The Grazing Mind

There’s always a lot of focus on pie recipes during the holiday season, so we’re gonna go ahead and ride that train a little longer. I give you, Pumpkin Pie, International Delight style…

A classic dessert with a little holiday flavor…

Early American settlers used to settle disputes via pie eating contests on Thanksgiving Day… these contests served as the inspiration behind many of today’s popular organized eating events.

Mashed Potatoes, or Smashed potatoes? Early Americans fought many a battle over what to call the classic Thanksgiving potato dish.

Which side are you on?

You are allowed to eat Pumpkin Pie for breakfast everyday this week… seriously, it’s true

Recently, the NPD Group released their 26th annual report on Eating Patterns in America.  Created by nationally recognized food expert Harry Balzer, the Eating Patterns in America report examines food and beverage consumption in-home and away-from-home and addresses health and nutrition, demographic shifts and the economic factors driving consumption.

As dry as that sounds, I’m always intrigued by the nuggets of information that come out of these annual report about what we, as U.S. consumers, are eating and our attitudes about food.

This year, I thought one of the more interesting tidbits was that nearly every American household now reports buying produce from a farmer’s market at least once a year. Room for improvement, but still, a pretty good indicator that more Americans are at least trying to support local farmers and farmers markets.

The report also showed that more of us are “buying” health in a pill.  More U.S. consumers are taking vitamins, mineral supplements or dietary aids on a daily basis than ever before. In fact, 54 percent of respondents reported using these products. That may also account for the rapid success and sustained growth of Horizon Organic’s milk enhanced with plant-based, vegetarian DHA-Omega 3.  Why not kill two birds with one stone – drink your milk AND feed your body a valuable nutrient that may help support brain, heart and eye health?

And finally, if you’re interested, here are some of the foods and beverages that U.S. consumers ate more of in 2010 than ever before:

• Pizza
• Fruit
• Salty Snacks
• Yogurt
• Breakfast Sandwiches
• Hot Cereal
• Iced Tea

I have to admit, I’m pretty sure I contributed to the uptick in pizza consumption….

Improving the food system sounds like a massive undertaking. A big challenge that needs big solutions, right? Maybe not.

Awesome Food (part of the Awesome Foundation) is looking for small ideas to help fix food, and in turn offering small “no-strings attached” grants for the good ones.

According to this, one-third of the world’s food is lost or wasted each year. That’s food actually produced for people, not wasted bananas that fall off the tree… stats like that really put the work we do with Community Food Share (CFS) into perspective.

As Adam mentioned a few weeks back, our annual fundraising event for CFS has been going strong through most of May. It’s one of WhiteWave’s biggest community service projects, and one that makes a real difference to hundreds of families in our area that count on the food bank every day. The drive ended yesterday, and the people here did not disappoint.

Through online donations, individually organized events (33 in total) which ranged from bake sales; raffles; kickball; even a poker tournament (raised $3,000 dollars by itself); we donated more than $55,000. And with the company match, we’ll be delivering more than $110,000 to CFS. That’s equal to more than 465,700 meals.

Granted, we haven’t fixed anything. But it is a small contribution to the problems associated with that story we referenced earlier in the post. And these small contributions help ensure that we keep drawing a connection between what we value, and what we do.

To see how you can help out with food banks in your area, click here.

Although the recommendations for soy in the diet of breast cancer patients have long been the source of considerable debate, current research and guidelines from the American Cancer Society[1] suggest that soy foods can be part of a healthy diet for breast cancer patients and survivors.

The confusion over the health effects of soy stems from concern over the theory that soy isoflavones, plant-based compounds found naturally in soyfoods, could potentially promote estrogen-dependent breast cancer growth. Human clinical trials have not supported this theory; rather they have found that soy isoflavones do not promote the growth of breast cells or increase breast tissue density, both of which are markers of breast cancer risk.[2]

Despite this, many women with breast cancer are told to avoid soy “just in case” there could be negative effects. The results of three major studies suggest that avoiding soy is unnecessary, and that soy may in fact have important health benefits.

The most recent study, presented this week at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting, showed that eating soy foods such as soymilk and tofu did not increase the risk of cancer recurrence in over 18,000 breast cancer survivors.[3] Lead researcher Xiao Shu, MD, PhD noted “our results indicate it may be beneficial for women to include soy food as part of a healthy diet, even if they have had breast cancer.”

These findings are consistent with other recent research, including a large study of over 5,000 breast cancer patients that found that soy food intake was associated with improved prognosis.⁴ In fact, patients with the highest intake of soy foods (about two servings of soy foods/day) had a reduced risk of tumor recurrence.[4] A third study of 2,000 breast cancer patients showed similar positive effects of soy.[5]

The latest data indicate whole soy foods (such as edamame, soymilk or tofu) can play a role in healthy diets for breast cancer patients and survivors. Recommendations in a recent editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association concurred, stating “Clinicians can advise their patients with breast cancer that soy foods are safe to eat and that these foods may offer some protective benefit for long-term health. Patients with breast cancer can be assured that enjoying a soy latte or indulging in pad thai with tofu causes no harm, and when consumed in plentiful amounts, may reduce the risk of disease recurrence.”[6]

For more information, please visit our SoyNutrition.com site, which contains links to these studies, a fact sheet summarizing the latest evidence around soy and breast cancer and an interactive Q&A with our panel of soy experts.

The biggest retailer in the world just announced it’s going to work to make food healthier, and make healthier food choices more affordable. Why is this important? Because the biggest retailer in the world, just may be the only retailer, or even organization, in the world that can make it happen.

Awhile back we touched on the topic of the American food system, and how it’d be really hard to change. Well, if Wal*Mart follows through, this is the thing that’s going to change everything.

Stay tuned…