Pro Athletes Hawking UnHealthy Foods: LeBron James, Peyton Manning, Serena Williams

Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy summarized findings of a recent study analyzing food endorsements by sports celebrities by concluding:

"The promotion of energy-dense, nutrient-poor products by some of the world’s most physically fit and well-known athletes is an ironic combination that sends mixed messages about diet and health."

That's muted academic-speak to say that professional athletes are hypocrites for endorsing junk food. But endorse they do... to the tune of millions of dollars in rich endorsement deals. 

The fascinating study, published in the Pediatrics journal in November 2013, found that of the 100 professional athletes with the highest-value endorsements in 2010:

• They were paid to promote 44 different food and beverage brands
• Food and beverage brands were the second largest category of endorsements, behind only sporting goods 
• 79% of their 62 food endorsements were for fast food or junk food
• 93% of their beverage endorsements were for drinks with "100% of calories from added sugar"

The biggest hypocritical fast-food offenders among health-conscious, physically fine-tuned professional athletes?

Peyton Manning (pictured below), reportedly earns $10 million per year from Papa John's pizza, Gatorade (owned by PepsiCo), Wheaties (General Mills), as well as DirectTV and Sony. In 2012, NFL quarterback Manning bought 21 Papa John franchises in Colorado.

LeBron James, NBA superstar, "received $5 million to endorse Bubblicious Gum, including his own flavor, LeBron's Lightening Lemonade," in addition to his lucrative contracts with McDonalds, Sprite, and Powerade.

Joe Maurer, six-time All Star baseball player and Minnesota Twins catcher, peddles Pepsi-cola, Gatorade, and Kemps ice cream, including Joe Maurer-blessed Grand Slam Monster Cookie flavor ice cream and a limited-edition 12-pack of Joe Maurer ice cream sandwiches. 

Serena Williams, perhaps the all-time greatest woman tennis champion, endorses Oreo cookies (owned by Kraft/Nabisco), Gatorade (owned by PepsiCo), and Nabisco 100-Calorie Snack Packs. 

Kobe Bryant, 15-time NBA All-Star and Los Angeles Laker team captain, is rumored to earn a whopping $12 million annually solely from his contract to push McDonald's menu. 

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., NASCAR driver, is paid to shill for Mountain Dew, Hellman's/Best Foods Mayonnaise, and Amp Energy, a "flavor extension of the Mountain Dew brand", which is owned by PepsiCo.

Sports celebrities endorsing fast food, junk food, and/or sugary drinks hail from football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis, skateboarding, even Olympic sports as speed skating. 

Without exception, professional athletes promoting "energy-dense, nutrient-poor products" are extraordinarily fit physically, and must adhere to a disciplined, health-conscious diet.  

Yet, the food and beverages they endorse to Americans... particularly to U.S. children... are unhealthy. 

Kids revere and often long to emulate professional athletes as LeBron James, Peyton Manning, Serena Williams, Joe Maurer, Kobe Bryant, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

Which, of course, is why fake-food corporations dangle million-dollar contracts to entice popular athletes to lend cache and credibility to their unhealthy fare.  And per the study, "research shows that athlete endorsements are associated with higher healthfulness ratings on the products they endorse." 

Greedy industrial food mega-corporations will do what it takes to sell their highly processed, salty, sugary, fatty food products. That's a sad given in 2013. 

But professional athletes know better. In their own lives, they do better. But certain athletes choose to enrich themselves by hawking an unhealthy dietary mantra to the American public.   

Exhorted the study, "The promotion of energy-dense, nutrient-poor products by some of the world’s most physically fit and well-known athletes is an ironic combination that sends mixed messages about diet and health."

Indeed! I wonder... do these athletes feed a steady diet of fast food, soft drinks, and junk food to their children and loved ones? 

Chicken Nuggets Secrets: Mystery Ingredients, Dog Food Parts, Profits Galore

Chicken nuggets, a food scientist's invention first sold in 1980, are a gargantuan American industrial-foods sales success far beyond the initial imaginations of even fake-food corporate executives. 

Billions of chicken nuggets have been sold in every U.S. supermarket, served in all family-style restaurants, and are essentials on fast-food menus.  

First and foremost, chicken nuggets are widely seen as healthier kid-friendly options than greasy cheeseburgers in spongy white-bread buns.   Nuggets are purposely formed to fit a kid's hand. Compact, easy to hold and handle, ubiquitous in generic taste and look... nuggets are a perfect, extra-fast food for even the fussiest kids and busiest families. A no-brainer when ordering or fixing a quick meal while on-the-run.

