Thinking Outside of the Bun Probably Isn’t Such a Good Idea

Taco Bell has recently introduced a new, energy laden menu item…the XXL Chalupa. Taco Bell now joins the ranks of other fast food proprietors who have adopted that attitude that “bigger is better” or the more “calories the tastier the option.” For example, this summer Burger King introduced the 2,500 calorie Pizza Burger and KFC has the 540 calorie Double Down fried chicken sandwich. These items have several things in common, they all lack nutritional value based on daily dietary standards and they are all extremely high in calories. Did we mention they are all high in calories?

The XXL Chalupa Breakdown:

A huge Chalupa shell that looks like a deep-fried canoe, packed with seasoned ground beef (low sodium these days), lettuce, fiesta salsa, a blend of three cheeses — cheddar, pepper jack and mozzarella — nacho cheese sauce, red tortilla-chip strips and reduced-fat sour cream.

Total calories: 650. Fat grams: 39. Dietary fiber: 7. Carbs: 53.

Instead, to satisfy for Taco Bell craving enjoy two Fresco Style Crunchy Tacos (150 calories each) and Mexican Rice (130 calories per 3 oz serving) which will only cost you 430 calories from your daily supply.

For other healthy and tastier options check out Eat This, Not That! Official website: www.EatThis.com

Holiday Health

For many of us more than half of annual weight gain occurs between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Some studies say the average American puts on up to 5 to 7 pounds in these few weeks. And it's no wonder if you count up the cookies, cakes and cups full of eggnog we just can't say no to at holiday parties. While we're chatting away and filling ourselves with holiday cheer, we're also filling up with calories ... one nibble at a time. Those empty calories add up fast. So before your belly starts shaking like a bowl full of jelly, check out these tips:

At holiday parties where tempting foods are often served, eat something healthy beforehand so you're not likely to overindulge. Interact away from the buffet where it's easy to graze mindlessly. Serve yourself and move to a different part of the room.

Eat breakfast. Studies show that if you skip breakfast, you end up consuming more calories throughout the day than those who start off with a bowl of high-fiber cereal.

Watch your liquid calories and reach for tall, slender glasses. A Cornell University study showed adults who drank from tall, slender glasses drank about 19 percent less than those who drank from short, wide glasses.

Make your holidays more event-based and less food-based. Go for a long walk before your meals and have the family gather branches, berries and leaves to build a beautiful fall centerpiece for your table.

Rid your home of leftovers by having festive gift containers for everyone to take home samples of their favorite dishes.

Keep your hands, mind and feet busy. People can often get bored during the holidays and turn to food. Plan on reading a novel, taking photos, playing a game, writing in a journal or participating in a fun run.

Practice portion control. Bake your favorite cookies or pie, but make the cookies smaller than usual and cut the pie in smaller slices. Take one piece and WALK AWAY. Let's face it, some desserts should be avoided. One slice of pecan pie can be as much as 900 calories - OUCH!

Cook smart when making your delicious holiday recipes. Use a heart-healthy spread instead of butter, add dried fruit and reduce the amount of chocolate chips in cookies, cut your sugar amount by half or use a sugar substitute, or grill green beans instead of baking the usual casserole. These little steps could save you more calories than you think!

Weight No Longer...Houston DINEs Rountable Discussion on Menu Labeling

Please join Houston DINEs on Thursday, December 18, 2010 as we facilitate a roundtable discussion about menu labeling and how it helps to combat obesity. Need more details? See below:

2010 Texas Obesity Research Center Conference Advancing Obesity Research in a New Decade
www.hhp.uh.edu/obesity

Houston, TXElizabeth D. Rockwell Pavilion, MD Anderson Library, University of Houston
November 18-19, 2010Don't miss out on this great opportunity to hear the state of obesity research, prevention and control in Texas, hear the keynote speaker, Michael I. Goran, witness the drama from a health care reform and obesity debate panel, interact with like-minded colleagues and enjoy the beautiful autumn weather in Houston! You can do all this and more at the 2010 Texas Obesity Research Center conference on November 18-19, on the University of Houston campus. Advance registration ends soon (November 11), so please be sure to complete your registration before then. After that time we can only accept registration at the door, but we can't guarantee parking. The attachment shows the detailed agenda and registration information. More info is available at www.hhp.uh.edu/obesity.

