Another Reason to Quit Cola [Caramel Coloring] | Fooducate

Last week, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) petitioned the FDA to ban certain types of caramel coloring because their production process creates carcinogenic chemicals:

In contrast to the caramel one might make at home by melting sugar in a saucepan, the artificial brown coloring in colas and some other products is made by reacting sugars with ammonia and sulfites under high pressure and temperatures. Chemical reactions result in the formation of 2-methylimidazole and 4 methylimidazole, which in government-conducted studies caused lung, liver, or thyroid cancer or leukemia in laboratory mice or rats. read more…

The studies were conducted by the National Toxicology Program, a division of the National Institute of Environmental Health Science.

What you need to know:

Although soy sauce and other products contain caramel coloring, it is in small amounts. The problem with soda is the large amount of coloring per serving. And, CSPI says, to put the risk of cancer in context, the far bigger problem with sugary sodas is obesity and obesity related diseases.

Here’s a typical cola ingredient list

Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Caramel Color, Phosphoric Acid, Natural Flavors, Caffeine.

Let’s remind ourselves -

• The amount of sugar in a cup is 7 teaspoons.Many people drink multiple servings per day.
• Most soft drinks use high fructose corn syrup, whose effects on metabolism scientists are still arguing over.
• Phosphoric acid leaches calcium from bones, among other things.
• And now we learn that the caramel coloring used is carcinogenic.

Need any more reasons to quit soda, or at least drastically reduce drinking occasions to Christmas and your birthday?

What to do at the supermarket:

Do yourself and your family a favor. Limit your consumption of soft drinks. Just skip the beverage aisle in the supermarket. Learn to enjoy tap water.

Ted Frank on the Dukes v. Wal-Mart class action

by WALTER OLSON on DECEMBER 20, 2010

The problem, Ted writes in the Examiner, isn’t that the class action is “too large” — even very large classes can sometimes fit the law’s requirements that each claim be identical in nature and capable of standing or falling together.

But the theory of the Dukes lawsuit is exactly the opposite: the plaintiffs claimed that Wal-Mart’s central office did not exercise enough authority over each of its 3,400 stores; each of the individual managers’ discretionary employment or promotion decisions–whether made by male or female managers–was, on average, discriminatory; and thus Wal-Mart was responsible for a policy that “fosters or facilitates” discrimination. …

The discrimination laws permit Wal-Mart to defend itself by demonstrating that the challenged job decision was made for a reason other than gender. For example, looking at Betty Dukes, the named plaintiff, alone, we learn that she had a female manager and that she was repeatedly disciplined for returning late from lunch breaks. …Wal-Mart is stripped of its defense because the individualized defense would be inconvenient to trying the case as a class action. …

If the Supreme Court rules in Wal-Mart’s favor later this year, it will not be to protect business, but to protect due process.

» localization :mnmlist

What would happen if fuel prices suddenly became not just expensive but ridiculous? What if gas shot up to $20 per gallon?

The notion of driving everywhere would suddenly seem crazy. We drive far wide and often because gas is relatively cheap. But if it were costly we’d walk and bike more. We’d take transit and car-share. We’d work and shop and and eat and visit people near our homes. We’d be healthier because we drove less. And we’d have to work less to support our driving.

The notion of shipping everything everywhere would also seem crazy. Today we get packages shipped to us all the time. Food and goods get shipped all over the world several times over. But that requires a lot of fuel — and if fuel were costly we’d give that practice up. Instead we’d get our food and goods locally. We might even start growing our food ourselves — it’s not that far-fetched a notion when you consider how many people are starting to grow their own food these days in cities and suburbs.

The notion of heating and cooling the entirety of our (huge) houses would also become crazy. Today we heat 100% of our houses when it’s cold even if we only occupy a small percentage of the heated area. But what if we took the Japanese idea of having a small heater with a blanket that families sit around to get warm? Or a family bath that’s heated instead of the entire home? There are many ideas we’d come up with for heating locally and more efficiently.

