European researchers are worried about antimony, a toxic chemical element, appearing at possibly unsafe levels in various juice brands:

Writing in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring, scientists at the University of Copenhagen studied antimony levels in 42 juice drinks and found antimony concentrations above EU limits for drinking water in eight of them.

This discovery is of concern to the soft drinks industry because antimony is a suspected carcinogen that resembles arsenic on a chemical level. read more…

What you need to know:

Antimony is a toxic chemical element. In small doses, it can cause headaches, dizziness, and depression. Larger doses can lead to violent and frequent vomiting, and death in a few days.

So how does antimony get into juice drinks? The answer may lie in the containers, not the liquid itself.  Antimony leaches from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles into liquids stored within.

And why, dear lord, one asks, is a toxin used in food bottles?

Turns out that antimony is used as a catalyst in the production of plastic bottles. Despite it’s role solely as a facilitator of a chemical reaction, there’s always a minuscule bit of antimony that is left over in the resulting bottle.

There are strict standards as to how much antimony is allowed in water to be considered safe. In the US it’s 6 part per billion (ppb). In the EU – 5 ppb. But this is a definition for water in general. There are no standards specifically for bottled juices.

The British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) responded to the study claiming that the 44 ppb found in several bottles does not mean they’re unsafe, as

“there is no read across between the levels of antimony permitted in drinking water and those that might be acceptable in a fruit juice or a juice drink. It is not uncommon that different product types should have different regulatory requirements.”

What to do at the supermarket:

Another reason to fret about buying and consuming plastic bottled drinks? Not really.

We wouldn’t put antimony at the top of our list of worries. There are plenty of other good reasons to switch to tap water, including weight lost, money saved, and planet greened.

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Chicken. The healthy alternative to beef. The original white meat. Raise your hand if you don’t have chicken at least once or twice a week, if not daily. And when you buy it unprepared, you’re getting an all natural product. NOT.

Turns out you are paying for a product with natural ingredients – Chicken, water, salt. Up to 15% salt water, injected into the chicken, and approved by the USDA! Consumer watchdog group CSPI has this to say

The practice of pumping up poultry with salt water is basically a hidden tax of up to 15 percent that extracts about $2 billion from American consumers each year. This isn’t about “enhancing” chicken, it’s about enhancing profits.

Think of it this way. You think you’re buying 7.5 pounds of chicken, if 15 percent is water weight; you’re really getting less than six and a half pounds of chicken and more than one pound of added water. read more…

What you need to know:

This is a double whammy for consumers – pay more-get less AND kill yourself with excess salt.

Raw chicken has very little sodium in it, only 50-75mg per 4 z serving. But the injected versions has as much as 550mg! That’s when the maximum recommended consumption should be 2400mg per day or 1500mg for adults over 45, certain ethnic groups, and people with high blood pressure. Most Americans are already consuming 4000mg per day, and this leads to various health complications that kill 100,000 people annually.

The Truthful Labeling Coalition, is a lobbying group of poultry producers that don’t enhance their products. They’ve been pushing the USDA to change its policy, currently allowing up to 15% of the product sold to us as chicken to be salty water.

Manufacturers who add sodium claim that this is what consumers want. Of course, clearer labeling would help consumers better understand and decide for themselves if they want this dubious “benefit”.

What to do at the supermarket:

Read the fine print on the label. If it says “enhanced with broth / marinade” or something similar, this means it could contain up to 15% water and a whole lot of sodium you don’t need. You get punished twice – paying for chicken and getting water, and the excess sodium.

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If you’ve ever been on a weight loss diet, you know how difficult it is to stay the course, achieve your target weight, and then maintain it for months and years. The majority of dieters fail to maintain their low weight for over a year.

For many, a diet means a temporary sacrifice and inconvenience in order to reach a certain goal (Weddings, bikini season, etc..). But unlike other one time sacrifices – working as a teen all summer long to save up money to buy a car, or spending 4 years crunching textbooks to get an engineering degree – once you’ve achieved your goal, you’ve got to continue working hard to maintain it.

Jennifer LaRue Huget, Washington Post’s Eat Drink and Be Healthy blogger, has a great piece on a current trend:

…a subtle shift in the diet-guidance market: Instead of prescribing eating regimens, many weight-loss experts are suggesting that we reevaluate our relationship with food, focus on eating healthful whole foods and use psychology to aid our efforts to shed pounds. read more…

What you need to know:

The weight loss industry is a huge business and still growing – close to $70 billion in revenue expected this year alone (compare to $500 billion we spend on groceries). But obviously something is afoul, as the average American is still getting heavier year after year.

