One day we'll learn.

Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com

Now here's something you wouldn't expect. Coca-Cola is being sued by a non-profit public interest group, on the grounds that the company's vitaminwater products make unwarranted health claims. No surprise there. But how do you think the company is defending itself?

In a staggering feat of twisted logic, lawyers for Coca-Cola are defending the lawsuit by asserting that "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage."

Does this mean that you'd have to be an unreasonable person to think that a product named "vitaminwater," a product that has been heavily and aggressively marketed as a healthy beverage, actually had health benefits?

Or does it mean that it's okay for a corporation to lie about its products, as long as they can then turn around and claim that no one actually believes their lies?

In fact, the product is basically sugar-water, to which about a penny's worth of synthetic vitamins have been added. And the amount of sugar is not trivial. A bottle of vitaminwater contains 33 grams of sugar, making it more akin to a soft drink than to a healthy beverage.

Is any harm being done by this marketing ploy? After all, some might say consumers are at least getting some vitamins, and there isn't as much sugar in vitaminwater as there is in regular Coke.

True. But about 35 percent of Americans are now considered medically obese. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight. Health experts tend to disagree about almost everything, but they all concur that added sugars play a key role in the obesity epidemic, a problem that now leads to more medical costs than smoking.

The truth is that when it comes to weight loss, what you drink may be even more important than what you eat. Americans now get nearly 25 percent of their calories from liquids. In 2009, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, finding that the quickest and most reliable way to lose weight is to cut down on liquid calorie consumption. And the best way to do that is to reduce or eliminate beverages that contain added sugar.

The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, alleges that vitaminwater labels and advertising are filled with "deceptive and unsubstantiated claims." In his recent 55-page ruling, Federal Judge John Gleeson (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York), wrote, "At oral arguments, defendants (Coca-Cola) suggested that no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitamin water was a healthy beverage." Noting that the soft drink giant wasn't claiming the lawsuit was wrong on factual grounds, the judge wrote that, "Accordingly, I must accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true."

I still can't get over the bizarre audacity of Coke's legal case. Forced to defend themselves in court, they are acknowledging that vitaminwater isn't a healthy product. But they are arguing that advertising it as such isn't false advertising, because no could possibly believe such a ridiculous claim. Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

I haven't lost any weight for a few months. I've strayed a bit (maybe more than a bit) and haven't been as steadfast with my diet but I didn't think it was that bad. I figured the only way for me to get back on track would be for me to start a food journal again. I did this for the first 6 months of my fat loss program and it helped tremendously. It was also a pain in the neck recording everything that I was putting into my face throughout the day. So, I really didn't want to start doing this again.

I bit the bullet, and downloaded Calorie Counter by Fat Secret to my Android phone this morning. I recorded my breakfast and I already see what the problem is. Having 929 cals for breakfast isn't necessarily a problem if it's my largest meal of the day (which it should be) but I tend to have a dinner equally as big. Considering this, lunch and snacks, I'm probably over my recommended daily allowance on most days. This is especially true when I indulge in some carby treats.

Calorie Counter is an awesome app! My favorite feature is the ability to scan the bar code of the product and it will identify what it is and pull up the nutrition information. This is much easier than the app I used on my iPod Touch in the past. I had to input all this information by hand. The app also has a packed database of various food items from restaurants, grocery stores and fast food. This should make it very easy to use.

I'll continue to post updates. Still on my path to 6 pack abs!

   

I hope this news continues to come out into the main stream. The amount of sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and refined/processed carbohydrates is doing more harm than good. There are numerous studies that show this but there are being under reported. It's unfortunately that many people they are eating healthy but actually may be increasing their risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

Amplify’d from www.city-journal.org

Egg on Their Faces

Government dietary advice often proves disastrous.

