Green Options

Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) is introducing a bill to Congress that would finally get junk foods out of our schools, addressing skyrocketing childhood obesity rates and bringing school nutrition standards forward 40 years.

“Despite pockets of progress in some states and school systems, most schools make junk food readily available to children. But junk food in schools helps fuel an epidemic of obesity and diabetes in children. And, it undercuts the considerable federal investment we make in the healthy school lunch program.” - Margo Wootan, Center for Science in the Public Interest nutrition policy director

The negative effects on children of watching too much television are well known, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended children not watch more than two hours a day.

New research from the University of Minnesota has found that teens who watch more than five hours of TV a day are more likely to become fast food junkies when they grow up.

The study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity followed 1,366 high school students and 564 middle school students. Data was collected on the number of hours spent watching TV every day, which was then compared to their dietary habits five years later.  According to Natural News:

The researchers found that high school students who watched over 5 hours of TV each day consumed less fruits, vegetables, whole grains and calcium-rich foods as young adults, and instead had a higher intake of fast food, fried foods, snack foods, sugary drinks as well as foods with trans fats.

I would never in a million years feed my children Little Debbie products, but I remember eating them as a child.

Yesterday, Little Debbie announced the recall of its snack products containing peanut butter due to concerns of salmonella contamination.

Salmonella can be deadly, especially to children, and the company has responded with a voluntary recall of cookies, cakes, ice cream and other foods with peanut butter. The focus of the recall is peanut paste, in addition to peanut butter, produced at Peanut Corp.’s Blakely, Ga., facility. The peanut paste, made from roasted peanuts, which is often an ingredient in cookies, cakes and other products.  Little Debbie has included its Peanut Butter Cheese sandwich cookies and Peanut Butter Toasty sandwich crackers in the recall.

OK, looking for ways to keep your fingerprints from giving you away at a crime scene isn’t really a valid reason for eating well. But it does give one pause to learn that criminals who eat lots of junk food leave behind sweatier, saltier and easier-to-detect fingerprints.

You can learn more about this fascinating discovery at the University of Leicester’s Click to Continue Reading