Coca-Cola Lies to Doctors?

Sure looks that way to me.

The ad pictured above appeared on page 1632 of the June 17th edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The ad leads,

"Can't remember the last Coca-Cola ad targeted at children? There's a reason"

Reading the paragraph below,

"Parents tell us they prefer to be the ones teaching their children about beverage choices. That's why for over 50 years we've adhered to a company policy that prohibits advertising soft drinks to children."

Then they go on to brag about their voluntary efforts,

"And as a founding member of Canadian Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, we'vre recetnly extended this policy to include all forms of media, including broadcast, print, the web and beyond."

So what's my issue?

Well I can remember boatloads of Coca-Cola advertisements targeting children. From the famous Mean Joe Green football jersey commercial, to Santa Claus, little stuffed vending machine animals, animated polar bears, video games and recording and sports idols.

Thankfully, youtube remembers them as well and a smattering of them are posted down below (email subscribers, you'll have to actually visit the blog by clicking here as embedded videos don't make it into the email).

Visiting the Coca-Cola company's website you'll find that there's a lot of small print attached to their pledge but basically it comes down to this - it only applies to programming that is specifically geared towards children under the age of 12. I suppose that means targeting children during any family friendly shows (American/Canadian Idol, sports, some prime time stuff) is fair game and I suppose it also means Coca-Cola thinks your 12 year old is an adult.

What a beautiful example of how Big Food sponsored voluntary "regulation" through grandiose sounding endeavours such as the "Canadian Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative" aren't worth the paper they're written on.

MEAN JOE GREEN


SANTA CLAUS




CHRISTMAS (Entire commercial with 12 year olds)


STUFFED VENDING MACHINE ANIMALS


POLAR BEARS











NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK


CHRISTINA AGUILERA


MICHAEL JORDAN


YAO MING & LeBRON JAMES


GRAND THEFT AUTO (Videogame)

Will the "Grocery Store Shrink Ray" Shrink Us?

One of the internet's best blogs has got to be The Consumerist. It's a blog that takes on the corporate world's shadier and less friendly dealings. I read it daily.

Over the course of the past few months they've had a series of posts on what they've dubbed the, "Grocery Store Shrink Ray" referring to the fact that as energy prices increase Big Food is responding by zapping their foods with a shrink ray and then charging the same amount.

The picture above shows how Babybel cheese has shrunk by 9% (but the price remained the same) and on the Consumerist site there are before and after shots of shrink rays hitting Yoplait yogurt, Apple Jacks, Cocoa Crispies, Corn Pops, Fruit Loops, Honey Smacks, Tropicana orange juice, Brighams Ice Cream, Edy's Ice Cream, Garden Salsa Sun Chips, Arizona Ice Tea, Arby's and even draft beer!

So the question that leaps to my mind of course....if the food we're sold gets smaller, will we?

Movie Popcorn Just Got Worse!

I think most people know that as far as nutrition goes, movie popcorn is killer. Even without butter, large movie popcorns can run you well over 1,200 calories.

So how did movie popcorn get worse?

Well at least at Cineplex now we're being offered free packets of "flavouring" to shake onto our popcorn.

Having recently been at the movies my wife and I shared a small popcorn and we decided to try the white cheddar shaker.

Turning it over pre-shake I was astounded to learn that basically it was a packet of flavoured salt - 1,470mg or roughly a day's worth.



They're serving it to kids and seniors too - more than a day's worth.

But no MSG....

Gee thanks Cineplex!

[Kevin and Brad, please consider this my formal nomination for the next National Salt Lick Award.]

Super-duper Yogurt Cures Cancer and Heals Blindness!

Ok, maybe not, but you've seen them - claims like the one in the scan above clipped from this month's Chatelaine. It reads,

"You balance it all and then some. You're a super woman. That's why there's new Maximmunite, a delicious probiotic drink with 10 billion active probiotic cultures per serving that helps strengthen your body's immune system"

Well in the States at least, the Centre for Science in the Public Interest has had enough. Yesterday they filed a formal complaint with the FDA to try to reign in some of the more ridiculous claims made by products including yogurt.

