The American Dietetic Association is the world’s largest organization of nutrition professionals.

Many of you want to make informed food choices and develop healthy eating and physical activity habits, but finding accurate information online isn’t easy.   Registered dietitians are committed to assisting the public in it’s quest to “eat right.” The ADA is one of their valued sources of  food and nutrition information and answers, as well as commentary on important dietary topics and trends.

Check out the newly re-vamped for the public section.  The disease management and prevention section discusses the various claims between diet and  diseases such as diabetes, autism, and irritable bowel syndrome.  The media constantly claims links between this diet and that disease, but many of these assertions are overstated or outright false.  The ADA can  help you separate sound medical information from media hype.

Check it out!

The color orange is often associated with Halloween, fall foliage, and pumpkin carving,  but it’s also the color of hunger awareness. Food Bank for New York City estimates that 4 million New Yorkers throughout the five boroughs won’t be able to afford food at some point this year. During the Food Bank’s annual NYC Goes Orange campaign, September through December, the bank’s various partners and individual New Yorkers “Go Orange”, helping to raise proceeds through great events, such as NY Skyride or Flute Fest Champagne Benefit, on Facebook or Twitter, through virtual food drives, and more.

The Food Bank has been the NYC’s primary hunger-relief organization for the past 25 years, and it’s initiatives “focus on direct services, food sourcing and distribution, nutrition and health education, financial empowerment, disaster relief and policy and research.” But the organization can’t do it without your support, so Go Orange and check out one of the many events and offerings.

The salmonella outbreak associated with peanut butter products has everyone freaked out. Federal health officials reported at least 500 people, 280 of those younger than 18, have been sickened by the Salmonella Typhimurium bacterium traced to peanut butter and other products from a single production plant in Georgia.

Although the plant’s products were not sold at retail, they were sold in industrial-sized cans of peanut butter used by schools and in peanut paste used to make products such as brownies, cookies, cakes, crackers, icecream, even pet food. More than 180 products have been recalled, including those made by Starbucks, General Mills Inc, Kellogg Co and others.

The FDA has compiled a list of tainted products and even has a search feature. Check it out at http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/peanutbutterrecall/index.cfm#PeanutButter

The outbreak, begun in September, is waning. Salmonella, which causes diarrhea, vomiting and fever, usually clears up without treatment, but is most dangerous for the elderly, very young and immune-compromised.  If you’re worried about  a product you’ve purchased, the best advice in circumstances like these: “If in doubt, throw it out.”

After a freezing cold walk around Stonehenge, Mike and I headed to the twee town of Salisbury to have a pub lunch and check out an old cathedral.  While waiting for our grub to arrive, I picked up a copy of The Sun, an average newspaper, and landed on an article listing the amount of time the average Brit spends on various activities such as sleeping (25-27 years), waiting in lines (2 years), and laughing (3 months).   The average British woman apparently spends 7 years of her life dieting, nearly the same amount of time she spends at work (9 years).   That’s the equivalent of a whole career spent dieting.  It’s 2,555 days of her LIFE.  I’m aware that the quest for weight loss is a billion dollar industry, but when you put it into days and minutes of a single life, I was shocked.   What a waste.

If people would just realize that “diets” will never work, that lifestyle changes, such as sensible eating and exercise, are the only ways to achieve their goals, they could spend less time dieting and more time, say, laughing or reading my blog.

Check the list out for yourself at http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/article2073360.ece