The Continuing War On Soda Consumption

Mayor Bloomberg lost a battle with the Department of Agriculture over trying to convince the Department to approve a pilot project to toss soda from being eligible for purchase with food stamps as a way to curb obesity. But that hasn't stopped the Bloomberg Administration from trying to make the case that soda is responsible for the obesity epidemic.

Except is it really soda consumption or something else - like say a sedentary lifestyle?

The soda-obesity epidemic theory takes a hit when one considers that soda consumption rates have dropped over the past three years even as obesity rates have increased:

Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz (D-Bronx), who represents the Riverdale section of The Bronx, called the Bloomberg administration's food-stamp proposal a logical step to try to break the city's soda habit.

"I don't always agree with Mayor Bloomberg," he said. "On this issue, I think he was right and the federal government wrong. I don't see how there's a downside to it. Soda is not only not nutritional, it's harmful."

Records show that 31.6 percent of Dinowitz's constituents in Riverdale and Kingsbridge down at least one soda a day.

The citywide average is 32 percent, down 12 percent between 2007 and 2009.

So, soda consumption has dropped 12%, but obesity continues rising. That would tend to suggest something else is at play for the obesity problem among Americans.

Soda is the go-to bad food of choice for the moment, but it isn't the only bad food. In fact most food can be seen as bad food choices when not taken in moderation.

It's all about moderation and exercise as part of a balanced diet. If you don't have a balanced diet, complete with portion control, and exercise, then you have an excess of calories and the weight gain ensues. Most Americans don't have a balanced diet - and while some people attribute this to food deserts (the inability to find fresh fruits/vegetables at a reasonable price compared to junk foods), it comes down to bad choices.

But politicians can't force people to exercise or make better choices for themselves, so they're attacking the food chain instead - and fixating on soda because it is seen as extraneous and empty calories. You don't see these same politicians offering to levy taxes on steak portions over 12oz., even though such oversized portions would have many times the caloric intake of a carbonated beverage and are laden with artery clogging fats.

The Absurdity of the Battle Over School Lunches

The battle over school lunches, or more precisely, what goes into a school lunch, has veered into the absurd with two separate stories today.

One report indicates that a school has banned brown bag lunches because parents aren't providing kids with the kinds of nutritious meals that the health experts believe should be included.

One Chicago school has banned lunches brought from home, the Chicago Tribune reports. Administrators at Little Village Academy, a public school, say the policy is all in the name of good health. Principal Elsa Carmona told the Tribune she created the policy after watching students bring "bottles of soda and flaming hot chips" for their lunch.

"It's about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke,” Carmona said.

Some kids and parents at the school beg to differ about the food quality, saying it doesn't taste good, and the Tribune reported that dozens of kids threw food in the garbage, uneaten. We don't know what's on the menu at Little Village, but these photos of "an enchilada dish" are less than appealing. And really, when is the last time you sampled delicious fare in a school cafeteria? (I am forever haunted by the glue-like yellowish thing my elementary school called lemon pudding.)

Recipes aside, the policy leaves a bad taste in the mouth for plenty of other reasons.

Unless a student has a medical excuse to bring food from home, the only option other than eating cafeteria food is to eat nothing. (Think those kids will ace a quiz on an empty stomach?) And does something like glucose intolerance merit a medical excuse? What about vegetarianism?

Cost is another matter. What if parents don't want to spend money on school lunch because they can send less expensive food from home?

When you actually review what meals are provided by these schools, you see lots of mystery meat and milk (or chocolate milk, which I'll discuss in a moment).

I always brown bagged meals throughout public school and refused to eat whatever was being served in the schools in part because it looked so incredibly distasteful. Then, there's the religious exemptions - will these meals be halal or kosher? I doubt it, particularly when you're mixing meat and milk products at the same meal (or included in the same dishes if you're kosher).

Then, there's the ongoing battle over whether chocolate milk deserves a place in school lunches (and see here and here).

At the center of these battles are complex public health calculations: Is it better to remove sugary chocolate flavorings at the risk that many students will skip milk altogether, missing out on crucial calcium and Vitamin D? Or should schools instead make tweaks — less fat, different sweeteners, fewer calories — that might salvage the benefits while minimizing the downside?

However schools answer these questions, protest inevitably follows. When Fairfax County and D.C. schools banned chocolate milk last year from elementary lunch lines, officials heard not just from parents and students. They also received letters and petitions from a slew of nutritionists and influential special interest groups.

Most accused the districts of acting rashly, robbing students of a tasty drink and the vitamins and minerals that fuel bone and muscle growth.

“We got 10 to 20 e-mails a day,” said Penny McConnell, director of food and nutrition services for Fairfax. “It was a lot of pressure.”

This month — and partly because of that pressure — Fairfax officials announced that they would reintroduce chocolate milk in school cafeterias. The newer, low-fat version includes sucrose, which is made from sugar cane or beets, instead of high-fructose corn syrup, which some critics say is more heavily processed and, as a result, less healthy.

