And now, an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal, on the changing eating habits of Major League Baseball players and clubs. Players usually eat their meals at the “clubhouse”. Traditionally, the club fare was not much different than the stadium food – hot dogs, soda, and candies.

But today more and more clubhouses are offering healthy choices, and some are banishing the junk food altogether.

And eating better is not all. Clubs are trying to educate their stars as to the benefits of better eating choices:

The Los Angeles Dodgers will ship their players to Arizona next week for a six-day health-food boot camp. The Kansas City Royals are planning to put up posters in the clubhouse offering nutritional advice. And the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays both say they’re experimenting with the idea of preparing foods for the players that are rich in antioxidant grains like quinoa, teff and spelt. more…

The interesting fact is that many times the demand comes from the young players themselves, not necessarily management:

This past season, six members of the Los Angeles Angels approached the team’s dietician, without prompting, to ask her to write them “food plans” to improve their diets.

This is great news. Sports stars are a great influence in the media, especially on youngsters. If the role models on the playing field are also positive examples in the nutrition battleground, perhaps more children will opt in for healthy snacks and nutritious meals…

Hey! Mr. Bud Selig (MLB Commissioner) – how about an MLB sponsored campaign for fruits and vegetables? Imagine all those orphaned carrots, apples, and Brussels sprouts looking for a bigger than life hero to adopt them and bring them into the community of cool…

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An Op-ed by Coca Cola’s CEO, Muhtar Kent, in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, paints a picture perfect portrait of corporate citizenship, and little if any connection to the obesity epidemic in the US:

Our industry has become an easy target in this debate. Sugar-sweetened beverages have been singled out in spite of the fact that soft drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks and sweetened bottled water combined contribute 5.5% of the calories in the average American diet, according to the National Cancer Institute. It’s difficult to understand why the beverages we and others provide are being targeted as the primary cause of weight gain when 94.5% of caloric intake comes from other foods and beverages. more…

Mr. Kent continues to claim that the problem of America is not too many calories in, it’s not enough calories out (exercise). What a convenient solution for junk food and liquid candy manufacturers – lay the blame on lazy consumers.

What you need to know:

The average daily caloric intake of Americans today is 3800 calories. If 5.5% of people’s calories come from soft drinks, that works out to 200 calories a day. That’s 200 empty calories: water+sugar+artificial flavorings and colors. This amounts to an added pound in body weight every 17 days, or 21 extra pounds put on every year. Still believe Coca Cola has nothing to do with Obesity?

As for lack of exercise, the World Health Organization recently published a report showing that, contrary to popular belief, people are working out pretty much the same as they did in the 1970’s. So it is about “calories in” after all.

Mr. Kent presents Coke as a socially responsible company, but fails to mention the huge marketing budgets aimed at youngsters, promoting more and more consumption of soft drinks. And by placing vending machines in schools, colleges, libraries, and pretty much every corner people turn, Coca Cola and other beverage manufacturers are literally putting soft drinks in people’s hands.

The stats presented by Mr Kent fail to mention the progressive growth of single serve Coke bottles over the last century, from a reasonable 8 fl oz. to the 20 fl oz. bottles today. Not to mention larger serving sizes at fast food establishments.

While the beverage industry is not the only reason Americans are getting fat, it is certainly a major contributor.

No doubt this Op-ed was written in response to growing pressures to levy a tax on soft drinks. Here we agree with Coke’s CEO. We’ve written before that a sales tax is not the way to go. A better solution is to set up “calorie offsets”, similar to carbon offsets. Learn more here.

What to do at the supermarket:

Folks, a soft drink may be a nice treat here and there, but for daily consumption, stick to water. Tap water. A family of four can save $500 a year by skipping the drink aisles in the supermarket.

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An interesting interview with the founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, John Mackey, on the Wall Street Journal earlier this week:

“We sell all kinds of candy. We sell a bunch of junk. Healthy, bulk foods such as grains, seeds, nuts and beans now account for about 1% of sales, down from 15% to 20%”, Mackey said.

read more on WSJ…

What you need to know:

Although Whole Foods started out as a health store, it has morphed over the years to become a purveyor of high class, high price products. Some are healthy, some are not. Just like a regular supermarket. Unfortunately, there’s not enough revenue for mega-chains in just selling unprocessed healthy food products in bulk.

What to do at the supermarket:

Whether it’s Whole Foods or Wal-Mart, some aisles are healthier than others. Buying mostly unprocessed foods and preparing meals at home is the key to a nutritious diet.

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The hottest trend in the food industry lately is functional food. Although there is not formal definition for the term, its agreed that these are foods that can help reduce the risk of disease due to the presence of specific nutrients.

In general, the best functional foods are also the most unprocessed ones – fruits, vegetables and whole grains, as an example.

However, more and more processed foods are being fortified with nutrients in order to become “functional.” Manufacturers have realized that health sells, and usually commands a higher margin too.

And so we find calcium added to orange juice, vitamin C added to fruit snacks, and breakfast cereals fortified with pretty much the entire alphabet of minerals and vitamins.

OK. In the examples above, they’ve made decent products a bit healthier. But what can manufacturers do with products that at their core are not so healthy? Can a sugary / fatty / salty (take your pick) item  be miraculously transformed into something nutritious?

If we’re to judge by the sales of functional foods, sales are growing at a great clip, which means consumers have been convinced that the bag of cheese puffs fortified with omega-3 is really good for them.

An article in the Wall Street Journal recently tackled this topic:

Lillian Cheung, Ph.D, a nutrition professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, [...] points out that adding nutrients to a food can encourage people to perceive it as unequivocally healthy, whether it’s low-fat and fiber-rich oatmeal that’s been fortified or a similarly enhanced bag of potato chips packed with fat and bereft of any naturally occurring nutrients that the oatmeal has. “The fact that brands have gone to the trouble to add this stuff sends an implicit message that the finished product is desirable, and that’s just not always the case,” she says.

“Sports drinks are an example. The sugar they contain is so much worse than the added vitamins. But that information gets obscured.”

read more…

What you need to know:

The FDA does not recognize functional foods as a category. Which means it’s a wild west for marketers to sell us stories.

So if it’s too good to be true, it isn’t.

What to do at the supermarket:

Go for foods that are naturally functional. The less a food is processed, the most benefit you’ll reap. For example, get your omega-3 from fish, not a snack bar. If you’re still deficient in a certain nutrient, a fortified product is a good option, but only if at its base it is a nutritious product (non sugary cereals yes, soft drinks – NO).

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Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Here’s an interesting piece from the Wall Street Journal, summing up the change in our collective behavior thanks to the recession:

Consumers have cut back sharply on food spending, shunning restaurants, opting for generic products over brand names, trading in lattes for home-brewed coffee and shopping for bargains. That is hurting sales and profits at many food processors, grocery chains and restaurants.

In 2008’s fourth quarter, consumer spending on food fell at an inflation-adjusted 3.7% from the third quarter, according to data from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. That is the steepest decline in the 62 years the government has compiled the figure.

read the full article…

People who never used to look at prices are now on the lookout for deals.

Several trend:

- a shift from full service restaurants to cheaper fast food joints. [BAD]

- more meals at home rather than out. [GOOD, home food is usually lower in fats, sodium , and sugar]

- at the home: more cooking and baking from scratch, rather than relying on prepared meals. [GOOD, less chemicals, additives, and sodium]

- sales of  fresh vegetables are actually up 2.3%. [GREAT!]

What to do at the supermarket:

Check out our top ten tips for healthy shopping during a recession.

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