Tag: guide

USDA Guidelines Questioned

  • Professor Paul Marantz says even a small error in the federal food guidelines can have a big public health impact. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

Some people say the government is partly to blame for America’s obesity problem – because of the federal dietary guidelines. Julie Grant reports on efforts to improve how the government offers nutritional advise to Americans.

Transcript

Some people say the government is partly to blame for America’s obesity problem – because of the federal dietary guidelines. Julie Grant reports on efforts to improve how the government offers nutritional advise to Americans.

You’ve probably seen those colorful food pyramids they put out, the ones that tell you how many servings to have of each kind of food each day. Those recommendations are used by schools, nursing homes, and the federal food stamp program to design menus.

Robert Post works with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which puts out the food pyramid.

“IT’S THE CORNERSTONE FOR BUILDING HEALTHY EATING PATTERNS. CHOOSING THE RIGHT AMOUNTS OF FRUITS, VEGETABLES, GRAINS, MILK PRODUCTS, AS WELL AS PROTEIN SOURCES SUCH AS MEAT AND BEANS.”

Post says people need to know how to get all the nutrients they need, without over-indulging in foods they don’t need.
That’s why the guidelines also set specific limits on things like salt and fat.

But some researchers think the guidelines actually have the potential to cause harm.

Paul Marantz is professor of epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
He doesn’t think the guidelines should give specific recommendations about how much fat and salt people should eat.

“THOSE SEEM TO CARRY PRECISION THAT IMPLIES THAT WE HAVE A GREATER DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE THAN WE ACTUALLY DO, SO PICKING THESE NUMBERS AND REQUIRING THAT PEOPLE HUE TO THESE GUIDELINES IS A PROBLEM.”

Marantz says even a little bit of error in the food guidelines can have a big public health effects.

He and his colleagues wanted to find out the potential impact of past dietary guidelines.

They looked at 1995, when the nutritionists were telling people to avoid fat.

“MOST OF US REMEMBER IN THE OLD FOOD PYRAMID THAT MADE IT QUITE CLEAR THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO AVOID WAS FAT AND ONE COULD EAT GRAINS AND PASTA AND BREAT AND THE LIKE WITHOUT CONCERN.”

Marantz says Americans did eat more pasta and bread – that added lots of calories, and lots of weight.

His research, which was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found what Marantz calls a ‘strong correlation’ between the dietary guidelines against fat and obesity in Americans:

“CORRELATION IS BY NO MEANS CAUSATION. WE CANNOT INFER FROM THIS THAT IT WAS BECAUSE OF DIETARY GUIDELINES THAT WE ARE EXPERIENCING THE EPIDEMIC OF OVERWEIGHT AND OBESITY. BUT THE CONNECTION IS STRONG.”

Marantz wants the government to give general advice for healthy eating, but not specific guidelines. He gives the example of sodium. Marantz says no one really knows how much salt is appropriate for each person. But there’s a push to put specific limits on sodium in the new guidelines.

Robert Post of the USDA says anything that gets into the 2010 recommendations will be based on what he calls the Gold Standard of scientific evidence. He says a committee of nutritional experts has been meeting for two years to create the new guidelines…

“WE CAN BE ASSURED THROUGH THIS VERY INTENSIVE REVIEW OF SCIENCE AND THE WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE IT PROVIDES THAT THE CURRENT ADVISE ON CARBOHYDRATES FOR EXAMPLE IS BASED ON THE LATEST RESEARCH.”

Post says any recommendations for fat and sodium will also be based on the preponderance of current science. The committee is expected to make its recommendations this summer, and new dietary guidelines should be published by the end of the year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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A Good Guide for Shopping

  • The Good Guide website's turkey rating page. (Image by Jessi Ziegler)

There’s a new way for consumers to find
out more about the products they buy.
Samara Freemark has the story
of a new online guide that lets you look
up how good products are for you and for
the environment:

Transcript

There’s a new way for consumers to find
out more about the products they buy.
Samara Freemark has the story
of a new online guide that lets you look
up how good products are for you and for
the environment:

The website is called the Good Guide, and it lets consumers get a pretty in-depth look at more than 60,000 foods and household products. The site ranks products by their impacts on health, the environment, and society.

The Good Guide is the brainchild of Dara O’Rourke. He’s a professor of environmental policy at the University of California at Berkley. O’Rourke says consumers don’t have easy access to the information they need to make smart buying decisions.

“What we’re trying to do is bring the best available science, put it in an easy accessible and free format, then get it to people whenever and wherever they make a decision about a product or a company.”

That’s where the Good Guide iphone application comes in. Shoppers can scan barcodes at the store to get instant product information.

That application, and the site, can be found at goodguide.com

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

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Using Your Phone to Pick Products

  • Good Guide allows you to look up products while you're in the store and see how they're rated in terms of safety, environmental impact, and social concerns (Photo courtesy of Good Guide)

Companies that make things like cosmetics, household cleaners, and toys are not required to list every ingredient that’s in their products. Now, some shoppers are dialing up that information on their cell phones. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

Companies that make things like cosmetics, household cleaners, and toys are not required to list every ingredient that’s in their products. Now, some shoppers are dialing up that information on their cell phones. Mark Brush has more:

There’s a new app for the iPhone that can give you information about products. It’s called Good Guide.

