The next innovative ballpark food is set to hit Miller Park this season, as Milwaukee Brewers fans will have a chance to take a bite of the Inside The Park Nachos.

 

They feature a stick of beef, loaded with refried beans, rolled in Doritos, and then deep fried and drizzled with sour cream and cheese.

 

“We’ve sold nachos before, but some people don’t want to get messy,” said Jamie Hodgson, general manager of Miller Park hospitality for concessionaire Delaware North.

 

“I think this is going to be a big seller because you can eat this in one hand and have a beer in the other.”

 

Two other items will get the attention of Brewers fans. One is the Down Wisconsin Avenue Brat. It’s an 18-inch brat covered with gravy, French fries, cheese curds, cheese sauce, fried sauerkraut and jalapeños, then topped with sour cream and chives. The behemoth will cost $20.

 

“The smart fan knows that you pay for something like this by just splitting it, but we know there are going to be people that save it all for themselves,” Hodgson said.

The third star of the Miller Park menu this season is the Miller Park Bratchos, a take on the meat-based nachos that were popularized recently by the Green Bay Packers.

 

This version has four sausages — chorizo, Italian, Polish and bratwurst — cut up and served on top of kettle chips, sour cream, fried jalapeños and sauerkraut.

 

The Brewers will be competing for the item that gets the most buzz at major league ballparks this year. The leader in the clubhouse is the Arizona Diamondbacks, who are serving a Churro Dog, which is a churro inside a doughnut bun topped by a frozen yogurt sundae.

Source: Milwaukee Brewers offering deep-fried nachos on a stick at ballpark

There’s a researcher at the RAND Corporation who has been building a reputation as a curmudgeonly skeptic when it comes to trendy ways to fight America’s obesity epidemic.

First, Roland Sturm took aim at the idea that “food deserts” — areas without well-stocked grocery stores — cause unhealthy diets and obesity. His studies found that they do not. When Los Angeles decided in 2008 to ban new fast-food restaurants in some of the city’s poorest neighborhood, Sturm was skeptical that it would help lower obesity rates.

Now Sturm, an economist, has taken a close look at what LA’s fast-food ban has accomplished. He concludes in new paper published online by the journal Social Science & Medicine that there’s no evidence it had any effect at all. In fact, obesity rates in South Los Angeles and other neighborhoods the law was aimed at increased faster than in other parts of the city or other parts of the county.

Advocates of the measure saw it as a powerful tool to help improve diets. Opponents, like fast-food chains, said “the sky is falling,” Sturm tells The Salt. In reality, he says, “this has had no measurable impact.”

In part, he says, it’s because the fast-food ban took aim at an inconsequential target. It merely blocked new construction or expansion of “stand-alone fast-food” restaurants. Yet Sturm found that in South LA, the area covered by the ban, free-standing restaurants are relatively uncommon. They are far outnumbered by restaurants in strip malls and small food shops such as corner stores, none of which are restricted by the new city ordinance.

In the years since the ordinance was enacted, he says, the distribution of food outlets in this part of LA has remained more or less the same. Small corner stores are common, and so are fast-food restaurants in strip malls. No new free-standing fast-food restaurants have opened, but they were rare to start with.

Finally, he says, “social norms have not changed, either.” Surveys of diet and obesity show no changes that can be attributed to the new fast-food restrictions. Fast-food consumption and obesity rates continued to increase in all areas of LA from 2007 to 2011-2012, and the increase was greatest in the areas affected by the fast-food restrictions. There was one notable exception: Soda consumption declined, but this was true across the city, not just in South LA.

Barry Popkin, a professor of global nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, says he wasn’t surprised at all by Sturm’s observations. “That little ban was just too trivial,” he tells The Salt. Many studies have now concluded that physical access to food “is less important than people think.”

Fat Thanks to Sona S. for the tip!

via Why Los Angeles’ Fast Food Ban Did Nothing To Check Obesity : The Salt : NPR.

Of all the issues the Obama administration is grappling with, a modest redesign of what food labels say about sweeteners might not have seemed among the more controversial. But ever since First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled the plan last year, a lobbying frenzy has ensued.

The objections have come not only from candy makers and bottlers of soft drinks.

The governor of Massachusetts implored the administration to rethink its proposal. The governor of Wisconsin protested too. So did the government of Australia, which warned the move could violate international trade agreements.

The proposal being considered by the Food and Drug Administration would add a new line to labels on packaged products noting how many teaspoons of sugar had been added.