Fast Food Ads Target Children

Researchers at the Rudd Center at Yale University have reported that one-third of children and teens eat fast food at least once a week. The Rudd Center compiled data over a one year period on 12 of the nation’s fast food restaurants.

Teens get 16 percent to 17 percent of their calories from fast food restaurants. Of critical concern is the finding that teens order 800 to 1,000 calories in a single meal with 30 percent of those calories coming from saturated fat or sugar at those fast food restaurants. Those numbers represent about half of the recommended daily calorie intake.

Researchers reviewed 3,039 possible meal combinations designed for children such as the McDonald’s Happy Meal and found that only 12 met the nutritional criteria for preschoolers and 15 met the nutritional recommendations for adolescents.

Subway and Burger King were the only restaurants offering those 12 – 15 meal combinations that would meet nutritional recommendations for children and adolescents. Meals included the Veggie DeLite at Subway and mac and cheese at Burger King.

Marketing plays a major role in increased consumption of fast foods. Surveys of parents reveal that 40 percent say their children ask to go to McDonald’s a least once a week. A whopping 84 percent of those parents, in turn, had taken their children to a fast food restaurant in the previous week. Despite claims of reducing marketing to children, the Los Angeles Times reported from 2007 to 2009 preschoolers saw:

· 56% more ads for Subway
· 21 % more ads for McDonalds
· 9 % more ads for Burger King
Children ages 6 to 11 see even more ads:
· 56% more for Subway
· 26 % more for McDonalds’s
· 10 % more for Burger King
For more information on this remarkable survey, see: http://healthland.time.com/

Written by Nancy Thorne

Without Menu Labeling You Are Robbed of Your Health

Fast food has a strong correlation with obesity. As the profit margin of the top fast food restaurants has increased so has the waistline of the vast majority of Americans. The number of meals consumed outside of the home has increased from 18% to 32%...nearly doubling within the past 20 years. Adversely, meals consumed outside of the how are high in calories and are served in larger portions. Because of that, Americans especially children are faced with epidemic numbers of obesity.

While there is no way to deter people from consuming fast food on the go, there are ways to assuage the current situation. Menu labeling requires that restaurants post caloric content on menus and menu boards at the point of sale; essentially taking the guessing out of eating. Some cities are blazing trails by making strides toward the battle of the bulge. For example, the city of San Francisco has banned marketing of toys in kid’s meals that are not healthy. In order for a restaurant to promote meals it must contain a fruit AND a vegetable and milk or water.

http://health.msn.com/fitness/video.aspx?vid=016e8292-e279-4064-a1f5-b3e2625a485f

The wave is catching on and people seem to appreciate this information. The Center of Science in Public Interest surveyed over 5,000 people nationwide about menu labeling. The survey shows that there is overwhelming support for menu labeling. Check out the survey below.


SUMMARY OF POLLS ON NUTRITION LABELING IN RESTAURANTS

Poll
Fast-food and other chain restaurants should list nutritional information, such as calories, fat, sugar or salt content on menus and menu boards: 78%

Restaurants should make nutrition information
available for all menu items: 83%

Menu boards should list nutrition information for all items served: 74%

Restaurants should be required to provide nutrition
information, including calories, on menus: 67%

Support requiring fast-food and chain restaurants to
display calorie content on menus or menu boards: 82%

Support requiring fast-food and chain restaurants to
post nutrition information on their menus
84%

http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/census_menu_board_question.pdf (link to full survey)

Taco Bell Reduces Sodium and Nobody Notices

Taco Bell recently announced that it has been trying new low sodium menu items at select restaurants. The goal was to the reduce sodium content in items across the board by 23% and the national fast food chain rolled out these changes at 150 restaurants in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.


You can read more about this story by clicking here.

