A recent study published in the journal Thorax has linked eating burgers to a higher risk of asthma in children. The researchers studied 50,000 children from 20 different countries. Interestingly enough, the results varied based on how rich the country was.

Parents of the participating children were asked to describe their children’s diets and if they had ever been diagnosed with asthma or experienced breathing difficulties such as wheezing or shortness of breath. These children were monitored between 1995 and 2005.

In wealthier countries, eating a minimum of 3 burgers a week was linked to a higher risk of asthma. Researchers don’t believe that this is in itself a specific cause of asthma, more that it’s an indication of a broader problem with poor dietary habits that increase the risk.

Another factor seems to be the location of the children. Different foods seem to lower the risk of asthma in children, depending on what country the children live in. In poorer countries, plenty of fruits and vegetables in the diet seemed to lower the risk, while in richer countries a diet that included fish resulted in less cases of asthma.

Researchers did advise that the test did not take obesity into account; obesity has already been proven to be a risk factor for asthma in children. Personally, and perhaps especially since this fact has been proven, the researchers should have accounted for varying levels of obesity in the study participants.

What this study says to me is that an unhealthy steady diet of foods that are high in fat can lead to asthma in children. Of course, with all of the other health problems such a diet can cause, who wants to eat like that anyway? We should be feeding our children lots of healthy fruits, vegetables, lean proteins and grains.

Read More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10218859

School lunches have been the brunt of many a joke; pizza that tastes like cardboard, rubbery pasta…but with the introduction of processed foods, school meals went from comically disgusting to downright unhealthy.

The Institute of Medicine investigated the nutritional value of the foods the government provides for our children to eat each day; the news isn’t pretty.

Across the board, our children are receiving less than 20% of the recommended amounts of dark green and orange vegetables, and less than 40% the recommended value of all vegetables (and that is counting French fries and potato chips). I really don’t think that French Fries and potato chips should have even been counted; do you? Who knows how low the numbers would be if those two unhealthy items weren’t counted?

When I was in high school, many of us munched on tater tots and potato chip; they were the only edible foods available. If this type of “lunch” was counted in the healthy fruits and vegetables category, then these results are disturbingly inaccurate.

The Denver Post stated the following:

But schools are doing some things right. The report noted that kids who participated in school breakfast programs had lower body mass index, on average, than those who didn’t.

Read more: Colorado schools taste change in student meals – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15707434#ixzz11UHaHkY1

I disagree; this doesn’t mean that the schools are doing something right. It just further proves that eating breakfast kick starts your metabolism for the day. How can they say that anything is good about the school meal plan?

They are starting to make changes to the school lunch program in several states across the country. One of the biggest changes is the integration of locally grown produce into the menu. An attempt to instruct the school “lunch ladies” in healthier cooking from scratch with natural ingredients is sweeping the nation.

Hopefully soon, every school in the US will offer healthy and nutritious meals to its students. As of 2009, 62.5% of students received free or reduced price meals at school; many believe that this means that the healthiest meals these children will get are from the school. I strongly disagree with this statement; most of the middle class and the rich feed their children fast food more often than not, which is extremely unhealthy.

I also firmly believe that, as with most things, learning begins at home. If a child’s parents are pushing unhealthy snacks and meals on their children, then those children will choose unhealthy snacks and meals no matter what they are offered. We need to educate parents on healthy food choices, so families change their diets. This way, once the school systems are offering healthier meals, the children will willingly eat them.

In an interesting, ironic twist, the FDA and FTC are now going after a company who claims pomegranates are…*insert trumpet fanfare here*…healthy for you! Pom Wonderful, a Los Angeles, California based pomegranate growing company, is being targeted for marketing their pomegranate juice as a healthy, disease preventing fruit juice.

Haven’t we always known that fruit is healthy for us? I’m pretty sure that it’s common knowledge (and has been for centuries) that fruit is a healthy part of our diet; in fact, our bodies need the vitamins in fruits.

The Federal Trade Commission has filed a complaint against Pom Wonderful, stating that their claims about the health benefits of pomegranates are “false and unsubstantiated”. The truth is, Pom Wonderful has spent somewhere in the region of $34 billion on research studies. They’ve done tests to determine the effects of pomegranates on muscle recovery, cardiovascular health, prostate cancer, Type II Diabetes and erectile function.

The results of their research are published on their website, along with other research that has been performed on pomegranates.

Yet, the FDA sent a letter at the beginning of the year advising Pom Wonderful that since they were marketing their juice as a treatment for a number of diseases, their juice should be considered a drug, and therefore be subject to clinical drug trials and safety tests.

How can the FDA be so concerned about a natural healthy food, when it approves dangerous food additives and genetically modified foods, without requiring any testing at all? Even the drugs they have approved have ended up with class action lawsuits within a few short years, due to all the major health problems they’ve caused!

IMHO, the fact that the FDA is attacking a company that is promoting fruit and fruit projects is so far out there…and so ridiculous…that I’m struck speechless. I don’t even know what to say. It kind of makes me wonder if the FDA is just mad because they didn’t receive their palm greasing…

OK, that last part was just my personal opinion based on everything else I’ve read about their policies…

I think the FDA needs to pay more attention to the genetically modified foods that are being brought before them for approval; as well as all the food additives that they aren’t requiring testing on. I can’t believe that they’re throwing a fit over fruit juice yet ignore all of the dangerous studies done on things like high fructose corn syrup and artificial growth hormones. Can you see why I’m thinking this is a money based numbers game?

Read more: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/27/business/la-fi-pom-ftc-20100927