Alternative energies would become more important. People would travel less and start to get to know their local areas more. People would begin walking their neighborhoods and getting to know their communities. Imagine that.

Here’s the kicker: fuel already is incredibly expensive — we just don’t pay the entire price at the pump. We pay for it later through costs to our health our communities our environment. We’re going to pay for it later as the rising cost of polluting our earth and heating up our climate comes to collect its toll.

Food Politics » Food corporations buy silence from “partners”

Does corporate social responsibility pay off for corporations?  Indeed it does.  Corporate money buys silence, if nothing else.

William Neuman of the New York Times provides a perfect example of how corporate sponsorship gets precisely what it is intended to do.

In this particular case:

• The corporations are soda companies, Coke and Pepsi.
• The social responsibility is donations of millions of dollars to a good cause.
• The cause is Save the Children, a group devoted to child health and development projects internationally and domestically.
• The intention?   Get Save the Children to stop advocating in favor of soda taxes.

Not long ago, Save the Children was a strong advocate for soda taxes.  Now it is not.  How come?  The group’s website explains:

about a minute ago we said, Corporate donors support us but do not pressure us. Our focus is children not soda tax policy. Back to saving more children now.

The Times, however, suggests a different explanation:

executives at Save the Children were seeking a major grant fromCoca-Cola to help finance the health and education programs that the charity conducts here and abroad, including its work on childhood obesity.The talks with Coke are still going on. But the soda tax work has been stopped….In interviews this month, Carolyn Miles, chief operating officer of Save the Children, said there was no connection between the group’s about-face on soda taxes and the discussions with Coke. A $5 million grant from PepsiCo also had no influence on the decision, she said. Both companies fiercely oppose soda taxes.

A mere coincidence?  I don’t think so.  This is a clear win for soda companies, just as was Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of the educational activities of theAmerican Academy of Family Physicians. You can bet those activities do not involve telling parents not to give sodas to their kids.

Is this a win for Save the Children?  The Times reports that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funds some of the group’s anti-obesity initiatives, is disappointed.  Evidently, its $3.5 million donation wasn’t enough to convince the group to continue its anti-soda activities.

In the meantime, soda taxes continue to stay on the radar as a weight control strategy.  A new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that soda taxes could lead to a small but potentially significant weight loss.

According to FoodNavigator’s report about the study,the authors say that applying such taxes throughout the United States could generate a billion dollars or more.  It quotes lead researcher Eric Finkelstein: “Although small, given the rising trend in obesity rates, especially among youth, any strategy that shows even modest weight loss should be considered.”

This kind of study is a challenge to soda companies.  Watch Coke and Pepsi continue donations to charitable and health groups and watch those groups say not one word about the contribution of sodas to obesity.  Cigarettes, anyone?

Cancun’s Disappearing Beach - Intelligent Travel Blog

As delegates from 193 nations convene at COP 16, the 16th annual climate change conference now meeting in Cancun, local environmentalists point to a pressing sustainability issue right on their doorstep: Ever since hotels have replaced Cancun’s dune-and-mangrove eco-system, Mexico’s most famous beach has been on life support. 

Less than a year after its receding shoreline received a $74 million infusion of sand that extended the beach the length of a football field, two-thirds of it has disappeared. Left behind is a four- to six-foot sand cliff that nesting turtles cannot breach. (Or many people, for that matter.) Environmentalists also point to ecological disaster at the underwater dredge site near Cozumel island, and the threat to the Meso-American reef yards offshore. Hoteliers argue that life is a beach, and not having one would cripple an industry that provides ten percent of Mexico’s GDP. (And given last year’s triple whammy of swine flu, drug violence, and recession, Mexico is in desperate need of some hard cash.) This sand wall stands as a visual reminder of the obstacles that need to be breached in any discussion about environmental preservation and economic development. COP 16 delegates, please take note.