Parents feel good about ordering McDonald's Mighty Kids Meals with chicken nuggets, apple slices, less fries, and milk for their children. Chicken nuggets are viewed by parents as the white meat alternative to red-meat health concerns, first voiced in 1977 by the federal government.

Problem is, chicken nuggets aren't all that healthy. And per a new American Journal of Medicine article, chicken nuggets are made of only about 40% to 50% actual chicken "meat."  

Ordering chicken nuggets for kids might be a convenient no-brainer. But switching on skeptical parental brains would reveal the inconvenient reality that these golden industrial-made orbs are:

• Highly processed, machine-formed lumps 
• Dipped in mystery batter
• Fried or deep fried.
• Chocked with invisible ingredients

McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, for instance, contain 25 ingredients, including heavy doses of salt, fat, and sugar, and chemical additives, preservatives, and flavor enhancers. That's before salty, sugary dipping sauces. 

And the chicken in chicken nuggets? Only about 18% of a nugget is actual meat protein, per two doctors at the University of Mississippi Medical Center." The rest of the "meat" in a chicken nuggets? A slurry of chicken parts, similar to pink slime, made of ground:

• Fat
• Blood vessels
• Bones
• Nerve cells, connective tissues

In short, "stuff that usually ends up in dog food," per NPR. Chicken nuggets would be accurately be tagged as "fat nuggets," commented Dr. Richard deShazo, professor of pediatics and one of the article's authors. 

Those chicken nuggets you serve to your beloved brood? Not much more than pulverized chicken leftovers (plus a smidge of actual meat), mixed with fat, salt, and sugar, and topped with a big dollop of the usual chemicals found in highly processed, highly profitable meat products.  

My suggestion? If the kids crave chicken nuggets, a better, far healthier idea is to create them at home. Recipes abound, including more than a dozen delicious, easy, free ideas at  AllRecipes.com. 

Meanwhile, don't fool yourself that industrial-made chicken nuggets are healthy kid-friendly food options. They're not. Fast-food and supermarket chicken nuggets are just one more fake-food industrial product larded with addicting fat, salt and sugar, and loaded with chemical additives, emulsifiers, preservatives, and fillers. 

And billions in corporate profits.  

Foster Farms Chicken Contamination Not Due to Gov't Shutdown, Is Repeat Offender

Contrary to misleading headlines, the salmonella outbreak at three Foster Farms chicken processing plants was not due to the federal government shutdown.  

The spread of antibiotic-resistant salmonella is directly due to corporate industrial processing of supermarket chickens. These operations routinely process and sell poultry infested with poisons and toxins, including e.Coli. 

As explained here two months ago in "Supermarket Chickens Laced with Bacteria, Feces, Chemicals:"

"I used to stock-up on chickens at cheap prices and freeze them for future use.  Five years ago, I roasted at least two supermarket birds weekly to feed my then family of three.  No more. Today, I'm nauseous at the thought of buying, handling, and particularly serving these contaminated industrial food products. 

"What changed? I got educated on the hidden, ugly, unhealthy realities of industrial-produced chickens. Despite 'natural"'appearances, they're a particularly disgusting food product of the industrial fake-food industry."   (Click link HERE or above to read the grotesque facts about four-step industrial processing of chickens.) 

As of last week, 317 people were reported by the USDA as very sickened by Foster Farms chickens processed at three California plants. Half of the 317 were hospitalized.  The public health rule-of-thumb is that 20 people are sickened for each officially reported illness from contaminated food.  

Foster Farms has been charged before with producing infected chickens destined for supermarket sales. Yet the USDA continued to allow Foster Farms to sell its tainted products. 

"Foster Farms is no stranger to CDC studies. The Northwest company has been struggling with this problem for some years. According to the CDC report, Foster Farms chicken was found to be infected with the Heidelberg strain in 2004 and again in 2012. The 2012 outbreak, which is still being tracked, led the CDC to investigate the problem...

"The USDA knew it needed to address this problem urgently, says the report, so in December 2012, the “USDA-FSIS announced that all establishments producing not-ready-to-eat ground or comminuted poultry products, including Foster Farms, will be required to reassess their Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points plans.

"But was the USDA-FSIS monitoring the implementation of that plan? Was the agency’s own “hazard analysis” plan upgraded to meet the increased need? And if it was, how did the USDA-FSIS miss the ongoing, and apparently rampant, presence of salmonella Heidelberg in packaged products?" (Source - Triple Pundit: People. Planet, Profits)

The USDA-blessed fix for Foster Farms' latest sickening of consumers? 

