cakeaustin

In continuation of yesterday’s post, I wanted to take a look at the nutritional labels of three of the most popular cookies. I followed the Girl Scouts’ press releases touting the banishment of trans-fat in recent years but the reality is, trans-fat is only ONE piece of the food puzzle. Organizations cannot continue to sway public opinion by ridding their products of one “evil-of-the-moment” ingredient when many other additives may be causing an equal, or even greater, problem.

It is widely posited by researchers now that human bodies were not meant to digest many of the chemicals we’ve introduced into our systems via processed food. The un-sexy truth touched upon by Michael Pollan in his most recent book, In Defense of Food, rings loudly as the reason Girl Scout Cookies remain popular and acceptable in our culture today despite the childhood obesity epidemic: you cannot substantially mark up whole, unproccesed food. And so, this otherwise praiseworthy organization which has brought me, my family, and millions of others immeasureable joy, will continue to sell cookies – because, frankly, they’ve got a groovy thing going. And what else would they sell?

If you have an idea on what this might be, I’d love to hear it.

Honestly, guys, I’m not sure where to begin with this one. That someone dared to write a spot depicting not only flora and fauna lusting after cola but a thin person as the only human about really astounds me. Except, of course, for the fact that the dude doesn’t actually take a sip of Coke. The bottle morphs into some…butterflies?

Watch for the moment when the chemical-laden corn syrup cocktail pops its top and spews all over mother nature. Truly, deeply gross.

Peter and the Wolf indeed!

(From Draft Declaration website): The concept for the declaration began with Michael R. Dimock, the President of Roots of Change (ROC). He was the primary author of Slow Food USA’s first national statute and the founding Chairman of Slow Food USA. Mr. Dimock believed that it would serve the good food movement to collaborate with others on a declaration that could be used to spark the public’s action on national policy.

I don’t spend much time stewing over national politics – there’s too much work to be done in grassroots organizing and local policy change – but I was touched to read that our next president will be sworn in today with Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural bible. This, combined with yesterday’s holiday celebrating the life of a man who predicted a black president would take office in America within 40 years, deserves our reverence.

No matter what one’s beliefs may be, or whom one wished to play the role of our 44th president, our duty is to put differences aside today.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand,” said Lincoln. As we usher in the new administration it’s up to each of us to remember this.

Crisis management is an area of my field which has always interested me, but it’s not become my area of focus chiefly due to the nature of the clients’ businesses which have greatest need of employing it.

The nationwide salmonella outbreak has sickened hundreds of people in 43 states and killed at least six, according to the AP.

The government is also scrutinizing a grower, raising the possibility that contamination could have occurred before peanuts reached the processing plant, which passed its last inspection by the Georgia agriculture this summer.

“The actions we are taking today are in keeping with our more than 100-year commitment to providing consumers with safe, high-quality products,” said David Mackay, Kellogg’s president and CEO. “We apologize for this unfortunate situation.”

It weighs heavily on me when journalists advise the public to turn a blind eye to their own welfare, as if “the government” or “the food inspectors” will have prevented and/or instantly solved the problem at hand.

This morning’s Seattle P.I. headline was deafening: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/secretingredients/archives/159191.asp

“If You Don’t Buy Your Peanut Butter in Really Big Quantities, Don’t Worry about the FDA Recall”. Here is the response I left in the comments field:

What an irresponsible headline! By suggesting that your readers not worry about the latest outbreak of foodborne illness you reduce a serious, multifaceted issue affecting us all to nothing more than swatting at a fly. It is our responsibility as individuals to take interest in our food safety. Get to know your local farmers and prepared-foods producers and take back the food system. Certainly, for military, school children and those dependent upon hospital cafeteria service, this may not be so easy. Fortunately, grassroots, nonprofit organizations are coming forth with solutions which include even these populations.

I’ve waited a week to comment on this in hopes of seeing more dialogue about it online but most people have presumably been in the throes of holiday revelry. What concerns me more than the tax dollars consumed by the FDA’s investigation and subsequent warning to Coca-Cola is the fact that no one is talking about the real problem with diet sodas. They cause calcium-leaching via phosphoric acid, can also tip one’s pH balance and are corrosive to the GI tract.

In addition, artificial sweeteners confuse our taste buds and the way our brains register satiety, affecting our eating choices. Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio have recently completed compilations of data that provided “surprising results.” Fowler and her team studied more than 1500 people between the ages of 25 and 64, examining whether each consumed regular or diet soft drinks. It was no surprise to find a correlation between the daily consumption of multiple cans of all soft drinks and obesity — which they did. But, as Fowler noted, “What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks; their risk of obesity was even higher” [than that of those drinking regular soft drinks]. For each can of diet soft drink consumed per day, the risk of obesity went up by 41%.

The truth is out there!