Home

The American FDA or Food and Drug Administration is looking at introducing mandatory requirements for the introduction of food labeling for cinemas.

Currently there is an exemption for this requirement however with some supersized containers of popcorn having as much as 6000 kJ. There is a strong move to give the public greater information of what they are consuming.

With cinemas relying on the sales from snack food amounting to 35% of revenue, there is a lot of resistance to the new law.

Apart from the huge number of kilojoules contained within an average serve of popcorn, there is also the other part of pop corn contents that is often missed; sodium or the salt content.

Food standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) performed their own testing through their laboratories to determine the sodium content [sodium chloride] of various take away and packaged foods from September 2008 – April 2009.

While the samples were not taken from actual cinemas but rather microwave or prepackaged products that required the consumer to follow instructions and make their own popcorn, there were disturbingly high levels of sodium.

With a recommended daily intake of between 920-1600mg, the FSANZ found the average sodium content was 516mg while the maximum was 940mg so just 100grams of popcorn will reach your RDI.

Ultimately we need to reduce our junk food intake by making more informed decisions based on the energy, salt and fat content.

This is a move in the right direction having standardised labelling on all food products irrespective whether it is sold in a take away restaurant or a cinema.

It’s great to see parents encouraging their children to develop healthy eating habits by growing their own fruit and vegetables.

While at a friends dinner party, we started talking about nutrition and the current crisis confronting our youngest generation with increased rates of childhood obesity and diabetes. At their local primary school, one of the parents created a blog that documented the transformation of their inner suburban backyard into a thriving vegetable patch.

The great thing about creating this awareness for children from a young age is not the quality time spent with their children but the association and connection between freshly grown produce through to the preparation and consumption of this yummy food.

Oscars Little garden

Oscar’s little garden shows no matter how small your backyard there is ample opportunities to help educate your kids in growing their own fruit and vegetables. With Oscars little garden, he could see the development of the vegetables; carrots, spinach, garlic and beetroot from a tiny seed to sprouting life.

Like any habit in life, the more senses that are touched and stimulated during a particular process leads to greater engagement and the creation of neurological pathways that are set for life. Just as we can develop poor eating habits from an early age we can also create lifelong healthy eating patterns that shape the way we think and appreciate food.

With Oscar, he was able to experience the many senses involved in the growing and harvesting of his fruit and vegetables from the feeling of the dirt in his hands, planting the seeds, the smell of the garden, the emotion felt of seeing the living plant growing, through to the taste and sight of the harvest.

A big advocate and pioneer in moving this concept to the school yard is Stephanie Alexander who has helped 180 schools with educating children about growing their own vegetables which has had wonderful results.

While modern life may be running at a crazy pace, this is great opportunity to take an active role in helping the children develop healthy eating habits for life.

Anything is possible in our large cities, even growing grapes. While enjoying the local neighbourhood during an evening walk, I came across some grapes growing in this urban environment.

The trees were bearing plentiful supplies of fresh fruit ready for harvesting by the owner. Ultimately the healthiest form of nutrition is straight from the grower or where possible from your own garden.

There is something special about the taste of freshly grown fruit and vegetables that are unadulterated from the various chemicals and fertilizers used commercially. The color, texture and vibrancy of taste is overwhelming when compared to the anesthetized variety of mass-produced fruit and vegetables adorning our supermarket shelves.

Even in this urban environment in the middle of a major city, there are still opportunities to grow your own fruit and vegetable in small planter boxes depending on the size of your backyard/front garden to even growing a small allotment of herbs.

There is a growing trend amongst restaurants to source their fruit and vegetables directly from the growers and have specialist producers for particular herbs, vegetables and fruit. Finally there is a realisation that there is no substitute for fresh organically grown fruit and vegetables and naturally they are best source directly from the growers.

I did ask the owner if it was okay to pick the grapes and they informed me that the owner of the property was coming to pick up the grapes sometime this week and as they were the tenants of the property they weren’t entitled to pick any grapes. Maybe next time they will need to include some grapes picking options in their lease.

