If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
The winner is commenter #14, Zariu! Thank you for being an MDA reader and enjoy the Vital Omegas!
Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful comments. Our readers really keep us motivated to continue to bring quality health and wellness information to the blogosphere. Long live MDA!
We’re Big in St. Louis.
That’s right. We’ve posted our one-thousandth blog post! (Actually, 1,065. We were so busy writing one-thousand sort of came and went without us even noticing.) We would like to use this as an opportunity to thank all of our readers for enjoying the ride with us. (Thank you!) It has been a labor of love - one we hope to continue for many more thousands of posts.
We’d also like to take this occasion to revisit all of the things we’ve been ranting about. Since October ‘06 we have covered everything from diabetes and the American healthcare system to fats, food, and fitness. View the Best Of and Most Popular Posts to reminisce, and check out some of our personal favorites if you are looking for even more nostalgia:
Is Intermittent Fasting Healthy?
Stress, Cortisol and the Adrenals
The Definitive Guide to Cholesterol
To mark this event we will be giving away a bottle of Vital Omegas - Mark’s pharmaceutical grade omega-3 fatty-acid fish oil supplement - to one very lucky commenter as a token of our appreciation.
Just tell us something you’ve learned, loved, hated or laughed about over the course of these 1,000 posts. We’ll use a random number generator to select the winner from the comment boards. Thanks, everyone!
Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton Flickr Photo
Five days of Mark’s Daily Apple isn’t enough, you say? You’ve spoken and we’ve listened. If you haven’t already noticed we are now bringing content to all of our dedicated Apples (that’s you!) seven days a week! Check back this (and every) Saturday and Sunday for more rants, raves, heated debates and healthy living tips. Have a wonderful weekend!
As American as Mark’s Daily Apple Pie
Presidential primary politics is really heating up! With recruitment efforts at an all time high we’ve been inspired to jump on the bandwagon and do a little recruiting of our own. 
Pumping out health and nutrition information day-in day-out is a labor of love. But just like politics, without voter participation and turnout everyone loses. So we are asking you to get behind us and help us take Mark’s Daily Apple to the next level!
Why are we asking for your support?
There are a couple things at work here:
1. In order to be able to continue to bring free health advice and news to everyone we’ve got to keep traffic levels on the rise.
On a related note, and more importantly:
2. We believe we have an important message to bring to people. (And we think you think so too!)
We are here to challenge and rethink conventional health wisdom, to be a scrappy watch dog - sussing out quacks, disinformation and questionable studies - and to encourage and offer tips on how to best lead a healthy lifestyle.
If you believe we have the best health blog on the net join us in spreading the good word!
How You Can Help:
It’s easy! Show your devotion and appreciation for the free content we provide by social bookmarking any and all blog posts you find interesting.
If you found it worth reading chances are someone else will find it helpful, enlightening, or just plain entertaining as well!
By simply signing up for StumbleUpon, digg, reddit, del.icio.us or any of the other social bookmarking services and then giving us the ol’ thumbs up we would be forever grateful. Not only will others be introduced to information that may change their lives, but it will also enable us to continue to bring this content to you - our current devoted readers.
Oh, and tell your friends about us!
Thanks everyone! As a token of our appreciation we will be holding a contest later on today. Be sure to check back at 1 pm PST for your chance to receive a FREE bottle of Vital Omegas.
I can haz carbs?
New nutrition labels are in the works for a 2008 unveiling. There are some terrific improvements over the current labels. A particular problem I’ve long had with the existing labels is that the numbers are based upon the assumption that you’re following a 2,000 calorie-per-day diet. That’s too much for many women, not enough for many men, and irrelevant for many growing kids. And yet nearly every food and food product in America is measured and judged as if we were all virtually identical and weighing in at 150 pounds. Who actually takes time to adjust the nutritional values for their particular weight, BMI, and body fat percentage? Moreover, how many Americans are even aware that when they see “15% fat” on a label, the food carrying this label is not 15% fat? It seems, in fact, to be the perfect recipe for ambiguity - and obesity. If I wanted to obscure accurate nutrition information - because why would we ever want to present what’s inside on the outside - I’d come up with some imaginary standard and convoluted comparisons, too.
O.K., Mark, we get it. Now that I’ve dispatched with my preliminary rant, let’s take a look at the changes. The label is getting an overhaul, and here is what you can expect:
First, what we’re talking about here is a system called the Overall Nutritional Quality Index. Foods will be judged, measured and marked based upon comparisons to other foods. “Overall Nutritional Quality” sounds like a sensible approach that prioritizes quality over arbitrary numbers. I do like this aspect of the new label. For example, a bag of broccoli will offer nutritional comparisons to other vegetables so you get an idea of the value of the green you’re about to eat. (This will apply to candy, drinks, and all processed foods, as well. Not sure how helpful “this refined bread is better for you than that donut” is going to be, but we’ll have to see how it all shakes out, I suppose.)
Second, the labels will be more positively focused. I like that intent. Rather than simply including the “bad” information, the labels will also point out the good nutrients, proteins, fats, and fiber. The obvious problem with this, however, is that what’s considered “bad” and what’s considered “good” is flawed. Saturated fat and cholesterol are - as usual - undesirable, while carbohydrates (excluding sugar) are considered desirable. Same box, new, shiny wrapper. All this amounts to a new labeling system that forgos the arbitrary numbers but makes comparisons - and recommendations - based upon flawed evidence and deeply misguided nutritional understanding.
Third, I can’t resist sharing a few quotes from the article that don’t need my help:
- “You really shouldn’t need a PhD in nutritional biochemistry to figure out which kids’ breakfast cereal is healthier.”
- “The scoring system will let consumers compare different types of the same food, so they will be able to tell not only that fruit is healthier than candy, but which fruits or candy are more or less healthy.
‘It’s all candy, none of it is going to compare to broccoli,’ Katz [spokesperson] said. ‘But face it, when you want candy, broccoli isn’t going to do the job.’ ”
Pardon me while I go bang my head against the wall. Have fun in the meantime.
Photo Credit: Arimoore
Further Reading:
Yet Another Half-Baked Grain Study
King Corn: Don’t Miss This Movie!
LOLcats are addictive and sugar-free
Technorati Tags: nutrition, label, food, Overall Nutritional Quality Index
You are currently browsing the archives for the Announcements category.
