Archive For The “Health” Category
By the Alliance for Food and Farming
A new study from Colorado State University (CSU) shows that consumers continue to have concerns about the safety of conventionally grown produce and the government regulatory processes in place to protect public health. Among other findings, the study showed that: “A distrust in regulatory oversight is a key trigger in the valuation for local and organic.” And, consumers generally agreed with the statement that “eating organic lowers health risks.”
These findings are concerning since the body of nutrition science clearly shows that increased consumption of either conventional or organic produce results in better overall health and a longer life. Toxicological analyses also overwhelmingly show the safety of conventional produce – just look at the calculator function and accompanying report on safefruitsandveggies.com as an example. And, the perception that conventional produce is somehow inferior and less safe could have a negative impact on consumption, especially among lower income consumers who may not be able to afford the organic alternative.
Further, the expert panel report commissioned by the Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF) in 2010 examined the U.S. regulatory system in place to ensure food safety. The panel found: “The U.S. EPA’s current process for evaluating the potential risks of pesticides on food is rigorous and health protective. The EPA’s testing requirements for pesticides used on food are far more extensive than for chemicals in any other use category, and include testing targeted specifically to assess the potential risks to fetuses, infants and children.”
Nearly 200 young men in the U.S. were asked to follow diets containing a variety of fruits and vegetables before testing to see what effect it had on sperm. Researchers at Harvard University found yellow and orange foods were found to help make the sperm stronger, according to a story in The Daily Mail.
The boost was attributed to pigments called carotenoids because the body converts some of these into health-boosting antioxidants. These include beta-carotene, which the body can make into the antioxidant vitamin A.
The sperm-boosting qualities come from chemicals called carotenoids, which give such foods their familiar colour. Antioxidants help to neutralize free radicals, destructive groups of atoms that are a by-product of metabolism and can damage cell membranes and DNA.
Sweet potatoes and melons can enhance the quantity and sperm quality, but carrots were found to improve sperm performance by between 6.5 and 8 per cent, according to a report in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
Red fruit and veg, particularly tomatoes, which contain the anti-cancer chemical lycopene, were associated with fewer abnormally shaped sperm. They contributed to between 8 and 10 per cent more ‘normal’ sperm, said the research, which could make a significant difference for couples having problems conceiving.
The news comes amid reports that the quantity and quality of male sperm is declining in Western countries, with some studies showing that average sperm counts have fallen by over half.
A previous study from Harvard showed that men eating diets containing most saturated fat had the lowest sperm counts and poorer quality sperm. However, men who ate more ‘good’ fats – including omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and some plants – had better quality sperm than those eating less.
Carrots have long been prized for their proven ability to help maintain eye health. They are a prime source of vitamin A, which the retina of the eye needs to function. The vitamin’s antioxidant properties may help prevent cataracts and a deficiency causes night blindness.
LongHorn Steak House went decades without serving so much as one Brussels sprout. Nor, for that matter, a slice of butternut squash, according to an article recently in USA Today.
But this year, its new Brussels Sprouts Au Gratin has emerged as its most popular side dish. In January, when it plans to roll out butternut squash risotto, “I guarantee you we’ll be the largest seller of butternut squash in the country,” boasts executive chef Kurt Hankins.
Restaurants have little choice. Americans are eating — make that, demanding — fresh veggies at the one place no one expected them to: the restaurant. Gone are the days when meat ‘n’ potatoes basked in all the menu glory and an indistinguishable medley of peas, carrots and green beans were pushed to the wee corner of the plate. When Americans go out to eat — when most folks prefer to splurge — they’re increasingly splurging with vegetables, reports USA Today.
So much so that vegetable offerings on restaurant menus nationally have jumped 11% over the past three years, reports Technomic, the restaurant research specialist. Chief among them is kale, the leafy, dark-green vegetable that has seen a remarkable 400% increase in appearance on restaurant menus over the past five years. About 67% of Americans says a vegetarian meal can be just as satisfying as a non-veggie version, Technomic reports.
About nine in 10 consumers say that menus containing a full serving of vegetables are more healthful, reports Technomic. But that’s not always the case, warns Hope Warshaw, a registered dietitian and author of Guide to Healthy Restaurant Eating. She’s no fan of what LongHorn is doing with Brussels sprouts, and what it soon will be doing with butternut squash, the USA Today article says.
“Vegetables that are slathered, smothered and buttered come loaded with calories, so what’s the gain?” she asks. Instead, she advises: “Eat your vegetables pristine.”
Even so, the veggie fan club is a rapidly growing one, whether the vegetables are pristine or not. Parents, too, are driving this trend.
