Smart Choices?

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 5:52 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/busin ... =nutrition

NoelFigart · Post by **NoelFigart** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 6:13 pm

AUUUUGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*runs in circles, rolls on the floor GIR-style*

Wosnes, I thought you LIKED us! How could you scare us like that?

*weeps*

Blithe Morning · Post by **Blithe Morning** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 6:37 pm

The main flaw is that the Smart Choices program is to show foods that are "better for you", but they don't say better than what.

While a bowl of Froot Loops is better than a doughnut for breakfast, neither is as good as a smoothie or oatmeal or egg and cheese sandwich. And even within those options, there are degrees of good - steel cut oatmeal with nuts and dried fruit versus instant "strawberry creme" oatmeal for instance.

Not surprisingly, the food that best satiates me is also food that tends to be minimally processed.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 7:02 pm

What ticks me off is statements like this:

The program gives the seal to both regular and light mayonnaise, which could lead consumers to think they are both equally healthy.

I'm pretty sure that they're trying to say that light mayonnaise is better than regular. I think light is less healthy than regular and regular store-bought isn't as good as homemade.

Depending on the source and ingredients, I'm not sure that Froot Loops are better than a donut for breakfast!

NoelFigart · Post by **NoelFigart** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 7:14 pm

wosnes wrote:What ticks me off is statements like this:

The program gives the seal to both regular and light mayonnaise, which could lead consumers to think they are both equally healthy.
I'm pretty sure that they're trying to say that light mayonnaise is better than regular. I think light is less healthy than regular and regular store-bought isn't as good as homemade.

Depending on the source and ingredients, I'm not sure that Froot Loops are better than a donut for breakfast!

I think they're working at least in part from the assumption that if it doesn't have much fat, it's healthy. Hmmm. Tequila doesn't have any fat, even with the worm. I wonder if we could get THAT labeled a healthy food.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that you have no business even worrying about fat until you've straightened out your portion control. I suspect by that time a lot of problems of any sort of excess become negligible.

Thalia · Post by **Thalia** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 8:19 pm

Wow, it's just government-funded advertising for heavily processed foods. They're not going to be putting check-mark stickers on apples, but I'm sure they will put them on Fruit by the Foot -- it's just more encouragement to let manufacturers choose what's "healthy" instead of eating actual foods.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:39 am

By the way, the article I linked to was linked to at Bitten (Mark Bittman's blog) as was this article:

http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/238 ... dded-sugar

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 5:14 pm

And here's more:

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/

Actually, read this and follow the links:

http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09 ... rt-choice/

NoelFigart · Post by **NoelFigart** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:29 pm

I actually feel angry reading things like this.

The implication is that the American public is too dumb to understand that a fudgecicle is a *@#$& TREAT! HAVE the darn thing if you've decided to have a treat, sure, but goodness gracious don't talk about a fudgecicle in the same breath as making nutritional choices.

It reminds me of recommendations for exercise. To control weight, studies prove you need about an hour a day of moderate activity. They don't recommend it because "people won't do it".

Who cares? TELL THE TRUTH. If someone doesn't want to listen, it's their problem, but don't tell a bleedin' palatable LIE because it'll increase perceptions of COMPLIANCE!

*deep breath*

Okay, I need to have a cup of tea and a lie down before I burst a blood vessel.

TunaFishKid · Post by **TunaFishKid** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:08 pm

Fruit Loops is a "smart choice" for breakfast?? Heaven help us all. Looking on the bright side, there can't really be too many people in the world who are dumb enough to believe that....right?

I'm starting to believe that eating these packaged, industrially manufactured "foods" are what's causing the obesity crisis in the first place. I think someone here called them "edible food-like substances" - lol, love that. We're driven to eat and eat and eat because our poor bodies are not getting any real nutrition from all that junk.

Oh, and I have to get in a plug here for NoS. Since I started back in April, I've been eating more and more real food, so much so that when I looked at the picture accompanying that article, it occured to me that I don't buy any of that stuff anymore - not even the Hellman's mayo, which used to be a favorite. If it comes from a factory somewhere, I'm not putting it in my body. No more soybean oil or high fructose corn syrup for me. The most processed food I buy these days is olive oil, canned tuna, and oatmeal...things like that. My cupboards are pretty bare these days - no more crackers, canned soups or packaged dinners.

Mounted Ranger! · Post by **Mounted Ranger!** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:44 pm

Thalia wrote:Wow, it's just government-funded advertising for heavily processed foods. They're not going to be putting check-mark stickers on apples, but I'm sure they will put them on Fruit by the Foot -- it's just more encouragement to let manufacturers choose what's "healthy" instead of eating actual foods.

Yes it is, Thalia, indeed, it is!!!

NoelFigart · Post by **NoelFigart** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:04 pm

TunaFishKid wrote:Oh, and I have to get in a plug here for NoS. Since I started back in April, I've been eating more and more real food, so much so that when I looked at the picture accompanying that article, it occured to me that I don't buy any of that stuff anymore - not even the Hellman's mayo, which used to be a favorite. If it comes from a factory somewhere, I'm not putting it in my body. No more soybean oil or high fructose corn syrup for me. The most processed food I buy these days is olive oil, canned tuna, and oatmeal...things like that. My cupboards are pretty bare these days - no more crackers, canned soups or packaged dinners.

Well, I do buy frozen veggies, bread, steel cut oats, Cheerios, cheese and canned tuna. It's not like none of my food has ever seen the inside of factory.

People talk about eating like their grandparents. My grandmother saw it as a sign of affluence that she could AFFORD the prepackaged stuff. I wonder if it was that sort of attitude that got all the nonsense started?