Claims such as Crystal Light Immunity Berry Pomegranate that makes the same claim as the Maximmunite above of helping,

"maintain a healthy immune system"

Minute Maid Enhanced Juice Blend Omega-3 DHA Pomegranate Blueberry Flavored Blend of 5 Juices that purports to,

"help nourish your brain"

Sunsweet PlumSmart for Digestive Health Plum Juice Extra with Fiber that claims to,

"keep your digestive system healthy"

And Minute Maid Enhanced Juice Active 750 mg Glucosamine HCL that they report helps,

"protect cartilage and joints"

Basically CSPI wants Big Food to have to prove their product can in fact deliver on their claims. Perhaps they said it best in their press release on the matter,

"When companies claim their products will “maintain a healthy immune system,” consumers believe this means those products will help ward off disease. But while vitamins A, C, and E are important for the functioning of just about every system in the human body, there’s little evidence to suggest that drinking Crystal Light will have any impact on the average person’s immune system."

Wanna read more about baseless and potentially fraudulent yogurt claims? Click here to head over to the websites of Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins LLP to read their press release about the class action lawsuit they've launched against Dannon with regards to their yogurts Activia and DanActive.

Mmmmmmm, brain nourishment....

Vending Machine Salmon with Julienne of Vegetables & Chive Sauce?

Yup!

In my adventures around hospital cafeteria food I found myself exploring the Compass Group's website (world's leading provider of retail food service delivery) and I also enlisted some folks from my office to do so. Lorne, our director of operations, came across something they call, "Steamplicity".

Basically it's a vending machine that cooks meals using steam, and where I see great promise for a system like this is in those hospitals where their cafeterias close at 2pm and aren't open on weekends.

If you've ever worked a night shift in a hospital you'll know that pretty much every night there's a group of docs and nurses ponying together to order something from takeout and I'd be willing to wager there's not a nursing station in North America that doesn't have a dedicated drawer of take out/delivery menus.

How great would it be to actually be able to instead go downstairs and order a hot, healthy meal? Meals like Oriental Rice with BBQ Chicken, Mediterranean Chicken & Ratatouille Vegetables, Mild Vegetable Curry and Rice, Haddock with a Penne Pasta Mornay, Broccoli and Cauliflower Mornay, Mediterranean Vegetables with Olives & Mozzarella and of course Salmon with Julienne of Vegetables & Chive Sauce? That's the promise of Steamplicity.

Now of course I don't have any nutritional breakdowns to look at, and the photograph on the menu has a big steaming pile of white refined rice, but certainly I can't imagine it would be that difficult to have Steamplicity make some truly healthy options.

I'm not sure if Steamplicity is set up as a standard vending machine or if it's more for institutional meal preparation, but given the existence of the unit itself, how hard could it be to set it up for vending machine style use?

See, even good news from Big Food!

So that rounds out good news week....maybe I'll do another one someday, but not next week. Next week I've got a bunch of angry posts planned.

Philadelphia Police "Reward" Kids with Pizza and Slurpees

Here's the plan.

A police officer sees a child between the ages of 7-12 do a good deed.

The officer issues the child a "positive ticket".

The ticket consists of a coupon for a free Slurpee, Wendy's Frostie, Applebee's child entree or a slice of pizza, teaching the child that good deeds are rewarded with junk food. Oh, and that junk food is therefore considered a good choice by someone children look up to - police officers.

Strange plan for a State where the 18% rate of overweight and obesity in its children exceeds the national average (a number that jumps to a truly frightening 27% among Philadelphian low-income 2-5 year olds).

Sheer genius.

Oy.

[Update: My wonderful wife just informed me that during Ottawa's kindness week, our police officers give out coupons for junk food to children too. Consider this post my shot across the bow, more to follow on Ottawa's "kindness" tickets.]

[Via Slashfood]

Dr. Rahul Parikh's Open Letter to Lucas & Spielberg

I have often wondered how rich a company or person would have to be in order to not succumb to the pressure of licensing their movie/cartoon character/likeness to sell crappy food.

