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BCBS Health News (6/21)
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Conflict over city and county rules adds tension to farmers market
Jun 21, 2017 | wbtv.com
By Steve Crump
CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - WBTV has uncovered a local farmers market run by the Mecklenburg County Health Department may be breaking city law. -
Eat your vegetables: You will if they sound a little decadent
Jun 20, 2017 | USA Today
By Sarah Toy
Researchers believe they’ve found a way to help us eat more vegetables: Describe them differently.
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Conflict over city and county rules adds tension to farmers market
Jun 21, 2017 | wbtv.com
By Steve Crump
WBTV has uncovered a local farmers market run by the Mecklenburg County Health Department may be breaking city law.
It was designed to give people living in so-called "food deserts" - places where there are few grocery stores - a healthy alternative to fast food.
Delivering healthy food choices is the goal of the Rosa Parks Farmers Market on Beatties Ford Road. Many vendors are back for a second year, and organizers from the Mecklenburg County Health Department say those who deliver the goods are heavily vetted.
Reggie Singleton with the Mecklenburg County Health Department says the outlet provides new opportunities for shoppers caught in a food desert.
“We visit their farms to make sure that they are using good agricultural practices,” he said.
However, some of the items sold at the county-operated enterprise may be in violation of the local ordinance governing produce stands. That ordinance specifically states that vendors may sell all types of fresh produce.
Nowhere in the law does it allow prepared foods.
Pimento cheese spread is made and sold by Brenda Windham of Indian Land, South Carolina. Windham told WBTV that she’s in compliance.
“I’m in South Carolina, and I’m inspected by South Carolina and I had to give them all of my credentials,” she said.
A number baked goods were also under the tents in health department's parking lot. Jim Gamble, who brings in pies and muffins, says his company plays by the rules laid out by state inspectors in Raleigh.
“They come down. They inspect our kitchens. They look at our kitchens, and we’re permitted to bake certain things,” Gamble said.
Based on the Charlotte ordinance, the permits govern what comes out of the ground, and not from the oven. That has county commissioner Jim Puckett expressing concerns about the ordinance and healthy outcomes.
“The notion behind the farmers market was to provide healthy alternatives and develop healthy lifestyles in that community,” Puckett said.
Despite legal questions over what’s being sold there, Reggie Singleton says an important need is being met.
“We want to make sure that those who have been suffering get the very best farmers and vendors and produce possible,” Singleton said.
According to County Attorney Marvin Bethune, the city law is covered by planning and zoning, but the county ordinance law deals with concerns regarding health and sanitation.
Bethune feels for the market to legally operate the city and county need to have similar language in their laws.
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Eat your vegetables: You will if they sound a little decadent
Jun 20, 2017 | USA Today
By Sarah Toy
Researchers believe they’ve found a way to help us eat more vegetables: Describe them differently.
People are more likely to eat vegetables when they are labeled with decadent, enticing descriptions, say researchers at Stanford, who found in a recently published study that more diners at a university cafeteria chose to eat vegetables when they had so-called “indulgent” labels. For instance, more diners generally chose to scoop up beets when they were labeled “dynamite chili and tangy lime-seasoned beets,” rather than just plain "beets."
“Healthy foods are marketed and labeled in a way that focuses on health properties,” said Bradley P. Turnwald, the lead author of the study. “Everything else is marketed on taste and indulgent properties.”
Researchers scoured restaurant menus, studying adjectives usually used to describe rich foods such as burgers and pizza. They chose a select few and labeled vegetables the same way: sweet potatoes were “zesty ginger-turmeric sweet potatoes” and green beans became “sweet sizzlin’ green beans and crispy shallots." Overall, 25% more diners chose to eat vegetables when they were given the indulgent labels.
What’s more, Turnwald said, his team found that healthy labeling could be a turn-off.
“It seems like a good idea to emphasize the health components of foods because you think that will motivate people to choose that,” he said. “But people aren’t motivated by health when they’re choosing what to eat.”
Rather, “they’re motivated by taste,” he said.
According to the study, when vegetables were labeled “lighter-choice," "reduced-sodium" or "cholesterol-free," people were actually less likely to choose them than when they were labeled as plain ol’ beets or corn.
Turnwald said the vegetables were prepared the same way, regardless of labeling.
“We wanted to change the focus,” he said. “The biggest thing we‘re fighting from a psychological perspective is that people don’t think that healthy foods taste as good as unhealthy foods. Labeling can impact what we choose and our experience — what we feel and taste.”STORY FROM THE UNITED STATES TOUR OPERATORS ASSOCIATIONSouth Africa offers something for every traveler
What people think of their food also affects how full they feel after they eat, Turnwald said. His co-author Alia J. Crum, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University, published a study in 2011 where she had participants drink 380-calorie milkshakes, telling them they were either “indulgent” 620-calorie shakes or “sensible” 120-calorie shakes. Those who thought they were drinking the “indulgent” shake experienced a much larger drop in levels of ghrelin, a hunger hormone, afterward.
“When people thought they were indulging . . . they were more satiated," Crum said. This, she added, meant they would be less hungry later.
Crum said people’s mindsets change their actual physiological responses to food.
“When you are thinking healthy (before you eat), your body is assuming you’re consuming less calories because you’re not feeling as satiated,” she said. “The best mindset to have when we are eating is not that it’s healthy or sensible. It’s the mindset that you’re eating something indulgent."
This, she said, has significant implications when it comes to healthy eating. Touting a food’s health claims probably won’t work, but marketing and describing it as decadent probably will.
“It’s not a trick,” Turnwald added. “Many healthy foods are delicious and indulgent, but we aren’t led to describe them that way, at least not in American culture.”
He and Crum hope that by changing the way healthy food, including vegetables, is seen and described, people will enjoy the experience of eating it more, which will hopefully lead to better nutrition.
“We are trying to change the entire experience of healthy eating, from the taste to the physiology,” Crum said.
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