Food News that Could Be Helpful - or Not

My Food News page provides all manner of newsy stuff relating. of course, to food. I update it periodically and archive the older articles.

Now, if you're a diligent reader of a major newspaper or magazines you may see some items here

that are old news to you. However, I'll bet you'll still find some nuggets of news.

The articles are derived from numerous sources but usually written by me so I reserve the right to express opinions now and then.

The items on this page are presented with no intention of recommending a product or action. I merely found them interesting when I read them and offer them to you here in hopes that they will interest and maybe even help in some way.

If you want to comment on anything at all please click on the "Let's Talk" button to the left and have at it.

Hope my interests are similar to yours and that you'll enjoy this page often.

Ten Healthy Eating-Out Choices - If You're Serious About It

Uno’s, for example, offers a a completely fat-free menu and lists the nutritional data on their items at the front of the place. Certainly you’ll miss the point if you fail to resist ordering a deep-dish pizza but if you’re strong Uno’s is, indeed, a healthy place to eat.

Avoid Bob Evans for breakfast (or anywhere for that matter), but their lunch and dinner items have plenty of low-cal, low-fat entrees and sides.

The same watch-out-for-breakfast warning applies to Mimi’s Café, with their “Life-Style” healthful menu and Denny’s, who offers 15 fat-gram items.

You would expect to find the wonderful Soup Plantation on this list and it’s there. But pasta places? Yes, Olive Garden and Romano’s Macaroni Grill are there but only if you order whole-wheat pasta (ugh), avoid baked pasta dishes and many of the sauces; personally, I think the article expects you to display an almost super-human degree of restraint in your ordering.

Mexican food is generally healthful so no surprise to find Chevy’s Fresh Mex on the list. The same applies to Asian food from P. F. Chang’s if you stay away from heavily-sauced items.

And, finally, another non-surprise is Ruby Tuesday’s who includes the nutritional values right on the menu and was among the first to show serious attention to digestive well-being.

You probably have your own candidates for this list, but wherever you dine there is always danger lurking for the majority of us with weak will power when it comes to tasty food.

Looking out of Your Eyes - oops, I Mean, FOR Your Eyes

Did you know that ther are foods that contribute to healthy eyes? No, I'm not talking about carrots as your grandmother may have told you. I’m talking about eggs, Brazil nuts, papaya, blueberries, broccoli and salmon.

Egg yolks contain Lutein which helps, among other things, to protect against macular degeneration and cataracts.

Brazil nuts do the same thing because of a double dose the antioxidant, selenium.

Berries and cherries contain an antioxidant which not only makes those fruits colorful, but strengthens blood vessels to the eye. This is valuable in reducing the risk of diabetes-related eye problems and improving blood flow to the eyes.

Salmon and other fatty fish like sardines (e-e-o-o-o!, say my kids) eaten twice a week are said to cut the risk of macular degeneration in half.

Papaya does the same because of its high concentration of Vitamin C.

Finally, broccoli, stinky as it is, has an antioxidant (with a name too long to include) that keeps those nasty free radicals under control. Cabbage does, too, but it smells as bad as broccoli when cooking.

I’m thinking of putting all these things into an omelet recipe for my brunch page – just kidding.

Beer, a Health Food?

A bunch of researchers in Spain have fed beer to mice and found that silicic acid in the beer reduces the uptake of aluminum into the digestive system. So what, you ask? Well, I’m sure you remember reading that aluminum in the brain could be a contributing factor to Alzheimer’s disease.

Other researchers found that a certain flavonoid in hops might offer protection against prostate cancer.

So, all you twenty-somethings who don’t really give a thought to these ailments can now tell others – and yourself – that you drink all that beer for your health. And you older folks who love the brewski’s can do the same.

Coffee is Good for You - Today

A university in Vienna, Austria, says that people who drink coffee are less likely than abstainers to develop liver or colon cancer. I'm happy because I drink about a quart of the stuff daily.

The researchers tested the white blood cells of two groups with a cancer causing substance and a free radical, hydrogen peroxide. They found that the coffee-drinkers had 17% to 35% better cancer protection than the others.

The scientists concluded that the constituents of coffee inactivate oxygen radicals, whatever those are.

Anyway, good news for me, at least until the next research on coffee.

12 Ounces of Seafood Per Week: "At Least" or "Not More Than" ?

No, according to a recent advisory by a panel of learned scientists, generally in line with guidelines from the FDA, the EPA and even the Healthy Mothers Coalition, women in those categories should eat “at least” 12 ounces per week, and forget the “not more than” that was suggested in the past. Of course, the type and variety of fish is key to this new thinking.

