Food Companies Won't Tell You When Their Menus Get Healthier

Food Companies Won't Tell You When Their Menus Get Healthier What's the most surprising thing about restaurants making healthy changes? They don't want you to know about it. The Wall Street Journal reports that food companies are under increasing pressure to reduce calories, fat, and salt in their products, but often do so quietly to avoid customers thinking that taste will be compromised. It's called 'stealth health' because, unfortunately, healthier foods don't always sell well. When McDonald's eliminated artery-clogging trans fats from their French fries in 2002, countless customers were outraged and submitted complaints about the change in taste. It took them six more years to land on a canola oil blend that tasted right.

Toilet Seat Liners? Basically PointlessSorry, neat freaks. Those paper liners that separate you from the toilet seat are good for little more than piece of mind. 'Toilet seats are not a vehicle for the transmission of any infectious agents — you won't catch anything,' Dr. William Schaffner, M.D., a professor of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center told the Huffington Post. Research has shown that toilet seats aren't spreading gastrointestinal infections. They may carry bacteria, but our skin already serves as an adequate defensive barrier.

Childhood Obesity Might Be Underreported Childhood obesity is undercounted in the United States, says a study released this week by the Mayo Clinic. Body mass index (BMI) is often relied upon to measure obesity trends, but it may leave up to 25% of children out of the national obese youth count.

'BMI is not capturing everybody who needs to be labeled as obese,' said Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, director of preventive cardiology at the Mayo Clinic. Though BMI is a simple and economical way to screen patients for excess body fat, only using height and weight calculations to predict child obesity is problematic, as height and weight are not proportional during years of growth.

A New Sensational Weight-Loss Aid Yacon syrup is having a long fifteen minutes of fame, but what exactly is this new 'miracle' weight-loss aid? Yacon is a South American root that has been a part of the Andean diet for centuries, both as food and medicine. Highly viscous syrup may be extracted from the plant, and it contains a type of fiber that is hard to digest and ferments in the gut. It's possible that this fiber promotes weight-loss by sustaining feelings of satiety and suppressing hunger, and could help regulate blood glucose levels. Still, as with any product making major weight loss claims without a firm scientific backing in efficacy and safety, proceed with caution. Yacon syrup is likely harsh on the GI tract, and a number of people who have lost weight on it quickly gained it back.

Photo: John Kuczala/Getty Entities 0 Name: Mayo Clinic Count: 2 1 Name: M.D. Count: 1 2 Name: Toilet Seat Liners Count: 1 3 Name: Huffington Post Count: 1 4 Name: McDonald 's Count: 1 5 Name: United States Count: 1 6 Name: Dr. William Schaffner Count: 1 7 Name: Wall Street Journal Count: 1 8 Name: Francisco Lopez-Jimenez Count: 1 9 Name: South American Count: 1 10 Name: Vanderbilt University Medical Center Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/RIgY61 Title: Always Hungry? Here's Why Description: FOR most of the last century, our understanding of the cause of obesity has been based on immutable physical law. Specifically, it's the first law of thermodynamics, which dictates that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. When it comes to body weight, this means that calorie intake minus calorie expenditure equals calories stored.