Every now and again you are faced with the predicament of having to eat fast food or something which isn’t of great nutritional value. Last night I visited a friend in hospital and decided to get a bite bite to eat afterwards from the local strip shopping district.

While there was a proliferation of the usual suspects of the established franchised brands, I managed to find a small Japanese restaurant that seem to be a healthier option given the limited choices available.

Usually Japanese is quite healthy with fish, rice and lightly stir fried vegetables. Well this particular Japanese restaurant must have been a hybrid as everything was deep fried with very limited choices if you wanted a healthier option. If this Japanese restaurant adopted the red light traffic light system of identifying the quality of food from good, to average and bad, well this restaurant would feature prominently in the amber to red categories.

Well I haven’t eaten anything deep fried for quite a long time, especially comprising of the majority of the meal so the consumption of deep fried chicken and rice washed down with tap water seemed to be okay. Then within 15 to 20 minutes I started getting stomach cramps and indigestion which wasn’t food poisoning but rather my stomach’s intolerance to eating fatty deep fried food.

It was an interesting experience as it highlighted the effects of eating fatty, salty food on the body after a diet consisting of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, lean meat, unprocessed foods, while striving to be chemical and preservative free.

So it really begs the question what are the long-term effects of eating a salty and fatty diet?

Unfortunately with our growing obesity rates the consumption of low nutritional value but high fatty type take away type foods seems to be on the increase which is the disturbing fact. The problem is a lot of these eating habits start from a young age with many schools selling deep-fried food, hamburgers, dim sims and other another highly processed foods to generate additional funds for the school.

Apart from the increase in cardiovascular disease, we’re heading towards a disturbing statistic where the current generation will be survived by their parents as the effects of years of binging on poor quality food.

Unfortunately fat, sugar and salt is a relatively cheap commodity in the production of take away type food as opposed to producing a product with lots of healthy ingredients which increases the retail price. If as a society we don’t appreciate nor comprehend the effects of eating take away food on a regular basis then the more healthier-based options will always be avoided in preference to cheap take away food which is more widely available.

With consumers becoming more health conscious and trying to adopt a healthier lifestyle, is food advertising misleading consumers to make inappropriate choices.

While advertising standards govern what claims can be made in respect of the particular products or services and Food Standards Australian and New Zealand addressing some issues regarding contents of products it’s a free for all with saying whatever you like regarding the benefits of particular foods or insinuating the source of the ingredients.

A good example of a product is the Spring Valley apple juice, this advertisement was placed on the side of the tram shelter. It gives the impression of freshness, purity and nature, that the juice is derived from a natural stream with abundant wildlife in the background.

While consumers obviously know that Spring Valley product doesn’t come from a stream, it does create the overall impression of freshness, purity and nature that together projects a healthy product.

However when you look a little bit deeper at the nutritional panel, it paints a different story with 99% of the Apple juice being reconstituted. So is reconstituted juice really fresh, Does the tagline in the advertisement “where spring comes from” really give a true indication that the product contains reconstituted juice?.

Well reconstituted juice contains aseptic juice which is apple juice which is being heated to kill any bacteria and other nasty stuff installed for anywhere up to two years.

On the front of the actual Orange juice label is a mini label stating that each serve contains 9% of the daily energy intake, however the product contains 12.3% sugar.

There is also a note saying a rich source of vitamin C however the ingredients panel states that vitamin C (absorbing acid) has been added. So in effect it’s one step away from actually consuming a vitamin C tablet however in a more digestible form. It makes for an interesting question if the products is natural and pure given the added Vitamin C and what has happened to the vitamin C naturally contained within the Apple juice.

So while drinking apple juice in the reconstituted form is better than a soft drink, it does beg the question whether there should be more responsible advertising standards in regards to the messages being projected at consumers.

While this isn’t in the same category as Cokes misleading advertisements, we need to have some accountability.