Such reformulations have satisfied some of chocolate milk’s critics. But most scientists and nutritionists, including those employed by local school districts, say that changing sweeteners makes little dietary difference if the total calorie content stays the same.

With nanny staters looking to ban soda all over the place, the next step has been to push for banning products that contain more sugar, as these nanny staters believe that anything that provides more calories than they like should not be provided.

Instead of battling over whether parents have a right to determine what their kids eat in brown bag lunches or whether chocolate milk should or shouldn't be provided as part of the lunches, the focus should be on portion control, exercise and moderation. That's the best way to reduce the obesity epidemic in the nation - and that also goes to how so many parents just don't recognize that their kids are overweight according to BMI or other statistical measures). Pointing out that your kid isn't any bigger than other kids in his or her class doesn't cut it particularly when so many kids are now obese and will likely suffer the effects of being physically inactive the rest of their lives.

Yet Another Example Of Why Not To Trust Gov't Food Guidance

Say cheese! Or not.

Then help arrived from an organization called Dairy Management. It teamed up with Domino’s to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign.

Consumers devoured the cheesier pizza, and sales soared by double digits. “This partnership is clearly working,” Brandon Solano, the Domino’s vice president for brand innovation, said in a statement to The New York Times.

But as healthy as this pizza has been for Domino’s, one slice contains as much as two-thirds of a day’s maximum recommended amount of saturated fat, which has been linked to heart disease and is high in calories.

And Dairy Management, which has made cheese its cause, is not a private business consultant. It is a marketing creation of the United States Department of Agriculture — the same agency at the center of a federal anti-obesity drive that discourages over-consumption of some of the very foods Dairy Management is vigorously promoting.

Urged on by government warnings about saturated fat, Americans have been moving toward low-fat milk for decades, leaving a surplus of whole milk and milk fat. Yet the government, through Dairy Management, is engaged in an effort to find ways to get dairy back into Americans’ diets, primarily through cheese.

Americans now eat an average of 33 pounds of cheese a year, nearly triple the 1970 rate. Cheese has become the largest source of saturated fat; an ounce of many cheeses contains as much saturated fat as a glass of whole milk.

Is it any wonder that people have no idea what they should eat or what quantity is healthy?

People need to realize that the government simply doesn't know what is best and that the best option on food is to eat reasonable portions and a varied and balanced diet.

NYC Consumer Affairs Hits on Tips

The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs is cracking down on restaurants that are violating the city's consumer protection laws by imposing mandatory tipping on groups less than eight, demanding higher tipping percentages or other unsavory practices.

I think the City should be protecting consumers from unethical and illegal practices, but the law should be rewritten to allow restaurants the ability to institute fixed prices for gratuities at their discretion so long as they explicitly state as much on their menus and billing.

I sympathize with those waiters and waitresses who rely on tipping to make a living only to find that folks aren't tipping, but I am reminded also of the scene from Reservoir Dogs (language warning) where no one is forcing these folks to work in restaurants in the first place. That's why I think it should be left up to the restaurants to decide for themselves how to deal with their customers, but that the policy must be clearly stated. Some restaurants that cater to foreign crowds might benefit from the fixed gratuity pricing, while others might find that business drops as customers go elsewhere. They might also find that the waitstaff becomes more professionalized as in Europe since the tipping is more regularlized. That benefits everyone as well.

Marlboro Eats: Zen

Saturday night Mrs. Legalbgl and I were able to secure the services of a babysitter for our future blogger, and had a long overdue date night. We decided to try a Japanese restaurant that recently opened by our house, but which we were unable to go to earlier. Zen Japanese Cuisine turned out to be worth the wait.

Zen is an "upscale" BYOB sushi restaurant. Their rolls were huge. I had a spicy tuna roll, a rainbow roll, and a Bon Jovi Roll (we are 15 minutes from Sayreville, where Bon Jovi grew up.) The Bon Jovi Roll is spicy tuna with avocado and cucumber roll with tuna, salmon, snapper and three different roes piled on top with crunchy flakes. The fish was piled so high, I barely fit a piece in my mouth (and I have a big mouth!) Not realizing the size of the rolls, I also ordered the beef negimaki (thin sliced beef rolled with scallions in a very nice brown sauce). Mental note for the future, when the waitress questions whether you are ordering to much food, you probably are.

Mrs. Legalbgl had the chicken terriaki roll and the shrimp tempura roll and followed that with an order of yaki soba (which I will have for dinner tonight, as she barely touched it after being filled from the rolls.) Both the beef negimaki and the yaki soba came with a choice of soup or salad.

Other rolls I want to try on future trips, the Marlboro Roll (shrimp tempura, crab meat, spicy tuna and eel sauce with crispy crumbs), and the Ocean-5 Roll (snapper, salmon, tuna, shrimp, yellowtail, flying fish roe, crispy crumbs and chef's sauce.)

All in all, Zen was quite enjoyable, and very reasonably priced (five rolls, and two dishes for $86 plus tax and tip.) I paired my meal with a nice bottle of Gekkeikan Black and Gold Sake, purchased several months ago for around $15 at a local liquor store, and graciously heated up and served at Zen.