image from the Gothamist

It’s Saturday morning, you’re locked in after a blizzard dumped 16 inches of snow at your doorsteps. Your three little ones are demanding their morning cup of hot milk / cocoa. Groggy eyed and still half asleep, you open the fridge and pull out the last carton of milk. As you’re about to open it, you discover that its “use by” date expired 2 days ago.

What do you do?

A. Take a sniff of the milk, if it smells OK, no problem.

B. The kids will drink tea this morning.

C. Get the snow shovel and ice scraper and drive to the nearest convenience store.

D. Go back to bed and let your spouse deal with the situation.

Here’s some good news. Read more…

Today is Pancake Day, another made up holiday created to increase our consumption of pancakes. While in and of themselves, pancakes are not necessarily an unhealthy food, it’s the huge servings and added “dressings” that have turned pancakes into unhealthy calorie bombs.

So if you are celebrating today, or any day – take it easy with the butter and maple syrup. If you can, go for whole wheat to get some fiber.

Here’s a recipe for Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes:

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 very ripe banana
1 tbsp sugar
3 tsp  baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
2 cups low fat milk
2 tablespoons oil

Instructions:

lightly oil a griddle and heat it up over a medium flame. Mix all the dry ingredients. Mash the banana. Mix the eggs, milk, oil and mashed banana. Add the dry mix. It’s OK if there is a bit of lumping, the lumps will disappear when heated. Once the griddle is hot enough pour a test-pancake on, wait for it to bubble and flip it over. The first pancake usually comes out a bit funky and goes to the dog, but after that you’re all set. If your griddle is large enough you can make several pancakes at the same time. A 2-3 inch diameter will allow you to eat several pancakes without overdoing the portion size.

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It seems like the best and brightest MBA graduates go to work for marketing firms. In 1989, one of them came up with a great idea to increase snack sales in the ho-hum month of February. According to the Snack Food Association (SFA) the idea of the month long munch-fest was

to increase consumption and build awareness of snacks during a month when snack food consumption was traditionally low. The result has been a substantial increase in snack food sales during this month. The promotion kicks off on Super Bowl Sunday and publicity is generated throughout the month of February.

Twenty plus years later, you can’t argue with “success.” We’re a snackin’ nation, that’s for sure, with over $60 Billion in sales of snacks annually.

What you need to know:

The decline of family sit-down meals as well as a blurred line separating meals from snacks means that today it’s easier than ever to not even once during the day eat a meal. Whether it’s the breakfast bar you can chew on your commute or a bag of chips in your desk drawer, we’re always an arm’s reach away from a quick and easy hunger fix.

Riding on the health trend, marketers are now busy reformulating and re-messaging their products has healthy snack options. Whether it’s the 100-calorie snack genre, the “health hallowed” granola bar, or potato chips with only 3 natural ingredients, consumers are being convinced that the snacks they are consuming by  the billions are the best thing to happen in the world since sliced bread.

Now don’t get us wrong, snacking is fine, and can fill an important part of the day both nutritionally and socially (cookies and milk, anyone?), but we’ve really, really got to notice how often we snack, what we choose, and how it affects our mealtimes.

Especially with young children, where a less than ideal snack can fill up a small tummy instead of a much more balanced meal to be served an hour or two later.

What to do at the supermarket:

Get out of the snack aisles, and choose your snacks from surprising lanes in the supermarket. Fruits? Check. Veggies in a dip? Check. Bake your own cookies from scratch? Check.

A great resource full of ideas for healthy snacking is over at the Snack-Girl blog.

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We’ve been blogging recently about chocolate milk.  One of our readers commented with a question about Ovaltine as an option to sweeten milk .

Ovaltine is a milk flavoring invented in Switzerland more than a hundred years ago. The original formula contained eggs, malt, and a bit of cocoa. It then reached the UK and eventually the US, with each country using a different formula adapted to national preferences.

In the US today, Ovaltine is sold in 2 flavors – Malt and Rich Chocolate. Ovaltine is owned by Nestle (makers of Nesquik) and we checked their website for product info.

Here is our analysis. Read more…

We just got off the phone with Tom Vilsack!

The Fooducate blog was honored to be invited to a first ever blogger conference call with U.S. Department of Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack earlier today. The call was in celebration of the USDA joining as a partner in the  “Fuel Up to Play 60” partnership between the National Dairy Council and the NFL.