At Applebee’s, 80% of kids’ meals were served with fries just a handful of years ago. Now, more than 40% are served with veggies, and that number keeps growing. McDonald’s has plans to keep boosting the veggie offerings in its Happy Meals. “We want to have kids consume more fruits and vegetables around the world — and we want to make access easier,” says McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson.
An Oregon State University (OSU) study has discovered two compounds found in red grapes and blueberries may be able to enhance people’s immune functions.
The university’s Linus Pauling Institute (LPI) analyzed 446 compounds to test their effects on immunity, and observed a positive correlation with resveratrol and pterostilbene, found in red grapes and blueberries respectively.
The researchers saw these compounds worked in synergy with vitamin D and had a significant impact in raising the expression of the human CAMP (cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide) gene that is involved in immune function.
“Out of a study of hundreds of compounds, just these two popped right out,” LPI principal investigator Adrian Gombart said in a release.
“Their synergy with vitamin D to increase CAMP gene expression was significant and intriguing. It’s a pretty interesting interaction.”
The two compounds, known as stilbenoids, are produced by plants to fight infections.
The studies were supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research.
By The Alliance for Food and Farming
Study after study continues to confirm the benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables. Recently, a new study was released from the Harvard School of Public Health where researchers found an association between eating at least two servings of fruit a week and having a 23 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. Blueberries, grapes and apples seemed to be especially linked with the reduced diabetes risk. Prunes, apricots, peaches, raisins, bananas, oranges, strawberries and grapefruit were also included in the study.
This is more good news for consumers since the fruits included in the research are popular, plentiful and often kids’ favorites. It also seems to illustrate the nutritional punch of these healthy foods.
The study findings further support the Alliance for Food and Farming’s message to consumers – choose either organic or conventional fruits and veggies but choose to eat more. Both are safe and eating a diet rich in fruits and veggies is always the right choice for improved health and a longer life.
The Organic Trade Association’s 2013 Organic Industry Survey, conducted and produced by Nutrition Business Journal, indicates that the U.S. organic product market continued to climb in 2012, putting more distance between the growth of today and the difficulties of the recession in 2009.
More than 200 companies responded to the survey, which was conducted from Jan. 25, 2013 through April 5, 2013. It includes revenues reported in narrow ranges, sales growth, revenue by product and sales channel breakdowns.
Consumer sales of organic products — both food and non-food — accounted for $31.5 billion in sales in 2012, adding roughly $2.9 billion in new annual sales dollars while also achieving double-digit growth for the first time since 2008.
In the produce category, fresh fruit and vegetable sales continues to lead the way by a huge margin over canned and frozen products. Fresh produce sales in 2012 represented 90.8 percent of total organic produce sales, with frozen organic produce at four percent, canned at 3.45 percent and dried beans, fruits and vegetables at 2 percent.
The survey also indicated that private label and contract manufacturing continue to be important segments of the organic business. While the private label organic product offerings in the mass market channel continue to expand, many large players in this channel indicated that sales growth was down in 2012.
Private label growth is stronger in the natural retail channel, where shopping for organic is easier and consumers clearly understand the value proposition of an organic private label product.
National Public Radio reports a third of the world’s food goes to waste every year. In the USA alone, nearly 40 percent of food is thrown out, whether it occurs on farms, grocery stores, or in homes.
Doug Rauch, former president of Trader Joe’s, is introducing Daily Table, a new perishable foods project aimed at tackling the overwhelming problem of food waste. He is determined to repackage perfectly edible produce just past its sell-by date that ends up in the trash.
“Most of what we offer will be fruits and vegetables that have a use-by date on it that’ll be several days out,” says Rauch. Daily Table will open in early 2014 in Dorchester, MA preparing and repackaging food at deeply discounted prices.
The idea behind the project is to bring affordable nutrition to the underserved living in the inner-cities of America. Rauch suggests the format is a hybrid between a grocery store and a restaurant, primarily taking this repackaged food, prepping it, and cooking it for what he calls “speed-scratch cooking.”
This is in an attempt to offer this food at prices that compete with fast food. Despite the fact that the food is past its sell date, Rauch ensures the products are absolutely safe to eat.
“This is about trying to tackle a very large social challenge we have that is going to create a health care tsunami in cost if we don’t do something about it,” says Rauch. “I don’t regard Daily Table as the only solution – there are wonderful innovative ideas out there – but I certainly think it is part of and is an innovative approach to trying to find our way to a solution.”
The Supermarket News on line publication SN.com has named up-and-comer Sprouts Farmers Market to receive its 2013 Retail Excellence Award.
Sprouts is known for healthy, organic and natural, convenient, fresh, local and affordable produce and groceries.
Based on its integration of those trend-forward attributes and its successful financial model that has helped it absorb two rivals and triple in size in the last three years, the Phoenix-based chain has been selected for the award.
