Starbucks announced last week that they use cochineal extract in their strawberry-flavored Frappucinos, causing near hysteria from critics who were perturbed to find that the food dye is made of crushed bugs. This week, they’ve issued a statement saying they’ll change the formula. But if we really want to put the pressure on Starbucks and other fast-food chains to clean up their menu, I think we need to shift the focus from vegan food coloring.

Cliff Burrows, the President of Starbucks himself, issued a statement earlier today on their website, apologizing for the upset:

Dear Customers,

As a company, we always strive to exceed your expectations, and we take your feedback very seriously. Based on recent feedback, we learned that we fell short of these expectations by using cochineal extract. This commonly used ingredient is a natural, FDA-approved colorant found in a wide variety of food and beverage products in the U.S.

We use the extract in the strawberry base for our Strawberries and Crème Frappuccino, Strawberry Smoothies and three food items – the Birthday Cake Pop, Mini Donut with pink icing, and Red Velvet Whoopie Pie. While it is a safe product that poses no health risk, we are reviewing alternative natural ingredients.
Your feedback is very important to us and we encourage you to share your thoughts with us here.

Cliff Burrows
President, Starbucks U.S.

I hate it when people shoot down issues by quipping “first world problems,” but can we all agree that this reads like part of a Portlandia sketch?

It’s not that I feel great about eating crushed bugs, or that I have no sympathy for the concerns of vegans. But worrying about which type of food dye Starbucks uses in its processed foods seems ironic, at best.

As I’ve said before: If Starbucks were serving strawberry drinks made with strawberries, we wouldn’t need to discuss which kind of dye they should add to their blended drinks. And if you’re going to freak out about the food dye used in donut frosting, I think you need help refocusing your health concerns.

The reality is that any food containing food coloring is bad for you. Don’t believe me? When’s the last time you added green dye to your kale? Last time I ate real grapes, they were plenty purple without the need for artificial additives. And even homemade pastries—which, I’ll concede, are a much wiser choice than whatever has been formulated to last through shipping and storage in the back of a Starbucks—aren’t really what you’d call a “health” food, even if you’re using all-natural food dye to make a festive frosting.

A lot of people don’t have access to healthy foods, either because of financial restraints or a complete lack of availability. That’s what people should be discussing; not whatever kind of food dye is being used to make Starbucks cake pops look pink.

Courtesy of the NYTimes By JOHN HANC

I read this article, was inspired, decided to repost. I’m charging my Ipod, getting ready to get off the couch…

T ormented by pain from two decades of lower back problems, Don Cook was nearly at his wits’ end. Operations, traction, drugs — nothing seemed to work. At the behest of his family, he signed up for an exercise program for older people at Wichita State University, near his hometown, Derby, Kan.

Mr. Cook does core strengthening exercises under the tutelage of Mr. Walton

“I had very little faith that exercise would help,” said Mr. Cook, now 61. “But we needed desperately to do something different.”

Under a supervised program at the university’s Center for Physical Activity and Aging, Mr. Cook at first couldn’t walk for 10 minutes without his back pain flaring up. Now, 13 months later, he strides briskly and confidently for 50 minutes at a time, covering about two miles around the center’s one-eighth-mile indoor track.

His back feels better, his posture is better, he is off pain medication, and he has discarded his cane. But he also accrued another, unexpected benefit: “I fall asleep quickly and sleep through the night,” Mr. Cook said. “Which is unusual for me.”

Parents since time immemorial have known that children allowed to run around all day will usually conk out at night. But only recently have researchers begun to look at the effects of physical activity on sleep for a group that seems to have the most difficulty with it.

According to the National Institutes of Health, more than half of adults ages 60 and over have trouble sleeping. And while it may not be the first thing that pops up when older adults list their health complaints, getting adequate sleep is an important part of maintaining physical and cognitive well-being. One of the most effective — not to mention cheapest — remedies may be the same thing that Mr. Cook used to help his back: exercise.