In fact, a pregnant woman, an un-pregnant woman, or a man should all limit their consumption of mercury-challenged fish (yes, political correctness applies to fish, too).

We should, however, eat at least two meals per week of high-omega3-low-mercury salmon, sardines, tilapia, shrimp and pollock. And, if your budget permits, lobster and crab are good choices.

This means avoiding shark, sword-fish (sorry, Sword Fish & Shark Institutes), as well as albacore or yellow-fin tuna.

What started all the focus on mercury anyway? In the 1950’s a Japanese chemical plant disaster dumped tons of mercury and other chemical compounds into the water and many babies born there in the next year or so suffered numerous catastrophic illnesses. In the early 1970’s, another disaster in which a grain fungicide heavy in methyl mercury caused many deaths and 6,500 hospitalizations in Iraq.

So did America over-react? (Who, us?) In any event, scientific studies like one in England of 12,000 parents and kids showed that children of mothers who ate 12 or more ounces a week later scored better on academic tests than children of the other mothers. They also had fewer behavioral and social problems.

Putting 2 and 2 together (= 4 or =5?), many feel that reducing omega3 consumption while increasing or maintaining methyl mercury levels during critical months before birth may negatively effect a child’s brain development.

So what are you having for dinner tonight? Better check with your favorite scientist.

If You Must Eat Canned Soup Campbell’s is Getting More Healthful

Did you know that once upon a time Campbell’s used the slogan,“Soup is good food”?

But not too many years ago a serving of Campbell’s soup typically contained half an adult’s recommended daily allowance of salt. They dropped their “good food” slogan when the media and the public became more and more nutrition-conscious.

Campbell’s worked hard over the last few years to reduce salt content but they are getting ready to really cut salt wa-a-a-y down in their soups. How, you ask?

Campbells’ new formulations are made using a form of natural, low-sodium sea salt with far less sodium chloride and more sea-based minerals. The new soups’ sodium chloride content will be lower by 25% to 40% from the present versions.

Scheduled to be on store shelves in late summer of this year they will include tomato, chicken noodle, cream of mushroom, and some of the Chunky™ and Healthy Request® soups. 12 soups targeted toward children will also feature the reduced salt content.

And 80% of the folks who sampled them said they were as tasty or more so than the older versions. Campbell’s might be able to resurrect their old slogan soon.

Low Poultry Prices - NOT good news?

One producer has cut its first quarter estimate of sales by half due to slowing sales. This may be partially due to overproduction but certainly the bird-flu panic in Europe and Asia has contributed. Countries that import our poultry typically buy leg quarters whose wholesale prices recently fell to 21 cents per pound while Americans generally prefer breast meat which has also seen falling sales lately.

Can you imagine what will happen when the first case of avian-flu is reported in North America? The proliferation of poultry recipes on the many cooking web-sites will likely slow tremendously.

But in the meantime why not check out our Easy Chicken page and keep your fingers crossed.

Easy Chicken

Whaddya mean, you forgot to eat your fish?

Wow! If you ate it every day you could win on Jeopardy at age 90, I'll bet.

And there have been a lot of other studies which showed omega-3 fish oil to be helpful in preventing heart disease. Unfortunately, this study didn’t include blood tests for omega-3 so it added no additional facts to that area of nutrition.

Why do you suppose they didn’t do that bloodwork? I doubt they just overlooked it. Maybe those Chicago guys just said, “Hey, we’re eatin’ da fish but we ain’t givin’ yus our blood.”

No More "Store Specials" on Meat or fish?

Those dates do not necessarily mean the meat or fish is spoiled after it. Rather it may be the date the attractive red color starts to fade from meat and fish gets a bit gray around the edges. And that's when it gets really hard to sell.

So, how can store-owners avoid "giving away" Choice porterhouse steaks at the price of round steak?

Why they can get pre-packaged steaks or seafood from processing plants that add CO to retain color longer. If you're not a chemistry grad that is the symbol for carbon monoxide.

"What? You mean the keep-the garage-door-open-when-the-motor's-running-or-you'll-die-stuff?" Ri-i-i-ght.

But don't worry, the FDA says the amount is small and not harmful to humans. Whew, now I can relax and keep buying cheap steaks. Also, commenting on public reaction to this news, an FDA spokesperson said she had no idea people were influenced in their purchases by the appearance of meat or fish - come on!

But unless I choose a store that does its own meat-cutting, I guess there won't be as many bargains for me in the meat or fish department.