Despite previous (obviously empty!) threats, USDA inspectors allowed the three California plants in question to remain open for business while they "investigated." Reports Mark Bittman in the New York Times:

"Three days later, Foster Farms 'submitted and implemented immediate substantive changes to their slaughter and processing to allow for continued operations.' What’s that mean? 'We cannot tell you what their interventions are, because that’s a proprietary issue,' said Englejohn, adding that the interventions comprise 'additional sanitary measures that reduce contamination.'

"Well, we hope so.  Meanwhile, commerce continues and the chicken is out there. Will it be taken off the market after 800 people get sick? Or 1,200? Or when someone dies?"  

Is this latest widespread incident of public sickening from contaminated Foster Farms chicken over? We, the American public, do not know. 

This we do know:

• A 2009 USDA study found that 87 percent of chicken carcasses tested positive for E. coli after chilling and just prior to packaging.
• Results of extensive lab testing by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine "revealed that 48 percent of all chicken samples tested positive for feces."
• Consumer Reports noted that its 2009 tests that Campylobacter bacteria was in 62% of the chickens and Salmonella bacteria was in 14% of the chickens
• Consumer Reports reported in the same 2009 tests that 68% of Salmonella, and 60% of Campylobacter bacterias showed resistance to one or more antibiotics

Read Supermarket Chickens Laced with Bacteria, Feces, Chemicals for succinct info about how each of the four steps in industrial processing of chickens contributes to contamination of poultry sold in supermarkets across the nation.  I also offer suggestions on buying uncontaminated chickens at butcher shops, Whole Foods stores, and the like. 

And please... for your health and that of your loved ones... bypass supermarket chickens. They're a particularly disgusting food product of the industrial fake-food industry, whether or not the federal government is shutdown.  

McDonald's: More Devious Marketing, Dumbed Down Menu Changes

McDonald's persists as the devious poster child for what's wrong with the American fast food mega-industry....

Not just because it's the world's largest fast food corporation, which it is with $28 billion in U.S. sales and 34,000 outlets worldwide in 2012.

And not just because the unhealthiness of its food is legendary. McDonald's greasy fare is intentionally larded with addicting doses of fat, salt, and sugar to create a permanent customer base.

But because McDonald's is quite extreme in its single-minded, often stealth corporate goal of profits over people. public health be damned. 

Again, McDonald's has recently rankled health-conscious Americans with...

McDonald's Mighty Wings, newly introduced at the advent of wing-chomping football season. "Mighty Wings are basically McNuggets With Choking Hazards," commented one NPR on-air host. "I was as surprised to find an actual bone in this as I would be to find a bone in a banana," quipped another. 

Bones in Mighty Wings are about as natural as McDonald's ribless McRib sandwich. 

Mighty Wings are three, five, or ten "pieces" (McDonald's website lingo) per box, with the same ranch, barbecue, or honey mustard sauces used for Chicken McNuggets. Ten Mighty Wings have 960 calories, 60 grams of fat, and a whopping 2,900 mgs. of sodium (salt), 121% of the recommended daily salt intake for an adult. 

Misleading headlines about soft drinks in kids' meals hailed "McDonald's Ditches Soda in Happy Meal Menus," and similar, clearly stating that soft drinks would be eliminated in McDonald's popular Happy Meals.  This very positive change was supposedly brokered with the Clinton Foundation, and released as happy news at Michelle Obama's recent White House to-do on food marketing. 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest naively penned:

"Ronald McDonald’s slow march toward healthier meals made a major advance today... Getting soda out of Happy Meals is historic progress that should immediately be adopted by Burger King, Wendy’s, and other chains. Soda and other sugar drinks are leading promoters of obesity and diabetes and one day it will seem crazy that restaurants ever made this junk the default beverage for kids."

Turns out that McDonald's "major advance" is more fast-food baloney. Reading the fine print revealed that McDonald's agreed only to:

• Promote water, juice, and milk in external advertising directed at children
• New beverages will be "evaluated according to McDonald's food commitment pledges"
• In 3 years, McDonald's will fulfill this commitment in "50% of the 20 markets."
• In 5 years, McDonald's will fulfill this commitment in "100% of the 20 markets."

Lucrative soft drinks dropped from McDonald's Happy Meals? Not hardly, not now. Perhaps when public-health hell freezes over... 

