nutrition

Taco Bell "Fresco" Bowl: 13g Of Fat or 8g? 350 Calories or 430?

Taco Bell "Fresco" Bowl: 13g Of Fat or 8g? 350 Calories or 430?

I ordered the Zesty Chicken Border Bowl Fresco style without dressing. On the menu at the store, it reads under 9 grams of fat but on online, it reads 13 grams of fat. Please compare your special nutrition page for Fresco menu items to the Nutrition Calculator on the Taco Bell site. I made sure that I chose “Fresco Style” on the calculator and to be advertising something as under 9 grams of fat, but really having 13 is very misleading and wrong.

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Target’s in-house brand, Archer Farms, is going trans-fat free this year, announced the company today. The private label has over 2,000 products and “will be the first national store brand to eliminate added trans fats from its entire product line.”

Don't Chew 15 Sticks Of Sorbitol-Sweetened Gum Per Day

Don't Chew 15 Sticks Of Sorbitol-Sweetened Gum Per Day

Here’s some news you can use, especially if you work in an office and really can’t run to the bathroom every fifteen minutes without someone noticing. “Many sugar-free chewing gums contain a sweetener called sorbitol. Sorbitol is a laxative which is poorly absorbed by the small intestine.” Normally, this doesn’t matter, but if you’re one of those crazy people who takes something wayyy too far, and you tend to chew over a pack a day, you might want to switch to a different gum brand.

Congress Set To Ban Soda, Junk Food From Schools

Congress Set To Ban Soda, Junk Food From Schools

Snickers and Cokes would be a thing of the past at school cafeterias and vending machines if the Senate approves an ambitious amendment from Senators Harkin (D-IA) and Murkowsky (R-AK). The amendment to the Farm Bill would establish strict federal guidelines limiting the sale of deliciously unhealthy treats brimming with sugar, salt, and fat.

The nutrition standards would allow only plain bottled water and eight-ounce servings of fruit juice or plain or flavored low-fat milk with up to 170 calories to be sold in elementary and middle schools. High school students could also buy diet soda or, in places like school gyms, sports drinks. Other drinks with as many as 66 calories per eight ounces could be sold in high schools, but that threshold would drop to 25 calories per eight-ounce serving in five years.

What Are They Feeding The Kids At School?

What Are They Feeding The Kids At School?

The always feisty Center For Science In The Public Interest has released a school lunch report card and while no state received an “A”, only Kentucky and Oregon are close to the CSPI’s standards. Oregon went from an F to an A-, but it wasn’t easy:

New Nutrition Label Coming To Some Supermarkets In '08

New Nutrition Label Coming To Some Supermarkets In '08

The Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI), a supplemental, easy-to-read nutrition labeling system, will be introduced on a voluntary basis next year by participating Wegmans, IGA, Hy-Vee, and Food City grocers. ONQI was developed by a bunch of nutrition and health experts and assigns products a value from 1 to 100 by scoring a number of good and bad qualities of the food. Shoppers can then compare similar products easily to see which one is more nutritionally sound.

Red Bull Gives Your Blood Pressure Wings

Red Bull Gives Your Blood Pressure Wings

People who have high blood pressure might want to avoid energy drinks, because a new study suggests that they might interfere directly with blood pressure or hamper the effectiveness of medications. The drinks, which have high levels of caffeine and taurine (“an amino acid found in protein-rich foods like meat and fish that can affect heart function and blood pressure”), raise blood pressure and heart rates in healthy individuals, but not to dangerous levels. However, for people who have cardiovascular disease or are taking heart rate or blood pressure medication, the increase could be “significant.”

Should You Give Your Kids Probiotic Pills?

Should You Give Your Kids Probiotic Pills?

Consumer Reports asked an expert’s opinion on probiotic supplements and live culture yogurt products geared especially toward kids. There’s preliminary evidence out there that says it can help relieve infants and toddlers suffering from diarrhea caused by antibiotics or gastrointestinal illnesses. But there’s also a chance the bacteria can cause illness in infants or those with weakened immune systems.

