ColumnYou can’t outrun a bad diet, but big food companies want you to think you can.

A healthy lifestyle is one that involves eating well and getting regular physical activity. You don’t need to be a scientist to know that. But are we sold a myth that is only a half truth?

In a world with skyrocketing obesity rates, we are constantly looking for the solution. Do people just need to be more active? Do they just need to make sure they only consume a certain amount of calories every day? An editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine points the finger at big food companies, saying that they have mislead us in the thinking that maintaining a healthy weight is all about calorie counting and exercising.

The authors write that “members of the public are drowned by an unhelpful message about maintaining a ‘healthy weight’ through calorie counting, and many still wrongly believe that obesity is entirely due to lack of exercise. This false perception is rooted in the Food Industry’s Public Relations machinery, which uses tactics chillingly similar to those of big tobacco.”

It’s true that many are more focused on how many calories they consume as opposed to where those calories come from. A 300-calorie fast food burger and a 300-calorie meal made from lentils and leafy greens is an entirely different thing. And if you eat that fast food burger, going for a workout afterwards isn’t necessarily going to help you either.

The authors of the editorial note that in an analysis of worldwide sugar availability, it was shown that for every excess 150 calories of sugar (ie what’s in a can of cola), type 2 diabetes was 11 times more prevalent, compared to when those 150 calories came from fat or protein. Where your calories come from matters.

But big food businesses have big advertising, marketing and lobbying budgets, and they can push any message that they want. “Coca Cola, who spent $3.3 billion on advertising in 2013, pushes a message that ‘all calories count’; they associate their products with sport, suggesting it is ok to consume their drinks as long as you exercise,” write the authors. “However science tells us this is misleading and wrong. It is where the calories come from that is crucial. Sugar calories promote fat storage and hunger. Fat calories induce fullness or ‘satiation’.”

Of course, it’s much easier for these companies to put the blame on the individual consumer than it is to change their business model. If you’re gaining weight it’s your fault for not counting your calories and not exercising enough. It’s certainly not the fault of the company that’s pumping sugar, salt and fat into the economy at enormous rates.

At some point, if we really want to deal with the public health issue then we are going to need to take a stand for government intervention, much like how we dealt with tobacco. But as the authors of the article note, the food industry uses the exact same tactics used by the tobacco industry; tactics that allowed the industry to keep functioning unchecked for decades. “The tobacco industry successfully stalled government intervention for 50 years starting from when the first links between smoking and lung cancer were published. This sabotage was achieved using a ‘corporate playbook’ of denial, doubt, confusing the public and even buying the loyalty of bent scientists, at the cost of millions of lives.”

Want to live a healthy lifestyle? Eat well, get regular exercise. But also, stand up against the big food companies that continue to make us sick.

We all need to take personal responsibility for our health, but these companies should take some corporate responsibility as well.

Related on EcoSalon

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Scorpion and Centaurs

The post Are Big Food Companies Pushing an Exercise and Obesity Myth? Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnDealing with antibiotic resistance starts with thinking about what’s on your plate.

I was watching a PSA this week, all about antibiotics. It got me thinking: why aren’t we more pissed off about the problem of antibiotic resistance? Or moved to change our actions that are part of causing it?

Imagine you have an infection . . .

. . . that your child has an infection.

Nothin’ major a few days of antibiotics should clear it up, right?

Wrong!

Well-known antibiotics are proving to be less and less effective every year, and people across America are starting to wonder why.

More and more people are starting to talk about antibiotic resistance. But we shouldn’t just be talking about antibiotics, we should be talking about what we’re eating. Because it is in part our food habits that are fueling this problem.

Antibiotics, originally developed to protect human health, are now keeping the industrial livestock industry alive. About 80 percent of the antibacterial drugs sold in the United States go to livestock, and not even to sick livestock. They’re simply used to keep animals healthy in a system that’s inherently unhealthy for them, raised in overcrowded spaces that are often unhygienic. This non-therapeutic use of antibiotics helps keep the industry producing cheap meat. I’m talking about your bacon. Your hot dogs. Your burgers. Your bologna sandwich. Are people still eating those?

As the industrial meat industry has grown, so has the use of antibiotics. Between 1985 and 2001, the use of antibiotics in feed for industrial livestock production rose by 50 percent. The U.S. isn’t alone. In Britain about half of antibiotics go to livestock.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:

While the links between animal agriculture and human disease are complicated and in need of additional study, evidence is strong enough for scientists and public health organizations to call for reduced use of antibiotics in agriculture. The CDC has concluded that, in the United States, antimicrobial use in food animals is the dominant source of antibiotic resistance among foodborne pathogens.

