Light Ranch!)

To make:

-Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan or skillet over low-to-medium heat. Pound the chicken breast flat, then cut it into thin strips (about ¼ inch wide by 3 inches long). Add the chicken to the pan or skillet. Add in the minced garlic cloves, and sprinkle ground pepper (I grind it right into the pan) and paprika to taste over the chicken. Cook chicken, stirring and agitating regularly, until done.

-In the meantime, toss the green and all of the veggies together into big bowls for the salads. Set aside.

-When the chicken is done cooking, add to salads. You can cut it into smaller pieces if you’d like, or leave the strips whole.

-Toss the salads with 1 tbsp each of your fave dressing. For an even more diet-friendly alternative, portion out a tablespoon of the dressing and serve it with the salad, on the side. When eating the salad, dip just the tines of your fork into the dressing, then spear a mouthful of the salad. Betcha won’t even eat the whole tablespoon!

-Enjoy! Serves 4.

New study links chocolate with depression

From the Los Angeles Times this morning, by Shari Roan:One need only look at the recent introduction of chocolate Cheerios to fully grasp Americans’ fondness for the pulp from cacao beans. Savoring chocolate is normal.

But, researchers said Monday, overindulging in it could be a marker for depression.

Researchers at UC San Diego and UC Davis examined chocolate consumption and other dietary intake patterns among 931 men and women who were not using antidepressants. The participants were also given a depression screening test. Those who screened positive for possible depression consumed an average of 8.4 servings of chocolate — defined as one ounce of chocolate candy — per month. That compared with 5.4 servings per month among people who were not depressed.

Those who scored highest on the mood tests, indicating possible major depression, consumed an average of 11.8 servings per month. The findings were similar among women and men.

When the researchers controlled for other dietary factors that could be linked to mood — such as caffeine, fat and carbohydrate intake — they found only chocolate consumption correlated with mood.

It’s not clear how the two are linked, the authors wrote. It could be that depression stimulates chocolate cravings as a form of self-treatment. Chocolate prompts the release of certain chemicals in the brain, such as dopamine, that produce feelings of pleasure.

There is no evidence, however, that chocolate has a sustained benefit on improving mood. Like alcohol, chocolate may contribute a short-term boost in mood followed by a return to depression or a worsened mood. A study published in 2007 in the journal Appetite found that eating chocolate improved mood but only for about three minutes.

It’s also possible that depressed people seek chocolate to improve mood but that the trans fats in some chocolate counteract the effect of omega-3 fatty acid production in the body, the authors said in the paper. Omega-3 fatty acids are thought to improve mental health.

Another theory is that chocolate consumption contributes to depression or that some physiological mechanism, such as stress, drives both depression and chocolate cravings.

“It’s unlikely that chocolate makes people depressed,” said Marcia Levin Pelchat, a psychologist who studies food cravings at the MonellChemicalSensesCenter in Philadelphia. She was not involved in the new study. “Most people believe the beneficial effects of chocolate are on mood and that they are learned. You eat chocolate; it makes you feel good, and sometime when you’re feeling badly it occurs to you, ‘Gee, if I eat some chocolate I might feel better.’ “

Chocolate is popular in North America and Britain, she said. But in other cultures, different foods are considered pleasure-inducing pick-me-ups.

“In the United States, people consider chocolate really tasty,” Pelchat said. “It has a high cultural value. It’s an appropriate gift for Valentine’s Day. But in China, you might give stuffed snails to someone you really like.”

 

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Healthy Snacking Measures Up!

Forgot to toss a package of your favorite Glenny’s Soy Crisps into your bag on your way out today? Need a treat to polish off lunch, but that fabulous 100 Calorie Brownie you SO enjoyed yesterday was the last one in the box? Fear not; avid snackers and diet-trackers alike can keep their rumbling tummies happy with some excellent recommendations to keep portions in control by using, simply…your hands and fingers. Check out the recommendations in this awesome article from WebMD, as well as a list of 20 100-calorie snacks below. Snack on!

For portion control: The palm of the hand is usually a 3-ounce serving; a tablespoon is about the size of the last digit on your thumb; and if it’s a long item, like string cheese, an ounce is about the length of your forefinger.

