Beware “Healthy” Oatmeal from Fast Food Providers

Oatmeal is good but as this piece in the NY TImes “How to Make Oatmeal . . . Wrong” Mark Bittman rightly outs McDonald (amongst many others) for the abuse of the product to sell their unhealthy products

Like so many other venerable foods, oatmeal has been roundly abused by food marketers for more than 40 years. Take, for example, Quaker Strawberries and Cream Instant Oatmeal, which contains no strawberries, no cream, 12 times the sugars of Quaker Old Fashioned Oats and only half of the fiber. At least it’s inexpensive, less than 50 cents a packet on average. (A serving of cooked rolled oats will set you back half that at most, plus the cost of condiments; of course, it’ll be much better in every respect.)

Oatmeal has health benefits but in almost all cases of fast food presentation the healthy benefits are outweighed by the junk and processed ingredients that are added to the food and the exorbitant price charged. The accurate description of these fast food versions:

A more accurate description than “100% natural whole-grain oats,” “plump raisins,” “sweet cranberries” and “crisp fresh apples” would be “oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen.”

Better to stick to home made oats and I’m betting that Alton Brown (Good East) recipe “Overnight Oatmeal” will hit the spot and its healthy

Vaccine – Making the Right Choice

So the latest book on vaccine from

Dr Paul Offit MD (head of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia): Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All which will no doubt draw fire form the anti vaccine crowd as his previous books did. He has written widely and has several oped (listed here) all of which debunk the myths associated with vaccines in an attempt to stem the rising anti-vaccine tide.

His outstanding credentials on the subject as a vaccinologist and an expert in infectious diseases lend credibility to his position and one that is supported by the data that vaccines save lives. Despite the claims by the anti vaccine proponents of brain damage, autism, diabetes, and cancer, as Dr Offit points out  these claims are littered with misinformation, faulty research, and sly deceptions and unfortunatley offerd to fraught parents who are doing their best to make the right choices in a complex world. I have written about this before and the importance of data (Snake Oil and Detox, Vaccination and Essential Part of Child Healthcare and Wrapped in Data and Diplomas It’s Still Snake Oil), but it was the piece on the Colbert Report that I thought brought home the message:

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Paul Offit
www.colbertnation.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:372812
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> Video Archive

As is often the case humor can help get the message across