If you have not been following the soda tax controversy lately, here’s a quick update. In the past year,  Capitol Hill and even the President have said that taxing sugary soft drinks may be a good way to reduce consumption and create a $50B revenue stream for the federal government over the next decade.

The American Beverage Association spun into action in order to kill any such legislative ideas, using TV commercials, direct lobbying efforts, and through persuading additional organizations representing Hispanics to join the fight. Why Hispanics? Because the numbers show that they are more apt to consume soft drinks on one hand, but have less to spend on the other. The soft drink industry repeatedly stated it is “protecting working families”.

All told, the ABA spent $18 million. The efforts succeeded, and just a few weeks ago it seemed as if all the congressmen who supported the tax suddenly had a change of heart. In launching her new campaign against childhood obesity, the First Lady also steered clear of the soda tax issue. In return, Coca Cola and Pepsi pledged to prominently display beverage calorie counts on their products.

Now for the news. Not content with the federal response, California is considering a state tax on soda, according to the Los Angeles Times:

Legislators last week pledged to pass such a tax in light of new studies linking soft drink consumption to obesity in children and adults. One study suggests that obesity and related problems cost California alone $41 billion a year in medical expenses and reduced productivity.

…When California Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez (D-Shafter) introduced his soda tax bill, he said one penny of tax per teaspoon of added sugar in any sweetened beverage would generate as much as $1.5 billion each year. That money would pay for parks, recreation and school health programs, Florez said. “The Legislature is primed for this bill,” Florez said, adding that he expects bipartisan support. read more…

And in an interesting turn of events, one of the Hispanic organizations that initially aligned itself with Coke decided to break away, and 2 Californian chapters of other organizations split from the still-in-bed-with-Coke national organizations. Bravo!

Our take on this issue is a bit different. While we certainly applaud any and all actions meant to decrease sugar consumption on a massive scale, the tax should be levied directly on manufacturers. Read more about “calorie offsets” that will squeeze the cash from rich corporation instead of “working families”.

What to do at the supermarket:

Whether you’re a working family or not, the easiest way to save $500 a year is to quit soft drinks and switch to tap water (for a family of four). You’ll save not just 5 Benjamins, but also several pounds of body weight, along with a decrease in tooth decay, and a general contribution to a greener earth.

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Remember the proposed soda tax? The added penny per fluid ounce, generating $50 billion in funds to combat obesity in the next 10 years?

Well, forget about it.

Never mind obesity. To hell with diabetes.

The beverage industry needs to grow its bottom line, and no one is going to to tax its products. Certainly not a bunch of do gooders on behalf of the “nanny-state”.

You see, in this great democracy called America, money votes. And through a series of contributions and investments of the American Beverage Association, the proposed tax has been all but buried.

In a saddening-as-much-as-it-is-enlightening article in the Los Angeles Times, the money trail is revealed. A series of well planned moves by beverage industry lobbyists included:

1. Discrediting researchers from Yale and UCLA who linked soft drink consumption with obesity.

2. Funding of research that showed no relationship between soft drink consumption and obesity. The researchers are or have been on the payroll of the beverage industry at one time.

3. Contribution to Hispanic organizations. Reasoning: the soda tax will hit the poor the most. Hispanic groups are now against the tax, despite diabetes hitting Latino youths especially hard.

4. A $10 million Ad campaign aired on prime time and playing on chords of hard working moms not needing to pay extra in these tough times.

5. Enlisting the aid of other industries in order to thwart the tax:

“The industries in our coalition realized that this is a slippery slope, that once government reaches into the grocery cart, your business could be next,” said Kevin Keane, senior vice president, public affairs, for the American Beverage Assn.

6. A big bribe (north of $600,000) to the American Academy of Family Physicians, to be used to underwrite “educational materials to help consumers make informed decisions.”

What you need to know:

Make no mistake, soda pop and sweetened beverages are a major contributing factor to obesity. The price poor people are paying for their soda now is minuscule compared to their health expenses 10 or 20 years down the road.  Unfortunately, there is no ANTI-Beverage-Association with deep pockets to coordinate a counter offensive.