20 ways to enjoy a 100-calorie snack:

1. Half an apple with 2 teaspoons of peanut butter
2. An orange and a few dry-roasted nuts
3. 10 cashew nuts
4. 10 almonds
5. 2 ounces of lean roast beef
6. Half a small avocado
7. 3 ounces cooked whole-grain noodles with 1 fresh tomato and 1/2 ounce hard cheese
8. 1 seven-grain Belgian waffle
9. 4 mini rice cakes with 2 tablespoons low-fat cottage cheese
10. 3 ounces low-fat cottage cheese and 3 whole-wheat crackers
11. 1/4 cup fat-free ranch dressing with mixed raw veggies
12. 6 Wheat Thins crackers with two teaspoons of peanut butter (or any nut butter)
13. 1 small baked potato with 1/2 cup salsa and 2 tablespoons of fat-free sour cream
14. 1/3 cup of unsweetened applesauce with 1 slice of whole-wheat toast, cut into 4 strips for dunking
15. 1/2 cup frozen orange juice, eaten as sorbet
16. 2 large graham cracker squares with 1 teaspoon peanut butter
17. 3 handfuls of unbuttered popcorn, seasoned with herbs
18. 4-6 ounces of no-fat or low-fat yogurt
19. A 5-ounce tossed salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and 1/4 cup fat-free dressing
20. Half a “finger” of string cheese with 4 whole-wheat crackers

Snacking Around The World

So what are they snacking on in other countries? Here’s a look at a favorite snack food in Mumbai, written by an ABC News correspondent. Check out the article on the ABCNews website here.

A Taste of Mumbai’s Favorite Snack Food

Indian Food: Vada Pav, Mumbai’s Chutney-Slathered Vegetarian Snack

By Ben Arnoldy for ABCNews, Mumbai, 4/24/2010

The street vendor cuts into a roll, drops hot food between the halves, then, with a flick of a spoon, dollops sauces in the middle. He pushes it on a small paper plate to me, one of several guys sidled up to his stall to catch lunch on the street.

If this were Manhattan, we would be talking about hot dogs.

But this is Mumbai, the megacity of 14 million people also known as Bombay. Here, few people eat pork or beef. Instead, you could describe what sits before me as a deep-fried veggie burger with some serious street cred.

The vada pav marries a spiced potato patty – the vada – with a white-bread bun – the pav. But it also binds together Mumbai. Cheap and served outdoors, the sandwich brings laborers, office stiffs, and students elbow-to-elbow around the stalls. Even the making of vada pav is an act of local love:

“The bread is made in a Parsi bakery by Muslim workers,” says Satish Vijaykumar, a young professional. “And the vada is made by Hindu [residents]. And Goan Catholics [from the neighboring state] are called pav. And all of Bombay eats it. This is amazingly the thing which unites Bombay.”

I pick up the heavy-as-a-baseball Bombay burger. Dainty it is not. The mint and tamarind chutneys are soaking into the bun and flirting with that fine line between juicy and sloppy.

One bite produces the entire range of flavors found in an Indian buffet. The mint and chutney combo offers a sweet and tangy effect comparable to the ketchup, mustard tag team on Western sandwiches. But the dry red-chili chutney on the vada pav adds a third dimension of heat.

Fortunately, I like spicy food, and as with most Indian cuisine, there’s something on the plate to calm the palate – in this case, the bun. The “meat” of the dish, the potato patty, reminds me of the innards of a samosa. It’s made of much the same ingredients: boiled potatoes, green chilies, cumin or coriander, garlic, and salt. Two guys in the back slap the mixture into small patties, dip it in a mix of chickpea flour and water, and deep-fry it in peanut oil.

At this particular stall, named Ashok’s, any chickpea mix drippings are added to the plate, somewhat like French fries. Ashok’s sells about 1,000 vada pavs a day, at 22 cents apiece. They come wrapped in sheets of newspaper. I spy one headline: “Beating cyber insecurity.”

Ashok’s has won awards for the best vada pav in town, but manager Ramesh Thakur seems just as proud of the fact that he has customers who drive up to the stall in a car.

Mr. Thakur explains that his vada pavs go for a premium (others may cost just 13 cents), because he insists on ordering particularly fluffy buns, making the chutneys fresh every morning, and changing the peanut oil twice a day.

