The Sunday News
I’m filling in this week while Betty Carlson is travelling. She’ll be back next Sunday, with lots of great stuff to chew on. Thanks to the Growers and Grocers crew, and to our fearless leader Cate, for providing many of the links in today’s post.
First up this week is the news that there are now officially more overweight and obese people in the world than undernourished. With total figures topping 1 billion obese compared to 800 million undernourished, concern is being raised about how the “burden of obesity” is shifting from the rich to the poor in both western and majority world countries. And according to the CBC, obesity in the western world is starting even younger, with obesity levels in infants on the rise. This issue is on the radar in Australia, where childhood obesity rates have now overtaken adults and where experts are calling for a price cut to fresh fruits and vegetables to encourage people, and especially children, away from junk food.
Quite a different story from that told at the World AIDS conference taking place this week in Toronto, where recommendations have been made to make food and nutritional support part of the essential package of care for people affected by HIV.
A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that coffee may be beneficial to health, as it is full of anti-oxidants, and reduces the risk of diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver and heart disease. If you take (soy) cream in your coffee, you might want to take heed of the recent actions at WholeFoods where the housebrand 365 Everyday Value Soy Cream Chocolate and 365 Everyday Value Soy Cream Vanilla have been recalled because they are believed to be tainted with milk proteins. Bad news for folks with milk allergies who rely on soy products.
In India, they’re still concerned about pesticide levels in popular soft drink products, but now a US official has warned that doing so will be bad for the Indian economy. Or is the concern really because it will it actually be bad for western stockholders?
Frankly, they’ve got more important things to worry about in India as a ban on the export of lentils has destabilized the price of this very important food item (lentils are the main source of protein for Indian vegetarians), causing the price to shoot up almost 200% in some areas.
And finally, the square watermelon is headed for Great Britain. Long popular in Japan, the square watermelon, which won’t roll around in your fridge, likely won’t hit the markets in North America, as growers don’t believe we’re willing to pay the premium price for an item that is otherwise exactly the same as the round version.