Witness the recent marriage of the latest Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas creation Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull despite their combined personal net worth of $6.5 billion, to Burger King in the form of an Indy Whopper (two quarter-pound patties topped with two slices of melted pepper jack cheese, four slices of bacon, spicy Cajun mayo, tomatoes, lettuce and onions on a toasted sesame seed bun) and to Mars with their Snicker's Adventure Bar.

Pediatrician Dr. Rahul Parikh took notice too, and in a bitingly funny, yet scathing open letter posted on Salon.com called on Lucas and Spielberg to stop allowing their characters to be licensed to junk.

Here are some excerpts but please do yourselves the favour and click on through as this is one letter worth reading (and sharing),

"In the 30 years since you've started making movies, one thing that hasn't changed is a kid's (or in my case, a grown man's) imagination and wonder. And who sparks that better than you?

But a lot of other things about kids have changed. Their health is one of them. Today, almost one in four kids is obese, putting them at risk for, among other things, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The epidemic of obesity is serious enough that we're predicting that this current generation won't live as long their parents and grandparents. That's incredible if you think about it.

Which brings me to why I wrote this letter. I'm a pediatrician, and every day I see overweight kids coming into my office. Getting families and kids to change how they eat is an uphill battle, and it doesn't get easier when big studios like yours wheel and deal with companies that peddle junk food and fast food.

....

Besides the fact that none of these foods is healthy, one has to ask if they're what your characters would eat. Would Lord Vader chug down a Pepsi before he wielded his light saber? (If he did, would he drink it with a straw or take off his entire mask?) Wouldn't Indy, now a senior citizen, have more than just a little bump in his cholesterol if he had scarfed down his namesake burger with fries and a soda? How could he be fit enough to chase down ancient relics while dodging boulders and outwitting Nazis?

....

So I'm asking you: Why do you still tie in your movies with junk food and fast food? I know that you and your corporate partners make millions from deals with conglomerate food companies and fast-food chains. But do you really need the extra cash at this point? Wouldn't it be better, in a corporate crusader kind of way, to change course? Stop these deals, or partner with somebody who thinks a little healthier?

....

If not, then perhaps a little truth in advertising, or in cinema, is in order. You should show us how your characters would look if they ate the food that you helped peddle. In that vein, you got Jabba the Hutt right. But Princess Leia in her skimpy steel bikini with cellulite? Indiana Jones having to hit the brakes during a car chase and find a glass of water so he can take his Lipitor? Now that I think about it, wouldn't Viagra have been the best tie-in for the new movie?"

Cheers to Dr. Parikh!

Jeers to Lucas and Spielberg!

Restaurants Lie!

Shocker.

Ok, maybe not so shocking.

What am I talking about?

So what's the story?

ABC News in seven cities across the US set out to see if the items they purchased from the low-fat or low-calorie options in Chili's, The Cheesecake Factory, Taco Bell, On the Border, Applebee's and Macaroni Grill actually had the amount of fat and calories the restaurants' nutritional information pages said they did by sending them to an independent lab for analysis.

The results?

Some foods had twice the calories and fat that the restaurants claimed they did, and in a few rare cases some had less.

The lesson here?

When you eat out, even if you order "healthy" choices, even if the restaurant lists the calories, there's still a great chance you're getting more than you paid for.

The other lesson is for public health authorities and that is if in fact you legislate that calories be listed on menus, you'd better put in a mechanism for not only enforcement of the listing, but also validity.

NYC's Starbuck's Calorie-Inclusive Menu Boards in the Wild

Thanks to Flickr users pnoeric and scalleja who kindly shared their photos with the world, below are some shots of New York City Starbucks' menu boards.

Click them to see the more than a Big-Mac calories Venti White Chocolate Mocha, and then the more than a Quarterpounder calories everything baked.

Ya think that might affect orders?

Dietitians of Canada Officially, Formally and Happily Sell Out

According to their vision statement, the Dietitians of Canada purports itself to be,

"the voice of the profession"

I think they forgot to mention they're also quite comfortable being the mouthpiece of Big Food.

While I recognize that physician groups aren't immune from conflict of interest (primarily stemming from Big Pharma), I know as a physician I'd be fairly uncomfortable to land on the Canadian Medical Association's website and find advertising there from drug companies.