Every five years, the federal Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services revise their Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a publication that sets the direction for federal nutrition-education programs. In an age when aggressive government agencies in places like New York City seek a greater hand in shaping Americans’ diets, the next set of guidelines, published later this year, could prove more controversial than usual because increasing scientific evidence suggests that some current federal recommendations have simply been wrong. Will a public-health establishment that has been slow to admit its mistakes over the years acknowledge the new research and shift direction? Or will it stubbornly stick to its obsolete guidelines?

The crux of the controversy is the quantity of fat and carbohydrates that we consume and how it influences our cardiac health. As a recent review of the latest research in Scientific American pointed out, ever since the first set of federal guidelines appeared in 1980, Americans heard that they had to reduce their intake of saturated fat by cutting back on meat and dairy products and replacing them with carbohydrates. Americans dutifully complied. Since then, obesity has increased sharply, and the progress that the country has made against heart disease has largely come from medical breakthroughs like statin drugs, which lower cholesterol, and more effective medications to control blood pressure.

Researchers have started asking hard questions about fat consumption and heart disease, and the answers are startling. In an analysis of the daily food intake of some 350,000 people published in the March issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute found no link between the amount of saturated fat that a person consumed and the risk of heart disease. One reason, the researchers speculate, is that saturated fat raises levels of so-called good, or HDL, cholesterol, which may offset an accompanying rise in general cholesterol. A few weeks later, researchers at Harvard released their own analysis of data from 20 studies around the world, concluding that those who eat four ounces of fresh (not processed) red meat every day face no increased risk of heart disease.

According to Scientific American, growing research into carbohydrate-based diets has demonstrated that the medical establishment may have harmed Americans by steering them toward carbs. Research by Meir Stampfer, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard, concludes that diets rich in carbohydrates that are quickly digestible—that is, with a high glycemic index, like potatoes, white rice, and white bread—give people an insulin boost that increases the risk of diabetes and makes them far more likely to contract cardiovascular disease than those who eat moderate amounts of meat and fewer carbs. Though federal guidelines now emphasize eating more fiber-rich carbohydrates, which take longer to digest, the incessant message over the last 30 years to substitute carbs for meat appears to have done significant damage. And it doesn’t appear that the government will change its approach this time around. The preliminary recommendations of a panel advising the FDA on the new guidelines urge people to shift to “plant-based” diets and to consume “only moderate amounts of lean meats, poultry and eggs.”

As increasingly sophisticated medicine focuses on tailoring therapies to individual needs, sweeping public pronouncements on health have become outdated at best and dangerous at worst. The best advice that government can give citizens is to develop their own diet and exercise regimes, adapted to their own physical circumstances after consultation with their doctors. Read more at www.city-journal.org

Long list of pet peeves.

