I Write Letters
I was perusing the LÄRABAR website today, as part of a review I’m writing for the Functional Food section. They’re high quality, high fiber, whole food energy bars that taste pretty good, so I’m giving them a nice write up, for the most part. But – like so many health/fitness-oriented supplement companies – they make specific claims for their products that they don’t back up with any hard data. ...
Questioning Claims, Part I: Some Personal History
I think I was 22 or 23, when my husband brought home a used book that changed my life. The book was “Science: Good, Bad and Bogus” by Martin Gardner. A few people might recognize the name…he wrote the well-known “Mathematical Games” column that ran in Scientific American for 25 years. Gardner wrote a lot more than that, however: he was also a prolific science writer who specialized in exposing...
Ten Things The Junk Food Manufacturers Don’t Want You To Know
David Ludwig and Marion Nestle are the authors of a recently published commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In it, they question whether the junk food industry is really sincere in its efforts to “combat obesity.” After all, the industry’s shareholders celebrate when stock prices rise (i.e., people consume more of their products) and not the other way around. In a recent interview, David and...
Sneaky, Rotten, Underhanded, Dirty Tricks Vol II.
A little while ago, I started a series on some of the dirty rotten tricks I’ve seen perpetrated by retailers on a largely unsuspecting and vulnerable audience (if things continue to proceed in the same manner, I suspect this will be a long, and on-going series). Anyhow, one other MAJOR pet peeve of mine is retailers who name their products as close as legally possible to any number of major prescription weight loss drugs, and...
Truvia
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I ordered one of the new stevia products, Cargill’s Truvia, which is sold in single serving packets. It’s not bad. It actually physically resembles table sugar: it has the same crystalline appearance and bulk, and the same slight crunch (if you put it in your mouth, undissolved). It’s quite as sweet, too, although there’s a slight bitterness associated with it…the...
The Empire Strikes Back!
As noted here, the Corn Refiners Association is riding high over the AMA’s decision to exonerate high fructose corn syrup as a cause of the obesity epidemic. So high, they’ve gone from playing defense to offense: [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEbRxTOyGf0] [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVsgXPt564Q] Nothing like making your point by paying actors to pretend they’re clueless on camera. What the...
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