Buy all your 2010 veggies today

Today I just bought nearly all my vegetables, potatoes, fruits and herbs for 2010. Or at least I sent my check in.

You see I belong to a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture farm, here in Connecticut. It's the best food choice I ever made. The farm I joined is also organic, so I get the best possible tasting food.

For the past three years, I have eaten more healthy and lost more weight than in any other time of my life.

What is buying a share of a CSA farm?

Typically, members or "share-holders" of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer's salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm's bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests.

My take on CSA means I get to eat the freshest and healthiest produce. Every week I'm "forced" to go and pick up several baskets of yummy -- sometimes unknown -- fruits and veggies.

My favorites are: raspberries, swiss chard, fresh sharp garlic (much juicier and flavorful than anything you can find in a store), sweet peppers, eggplant, brussel sprouts (yes, fresh they are delicious), spinach, five kinds of potatoes (including Yukon gold), cantaloupes, plum tomatoes, golden beets, broccoli raab, butternut squash, leeks, kale, red torpedo onions, arugula (I especially like arugula pesto), sweet corn (don't even need to cook it), green beans, zucchini (no flowers, I have to grow those myself), snap peas, scallions, fennel, cabbage, cucumbers, garlic scapes (those weird snaky things, the flower stalks from garlic), and, of course, strawberries. I also like the tomatoes, kohlrabi, bok choy, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, and all the herbs, especially cilantro, basil, chives, thyme, sage, rosemary and parsley.

And even now we have a few things from last year. A bag of potatoes (the dirt was left on, so they kept all fall and winter), frozen tomatoes, dried cayenne peppers, and one squash.

If you want to make sure you eat healthy, then get on a waiting list today for a CSA in your area.

Find a CSA farm.

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Free Grand Slam breakfast (and lunch) at Denny's

Remember is you have the free Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's today, that's your breakfast and lunch. It's got half the calories a grown man needs in a day.

Don't get fooled again.

Here's one issue all Americans agree

Despite the giant schism in Washington D.C., there is one issue we all agree. No one can debate the science, or the giant cost to the nation. That issue is child obesity.

We all now know that those extra pounds cause a host of debilitating diseases, including diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Plus throw in poor self-esteem, and depression. And the costs are jaw dropping.

Obesity costs the country $147 billion a year. Every 7 years that's $1 trillion (with a "T").

OK, we know the effects. What's the solution?

It's incredible simple and frustratingly complex. On point for the nation is a leader with the power to change things.

USATODAY.com reports the U.S. will aim to eliminate child obesity in a generation:

Today, the self-described "mom in chief" -- Michelle Obama -- is launching Let's Move, a campaign to help other parents deal with a national health crisis she describes in epic terms.

The goal: to eliminate childhood obesity in a generation.

Obama says she will use all the power of her White House pulpit to promote a multifaceted campaign that will include more healthful food in schools, more accurate food labeling, better grocery stores in communities that don't have them, public service announcements and efforts to get children to be more active. Some of her plans, such as tax incentives for businesses, will need congressional approval.

"The first lady having a huge microphone and a spotlight is really helpful," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says. "It's a big health crisis. We need to involve not only the kids but the families."

"Childhood obesity is a no-downside issue," says Boston University journalism professor Elizabeth Mehren, who has written extensively about political spouses. "It's something that mothers can connect to, so it fits in with her 'first mom' agenda."

At the same time, "it's a back-door connector to that very pressing issue for her husband: health care."

Check out the entire article. It has a lot of great information

What can you do? Just one thing. Start with your family and start tonight. Skip McDonald's or KFC today. Start slow. Pick up a pre-cooked chicken and pre-chopped veggies. Let's start there, and we'll wean ourselves off the fast foods, to the slow and better foods.

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• Michelle Obama Kicks Off Campaign To Fight Childhood Obesity (huffingtonpost.com)

Logos

Chain Restaurants Push Healthier Fare - WSJ.com

We knew it had to happen.

Chain restaurants are started to watch the portions.

I predict more and more restaurants will switch to healthier menus and gain more customers as a result.

The rightsizing of America has begun.