Doctor To U.S.: "We Need To Eat More Feces"

Doctor To U.S.: "We Need To Eat More Feces"

Americans should have more poop in their diets, writes a doctor at Slate. Like superbugs and anti-bacterial products, we’ve become too successful at cleansing our food supply of all manner of contaminants—so that kids, for example, “have zero experience with routine gut infections, and when they encounter one that has slipped past our pipes and filters, the result can be catastrophic.”

Don't Eat Chicken Or Turkey Pot Pies Right Now

Don't Eat Chicken Or Turkey Pot Pies Right Now

You can add another item to your special “unsafe food” list for October: chicken and turkey pot pies, including the Banquet brand and generic store brands that have “P-9” stamped on the side, which may contain salmonella. Several cases of salmonella poisoning have now been reported in various states, and ConAgra and the USDA are asking consumers not to eat the product while they investigate.

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German researchers have found that a glucose-restricted diet increases the number of free radicals in mice and worms, and extended their lifespans by up to 25%. The free radicals trigger the natural defense systems in the creatures, which in turn strengthen long-term cellular protection against the damaging molecules. So go ahead: smoke and curse all you want, and throw out that death-giving orange juice. [Reuters]

10 Popular Diets Ranked According To Healthiness

10 Popular Diets Ranked According To Healthiness

A new report in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association ranks ten diets according to nutritional quality and potential effects on heart health. The best of the ten is the Ornish diet, while the least healthy is the Atkins plan. Dieters, begin fighting.

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Health organization Kaiser Permanente has launched an online game for kids that teaches them about nutrition and healthy lifestyles, then “locks” the kids out of the game after 20 minutes so they’ll go outside and play. We imagine the lock-out functionality won’t be needed, as the educational aspect of the game should organically repel the target audience of 9- and 10-year-olds in 10 to 15 seconds. [Reuters]

Find a Farmers Market Near You

Find a Farmers Market Near You

Farmers markets are a happening thing right now—everyone who’s anyone knows that if you don’t buy your mud-covered carrots from a sleepy teenager who just drove four hours into the city that very morning, then your carrots will taste like sawdust, the dinner party will be ruined, and you won’t get that promotion. But how do you know where the nearest farmers market is located? You could ask around, or you could hit up this handy farmers market locator from the USDA, which lets you search by market name, state, city, county, zip code, or forms of payment.

Low-Income Mothers & Senior Citizens: WIC Provides "Farmers Market Food Coupons"

Low-Income Mothers & Senior Citizens: WIC Provides "Farmers Market Food Coupons"

You may already know about WIC—”Women, Infants, and Children,” the government program that provides nutritional assistance to “low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women,” and to their children up to age five. But a lot of people don’t know that if you receive WIC or if you’re a low-income senior, you may also qualify for their farmers market program, which means you can take advantage of the same fresh-from-the-farm bounty as those coke-snorting yuppies who’ll buy anything with the word “heirloom” stamped across it.

30 Code Words For Sugar

30 Code Words For Sugar

It’s yesterday’s news that you can eat healthier by avoiding foods full of unnecessary sugars, and that sugars appear on labels under different names, but you might be surprised to see just how many different guises sugar and sugar-related substances can assume.

The Earlier Ingredients Are On A Label, The More There Is Inside

The Earlier Ingredients Are On A Label, The More There Is Inside

Did you know that ingredients on ingredients labels are listed in their descending order of proportion?

Pay More Attention To What You Eat At "Healthy" Restaurants

Pay More Attention To What You Eat At "Healthy" Restaurants

That councilwoman from L.A. isn’t going to like this: a new study says that when people eat at what they perceive to be “healthy” restaurants, they underestimate the calories, which could help explain why Americans are continuing to get fatter even as healthy restaurants have grown faster than fast food restaurants over the past 5 years.