Coca-Cola and Pepsi, the two companies that make up a good 90% of the soda market in the U.S., are changing the way they manufacture their caramel coloring because their current method classifies it as a carcinogen under California law.
Caramel coloring, which gives the colas their signature brown color, is formed in heating and browning processes of sugars. It can be formed either naturally (if you’ve ever caramelized onions, you have some idea of what I’m talking about here) or in mass quantities as an added food coloring. Commercially, it’s added to pretty much every type of food and beverage you can think of, as well as some household cleaning products.
Source: glamour.com
The two soft drink giants are adjusting their manufacturing process for caramel color in the United States because otherwise they would have to slap a giant cancer warning on their California labels. See, the problem ingredient is 4-methylimidazole, also known as 4-MEI, high levels of which seems to only be a problem in commercially produced caramel color. California recently put into law that products need to have less than 29 micrograms of 4-MEI per 12 ounces, which is 1/4-1/5 of the level that Coke and Pepsi currently contain.
Since the color doesn’t add anything but aesthetic value (and since the rival Dr. Pepper Snapple group’s levels were already below that limit), the two companies decided that rather than fight the label mandate, they would just change their production of caramel coloring. Despite their decision, Coke, Pepsi, and the American Beverage Association (an organization which represents the interests of the U.S. beverage industry) still want us to know that these requirements are “scientifically unfounded” “scare tactics”, and are sure to add that “not one single regulatory agency around the world considers the exposure of the public to 4-MEI as present in caramels as an issue”. Duly noted–California is often ahead of the curve.
4-MEI has in fact been linked to cancer in rodents in lab testing, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claims that you’d need to drink around 1000 cans a day to get the same dose as those mice and rats. Frankly though, I think it’s definitely possible for humans to get up to that level over a long period of time, especially for kids who grow up drinking soda like it’s water. In a similar health case, complications from smoking cigarettes can take a good couple decades to manifest themselves but that doesn’t make cigarettes any less carcinogenic.
Regardless of the posturing, this development is yet another reason why people should really cut down on their soda intake. Water and juice might seem too bland in comparison, but if you give yourself a chance to get used to them you probably won’t even miss it. Plus, you’ll be so much healthier for it!
As you might remember from What’s On Your Plate?, The Neighborhood School (TNS) didn’t have a functioning stove in their kitchen and was having difficulties trying to get one, although not for lack of persistence.
The back-story is that parents at TNS offered to pay for a new stove out of their own pockets, but as it turned out the issue wasn’t simply a question of funds—the real problem was with the ansul system (i.e. fire suppression system) and not the stove itself. The old ansul system is extremely out-of-date and they need to upgrade it in order to operate a stove. This all means that TNS essentially needs to remodel their entire kitchen just to cook with a stove.
Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chiropractic/
There hasn’t been a usable stove at The Neighborhood School for ten years. The vast majority of the kitchen’s food arrives frozen or precooked, so the TNS kitchen is very limited in what they can actually cook (not just reheat) for their students. Jackie Vargas, the head dietician, and the other kitchen staff roast a chicken every month and make sandwiches for the kids’ lunches, but that’s all they can do with their current resources. They’ve come up with many creative workarounds, such as using the oven to sauté foods, but there are still many things that they can’t cook without a stove, like pastas and soups. The kitchen staff is very frustrated because they can’t make food as fresh as they would like.
We found from Helen Martineau, of The Neighborhood School’s Wellness Committee, that in January 2011 TNS was able to get an inspector from the Department of Education (DOE) to come through the kitchen for a feasibility study. The inspector determined that it would be possible to put in not only a new exhaust and ansul system but also a new stove (and maybe even some new floors and counters). TNS planned to go forward with this remodeling, but found out in April 2011 that to get DOE funding, they would need to fill out a capital budget application. The application is very involved (around 120 pages long!) and they needed the feasibility study’s results in order to submit it. However, those results weren’t finalized until mid-May and the deadline was the beginning of April. What a crazy system!
A few of the parents tried to figure out a way to pay for it without the DOE’s support, but it was too complex to accomplish in the time they had left. So, they were unable to complete the application in 2011. As of now, they do plan on re-applying. There is just one more potential hurdle: the DOE prioritizes school renovations according to how much of a direct physical threat the current situation poses. That said, here’s some food for thought: while preventing immediate physical harm is imperative, physical health down the line is just as important. You also have to think about what happens in the long run—this generation may be the first generation of Americans in over 200 years to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents due to complication from obesity. And that, my friends, is scary to think about.
Anyway, this Department of Education policy would mean that…
It might still take a few more years for TNS to finally be able to cook with a stove, even if their application gets accepted.
We will continue to keep you updated on the progress, and hope to have good news for you in 2012 on The Neighborhood School’s stove and kitchen renovation.
Also, a big thank you to Cat Gund and Helen Martineau for contributing research!
That old saying “you are what you eat” just keeps gaining more and more traction these days, doesn’t it?
Source: http://knowledgeoftheday.com/category/brain/
According to a recent study out of the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, good nutrition leads to better brain function. This specific study looked at biomarkers in the blood to determine the effect different levels of different vitamins had on brain health. The article I read mentioned biomarkers, but didn’t clarify what they were (true also of the reputable sources of Google and Wikipedia.) I was a bit confused as to what exactly they are, but after much research, suffice to say they are one of many forms of protein in the bloodstream that can reflect a person’s state of wellness. In this case, they would be the way by which the scientists studied the change from vitamin levels.