Higher-quality hamburgers were dropped by McDonald's last May presumably because the one-third lb. Angus burgers took too big a bite out of company profits.  NBC News noted that U.S. "beef prices hit all-time highs" and cited"The U.S. Department of Agriculture's wholesale beef market report... showed choice beef carcasses rising 24 cents per hundred pounds (cwt) to a record $204.91 per cwt..."

Introduced in 2009, McDonald's Angus burgers provided better quality beef options than the ubiquitous Big Mac, Quarter-Pounder Cheeseburger, or the dollar-menu $1 Cheeseburger. 

"Who would pay $4.79 for a sandwich when the two sandwiches on the Dollar Menu are perfectly good?” defended one McDonald's consultant to Time magazine. Indeed, what foolish consumer would actually expect a quasi-quality sandwich at McDonald's? Nobody, now. 

Disappearing salads on McDonald's menus include its Fruit & Walnut Salad, which was quietly dropped along with Angus burgers.  The Fruit & Walnut Salad was genuinely delicious with "wedges of crisp apples, juicy red grapes, candied walnuts and our low-fat vanilla yogurt,"

Relegated to a tiny corner of the menu are meal-sized "premium" salads: Caesar, Southwest, Ranch, grilled or crispy chicken optional "with select mixed greens, elegant toppings, and choices galore." 

This near-invisible menu marketing ensures that premium salads will rarely be ordered in lieu of more profitable, more addictive,  carb-heavy burgers, fries, wraps, desserts, and sugar-drenched drinks. Look for premium salads to likely also be dropped because sales were low. 

We must begrudgingly admire McDonald's though, for disciplined corporate consistency. Consistency in:

• Pitching unhealthy fast food to kids, regardless of public and political pressure
• Dumbing down their menu to the cheapest, fastest, saltiest, fattiest food possible
• Eliminating healthier options if profit margins don't reach those of cheap burgers and fries

And consistency in extraordinary corporate profitability at the direct expense of public health.  

There's a reason why McDonald's persists as the devious poster child for what's wrong with the American fast food mega-industry: they've earned and deserve it. 

My only question: when will Americans finally stop supporting McDonald's profits-over-people agenda for our nation's health? For our children? 

McDonalds vs Flame Broiler: Kids Making Healthier Choices? Surprising Good News!

"Flame Broiler" exclaimed my favorite eight-year-old when I asked where she'd like to have lunch.  "I love Flame Broiler!" she exuded, once she realized that Chuck E. Cheese wasn't an option on our fun but busy school-shopping day together.

"Huh?" I wondered. "Not McDonalds with their new Despicable Me 2 toys? The gigantic in-door playground? She dives with gusto into those greasy chicken nuggets and fries."

Is this the same girl who, two years ago, adamantly refused to eat anything green, especially broccoli?

I was startled.  After all, this is a smart girl who's plugged into third-grade trends. Every cool gadget and toy. The best "in" spot for birthday parties.  The newest movies and TV shows for kids. Gabriela always knows... 

Besides, per a recent, in-depth study of 25,000 TV ads for meals aimed at kids:

• 99% of all ads aimed at kids came from McDonald's or Burger King.
• 80% of the kids ads aired on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney, or Nicktoons.
• Over 50% mentioned a major movie.
• 70% of kids ads focused on a toy giveaway of some sort.

Flame Broiler instead of McDonalds? That low-key fast-food eatery that bills itself as "The Healthy Option"? I'd never been to one, but was certain I'd seen a couple in our suburban town. 

Gabriela knew the menu, and proudly explained it to me.  Flame Broiler serves three simple options, in three sizes, over white or brown rice:

• Beef
• Chicken
• Veggies (carrots, broccoli, cabbage)
• Any combination of these. 

Condiments offered are green onions, jalapenos, "magic" sauce, and hot sauce.  The 142-outlet regional fast food company promises "No dairy. No frying. No trans fats. No skin. No MSG." and:

"Our commitment to friendly service, a clean and inviting environment, and healthy food served fast has already won the approval of our customers of all ethnicities. Also, for health's sake, we are working towards the goal of serving all organic, 100% natural food. Not perfect, but always working towards perfection!"

The beef and chicken were quite delicious, albeit a bit salty. The rice was fluffy and perfectly done. The veggies weren't soggy, over-cooked messes, but steamed, crisp, and  freshly colorful. (Note: The ultra-tasty "magic" sauce is akin to a syrupy teriyaki concoction, and boasts 60 calories and 480 mg of sodium in a very tiny container.) 