Drug resistant bacteria that develops on farms, easily reaches the general public, making these bacteria a national health issue. We’re not talking about just a few cases here and there of not being able to deal with certain infections. We’re talking full-blown health crisis. In fact, according to the NRDC, drug-resistant infections are estimated to cost Americans up to $26 billion per year in additional healthcare costs. That $5.99 steak on sale might seem like a good deal now, but the ramifications and costs of its productions are much higher.

“A post-antibiotic era – in which common infections and minor injuries can kill – far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st Century,” wrote the authors of a recent World Health Organization report on antimicrobial resistance.

Beyond leaving us incapable of dealing with infections, there are also studies on the link between obesity and the use of antibiotics. The use of antibiotics for livestock is making us fatter and keeping us from treating infections. Choosing to eat industrially produced meat isn’t just a matter of your own health, it’s a matter of global health.

Wherever you fall on the eat meat vs. don’t eat meat argument, I think we can all agree that this is a flawed system. Using antibiotics in farming is dangerous. We are keeping an unsustainable alive, while at the same time putting our own health at risk.

We need a different system, and that starts with thinking about what’s on the plate in front of us.

Related on EcoSalon

The Rise of the Superbug

Your Health Depends on Beneficial Bacteria

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Greg Goebel

The post Antibiotic Resistance and the Industrial Meat Industry: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnA healthy diet comes with smart portions.

A few weeks ago I was on an early flight. We’re talking really, super early. So early that I decided against buying a coffee because it would keep me from sleeping on the plane. I opted for a vegan, wheat free oatmeal muffin instead – by this alone you should be able to guess that this was the Portland airport. Standing in line I listened to what my fellow early morning travelers ordered. The two orders in front of me made me nearly fall over:

1. One 16-ounce black forest mocha (“black forest” because there were cherries involved apparently)… with whipped cream

2. One 16-ounce iced caramel macchiato… with whipped cream

It was 4:45 am.

I am of the personal opinion that no one ever needs an iced caramel macchiato with whipped cream, but we’ll put that opinion aside for now. Even if you are behind the occasional crazy coffee drink I think we can all agree that no one needs one at 4:45 in the morning.

A few days later I was on my return flight. Stuck again in an airport without any food in my bag, I had to find lunch. The best I could do was a burrito with black beans, rice and guacamole. You can do worse in an airport. But then the burrito came out and I realized that it was almost the size of my head. I sighed. And then even though I knew better, ended up eating the whole thing.

I live in France, and since moving I have found that the return to American restaurants can be glorious and scary all at the same time. There are tacos! And huge breakfast menus! And a bunch of vegetarian options! But everything comes on plates that could seemingly feed a family of four. I have had numerous friends from Europe over the years say to me, “everything in the U.S. is so… big.”

It’s true. A big meal once in awhile is one thing- everyone loves a good Thanksgiving buffet now don’t they? – but as a part of our regular eating habits? Our custom of large portion sizes is detrimental to our path towards a healthy diet. And those portion sizes are growing.

Since the 1950s the average restaurant meal has quadrupled in size. That has health implications. Over the last few decades, the portions of food served out of the home have gotten bigger, and this trend has been shown to correspond with the rise in obesity. The bigger the portions get, the fatter we get.

For example, what did a coffee order look like twenty, even ten years ago? Black, maybe with some cream. As an 8-ounce drink that would have set you back about 45 calories. But that grande 16-ounce mocha today? 330 calories.

The average hamburger 20 years ago came in at around 333 calories. Today it’s at around 590.

You get the idea.

Take a look at any fast food menu and there’s a super duper, extra huge option. And all those enormous fast food items that have grown in the last couple of decades also happen to be heavily marketed. The industrial food world wants you eating more food. It’s good for business.

While it may be nice to think that we’re living in a time of heightened health consciousness, you still have chains like Taco Bell releasing new, and huge, items to seduce the hungry masses. Just like you don’t need a 16-ounce mocha with whipped cream for breakfast, you also don’t need a massive waffle taco.

Should these companies and chains continue to be allowed to produce such items with no ramifications? After all, this is the stuff that’s fueling obesity and heart attacks.

If we want to reduce obesity and put ourselves on track towards a healthier diet, maybe it’s time to consider regulating portion size. Obesity is after all a public health epidemic, and as such, shouldn’t we be taking the right steps to deal with it?

Food for thought: food labels are based off of carefully calculated dietary guidelines, but often the guidelines is for an amount of food that is much smaller than what you are getting served. We live in a free market but when the free market is making us sick, it could be time to think about changing how it operates.