“All the ingredients are high, high grade,” says Thakur.

But, he adds, “it’s only when you put ingredients in the right proportion that you get the best taste.”

Caring for Hips and Knees to Avoid Artificial Joints

The New York Times recently ran an interesting article bemoaning the increased incidence of osteoarthritis (OA) in younger populations, citing studies that show more and more people getting OA–and the requisite artificial joints that come with it–at younger and younger ages. As the child of an avid cyclist and former triathlete who has now had both hips replaced, I sat up and took notice of this article. I run, I rock-climb, I commute almost everywhere by bicycle…in short, I live a pretty active life. Here are the suggestions from the article about what you can do to avoid creaking joints and joint replacement:(excerpted from The New York Times Health section, Friday, April 23, 2010, article by Lesley Alderman)

CONTROL YOUR WEIGHT The more you weigh, the more pressure on your joints, which can lead to joint damage. When you walk, each knee bears a force equivalent to three to six times the body’s weight. If you weigh a mere 120 pounds, your knees are taking a 360-pound, or more, beating with every step.

GO LOW-IMPACT Although no definitive link has been found between osteoarthritis of the knee and running (or any other sport), sports medicine doctors discourage their patients from running on hard pavement, playing tennis on concrete or activities like skiing over lots of moguls.

AVOID INJURY Easier said than done, of course. But major injuries, typically the type that require surgery, greatly increase your risk for osteoarthritis.

GET FIT It makes sense. The better toned your muscles are, the less likely you are to injure yourself (unless you are also playing football every Saturday morning).

BE SKEPTICAL Don’t waste your money on specialized nutrients. Shark cartilage, glucosamine and chondroitin – popular supplements marketed for healthy joints – can be expensive and probably are of limited benefit, many specialists say.

Controlling your weight, eating healthy and getting fit are all ways that Glenny’s can help improve your quality of life and keep you from getting OA. Glenny’s awesome line of delicious, nutritious snacks help keep your diet in check, metabolism boosted and weight gain to a minimum (or weight loss to a max, depending on what you’re trying to do with your diet!). Moreover, Glenny’s snacks are free of refined sugars, artificial ingredients, sugar alcohols and many are gluten-free and high in protein, making them an excellent muscle builder before and after exercise. I never leave for a climb without a Fruit & Nut Energy Bar or two tucked into my pack. It’s all about all-natural, pure & healthy energy…the way Nature intended.

Recipe of The Week: Delicious & Healthy Egg Salad Sandwich

As she states in the recipe, this is the only egg salad sandwich Heidi Swanson will eat. Thanks again to her amazing cooking blog for this great recipe!

Egg Salad Sandwich

I’ve realized that 90% of the challenge here is properly boiling the egg. You need to boil it so the center sets yet stays moist. You also need to avoid the green/grey ring thing that surrounds the yolk in many hard boiled eggs. I use the same technique here that I learned camping with a hardcore egg enthusiast. It has worked for me flawlessly ever since. The key is to avoid over cooking, and to dunk the eggs in a bowl of icy water to stop the cooking after you remove them from the hot water. I always use good quality eggs – but something to keep in mind, the fresher they are, the harder they are to peel after boiling.

6 large eggs
1-2 tablespoons mayonnaise (or Greek yogurt)
Salt and pepper
A tiny squeeze of lemon juice
2 stalks celery, washed and chopped
1/2 bunch chives, chopped
2 small handfuls of lettuce
8 slices of whole grain bread, toasted

Place the eggs in a pot and cover with cold water by a 1/2-inch or so. Bring to a gentle boil. Now turn off the heat, cover, and let sit for exactly seven minutes. Have a big bowl of ice water ready and when the eggs are done cooking place them in the ice bath for three minutes or so – long enough to stop the cooking. Crack and peel each egg, place in a medium mixing bowl. Add the mayonnaise, a couple generous pinches of salt and pepper, now mash with a fork. Don’t overdo it, you want the egg mixture to have some texture. If you need to add a bit more mayo to moisten up the mixture a bit, go for it a bit at a time.

Stir in the celery and chives. Taste, and adjust the seasoning – adding more salt and pepper if needed.