And you basically take a picture of a barcode – on say a bottle of shampoo – and then Good Guide gives you a score.

The guide can rate products on their environmental footprint – how socially responsible the company is – or how safe it is.

Other phones can access the same information using text messages.

Dara O’Rourke is the founder of Good Guide. He says he started the company after he discovered a sunscreen that he put on his daughter contained a potential carcinogen.

“And that really initially, actually kind of upset me, that this product that I’m bringing into my house and putting on my young daughter has chemicals that have been banned in Europe, banned in Australia, banned in many industrialized countries, but still are in products on our store shelves.”

O’Rourke says if consumers are interested, they can access the research and the life-cycle studies behind each product’s overall score.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Sushi Sustainability Guide

  • blueocean.org has created a guide that ranks sushi on how sustainable it is (Source: Hatago at Wikimedia Commons)

Some ocean conservation groups have
teamed up to make a color-coded guide that
ranks popular sushi. Lester Graham reports
the rankings are based on whether the fish
are caught or raised in sustainable ways:

Transcript

Some ocean conservation groups have
teamed up to make a color-coded guide that
ranks popular sushi. Lester Graham reports
the rankings are based on whether the fish
are caught or raised in sustainable ways:

You can download this sushi guide, print it out and carry it around with you if you
want, but Kate McLaughlin with the Blue Ocean Institute’s Seafood Program says
you could just look at it on your mobile device next time you go to a sushi bar.

“You can download a PDA formatted copy of the guide to your mobile device. Or
text the word ‘fish’ and then the name of the fish in question. Pretty much
immediately you get a response with the ranking.”

And it will tell you things like popular sushi such as bluefin tuna and farmed salmon
are on the “red” list, which means they’re either over-fished or farmed with
aquaculture methods that pollute the ocean.

You can get the guide at blueocean.org.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Interview: ‘The Better World Shopping Guide’

  • (Photo provided by Dr. Ellis Jones)

A lot of people want to know what
they can do to be more environmentally friendly.
Ellis Jones says you make a vote on environmental
issues every time you pull out your wallet.
Jones is a sociologist at the University of
California Davis. And he’s written a pocket-sized
booklet called ‘The Better World Shopping Guide’
that grades companies that make the things we buy.
The Environment Report’s Lester Graham talked to
him about the guide:

Transcript

A lot of people want to know what
they can do to be more environmentally friendly.
Ellis Jones says you make a vote on environmental
issues every time you pull out your wallet.
Jones is a sociologist at the University of
California Davis. And he’s written a pocket-sized
booklet called ‘The Better World Shopping Guide’
that grades companies that make the things we buy.
The Environment Report’s Lester Graham talked to
him about the guide:

Ellis Jones: “I think that people will use this guide to make sure that the companies that
are doing good work get their dollars. And the companies that are not doing good work,
they don’t get their dollars until they improve.”

Lester Graham: “I chose three topics. One of them is gasoline. No one gets an A+? But
you did give an A to Sunoco and you gave an F to Exxon-Mobile. Can you tell me really
quickly what went into those grades?”

Jones: “It includes everything from how polluting their petroleum refineries are, what
their human rights records are when they deal with communities abroad, how they deal
with consumers, what their advertising is like and how they do or don’t ‘greenwash’ – to
really give a sense of, you know, the difference between the good guys and the bad guys
in gasoline.”

Graham: “I also looked at bread, and you gave an A+ to local bakeries.”

Jones: “Supporting a local bakery is really about as good as it gets. Far above and
beyond what you can get supporting even the most organic bread company.”

Graham: “The third thing I looked at was water, because bottled water is such an issue
these days. The A+ was given to tap water, which, in most communities, is as good as
anything you can buy in a bottle.”

Jones: “The most powerful difference a consumer can make is actually avoiding the
product all together. So, anything to really minimize the impact because this industry
itself is inherently problematic.”

Graham: “Just casually flipping through looking at who rated an F in your guide, often it
seemed like it was the most recognizable name. Kraft, Nabisco, Libby’s. Those kinds of
companies. Why is it these really large corporations tended to do so poorly in your
guide?”

Jones: “Well, you know, I think this really points out a kind of inherent problem within
our current economic system. And that is that the way to get ahead in the system is to
grow larger, to gobble up smaller companies, to basically out-compete the other
companies around you by cutting costs wherever you can by using larger economies of
scale. And the process that gets lost in the system is the impact on the people and the
planet.”

Graham: “I’m wondering how this changes your view of things when you go shopping
now.”

Jones: “Well, let me tell you, I really have put in as much research as a human being can
into this. And I am still filled with questions. These questions are out there and we need
to keep companies accountable and the government accountable to be able to provide us
with good data so we can make smart decisions as consumers.

Graham: “So your guide doesn’t let us off the hook, we still have to do some of our own
homework.”