In the meantime, it could be the moment for all of us to think about how much we’re eating and how much we really need. Get the small option when you can, avoid fast food at all costs. After all, your life depends on it.

Related on EcoSalon

11 Reasons to Completely Change Your Diet: Foodie Underground

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Improving the Food System and Fighting Obesity, Creatively: Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Kevin Dooley

The post Want a Healthy Diet? Reduce Portion Sizes: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

A film about entrepreneurial solutions to social issues.

The statistics surrounding the state of public health in the United States are overwhelming. Today, 72.5 million Americans are obese, resulting in $146 billion dollars per year in obesity-related costs. That number is estimated to jump to $343 billion by 2020.

This is how the documentary film Apple Pushers begins, with a strident reminder of the food and health crisis we’re currently in. We live in a country where the disparity between communities that have access to fresh food and those that don’t is shocking. In fact, 23.5 million Americans don’t have a supermarket within one mile of their home, putting these Americans in the heart of food deserts, and while convenience stores and fast food may abound, getting healthy and affordable food is difficult and inconvenient.

In response to food deserts in New York City, in 2008 the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund gave a $1.5 million grant to launch the Green Carts initiative, creating 1,000 permits for green carts, mobile food carts that sell raw fruits and vegetables. The grant funded micro-loans and technical assistance for Green Cart operators to ensure that low-income communities would have the access to healthy food they so desperately need.

The story of the Green Carts initiative and its positive effects is the subject of documentary film, Apple Pushers, screening online April 22-30 as a part of Whole Foods’ online documentary film festival Do Something Reel, featuring a variety of documentaries on food and environmental issues.

First approached by Laurie Tisch, filmmaker Mary Mazzio launched herself into telling the story of four immigrants positively impacted by the initiative, all starting their own mobile food cart businesses, and the effects that this kind of philanthropic effort can have. In the process, she was immersed in the world of food politics and the importance of access as it relates to healthier communities.

“When these low income residents can use their food stamp cards, demand skyrockets, whether it’s farmers markets or pushcarts… [it]has to be a price point that makes sense. Low income communities want access to food too,” says Mazzio.

Providing access to good food might seem like a no-brainer, but watch the film and you soon learn that getting Green Carts launched was not a path without obstacles. A contentious issue when it came to City Council, politicians were concerned about the effects on local business that such a model would have, contending that mobile food carts would pull consumers away from local establishments. In the film, we see the heated debate that ensues. “I waded through all the 100s of pages of testimony… what was really interesting was, yet another universal concept, whether you have a 2×4 cart or you’re Walmart, people go ballistic because it means change,” says Mazzio.

But the launching of a program that would support mobile food carts wasn’t just an economic question. “What did surprise me were some of the arguments, like ‘those people don’t eat fruits and vegetables.’ I think that is a misguided notion of how you look at the issue. That’s like saying ‘oh, those people don’t have checking accounts’ Well guess what, where are the banks? It’s an issue of red line food districts,” says Mazzio.

Put good food into these places and people will buy it. “Low income communities want access to food, too,” says Mazzio. (That this should even be a matter of debate says much about our current cultural climate.) When we’re talking about public health and eating habits, we have to start with infrastructure and equality.

And the stakes are high. As Mazzio points out, obesity alone “is a problem that could bankrupt our children if we don’t keep it in check. It’s going to overshadow almost every other problem we have financially. Really? This is a problem we can fix.”

And that’s where the idea of mobile markets comes into play. From mobile grocery stores in Nashville to a mobile supermarket in New Mexico to a $25,000 grant to fund a mobile farmers markets in Houston, initiatives similar to Green Carts are popping up around the country, providing a grassroots solution to an overwhelming problem. Beyond providing access to good food, as they are “rooted in micro entrepreneurship” as Mazzio says, these programs are also economically empowering.

For Mazzio, if we’re going to solve the obesity crisis we need more programs like this. Not just government subsidies, but the kind of micro loans and programs that bring long lasting returns. Ultimately, programs like Green Carts are “entrepreneurial solutions to social issues,” says Mazzio. Because when it comes to food, we all need to eat, and we all deserve the access to the food that is good for us.

“This is basic human rights. That’s kind of overstating it, but this is food justice,” says Mazzio.

“The Apple Pushers” theatrical trailer from Paul Gattuso on Vimeo.

