While I don’t necessarily believe that Big Food really wants to make their food healthier, we all have to acknowledge that in our culture, healthy food has become synonymous with bad tasting food.

Yes, that’s sometimes true.  But it is becoming less and less true.  And often we like the things we like, aka high fat and salt content, because we’re used it, and probably wouldn’t miss it once we’ve become acclimated to less.

A new report out from Harvard this week claims to have highly accurate numbers on obesity and diabetes in the country, and things do no t look good for our southern friends.

Colorado, Minnesota, Montana and Vermont have low rates, with Vermont the lowest at 6.1 percent for people 30 to 59 and 19.9 percent for people over 60. Southeastern states have the highest rates, and Mississippi, where 11.4 percent of people 30 to 59 and 27.7 percent of those over 60 are diabetic, has the highest of all.

Perhaps most shocking is the clear differential between men and women.  While men tend to have higher levels of alcoholism and therefore are more suseptible to diabetes, I had expected that women would roughly the same level of diabetes due to how difficult it is to shed excess pregnancy weight.

More men than women have diabetes in every state, and the gap is sometimes large. In Minnesota, for example, almost 12 percent of men have the disease, but only 8 percent of women. The variation among races is also stark. Nationally, about 18 percent of blacks and 16 percent of Hispanics have diabetes, compared with 11 percent of whites.

Talks about healthy lunches, reading, and getting exercise:

Seems the CEO of Whole Foods really stepped in it this past week, when he came out with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal disparaging healthcare reform. Mackey came off as a died in the wool right-winger parroting Fox News talking points:

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system.

As Jusiper points out, the man clearly doesn’t understand his customer base if he thinks that carrying water for Limbaugh is a good way to burnish his brand.

Not very smart for a company that depends almost entirely on wealthy Democrats who are willing to pay five dollars for a six ounce carrot soda. Come on, you can do it, boycott them for at least a week and discover how much money you can save at Trader Joe’s.

This mess prompted several progressive activists to engage in the fight, calling on people to boycott Whole Foods, which in turn, caused Whole Foods to release a non-apology apology.

Really, I would have thought that Mackey was smarter than this. Hope Trader Joes appreciates the lesson to be learned here.

Ever since the report came out of the UK declaring that organics were no healthier than convential produce there has been story after story repeating this falsehood.  You see, organics are not about vitamin counts, there about avoiding nasty pesticides:

According to researchers at the Miami Miller School of Medicine, children eating conventionally grown fruit had pesticide residue in their urine which decreased after just five days on an organic diet.

That’s what its all about.  They still haven’t tested for micronutrients also.  But really, organics are all about not poisoning yourself.

In general, weird ingredients that you can’t identify or pronounce or can pronounce but have nothing to do with food, like yellow #3, are things to be avoided in food when you can.  Turns out this is not the case when you have a major spinal injury:

When nerve cells in the brain or spine are damaged, they often release a spurt of chemicals that causes nearby cells to die. No one is sure why, and stopping this process is key to preventing the damage that continues to build after a stroke or spinal cord injury.

One of the chemicals is ATP. Nedergaard’s team looked for something that would interfere with this and found the blue dye, which they called BBG, would do this via the P2X7R receptor or doorway.

“We found that IV administration of the P2X7R inhibitor BBG significantly reduced the severity of spinal cord damage without any evident toxicity,” they wrote.

“Remarkably, BBG is a derivative of the widely used food additive FD&C Blue number 1. Currently, more than 1 million pounds of FD&C blue dye No. 1 are consumed yearly in the United States, corresponding to a daily intake of 16 mg per person.”

Just because Americans are consuming large quantities of the stuff doesn’t mean that its necessarily healthy, but in this case, the chance to prevent someone from being paralyzed out weighs any risk.

There’s a new astroturf game in town, and thy name is Americans Against Food Taxes.  Soda makers and sellers are running scared and they are gearing up the campaign machines to fight the idea of a sugar tax; an idea which has been gaining momentum.

They got the savvy new media angle going on, too! Why they’re even on twitter!  So far they’ve mostly used the feed to announce their partners, like the South Carolina Beverage Association and the Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, and articles by well known dietitians like Dick Armey.  You know, regular folks like you and me.  And yes, Coca-Cola is on board, too.

They got a slick new ad, too. Lovable all American family? Check. Economical, responsible camping vacation? Check. Confusing viewers by blurring the difference between sugary soft drinks and healthy fruit juice? Check.  This one has it all.