Imagine my surprise when learning that the "Members only" section of the Dietitians of Canada (DoC) website does in fact have Big Food advertisements as evidenced in the screen captures below (click them to open them in a large window) where the first shills for President's Choice Blue Menu products and the second for eggs:



Apparently if you keep refreshing the page, new ads pop up.

But let's put internet advertising aside, we can chalk that up to poor judgment, (UPDATE - Poor judgment shared by the Canadian Medical Association where I also found some internet drug ads) I mean after all, it's not like it's a clinical practice guideline or a resource manual for the profession.

Ummmm, about the DoC professional resource manuals....

After a bit more sniffing on their website I came across this link to the Dietitians of Canada 2001 National Nutrition Month Resource Manual for Dietitians (I realize it's 2008, but this is still featured prominently on the DoC website and is one of many Fact Sheets explicitly endorsed and implicitly steered by Big Food).

Read through it and you'll find it was sponsored (paid for) by the Canadian Sugar Institute, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency, the Dairy Bureau of Canada and Kraft. Ominously the Canadian Sugar Institute was referred to as an "internal sponsor" while eggs, dairy and Kraft were merely, "official sponsors".

Think the sponsors were just silent spectators?

Then how come there's giant pictures of dairy products throughout; 3 pages on encouraging Canadians to drink more milk (replete with a section on getting the lactose intolerants to drink milk too); and two pages devoted to encouraging Canadians to eat more eggs?

There's also messaging that sugar is a carbohydrate just like fruit and this great quobesity,

"With the exception of dental caries, there is no evidence to show that sugar causes health problems. There is no specific limit or recommendation to reduce the amount of sugar we are currently eating."

Did the Dietitians of Canada really just steer their members as the "voice of their profession" to educate the public that sugar doesn't contribute to health problems and that you can eat as much of it as you want and not worry?

Looking at the 2008 Nutrition Month page that details some information about sponsors, DoC spells out who'll they'll happily take money from:

"Food products and Manufacturers", "Food Retailers".

No real limitations there either - basically if you makes or sell a food that can conceivably fit in Canada's Food Guide, you're welcome to play.

Marion Nestle, world-renowned nutrition expert (don't believe me, click here and check out her rather ridiculous C.V.) on her wonderful blog What to Eat details the equivalent practice within the American Dietetic Association (ADA). Here's a recent excerpt with her call to action for her fellow ADA members (feel free to mentally swap DoC for ADA),

"Respected ADA colleagues: as long as your organization partners with makers of food and beverage products, its opinions about diet and health will never be believed independent (translation: based on science not politics) and neither will yours. Consider the ADA’s Nutrition Fact Sheets, for example, each with its very own corporate sponsor (scroll down to the lower right hand corner of the second page to see who paid for the Facts). Is the goal of ADA really the same as the goal of the sponsors–to sell the sponsor’s food products? Is this a good way to get important scientific messages to the public? ADA members: how about doing something about this!"

Now I know that I have many Canadian readers who are registered dietitians. What do you think about the involvement of the food industry with DoC?

[Hat tip to a concerned dietitian who threw the screen caps my way]

Treat High Cholesterol with Chocolate?

What? You didn't know you could do that?

Get with it.

Dove Chocolate, an arm of the Mars company, has created two new chocolate bars: Dove Vitalize and Dove Beautiful.

According to the press release Dove Vitalize,

"contains rich dark chocolate, plus energy-releasing B vitamins, the natural goodness of cocoa flavanols to help support circulatory health and plant sterols to help maintain a healthy cholesterol level"

While Dove Beautiful,

"contains smooth milk chocolate, plus skin nourishing vitamins C & E, biotin, zinc, and cocoa flavanols that help hydrate from within to support beautiful-looking skin"

Uh huh. Who needs Lipitor when you can simply eat chocolate?

Yeah, that's gonna help.

I think they ought to be named Dove Dummify and Dove Sucker.

For more, here's a video press release from Mars (designed to look like real news).



[Hat tip to Julie from It Must have Been Something I Ate and Dinner with Julie]

Children's Junk Food Ad Ban in Ontario?

We're one step closer.