Sodium is a major cause of high blood pressure and can lead to heart disease and stroke. The American Heart Association is trying to lead efforts that will reduce sodium intake from the diets of Americans. We recommend that the average person have no more than 2,000 mg of sodium daily.

I found two interesting points in the Taco Bell story. The first is that they secretly removed the sodium and nobody really noticed. Second, Taco Bell was able to improve the taste of their items by replacing the sodium with other spices and other ingredients.

What are you doing to reduce sodium in your diet?

Portion Distortion!

Within the last 20 years the American population experienced a surge in weight gain and now obesity has become an epidemic. The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLB) reports that our food portions and serving sizes have tremendously grown. To date, more than 30% of the U.S. population is overweight or obese. Did we mention that obesity among the youth has tripled since 1980? Although the NHLB report uses the years of 1984 to 2004, it gives us a surprising comparison that really becomes shocking if one supersizes a meal in 2010.

Now for a trip down memory lane… Twenty years ago bagels were three inches in diameter and contained a mere 140 calories. Today those not so wonderful bagels are six inches in diameter and contain 340 calories; this doesn’t include the strawberry crème cheese. Sodas 20 years ago were 6.5 ounces with 85 calories. Today a 20 oz beverage contains a whopping 250 calories. The popular chicken Caesar salad is about 3 ½ cups today compared to 1½ cups. The increase in size also increased the caloric content of 390 to 790 calories, a difference of 400 calories. We don’t think Julius would approve. Finally, an American favorite: French fries. Did you know a typical serving of French fries was 2.4 oz 20 years ago and today that serving is 6.9 oz, a calorie increase of 400 calories?

Portion Distortion over 20 years

See more examples and take the interactive calorie quiz at http://2010.nhlbihin.net/portion.

Portion Size & Calories 1984	Portion Size & Calories 2004	Difference
Spaghetti 1 cup/3 small meatballs = 500 Cal	Spaghetti 2 cups/3 large meatballs = 1,025 Cal	525
Coffee 8 ounces/whole milk & sugar = 45 Cal	Coffee Mocha 16 oz coffee/milk & syrup = 350 Cal	305
Cheesecake 3 ounces = 260 Cal	Cheesecake 7 ounces = 640 Cal	380

What you can do to control your portion distortion…

• Ask for calorie content in meals before you order at restaurants. Knowing is half the battle.
• Maintain a healthy weight with a balance act of calories in and calories out
• Join Houston DINEs (Dining Information, Nutrition & Education Campaign) http://houstondines.org/

Attention!!!

According to a 2006 National Research Council (NRC) report being overweight can pose a threat on National Security. The report cites that nearly 25% of all applicants are rejected from the military because he/ or she is too heavy to serve. Obesity not only affects individuals, families and communities it now affects the safety of our country. It’s slowly becoming a form of self inflicted terrorism; the antagonist being food laden in calories.

A team of Cornell researchers found that within one year’s time span from 2007 to 2008 incredible numbers of men and women were ineligible to serve due to poor health. Nearly six millions men and nearly three times that amount of women (16 million) who are old enough to serve in the military could NOT because he/ or she was vastly overweigh. In an effort to keep our country safe and replace military retirees, each military branch needs to recruit about 184,000 new personnel. Given the high number of unqualified applicants this process is becoming more and more difficult.

"Almost one in four applicants to the military are rejected for being overweight or obese – it's the most common reason for medical disqualification," study researcher John Cawley, an associate professor of policy analysis and management, said in a statement. "It is well-known that the military is struggling to recruit and retain soldiers. Having a smaller pool of men and women who are fit enough to serve adds to the strain and creates even more problems for national defense."

"It's another example of the underappreciated public consequences of obesity," Cawley said. "We tend to think of obesity as a personal, individual health problem. But the fact that U.S. military leaders view it as a threat to national security and military readiness shows its far-reaching impact."

Now that we know the gravity of the situation we need to adopt healthier lifestyles high in physical activity and low in high density foods. Physical activity plays an important role in reducing morbidity factors like heart disease and stroke. Reducing consumption in high energy foods means lowering daily caloric intake and controlling weigh. The safety of the Nation depends on it.