Do Something Reel festival opens April 22, with a live screening of “The Apple Pushers,” followed by a panel discussion with the film’s writer and director, Mary Mazzio; executive producer, Laurie Tisch; and celebrity chef, food policy advocate and founder of Wholesome Wave, Michel Nischan. The event will take place at Alamo Drafthouse’s Slaughter Lane Theater in Whole Foods Market’s hometown of Austin. Additionally, theaters in Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh and San Francisco will host simultaneous screenings and will stream the panel discussion. For more information click here. To learn more about Apple Pushers visit the film’s website. 

Image: Apple Pushers

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Inhale, exhale, because you’ve done the right thing by toting your reusable shopping bags on all of your grocery shopping trips. But if you’re anything like me, or 97 percent of the people who participated in a recent research study conducted by the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University, you’ve never washed your reusable bags, and there’s a good chance they’re contaminated with E. coli or other bacteria.

Before reading about this study’s findings, it hadn’t dawned on me that I needed to launder my reusable bags on a weekly basis, as researchers suggest. In hindsight, it seems obvious. I type this as my reusable sidekicks air dry after their inaugural wash. And I’m sure you’ll want to be near your washing machine after learning the following facts.

Researchers note, “Our findings suggest a serious threat to public health, especially from coliform bacteria including E. coli, which were detected in half of the bags sampled, bacteria levels found in reusable bags were significant enough to cause a wide range of serious health problems and even death. They are a particular danger for young children, who are especially vulnerable to food-borne illnesses.”

The good news is, a thorough washing will kill nearly all of the bacteria that accumulates in reusable shopping bags. Other tips that bring-your-own-bags consumers may benefit from in the quest to keep it clean:

• Separate raw foods from other food products when packing bags.
• Specify reusable bags for individual purposes to avoid cross-contamination. I.e: have a set for groceries only, a set for library books, a set for gym gear, etc.
• “Do not store meat or produce in the trunk of your car, because higher temperatures promote the growth of bacteria, which can contaminate reusable bags.”

Image: tyger_lyllie

The post Your Reusable Grocery Bags May be Packed with Bacteria appeared first on EcoSalon.

Change, whether good or bad, supported or maligned, always begins the same way: with one person, one idea, and one moment of courage. Many people find change suspect because the outcome is unknown; there are too many unforeseeable consequences. They naysay new ideas about old ways of thinking, not realizing how remiss we’d be without the positive progress in equality, health, and the environment that change makes possible. They forget that just years ago, secondhand smoke in offices, restaurants, and other crowded areas was just an accepted aspect of life. But thanks to one city – San Luis Obispo, California – the majority of indoor public spaces in America are now smoke-free, and we’re much healthier for it.

Cities effect change through bans, setting precedents that are sometimes revolutionary and almost always controversial. Over the past few years, a number of U.S. cities have gone the way of San Luis Obispo: initiating bans that are aren’t always popular with everyone but have the power to change things for the better.

1. Santa Clara, California: No Happy Meal Toys

In April 2010, Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors decided to prohibit fast-food restaurants from adding toys or other promotional items to kids’ meals. The ban applies only to eateries in certain areas of the county, and only to kids’ meals that have significantly high levels of calories, sodium, fat, and sugar. Fast-food establishments have ninety days to give up the toys or develop more nutritionally sound menu choices for kids. Those supporting the ban feel that offering toys with fast-food meals rewards kids for eating McDonald’s, Burger King, and so on. It lessens the incentive for the fast food industry to target children, which could help curb the increasingly growing rates of childhood obesity in this country.

2. San Francisco, California: No City Money for Bottled Water, No Plastic Bags

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom declared in 2007 that no more of the city’s money would go toward bottled water (as in buying it for government offices or city functions). Other cities, like Los Angeles, Seattle, and Salt Lake City, followed suit and cut local-government spending on bottled water. Some went further, like Chicago, which tacked on a five-cent tax to every bottle of water sold, and Concord, Massachusetts, which banned the sale of any bottled water from within its borders starting in January 2011. The anti-bottled water legislation in these two cities is much more extreme, and therefore much more disputed. Banning or reducing bottled water at the government level first seems like a more popular, and therefore possibly more effective, first step.

San Francisco put forth another groundbreaking law in 2007, banning plastic bags from all major supermarkets and pharmacies in the area. The government gave businesses (exempting small ones) a year to switch to paper or compostable bags. NPR estimated that this legislation would reduce plastic-bag usage by five million bags each month. The move inspired similar action in Los Angeles, Paris, and London. In Washington, D.C., residents now pay five cents for paper or plastic bags from stores, restaurants, and pharmacies.