I wonder if Julia Roberts is available for the sequel?

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced Friday that it is prepared to buy homes and farms in the Mojave Desert town of Hinkley that are threatened by chemically laced groundwater flowing underneath the beleaguered farming community.

The San Francisco utility sent letters to property owners this week expressing interest in purchasing 100 homes and lots in the San Bernardino County town where higher-than-normal levels of cancer-causing hexavalent chromium, or chromium 6, have been detected. The toxic plume has extended in the past year, and the contamination appears to be spreading farther into the aquifer about 12 miles west of Barstow.

“We are interested in purchasing their property,” said Jeff Smith, the spokesman for PG&E. “This letter says we would like to speak to them.”

The move comes despite recent assurances by PG&E that the chromium-infused water is not a threat to people because the chemicals do not exceed state drinking water standards.

The utility is still trying to live down accusations that it covered up sickness and death allegedly caused by chromium 6, which leaked into drinking water from the cooling towers of a PG&E compressor station between 1952 and 1966.

A 1996 claim filed on behalf of more than 600 Hinkley residents - and highlighted in the film “Erin Brockovich” - ended with a $333 million settlement.

Tuesday Map: The world rearranged by population | FP Passport

Tidal Power is a Natural Fit in Nova Scotia | Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

Emerson may have believed that, but most folks in Nova Scotia — on Canada’s east coast — would disagree. The ocean is the province’s alpha and omega. In spirit, if not fact, Nova Scotia is an island, barely connected to Canada by a narrow isthmus. Nova Scotians share more than 5,000 miles of undulating of coastline, and no one lives more than 50 miles from the sea. Most people can walk there easily.

And now the cold waters of the North Atlantic will be providing power for Nova Scotians, thanks to the ebb and flow of the world’s highest tides. The Bay of Fundy has a broad, conical shape that funnels rough ocean waters into the Minas Basin, creating a rich breeding ground for the endangered Northern Right whale, and enormous opportunities for tidal power.

The project is called FORCE — Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy — and it just garnered $20 million in federal funding, $11 million of which will be used to install four subsea cables in 2011. Each test site cable boasts a 16 megawatt (MW) capacity, for 64MW in total, and each 34.5-kilovolt cable is designed to allow adding more tidal devices in the future. With a combined length of 11 kilometres, the total capacity of all four cables will be about 64 devices, enough to power more than 20,000 homes.

Tidal power is still in its infancy, but it has enormous potential, especially in places like Nova Scotia where the tides are so prodigious and consistent.

Certainly, Atlantic Canada needs more clean energy. Most electricity in Nova Scotia is produced by coal-fired power plants run by Nova Scotia Power. The utility has access to cleaner burning natural gas found off the province’s coast but, like most utilities in North America, the company burns carbon-heavy coal to keep energy prices low.

But that’s starting to change. About a year and a half ago, Nova Scotians elected a New Democratic government which has been exercising what might best be described as pragmatic progressivism. According to Premier Darrel Dexter, the province now has a plan to transition to a low-carbon economy.

“Nova Scotia has aggressive renewable energy targets, feed-in tariffs, clear regulations and an incredible natural resource with the largest transmission capacity for in-stream tidal energy in the world.” says Dexter. “All of this combined is helping to establish Nova Scotia as a world leader.”

That is certainly overstating the matter, but the research and development is certainly helping the province make the most of a clean, abundant natural resource. The Nova Scotia legislature is now studying the technology, and will create new marine energy regulations before approving any additional projects.

Hopefully, it will be a one-two punch. The same, rugged coastline that so delights tourists also holds offwind resources that would literally knock your socks off. In fact, some analysts have suggested that it could power a sizable chunk of the eastern seaboard renewably.

With wind and tidal power, Nova Scotia could actually become the cliché: the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy. Only time will tell, but this seems like a promising first step.