Nibbles: Rank of risky foods needed, doughnuts may be called low fat in UK, and justifying torture with Jenny Craig

List would help agencies focus attention

Because there clearly aren't enough workers and money (or time) to inspect all food products, a United States Department of Agriculture official says the country needs to develop a ranking of the riskiest products so inspectors, government officials and lawmakers know where to best focus their attention. Alfred Almanza, administrator for the Food Safety and Inspection Service, says such a ranking would allow agencies to properly determine the amount and intensity of inspections in the hope of preventing outbreaks. The agency Almaza runs oversees about 20 percent of the American food supply, including meat, poultry and eggs.

Hospital brand doesn't make for better surgery

It seems logical that a hospital labeled as a "center for excellence" in weight-loss surgery would be better than your run-of-the-mill hospital when it came to performing bariatric procedures, but a study finds that's not the case. Centers for excellence had similar death and complication rates following surgery as other hospitals did, the report in the Archives of Surgery found. A University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine researcher looked at more than 19,000 patients who had weight-loss surgery in 2005, including more than 5,000 at a center for excellence. Among those treated at a center for excellence, 0.17 percent died and 6.3 percent had complications compared to a death rate of 0.09 percent and complications for 6.4 percent of patients at a regular hospital.

Labeling rules will make junk look healthy

The thresholds for labeling rules for salt, fat and sugar being considered by the European Commission would allow 93 percent of foods to make a health claim, according to research form Oxford University. That means doughnuts could be called low fat and some potato chips would be able to claim they're low in salt. British watchdog groups and health foundations have called on the Health Secretary to have Britain protest the rules when they are considered by the governing board of the European Union next month. The rules, for example, say that bakery products can have up to 8 milligrams of saturated fat per 100 grams of food, which makes a Whopper, at 3 milligrams, look like health food.

Mom allergic to water, must drink Diet Coke

A strange case in England involves a mother who became allergic to water after giving birth to her child and now develops painful boils when she bathes, gets caught in a rainstorm or even touches her child if he's sweaty.

Michaela Dutton says the only fluid she can tolerate is Diet Coke, and she has to bathe with water-free wipes. Cases of water allergy, also known as aquagenic urticaria, are very rare, with about one person in 230 million affected.

U.S. justified calorie restriction because some do it voluntarily

Finally, something a lot of people missed in the recently released torture memos is the fact that terror suspects could be limited to a diet of 1,000 calories a day and the government justified that as being reasonable because some people cut their calories that severely by choice on popular diet plans. "While we do not equate commercial weight loss programs and this interrogation technique, the fact that these calorie levels are used in the weight-loss programs, in our view, is instructive in evaluating the medical safety of the interrogation technique," a footnote in the memo said.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

From the RSS feed of CalorieLab News (REF3076322B7)

Nibbles: Rank of risky foods needed, doughnuts may be called low fat in UK, and justifying torture with Jenny Craig