Healthy Bytes

Another new Coke

read time: 158 words, about a minute

Coke intends to market a “nutrient-enhanced carbonated soda”… diet coke ‘fortified with vitamins and minerals’ this coming spring.

I can imagine the commercials now.
Before you fall prey to the “here’s a great way to get your vitamins” line, keep in mind that soda contains:

-> Sugar and/or High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
Which is strongly associated with liver toxicity, specifically – non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Additionally, HFCS is believed to interfere with messages to the brain that signal satiety… therefore you don’t stop eating when full. And, HFCS is believed to decrease the effectiveness of insulin… leading to overeating and diabetes.
Lastly, a high-sugar diet is linked to cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

-> Phosphoric acid
Calcium is pulled out of the bones to neutralize phosphoric acid. This leads to porous, brittle bones making you more susceptible to bone fractures and osteoporosis.

So maybe Coke will add some synthetic vitamins, but that won’t make it a good thing.

Raising better eaters

The American Academy of Pediatrics is petitioning the FCC and Congress to decrease the amount of commercials during kids TV programs. Presently the limit is 5 to 6 minutes an hour. They’re asking for a 50% reduction.

The kid docs are also requesting no Viagra commercials before 10pm.

Even pediatricians see a connection between food product commercials and the crappy food kids eat.

Supersize it for 67 cents now and $6.64 later

read time: 369 words, about 2 minutes

There’s an article in The New York Times about the cost of being overweight.

Interesting article that looks both at medical costs and social costs.

Was any of it surprising? Some interesting numbers, but in general not surprising.
At this point, don’t we all know being overweight leads to more medical issues. Perhaps more specifically - eating the kinds of stuff that typically leads to packing on pounds, as well as the weight itself, compromises health and quality of life.

So what does it take to effect change?
We haven’t peaked on the weight gain thing. The percentage of Americans overweight and obese - including children - is still rising. And overweight adults seem to acknowledge the cause and effect relationship. But they’re not successfully changing the cause. Perhaps they don’t try. Perhaps they don’t know how. Perhaps the relationship between cause and effect isn’t immediate or transparent enough to motivate change.

Rachel N. Close and Dale A. Schoeller, nutritional scientists at University of Wisconsin, Madison better quantified the cost of “supersizing” a meal. In their research The Financial Reality of Overeating they calculated the additional medical and food cost burden a person would have in the year following a supersized versus a regular fast-food meal. The premise being it takes more calories (food) to maintain more weight. Ex: eating 2,500 calories a day costs more than 2,000 calories a day. And higher medical costs are associated with the added weight.

Costs and calorie data used was an average of 3 different fast-food meal offerings.

The cost you pay at the counter to supersize is 67 cents. That meal adds an additional 397 calories which becomes 36 grams of fat tissue to the ‘diner’ (for the purpose of the research).

The next year food and medical costs for 36 more grams of fat was calculated as $6.64 for a man and $3.46 for a woman. So for a man, roughly 10 x more in food and medical costs than meal upgrade cost. For a woman, roughly 5 x more.

Would you choose to not supersize that meal if it cost $7.31 or $4.07 more rather than 67 cents more?

Life Cycle labels

Meanwhile, across the pond… Prince Charles is a major “green” guy. Not sarcasm there. He not only does a lot to promote sustainable farming and eco-friendly habits, he lives his own life that way, runs his farm that way.

He started a company called Duchy Originals that sells organic and eco-friendly products.

Their products will soon have a “life cycle” label which will quantify emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other gases blamed for warming the climate.