Balance of Food

No podcast for Friday the 13th; Where should the podcasts go from here?

Apologies for (once again) not having a Friday podcast. Research is taking longer than expected.

Here at BalanceofFood.com, we may need to rethink how the Friday podcast has been working. There have been some weeks with breaking news, but there should be some more consistency.

But this does bring up a good point: are you enjoying the podcasts? Are they too short? Too long? Not timely enough?

Please feel free to give feedback on the podcasts, those you enjoyed and perhaps those that didn't quite hit the mark. Your thoughts will be taken into consideration. We are here to deliver a quality product to the ever growing list of fans here at BalanceofFood.com.

Would you try a diet program based on Consumer Reports?

I once worked for a consumer magazine that covered diet plans, but there was a huge difference. The article dug into the hype of the low-carb diet craze to give the straight scoop. While I did not write the article, I pitched the idea for the article and supplied some helpful knowledge to the editing process.

Consumers Reports actually ranked diet programs, established weight-loss setups. For what it's worth, Jenny Craig blew away the competition. Weight Watchers, which we mentioned yesterday, came in third.

Ranking cars, blenders, and lawn mowers is more practical and makes more sense because they will work the same for everyone who uses them. Diet programs do different things for different people, which is why they don't always do well.

The true test of diet programs is long-term, something that can't be judged in a fly-by basis.

Slim-Fast came in second, and the program consists of shakes and bars. It fails the concept of "program." And Consumer Reports only did famous plans, so your grandma's cod liver oil program wouldn't make the list.

If the information works for you, so be it. You'll get some perspective on diet programs. But chances are that you'll come up with your own solution outside anything Consumer Reports tells you.

Weight Watchers for men: will men really count points, even with a digital cooler?

When you think of Weight Watchers, you think of women. And we can't blame you for that mindset: Weight Watchers has marketed itself as being for women. Now, Weight Watchers wants you to also think of men losing weight.

In its new ad for Weight Watchers Online for Men, you have a man in great shape. No beer gut to be found. He's non-threatening with a higher forehead. And he's telling you how he lost 57 pounds by watching what he eats, using the traditional point system associated with women who use Weight Watchers.

There is a male twist: the foods are in an online cooler, and you put or pull them in as you need to in order to see what you are consuming.

In the ad, a bottle of beer is 3 points and a bag of chips is 4 points. Life is a picnic, at least on TV.

Another ad (see above) shows us a grill cheat sheet where you drag food online on the grill to see the point value. A guy learns the point difference between light and dark beer.

Male imagery of working out dominates one spot. Grills and beers highlight another spot.

The idea of "do it all online" also falls into the "I don't want to do meetings" mantra associated with women, in and out of Weight Watchers. Do it in secret, don't tell your buddies, and see what happens. Very smart.

Whether men will be as good at counting points — this is the key breakthrough. Maybe if the numbers were adapted to sports.

It would be fun to criticize the ads for being too narrow about what men eat. But in all honesty, this is pretty reflective of the male audience who probably needs help.

Of course, Weight Watchers isn't the only mainstream weight loss center to appeal to men. Jenny Craig uses Jason Alexander, who may have lost weight. But the Weight Watchers guys are in much better shape.

Guys need less help because they have advantages over women, but need more specialized help because society isn't geared for men to get help, especially about weight loss. Duplicating what works for women won't cut it.

Colbert spotlights changes in perception of fat people

"We have a huge diet industry, a $60 billion diet industry that really reinforces that idea that we're not a sufficient person if we are not thin." — Dickinson College professor Amy Farrell was on the "Colbert Report" last week discussing her new book, “Fat Shame.”

Farrell notes a cultural shift about 120 years ago when poor and middle class were able to put on fat that the perception became a problem.

Professor Farrell shared some of the history that associating fat with shame is a relatively new phenomena in history. This goes back to when fat meant you could eat well, and not everybody could back then.

Perhaps we could adjust our perception of food where the poor and middle class are a lot less fat, where fattening food cost more than healthy food.

Podcast: What makes a 'foodie'

This week's podcast deals with the multiple definitions of a "foodie."