In a 2011 study at the University of Massachusetts, activity habits of 22 adults (11 men, 11 women) ages 65 to 81 were followed over 10 days by the use of accelerometers — pager-size devices that measure body movements.

Fatigue and sleep quality were then assessed through the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, two questionnaires commonly used by sleep researchers.

“There was definitely a strong correlation between sleep quality and physical activity,” said Jane Kent-Braun, a professor and physiologist who supervised the study. “Those who were more active each day reported fewer problems sleeping than those who were sedentary.”

That was not surprising. But the amount of activity needed to improve sleep was. “Those who had better quality of sleep were moderately active,” she said. “These were people who were out there just moving around, gardening, walking the dog.”

Findings similar to those of this study, which was presented in June at the annual conference of the American College of Sports Medicine in Indianapolis, have been reported by other investigators. A 2011 study at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that physical activity was a “promising strategy” to decrease frequent sleep interruptions among those with arthritis.

Another study, done at Oregon State University and published in December in the journal Mental Health and Physical Activity, looked at activity and sleeping habits of 2,600 men and women 18 to 85 years of age. Those who followed the federal Department of Health and Human Services guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week reported a 65 percent improvement in sleep quality.

The implications for retirees who are tossing and turning?

“It’s another reason to get active, if you aren’t already,” said Dr. William O. Roberts, a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. “I’ve seen it help a large number of my older patients who’ve had sleep issues.”

That level of activity need not be of Ironman proportions to help improve the quality of sleep. “It doesn’t take much,” Professor Kent-Braun said.

“Here’s another good reason to follow the national guidelines,” said Michael Rogers, an exercise scientist and the clinical director at the Center for Physical Activity and Aging at Wichita State. “A lot of seniors think that sleep difficulties are just a part of getting old. Some of the research we’re seeing now suggests that this may not be the case.”

Mr. Cook is a believer. He trains at Wichita State during his lunchtime, three times a week. He also does core strengthening exercises under the tutelage of the center’s coordinator, Nicholas Walton, an exercise physiologist. “Like any 61-year-old, I have days where things hurt,” he says.

Still, he feels much better, and people are noticing. Recently, he said, his oldest daughter, Emily, said, “ ‘You used to look drowsy all the time.’ Not anymore.”

Who doesn’t love a dude in a tutu? That’s what Bob Carey is banking on to help his wife and other women who are dealing with breast cancer. What started out nine years ago as a way to express his humor, has now turned into an all-out campaign for breast cancer called The Tutu Project. Not only do I love this, but I gotta say, I can’t think of anything more macho than a guy who’s willing to wear a pink tutu in order to support women.

Carey says he is in awe of his wife’s power, beauty and spirit, and this is his way of giving back:

Oddly enough, her cancer has taught us that life is good, dealing with it can be hard, and sometimes the very best thing—no, the only thing—we can do to face another day is to laugh at ourselves, and share a laugh with others.

The New Yorker who says he is “tickled pink” is raising money for breast cancer through his book Ballerina, which shares these photos and many funny stories about the adventures of a guy and his pink tulle.

So far, there has been a tremendous response to the series of photos—people are particularly moved by the images. Take a look:

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Real men don’t drink diet. That’s the idea behind the new campaign for Dr. Pepper Ten—the 10-calorie soft drink that launches next week boasting a strict ‘no women’ policy. Clearly, if you don’t have hair on your chest and your biceps don’t look like the Appalachians, you should stay away; this beverage is just too masculine for us delicate women. I mean we might just chip a nail opening the can or—gasp!—gain weight from all those big, beefy calories, and we just can’t take that risk. Right? Wrong. One word describes this campaign in a nutshell and that is: Ridiculous.

First off, yes while it’s only 10 calories and you are bottling Dr. Pepper 10 in a sleek silver bullet can with bold print to match the manly flavor, SPOILER ALERT: It’s still a diet soda. No matter how you slice it, it’s still a low-calorie soft drink. The commercial for Dr. Pepper 10 takes it’s chauvinistic outlook on diet soda one step further. It’s a mock film scene with camo-clad men riding through combat in an off-road ATV, one of which who tries to pour a glass of Dr. Pepper Ten and exclaims, “Hey ladies. Enjoying the film? Of course not. Because this is our movie and this is our soda. You can keep the romantic comedies and lady drinks. We’re good.”

