Blame the food dyes on your kids' hyperactivity this Halloween

Happy Halloween!

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) released the following statement, just in time for Halloween:

"British candy has all the sugar of American candy, and it’s certainly not health food, but as Halloween approaches, it's a shame that American kids trick-or-treat for candy dyed with discredited chemicals while British families have many of the same foods, minus the dyes."

That’s because earlier this year the UK’s equivalent to the American’s FDA, the UK’s Food Standards Agency, asked food companies to voluntarily recall artificial colours in food by 2009. Moreover, the European Parliament approved a warning on packages containing food dyes: “May have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children”.

Why?

Although synthetic food dyes have been suspected of affecting children’s behaviour since the 70s, two recent British studies found a direct link between food dyes (with the common preservative sodium benzoate) and impaired attention and hyperactivity in children.

According to the FDA, Americans consume 5 times as much food dye as they did 30 years ago. Attention Deficit Disorder is also a growing concern for many parents. However, the FDA and Health Canada maintain that there isn’t sufficient evidence to ban the use of food dyes. As a result, The CSPI has submitted a petition to the FDA requesting they ban eight artificial food colours: Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 3, Red 40, Orange B and Yellow 6 (tartrazine). They’re also requesting that the FDA include warnings on packages containing these food dyes.

In the UK, Fanta orange soda gets its colour from pumpkin and carrot extract, while in the States, it gets its colour from Red 40 and Yellow 6. McDonald’s strawberry sundaes are coloured with Red 40 in North America but with real strawberries in the U.K. Starburst Chews and Skittles, both Mars products, also contain synthetic food dyes in the U.S. but not in the U.K.

Hope I didn’t put a downer on your Halloween. Enjoy your Halloween candy... in moderation, of course!

Remember that October 31^st is not just about candy, it’s National Unicef Day. On Oct 31^st 1949, five goodhearted kids went door-to-door in Philadelphia to collect money for other kids in post war Europe. They raised $17 and donated it to Unicef. ‘Trick-or-Treat for Unicef’ was launched and in 1966, US President Lyndon Johnson pronounced October 31^st National Unicef Day, stating: “Mrs. Johnson and I hope that our fellow citizens this year will once again join in bringing the opportunity for a better life to more of the world's children."

Ironic!

http://www.cakespy.com/

Cup of coffee shrinks cup size

A new Swedish study published in the British Journal of Cancer has found a link between coffee intake and breast size.

About 300 healthy pre-menopausal non-hormone using women were questioned about their coffee intake and had their bust measured. It was found that the women who drank 3+ cups of coffee a day had ~17% smaller breasts than those that drank less. However, this relationship was found only in women that were carriers of a specific genetic variant. The good news for these women is that previous studies have shown that coffee may protect carriers of this same genetic variant against breast cancer. About half the women in this study were carriers of this gene.

Lead author Helena Jernstrom stated that although “Drinking coffee can have a major effect on breast size...coffee-drinking women don’t have to worry ... breasts aren’t just going to disappear.”

Health Canada recommends you not exceed 400mg caffeine a day. Women in their childbearing years should not consume more than 300mg. A generically brewed cup of coffee has between 100-200 mg caffeine.

Western diet causes heart attacks

Researchers at McMaster University found that a ‘Western diet’ increases the risk of heart attacks by 35%, regardless of what country you live in.

The study, which was published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, looked at food frequency (of 19 food groups, adjusted for food preferences per country) results of 5761 people that have had heart attacks and 10,646 people without known heart disease from 52 countries.

3 different dietary groups were identified:

1. Prudent diet- People in this group ate more fruits and vegetables and had a 30% lower risk of heart attack compared to people who ate less fruits and veggies.

2. Western diet- Individuals in this group ate more fried foods, salty snacks, eggs and meat. As

mentioned above, this type of diet was associated with a 35% greater risk of heart attack than those that ate less meat, fat and salt.

3. Oriental diet- This diet was higher in tofu as well as soy sauce. This diet had no relationship with heart attack risk, despite its high sodium level. The researchers suggest that the healthy aspects of this diet-low in meat and relatively higher in vegetables- counteract the effect of the high sodium. Nonetheless, they note that the high salt could increase stroke risk, which was not looked at in this study.

Although we’ve known for a while that a diet high in animal protein, fat and salt increases the risk of heart disease, what this study shows us is that this same relationship exists in other regions around the world.

Bottom line:

Eat lots of vegetables and fruit, reduce your intake of fried foods, meat and salty foods. ... Duh.

Food is medicine

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food!” -Hippocrates (460-377 BC)

“Nature is the best physician: She heals three quarters of all diseases and never badmouths her colleagues.”

-Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

Big dishes, Big portions

We know that larger portion sizes result in weight gain, but did you know that your dishes and utensils also affect how much you eat?

Dr. Brian Wansink founded the Cornell Food and Brand Lab where his research focuses on the factors that influence what and how much people eat and how much they enjoy it. He published many of his findings in his great book, Mindless Eating: Why we eat more than we think.

Check out this upside down T. Which line do you think is longer: the vertical one or the horizontal one?

The vertical one looks longer, right? In fact, they’re actually the same length!

According to Wansink, our brains have the tendency to overfocus on the height of objects at the expense of their width.

His research found that when kids poured themselves juice into short wide glasses, they poured themselves 74% more juice compared to those that used tall thin glasses. What's more, they thought they had poured themselves less juice than they had! That’s because you get the impression that there's less juice when it's in a short fat glass compared to in a tall skinny glass.

The same study done on adults found that they poured 19% more soda into short wide glasses compared to tall thin glasses!

Here’s another. Which orange circle looks bigger?

The one on the right appears bigger, but they’re actually the same size!

Wansink explains that we us background objects as a benchmark for estimating size.

He conducted a study where professors and PhD students from the Nutritional Science Division were invited to an ice cream social. They were randomly given either a 17-ounce or a 34-ounce bowl and could serve themselves ice cream using either a 2-ounce or 3-ounce ice cream scoop.

What Wansink found was that the larger the bowl, the larger the portion size. Those that received the larger bowls unknowingly served themselves 31% more ice cream than those with smaller bowls! Those that got the large bowls and used the larger serving spoons served themselves, and ate, nearly 57% more ice cream than those with smaller bowls and spoons! And these were nutrition experts...

If weight loss is a goal for you, you may want to start using smaller dishes and utensils!