From the monthly archives:

November 2010

Would you feed your own kid the same food you donate to food pantries?

November 24, 2010

Last year at about this time, my daughter and I were in the grocery store, buying items for a local food drive. After I threw a few bags of brown rice in the cart, Tess asked me why brown and not white. “Because it’s healthier,” I answered, “and it’s what we eat.” Then I told [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
62 comments read the full post >>

More McDonald’s madness
(Also: critical food legislation)

November 17, 2010

Because my recent post about McDonald’s “nutrition workshops” drew a lot of ire and eyeballs, I figured there’d be interest in the latest jaw-dropping news from the Land of Ronald: For starters, London’s Guardian newspaper reported last week that the British Department of Health is creating food-policy advisory groups that include reps from McDonald’s, PepsiCo, and other fast-food and [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
4 comments read the full post >>

Picture this: Label lesson

November 11, 2010

Before kids can read or comprehend ingredients lists, show them two items side by side and, together, count the number of ingredients. The more ingredients, the more likely it’s not real food.  A variation on this trick persuaded my daughter to agree to a treat swap: After another parent brought store-bought cupcakes to school last year, I (discreetly) showed Tess [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
11 comments read the full post >>

This just in: Fast food is unhealthy

November 9, 2010

Hot on the heels of my post about McDonald’s “nutrition workshops” comes this satisfying but mostly sad piece of research from Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity. Satisfying because it supports the common-sense contention (and my argument in the McEducation post) that fast food does not offer the healthful options it claims. Only 12 of 3,039 meal [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
2 comments read the full post >>

Forget Happy Meal toys. Let’s ban McEducation.

November 5, 2010

I’ve been thinking all week that I need to write about San Francisco’s crackdown on Happy Meal toys. But what to say? News of the decision spread fast, generating the predictable “McDonald’s-is-evil” vs. “parents-get-a-backbone” debate. And, really, my opinion on fast-food marketing hasn’t changed since I wrote about the Retire Ronald campaign in April. I still think the [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
48 comments read the full post >>

Halloween post-mortem. Candy recalls. And why teachers hate the day after.

November 3, 2010

Halloween night, Tess and her best buddy (aka the spider and the witch) went trick-or-treating in a cold rain, returning with a modest array of candy and snacks that they dumped on the carpet and fanned out like peacocks. The No. 1 thing they were hunting down: the popcorn (homemade, plain) that a neighbor had tossed in their bags.   [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
25 comments read the full post >>