The optics on this are not great for those who wish to see the true cost of unhealthy food be reflected in grocery prices. It’s too easy to paint this tax as nanny-state-itis and a burden on the average Joe. Critics will try to obscure the link between soda and obesity, even though institutions such as the Harvard School of Public Health found that for each additional serving of soda or juice drink(pdf) a child consumes per day, the child’s chance of becoming overweight increases by 60%. But that’s not going to stop Dick:

For years, critics of soda have argued that it is a unique contributor to obesity. This flies in the face of both common sense and scientific research. The fact is that Americans are getting heavier because we’re eating more and exercising less.

Imposing new taxes on soda is also a dangerous way to go about financing new programs like health care. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation projects that revenue from a soda tax would generate increased revenue every year — from $4.5 billion in 2009 to $5 billion in 2013. Yet history has shown that if you tax a product, people buy less of it.

Catch that?  Poor defenseless soda is getting a bad rap. Not that he offers up an alternative culprit.  Nor is he willing to admit its a contributing factor in the rise in obesity. Plus, he goes on to claim that this is a bad tax because it is going to curb behavior that it intends to curb. Gotta love logic like that. We can expect lots more of the same from the food and bev minions.

There isn’t an obvious major advocacy organization to pick up the mantle on this and take on the food and beverage lobby. Maybe, just maybe, either the nurses or the doctors will take up the cause, but it is doubtful that they would be willing to expend the ammo on this fight. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has been on the case since 2005 with their Liquid Candy campaign, but its unclear how active they still are on the issue and much they have in the way of resources.

My guess is that health advocates are going to lose this fight, there are too many powerful lobbies lining up against a sugar tax. I do hope I’m wrong.  However, fighting for a sugar tax may open the door to a compromise solution of at the very least finally ditching subsidies for sugar and corn. If we’re not going to tax the empty calories, at least the US government can stop making them so cheap.

Michael Pollan makes the interesting case that if we really want true change in our food system, we need to pit Big Healthcare against Big Ag. It’s a compelling argument.  Wonder what Monsanto and Cargill will do when they find themselves toe-to-toe with Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Obviously, we all need food to live. In that we need food to live and need to live to be happy, the answer is yes.  But do we need a lot of food to be happy? If this is true, than how much food is enough food to make us happy?  So we don’t starve?  Until we are full? How full? Until we can fit no more into our ever growing bellies? Where do we stop?

In today’s New York Times, Roger Cohen takes on food and happiness in a column he modestly titles “The Meaning of Life”. The piece is an analysis on a 30 yr old study that shows that mammals which eat 30% less calories than their peers live exceedingly longer lives.

It’s the difference between the guy who got the marbleized rib-eye and the guy who got the oh-so-lean filet. Or between the guy who got a Château Grand Pontet St. Emilion with his brie and the guy who got water. As Edgar notes in King Lear, “Ripeness is all.” You don’t get to ripeness by eating apple peel for breakfast.

Roger argues, yes this is nice and all, but why bother trying to live longer if you have to turn down that extra slice of cherry pie and that makes you sad?  Which is true. Maybe. For some people.  If you’re a true gourmet, and eating (and cooking) is your life, then yes cutting out a third of your calories may not be worth the extra years of your life. But what about the rest of us, who mindlessly chomp away at those large fries that we’ve had a hundred times before and barely even taste anymore? When we eat just to eat, is it worth the extra 500 calories when that can be the difference between living to 70 and living to 80?

How many Americans are eating just to eat? It sure seems like a lot.  20% of the American calorie intake is snacks. Yes, these items hit the main points - high in salt and fat that keeps you coming back for more.  Not only are they not good for you, but they also have none of the complexity that can make food truly great and really sing. How many bags of potato chips are equal to a bite of cotton candy foie gras on the happiness scale? Even for many of us who can’t afford Jose Andres’ spectacular inventions, there is a case to be made that one may get more happiness by forgoing a week’s worth of hamburgers and hot dogs so that one may splurge of a truly great steak once a week is true happiness.  Or skipping the dairy queen trips for the month to invest in some truly great Ben & Jerry’s Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream.

And what if happiness is good health?  Calorie restriction has been show to cut down on disease, so how does that get added to the happiness quotient?

“There is plenty of evidence the calorie restriction can reduce your risks for many common diseases including cancer, diabetes and heart disease,” Weiss said. “And you may live to be substantially older.”