Can We Ever Hear Enough About Cholesterol? I Guess Not

I recently read that many food products such as some brands of orange juice, low-fat cheese, rice beverages, yogurt, oatmeal, and granola bars, have been fortified with physterols. These are plant sterols that occur naturally in plants and are themselves a form of cholesterol which, according to studies, can drastically reduce serum cholesterol, the bad stuff.

Now I don't know how extensive these "studies" were but they concluded that one gram of concentrated plant sterols taken twice daily can reduce total cholesterol by 8% and LDL cholesterol by nearly 13%. That sounds a lot more attractive to me than a prescription for a statin drug, and probably a lot cheaper, too.

The packaging of these wonder products contains the brand label, CoroWise.

Now while we're talking cholesterol reductions, how about a sugar cane concentrate boasting results that were said to reduce LDL cholesterol levels by an average of 24% and raise HDL cholesterol by an average of 15% by taking a 10 mg polycosanol supplement daily. And apparently over just an 8 week period!

Scientists have, in the past, validated polycosonals, fatty alcohols found in natural plants, as having genuine health benefits. The commercial product, Sukkar, was developed by a Colombian scientist and I have seen it offered on web sites for a mere $3.50 for 13.5 ounces in concentrate form. Sounds too good to be true? Maybe.

As I said earlier. I don't know if these products do what is claimed but if I really needed to reduce my levels I'd think about trying them.

No Breakfast = Obese Teens ??

I tend to put more credence in a study's results if it involves large numbers of study subjects and a lengthy time period.

How about a 10 year study on 2,379 teenage girls concluding that eating breakfast helps prevent obesity?

A study by the Maryland Medical Research Institute found that girls who regularly ate breakfast, particularly one that induded cereal, were slimmer than those who skipped the meal. Girls who ate breakfast of any type had a lower average body mass index than those who said they didn’t.

Since General Mills co-sponsored the study we sort of expect that positive cereal comment.

The Institute's president said that the fiber in cereal and healthier foods usually eaten with cereal, such as milk and orange juice, may account for the lower body mass index among cereal eaters.

The 9 to 19 year-old girls/subjects were from California, Ohio and Maryland. The researchers stated that nearly one in three adolescent girls in the United States is overweight. (Bet they wouldn't say that to their face).

Breakfast consumption dropped as the girls grew older, the researchers found, and those who did not eat breakfast tended to eat fatty foods later in the day.Aa-ha!

Food Safety Quiz

True or false: You can leave coffee in the pot and drink it the next day.

True. Coffee will eventually grow surface mold but usually not in one day, according a professor at Rutgers.

It’s drinkable, but it won’t taste as fresh be cause the compounds that form coffee’s characteristic aroma and flavor evaporate at room temperature. He says refrigerating helps coffee keep its flavor fresher overnight.

(That's fine, but for me coffee from breakfast still there at 4 PM is too old.)

True or false: You don’t really need to refrigerate eggs — Europeans don’t.

False. Well, it’s partially true. Europeans traditionally don’t refrigerate eggs, and we didn’t always have mandatory refrigeration. But, the United States now requires refrigeration because we know that salmonella can, once in a very great while, be present & if the infected eggs were not refrigerated, salmonella could multiply to toxic levels.

Eggs last about three to five weeks in the fridge, as long as you purchase them before the expiration date. But it's recommended that you NOT store them in the door because of temperature fluctuation.

True or false: Keeping bread in the refrigerator prevents it from going stale.

False:Bread actually gets stale faster in the fridge - why won't my wife believe me?

Bread goes stale because of changes to the starch molecules. As bread bakes, the heat of cooking changes the starch molecules so that they can absorb water. Once the bread is baked, the starch starts to lose moisture, and the starch molecules toughen up leading to its becoming stale.

True or false: You can refreeze meat poultry and other foods once they’ve been defrosted.

True. Once frozen food is thawed in the refrigerator, it is safe to re-freeze without cooking - it might be a bit dried out, though, when you cook it.

Previously frozen raw foods can be frozen again after cooking. If cooked foods are frozen and then thawed in the refrigerator, you may refreeze the unused portion. Again, the quality will probably suffer.

True or false: Freezer burned food is caused by dangerous pathogens, and the food should be discarded immediately.

False:Freezer burned food is perfectly safe. It just won't taste very good because it may be dried out and tough. Freezer burn results from trapped air that causes moisture crystals to form around the food and change it physically.

Freezer burn can be prevented by wrapping food tightly in a moisture-proof barrier like plastic wrap or a sealed bag. Wrap- ping it in multiple layers can also help.

If you do a lot of food freezing a kitchen appliance that vacuum seals food might be a good investment.