To access the podcasts, check them out in the podcast library.

Podcast 050611

What a Stephen Harper government means for Canada's national food strategy

As readers of CanadianCrossing.com know, Stephen Harper has won a majority government and will remain as Canada's prime minister.

And you might remember that we wrote about how each Canadian political party had a food strategy as part of its platform.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal isn't impressed with the status quo on food safety in a recent editorial: "Food in Canada: Eat at your own risk."

During the election campaign, the Liberal Party was the loudest on the topic. The Liberals finished third, a new low in the history of the party. The NDP, the new official opposition party, is also active on the topic.

While the Conservative government pledged to spend an extra $100 million over five years to improve food inspection — before Parliament was dissolved — the Conservatives' food strategy was the weakest of the five parties, and won't have much incentive to do much beyond that, provided the $100 million goes into the new budget.

NDP leader Jack Layton will have to be the point man on bringing attention to a food strategy. Michael Ignatieff, who was passionate on the topic as the Liberal Party leader, will be looking for a job, so maybe he can devote some time as a private citizen toward encouraging a nationwide food strategy.

Then, they can export the ideas to the United States.

Jamie Oliver to return May 27, starting from scratch and outside May sweeps

Someone at ABC has been reading BalanceofFood.com. Instead of coaxing us along from week to week, ABC finally announced that "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" will come back on May 27 and start over from the first episode.

The show is back on Friday nights and the May 27 date is no accident: 2 days after the May sweeps is over. The first two episodes will be run on May 27 from 8-10 pm Eastern, and then new episodes air on Fridays at 9 pm Eastern starting June 3.

As sloppy as ABC has handled this, the network deserves some credit for fixing this. Then again, what Jamie Oliver is doing is worthy of sweeps. Networks are even more paranoid than normal, but eyeballs are what matters. And reruns of a dancing reality show can get more eyeballs than someone trying to help the obesity crisis. And he's not even from here.

If you have your DVR set to record the program, might as well leave it in the queue. And show ABC that they should have showed it earlier, and get people to watch the show, even if it is in June on Friday nights.

No Jamie Oliver episode (again) this week, some missed highlights from first 2 episodes

Once again, tonight's episode of "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" has disappeared from the TV listings. For the second week in a row, there is no episode. So I started wondering about the two previously aired episodes that seem so long ago ...

In writing about an episode filled with tidbits of information and a few commercials (inside and out) on the run while juggling a day job, sometimes nuggets fall through the cracks. So as a public service, and a jab at ABC, here is what you may have caught, but we missed:

-- In Season 1, Jamie tried an experiment on the bits of chicken that really aren't supposed to be eaten. Those kids in West Virginia ate the chicken patties anyway because they "were hungry."

In Episode 1 this year, Jamie shows off the bits of meat the butcher throws away, notes that while it's aimed to become dog food, Oliver says U.S. companies are allowed to use up to 15% of that "meat" in meat, and "the USDA, who are employed to protect you people, have made it legal to not have to register on any form of labeling, the ammonia." Oliver explains off-camera that ammonia is considered part of the process, not an ingredient, and is admitted that this process goes into at least 70% of ground beef products.

That tidbit, along with the news in Season 1, should have been headlines on the news the next day. This may be the first you are hearing about it. If ammonia is in my food, I sure as hell want to know.

To their credit, no one — kids or adults — wanted to eat that, even if it looked as appealing as regular meat.

-- Also in Episode 1, Jamie attended a lecture at the California School Nutrition Association on keeping flavored milk in schools. The lecturer, whose face was blurred out, noted a study that said when you take out flavored milk in schools, milk consumption dropped by 35%. Jamie's response:

"That's not rocket science. We all know if you dip food in sugar, they'll eat more of it. So what next, if you want to give them a bit of apple, it has to be a toffee apple?"

Jamie Oliver pointed out that flavored milk is banned in England and Europe. The lecturer says that he doesn't know the milk consumption in those countries. It's a diversion; kids in England and Europe drink milk and/or may get calcium from other sources. In fact, American school systems should be studying England and Europe to see how to get kids to drink milk without added sugars. We should also point out that California is a major producer of milk, so there is pressure to drink milk, regardless of how much added sugars there are.

