click for fullsize image at visualeconomics.com You’ve got to check this out. The numbers will frighten you. On average, over the course of a year, each of us  consumes: 53 gallons of soda (per person, factoring in babies  and health freaks who read fooducate) 141 lbs of sugar and other sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup, PLUS 24 lbs of artificial sweeteners 23 lbs of pizza and 24 lbs of ice cream 29 lbs of french fries (now it... 

Last week NPR held an interesting debate about the taxing of sugary soft drinks. Representing the Cokes and Pepsis of the world was Maureen Storey of the American Beverage Association . In her words: Soda is comprised mostly of water. A full-calorie soft drink has 90 percent water, and a diet soft drink is 99 percent water. Water is the most important nutrient that we have… Of nutritional value, there is either high-fructose corn syrup... 

National Public Radio is in the middle of a two-part examination of state and federal proposals to enact taxes on sugary beverages like soda and juice. In the first part, aired Tuesday on All Things Considered, the network played a snippet of a television commercial produced by Americans Against Food Taxes, a group that describes itself as “a coalition of concerned citizens,” but which SourceWatch describes as “a front group... 

Folks, we didn’t make this up. Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo’s CEO, was recently interviewed by Fortune magazine . Substantial parts of the interview dealt with the mega corporation’s shift to healthier foods. To be more accurate, less-bad foods. Currently, the largest food and beverage company in America receives $10 billion of its annual revenue, or 18% of its overall revenue, from what Nooyi likes to call “good-for-you”... 

Inadequate Public Funding and the Sale of Competitive Foods as a Revenue Source This is a guest blog-post by Professor Timothy D. Lytton First Lady Michelle Obama’s recently launched Let’s Move campaign to reduce childhood obesity has put a spotlight on reforming school food. The primary reason for the abundance of unhealthy foods in schools is inadequate public funding of school meals and schools in general. Unfortunately, the sale of unhealthy... 

Will New Yorkers agree to a tax on sugary soft drinks? That is yet to be determined, but both proponents and opponents are not taking any chances. The Alliance for a Healthier New York is airing the above commercial til mid March. Will this counterpunch to the well oiled marketing and PR machine of the American Beverage Association succeed? We’re highly doubtful that the campaign will succeed, despite the fact that soft drinks are a major... 

Delicious and simple: gluten-free Irish soda bread. I’m going to share two things today. My best Irish soda bread recipe and a sneak peek of our new loft apartment (with room to set up a studio!). The tenant next door has vacated and it’s coming together fast. We’re moving in over the next three days. So what am I up to? I’m practicing my best Domestic Goddess routine, catching up on laundry, Hi there! This is a short summary... 

Nearly half of all the fast-food soda fountains tested in a recent study dispensed coliform bacteria —that’s feces, folks—along with the pop. The study, published in the International Journal of Food Microbiolog y, is being widely picked up in the blogosphere today. I kept clicking from one blog to the next , but none of them raised what to me is the obvious question: How does the fecal material make its way into the soda? CBS News...