Gab savored our lunch together with her trademark exuberance, and so did I.  I silently marveled again at Gab's wise parents, my son and her mother. And am grateful for the all-encompassing nutrition agenda at her elementary school. 

Are kids making healthier food choices these days?  Is ever-aware Gabriela a harbinger of yet another trend?

"Teenagers are exercising more, consuming less sugar and eating more fruits and vegetables," reported the New York Times this week, citing a new study in Pediatrics, a professional journal.  The Times continued... 

"Younger children had the highest levels of physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption. But as children got older, the frequency of eating junk foods and engaging in sedentary behaviors crept up... Teenagers also reported drinking slightly fewer soft drinks and eating less candy.

"In the past year, other studies have hinted at improvements in the obesity rate among younger children, with some even showing a decline in some cities... Dr. Iannotti said the findings seemed to suggest a pattern. 'I think the public health message is beginning to be accepted,' he said."

That kids are voluntarily making healthier food choices is good news for for their physical and mental health, and thus, good news for the health of our nation.  

But it's also superb news that powerful, pervasive advertising by industrial food mega-corporations... McDonalds and Burger King, makers of highly processed cereals, soft drinks, and the like...  is fading in influence over our children. 

I can't imagine better fake-food news. Can you? 

Dieters as Profitable Yo-yos: Corporate Lures, Bamboozles

Americans have been bamboozled by leading diet corporations. Hookwinked. Tricked. Lured into bleeding endless streams of cash into the coffers of companies who profess to help us become healthier.  

Turns out top diet conglomerates don't want you to become lean. At least, not for very long... After all, once you're slim, you no longer need their pricey services. They lose a paying customer. 

So what's a clever, profit-hungry corporation based, in part, on the diet industry to do to bring once-chubby customers back?   Believe it or not, if you answered "Make 'em chubby again," you're correct.   

If you responded "Trigger yo-yo dieting instincts by igniting cravings for salt, sugar, and fat," you win the prize. 

Seriously... the corporate owners of several huge diet companies quietly also control major makers of ice creams, candy bars, junky breakfast cereals, mayonnaise, margarine, sausages, frozen pizzas, and all manner of fake, industrial-made foods.    

Once you graduate from chubby to lean or grow from lean to chubby, industrial fake-food corporations don't want to lose your business.  So they cynically diversify their portfolios to include both diet companies and junk food companies, and constantly lure Americans into unhealthy yo-yo- dieting, hence a continuous flow of hefty corporate profits.

Take Jenny Craig Inc, owned since 2006 by Nestle, which reported worldwide sales of $92 billion and profits of $10.6 billion in 2012.  Besides "weight management" company Jenny Craig, Nestle owns or controls hordes of less-than-healthy foods including:

• Dreyer's, Haagen-Daz (in U.S.), Drumsticks, and six other ice cream makers
• Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Nestle Crunch, KitKat, 100 Grand, and many more candy bars
• Hot Pockets, DiGiorno frozen pizzas, Stouffer frozen entrees, Lean Cusine
• Trix, Cheerios, Golden Nuggets (in U.K.), Nesquik powdered chocolate drink

Consider SlimFast, maker of "meal option" shakes, snacks, and packaged foods meant to help people better manage their weight.  SlimFast was quietly acquired by Unilever in 2000.  Other food companies owned or controlled by Unilever include:

• Ben & Jerry's, Breyer's, Klondike, Popsicles, Fudgsicles, and Heartland lines that dominate European ice cream sales
• Hellman's and Best Foods mayonnaise and other products
• Country Crock, Brummel & Brown, Imperial, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, and many other margarines
• Many European makers of mayonnaise, mustard, catsup, other condiments.

Weight Watchers was sold in 1999 to wealthy private investors, and went public in 2001. Half of Weight Watchers shares are controlled by a stealthy private equity firm, The Invus Group. Five of nine Weight Watchers Board of Director members are also key leaders of The Invus Group.  

While little is publicly known about Invus' client list, its website also describes a successful investment in and turn-around of Keebler, which was later sold to Kellogg.  Keebler is the largest cookie and cracker manufacturer in the United States. Among Keebler highly processed products are Cheez-Its and Wheatables crackers and eight varieties of Chips Deluxe cookies. 

Yes, Americans (and Europeans, too) have been bamboozled by some leading "weight management" corporations into believing that they have our health at heart. 

Lured  by advertising and enticed by store shelves, newly-lean food aficionados again buy and feast on foods rich in sugar, salt, and fat.  First a little, then a lot.  Candy bars, ice cream, cookies, cheesy crackers, junky cereals, mayonnaise, margarine, sausages, highly processed frozen fare... 

