How lovely that the first lady carries the banner high – save our children through nutrition, and deliver it through public schools.
How lovely that the United States as a whole and a first lady in particular can plead for the health and future health of children in a world dominated by politics and commercial interests that are simply not assailable with idealistic claptrap.
We may have actually achieved an amazing amount in the past few years, on this incredibly difficult task. Guess who has been saying, for a couple of years now, that any attempt to reform school lunches is in trouble? Coca-Cola, and other large food companies that make things like frozen pizza a French fries. Read more on School Lunches Are A Mess…
Filed under Education, Government, News, Nutrition, politics, weight by on Jun 3rd, 2014. Comment. 
I was in college when I convinced my parents to let me spend a hunk of my Christmas vacation with my girlfriend Susan and her family in Bucks County, PA. I assured my folks that we would do a lot of cultural and intellectual kinds of things. We would go to the symphony, where I could see Eugene Ormandy conduct some Tchaikovsky. We would do the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall — great because I loved the Founding fathers so.
I bought a little gold plated Liberty Bell, which I so loved that I wore it around my neck for many years when the gold plating had long worn off.
Her father, a design engineer, loved making toy soldier models which My-Father-Of-Blessed-Memory loved collecting. Susan’s father had told her to tell me I would bring home a new soldier for my father — that clinched the deal for sure. Read more on Don’t Eat The Blue Stuff — Or Yellow Either!…
Filed under News, Nutrition by on Nov 21st, 2013. Comment.
I remember the first time I saw a young patient with older person’s diseases. I was in a public clinic, not far from the industrial waterfront in California. She was 24 years old, weighed 380 pounds, had already had what she claimed was a “slight” heart attack. She had type 2 diabetes which I thought was virtually impossible to get at such a tender age. She was able to do little other than to shrug her shoulders. She said something about health problems having been in her family. Me, the only thing I could think of was that I was only through 3 years of so of a seven year medical school at her age. I was quite overweight, but if I had been struck with her degree of obesity or her medical problems, I don’t think I would have had the stamina to get by. Sure enough, she was neither working nor going to school. When you are an adolescent, you think you are going to be strong and healthy forever. I remember looking at patients and never thinking I would be as ill as they were. I remember seeing patients in intensive care in comas, never thinking for a moment that I would have three of them in my life before I was able to figure out the hereditary metabolic that had caused them. Read more on Patients Avoiding Hospitals and Doctors…
We have taught our American consumers to be cheap –to be obsessed with the lowest possible price — and the cost is higher than we should be expected to pay.
Retailers have been urged to remove products from their shelves that might contain harmful (toxic) ingredients.
Why is everyone surprised? Does anybody actually expect cheap products to be safe? things you buy at Target or K-Mart to have been made with your safety or well being in mind? why?
Not that I am demonizing these particular companies. It is impossible to expect them to spontaneously think of these things.
They want to make profits to send their own kids to college, and improve their own lifestyle. This is the sort of thing businesses in America DO — the greed
Read more on You Want It Cheap or Safe? Try Grandma’s Solution…
Filed under Nutrition by on Apr 21st, 2013. Comment.
No, I’m not being paranoid. Jumbo squid are showing up in record numbers off the southern California coast. And these suckers can get mighty big.
Me, I love squid. To eat, that is. My husband fixes me some that are not over four inches long — really cute little guys with tentacles. They secrete this inky stuff that makes a sweet and gentle taste for pasta. This is the time of year when folks come to San Diego and take cruises to watch whales. They go down to Mexico to have their little whale babies because the water is a bit warmer. I have done one of these cruises myself, and I saw some of the fountains coming out of blowholes and it was pretty awesome. Me, I always look for the science. But never did I see a squid – let alone hundreds of even thousands of them – and never did I get face washed by their ink. The facts — well, we are talking up to six feet long and one hundred pounds. I used to have at least a dozen little bitty ones with my plate of pasta. I don’t think these would fit on my plate. Is it only me, generally fearless, or is this starting to sound a little scary? Hmm, I’d say so. Increased acidity of the ocean, gigantic squid coming up from the deep, and who knows what else. I am looking very hard for positives. If people have more squid than they can eat, maybe we can feed the hungry. Are they like zucchini? I mean, does their meat get tougher the bigger they get? Read more on California Attacked by Giant Squid!…
Filed under News, Nutrition by on Feb 20th, 2013. Comment.