To assemble each egg salad sandwich: place a bit of lettuce on a piece of toast, top with the egg salad mixture, and finish by creating a sandwich with a second piece of toast.

Make 4 sandwiches.

Should the Food Industry Ban Added Salt and Sugar?

Some think they should; others aren’t so sure. Here’s one commentary, thanks to US News & World Report, on the proposed changes to regulate the American diet:

(commentary by Deborah Kotz) “The pressure is on the food industry to stop poisoning us with all that added salt and sugar that make Oreos, Coke, and Krispy Kreme doughnuts taste oh, so good. On Tuesday, the Institute of Medicine urged the Food and Drug Administration to start regulating the amount of sodium in foods, since simply telling us to eat less salt hasn’t had much impact. Who knew that a Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino Light Blended Coffee has 350 milligrams of sodium—about 15 percent of our daily allowance? The FDA said yesterday that it will review the Institute’s recommendations “over the coming weeks” and work with “the food industry to support the reduction of sodium levels in the food supply.”

Sounds good, right? But what if the food industry just swaps sodium for sugar? A study published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that all the added sugars in processed foods spell trouble for our cholesterol levels and our hearts. The more added sugars we eat, the more our LDL or “bad” cholesterol goes up and the more our HDL or “good” cholesterol goes down. We also get an unhealthful boost in triglycerides, blood lipids that are associated with diabetes. For this reason, the American Heart Association recently recommended limiting added sugar intake to no more than 5 percent of our total calories, which comes out to roughly 100 calories per day for women and 150 daily calories for men. (Me? I’ve almost met my daily limit and I haven’t even eaten lunch yet. That fat-free vanilla latte cost me 48 calories with its 12 grams of added sugar. And two measly hard candies cost me 32 calories with their 8 grams of sugar.)

The food industry already responded to pressure from federal and state governments to ban trans fats in doughnuts, fries, and cookies, and the beverage industry is bracing for a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks. I’m curious, though, what packaged food makers will do with any new restrictions on sodium and sugar. Will they start pouring more fake substitutes into foods like the low-calorie sweetener sorbitol, which gives many folks gas? Or perhaps more cookies will be sweetened with Splenda? A 2008 Duke University study found that the artificial sweetener reduces the number of beneficial bacteria in the intestines. How about salt substitutes that contain potassium instead of sodium? This FDA site says they “could be harmful to people with certain medical conditions, such as diabetes, kidney disease, and heart disease.” Those are the very folks who desperately need to reduce the salt in their diets. Unfortunately, the solution could be worse than the problem.

After all, the JAMA study authors admitted that one of the reasons why our intake of added sugars has surged in recent years may have to do with public health recommendations to limit cholesterol-raising dietary fat. Food manufacturers often chose to replace the fat in cookies with extra sugar. Remember the introduction of Snackwell’s? “There is a need to review the dietary recommendations to see how they influence intake of added sugars,” wrote the study authors from Emory University. Perhaps the same should hold true for any new regulations on salt and sugar. Clearly, Americans have to cut back on processed foods and hit the produce aisle more often. But before public health officials demand recipe changes for Oreos and Coke, they may want to first find out what the “twin evils” of sugar and salt will be replaced with.”

Glenny’s would love to hear from our readers…what do you think the government’s role should be in the regulation of added fats and sugars within the food industry? Are industry standards acceptable or do they need more regulation from the government? And is a Starbucks drink containing 15% of the RDA for sodium really good for a public already facing considerable challenges in obesity and hypertension? Send us your thoughts…we’d love your opinion!

Eat Better Today!

Check out the latest from Women’s Health magazine!

4 anti-aging diet tips that will keep you strong and sexy

Sure, you can unload hundreds of cash on lotions that promise to banish wrinkles or erase signs of aging, but that doesn’t mean the secret to living a long, healthy life isn’t right under your nose. Here are easy ways to fight aging-at the supermarket!

Eat more antioxidants: Many scientists think some symptoms of aging are the result of our cells being attacked by free radicals, and that antioxidants neutralize them, thus preventing them from doing any damage. Try berries, pomegranates, and brussels sprouts-or munch on the peel (yep, the peel) of your favorite produce.