Amplify’d from www.rd.com

24 Things You Might Be Saying Wrong

You never mean: Could care less You always mean: Couldn't care less Why: You want to say you care so little already that you couldn't possibly care any less. When the Boston Celtics' Ray Allen said, "God could care less whether I can shoot a jump shot," we know he meant exactly the opposite because 1) God has other things on his mind, and 2) God is a Knicks fan. You might say: Mano a mano You might mean: Man-to-man Why: You don't speak Spanish by adding vowels to the end of English words, as a columnist describing father–teenage son relationships seemed to think when he wrote, "Don't expect long, mano a mano talks." Mano a mano (literally, "hand to hand") originated with bullfighting and usually refers to a knock-down, drag-out direct confrontation. You might say: Less You might mean: Fewer Why: In general, use fewer when you're specifying a number of countable things ("200 words or fewer"); reserve less for a mass ("less than half"). So when you're composing a tweet, do it in 140 characters or fewer, not less. You never mean: Hone in You always mean: Home in Why: Like homing pigeons, we can be single-minded about finding our way to a point: "Scientists are homing in on the causes of cancer." Hone means "to sharpen": "The rookie spent the last three seasons honing his skills in the minor leagues." But it's easy to mishear m's and n's, which is probably what happened to the Virginia senator who said, "We've got to hone in on cost containment." If you're unsure, say "zero in" instead. You might say: Bring You might mean: Take Why: The choice depends on your point of view. Use bring when you want to show motion toward you ("Bring the dog treats over here, please"). Use take to show motion in the opposite direction ("I have to take Rufus to the vet"). The rule gets confusing when the movement has nothing to do with you. In those cases, you can use either verb, depending on the context: "The assistant brought the shot to the vet" (the vet's point of view); "the assistant took the shot to the doctor" (the assistant's). You might say: Who You might mean: Whom Why: It all depends. Do you need a subject or an object? A subject (who) is the actor of the sentence: "Who left the roller skates on the sidewalk?" An object (whom) is the acted-upon: "Whom are you calling?" Parents, hit the Mute button when Dora the Explorer shouts, "Who do we ask for help when we don't know which way to go?" You almost never mean: Brother-in-laws, runner-ups, hole in ones, etc. You almost always mean: Brothers-in-law, runners-up, holes in one, etc. Why: Plurals of these compound nouns are formed by adding an s to the thing there's more than one of (brothers, not laws). Some exceptions: words ending in ful (mouthfuls) and phrases like cul-de-sacs. You almost never mean: Try and You almost always mean: Try to Why: Try and try again, yes, but if you're planning to do something, use the infinitive form: "I'm going to try to run a marathon." Commenting on an online story about breakups, one woman wrote, "A guy I dated used to try and impress me with the choice of books he was reading." It's no surprise that the relationship didn't last. You almost never mean: Different than You almost always mean: Different from Why: This isn't the biggest offense, but if you can easily substitute from for than (My mother's tomato sauce is different from my mother-in-law's), do it. Use than for comparisons: My mother's tomato sauce is better than my mother-in-law's. You almost never mean: Beg the question You almost always mean: Raise the question Why: Correctly used, "begging the question" is like making a circular argument (I don't like you because you're so unlikable). But unless you're a philosophy professor, you shouldn't ever need this phrase. Stick to "raise the question." You might say: More than You can also say: Over Why: The two are interchangeable when the sense is "Over 6,000 hats were sold." We like grammarian Bryan Garner's take on it: "The charge that over is inferior to more than is a baseless crotchet." You almost never mean: Supposably You almost always mean: Supposedly Why: Supposably is, in fact, a word—it means "conceivably"—but not the one you want if you're trying to say "it's assumed," and certainly not the one you want if you're on a first date with an English major or a job interview with an English speaker. You might say: All of You probably mean: All Why: Drop the of whenever you can, as Julia Roberts recently did, correctly: "Every little moment is amazing if you let yourself access it. I learn that all the time from my kids." But you need all of before a pronoun ("all of them") and before a possessive noun ("all of Julia's kids"). Read more at www.rd.com

You guys are awesome! I love supporting companies who actually care about their users.

I really enjoy coffee but not a huge fan of Starbucks. It's hard not to go to Starbucks because there is one on almost every corner here in Chicago. Their coffee is decent but I prefer Caribou Coffee or some other specialty coffee shop much more.

Another issue I have with Starbucks is that it seems like they've created their own language for ordering a various types of drinks. For whatever reason, it's been hard for me to catch onto the lingo and have had my drinks messed up because of it. So, I hope this info helps others as well.