Like many others, I am of the type who has been made to feel less. Less than healthy, less than human; whatever, the kind of feeling that sells diet food and diet plans. Read more on A Few Extra Pounds Might Not Be So Bad…
Filed under eating disorders, Nutrition, Psychotherapy, Self-esteem, weight by on Jan 17th, 2013. Comment.
You can deep fry just about anything and it will taste good. Ask just about anyone who lives in the south. Twinkies, cheesecake, pickles, or whole turkeys. Maybe even an old tennis shoe. Nothing is exempt!
This woman has grown a Southern comfort food empire by cooking deep fried cheesecake and other things I am unlikely to eat. She did not go public with her Type II Diabetes until three years after she learned of it. Now someone from some group for science in the public interest says she should have come forward earlier.
Her empire can’t be doing that well, for I bought a little bottle of her mint jelly at some deep discount store about a week ago. I liked it, but it wasn’t any better than anyone else’s mint jelly. Admittedly, I’ve never watched her on television. I don’t watch cooking shows because I don’t care about food the same way I used to. I remember when all I could think of after one meal was what I would get for the next. And I was never even the primary food preparer at home. My honored husband has always taken that in hand for me. Read more on The Cooking Guru’s Health Problems…
Filed under Celebrities, News, Nutrition, weight by on Jun 27th, 2012. Comment.
I am not the sort of woman who runs around saying “I told you so,” or trying to impress people with how clever I am.
However, I am clever.
It’s no secret – a lot of people know it. Read more on The Worst Family To Get Involved With…
Filed under Nutrition, weight by on May 4th, 2012. Comment.
To paraphrase some recent political campaigns, the FDA was against Qnexa before they were for it.
I’ve written about this diet drug compound before — HERE And HERE.
Last time I wrote about this “drug,” I thought it was down for the count. Aauugghh!!!!
Like a scene from “Night Of The Living Diet Drugs” – it is back from the grave.
You bet your life! (Literally if you take this) – our protective government watchdogs at the FDA originally said this was too dangerous to unleash on the public. Then – as the politicians say – they did a “Flip Flop.” This No-Vowel remedy QNEXA (ok, it has a couple of vowels, but not enough) is not actually a drug — it is a combination of two drugs.
This is of course, the cheapest way to get a new product on the market and eliminate R&D costs as well as testing for safety and efficacy. The company takes two separate FDA-approved agents and combines – kind of like making Frankenstein out of left-over body parts.
(This is turning into a Halloween column, isn’t it? Sorry.) Read more on They’re Ba-a-a-a-ck!!! Zombie Diet Drugs!!!…
Filed under eating disorders, medicine, News, Nutrition, prescription drugs, weight by on Feb 28th, 2012. Comment.
The death rate is down and the life expectancy is up. “Nothing but good news,” says the statistician.
Perhaps our prevention programs and treatments are working. Statistics are unwieldy things, but these are so general, the news of less death and more life can only be seductive. I want to look at it closer. I want to look at the differentiations among groups, which I doubt have changed. If you ever wondered about women living longer than men, both in the African-American race and the Euro-American races, you should have seen my waiting room the day I encountered a soft spoken and personable but physically-challenged African-American man. He was surrounded by obviously smitten females bearing gifts. Two of the three young ladies offered him homemade baked goods and made a point of telling the third she did not have a chance because she only had a dozen store-bought doughnuts. Read more on Why Do Some People Live Longer Than Others?…