The idea of the program is to educate and empower kids to make healthier food choices as well as exercise 60 minutes a day. Over 60,000 schools have signed up to the program so far.

This is a win-win for everyone involved. The star power of the NFL athletes is a huge magnet for kids who move their bodies more. And obviously the dairy council is happy because low-fat milk is getting pushed to the schools instead of other, less nutritious beverages.

And while we commend this shift from soda pop to milk, we take point at the “flavored milk” options that are sneaking in tons of sugar to kids through the back door. The most popular flavored milk is, of course, chocolate milk. It’s also a drink that Mr. Vilsack admitted that he loves, deferring a question about the sweetness by blogger Eddie Gehman Kohan of ObamaFoodorama.

Unfortunately, an 8 oz. single serve bottle of chocolate milk has THREE TEASPOONS of added sugar. While consuming this once a day will not have a huge caloric impact (3 teaspoons = 12 grams = 48 added calories), the uber-sweetness has an unwanted side effect – suddenly apples, pears, bananas, and even the chocolate milk prepared at home (milk+cocoa powder) don’t see so tasty anymore. They’re not sweet enough.

In the Q&A part of the call, I asked Secretary Vilsack why not work with the Dairy Council to move the manufacturers to lower sugar levels. The response from Jean Ragalie, the Executive Vice President of Health and Wellness at NDC, was :

1. the sugar in chocolate milk is only 2% of added sugars consumed by kids, so it is insignificant. (Update – here is the exact data: Flavored milk accounts for less than 3.5 percent of added sugar intake in children ages 6-12 and less than 2 percent in teens. To put this in context, soft drinks, fruit drinks and tea provide a combined 31.5 percent of total added sugar intake for children ages 6-12 and 40 percent for teens according to NPD Nutrient Intake Database (2 years ending Feb, 2009))
2. studies show that children drinking chocolate milk are not gaining any more weight than others, but are getting more milk in their bodies, which is important due to milk’s inherent nutrition.
3. Lastly and most disturbing, Secretary Vilsack summed in a nutshell: Kids won’t drink chocolate milk unless it’s this sweet.

It’s a vicious cycle. The kids get hooked on super sweet tastes starting with their morning cereal, then their candy bars during recess, followed by chocolate milk that must be as sweet. And more sweet as the day winds down at home.

No wonder the fruit served at lunch alongside the chocolate milk tastes so bland.

We suggested in the past, and still do – NDC, USDA – please work together to “convince” manufacturers to reduce the sugar in their flavored milks. Build a voluntary incentive plan to have manufacturers remove half a teaspoon of sugar  every school year for the next 3 years, and we promise to shut up about this matter.

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Yogi Berra and the Yankees helped Yoo-hoo chocolate drinks become an American icon in the 40’s and 50’s. The sweet and refreshing chocolaty taste became a kids’ favorite across the nation.

When buying Yoo-hoo, many parents mistakenly think they are providing their children a healthy milk-based drink with a touch of sweetness from chocolate so to make it fun to drink. They don’t notice that Yoo-hoo is a “chocolate drink”, not a “chocolate milk”.

A look at the ingredient list shows that there is virtually no milk here, mostly water, sugars, a smidgen of milk by-products, and some chemicals. Oh, and a bit of cocoa too.

Yoo-hoo is not something to treat the kids to. Here’s why…

What you need to know:

If you are looking for nutrition and ingredient information on Yoo-hoo’s website, forget about it. When companies don’t share this information on their website, you can rest assured their product does not have much to boast on the nutrition front. Such is the case with Yoo-hoo.

Let’s begin with the ingredient list (22 items!):

Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Whey (from Milk), Sugar, Corn Syrup Solids, Cocoa (Alkali Process), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Sodium Caseinate (from Milk), Nonfat Dry Milk, Salt, Tricalcium Phosphate, Dipotassium Phosphate, Xanthan Gum, Guar Gum, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Soy Lecithin, Mono and Diglycerides, Vitamin A Palmitate, Niacinamide (Vitamin B3), Vitamin D3, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2).

Water is the main ingredient followed by copious amounts of the highly debated High fructose corn syrup. Sugar and Corn syrup solids are also added to further sweeten this drink, just for good measure…

Notice that there is no liquid milk in here, only milk by-products such as whey (ingredient #3), sodium caseinate (#8), and non-fat dry milk(#9). Whey is the leftover liquid after milk is curdled into cheese. Together with sodium caseinate, they are a source of protein.

Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil (#7) appears ahead of the milk powder here. Why in the world do we need trans-fat in a drink?

Tricalcium Phosphate is a source of calcium, while Dipotassium Phosphate is an additive that is used to prevent coagulation. The Guar and Xantham gums serve as thickeners, providing a richer creamier mouthfeel despite the fact that this is a water based product. You can read more about soy lecithin, an emulsifier, here.

The nutrition facts:
Each 15.5 oz bottle contains two servings, but many people gulp the entire bottle down. Here’s the info per 8oz serving:
130 calories, with only 10 from fat and almost all the rest from sugars! 27 grams of sugar, the equivalent of just under 7 teaspoons!

There’s also 210 mg of sodium in here, almost 10% of the daily maximum value. This is something you wouldn’t expect in a sweet drink.
Trans-fat appears as zero because of a labeling loophole that allows 0.5 grams or less per serving to be rounded down to zero. But remember, if you see a partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredient list, expect trans-fat. And no amount is good for you.

All the vitamins and minerals have been tacked on to this drink, and do not appear naturally in the main ingredients.

What to do at the supermarket:

Ideally you should have your children drinking milk with their cookies, not a sugary concoction. But at some point after infancy, our kids tend to forget the pure milk flavor and demand a sweet flavor. So drinking plain milk is a challenge for many families.

Adding a teaspoon of instant cocoa powder is also fine because you control the sugar level. Another option is to buy chocolate milk and mix it half and half with regular milk to drive down the sugar levels.

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The FDA has an update for consumers on its efforts to determine the safety of BPA (Bisphenol-A), an industrial chemical unfortunately found in many plastic bottles and cans containing foods and beverages. This is happening less than 2 years after the FDA declared BPA was safe, back in August 2008.

The safety approval was given despite the over 200 animal studies that have linked BPA consumption in tiny amounts to a host of reproductive problems, brain damage, immune deficiencies, metabolic abnormalities, and behavioral oddities like hyperactivity, learning deficits and reduced maternal willingness to nurse offspring.

In December 2008, the FDA’s own advisory board accused the FDA of weighing 2 industry-backed studies much more heavily than the hundreds of other independent studies. The FDA’s excuse: all the other studies did not meet the FDA’s guidelines for determining safety for human consumption, did not provide raw data, and a host of other “reasons”.

What caused the FDA to change it mind now an reopen the “BPA Files”? Possible answers: a new administration, a BPA ban in Canada in 2008, and / or general public outcry.

At a press event yesterday, an FDA official diplomatically said the drug agency “had become more receptive to new techniques of studying the safety of chemicals.”

What you need to know:

7 billion pounds of BPA are produced annually, for use in food packaging, PVC water pipes, electronics, and more.All of us are exposed to tiny amounts, whether drinking canned juice, milk from a baby-bottle, or any other product sold in a plastic container or a can.

BPA is a chemical compound. It is used as a building block of  polymers and polycarbonates that are found in plastic bottles and cans. BPA behaves like the hormone estrogen once it enters the body and disturbs the normal working of certain genes. Estrogen mimicking chemicals like BPA are potentially harmful even at very low doses, such as those found in plastic bottles and cans.

In March 2009, six manufacturers announced that they would voluntarily stop manufacturing bottles with BPA. Playtex Products, Gerber, Evenflo, Avent America, Dr. Brown and Disney First Years decided to so in order to preempt legal action being considered at the time by several state attorney generals.

What to do at the supermarket and home to decrease your exposure:

1. If you have a baby or toddler, purchase BPA free plastic bottles.
2. Throw away scratched or worn bottles or cups made with BPA , because the chemical can leak from the scratches.
3. Don’t put hot liquids in plastic cups or bottles containing BPA.
4. If microwaving baby formula, do so in a glass bottle.
5. Opt for fresh or frozen products rather than canned.
6. Drink tap instead of bottled water.

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Santa Claus, one of the most popular children’s icons, is not an appropriate role model for kids these days, a comical holiday report from the British Medical Journal says.

A review of literature found that:

Santa made a reckless role model, noting his frequent cookie snacks, occasional cigars and refusal to don a helmet during “extreme sports such as roof surfing and chimney jumping.”