The FDA’s problematic push for an added-sugar label on food

The furor over the idea reveals the extent to which extra sugar is infused into even the most unlikely foods and the concerns that manufacturers have about consumers finding out. The FDA has received 287,889 public comments on the plan, including many from major food companies and trade associations.

Nutrition advocates say the strong reaction shows just how much is at stake.

“They know this will impact how people choose their products, and that terrifies them,” said Renee Sharp, director of research for the Environmental Working Group, one of several advocacy groups campaigning for the label change.

But food industry representatives say the proposal is unwarranted. Current labels disclose the total amount of sugar in a product, combining what occurs naturally in a food and what is added during processing. Sugar is sugar, and no evidence justifies singling out one type for added labeling requirements, industry officials say.

“The lack of science to justify ‘added sugar’ labeling sets an alarming precedent,” the president of the Sugar Assn., Andrew Briscoe, wrote the administration.

Opponents warn of a slippery slope that starts with sugar but doesn’t end there. Any number of ingredients could be targeted next as a de facto warning to consumers, they say.

via Food industry waging a bitter battle over proposal on added-sugar labels – LA Times.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign Let’s Move is out with new advice for Americans: skip the buffet and stick to unsweetened tea.

The tips were introduced as part of Mrs. Obama’s “#GimmeFive challenge,” which is encouraging people to come up with five ways to be healthier for the fifth anniversary of Let’s Move.

President Barack Obama’s five ways to be healthy are jogging on stage to give a campaign speech, shooting a basketball, playing tennis, climbing the stairs to Air Force One, and lifting a baby, according to a video announcing the challenge.

“We all have to try harder to live a healthier life, but it’s important because these habits lead to a more fulfilling life,” Let’s Move said in a recent blog post. “On days when your family can’t cook at home follow these suggestions from USDA’s MyPlate.”

The suggestions include choosing water, fat-free milk, and unsweetened tea instead of soda, and asking for salad dressing to be served on the side. “Then use only as much as you want,” Let’s Move said.

“Choose a ‘small’ or ‘medium’ portion,” they said. “This includes main dishes, side dishes, and beverages.”

The recommendations also included opting for vegetable stir fries and kebobs, and steering clear of the buffet.

“Order an item from the menu instead heading for the ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffet,” Let’s Move said.

via Let’s Move: Skip the Buffet | Washington Free Beacon.

Pretty much all of America’s increased calorie consumption between the late-1970s and the mid-1990s came from increased snacking. Women actually started eating smaller meals during this period, they just more than made up for it with snacks.

That data is a little out of date, but according to Professor Richard Mattes the snack explosion only continued. In 1996, the average American ate about 423 calories worth of snacks per day but by 2006 that was up to 580.

The centrality of snacking to obesity is a significant challenge for public policy. There’s a lot of focus on chain restaurant portion size, both in the media and in terms of the Obama administration’s push for menus to state calorie contents. But the issue really doesn’t seem to be that people started ordering gigantic meals. It’s more that they started supplementing regular meals with more sweetened beverages and bigger bags of chips. It’s noteworthy to me that I see a lot of emphasis lately on fancy places trying to push “healthy” snacks — nuts and dried kale and what not. But it’s clear from the data that the actual pattern of the healthier eating habits of yore was simply less snacking rather than a universe of tasty nutritious treats.

Fat Thanks to Ketul P. for the tip!

via Obesity in America is more about snacks than giant meals – Vox.

The majority of potential Army reservists are either hooked on prescription drugs, have too many tattoos, are overweight or have mental conditions that prohibit them from joining the military, recruiters say.

Seven out of 10 applicants fail to meet Army Reserve standards on “mental, moral and physical reasons,” said Capt. Eric Connor, U.S. Army Reserve Command spokesman.

The problem affects the broader service as well. According to Army Recruiting Command statistics compiled last year, 71 percent of young people wanting to join the military would fail to pass service tests because of their physical, moral or cognitive shortcomings.

via Army Reserve candidates’ tattoos, obesity, prescription drugs hinder recruitment effort – Washington Times.

Plenty of people who are obese and medically need to lose weight say they get sick and tired of being told to eat less and exercise more. And for good reason: A growing body of research finds lifestyle and behavioral modifications often are not enough to help someone drop a significant amount of weight and keep it off.

A new paper published in the journal Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology argues that it’s high time for obesity to be recognized as a serious chronic disease with biological causes — not just a result of poor eating habits and sedentary behavior.