Seriously? You can keep your soda and your low-budget movie.

Dr. Pepper 10 isn’t the first soft drink to hit the market geared towards rallying all soda-sippers with a Y chromosome. Beverages like Coke Zero in a sexy black can with bold red colors and Pepsi Max with a similar ‘macho’ design promote similar ideas. Not only are these soft drinks more aesthetically pleasing for men, but they have been reformulated to taste more like the non-diet drinks. Diet Dr. Pepper will continue to market to women with it’s cream colored can and soft and bubbly design that is so cute a bunny would want to drink it. On the flip side, Dr. Pepper 10 will be wrapped in gunmetal gray packaging with silver bullets so next time you go into battle you remember to grab a can. Jim Trebilcock, Executive Vice President of Marketing for Dr. Pepper, shrugs off the negative attention and says, “Women will get the joke.” Well, congratulations Jim, I’m totally laughing…all the way down to the Diet Coke aisle.

(Photo: Dr. Pepper Facebook)

Between Taco Bell‘s “Fourth Meal” and Mars’ new calorie-restricted candy bars, America seems pretty confused about how to eat. But leave it to Stephen Colbert to make our depressing problems with food funny: On the “Thought For Food” segment of the Colbert Report last night, he grilled all kinds of food marketing ploys—from “responsible snacking” to made up fast food meals.

Colbert makes fun of Mars for promising to stop selling candy bars over 250 calories, mocking the idea that we could hope for “healthy” candy. But he’s also on top of other food marketing ploys—like “Fourth Meal” and “Second Breakfast”—for catering to made up “trends” in American eating habits.

Whatever you really think of these marketing campaigns, you have to admit: It’s nice to laugh about it for a change. Check out his video:

Maybe it’s just human nature to want maximum results with minimal effort, but what I usually tell people is the more succinct, “I’m lazy.”

There is a part of me that doesn’t actually want to work out at all. However, if you are a regular exerciser (I don’t know many of those) and you worry about motivation, I highly recommend injuring your lower back/hip so you can’t work out for a while. You will come to wistfully remember just two weeks ago when you were not completely batshit insane and could run without a care in the world.

I digress. I meant to say that I don’t want to spend 600 thousand hours in the gym doing some crazy ass rubber band workout like Gwyneth or any other underweight blonde. I don’t have that kind of time. So I have been taught a few strategies for getting the most out of my workouts. One is to do exercises that incorporate multiple muscle groups at once. (This is all that free weight and functional fitness gospel stuff, though you shouldn’t look to me for any preaching, I’m too self-absorbed to be converting anyone.)

And another strategy is to find ways to push myself — to pick up big weights. Biggest I can find. If I choose the gigantic dumbbell or barbell or whatever, then I know I will probably be exerting myself, rather than kicking back and dinking out my reps. But there is a problem here, and so I have to raise my hand and say,

“My name is Sherika and I am a the ninja in the corner doing curls with the 20 pound weights.”

(Psst! Now you all say, “Hi Sherika!”)

What I mean is that I can get so caught up in using the gigantic-est weight I can lift that I sometimes mess up in other areas. Generally this is a disease that afflicts a lot of guys, and women tend to not use enough weight to get strength training results. But obviously there can be gender crossover, because I have this problem too.

What’s wrong with being a Sherika-ninja? Well, a couple things. For one, if you have an injury—like say, a back injury—and you decide to use the heaviest weight in the gym just because you are really broken in the head, you can end up with a messed up back to match.

But probably more relevant, there are times when a big weight means you also sacrifice other things, like form, and integrity. I get this when I watch someone crank out 72 pull ups, but they never fully extend their arms.