A lifestyle change seems like a better approach, because habits are, well, habitual. We get used to doing things a certain way, and then it’s not an effort to continue doing them. For example, getting into the habit of eating whole grain products instead of refined grains. Getting into the habit of drinking only water. Getting used to less salty food over the course of several months through gradual reduction. Ditto for sugar.

We’re not saying that this is easy. If you’ve been drinking pop for 30 years, making it a habit to drink just water is a daunting task. That’s why starting young is a key success factor. If your children equate thirst with water, not juice, that’s a life lesson that will help them manage their weight ten or twenty years down the road (not to mention dentist bills).

Another issue to consider is the role that the food industry is playing in creating good or bad lifestyle choices for us. With snacks getting shoved in front of our faces every which way we turn, it’s so easy to succumb to temptation. Think Doritos and Coke when filling up the minivan, a 400 calorie latte at the bookstore, or even a “healthy” 500 calorie snack at the gym after a workout.

What to do at the supermarket:

For those of us complaining about the high price of healthy foods (fresh fruits and vegetables) here is some interesting math: 72 million Americans are on some sort of diet. They will spend $70B this year on dieting. That works out to almost $1000 per person spent on dieting, on average. Imagine using those $1000 to improve the quality and nutrition of the products you purchase – an extra $20 a week to get more nutrients into your body. And if you kick the soft drink habit, switching to tap water – that’s another $125 of savings annually.

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We recently wrote about chocolate milk with too much sugar being served in school lunches. We also covered a chocolate drink that’s better left on the shelf. But as parents, we can’t ignore the fact that kids LOVE sweetened milk. So what alternatives are there for breakfast, suppertime, or afternoon snack companion?

We decided to compare 3 options – ready to drink chocolate milk, powder, and syrup. For simplicity, we checked the category leader – Nesquik – which has all these options available. We only had powder at home, so we went to Nesquik’s website for more info. Unfortunately, the Nesquik website does not include ingredient information, which always means there’s something to be ashamed of… Read more…

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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“POM Wonderful” is a juice that we enjoy on occasion because it tastes great. The tart and sweet flavor mix is an acquired taste, but served very cold it is just lovely. Perhaps, even wonderful. And you’ve got to love the original bottle shape, not to mention the overall amazing marketing this company does.

But what about all those superfruit health claims? Will it really make us healthier?

We decided to take a deeper look inside the label. Read more…

Care for some water? No way, get me a Diet Coke, or a Coke Zero.

Water is for washing hands, not drinking. And regular soft drinks and juice are full of sugars and calories.

So you decided a long time ago to go with artificial sweeteners. After a while, you didn’t even notice the slightly different taste compared to sugar sweetened beverages. And, diet drinks are zero calories. Win-win. Both taste buds AND body are happy. A no-brainer, right?

Not so fast.

A fascinating article – Artificially Sweetened Beverages Cause for Concern – recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), challenges the notion that artificial sweeteners are risk free.

The article’s author, David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD,  a Harvard professor and Founding Director of the Optimal Weight for Life (OWL) clinic at Children’s Hospital, Boston, makes three important points, especially in the context of artificially sweetened drinks:

1. Our body gets confused by artificial sweeteners – the dissociation between sweet taste and calorie intake may put the regulatory system that controls hunger and body weight out of sync, thus sabotaging weight loss plans. A study on rodents showed that those fed saccharin actually gained weight compared to rodents fed sucrose.

2. We’re “Infantilizing” our taste sense – Artificial sweeteners are a hundredfold sweeter than sucrose (table sugar). By getting ourselves used to so much sweet, normal sweet flavors, of fruit for example, become bland and so do other healthful foods such as grains and vegetables, thus reducing our willingness to consume them and ultimately the quality of our diet.

3. Long term effects unclear – while there have been many studies on artificial sweeteners and disease such cancer, very few focused on long term weight gain. A seven year study, (San Antonio Heart Study), showed a relationship between diet drink consumption and obesity, but the causation is not clear. Consumption of artificial sweeteners is growing yearly. According to Ludwig,

If trends in consumption continue, the nation will, in effect, have embarked on a massive, uncontrolled, and inadvertent public health experiment. Although many synthetic chemicals have been added to the food supply in recent years, artificial sweeteners in beverages stand out in their ability to interact with evolutionarily ancient sensorineural pathways at remarkably high affinity.