Previous studies in this vein have focused mainly on personal reports of subjects’ diets to judge the correlation between brain function and nutrition which tends towards unreliable and subjective evidence. What makes this study notable is that its methods are more objective.
Researchers studied the vitamin levels of 104 participants and had them take cognitive tests to measure their thinking and memory. They also performed MRIs on 42 participants to measure their brain volume. They found that those with higher levels of B family vitamins, as well as omega-3s and vitamins C, D, and E, performed better on these cognitive tests than those with lower levels.
Credit: http://uliwestphal.de/expanded.html
On the other side of things, participants with high levels of trans fats (a favorite of processed foods) in their blood had poorer performances. Their MRIs also revealed more brain shrinkage than those with low levels of trans fats in the blood.
It should, however, be noted that variances in nutrient levels did not account for 100% of the differences in scores: nutrient measurements accounted for 17%, whereas age, education, high blood pressure, and brain volume accounted for 83% of variance. 17% isn’t a big slice, but still surprisingly substantial!
This study still needs to be confirmed, but author Dr. Gene Bowman is very excited about the potential of the results. He says, “it is very exciting to think that people could potentially stop their brains from shrinking and keep them sharp by adjusting their diet”.
Source: http://blog.heartland.org/2012/01/humility-and-skepticism-in-scientific-debate/
Exciting indeed!
Yet more evidence for the importance of eating right, not just for physical health but also for your brain. Happy thinking!
Come one, come all!
What’s On Your Plate? is a piece of the curriculum in one of the Studio in a School art education programs. The program works to promote lifestyle change in kids through visual arts. By combining nutrition lectures and art workshops, kids learn how to make healthier food choices by conceptualizing the food through art. Their Art & Healthy Living exhibit opened on February 28th and will be open for viewing until Wednesday March 14th.
Studio in a School gallery 1 East 53rd Street, Manhattan
Be sure to check it out!
Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/studioimages/6935562835/
Imagine this: a forest full of walnut and chestnut trees, berry bushes, fruit trees covered in apples and pears, exotic fruits like pineapples, guavas, and persimmons, herbs, and hundreds of other edible plants…and you’re free to take whatever you want. No, this isn’t some sort of mythical place, no Elysium or Shangri La–it’s real, and it’s in Seattle.
Or rather, it will be.
Elysium, Credit: Jeffrey K. Bedrick
The Beacon Food Forest started as a group project for a permaculture design course and with huge amounts of outreach, it’s becoming a reality. And seriously, they really care about what the community thinks–they even hired translators so that the Chinese-speaking residents of the area could have a say in the planning.
The best part, of course, is that anyone who happens to wander in can take what they like. No limit, no cost–pretty cool, eh? But Connie, you may ask, what if someone comes around and picks every single apple in the forest? Well according to lead landscape architect Margarett Harrison, “There was major discussion about it. People worried, ‘What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?’ That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we have none at the end of blueberry season, then it means we’re successful.” So for all you Seattleites out there, when the time comes strike while the iron is hot!
The Beacon Food Forest folks are hoping to break ground this summer, plant the trees in the fall, and open next July. I’m excited to see how it all turns out!
Credit: http://beaconfoodforest.weebly.com/design.html
Urban agriculture is sure gaining momentum!
I recently read about the Rid-All Green Partnership, an urban farm smack in the middle of Cleveland, Ohio dedicated to promoting sustainability and healthy eating as well as creating jobs for the community. The land they’re on used to be an illegal dump in the Forgotten Triangle, an area in Cleveland’s Kinsman neighborhood which is apparently so devoid of people it might as well be Wyoming, but through hard work and a great deal of enthusiasm they were able to turn that land into the bustling farm it is today. These guys are really at the forefront of urban agriculture and have been able to do some outstanding things for their city!
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Thanks to our Buy a Bundle, Give a Bundle Initiative, we were able to donate ten bundles to three organizations: The Project School in Bloomington, Indiana, Tribe One in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Harlem Seeds here in New York City. We asked these organizations to tell us how they used our materials- sharing stories and pictures.
Here they are!
The Project School
The Project School’s fourth and fifth grade class, led by their teacher Sarah Jerasa, incorporated the What’s On Your Plate? program in a unit on global and local homelessness and hunger in December. They held a screening of What’s On Your Plate? as a fundraiser, raising money to carry out projects related to their studies: funding a well for a village in Africa, donating an animal to a community through Heifer International Organization, and donating medical supplies and food to area shelters. The bundles were used to educate their school and members of their community to promote awareness of larger food-related issues, like food insecurity and local food.
It was a great success, and the response they received from the screening was incredible. The students were able to raise over $300 for their projects! They engaged their community in a discussion that later continued into the classroom.
Take a look at some pictures from their screening!
Tribe One
Tribe One of Knoxville, Tennessee is an organization founded in order to encourage leadership skills and economic self-sufficiency in the youth of East Knoxville. Tribe One used What’s On Your Plate? as a part of their after-school holistic health programming in an effort to focus students on the importance of keeping their body, mind, and spirit healthy.
Here are some pictures showing a few of the kids at Tribe One making Sadie’s Fruit Smoothie at an after-school program:
YUM!
As for Harlem Seeds, we’re expecting an update from them soon. They’re busy organizing events to bring healthy food to kids in Harlem. Watch out for a post about their event soon.
Thank you to all of our Bundle recipients and a very special thank you to everyone who helped us give these bundles away by purchasing one for their home.