Chain Restaurants Push Healthier Fare - WSJ.com

Fast food fresh and green

Will America support a fast-food restaurant using local fresh ingredients, and a place designed to be green?

We hope so:

Amanda’s Feel Good Fresh (Fast) Food

Posted using ShareThis.

Unhealthy baseball habits strike out

First the designated batter. Then inter-league play. But now. Baseball players eating healthy. Where have you gone, Babe Ruth?

From the Wall Street Journal:

The doughnuts, fried chicken and candy bars that have long populated baseball's clubhouses—where players eat the majority of their meals—are being banished. Read more..

For Ohio schools ignorance is bliss

In Ohio the law mandates education down to the smallest detail. But when it comes to health education, especially good food choices, Ohio schools remain silent. Some think it's because you say the word "health" education and you are thinking about sex. And of course in Ohio, it's forbidden to talk about sex in schools. Who would have thought it's illegal to talk about obesity in Ohio's schools?

From Krista Ramsey in Cincinnati.com:

With health such a hot-potato topic, schools focused their attention elsewhere. The solar system is safe; so is tornadic activity, igneous rock and probably even greenhouse gases.

But the care and construction of the human body doesn't come up much. In fact, educators say words such as body and lifestyle choices are buzzwords that set off alarms. Start talking about this body business, and sooner or later somebody's going to mention s-e-x.

So to spare adults that controversy, Ohio schoolchildren have been shortchanged on information about nutrition, contagious disease, basic anatomy, mental health and responsible habits.

And we wonder why they can't see that Blazing Hot Cheetos and a Mountain Dew are not a reasonable lunch.

Fat chance: obesity will cost you $1,400 every year

Today, it is estimated that $79,438 million dollars is spent due to obesity in the United States. With the projected increase in obesity levels, this will increase to $343,866 million dollars in 2018 or about ($1,425 dollars per adult in the United States.

Find out how your state ranks according to UnitedHealth Foundation: Obesity by State.

No need for abortions in Oklahoma

I'm always amazed by the ironic.

Isn't ironic that the Republicans opposing health care represent the least healthy state?

Isn't ironic that the states opposing abortions the most have the highest infant mortality rate?

In Oklahoma it's OK to be Republican and unhealthy:

Oklahoma ranks 49th in the nation in the health outcomes of its citizens — ahead of only Mississippi — and 5,320 lives are lost each year because the state does not meet the national average in health outcomes, officials said as they unveiled the Oklahoma Health Improvement Plan.

"We find that unacceptable," said Barry L. Smith, president of the Oklahoma State Board of Health.

And it's not just fat Republicans dying early, it's innocent Independents:

Nationally, 6.6 out of every 1,000 newborns die before they reach their first birthday, but in Oklahoma the ratio is 8.8 per 1,000 newborns, Crain said.

The cynic in me would say let the Republicans have their way. In the end there will be a lot less of them.

Are Americans food illiterate?

I recognize there are several paths to tackling a complex problem of American obesity. Here are several interesting points of view.

The Economist magazine recently debated whether governments should take a stronger role in guiding food and nutrition choices.

Kelly Brownell, Professor of Psychology at Yale University argues, three major food issues face the world. Local, national, and global governing authorities must take bold and innovative action to avoid catastrophic health consequences, political upheaval, and political and financial instability around the globe. Read more...

Of course on the opposition is Melanie Leech Director General of the Food and Drink Federation.

She counters that the food and drink industry shares society's concerns about the health of the nation, particularly rising obesity levels, and it is committed to playing a positive role in responding to this vital debate.

...the government is often not best placed to deliver such strategies. Its priority should be to develop a stable long-term policy and regulatory framework which harnesses rather than impedes both the wealth of knowledge the industry has about consumer needs and behaviour, and the power of industry and other players to invest and innovate to deliver the strategic objectives. Read more...

The cynical public -- especially the British public -- has a different view of American obesity: Let them eat cake. Here's a recent post.

Dear Sir,

"46% of the U.S. population are functionally illiterate"

If people are realy [sic] so dumb, shouldn't we let natural selection deal with them, for improvement of the future of the species? Eating himself to death is much more pleasant than being eaten by sabre-toothed tiger.