Yesterday Ontario New Democrat Rosario Marchese introduced a private members bill that if passed would ban advertising of food and drinks to children under 13.

Proponents of the bill (myself included) recognize that banning advertising to children is a good idea in and of itself given that studies have proven that children (especially children under the age of 6), are unable to discern the difference between truth and advertising, and that there's simply no need to enable Big Food to hoodwink our kids into thinking junk food is healthy.

So who would be against this bill? Well Big Food and marketers.

Guess what?

In the media today you're going to see quotes from two organizations, a group shadily entitled, "The Concerned Children's Advertisers" which is an industry organization representing the interests of 16 Big Food corporations including General Mills, Kraft, Coca Cola and Pepsi and another group entitled the, "Media-Awareness Network" representing the interests of founding member Bell and supporter CTVGlobemedia.

What will they be saying about the proposed ad ban?

They'll be saying that:

There's no proof it'll help

In our day and age with the internet and satellite television even if we ban it in Ontario, it'll still trickle in

That Big Food has already voluntarily reduced targeted children's advertising

My take on those arguments?

1. There's no proof it'll help because it hasn't been done (except in Quebec where albeit minimally, they have the lowest rate of childhood obesity in the country) and frankly given the inability of young children to see the difference between truth and advertising, it doesn't matter. We shouldn't allow folks to prey on our children's innocence. Furthermore, the argument's longer version is the, "obesity it too complex to blame on one thing" argument which then effectively paralyzes action. As I've mentioned before, "no single raindrop thinks it's responsible for the flood". Junk food ads are certainly one fat raindrop.

2. Yes, there are still satellite televisions and the internet - so what? There's a heck of a lot of hard core pornography on the internet too, doesn't mean I want my kids watching commercials for it. Furthermore, as we're seeing with calls to ban trans-fats and post calories on menus, these types of things have a tendency to build on themselves.

3. Big Food's voluntary reduction? Read my post on their fantabulous initiative by clicking here.

Perhaps MPP Marchese said it best in a quote from an article in the Toronto Star,

"Some children's advertisers claim that you can't put a fence around the ocean to protect children. We're not trying to put a fence around the ocean, we're simply putting lifeguards on the beach where our children are just learning to swim."

What can you do?

Well if you live in Ontario you can contact your MPP and let them know that in fact your support Mr. Marchese's bill. If our MPPs feel there's enough public support, maybe, just maybe, the Trix rabbit will die.

(For a list of Ontario MPPs click here. If you don't know your electoral district you can click here. Unfortunately the government's postal code MPP search is down)

Why Would a Hospital Serve Poutine?

One of the things I've learned from writing this blog is that make enough noise and have a strong enough case and you'll be amazed what can come of it.

Today I've got an example of a young new doc, using his voice.

Dr. Rob Stevenson, a cardiology resident at Dalhousie, recently wrote a column for the Chronicle Herald detailing his experiences with his hospital's cafeteria.

The QE II hospital's cafeteria had been featured in the news as students from a local school who had outlawed junk food, started showing up in the nearby hospital's cafeteria to eat the now comparatively junkier hospital food. In fact that picture up above was taken by Rob and shows a group of cardiologists and nurses heading over to the high school to see their healthy fare and a group of students heading out to the hospital cafeteria to get their french fry fix.

The QE II, in response to the bad press, apparently came out to state that cafeteria customers were adults, "who can make their own decisions" and that there were some, "healthy choices at point of sale".

Adults sure, but as Dr. Stevenson rightly points out,

"The customers of the QE II cafeterias are often patients and their families, in addition to many of my fellow workers at the hospital. The food is often consumed during the most stressful of times, and throughout long days, and nights in-house."

And about those healthy choices?

"I have been mostly aware of chips, cookies, doughnuts and chocolate bars – hardly a lasting image of sound nutrition."

The QE II has hemmed and hawed that changes will be coming sooner rather than later, but Dr. Stevenson wonders, why wait?

"Every day is the perfect day to stop serving fries and doughnuts. Every day is the perfect day for a health care institution to lead by healthy example."