The authors, a group of obesity treatment experts, say that while patients may be successful in the first few months of a weight loss program, some 80 to 95 percent will eventually put the weight back on. They say this is because obesity has a lot to do with underlying biological issues in the body that dieting simply can’t change.

“Although lifestyle modifications may result in lasting weight loss in individuals who are overweight, in those with chronic obesity, body weight seems to become biologically ‘stamped in’ and defended,” Dr. Christopher Ochner, lead author and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, said in a press statement.

Source: Diet and exercise not enough, obesity experts say – CBS News

Michelle Obama announced her “Let’s Move” campaign, an effort to fight childhood obesity by promoting healthier eating and physical activity among kids, five years ago Monday. But the most recent data show that driving down childhood obesity rates is proving to be an elusive goal.

Obama’s challenge was steep: Overall childhood obesity rates tripled in the past three decades, climbing from about 5% in 1974 to nearly 17% by 2008, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. All told, 12.7 million children were considered obese when “Let’s Move” got underway in 2010.

How are efforts to fight childhood obesity doing?

As the chart below shows, the results are mixed: While childhood obesity among children between two and five years old dropped 3.7% from 2010 to 2012, the rate increased 2.1% for children 12-19 during the same period. The overall childhood obesity rate, meanwhile, remained at a constant 16.9% from 2008 through 2012.

If there’s a silver lining in the numbers, it’s the reduction in obesity among very young children. If kids are being taught healthy habits at a younger age, they’re probably more likely to carry those behaviors into grade school and beyond, public health experts say. If that trend holds true, we should start to see a similar drop in obesity among older children over the next few years.

via This Chart Shows How Hard It Is to End Childhood Obesity | TIME.

In a breakthrough discovery, researchers at the University of Adelaide have revealed how damage from obesity in mice is passed from a mother to her children, and also how that damage can be reversed.

The findings, by a team led by the University’s Robinson Research Institute, have major implications for the future of fertility research and are published today in the journal Development.

“It’s now well established that obesity in females leads to very serious fertility problems, including the inability to conceive. Obesity can also result in altered growth of babies during pregnancy, and it permanently programs the metabolism of offspring, passing the damage caused by obesity from one generation to the next,” says lead author Associate Professor Rebecca Robker from the Robinson Research Institute.

“In our laboratory studies, we’ve been able to unravel a key mechanism that leads to this multi-generational damage, and we’ve found a way to stop it happening,” Associate Professor Robker says.The research team found that obesity leads to a particular stress response that causes damage to the mitochondria, which are critical energy-producing ‘organs’ within living cells.

“All of the mitochondria in our bodies come from our mother. If the mother is obese, this produces stresses that lead to reduced transmission of mitochondria to the offspring. We found that the eggs of such mothers lead to heavier-than-normal fetuses with greatly reduced amounts of mitochondrial DNA and other obvious signs of damage,” she says.

Having pinpointed the problem, Associate Professor Robker and her colleagues attempted to stop it from occurring.

“Once we had identified the type of stress involved, we used compounds known to alleviate that stress in the cells. In particular, we were interested in compounds that are also being tested in diabetes clinical trials,” Associate Professor Robker says.

“These compounds were highly successful in preventing the stress response, thereby stopping the damage from obesity being passed onto the offspring. It restored egg quality, embryo development and mitochondrial DNA to levels equivalent to those of a healthy mother. Effectively, the problem was fully reversed.”

Associate Professor Robker says the results of this work point towards a potential future therapy to restore “natural” fertility in obese women, and to prevent multi-generational damage passing onto their children.

“Importantly, this work further highlights that a women’s nutritional state prior to getting pregnant matters greatly. Women are urged to eat healthy diets to optimize their chances for a healthy conception and to reduce the potential impact on their child’s future health,” she says.

This research is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

via Damage from obesity passed to offspring, but impact of obesity on fertility can be reversed, mouse study finds — ScienceDaily.

KFC, the fast food chain best known for consistently finding innovative new ways to clog your arteries, has debuted its latest food abomination: the Double Down Dog. It’s a hot dog drizzled with cheese sauce and swaddled by a fried chicken bun.

This is a followup to the restaurant’s Double Down sandwich, a.k.a. a bacon cheeseburger with fried chicken for buns that was only available in South Korea.

The Double Down Dog will only be available in the Philippines for two days. It seems as though America is not yet ready, which is either a blessing or a curse. Only time, and blood tests, will tell.

Each participating location will also only be able to sell 50 items per day — and that’s 50 too many.

Fat Thanks to Nicole E. for the tip!

via KFC debuts latest food travesty, the Double Down Dog.