Last week we asked for your help build out our Top Ten School Snack list. We asked for snacks that 1. kids will actually eat 2. taste good or great 3. add, not detract nutritional value 4. are easy to prepare 5. are cheap We got lots of great and interesting suggestions – you folks sure are a creative bunch!  Some ideas seemed to require just a tad more preparation than most people would invest in on a hectic weekday morning. You can... 

ConAgra’s Chef Boyardee brand is out with a whole grain canned pasta product – Chef Boyardee Pasta, Whole Grain, Beefaroni – and they’re letting the world know about it. Take a look at this  “silent” commercial where parents are hiding the whole grain truth from their daughter. If she thinks it’s healthy, she’ll refuse to eat it. OK, we’ll just out and say it – double dumb family.... 

One of the most important pieces of information in a nutrition label is the serving size. Many people look at the calorie count, and are happy to see low numbers. But what they don’t notice is that they are consuming twice or more than the stated serving size. Which means twice the calories, twice the fat and sodium, etc.. (but on the bright side – also twice the minerals & vitamins. There are some funny examples of products... 

Last May I received an email from Bonnie Taub Dix , a dietitian based in New York, complimenting Fooducate on the information presented in the blog about nutrition labels and how to decode them. She told me she was writing a book on reading food labels, and a beautiful friendship ensued. Today, Bonnie’s book, Read It Before You Eat It: How to Decode Food Labels and Make the Healthiest Choice Every …  Read More →

Earlier this month, The NPD Group , a market research firm, released a report on consumer trends in reading Nutrition Labels. Hey, that’s our favorite subject matter, so we were eager to take a look. Top 5 items consumers are most interested in (ranked from highest down): total calories total fat calories from fat sugars sodium Top 5 items consumers want maximize : whole grains dietary fiber calcium vitamin C protein Top 5 items consumers... 

We got the following question from Lanette: I do much of our cooking from scratch and am trying to eliminate processed  foods.  I have found several ‘recipes’ for make-your-own-baking-mix but they all call for shortening.  I don’t know which is worse!  I’m wondering if you could do a post on Bisquick vs. Homemade options.  I use it all the time for pot-pies, dumplings, the occasional biscuits, pancakes, etc. so it’s... 

Here’s yet another potential diet. Drink 2 glasses of water before every meal, and you’ll lose weight. That’s what a 12 week study has shown in middle aged people. They lost more weight than a control group that did not drink water. Both groups lost weight as they were instructed to follow a low fat, low calorie diet. The caveat, according to the researchers at the department of human nutrition, foods and exercise at Virginia... 

You know an article is important when you get links to it in multiple emails, tweets and facebook updates. We got numerous links to Saturday’s Fixing a World That Fosters Fat , in the business section of the New York Times. And it truly is an interestin g piece, touching upon a critically important question: WHY IN THE WORLD ARE WE [collectively] GETTING SO FAT? Before we even get a chance to respond, the article provides an answer: [Dieting... 

Photo: Tony Cenicola | The New York Times Chocolate milk contains way too much sugar. An 8 fl oz serving (the standard carton served in schools) contains 3 teaspoons of added sugar! That sounds more like a treat than a healthy drink. Not something kids should be getting with their lunch at school on a daily basis. The New York Times ran an article earlier this week on this matter, presenting arguments for both sides, and examples of actions... 

Tea is the world’s most widely consumed beverage, not coffee. Just in the US, the market last year stood at $7 Billion in sales of tea bags and bottles, including iced tea. The industry has quadrupled itself since the early 1990’s partly due to the health halo tea , and especially green tea, enjoy. Scientists discovered that tea contains antioxidants called polyphenols that may reduce risks …  Read More →

Everyone loves pizza. It’s the #1 looked up entry in yellow pages and very popular in google searches as well. While dining at a pizzeria or getting delivered to your home are the most popular consumption modes, people are going to want this goodness on call in their freezer as well. There’s an entire section of a supermarket aisle to support this claim. While…  Read More →

Kellogg’s Special K line of cereals has quietly been upgraded nutritionally. Sort of . The company has added 1 gram of fiber to the Special K’s, excluding the original flavor. One gram doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s 50% more than the 2 grams already present. And more importantly, it takes the fiber content to over 10% of the recommended daily value, which enables the package to carry a Nutrient Content Claim &#…  Read More →

Millions of nerve-wracked parents will be liberated in the coming weeks, after spending a long hot summer trying to entertain their vacationing offspring. Kids, we love ya, but glad to see you back on a schedule with sane bedtime hours, structure to the day, and less ruckus at home. As it relates to Fooducate, back-to-school means either a school lunch or a packed lunch. In either case, chances are you’ll be sending some…  Read More →

With 3 recalls in just 2 weeks, this summer salmonella fest has got to be one of the biggest food safety scares of 2010.   And since nobody is saying this is over yet, there could be more cases reported next week. Bill Marler and Marion Nestle are doing a great job reporting on the outbreak, food politics, and the urgent need for food safety legislation. Salmonella is a bacteria can be deadly, but in most cases leads to “just” diarrhea,... 

One of the problems with nutrition science is that it changes every once in a while when new research come in, but it takes the public a long time to readjust its mindset. The result is mass confusion regarding what’s truly healthy. Eggs were historically considered a nutrient rich food that were an essential part of culinary traditions the world over. But when scientists discovered cholesterol – and the high cholesterol count in...