Dandelion · Post by **Dandelion** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:08 pm

I had a similar conversation with my MIL a while back when explaining to her how we eat and why. I remember well when I was a small child 'convenience' foods seemed like the best thing ever to my mother and grandmother. The luxury of not having to do *everything* themselves - the novelty of it all.

But back then it was a novelty and a luxury. It was not everything and it was not every day. And it was certainly not loaded with many of the harmful additives that products are today. Even if they did use cheap vegetables oils, they used real sugar and not all this GM soy and corn like is in nearly everything nowdays. Today most people I know expect food to be cheap and fast. If they have to spend more than 30 minutes on a meal, that's too long. It's take something out of the freezer, nuke it and just 'get something on the table' . Even better if it's in a disposable container and they use paper plates/napkins and plastic ware.

Nonsense is right

- and it's so encouraging to have more people all the time choosing not to be part of it and taking back 'real food'

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:14 pm

Thalia wrote:Wow, it's just government-funded advertising for heavily processed foods. They're not going to be putting check-mark stickers on apples, but I'm sure they will put them on Fruit by the Foot -- it's just more encouragement to let manufacturers choose what's "healthy" instead of eating actual foods.

I'm not sure it's government funded -- WebMD says it was coordinated by The Keystone Group. The companies pay for each product to be given the check mark -- just like companies pay the American Heart Association for products to be called "heart healthy."

This is from an article in Forbes by Rebecca Ruiz:

At the heart of the Smart Choices initiative is the Keystone Center, a Keystone, Colo.-based nonprofit group that mediates public-policy disputes. In 2008, Keystone convened a group of 40 food executives, academics, health advocates and government officials to develop the program's nutrition guidelines. Keystone received more than $680,000 from food companies to organize the talks; the remaining funds were spent on consumer testing.

NoelFigart · Post by **NoelFigart** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:22 pm

Dandelion wrote: If they have to spend more than 30 minutes on a meal, that's too long.

I generally don't mentally "count" oven or crock pot time in cooking, as I can be knitting with my feet up and listening to an audiobook during that time. I doubt I ever spend more than 30 minutes on a meal.

kccc · Post by **kccc** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 12:54 am

I DO count oven time most days, because I have to be home for it, and I work outside the home. (Same with bread-rising time - it irritates me no end when recipes say "this part doesn't count." It counts if I have to be around to do something at a given time, because I have to plan for it.) Crock-pot time is iffy - with my commute, I'm just gone too darn long even for a crockpot, but I can use it on the one day I work in town.

Nonetheless, it is possible to get decent meals on the table in only 30 minutes total time. It just takes some planning ahead. For example, I cook up large pots of brown rice on weekends and freeze the extras for quick meals in the evenings. If I don't have any on hand, I cook tomorrow's rice while we're eating today's meal -- no extra time. Anything that is going to take a while gets cooked the day before and heated... Then I fill in with recipes that are fast - there are quite a lot of them.

But yeah... from the time I get home until dinner needs to be on the table, it's 30 minutes max.

Dandelion · Post by **Dandelion** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 1:29 am

Sorry, I was referring more to the '30 minute meals' titles of cookbooks and tv cooking shows and as a comment on attitudes- I did not mean it to be taken literally. I'm sure many people spend that much time 'cooking' over several days - after all, how long does it take to remove a package from the freezer and stick it in the microwave?

My cooking times vary quite a lot. I have some recipes that take 15 minutes - and once I told my husband I'm the only one I know who spends three days cooking to make hot dogs.

Grammy G · Post by **Grammy G** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 1:00 am

KCCC...You can put your crock pot on a cord with a timer such as you would use for turning your lights on and off if you were on vacation. How wonderful it is to come home after a long day away and open the door to the smell of dinner! My oven also has a timer and I would put a frozen meatloaf or beef roast in the oven and set the timer to turn the oven on and off so that, if I happened to be late, the dinner wasn't ruined.
You know, I remember reading that the much touted and now gone "food pyramid' was never correctly done because the powers that be didn't think the general public could understand it! so now we have another crazy pyramid that nobody wants to even think about. Wouldn't a dinner plate kind of chart (I hate to say pie graph!) been the way to go since we are dealing with FOOD!
No wonder we all have so much trouble with food in our society!!
I remember deciding I wasn't going to cook anymore a few years back. We would just have WW dinners. OMG!! That lasted 5 days because I bought 10 dinners and didn't want to throw them out. I can't believe we ate them for 5 nights in a row!! They were terrible!! And I would be hungry in an hour! How brainwashed I was to think that this was the thing to do to lose weight! To make it worse, I was wintering in FL surrounded by farmers' markets that not only had produce but just caught seafood!! Never again!

kccc · Post by **kccc** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 1:36 am

Dandelion wrote:Sorry, I was referring more to the '30 minute meals' titles of cookbooks and tv cooking shows and as a comment on attitudes- I did not mean it to be taken literally. I'm sure many people spend that much time 'cooking' over several days - after all, how long does it take to remove a package from the freezer and stick it in the microwave?

My cooking times vary quite a lot. I have some recipes that take 15 minutes - and once I told my husband I'm the only one I know who spends three days cooking to make hot dogs.

Three days on hot dogs? Inquiring minds want to know!

(And the 30 minutes was a tangent... it is true that lack of time drives a lot of poor food choices, but my point was it doesn't HAVE to.)

Kathleen · Post by **Kathleen** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 4:58 pm

I had to chuckle at this. I told my kids they could have anything with the American Heart Association label on it. My highly animated 10 year old, then about 6, was so excited to see Cocoa Puffs with the American Heart Association label on it.

After having read The End of Overeating, I've come to the conclusion that what I want to feed the kids is unprocessed or minimally processed foods, especially fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Kathleen