As long as companies externalize the true cost of their products, gullible consumers will choose cheap and sweet satisfaction now, with heart disease and heartache down the road. This must end, but as you can see, there are no effective mechanisms, even at government levels, to stave off the power of corporate lobbies.

And with the recent supreme court decision to allow unlimited campaign contribution by companies to our politicians, you can rest assured Washington DC will NOT make an effort to change things.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you want to impact change, stop buying liquid calories. Switch to tap water. Switch your whole family. Switch as many of your friends and neighbors as you can to do the same. You’ll save money, you’ll save your health.

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One of the hottest buzzwords in nutrition and health circles, fiber is the indigestible portion of plant foods. It helps us feel full and decreases our appetite. Fiber helps the intestines function smoothly, regulates blood sugar levels, and lowers bad cholesterol.

As you probably know, fiber rich foods include whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes. The rule of thumb is that the less processed the food, the more fiber. The problem is that these unprocessed foods are not always popular with consumers. They require some preparation (peeling an orange vs drinking Tropicana), are less tasty than processed foods (whole grain rice vs white rice, beans vs a steak), and are harder to chew (wonder bread vs rye bread).

As a result, most Americans are far from reaching the required daily consumption of 25 grams of fiber for women and 38 grams for men. This means a huge opportunity for the food industry, which now adds fiber to many processed foods.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Some foods, such as whole wheat bread, are naturally high in fiber. A growing number of products, however, proudly proclaim their high-fiber content, such as Arnold’s Double Fiber Bread and Yoplait’s Fiber One yogurt, getting some or all of their fiber from so-called isolated or functional fibers — ingredients with names like inulin, maltodextrin and polydextrose — that manufacturers intentionally add to foods to boost total fiber content. read more…

But questions are being asked about the utility of these functional fibers as compared to the real thing. When we consume fiber directly from the source, we’re getting the additional benefits of micronutrients in the whole grain or fruit. Once isolated from its nutrient buddies in a plant and injected into a yogurt or juice, the health benefit of inulin may not be the same as a similar amount of fiber in a whole food.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you are seeking fiber, don’t look just at the nutrition facts panel. Read the ingredient list to find whole grains at the beginning. A heavily processed food with a long ingredient list that includes inulin or maltodextrin is less beneficial than a less processed product with whole grain.

Bran (the hard outer layer of a grain) in the ingredient list is a good thing to find. In breakfast cereals, products that include bran and whole grain have better fiber content than those based on processed grains.

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A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the sacred cow of OJ nutrition being mercilessly slayed over at the Los Angeles Times. To quickly remind you – the theme is that Orange Juice is high in sugar, low in fiber, and contains vitamins and minerals that are abundant in a normal diet – overall it does more bad than good for most people.

The Florida Department of Citrus was obviously not happy with all this OJ negativity. They sent a letter to LA Times reporter, Karen Kaplan, respectfully disagreeing with the articles content. They also sent copies to blogs such as Fooducate. (download WORD doc here).

As an additional measure, the Citrus folks enlisted a dietitian, Gail Rampersaud, to write letters to all the skeptics, extolling the virtues of the Juice. An LA Times Article from Wednesday brings the dietitian’s letter, and a response from one of the skeptics, Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UC San Francisco. It’s pretty much a re-run of previous arguments, with a few additional twists.

Pro-OJ:

• One glass counts as a fruit serving.
• Good source of vitamin C, which many people don’t get enough of.
• Citrus juices are more nutrient dense than apple or pineapple juices.
• 100% OJ is free of added sugar.
• The majority of  kids are not getting enough fruit in their diet. A study showed that kids 2-11 who drank OJ were likely to be consuming more fruit as well.
• The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recognized the nutritional importance of including 100% orange juice in the diet.

Against-OJ:

• The problem is not with fruit, it’s with juice.
• Juice has no fiber.
• Half the calories are from fructose (a sugar). Fructose in high quantities is a burden on the human metabolism.

And you just have to love Dr. Lustig’s eloquence:

The upside of juice consumption is so infinitesimal compared to the downside that we shouldn’t even be having this discussion.