Truth is that you can make yourself work hard with less weight if you remain conscious of form (keep abs tight or back straight or whatever) and make sure you get full extensions and so on. You can also increase things like the speed of your reps to make everything a wee bit harder. So why wouldn’t I do that instead, and spare my body the possible injury? So glad you asked. Because 1) it takes more work mentally to practice full range of motion executed well, and 2) it’s way less showy than the big bulge of the heavier weight.

But the first step is admitting you have a problem, and so there, I said it. Now that I’ve been out of the game for a while, I want to stage my comeback by keeping the weight lighter but finding ways to kick my own ass with better, prettier reps. Wish me luck on that and hide the big dumbbells too, just to help me out.

Fidget. Studies show that lean people fidget for about 150 minutes a day more than obese people do. That kind of low-grade activity (tapping feet and fingers, twirling hair, gesturing while speaking, etc.) can burn 350 calories a day, which translates into 10-30 pounds a year!  It’s called Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT), which is basically any movement that isn’t intended as exercise. You can burn an extra 100-150 calories an hour by increasing NEAT.  Here are some ideas:

Reach for the caffeine, pass on the sugar and cream. Caffeine tends to increase the number of calories you burn, probably because they stimulate thermogenesis — one way your body generates heat and energy from digesting food and because the boost in energy means you move around more (which means more calories burned). Having 250 milligrams of caffeine with a meal can increase the calories spent metabolizing the meal by 10%. Green tea, in particular, seems to be especially conducive to burning calories.

So instead of having soda or any other calorie-laden drink with your meals, go for an unsweetened cup of coffee or tea. Skip the sugar, milk, cream, or any other caloric enhancements so that you don’t replace the extra calories you’re burning. Drinking coffee or tea plain will take some getting used to, but purchasing high-quality beans or tea leaves will certainly help.

Drink lemon juice in lukewarm water. This formulation gets more effective when done on an empty stomach.

Drink ice water. The colder the water you drink, the more calories you burn, since your body expends more energy warming up the water. If you have 8 glasses (64 oz) of ice-cold water in a day, you’ll burn 70 more calories than if you drank 8 glasses of a body temperature beverage. In fact, this principle will work with any calorie-free beverage, as long as it’s ice cold, so you might want to ice up that coffee and tea mentioned earlier for cumulative calorie-burning effects. Keep in mind, however, that the weight loss impact of this one particular practice isn’t drastic: It would take 435 glasses of ice water (about two months, assuming 8 glasses a day) to lose one pound. And, don’t go overboard. There’s such a thing as water toxicity. Follow the guidelines in How to Drink More Water Every Day.

Chill out. Shivering burns calories, so if you can spend more time outside when it’s cold, you’ll crank up the calorie furnace. Even if you don’t shiver, though, you can get a 3-7% increase in calorie burn just from your body warming itself (similar to the principle at work when you drink ice water).  Just don’t run away with this idea and get yourself sick!

My first thought about Health Care Reform was: I will refuse to comply. I’ve read the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights, and nowhere in that document do I find that the federal government has the power to force me to purchase for-profit insurance products from private companies.

Then I thought about my own private insurance, an exorbitant premium that basically seems to multiply itself every year. Services cut in half and copays doubled.

How is that legal? Obviously, change was desperately needed.

No doubt Obama needed to step in, but how about an in between reform? I’m barely college educated and is therefore, ahem, no scholar, but I find it highly offensive that my own government would threaten me with a financial penalty if I refuse to pay money to such a racket. It’s much like being forced to pay a “protection fee” to the mob.

But, enough of my rant. I read this article in the NYTimes and wanted to share.

From NYTIMES — By SANDEEP JAUHAR, M.D.

“I’m tired of paying for everyone else’s stupidity,” is a comment I read on the Internet last week after the health care bill was passed. It summed up the views of many Americans worried about shelling out higher premiums and taxes to cover the uninsured. Why should we pick up the tab when so much disease in our country stems from unhealthy behavior like smoking and overeating?