"You do not systemically give kids in schools sugary flavored milks in the middle of an obesity crisis."

In real life, Jamie Oliver did get the LAUSD to intend to ban flavored milk (the ban needs to be approved). Every little bit helps in the Revolution.

-- In Episode 2, Jamie dresses up like a tomato and has other volunteers dress up like fruits and vegetables. The goal is to pass out free healthy lunches and flyers to get a LAUSD board member to let Jamie into the schools. One of the volunteers, Frances, had this emotional plea:

"The only thing they are educating them is how to get diabetes, how to get high blood pressure, hypertension. They are training them to eat fast food. When they are giving them pizza 3 times a week, and they get home, and they still ask for more pizza. I don't think it's proper for a school to educate them on obesity."

Beautifully said, if if she was wearing a strawberry costume. Schools are for education. In the California School Nutrition Association lecture, the theme is "Serving Education" with a dancing person and an apple. What Frances is seeing is a kid with low energy and a slice of pizza. Our children deserve to learning about nutrition, not fast food.

-- Jamie Oliver has had this idea of invading an established fast food restaurant to show how you can make better quality fast food. Has Jamie not been introduced to the idea of food trucks?

In Episode 2, Oliver takes to the streets to introduce the Revolution Burger, designed to compete with regular fast food. He sets up a cart at a street corner and passes out samples, asking people to pay what they think it's worth. If Jamie Oliver had a Food Revolution food truck, he could bypass the "reality show" mentality of having to take over a fast food restaurant. This is 2011, if you want to show off a difference, take that difference to the streets. For all my criticism of food trucks, this would be a positive use.

Previous coverage of the first two episodes:

Jamie Oliver makes fast food about quality in Episode 2 of the 'Food Revolution'

Jamie Oliver is back, doing LA with a lot of confrontation and a little bit of lessons

ABC pre-empts Jamie Oliver ... again, still waiting for Episode 3

The Revolution will eventually be televised, just not during May TV sweeps. For the second straight week, ABC is bumping Jamie Oliver for a rerun of "Dancing with the Stars."

But there still remains two unanswered questions: 1) the April 26 interruption wasn't in the May sweeps period, so why was Jamie Oliver off that week? and 2) Why promote (left) an episode is airing May 3 on your Web site when it clearly wasn't going to air then?

Yes, the premiere episode's ratings of the Revolution were down almost 40% from its Season 1 incarnation. And the bad publicity from Jamie Oliver and Los Angeles didn't help, but the timing of the show also felt off. Tuesday is a more crucial night to network TV than Friday and the show didn't run in May sweeps last year.

TV used to have the idea of running some programming as public service (remember those days?). And despite some of the reality TV show annoyances, this show could really be labeled E/I. What little educational programming TV stations are required to carry has a E/I designation in a window on your screen when the show first starts. That means you can learn something.

The sad part is that having an episode this week would have been great publicity for the Revolution. Jamie Oliver appeared on ABC -- though late night with "Jimmy Kimmel Live" -- to announce the intention to ban flavored milk in the LAUSD. (The ban still needs to be approved.)

ABC got us into this mess, and the network needs to come clean on what it is going to do. Tell us now if the network is going to blow up the Revolution for outside May sweeps, not run the show at all, move it to cable, or whatever solution the network has to offer.

There is a serious continuation problem from having run two episodes and taking (at least) a 2-week break. And stop advertising episodes on certain dates that you aren't intending to run them. Don't jack us around.

To show you that we aren't here just to complain, here is what we suggest: 1) Move the show to a night that you feel is acceptable. If this is back to Friday, so be it. Better for the Revolution to be on than off. 2) Rerun the first two episodes so the context is renewed, though this might be easier to do after May sweeps. 3) Give a scenario where episodes won't be interrupted for any other reason (short of an actual news event).

And tomorrow, we will run through a few highlights from the first two episodes that may have been missed. At least, we'll be on schedule.

• ABC skips Jamie Oliver this week; will May sweeps force more postponements?

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