In his response letter he further writes:

I am not against fruit. As far as I am concerned, the most important nutrient contained in fruit (not just citrus, but any fruit) is fiber. “The juice is Nature’s way of getting you to eat your fiber.” Thus, I am not against fruit; indeed I am for it. So the Florida Department of Citrus can rest easy in terms of the citrus crop.

The problem with Florida’s department of citrus is that there’s way too many oranges produced. Too much for people to consume as fruit. So we got juice.

Can anyone else think of a surplus crop whose processing has turned into a profitable business with an unhealthy downside?

If you answered corn and high fructose corn syrup – give yourself a pat on the back.

What to do at the supermarket:

I am still torn by the saddening news that orange juice is not that healthy after all. Decades of programing my brain that this is healthy cannot be erased overnight. That said, in our family the issue is not so critical because we drink tap water 99% of the time. My kids can have whatever they want the rest of the time.

If you are debating between soda pop and orange juice – go for the juice.

If you’re debating between orange juice and water – go for water. And if that’s too hard, you can always water down a glass of OJ and halve the sugar content in an instant.

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The LA Times reports on a new study showing that kids who chew gum perform better academically:

The study was conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and was sponsored by the Wrigley Science Institute. The study included 108 students, ages 13 to 16, who were assigned to either chew sugar-free gum during math class, while doing math homework and during math tests or to refrain from gum-chewing. After 14 weeks, the students’ took a math test and their grades were assessed.

Those who chewed gum had a 3% increase in standardized math test scores and had final math grades that were significantly better than the other students. Teachers observed that those who chewed gum seemed to require fewer breaks, sustain attention longer and remain quieter.

Read the entire article…

What you need to know:

The Wrigley Science Institute is funded by the William Wrigley Jr. Company, a top player in the chewing gum industry, recently acquired by an even bigger player, Mars Incorporated. It is in these companies’ best interest to promote sales by hopping on health trends and funding studies that shine on gum in a positive effect.

Don’t let these so called “independent” studies fool you for one second. With all due respect to the scientists working at the Wrigley Science Institute, and the researchers at Baylor College, there is an inherent flaw when science is “hired” for corporate purposes.

Let’s treat gum as what it is – a sweet, refreshing treat, no less no more. That’s what Wrigley did in commercials of the past. It should stick to that line today as well.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you are buying gum at the checkout counter, you’re paying a fortune. It’s usually cheaper to buy several packages in bulk, or even order a stock of your favorite brand online.

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An interesting read in the Los Angeles Times tries to help consumers make an informed nutritional decision when baking cookies:

Butter and margarine have a similar overall fat content — and therefore a lot of calories, says Katherine Zeratsky, a registered dietitian with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. But the composition of the fats in butter and margarine differs significantly.

“You have to pick the lesser of two evils,” Zeratsky says. “In butter, it’s the saturated fat content, and in margarine, it’s trans fat.”

Read the full article…

What you need to know:

Margarine is a relatively recent invention (less than 200 years) and is considered the cheaper cousin to butter. Some groups can’t use butter at all. Vegans need to make do with oils and margarine. Jews observant of kosher dietary laws prepare many non-milk (parve) dishes to accompany or follow meat meals. But for most of us, the dilemma is real.

From a caloric standpoint, butter and margarine are equal. Several decades ago, margarine got a big boost from the medical community because it was deemed healthier than butter – no cholesterol, and much less saturated fat. However, the discovery of trans fat and its far more sinister effect on people’s health has put the two products back on equal footing.

Neither are good in large amounts, and if you need to choose, products made with butter usually taste better. When working with a recipe, many times canola oil can be used  together with the butter, replacing up to 50% of the butter without changing the flavor or texture.

What to do at the supermarket:

If you do choose margarine, go for the soft tub kind, which has not undergone massive hydrogenation, and therefore contains very low amounts of transfat. A zero transfat claim may be misleading, because manufacturers can claim zero as long as there is less than 0.5 gram of transfat per serving. But a serving may be just a tablespoon, whereas a recipe calls for an entire cup full of butter or margarine.

Whatever you choose to cook with, remember that portion control and limiting caloric intake is a sure way to stay healthier.

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