Taking a second look at nutrition labels
The children’s obesity crisis has reached epidemic proportions here in the U.S. – and with all the marketing gimmicks out there, it’s not hard to figure out why.
A new study out of Britain reveals that nine out of 10 regular food items produced specifically for kids have incredibly poor nutritional content. Here’s the kicker, though – 62 percent of the foods with horrifically bad nutritional quality had the nerve to put a nutritional claim on the front of the package.
Of all of the 367 products studied, only 11 percent of them – that’s just about 40 of products – actually provided good nutritional value as defined by the non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
According to the CSPI, a healthy food is one that derives no more than 35 percent of its calories from fat (not counting nuts and seed and nut butters), and that has no more than 35 percent added sugar by weight. Other parts of CSPI’s nutritional standards govern sodium content of foods as well.
But Big Junk Food – like Big Pharma – can’t be given an inch, or they’ll take a round- the-world trip. The study actually found that 23 percent of the foods with poor nutritional quality made ludicrous nutritional claims that stretched the truth nearly past the breaking point. A product that mixed peanut butter and chocolate claimed to be “a source of six essential nutrients,” while a pizza product had packaging that said it was – get this – a “source of calcium.”
Bottom line: Anything processed and packaged shouldn’t even make its way into your grocery cart. You can’t rely on package claims of nutrition. It’s up to America’s parents to stay vigilant and help teach kids the right things to eat. That starts at home – not on the shelves of the grocery store.
The best-kept secret to keeping an active sex life
Researchers in Finland have discovered that older men who have more sex experience fewer erection problems.
Imagine how much fun it must’ve been for the patients involved in that study!
It seems like this is a sort of chicken or egg statement, doesn’t it? After all, don’t you have to have an erection in the first place in order to have more sex? But the researchers studied 989 men aged 55 to 75 and found that men who had sex less than once a week had twice the risk of experiencing erectile dysfunction as men who had sex at least once a week.
Here’s how the numbers played out: 79 of 1,000 men who had sex less than once a week experienced erection issues compared with 32 of 1,000 who had sex at least once a week. The real winners (in more ways than one) were the men who had sex THREE times a week (lucky fellas), of whom just 16 of 1,000 experienced erectile dysfunction.
The study concluded that doctors should advise their patients to follow what’s probably the best doctor’s advice a man will ever hear: stay as sexually active as possible.
When it comes to a healthy sex life, it seems the law of “use it or lose it” has been proven.