No, it's not going to change obesity rates in Canada but I can't help but agree with Dr. Stevenson that hospitals have an obligation to patients to lead by example and to quote him again directly,

"On a daily basis, we physicians make recommendations to patients regarding lifestyle, and every day we battle with the poor food choices offered by vendors within the hospital. Why would any fried food (yes, doughnuts are fried) ever be available in a health care facility? Why would a hospital serve poutine?

Why indeed?

Kudos to Dr. Stevenson - I wish there were more docs like him willing to use their voices. Let's hope his noise affects change.

Stay tuned over the course of the next few weeks for more hospital cafeteria woes as I take you on a guided tour of Ottawa's offerings (hint, they're not any better).

UPDATE: For my international friends and readers who don't know what poutine is, it's french fries, smothered in cheese curds, smothered in gravy. Here's a representative picture.

Is Thin too Expensive?

I realize that at first glance, that may look like an odd question.

Recent research however, suggests that it might not be.

A recent study, by Pablo Monsivais and Adam Drewnowski published in the December 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Organization, looked at the relative cost per calorie of 372 "low energy dense" foods and "high energy dense" foods between 2004 and 2006.

Low energy dense foods would be foods that gram per gram have fewer calories. Fruits and vegetables would be the staples of the low-energy dense shopper.

High energy dense foods gram per gram have more calories and tend to therefore be foods high in fat and/or sugar. This is often the realm of junk food.

Ready for the important and even somewhat surprising results?

Low energy dense foods are much more expensive than high energy dense foods, and while that may not surprise you, the difference in cost may: The least energy dense foods cost $18.16/1,000 kcal as compared to only $1.76/1,000 kcal for foods that were the most energy dense.

Also incredibly important to note, inflation affected low energy dense and high energy dense foods very differently with the 2-year price change for the low energy dense foods being +19.5%, whereas the price change for the high energy dense foods being −1.8%.

So in summary, not only are low energy dense foods far more expensive, their comparative inflation rate over the course of the past two years was 400% higher than the general rate of food inflation and more than 2000% higher than the junkiest of foods.

Put another way, based on a 2,000 Calorie per day diet, if you choose primarily high energy dense foods your Calories will cost you $3.52 a day as compared with a diet consisting primarily of low energy dense foods that will cost you $36.32 a day.

Any wonder why we're getting bigger?

Wanna guess how long it'll be before the government steps in and subsidizes our health food baskets?

Never?

We're in really big trouble.

What Food Really Looks Like

A while back I linked to a website that took a bunch of fast food items and compared them to what they looked like in their advertisements.

Well today I've got a link to a German website that looked at over 100 store-bought products (with a few fast food items thrown in for good measure) and did the same thing.

Let's just say that food stylists (the folks who take pictures of these products) are really, really good at their jobs.

Here's a quick video short from that same German website.

Words of advice?

You don't want to buy the herring salad.

All You Can Eat Blue Jays!

So the trend of all-you-can-eat admission to baseball games has made it to the great white north.

To date this trend has pretty much been U.S. based and according to an article in the Toronto Star,

"Nearly half of the major league baseball teams in the U.S. have added the "all-inclusive" seats. Nine NHL teams offer them, six NBA teams have them and NASCAR is selling the tickets at several of its racetracks."

Hurray for Canada?

Want to be an early-adopter?

For just $39 you can watch the Jays take on the Kansas City Royals and "enjoy" all you can eat hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, peanuts and soft drinks.

Sorry, no pizza or beer for you.

Hope you can take your head out of the trough long enough to watch the game.

Buy your tickets here.

We Get Mail!

So early last week I blogged about my desire to see family-friendly checkout lines in Supermarkets - where magazines talking about sex and potentially contributing to body image disturbances, and candy were absent.

I also sent off an email to Loblaws (Canada's largest supermarket chain) and on Thursday received a response from Ms. Inge Van Den Berg, Loblaws' Vice President of Investor Relations.

I'll post the email below but here's the executive summary:

6 months ago Loblaws started testing what they call a "clutter-free" checkout aisle in their Milton Superstore.

Since then they have begun to experiment with further such aisles in 4 other Superstores and 3 regular stores.

They are also planning on converting additional stores, but the number and speed with which this will occur she can't say.

