Students in England's state schools are up in arms over the government ban on junk food lunches, according to an article in today's New York Times:
Five months after the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver succeeded in cajoling, threatening and shaming the British government into banning junk food from its school cafeterias, many schools are learning that you can lead a child to a healthy lunch, but you can’t make him eat.
The fancy new menu at the Rawmarsh School here?
“It’s rubbish,” said Andreas Petrou, an 11th grader… “We didn’t get a choice,” he said of the school food. “They just told us we were having it.”
Goodness! What is this evil and draconian menu foisted upon the helpless children of the Empire?
The government’s regulations, which took effect in September, have banished from school cafeterias the cheap, instantly gratifying meals that children love by default: the hamburgers, the French fries, the breaded, deep-fried processed meat, the sugary drinks.
Now schools have to provide at least two portions of fresh fruit and vegetables a day for each child, serve fish at least once a week, remove salt from lunchroom tables, limit fried foods to two servings a week and cut out candy, soda and potato chips altogether.
Why is this so objectionable? Two reasons: Keep Reading…
Are you ever confused about what makes up a healthy diet?
Have you ever heard mixed messages from doctors, from experts, from the media?
This confusion is no accident – it's exactly what is intended by the sickness profiteers – the people whose economic fortunes depend on your inability to tell healthy from unhealthy food.
I've written an article that sheds a lot of light on the subject, and explains the truth about one particularly horrible illness: cancer. It contains information that you will have a very hard time finding in the mainstream media, and shows you how to make yourself and your kids virtually cancer-proof.
Download the article by right-clicking here.
The New York City Board of Health looks like its serious in its efforts to keep New York residents safe from trans fats, the synthetic oil and butter substitutes that do nasty things to our insides. They voted to limit the amount of trans fat per serving in the city's 20,000 restaurants.
Many restauranteurs are upset, of course, in the same way bar owners were ticked off when they weren't allowed to poison their staff with cigarettes, and the way car manufacturers were outraged when they were forced by the government to put in seat belts, air bags, and other life-saving technologies.
Keep Reading…
Every so often I see a news report about the "Negative Calorie Foods" diet. Basically, it suggests, certain foods take more calories to chew and digest than they provide. Celery is often given as an example. After eating a few sticks of celery – plain, of course, not slathered in mayonnaise or peanut butter or whatever else – you're thinner than you were before, or so the theory goes.
Keep Reading…
The FitFam concept of playing out as a family, rather than working out as individuals strapped to machines in a windowless hall of mirrors, owes a great deal to my teacher and trainer, Jon Hinds. Jon is the founder of the Monkey Bar Gym, a revolutionary training facility in Madison, Wisconsin, where I've studied to become a CNT (Certified Natural Trainer).
Jon was the strength coach for the LA Clippers basketball team, a head instructor for the National Academy of Sports Medicine, and personal trainer to Hollywood stars like Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore. He played college basketball and worked as a street break dancer. He studied High Energy Yoga with reclusive guru Roger Eischens, and trains everyone from grannies to top athletes at the Monkey Bar Gym.
Monkey Bar Gym members rave about the results they get, but even more they talk about how much fun and camaraderie they experience at every workout. No judgment, no machines, no TVs, no mirrors, and no obsessing about appearance.
Recently I had the opportunity to interview Jon about his experiences, his training philosophy, and his take on the modern fitness industry.
Ordinarily I would make an interview of this quality available only to FitFam Members in the FitFam Radio section of the Members Study Center, but this stuff is so important I can't bring myself to be selfish. If you like the interview and want to hear many more like it, consider joining FitFam.
Without further ado, here's Jonny…
Howie interview with Jon Hinds
My neighbors, who belong to the local Rotary Club and are active in a project to end world hunger, showed me the following remarkable statistics:
In the US every year, we spend
- $18 billion on snacks
- $24 billion on candy
- $20 billion on ice cream
- $103 billion on fast food
- $60 billion on soft drinks
- $45 billion on beer
- $33 billion on diets to deal with it all!
- $102 billion on health care for illnesses directly attributable to obesity (actually, I snagged that stat from www.obesity.org)
For a total of $405 billion annually (That's billion with a "B").
Keep Reading…
Check out the Eat Well Guide, on the web at www.eatwellguide.org. Input your zip code, and it will tell you where to find cruelty-free, local and sometimes organic meat, eggs and dairy.
Why bother?
Keep Reading…
Berries of all kinds are really high on the list of "Foods we should be eating even though they taste really good." In a luscious-looking post in the Healthy Body NYC blog, we learn that one of the key healthy components in blueberries and raspberries is a class of antioxidants known as anthocyanins.
I'm all for studying foods and finding out what's in them, and it's cool to know some scientific names for stuff.
I get a little worried when we start looking at foods in terms of their fragmented components, though. The next step is for the processed food industry to start synthetically creating the anthocyanins (I'm getting better at typing that word as I go along), and stuffing them into totally unhealthy products:
New! Pork Rinds fortified with anthocyanins!
Keep Reading…
Those of us in our 40s and beyond are all looking for something new and unusual – the regular advice about "eat your veggies" and "get enough exercise" doesn't really excite us. And why should it? The food industry has us brainwashed to think that eating healthy means depriving ourselves of joy, and the fitness industry has brainwashed us to join gyms and buy expensive home exercise equipment that is destined to be used as a drying rack until the next garage sale.
Keep Reading…
When I was nine years old, I decided to give up the piano and study the violin. By that time, I was old enough and musically sophisticated enough to realize what a horrible racket I was making when I scratched the bow across the strings of my cheap, three-quarters size box of agony.
Keep Reading…