In fact, the majority of Americans say it is fair to ask people with unhealthy lifestyles to pay more for health insurance. We believe in the concept of personal responsibility. You hear it in doctors’ lounges and in coffee shops, among the white collar and blue collar alike. Even President Obama has said, “We’ve got to have the American people doing something about their own care.”

But personal responsibility is a complex notion, especially when it comes to health. Individual choices always take place within a broader, messy context. When people advocate the need for personal accountability, they presuppose more control over health and sickness than really exists.

Unhealthy habits are one factor in disease, but so are social status, income, family dynamics, education and genetics. Patient noncompliance with medical recommendations undoubtedly contributes to poor health, but it is as much a function of poor communication, medication costs and side effects, cultural barriers and inadequate resources as it is of willful disregard of a doctor’s advice.

A few years ago surgeons in Melbourne, Australia, were refusing to provide heart and lung surgeries to smokers, even those who needed the operations to stay alive. “Why should taxpayers pay for it?” said one surgeon quoted in media reports at the time. “It is consuming resources for someone who is contributing to their own demise.”

Though some were outraged by this stance — the Australian Medical Association called it “unconscionable” to ration services based on personal habits — many doctors agreed with it. Like the majority of Americans, they saw nothing wrong with patients paying for the consequences of their actions.

The problem is that punitive measures to force healthy behavior do not usually work. In 2006, West Virginia started rewarding Medicaid patients who signed a pledge to enroll in a wellness plan and to follow their doctors’ orders with special benefits, including unlimited prescription-drug coverage, programs to help them quit smoking and nutrition counseling. Those who did not sign up were enrolled in a more restrictive plan that, among other things, limited drug coverage to only four prescriptions a month.

The program, by many accounts, is failing. As of August 2009, only 15 percent of 160,000 eligible patients had signed up. Patients with limited transportation options were having a hard time committing to regular office visits. And experts say there is no evidence that restricting benefits for noncompliant patients has promoted healthy behaviors.

As a cardiology fellow, I once took care of a young man with severe congestive heart failure. We were supposed to start him on a blood thinner early in his hospitalization, but it got overlooked. Fed up with the delays in getting his blood sufficiently thinned, he left the hospital against medical advice. He said he had to go home to care for his toddler.

He came to the clinic a week later looking very embarrassed. He had left without prescriptions, so he had been taking no medications since he left, leaving him short of breath. To compound the problem, he had been eating cold cuts, cheap and readily available, which made his condition even worse. But the attending physician refused to give him prescriptions. She said that he had to go to a walk-in clinic. She said he had to learn personal responsibility.

Healthy living should be encouraged, but punishing patients who make poor health choices clearly oversimplifies a very complex issue. We should be focusing on public health campaigns: encouraging exercise, smoking cessation and so on. Of course, this will require a change in how we live, how we plan our communities.

“It’s the context of people’s lives that determines their health,” said a World Health Organization report on health disparities. “So blaming individuals for poor health or crediting them for good health is inappropriate.”

I must admit I often feel like my colleagues who grouse about spending all day treating patients who do not seem to care about their health and then demand a quick fix. I do not relish paying more taxes to treat patients who engage in unhealthy habits. But then I remind myself that we all engage in socially irresponsible behavior that others pay for. I try to eat right and get enough exercise. But then I also sometimes send text messages when I drive.

The whole point of insurance is to reduce risk. When people inveigh against the lack of personal responsibility in health care, they are really demanding a different model, one based on actual risk, not just on spreading costs evenly through society. Sick people, they are really saying, should pay more. Which model we eventually adopt in this country will say a lot about the kind of society we want to live in.

Funny lady Chelsea Handler may love her cocktails, but that hasn’t stopped her from looking positively smashing on the April cover of Shape. The comedian, 35, is candid about her long road to a fit lifestyle (“I was born with a French fry in my mouth”), but says today she is healthier than ever. After years of yo-yo dieting and jumping from workout to workout, Chelsea shares that she’s finally found a fitness regimen that she can stick to. Here are the interview highlights:

Courtesy: Fit Sugar