Now frankly I'm not against magazines and candy in checkouts, I just want an option where I don't have to face those with my family and ideally I'd love a family-only checkout line where not only might I avoid the candy and magazines, but one where perhaps it would allow me to get my bored little kids out even faster. While I'm not holding my breath, in a subsequent email exchange, Ms. Van Den Berg reported that she'd raise this possibility with her colleagues.

I'll likely check back with Ms. Van Den Berg in 6 months or so for an update.

Dear Dr. Freedhoff,

Thank you very much for your letter. We are glad that you like our Blue Menu product line. We have been receiving positive customer response to this product line and feel very strongly about providing healthy food alternatives to our customers. We share your concerns regarding health matters and have publicly identified one of our eight growth drivers as being "health, home and wholesome" focused.

Regarding your concern about 'child-friendly' checkout aisles, as you may know we have been testing a clutter-free checkout aisle in our Milton Superstore since September of 2007 and have received very positive feedback from our customers regarding these checkouts. Since then, we have begun to convert several store checkouts to this no candy, no magazine design. Currently we have 4 of our Superstores and 3 of our Great Food (conventional) stores using this clutter-free design. We are planning to convert additional checkouts to this clutter-free format, but the timing and full extent of conversion has not yet been finalized. It is too soon to indicate if or when all of our stores will be converted to this clutter-free design, but the customer response to date has been positive and we will continue to monitor response as we continue conversions. Our largest Hard Discount banner, nofrills, does not display magazines at their checkouts. We have not begun testing the full clutter-free checkouts in the remaining Hard Discount stores yet. We do offer self-scanning checkout lanes in 177 of our stores. These self-scanning checkouts are primarily magazine and confectionery free where possible. We are continuing to rollout more self-scanning checkout lanes, with a goal to have them all clutter-free. As you mentioned, these lanes are an option for customers to avoid the candy and magazines in other checkout lanes.

Just so that you are aware, in the stores that we have clutter-free checkouts, we still retain a magazine section and confectionery section nearby the checkouts (often across from one of the checkouts or to the side). We offer these products to our customers, as there are many customers that do want to purchase them. Therefore we do rely on parents to manage their shopping trip around those areas, if they are concerned about the products' impact on their children. We believe this is an acceptable shared responsibility.

Please let me know if you would like to discuss this further.

Regards,

Inge

Inge van den Berg

Vice President, Investor Relations

Loblaw Companies Limited 1 President's Choice Circle Brampton, ON L6Y 5S5 1-905-459-2500

Pediatrician Peddles "Herbal" Water

Introducing Ayala's Herbal Water; a "naturally enhanced flavored water".

Flavors include: Lemongrass mint vanilla, lavender mint lemongrass thyme, jasmine vanilla, cloves cardamom cinnamon, cinammon orange peel and ginger lemon peel.

So who's Ayala?

She's Dr Ayala Laufer Cahana, a pediatrician and medical geneticist from Wynnewood Pennsylvania and she also writes her own blog on nutrition.

Peeking at her blog she seems to be all about evidence-based medicine as she links back to studies on the safety of vitamin supplements, nutrition and cancer, diet soda and many more.

But if she's so keen on evidence based medicine, how come she put out a press release for her water that included the following statements,

"The new water is all natural, has zero calories, zero artificial additives and zero preservatives, and features the complex and sophisticated flavors derived from herbs which also bring all the health benefits associated with antioxidants."

and,

"For centuries herbs have been enjoyed around the world and are known for their healing powers. Some of the herbs used in producing the Ayala's Herbal Water have been known to aid digestion, improve blood glucose levels, strengthen immunity, reduce insomnia, stress, and help maintain healthy LDL cholesterol levels."

Her ads also tout the fact that it was, "created by a pediatrician".

Now I'm all for water and have nothing against herbs, but it strikes me as more than a tad hypocritical, exceedingly misleading and an abuse of public trust to use your MD to promote water with a smidgen of herbs as being something specially formulated by you with explicit inferences that the herbs infused will help improve multiple medical conditions.

Worse still coming from a doctor whose blog at least suggests, understands the astronomical difference between evidence and inference, yet seems to be relying on the fact that most consumers don't to sell her product.