Jones: (laughs) “Exactly. We have to actually make do with the information that we
have now, make the best choices available, and then as new information comes in, then
we’re responsible to make even better choices. But in that process we have to build in
quite a bit of forgiveness, because one thing this book is not about being perfect or pure
in the world. It really is about trying to make the best choice at any given time in any
given place.”

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Room for Wilderness in the Suburbs?

  • Lilies like these reside in the Reinstein Nature Preserve. Environmentalists worry about natural life in the preserve as the state of New York considers opening it up without restrictions.

Imagine a suburban, backyard wilderness where 200 year-old trees still stand. That’s exactly what you’ll find at the 300 acre Reinstein Nature Preserve. It meanders right through the heart of a bustling suburb. The preserve has been limited to small groups led by a nature guide. But there’s a new plan to give unrestricted access. Some environmentalists worry that would ruin the preserve. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak takes us to the woods – and to the debate:

Transcript

Imagine a suburban, backyard wilderness where 200 year-old trees still stand.
That’s exactly what you’ll find at the 300 acre Reinstein Nature preserve.
It meanders right through the heart of a bustling suburb. The preserve has been limited
to small groups led by a nature guide. But there’s a new plan to give unrestricted access.
Some environmentalists worry that would ruin the preserve. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Joyce Kryszak takes us to the woods – and to the debate:


A Great Blue Heron perches lazily in the distance above an expanse of pink water lilies.
At first Bob Reinstein doesn’t see the bird.


“I should’ve brought my field glasses.”


But then its giant wings spread wide, laboring to clear the water in this serene Monet-like setting.


“The lilies were a gift from two different environmental organizations…”


The man and the majestic heron both seem oblivious to the rush of cars and people just
beyond the edge of the woods. This is the Reinstein Nature Preserve. It’s framed on all sides
by a sprawling suburb of houses and shopping plazas in Western New York. Like his parents before
him, Bob Reinstein says he’s risked his life for nearly sixty years defending this scene; he guards it against trespassers – and sometimes trespassers with guns.


“Their lives were threatened several times, in fact, mine was also. I was unarmed at the time,
but he had pointed his shotgun at me and threatened to shoot. Realizing it was pointing at my face,
I stopped following him.”


But Reinstein never stopped trying to protect the nature preserve his father created half a century ago.
By the time he died in 1984, the elder Reinstein had dug nine ponds, planted thousands of trees,
rare ferns and flowers to compliment the ancient scene. The younger Reinstein says it’s like a
living museum.


“Where else can schoolchildren walk back through history a hundred and fifty years and see
samples of what existed then, that are still here today?”


Reinstein says his father bequeathed the preserve to the state to keep it from being trampled.
He stipulated that it must stay forever wild. People could visit, but only for educational
purposes. And only with a trained nature guide. That could all be changing. A proposal by the
State Department of Environmental Conservation would give the public unrestricted access.


Jane Wiercioch lives in the nearby suburb and loves visiting her backyard wilderness. But today
Weirchioch is handing out petitions here. She hopes to stop the DEC from opening the preserve. She
says it would leave the woods vulnerable.


“I know I came in here the other day for a walk around that lily loop with my great granddaughters
and, of course, they were chasing frogs. So, I’m with them, I’m yelling at them, ‘don’t do anything.’ But can you imagine having people just coming in here and doing what they want?”


State conservation officials say bringing in more people is the whole point. Meaghan Boice-Green
is a spokesperson for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. She says all
other department-run properties are open to the public. Boice-Green says unrestricted access would be good for both the public and for the agency.


“We’re not talking about property that hasn’t touched by the hand of man, and in order for us
to obtain the funding to do the habitat maintenance that’s going to be necessary to maintain
this manmade habitat, we have to provide some public access. We’re not going to be able to
access funds to support a property that the public isn’t allowed to access.”


But the state has never had any trouble finding money to maintain the preserve before.
And Boice-Green couldn’t offer specifics about any extra funding.


Terry Boyle has volunteered as a guide at the preserve for eight years. But he agrees the
preserve should be unrestricted. Boyle says visitors can’t have a truly natural experience
if someone’s watching their every move.


“A lot of those people who do want to come in, they want to take photographs, they want to sit
down and reflect for a little bit about what they’re looking at, and that kind of stuff. So,
they can’t go at their own leisurely pace with tour guides, because we have to push them through a little bit
faster.”


But the head of a local environmental group sees it differently. Larry Watson says if the
preserve is opened, there won’t be anything left to look at anyway. He believes the state is
just tired of policing the woods. But Watson says it was Dr. Reinstein’s wish that the
preserve be kept wild. And he should know. As a young boy sixty years ago, Watson spent many
long hours in the woods, helping Reinstein plant the saplings that now tower overhead.


“If they turn this into what they want to, it will be nothing more than a state park.
And we’d rather see it kept as an individual showpiece and a place New York state can be quite
proud of and show the rest of the country what can be done in the way of environmental
conservation.”


The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation says it hasn’t made a final
decision. It will consider the wishes of those who want access to the preserve to remain
restricted. But many people are also demanding it be opened. Ultimately, the state says
it will likely let people come to the preserve whenever they want – and trust them
to be good caretakers.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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