(Read "Salt Sugar Fat" - Stunning Big Food Tactics to Hook, Trick, Harm Americans.")

And so the yo-yo dieting cycle continues. Lean, chubby, lean, chubby.  And the same industrial food mega-corporations profit handsomely from both unhealthy sides of the cycle.  

Only the consumer gets hurt... financially and personally.  Hurt by their own human weaknesses and natural reactions.  Lured like a hungry mouse to a cheese-laden trap.   Seduced into an endless culinary cycle of temptation and guilt, binge and purge, sin and redemption. 

It's a brilliant bamboozle, worthy of the sharpest flim-flam artists in American retail history.  A type of bait-and-switch trick that's engineered to be nearly irresistible to a public enamored of its junk food habits. 

And as long as consumers continue to take the fake-food diet-industry bait, this destructive, greedy cycle will continue to flourish. 

Ag-Gag Laws to Hide Factory Farms: Good News and One Huge Caution

Some great news, and a caution, from state lawmakers as the U.S. Congress remains mired in gridlock, bickering, and indecision...

"Ag -gag" bills were killed in all 11 states pondering punitive measures for truth-telling by journalists and activists about factory farming practices. 

The 11 bills died, were defeated or vetoed as 2012- 2013 legislative seasons ended in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Ag-gag laws are legislation aimed at prohibiting or severely restricting the filming or photographing of meat-industry factory farms, commonly called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). 

In 2013, CAFO-grown animals account for more than 85% of all beef, pork,  and poultry sold for human consumption in the United States.  A plethora of major public health and environmental hazards can be directly traced to CAFO's, including:

• Contaminated meat resulting from diseased animals
• Meat laced with antibiotics, growth hormones, many other drugs
• Heavily contaminated area water systems
• Deterioration of air quality, increase in greenhouse gases
• Squalid animal living conditions
• Unsanitary working conditions

For more, click these links to see Contaminated Meats in Grocery Markets Grow Due to Gag Laws (Fake Food Watch) and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (Wikipedia). 

The "model" ag-gag law, drafted in 2002 by controversial pro-corporate lobbyist group ALEC, makes a crime of "entering an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means with the intent to commit criminal activities or to defame the facility or owner."

A consortium of 70 established groups, led by the U.S. Humane Society and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have successfully fought ag-gag laws on the grounds of freedom of speech, public health, animal welfare, and environmental issues.    

The 70 citizen-activist groups represent food, farming, public health, civil liberties, environmental, animal welfare, labor, and journalism interests. 

Strict ag-gag laws remain in force in six states, all with large CAFO facilities : Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah.

The great news is that the political tide is turning against ag-gag laws. Thanks to public pressure and that of public interest groups, state-level politicians have been forced to ignore the demands of wealthy meat-industry donors... and instead legislate for public good! 

Commented Nancy Perry, senior vice-president of the American Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) to Food Safely News:

"Ag-gag legislation threatens a wide array of public interests—including animal welfare and food safety—by silencing the very people in a position to document abuse.

"We hope the defeat of these 11 bills encourages lawmakers to shift their focus toward achieving accountability for those who are inflicting abuse on animals and putting consumers at risk instead of focusing on misleading efforts to suppress whistleblowers who want to expose those problems."

Caution!  Don't assume, though, that the threat from ag-gag laws has been neutered.  In Pennsylvania this year, the fracking industry attempted to have passed the nation's first ag-gag law "to criminalize anti-fracking activists who seek to expose environmental harms brought on by the gas drilling industry."  

Use This Food Policy Report Card for Congress to Force Change

Terrific news as Congress returns to work next week after summer break: a report card to grade U.S. Senate and House members on national food policies.  

American voters can use this handy tool to force Congress to change its unhealthy ways on food policy. 

The National Food Policy Scorecard is published by Food Policy Action, a nonprofit group that advocates for...

"...policies that support healthy diets, reduce hunger at home and abroad, improve food access and affordability, uphold the rights and dignity of food and farm workers, increase transparency, improve public health, reduce the risk of food-borne illness, support local and regional food systems, treat farm animals humanely and reduce the environmental impact of farming and food production."

Included on the Board of Food Policy Action, an outgrowth of the respected Environmental Working Group, are:

• Michael Jacobson, Executive Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest
• Ray Offenheiser, President, Oxfam America
• Rev. David Beckmann, President, Bread for the World
• Robin Schepper, former Executive Director, "Let's Move!"
• Tom Colicchio, Chef, Restauranteur, Head Judge of Top Chef
• Ken Cook, President, Environmental Working Group

Click the following links to use the National Food Policy Scorecard to view...