Child-Friendly Grocery Stores?

I'm just starting to hear some whispers of a new trend in supermarkets - the child-friendly checkout aisle.

Are checkout aisles currently child unfriendly?

Ummmmm yeah I'd say so.

Turn to your right and you're surrounded by candy. Turn to your left and you're surrounded by glossy diet magazines, gossip and stories about how to be sexier in bed.

Remove the candy and the magazines and voila - child-friendly checkout.

To that end, yesterday I sent off a letter to Loblaws (Canada's largest grocery store chain) asking them to consider making at least one checkout aisle per store child friendly. I'll be sure to share their response with you.

If you'd like to send a letter in support of this idea, feel free to click here to email customer service and investor relations at Loblaws

Here's mine,

Dear Loblaws,

I know health matters to you. Your President's Choice Blue Menu line, overseen by Dr. David Jenkins, is a great example of how the food industry can partner up with health professionals to provide consumers with generally healthier choices, all the while helping the food industry with sales.

I'm writing to ask you for your comments on a growing trend in Supermarkets and that would be the existence of "child-friendly" checkout lines where confections and magazines were not part of the walk-through experience.

Confection wise - we live in a world where childhood obesity is on the rise. While I certainly don't lay blame on checkout lines for rising rates, for parents harried by bored children to buy them a chocolate bar giving in is often the easiest option. Not being surrounded by chocolate and candy options while waiting to check-out certainly would decrease the frequency of this happening and potentially make family shopping a healthier, calmer, more pleasant experience.

Glossy magazine wise - the media dramatically influences our children's body images and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the majority of their early exposure to such magazines may take place in supermarket checkout lines. Unhealthy body images abound in young children with studies suggesting that half of young girls aged 6 and above want to change their appearances. Given that the bulk of the glossy magazines in checkout aisles detail how to flatten, firm, or trim various body parts along with photos of the requisite ultra-slim model, navigating these lines can be difficult. There's also really no need for my young daughters to read headlines such as, "Sex Shockers Things He Doesn't Know About During the Deed That you Really Really Need to Know", "How Long Should You Wait to Sleep with a Guy?", "The Harmless Habits that Turn Men off to you", and "Naughty Sex Tricks (Let out your inner bad girl)". Those headlines by the way all come from the April 2007 edition of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Having at least one family friendly checkout line per store would allow concerned parents the ability to stand in a child-safe line, and may in turn increase traffic to your store, help your customers improve the health of their families and most certainly would be something news worthy.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter as are the readers of my blog where I've also posted this letter.

Sincerely,
Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, MD CCFP Dip ABBM
Medical Director, Bariatric Medical Institute

Stupidest Cookies Ever?

"Zero trans fat!"

"Zero Cholesterol"

"Low in Saturated Fat!"

"A Source of Omega-3 Polyunsaturates!"

Yup, those are all the claims currently on the front of Voortman's phenomenally stupidly named, "Omega-3 Zeer-Ohs!" cookies and if the food industry has its way, there will soon be more.

Stay tuned tomorrow when I introduce you to the goings on behind the scenes at the current Happy Corporations (Health Canada) consultations into food labeling where surprise, surprise, the food industry has an invited seat to the table, the process is skewed dramatically in their favour, and with industry of course wanting it be made easier for them to make outlandish health claims on foods (health sells) in the absence of real evidence to support them.

When they have their way (unfortunately, I don't say if - I think it's likely a forgone conclusion that Health Canada will bend over for Big Food again) perhaps these cookies will have a statement to the effect of,

"Supportive but not conclusive research shows that consumption of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. One serving of Omega-3 Zeer-Ohs! provides 0.5 grams of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids."

And then perhaps Voortman's will rename them, Omega-3 Super Heart Healthy-Ohs!.

Yum.

[Nutritionally per 2 cookies: 120 Calories and sugar is the first ingredient while the source of the omega 3s is ground flax which has not been shown to be as helpful as marine based omega 3s in cardiovascular disease prevention.]

[Hat tip to my lovely wife for buying the cookies, scanning in the package and ultimately returning them unopened to the store]