When cutting calories, Weiss warns that it is imperative to maintain a healthy diet by eating nutrient-rich foods. Cutting 300 to 500 calories per day is equivalent to skipping dessert or substituting a turkey sandwich instead of a Big Mac and fries.

Eating less, even eating significantly less does not have to mean a life of denial.  My great-grandmother, who lived to be 98 years old could not have been more 98 pounds when she died (from sudden heart failure, not from a protracted illness - truly the way to go). She barely ate much more than a sandwich a day, but she sure did love to break out her unrivaled rice pudding on occasion.  And I gotta say, she seemed pretty happy.

I would love to give you a food update right now, but I’m a little distracted.  You see, the Senate came out with their version of the healthcare bill late yesterday. And there is NO PUBLIC OPTION.

Beyond the changes, this is also the clearest look we’ve had at the specific policies being considered. There’s a fairly strong individual mandate, albeit with exemptions for those beneath the poverty line, those who would have to spend more than 15 percent of income for a plan, and undocumented workers. There are a variety of options for an employer mandate, or the absence of one. Sen. Kent Conrad’s co-op idea is up for discussion. There’s no public plan mentioned anywhere in the document.

After all the promises, real healthcare is not going to happen.  The Public Option is the ONLY real reform there ever was. Every other proposal is just tinkering around the edges.

Maureen is her regular catty, image obsessed self this morning, and her target is the Obamas’ eating habits. While not quite admonishing Michelle and Barack as hypocrites for hitting up burger joints, you know the restraint is killing her.

Its almost as if you can sense Ms. Dowd turning ever darker shade of green from image envy as she pens her lastest missive.  She refers to the president as the “willowy commander-in-chief” and snidely pokes him for supposedly being chubby as a kid. Of course the only proof of childhood weight issues she has is a single photo, nevermind that adolescents often pack on a few pounds before a big growth spurt.  But this dear columnist will happily twist and turn herself into a pretzel in order to create the allusion of angst.

All in all, this isn’t Dowd at her most vicious, we’ve seen at much worse where the nails really do come out.  But it is a cheap shot.  She parts with:

Mr. Obama ostentatiously treats himself to fries and burgers to beef up his average-Joe image (even though he’s anything but). Yet maybe when Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer come next week to broadcast a special on health care from inside the White House, the president should forgo the photo-op of the grease-stained bovine bag and take the TV stars out for what he really wants and America really needs: some steamed fish with a side of snap peas.

Why can’t a public figure advocate for healthy eating, while at the same time enjoy a treat or two from time to time?  The Obamas have never advocated for a militant raw-vegan-macrobiotic-wrap-everything-in-seaweed diet.  Instead the message has always been one of moderation - eat less sugar, eat more fresh vegetables and fruits.  The message was never “burn McDonald’s to the ground”.

The truth is, moderation is not sexy.  It’s the anathem of sexy - its practical.  And where is the fun for Maureen in that?

Dr. Ores is giving Big Healthcare a run for their money.

Dr. Ores is also a physician who runs a nonprofit health care cooperative for city restaurant workers that he sees as a model for how national health care could work. The undertaking, which he began last summer, is particularly timely as President Obama contemplates an overhaul of the nation’s health insurance system.

“It’s like a food co-op,” Dr. Ores, 51, said of the project. “Except it’s health care.”

Under the plan, he charges each restaurant a dollar each month for every seat in the establishment and pools the money. In return, any employee from those restaurants can visit him free of charge, whether for a cut finger or the flu.

The need is acute: A 2005 study by the New York State Restaurant Association reported that almost 75 percent of the city’s restaurant workers — about 120,000— have no health insurance.

Brilliant! One of the more unseemly aspects of the Restaurant Industry is the lack of healthcare, it’s pretty much non-existent.

Fooducate has the goods:

A recent study conduced by Italian researchers found that two commonly used food additives have the ability to alter human hormones. From The Daily Green:

More than 3,000 preservatives, flavorings, colors and other ingredients are added to food in the United States, and none of them are required to undergo testing for estrogenic activity, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

The two suspect additives are:

1. propyl gallate - used to prevent fats and oils from spoiling. Used in baked goods, shortening, dried meats, candy, fresh pork sausage, mayonnaise and dried milk.

2. 4-hexyl resorcinol - prevents shellfish such as shrimp and lobsters from discoloring.

Distorting estrogen levels can lead to all sorts of fun problems like ovarian cysts and man boobs. Fun!