What to do at the supermarket:

Whether sweetened with sugar, or artificially, our body does not need anything but water. And while switching overnight from a life sin H2O seems impossible, you can opt for baby steps such as watering down juice, consuming soda only during predefined meals / weekly activities, and getting your sweet tooth filled with juicy fruits such as oranges, melons, pears, and apples. If money is your motivator – think about the $500 a year a family of four can save by just switching to tap water.

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Campbell’s has announced that it will be reducing the sodium content in its SpaghettiOs line of products by 35%. The change will take place by the upcoming spring.

“Offering healthier versions of our products for kids is a major priority for Campbell,” said Sean Connolly, President, Campbell’s US soups, sauces and beverages. “Changing the recipe of SpaghettiOs comes on the heels of reducing sodium in our condensed kids soups to healthy levels. It’s also consistent with our commitment to advertise only sound food choices to children.”

Indeed?

We decided to take a look inside the label at SpaghettiOs Original, a minute before the sodium reduction. Read more…

“A salad without the dressing is not a salad”, someone famous once said. Or should have said. A good dressing helps accentuate flavors, helps some of those greens go down easier, and as you’ll see in a minute improves the nutritional value of the salad.

If we’re to judge by the hundreds of varieties of dressings available at the supermarket, most shoppers agree. Salad dressings historically include some form of fat, such as olive oil or canola oil as a base. Even a mayonnaise base is actually a form of oil (mixed with raw eggs). In the past few years, many dressings have been re-formulated as fat-free, a means to tempt weight conscious consumers to continue buying them.

What you need to know:

A fat-free salad dressing is actually a bad nutritional decision. You see, a little bit of fat goes a long way in helping the body absorb the nutritional goodness of the salad. This is because some vitamins are fat-soluble. Vitamins A, D, E, and K (ADEK) are absorbed in the intestinal tract with the help of fat molecules. Which means that having a fat free salad dressing will actually decrease the nutrition effectiveness of your salad.

Good sources of vitamin A include carrots, broccoli, kale, and spinach. Vitamin E can be found in asparagus, avocado, eggs, nuts and seeds, and spinach. Vitamin K is present in parsley, cabbage, swiss chard, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts.

So what’s a non-fat dressing made from?

Mostly water. that’s right, you’re paying for water. Additionally, in order to maintain the semblance of an oil based dressing, emulsifiers and thickeners are added. Just look for example at the ingredient list for Kraft’s Fat-Free Italian Dressing:

Ingredients: WATER, VINEGAR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, SALT, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OFPARMESAN CHEESE* (PART-SKIM MILK, CHEESE CULTURE, SALT, ENZYMES), GARLIC, ONION JUICE, WHEY, PHOSPHORIC ACID, XANTHAN GUM, POTASSIUM SORBATE AND CALCIUM DISODIUM EDTA AS PRESERVATIVES, YEAST EXTRACT, SPICE, RED BELL PEPPERS*, LEMON JUICE CONCENTRATE, GARLIC*, BUTTERMILK*, CARAMEL COLOR, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, ENZYMES, OLEORESIN PAPRIKA. *DRIED.

That’s quite a lengthy list for what should be a simple dressing. Some highlights:
High fructose corn syrup and corn syrup are the 3rd and 4th ingredients, used to round off the flavor of the highly acidic vinegar.

Phosphoric acid is used to add more acidic flavor, but why not add more lemon instead? (answer: it’s cheaper).

Calcium Disodium EDTA is a preservative with a mildly salty taste. It may cause kidney damage, and blood in urine. It’s on the FDA’s priority list for more health effects research.

Folks – this is ridiculous. Nobody in Italy dresses their salad like this. Nor should you. The 20 calories per serving of 2 tablespoon are to be commended, but a 50 or even 100 calorie dressing based on real ingredients such as olive oil, lemon juice and spices will probably serve you better both gastronomically and nutritionally.

What to do at the supermarket:

Here’s a great idea for you. Buy a bottle of good extra virgin olive oil. Also a few lemons.

At home, make your own dressing as follows: in a mixing bowl add equal parts olive oil and fresh squeezed lemon juice. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour over salad and toss just before serving. Forty five seconds tops.

If you’re more courageous, you can try adding any combination of a teaspoon of dijon mustard, a minced clove of garlic, and balsamic vinegar. Sometimes a teaspoon of honey or sugar can help take the acidic bite off, especially if the salad contains strong tasting greens such as arugula.

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