Master the produce aisle: Not sure how to find the best and ripest antioxidant-packed fruits and veggies? Conquer your knowledge gap with our guide to finding the best produce.

Snacks with a health boost: Peanut butter’s great, but if you want some more variety, swap it out once in a while for almond butter, which is higher in minerals that improve bone strength.

Pass on supplements: Antioxidant supplements have nothing on fresh, whole foods. In a study, women who ate foods rich in vitamin E-which is also a great skin protector-lessened their chances of suffering a stroke. Vitamin E supplements, on the other hand, provided no protection.

To read the full article, click here.

Meat, Especially If It’s Well-Done, May Increase Risk Of Bladder Cancer

As if we needed another reason to eat more veggies. Check out the news posted yesterday on ScienceDaily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2010) – People who eat meat frequently, especially meat that is well done or cooked at high temperatures, may have a higher chance of developing bladder cancer, according to a large study that The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 101st Annual Meeting 2010. This risk appears to increase in people with certain genetic variants.

“It’s well known that meat cooked at high temperatures generates heterocyclic amines (HCAs) that can cause cancer,” said study presenter Jie Lin, Ph.D., assistant professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Epidemiology. “We wanted to find out if meat consumption increases the risk of developing bladder cancer and how genetic differences may play a part.”

Meat-eating habits examined

According to the American Cancer Society, almost 71,000 new cases of bladder cancer were diagnosed in this country last year, and more than 14,000 people died because of the disease. Men are at much higher risk of developing bladder cancer than women.

HCAs form when muscle meats, such as beef, pork, poultry or fish, are cooked at high temperatures. They are products of interaction between amino acids, which are the foundation of proteins, and the chemical creatine, which is stored in muscles. Past research has identified 17 HCAs that may contribute to cancer.

This study, which took place over 12 years, included 884 M. D. Anderson patients with bladder cancer and 878 people who did not have cancer. They were matched by age, gender and ethnicity.

Using a standardized questionnaire designed by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), researchers gathered information about each participant’s dietary habits. They then categorized people into four levels, ranging from lowest to highest red meat intake.

Well-done red meat nourishes cancer risk

The group with the highest red-meat consumption had almost one-and-a-half times the risk of developing bladder cancer as those who ate little red meat.

Specifically, consumption of beef steaks, pork chops and bacon raised bladder cancer risk significantly. Even chicken and fish — when fried — significantly raised the odds of cancer.

The level of doneness of the meat also had a marked impact. People whose diets included well-done meats were almost twice as likely to develop bladder cancer as those who preferred meats rare.

Further questioning of a subset of 177 people with bladder cancer and 306 people without bladder cancer showed that people with the highest estimated intake of three specific HCAs were more than two-and-a-half times more likely to develop bladder cancer than those with low estimated HCA intake.

“To quantify intakes of HCAs, we began three or four years ago to gather information on meat-cooking methods and doneness level, and then used a program developed by the NCI to estimate intakes of three major HCAs,” Lin said. “These data gave important information about the relationship between HCAs and bladder cancer.”

Genetic variants increase incidence

To take the investigation a step further, researchers analyzed each participant’s DNA to find if it contained genetic variants in the HCA metabolism pathways that may interact with red meat intake to increase the risk of cancer.

People with seven or more unfavorable genotypes as well as high red-meat intake were at almost five times the risk of bladder cancer.

“This research reinforces the relationship between diet and cancer,” said Xifeng Wu, M.D., Ph.D., professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Epidemiology and lead author on the study. “These results strongly support what we suspected: people, who eat a lot of red meat, particularly well-done red meat, such as fried or barbecued, seem to have a higher likelihood of bladder cancer. This effect is compounded if they carry high unfavorable genotypes in the HCA-metabolism pathway.”

Wu said this research is a step toward a future in which a comprehensive cancer-risk prediction model will integrate environmental, diet and genetic risk factors to predict an individual’s chances of developing cancer.

Co-authors with Lin and Wu included Jian-Ming Wang, M.D., Ph.D., and Meng Chen, Ph.D., also of M. D. Anderson’s Department of Epidemiology, and H. Barton Grossman, M.D., and Colin P. Dinney, M.D., of the Department of Urology.

This research is supported by funding from National Cancer Institute.

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