No calories for this pizza

Just hard to believe.

Customers are complaining to California Pizza about putting calorie information on the menus. So immediately California Pizza is taking that information off the menu.

Read Twirlit.com:

California Pizza Kitchen, a Los Angeles based pizza and pasta chain, has been voluntarily listing their calorie counts since July 1, but recently dropped the extra information after customers complained. The information is available on the website, so technically they are still in compliance–for now.

In an article for the LA Times, Larry Flax, co-chief executive at CPK said, “You have to look at the restaurant business as entertainment. Why make the customer feel guilty?” He then went on to say that “people kept getting mad” because they didn’t understand that a state law mandates that chain restaurants provide this type of information to customers.

Healthy enough to graduate from college?

Should you have to be healthy to graduate from college? Lincoln University says, yes!

From CNN.com:

Students at Lincoln University with a body mass index of 30 or above, reflective of obesity, must take a fitness course that meets three hours per week. Those who are assigned to the class but do not complete it cannot graduate.

Now that the first class to have this requirement imposed is nearing graduation day -- students who entered in the fall of 2006 -- the school faces criticism from both students and outsiders about the fitness class policy.

One of those students is Tiana Lawson, 21, whose recent editorial in the student paper has drawn national attention to the issue. Lawson wrote in The Lincolnian that she would be more understanding if the requirement applied to everyone. She thinks all students, not just those with a high BMI, should have to take the class. Read more...

Perfect Health Storm

The perfect storm has started. Throw together fast foods, processed sugar, and 21st century super-sized portions and what do you get? Obesity, hypertension and heart disease spinning out of control and the result is a trillion dollar health-care headache.

From the New York Times:

A study in the January-February 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs concluded that 75 percent of the country’s $2.5 trillion in health care spending has to do with four increasingly prevalent chronic diseases: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Most cases of these diseases, the report stated, are preventable because they are caused by behaviors like poor diets, inadequate exercise and smoking.

Obesity alone threatens to overwhelm the system. In a recent study, Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, found that if trends continued, annual health care costs related to obesity would total $344 billion by 2018, or more than 20 percent of total health care spending. (It now accounts for 9 percent.)

Dr. Thorpe also said that if the incidence of obesity fell to its 1987 level, it would free enough money to cover the nation’s uninsured population

What's one thing companies can do to stop the spiraling costs?

In home offices around Boston, a shoestring operation of three full-time employees is working on an unusual answer to that question. As the wrangling over trillion-dollar price tags continues on Capitol Hill, a start-up company called the Full Yield is undertaking its own version of health care reform by using a simple, low-tech premise: Eat healthier food and you’ll become healthier

.

Read more on how your company can help you become healthier.

Too fat to fail

Our health system is about to fail because of obesity. USA Today reports fat will cost Americans $344 billion dollars.

If Americans continue to pack on pounds, obesity will cost the USA about $344 billion in medical-related expenses by 2018, eating up about 21% of health-care spending, says the first analysis to estimate the future medical costs of excess weight.

"Obesity is going to be a leading driver in rising health-care costs," says Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at Emory University in Atlanta. Thorpe did this special analysis on obesity for America's Health Rankings, the 20th annual assessment of the nation's health on a state-by-state basis.

"There is a tsunami of chronic preventable disease about to be unleashed into our medical-care system which is increasingly unaffordable," says Reed Tuckson of United Health Foundation, sponsor of the report with the American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention. Read more...

Go outside to hear heart attacks

Drive through any neighborhood. Listen for the sounds of children playing. Can't hear anything. Then you are listening to future heart attacks.

"Now you can drive through entire neighborhoods where you know there are a lot of young kids there and hardly see any of them out," says Russell Pate, an American Heart Association spokesman.

Pate and other childhood obesity experts say more American youths are becoming obese because so many are addicted to television, video games, testing and fast food.

Obesity experts say the rise in childhood obesity isn't new.

The prevalence of overweight children and adolescents between ages 6 and 19 has tripled since 1970, a 2007 New England Journal of Medicine study found.