Amplify’d from hubpages.com

First thing's first. Decide what you want. Brewed coffee Tea Espresso drinks (lattes, cappucinos, etc.) Non-espresso drinks (hot chocolate, caramel apple cider) Cold drinks (coffee drinks or creme drinks) Tell the barista if you want a hot or an iced drink. There are 4 sizes for hot drinks drinks: short - 8 oz., tall - 12 oz., grande - 16 oz., venti - 20 oz.. There are only 3 sizes for iced drinks: tall - 12 oz., grande - 16 oz., and venti - 24 oz.. Then tell the barista what size you want. If you say that you want an "iced grande ..." the barista should already be reaching for the 16 ounce plastic cup for iced drinks. Now, what are you drinking? So many choices! Brewed coffee, coffee of the week. (Don't forget to ask to leave room for cream if you want it!) Tea. Starbucks offers green tea, black tea, or herbal blends. If you order the 2 smaller hot drinks, you get 1 tea bag. If you order the bigger hot drinks, you get 2. If you want iced tea, they will shake it with water, lemonade, and their sweetener syrup, unless you specify that you want it unsweetened. Espresso drinks. Cappucinos and lattes are espresso drinks blended with steamed milk. I believe cappucinos have less milk than lattes. Non-espresso drinks. The caramel apple cider is a delicious drink for fall! Cold drinks. Frappucinos are blended coffee or creme drinks, like a milk shake. Iced drinks are made the same way as a hot drink, but are then served over ice cubes. (Not blended.) Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture Price: $0.47 List Price: $25.99 If you are ordering an espresso drink, and are looking for "extra" caffeine, you'll have to order an "extra" shot. Just because it comes in a bigger cup, doesn't mean that it's got more caffeine. Short and tall espresso drinks come with one shot. Grande and venti drinks come with two shots. An iced venti comes with 3 shots. If you want an extra shot or shots, you can specify it at the beginning of your order by saying "double," "triple," or "quad." So if you want an iced grande mocha, but you want one extra shot, you would ask for a "triple iced grande mocha ." Insert the name of your beverage into your drink order and specify if you want any additional shots of espresso. Where I think drink ordering gets complicated is all the customization. You can specify if you want flavored syrups - vanilla, hazelnut, French vanilla, mocha, cinnamon dolce, toffee nut, raspberry, melon, or caramel. Some of the syrups do come in sugar-free varieties, so be sure to ask, and make sure that you specify sugar-free when ordering. There is an extra charge for adding syrup. Sunday Morning Coffee 2 - A Tribute To Starbucks Price: $8.99 Here are some examples of what you might hear: Triple grande mocha. (That's what I always get. A grande espresso and chocolate drink with an extra shot of espresso. That's where the "triple" comes in, remember?) Grande Java Chip Frappucino. (That one's easy; it's right on the menu board.) Skinny Vanilla Latte. (Latte with sugar free vanilla syrup and nonfat milk.) Iced tall black tea, unsweetened. (Black tea, on ice, no sweetener.) Iced quad venti caramel macchiato with whipped cream. (Caramel macchiato with an extra shot of espresso, served on ice, with whipped cream on top.) Tall Pumpkin Spice latte. (Starbucks always has "seasonal" drinks such as Pumpkin Spice, Gingerbread, and Chocolate Peppermint.) Double tall raspberry mocha with whipped cream. (A 12 oz. mocha with raspberry syrup, an extra shot of espresso, and whipped cream on top.) Choose the type of milk or non-dairy creamer you want. Some milks/creamers may be an additional charge. Your options are whole, 2%, nonfat, breve (half and half), heavy whipping cream, soy milk, and organic milk. You can also make your drink "skinny" - which means nonfat milk and sugar-free syrup. You can also add whipped cream to any drink at no charge. Customize your drink with milk, syrups, and whipped cream. It sounds difficult, but here's the trick - once you have your drink recipe all made up, ask the barista if they have any drink cards. Most stores have these by the register. You can write down your drink and refer to it when you order later. Some people just hand their card right to the barista as they order. Remember these 4 steps: Iced or hot (if you're not ordering a blended drink) Size (short, tall, grande, venti) Beverage (coffee, mocha, latte, frappucino) Customize (shots of espresso, milks, syrups) And don't forget, when you're ordering, be polite. Speak directly to the barista, and look at them when you talk. Sometimes Starbucks can be very busy and crowded, so you want to make sure the person making your drink hears you. If the barista passes your drink order on to someone else, they should call out and repeat the order so you can hear it. When they hand you your drink, they'll probably repeat it one more time. When you get your drink, taste it. If it's not what you ordered, let them know, and I'm sure they'd be happy to make it right. Read more at hubpages.com