“Santa promotes a message that obesity is synonymous with cheerfulness and joviality” (Ronald McDonald took that theme to new heights)

We still love you Santa, but this year we’ll leave you carrots and lowfat dip on the kitchen table instead of cookies and milk.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

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The Journal of Pediatrics published a report on Monday showing an increase of 18% in food allergies in a 10 year period starting in 1997. This brings the total percentage of kids with allergies to 3.9% or 1 in 25 children under the age of 18. That’s about 2.88 million children across the country, or one in every classroom!

90% of food allergies are from 8 basic foods (soy, wheat, egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish), whose presence must be labeled on food products.

What is causing this increase?

“Nobody knows for certain” is the party line, if you ask government health organizations and others.

One explanation is that parents are now more aware of allergies than they were a decade ago. In their calculations, the study’s researchers took into account the heightening awareness to allergies, but even that does not explain the additional 450,000 kids with allergies over a decade.

Another option, named the “hygiene hypothesis”, purports that the relatively sterile environments of kids today don’t allow young bodies to develop strong immune systems, simply because there are no disease causing substances for them to fight. But then, for some reason, the underdeveloped immune systems overreacts to allergens.

Yet a third possibility, not investigated enough, is genetically modified foods. The modified proteins in GM soy or corn, whose byproducts are found in well over 50% of supermarket items, could possibly be causing new allergic reactions.

For most parents, luckily, allergies are a non-issue. But almost everyone has a friend or extended family member with a story about a child who has been diagnosed as allergic. That’s a curve ball that catches many folks totally unprepared. It means totally rethinking about how a family buys, stores, prepares, and serves food. Every meal, every day, home and out.

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The National Dairy Council is launching a new campaign today -  Raise your Hands for Chocolate Milk. The gist of it:

• Schools MUST keep chocolate milk available for children to choose at lunchtime.
• Milk is a much better choice nutritionally than sodas or juice.
• Chocolate milk  has only 60 more calories than plain milk.
• Kids love it and will therefore drink more milk.

While this sounds great, there’s a problem not addressed: Children are consuming much too many calories from sugar. The additional sugar in flavored milk can add up to an extra 5 pounds of body weight over the course of a school year, says chef Ann Cooper, Renegade Lunch Lady of Boulder, Colorado.

So is this new campaign justified?

What you need to know:

Few people would argue that drinking milk instead of soda pop is a bad choice. And anyone who has children knows that their attraction to sweet is like a magnetic force. So if adding some sugar and flavor is the vehicle to get children drinking milk, it makes sense that we all raise our hands for chocolate milk.

The question then becomes, how much added sugar?

Would you add over 3 teaspoons of sugar to your child’s 8 oz cup of milk?

Probably not. But that’s exactly the amount being added to kids’ chocolate milk.

We asked Karen Kafer, RD, VP Health Partnerships at National Dairy Council, about all that added sugar. She responded that in market testing conducted by the milk manufacturers, the 3 added teaspoons seemed to be the magic number that got kids to drink the most milk. She did not disagree that less sugar would be better, but added that right now that’s what manufacturers are selling because that’s what kids like.

The problem for many parents is that once kids get used to sweet, it’s hard to get them back to “un-sweet”. At home they may be used to drinking plain milk, or very lightly sweetened milk at breakfast (flattened teaspoon of Nesquik anyone?). But once they start school and get a daily fix of super sweet chocolate milk, they’ll demand the same at home.

So here’s a challenge to the National Dairy Council – work with the processors of flavored milks to schools and get them ALL to agree to a gradual reduction in the sugar content of their products. Maybe not overnight, but in the course of a year or two, they can easily cut those 3 teaspoons of sugar down to one. Everyone wins -

1. Children will be getting an even healthier product without even noticing a taste sacrifice,
2. Manufacturers won’t lose market share because all of them will be taking this step at the same time, and
3. The National Dairy Council will earn extra credit promoting a holistic nutrition approach, not just milk.

And one more request to the manufacturers – although chocolate milk has no artificial colorings, the strawberry milk does. Red 40 has been associated with hyperactivity in children and is being phased out in the UK. Please, please remove it from your products and use natural colors instead.

What to do at the supermarket:

As a matter of practicality, buying prepared chocolate milk is very convenient. However the Yoo-hoos of the world are extremely sweetened. One option is to mix it with regular milk to lower the sugar content. Another is to buy the powders or syrups and control how much you add to each glass of milk.

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