Congressional legislators, by state, each with a percentage rating on their voting records in support of food policies. "Click a state to see whether your legislators voted to keep food safe, healthy and affordable." Senators are rated on 18 votes and House members on 14 votes taken in the 112th Congress. 

Results of U.S. Senate votes on 18 food policy bills in 112th Congress. Also includes brief explanation of each bill. 

Results of U.S. House votes on 14 food policy bill in 112th Congress. Again, includes brief explanation of each bill. 

Pending Food Policy Legislation under consideration by Congress. Use this page to understand the issues, then contact your elected officials with your views.  Congress is considering issues such as...

• Antibiotics, Drugs - Halts use of antibiotics and other drugs in meat "unless the applicant can show that there is a reasonable certainty of no harm to human health."
• Arsenic - Requires that the FDA establish limits on the amount of arsenic allowable in rice. 
• Food Marketing  to Children - Mandates now-voluntary guidelines for industrial food corporations to stress healthy choices
• Food Safety - Forces Congress to fund and the White House to issue final regulations for the "Food Safety Modernization Act," which was passed into law in 2010. 

Our nation's disastrously unhealthy food policies clearly support industrial fake-food mega-corporations, their powerful lobbyists, and their highly processed products rife with additives, chemicals, fillers, emulsifiers, and artificial flavors and colors.. 

Only American voters can cause Congress to change its unhealthy ways on food policy. The power is in our hands to force political leaders to vote for healthy, real foods, not the fake chemical-laced processed foods sold by their wealthy political donors.  

Use the National Food Policy Scorecard to keep tabs on your elected representatives. Use it today and make your views known! 

Urban Farming Ignites Thanks to Alice Waters: Return to American Roots

Everything old is new again, at least in U.S. urban farming.  A much-needed return to American agriculture roots. 

And that's very good news for tens of millions of city dwellers today, especially school-age children. 

Alice Waters, innovative chef and leading real food activist, is credited with igniting America's return to urban agriculture by founding her Edible Schoolyard Project two decades ago. 

The White House staff, led by First Lady Michelle Obama, stylishly reinforced the principles of the Edible Schoolyard Project by replanting and publicizing a vegetable garden on White House grounds. 

Before the 20th century, Americans grew much of their family food supply. During both World Wars, U.S. presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt urged Americans to cultivate backyard produce gardens to ameliorate food shortages. At its height, the National Victory Garden movement produced 9 million pounds a year of fruits and vegetables during World War II, about 44% of the nation's produce. 

Urban agriculture largely died after World War II, as U.S. households eagerly bought the new ultra-convenient industrial-made foods filling supermarkets and sold by a rapidly expanding new breed of restaurant, the fast food joint.  The rest is American fake-food history...

In 2013,  a remarkably powerful resurgence of urban farming has been fueled by Alice Waters' pioneering 20-year-old agenda to restore "edible education" to urban school children and their families.  

Per a report released last week by the UCLA School of Public affairs, Los Angeles County, home to 10 million residents, boasts...

"... 1,261 verified urban agriculture sites — categorized as school gardens, community gardens and commercial primary growing sites... School gardens make up the majority of L.A. County's urban agriculture activity, with 761 sites. Commercial agricultural operations (nurseries and farms) total 382 sites, and the researchers documented 118 community gardens."

Los Angeles' tally of localized farming operations hasn't surged this high for nearly one hundred years, when midwest farmers were famously drawn west to California for its fertile land and fair weather. (See ad at right, circa 1929.)

The revitalized push to bring fresh produce to urban dwellers via local agriculture isn't confined to greater Los Angeles, which is uniquely suited in its vastness to accommodate growing crops.    

Similar projects proliferate across the nation, including in...

Seattle, where the city Office of Sustainability and Environment vigorously fosters urban farming, even declaring 2010 the "Year of Urban Agriculture." In 2008, the Seattle City Council passed the Local Food Action Initiative "to improve the local and regional food system."

Detroit, where urban farming has boomed as the sole source of fresh produce for a plethora of residents of the financially battered city. 

Chicago, where city zoning ordinances were elaborately amended to "allow agricultural uses like community gardens and urban farms in many parts of the city." 

Atlanta, where the Urban Agriculture Training Program has met massive statewide response in its program of "cultivating urban farmers and gardeners to build healthy, vibrant local food communities."

