The victory of parents against HFCS in chocolate milk from Berkeley Farms in one school district in California rings sadly hollow. The change has no effect on the children’s health, but leads parents to believe that they’ve made a difference. Hopefully, this small change will lead them to fight for larger changes, but if they aren’t fighting for the changes that actually affect the health of their children, do all their efforts do any good?
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Anastasia was on the ball the other night with publishing her review of our evening with Michael Pollan. Mine comes a little late but not too little. We had all weekend to prepare our thoughts for what we wanted to talk about (And what we wanted to eat), and I daresay we did well on both accounts. We coordinated our flights from Wisconsin and Iowa to meet up at about Noon on Saturday the 23rd, giving us ample time to hang out and zoom around the Bay Area before the big dinner. We stayed at my folks’ place in Petaluma, so it was very convenient that Michael happens to live near to where I grew up! They were happy to host, and to use us as an excuse to go eat Thai food! First of all, it was great to spend the weekend hanging out with Anastasia (and Frank). Over the last couple of years, while joining forces to write about plant genetics, we have not only become good friends but also research collaborators. It makes me wonder if science blogging should join the list of suggested activities for professional development at graduate school? I’m serious. Whether we were sitting in a restaurant by Aquatic Park, checking out the Japanese tea gardens and botanical gardens at Golden Gate Park, or driving all around we discussed a million and a half issues related to what we talk about on the blog. And we realized things that we didn’t think of before, all of which should hopefully make it into some blog posts soon. For example, why is there no mention of the afore-mentioned Greenpeace-funded study on Greenpeace’s website? Very odd. And thanks to prodding from my sister and from Frank, we zoomed down to Cupertino to meet up with PZ Myers who was a big driving force behind the contest victory that got us here. It was a busy weekend yet relaxing as well. My one regret is that we missed being able to meet up with James on Monday to have a blogging powwow. It was really weird as the time seemed to go faster and faster as it got closer to the 6 pm dinnertime. The next three hours, though, seemed to last a long time – which was perfect.
Continue reading… As employers desperately try to keep health care costs down, some are turning to unexpected measures, according to Health Care Savings Could Start in the Cafeteria in Sunday’s New York Times. Employers, including some big ones like IBM, have programs that reward their employees for joining a gym or following a preventive health care regimen. Now, some employers are trying to affect their employees diets by offering healthier foods in their cafeterias and giving employees coupons for healthy prepared food items stocked in local grocery stores. Full Yield (a company that does not seem to have a website!) is a new company working to prepare the healthy food offerings that employees are encouraged to buy. Together with Harvard Pilgrim, an insurance company, Full Yield will track employee health to see if it improves with their food options. Why am I bringing this up at Biofortified? |
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