“Sprouts is at the intersection of two mega-trends in the industry today — health and wellness and value, and that’s really what we hang our hat on,” said Steve Black, chief information and marketing officer, Sprouts, in an interview with SN. “That’s the model we’ve built for the last 10 years — to make healthy eating easy, understandable and affordable. That’s what we talk about with our tag line, ‘Healthy Living for Less.’
As the chain’s president and chief executive officer, Doug Sanders told SN in a separate interview at the launch of the company’s recent initial public offering that Sprouts is well positioned to be a gateway for shoppers of conventional supermarkets seeking a more healthy diet.
While traditional supermarkets seek to lure some share of consumers’ food spending away from restaurants by touting the healthfulness of home cooking, Sprouts seeks to take that one step further and teach those shoppers how to live even healthier.
“Most people want to eat better, they just don’t feel like they can afford to, and they don’t know how to,” Black explained. “That’s the secret to our success — that it’s affordable, and we have team members in the stores that can help you understand the vitamins and the supplements.
If you are on a gluten-free diet, or wherever you are in life from a health perspective, we have people in the stores who can help you with that.”
The focal point of Sprouts’ relatively small stores is they measure about 25,000 to 28,000 square feet — is the farmers’ market-style produce display, where Sprouts leverages its longtime relationships with growers and suppliers to make a statement on price. Founder Henry Boney began his food retail career with a farmers’ market in 1943, and his legacy lives in the chain’s current positioning.
Stores devote about 15 percent of their floor space to produce, which generates about 25 percent of sales, according to Sprouts’ filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission related to its recent initial public offering.
Sprouts tooks to attract both the lifestyle customer and everyday supermarket customer by featuring fresh produce at prices that are significantly lower than the conventional supermarket. The emphasis on produce not only helps enhance the stores’ healthful image, but also helps drive repeat traffic.
Produce is the focal point of Sprouts stores, where customers are attracted to the selection and value, company executives say. Stores have a farmers’ market ambiance with low shelving for better visibility and to create a bright, open-air atmosphere.
Celery, artichokes, and herbs, especially Mexican oregano, all contain apigenin and luteolin, flavonoids that kill human pancreatic cancer cells in the lab by inhibiting an important enzyme, according to two new University of Illinois studies.
“Apigenin alone induced cell death in two aggressive human pancreatic cancer cell lines. But we received the best results when we pre-treated cancer cells with apigenin for 24 hours, then applied the chemotherapeutic drug gemcitabine for 36 hours,” said Elvira de Mejia, a U of I professor of food chemistry and food toxicology.
The trick seemed to be using the flavonoids as a pre-treatment instead of applying them and the chemotherapeutic drug simultaneously, said Jodee Johnson, a doctoral student in de Mejia’s lab who has since graduated.
“Even though the topic is still controversial, our study indicated that taking antioxidant supplements on the same day as chemotherapeutic drugs may negate the effect of those drugs,” she said.
“That happens because flavonoids can act as antioxidants. One of the ways that chemotherapeutic drugs kill cells is based on their pro-oxidant activity, meaning that flavonoids and chemotherapeutic drugs may compete with each other when they’re introduced at the same time,” she explained.
Pancreatic cancer is a very aggressive cancer, and there are few early symptoms, meaning that the disease is often not found before it has spread. Ultimately the goal is to develop a cure, but prolonging the lives of patients would be a significant development, Johnson added.
It is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths, with a five-year survival rate of only 6 percent, she said.
By Phyllis Picklesimer, Univ of Il College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
Researchers from New Zealand’s University of Otago, Christchurch have found that daily consumption of two kiwifruit can significantly lift a person’s mood and energy levels.
In a study that was published in the Journal of Nutritional Science (JNS), the effects of the fruit on a group of 54 healthy young male university students was monitored over six weeks, with one group consuming two kiwifruit per day and the other consuming half a kiwifruit daily.
Those with higher consumption experienced significantly less fatigue and depression than the other group, and felt they had more energy.
Scientists inferred this was likely related to the two kiwifruit dose optimizing vitamin C intake, as the sample group had a low fruit consumption beforehand.
The research used a gold variety of kiwifruit.
Professor Margreet Vissers and her team from the UOC’s Centre for Free Radical Research are involved in a large on-going study to better understand the critical role of vitamin C in the human body.
“Our study provides good evidence to support the view that there are measureable health benefits to be obtained from eating a good amount of fruit and vegetables daily. For best benefit, it is important to include high vitamin C foods in your daily diet,” she said in a release.
Vissers said vitamin C helped activate a number of enzymes in the body that enhanced the levels of metabolic energy and different neurochemicals in the brain.
The study was funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment as well as the University of Otago and kiwifruit marketer Zespri International.