3. North Olmsted, Ohio: No Sweatshop Goods

North Olmstead is a suburb in Cleveland that also happens to be the first area in the country to forbid products made in sweatshops. Mayor Ed Boyle came up with the idea in 2007, creating an ordinance that banned city vendors from buying, renting, or selling anything produced in a work environment with sweatshop-like conditions. Another Cleveland-area city, Bedford Heights, adopted the same ban, and other cities have looked into doing something similar.

4. Los Angeles, California: No New Fast-Food Restaurants

Los Angeles’s City Council made this highly controversial ban in 2008, deciding that South Los Angeles had more than enough fast-food establishments (about four hundred at the time), and put a yearlong moratorium on any new ones opening in the thirty-two-square-mile area. The council wanted to use that year to entice healthier restaurants and grocery stores into the neighborhood; the ban specified eateries that have drive-through windows and/or use heat lamps in lieu of freshly prepared meals. The council also enacted the ban to reduce the higher-than-average obesity rates in South L.A., though opponents argue that’s a form of food policing. But residents can still access hundreds of fast-food joints in the area. The problem is that there are very few grocery stores in comparison; the ban is supposed to close the gap a little and give people in the neighborhood more dining options.

5. New York, New York: No Trans Fat in Restaurants

Even more contested than the L.A. fast-food ban was Manhattan’s infamous trans-fat ban in 2006. The Board of Health voted to eliminate the unhealthy ingredient from all city restaurants by July 2008, giving chefs two years to replace it in their recipes. Even though trans fat is linked to heart disease and increases bad-cholesterol levels, many restaurant owners and citizens feared the ban would make food taste worse. Despite their doubts, a 2009 report in the Annals of Internal Medicine by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that the ban-which reduced the amount of trans fat in NYC restaurants from 50 percent to 2 percent-didn’t hurt restaurant business. Plus, the amount of both trans fat and saturated fat was reduced in french fries by 50 percent, suggesting that restaurants offer more-healthful fare postban.

I always feel a little suspicious when something’s completely eliminated from public use because it can be a slippery slope. Even though I’m vehemently against smoking, I do feel that legislation limiting the right to smoke in cars and homes infringes upon people’s rights. That’s why I understand the outcry against fast-food and trans-fat bans, and even plastics and happy meal toys, to an extent-when does external enforcement of citizens’ personal lives and choices stop? Could these decisions, though meant for the greater good, be used to justify others that go too far? But limiting oneself to that mindset also limits anything good that can come from the restrictions, like healthier people and environments. These specific bans have the potential to do just that, which is why I hope they’re successful and influential, and that they’re not taken too far beyond their intentions.

Article by Vicki Santillano for DivineCaroline. First published May 2010.

Related DivineCaroline posts:

• New Plans to Get America Moving
• You Are What you Eat: Inside America’s Refrigerators
• Six Good Deeds That Take Less Than Five Minutes

Image: kla4067

The post Blazing Trails: What 5 Pioneering Cities Have Banned appeared first on EcoSalon.

Swine flu is grabbing headlines, but this isn’t the only public health issue concerning authorities. Cholera cases are increasing in Africa and researchers studying the increase say climate change is to blame.

According to a recent press release from AlphaGalileo, a resource for European research news, a study lead by researchers from the Madrid Carlos III Institute of Health shows cholera cases in Zambia are increasing as temperatures rise.

Their study results confirm that an increase in environmental temperature six weeks before the rainy season also increases the number of people affected by cholera at a rate of 4.9%.

“This is the first time that it has become evident in the sub-Saharan region that the increase in environmental temperature is related to the increase in cholera cases,” says Miguel Ángel Luque, one of the study’s authors, in the press release.

The research project, which was done in Zambia between 2003 and 2006, analyzes data from three cholera epidemics. The results show that climatic variables, such as rain and environmental temperature, are related to the increase in cholera cases during the epidemic period.

Experts affirm that cholera has a seasonal component associated with the rain season. An increase in temperature six weeks before this period is related with a 4.9% increase in the number of cases of this sickness within the population.

The study also showed that  a 1º C increase in temperature six weeks before the beginning of the outbreak explains the 5.2% increase in cholera cases during an epidemic.

¨The climate change is affecting the dynamic and resurgence of infectious sicknesses in a key fashion, concretely malaria and cholera,” says Luque.

The goal is to have a predictive method to be able to release an early alert in the region and put out a warning to health authorities.

The World Health Organization’s data indicates a concerning increase in the number of cholera cases worldwide since the beginning of the twentieth century. Today the cholera epidemic’s main focus is found in Zimbabwe.

Since the beginning of the outbreak in August of 2008 until March 17th of 2009, 91,164 cases were reported in this country alone, 4,037 of them fatal.

Image: Let’s Go Everywhere

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