"Our study suggests that more of these young adults will have heart disease when they are 35-50 years old, resulting in more hospitalizations, medical procedures, need for chronic medications, missed work days and shortened life expectancy," said Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, lead author of the study. Read more on CNN.com...

Are kids smarter than a restaurant owner?

Are kids too sophisticated for restaurants? And are restaurants too unhealthy for kids?

The Boston Globe points out in today's edition that our kids are much more knowledgeable and adventurous than ever before. But look at the kid's menu at any restaurant: it's full of chicken nuggets, spaghetti and grilled cheese.

My picky-eating son often skips the kid's menu. In Newport he ordered the lobster. On the Cape it's calamari. In our home town it's mussel Gorgonzola.

Let's outlaw those damn chicken nuggets, and get real food on the kid's menu.

The obvious problem with children’s menus is their nutritional value. Offerings are often high in fat, sodium, and sugar. “Most kids’ menus don’t even come with a vegetable,’’ says Allison Lauretti, lead clinical psychologist in the Optimal Weight for Life Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, which evaluates and treats children who are overweight. “When we go out to dinner, we have to order a vegetable off the regular menu to give to the kids.’’ Read more...

Hide your eyes: The High Price of Cheap Food

Don't look away. I know you are eating your Sunday breakfast. But do you know how expensive that slice of bacon is? What about that hamburger this afternoon? And the steak tonight?

What does it take to raise cheap bad food in America?

Time Magazine gets real and tells you the truth. Don't look away; you need to read this.

Somewhere in Iowa, a pig is being raised in a confined pen, packed in so tightly with other swine that their curly tails have been chopped off so they won't bite one another. To prevent him from getting sick in such close quarters, he is dosed with antibiotics. The waste produced by the pig and his thousands of pen mates on the factory farm where they live goes into manure lagoons that blanket neighboring communities with air pollution and a stomach-churning stench. He's fed on American corn that was grown with the help of government subsidies and millions of tons of chemical fertilizer. When the pig is slaughtered, at about 5 months of age, he'll become sausage or bacon that will sell cheap, feeding an American addiction to meat that has contributed to an obesity epidemic currently afflicting more than two-thirds of the population.

Read more: Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food

How fast foods screws up good food

So you have been reading this blog, and you are ready to stop eating those fat-laden Whoppers and skip the lard-fried potatoes. You order a veggie burger. It's got to be better for you than a beef burger.

That's the not the case at Rudy Tuesday's.

Order a Veggie Burger at Rudy Tuesday's and heads-up heart attack: The mixture of rice, black beans, and vegetables comes top with Swiss cheese and 53 grams of total fat. At a whooping 952 calories, that's more than a Whopper! At 952 calories that's half a man's calorie allotment for the entire day. A veggie burger!?

I'm not sure we can trust any fast food restaurants with our health. And this is the industry that doesn't want to post fat or calorie information. Now you know why.

Another Lie: Lose weight through exercise

There's a big lie around food. The lie is: Fast food isn't bad for you. Hamburgers aren't bad for you. Coke isn't bad for you. 1,500-calorie salads are not bad for you. YOU just need to exercise more. Instead of taking the elevator, walk up the steps. Walk 30 minutes a day. Get off the couch.

Well, it's a lie, and there continues to be science proving that lie.

The only way to lose weight, the only way to stop obesity in this country is to reduce portions, reduce calories, reduce the "bad" types of food you eat.

In the NY Times today, a new study by the University of Colorado School of Medicine, describes how exercise alone does help you with weight control.

But few people, an overwhelming body of research shows, achieve significant weight loss with exercise alone, not without changing their eating habits. A new study from scientists at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver offers some reasons why.

“The message of our work is really simple,” although not agreeable to hear, Melanson said. “It all comes down to energy balance,” or, as you might have guessed, calories in and calories out. People “are only burning 200 or 300 calories” in a typical 30-minute exercise session, Melanson points out. “You replace that with one bottle of Gatorade.” more...

This is the message McDonald's, Coca-Cola, the corn syrup lobby and LA Fitness doesn't want you to ever read, let alone believe.