Menu Labeling Will Help Only the Already Motivated

What's on the Menu?
jenny downing / CC BY 2.0

I thought since the calorie information was posted right next to the cheesecakes on display at the Cheesecake Factory, that the calorie and saturated fat would be posted right there on the menu next to the item I was considering. Right? Wrong. You have to ask for the "nutritional guide" which is separate from the actual menu. And at the Claim Jumper, another restaurant chain that is providing nutrition information in my state, the nutrition information is at the back of the "saloon guide."

Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm happy it's there. I'm just thinking you really have to be motivated to (1) find the numbers, and then(2) consider them when making your selections. When people are eating at restaurants, they tend to be in a "splurge" mode and many of the people that tend to go to fast food chains, I'm guessing, just aren't as motivated or interested in this thing called nutrition. They might be largely focused on getting the most food for their three dollars.

Apparently, a provision requiring chain restaurants to post calories on their menus is one of the items buried in the nearly 2,000-page health reform bill recently passed by the House. Well a few studies have been done to assess what impact New York City's menu-labeling legislation, which took effect last year, has had on its citizens. The results were largely unimpressive. I suspect you are going to have a small segment of the population who appreciates and uses the nutrition information and a larger portion that just isn't interested or doesn't care about the nutrition information. They came for the food, not the nutrition information.

My guess is restaurant goers might be more motivated to consider the information compared to a fast food customer who is perhaps more motivated by getting the most food for their dollar or had already decided which fast food favorite they were getting before they even bellied up to the counter.

Are you more likely to consider the calorie and saturated fat information when eating a restaurant versus a fast food?

Related Topics:

• Healthy Cooking with Elaine Magee, RD
• Healthy Cooking Newsletter - recipes, kitchen and shopping advice in your inbox

Healthy Lifestyle of a Breast Cancer Survivor

I am often inspired by WebMD members who post on my healthy cooking community board! I read a post from a Stage 1A breast cancer survivor who described her usual day:

• She eats at least 10 servings of vegetables per day and at least 5 of fruit.
• She eats yogurt, nuts, lentils, raisins, brown rice, whole grain cereal, and edamame.
• She exercises 7 days a week, is 5'7" tall and weighs 125 pounds
• She doesn't smoke, drink alcohol or soda, doesn't eat junk food or fast food
• She doesn't eat meat
• She meditates once a day

Can you believe how awesome her lifestyle is? She wanted to know if I saw anything that she should change. Wow!

I told her that there are a lot of vegetables there so if she came down a bit in servings, she shouldn't worry too much - her produce base is definitely covered. I told her she could take a day or two off of exercising each week, as the joints do tend to need a day a week to rest and recover.

I won't question her reason for not eating meat, but studies show various health benefits to eating high omega-3 fish (and fish in general) and in some ways meat like poultry doesn't have the same health risks as other meat (it's more health neutral if that makes sense).

After reading her post though, I was left with the nagging question of whether she ever enjoys some dark chocolate or maybe a cup of frozen yogurt or something?

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. What are you doing to make your lifestyle more healthy?

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• Fight Breast Cancer at Every Meal
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Got Heart? One More Reason to Watch Your Sodium

There is that well-known benefit of lowering blood pressure associated with eating a lower sodium diet. But more and more researchers are finding that there are definitely desirable long-term benefits as well.

A new study, published in the British Medical Journal April 20, 2007, looked at the data from two trials involving adults age 30-54 with pre-hypertension. Trial #1 with 744 participants included dietary sodium reduction and counseling regarding lower sodium intake for 18 months while Trial #2 involved 2382 participants and lasted 36-48 months.

The researchers followed up on these participants 10-15 years after the original trials.

They found that the people who participated in the sodium lowering interventions had a 25-30% lower risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event.

So, it looks like this is more evidence suggesting the short term benefit to reducing sodium in your diet is a reduction of blood pressure but the long term benefit seems to be a reduced risk of cardiovascular events.

~~Elaine

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• Reduce Salt in Your Diet
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Technorati Tags: highbloodpressure, hypertension, pre-hypertension, sodium, salt, diet

Trans Fat Tidbits

By now I'm sure you've heard that Trans Fats are "bad" fats; these heart disease promoting fats form when oils are partially hydrogenated. Food companies have been seemingly madly trying to reformulate their products so that the trans fat amount (at least on the label) reads, "zero."

[Keep in mind that the FDA allows companies to claim "zero" grams of trans if a food has up to .5 grams of trans fat per serving]

Well, luckily the nonprofit Center For Science In The Public Interest is on the case. They conducted an admittedly limited supermarket survey and found that at least 150 different products (in the categories of stick margarines, pot pies, fruit pies, microwave popcorn, frozen pizzas, pastries and donuts, cookies and other convenience foods) still have a day's worth of trans fat. The American Heart Association advises Americans to consume no more than 2 grams of trans fat per day.

So what about natural trans fat?

Trans fats are found naturally in meat, butter, milk and cheese and they do have a different chemical structure than the ones that are created when oil is partially hydrogenated. Most of the natural trans we get is thought to come from milk that contains fat. If you tend to choose skim milk and lean meats, chances are pretty good that you are getting very little natural trans.

Stay tuned on whether some forms of natural trans fats, such as CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) may actually be helpful. More research needs to be done.

~~Elaine

Related Topics:

• Where are Trans Fats Hiding?
• Trans Fats: The Science and the Risk

Technorati Tags: transfat, naturaltransfat, cla, nutrition

Tea: To add milk or not add milk - that is the question

I'm a purist when it comes to tea. I don't need sweetener and I don't need milk. But I've noticed other people like to add one or both. I've seen it reported recently that the casein and similar proteins in milk may bind to the tea flavonoids (phytochemicals) thereby make them less active in the body.

Well I did some searching around to try and answer the question - to add milk
to tea, or not to add tea - that is the question.

I couldn't find anything definitive one way of the other so I asked well-known researcher Jeffrey Blumberg, Ph.D., from Tufts University's Antioxidant Research Laboratory. According to Dr. Blumberg the evidence is "mixed" with some studies showing an inhibition of absorption and others (the majority of the available reports) showing none. He believes there isn't a consensus on the issue. I believe that, since I spent an hour trying to hunt down some solid information on this and ended up more confused than when I started.

If you want to play it safe than you could drink milk an hour after you drink your tea. The reason I say "an hour" is because a Dutch study noted that tea flavonoids are absorbed from the gut and that there was a significant increase in antioxidants circulating in the blood in their study participants about 1 hour after tea was consumed. [Journal of Nutrition October 2003, 133:3285S-3292S, Rietveld A., et al. "Antioxidant Effects of Tea: Evidence from Human Clinical Trials"]

~~Elaine

Related Topics: Drinking Black Tea May Soothe Stress, How Does Green Tea Help Your Health?

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