New York City, which is "starved for space, but increasingly, residents are filling every last inch they can find with (healthy) things they can grow and eat," notes WellandGoodNYC.com in an article on New York City's Biggest Urban Farms. "When The Design Trust for Public Space released its Five Borough Farm report last year, it found more than 700 food-producing sites within the five boroughs..."

The urban agriculture trend has exploded worldwide, as well. And just in time to partially meet demands of both American and worldwide hunger and healthy-food-shortage crises:

• 50% of the world's population lives in cities.
• By 2015, 26 cities in the world are expected to have a population of 10 million-plus.
• 250 million hungry people in the world live in cities. (Source - Wikipedia)

Thanks to one low-key meeting between Alice Waters and a public middle-school principal in her Berkeley neighborhood two decades ago, one acre of blighted school yard was tilled, seeded, and tended into a glorious vegetable garden that transformed those students' lives... and transformed our national mindset about urban farming.

Or rather, reawakened Americans to the empowerment of growing our own produce, just as our families did before the powerful rise of industrial fake-food mega-corporations. 

Everything old and valuable and healthy is new again in U.S. urban farming. 

Carl's Jr, Hardee's: Sex, Lusty Decadence with Salt, Sugar, Fat

Carl's Jr has finally abandoned all pretense of its former image of offering a panoply of heart-healthy (but quite delicious) fast food options.  

Instead, the 1,400-location western-states fast-food purveyor is gleefully appealing to the lustiest cravings of the I-don't-give-a-damn crowd.  (Carl's Jr also owns the 1,900-location Hardee's chain.) 

"Eat Like You Mean It!" crows Carl's newest round of TV ads, featuring gorgeous models seductively downing sloppy burgers the size of a small child's head. Or shaggy, shirtless surfer boy-men gazing at ocean waves while enjoying an oozing sandwich bigger than some beach balls.   

"All of our products are indulgent, decadent," commented Carl's Jr CEO Andy Puzder to the Los Angeles Times. 

Decadent, indeed! Check-out this remarkably lascivious 60-second fantasy commercial by barely clad super-model Kate Upton:



In case sex isn't enough to lure you to sabotage your health with their addictive calorie-and-cholesterol traps, Carl's Jr has upped the sugar, salt, and fat ante with greasier, tangier, sweeter menu offerings that must set new records of culinary extremism, even among industrial fake-food corporate giants. Among Carl's Jr's concoctions in 2013 are their... 

• Six-dollar Guacamole Bacon Burger (1,120 cal; 2,160 mg of salt; 81 grams of fat)
• Green Burrito Taco Salad (960 cal; 2,000 mg of salt; 60 grams of fat)
• "Low Carb" Breakfast Bowl (900 cal; 2,050 mg of salt; 73 grams of fat)
• Double Six-dollar Burger (1,522 cal; 2,574 mg of salt; 110 grams of fat)

If it's a sugar rush you crave, look no further than Carl's Jr's newest ode to the indulgent, anti-health-food agenda... the Strawberry Pop-Tart Ice Cream Sandwich, which the industrial mega-giant rolled out in commercials invoking sacred deities and featuring majestic classical music. 

With about 13 teaspoons of sugar (51 grams) comprising more than 200 of its supposedly 320 calories, Carl's Jr's Strawberry Pop-Tart Ice Cream Sandwich is truly for the I-don't-give-a-damn-about-diabetes crowd. Be decadent... order two! Live like you mean it!

As if to emphasize the special decadence of this attention-grabbing confection, Carl's Jr introduced it by advertising that "For a limited time, guests can receive a free Strawberry Pop-Tarts Ice Cream Sandwich with the purchase of a Super Bacon Cheeseburger combo at participating Carl's Jr. restaurants."    

The limited-time Super Bacon Cheeseburger features six juicy strips of bacon along with the usual high-calories, high-fat, high-salt fare. What the heck after all that! Why NOT add a Strawberry Pop-Tart Ice Cream Sandwich or two? 

Seriously... does it really matter after a certain decadent, indulgent point? 

I do vaguely remember Carl's Jr, though, when a large portion of their menu... mainly charbroiled chicken sandwiches and generously-stocked salad bars... featured heart-healthy symbols of the American Heart Association. 

Guess those fell by the fast-food wayside years ago, when Carl's Jr stopped giving a hoot about offering a plethora of genuinely healthy options to their customers....rather than only caring about gigantic profits at the expense of American public health. Or caring about you and your family's health.