Tag: diet and nutrition

Neanderthals cooked meals with pulses 70,000 years ago | CNN

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Stone Age cooks were surprisingly sophisticated, combining an array of ingredients and using different techniques to prepare and flavor their meals, analysis of some the earliest charred food remains has suggested.

Plant material found at the Shanidar Cave in northern Iraq — which is famous for its burial of a Neanderthal surrounded by flowers — and Franchthi Cave in Greece revealed prehistoric cooking by Neanderthals and early modern humans was complex, involving several steps, and that the foods used were diverse, according to a new study published in the journal Antiquity.

Wild nuts, peas, vetch, a legume which had edible seed pods, and grasses were often combined with pulses like beans or lentils, the most commonly identified ingredient, and at times, wild mustard. To make the plants more palatable, pulses, which have a naturally bitter taste, were soaked, coarsely ground or pounded with stones to remove their husk.

At Shanidar Cave, the researchers studied plant remains from 70,000 years ago, when the space was inhabited by Neanderthals, an extinct species of human, and 40,000 years ago, when it was home to early modern humans (Homo sapiens).

The charred food remains from Franchthi Cave dated from 12,000 years ago, when it was also occupied by hunter-gatherer Homo sapiens.

Despite the distance in time and space, similar plants and cooking techniques were identified at both sites — possibly suggesting a shared culinary tradition, said the study’s lead author Dr. Ceren Kabukcu, an archaeobotanical scientist at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom.

Based on the food remains researchers analyzed, Neanderthals, the heavy-browed hominins who disappeared about 40,000 years ago, and Homo sapiens appeared to use similar ingredients and techniques, she added, although wild mustard was only found at Shanidar Cave dating back to when it was occupied by Homo sapiens.

A breadlike substance was found at the Greek cave, although it wasn’t clear what it was made from. The evidence that ancient humans pounded and soaked pulses at Shanidar Cave 70,000 years ago is the earliest direct evidence outside Africa of the processing of plants for food, according to Kabukcu.

Kabukcu said she was surprised to find that prehistoric people were combining plant ingredients in this way, an indication that flavor was clearly important. She had expected to find only starchy plants like roots and tubers, which on face value appear to be more nutritious and are easier to prepare.

Much research on prehistoric diets has focused on whether early humans were predominantly meat eaters, but Kabukcu said it was clear they weren’t just chomping on woolly mammoth steaks. Our ancient ancestors ate a varied diet depending on where they lived, and this likely included a wide range of plants.

Such creative cooking techniques were once thought to have emerged only with the shift from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to humans’ focus on agriculture — known as the Neolithic transition — that took place between 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.

What’s more, she said, the research suggested life in the Stone Age was not just a brutal fight to survive, at least at these two sites, and that prehistoric humans selectively foraged a variety of different plants and understood their different flavor profiles.

John McNabb, a professor at the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins at the University of Southampton in the UK said that scientific understanding of the Neanderthal diet has changed significantly “as we move away from the idea of them just consuming huge quantities of hunted game meat.”

“More data is needed from Shanidar, but if these results are supported then Neanderthals were eating pulses and some species from the grass family that required careful preparation before consumption. Sophisticated techniques of food preparation had a much deeper history than previously thought,” McNabb, who wasn’t involved in the research, said via email.

“Even more intriguing is the possibility that they did not deliberately extract all the unpalatable toxins. Some were left in the food, as the presence of seed coatings suggests — that part of the seed where the bitterness is especially located. A Neanderthal flavor of choice.”

A separate study into prehistoric diets that also published Tuesday analyzed ancient humans’ oral microbiome — fungi, bacteria and viruses that reside in the mouth — by using ancient DNA from dental plaque.

Researchers led by Andrea Quagliariello, a postdoctoral research fellow in comparative biomedicine and food at the University of Padua in Italy, examined the oral microbiomes of 76 individuals who lived in prehistoric Italy over a period of 30,000 years, as well as microscopic food remains found in calcified plaque.

Quagliariello and his team were able to identify trends in diet and cooking techniques, such as the introduction of fermentation and milk, and a shift to a greater reliance on carbohydrates associated with an agriculture-based diet.

McNabb said it was impressive that researchers had been able chart changes over such a long period of time.

“What the study also does is support the growing idea that the Neolithic was not the sudden arrival of new subsistence practices and new cultures as it was once thought to be. It appears to be a slower transition,” McNabb, who wasn’t involved in the study, said via email.

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November 22, 2022
Don’t bother with dietary supplements for heart health, study says | CNN

CNN
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Six supplements that people commonly take for heart health don’t help lower “bad” cholesterol or improve cardiovascular health, according to a study published Sunday, but statins did.

Some people believe that common dietary supplements – fish oil, garlic, cinnamon, turmeric, plant sterols and red yeast rice – will lower their “bad” cholesterol. “Bad” cholesterol, known in the medical community as low-density lipoproteins or LDL, can cause the buildup of fatty deposits in the arteries. The fatty deposits can block the flow of oxygen and blood that the heart needs to work and the blockage can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

For this study, which was presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2022 and simultaneously published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers compared the impact of these particular supplements to the impact of a low dose of a statin – a cholesterol-lowering medication – or a placebo, which does nothing.

Researchers made this comparison in a randomized, single-blind clinical trial that involved 190 adults with no prior history of cardiovascular disease. Study participants were ages 40 to 75, and different groups got a low-dose statin called rosuvastatin, a placebo, fish oil, cinnamon, garlic, turmeric, plant sterols or red yeast rice for 28 days.

The statin had the greatest impact and significantly lowered LDL compared with the supplements and placebo.

The average LDL reduction after 28 days on a statin was nearly 40%. The statin also had the added benefit on total cholesterol, which dropped on average by 24%, and on blood triglycerides, which dropped 19%.

None of the people who took the supplements saw any significant decrease in LDL cholesterol, total cholesterol or blood triglycerides, and their results were similar to those of people who took a placebo. While there were similar adverse events in all the groups, there were a numerically higher number of problems among those who took the plant sterols or red yeast rice.

“We designed this study because many of us have had the same experience of trying to recommend evidence-based therapies that reduce cardiovascular risks to patients and then having them say ‘no thanks, I’ll just try this supplement,’ ” said study co-author Dr. Karol Watson, professor of medicine/cardiology and co-director, UCLA Program in Preventive Cardiology. “We wanted to design a very rigid, randomized, controlled trial study to prove what we already knew and show it in a rigorous way.”

Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist and researcher at the Cleveland Clinic and a co-author on the study, said that patients often don’t know that dietary supplements aren’t tested in clinical trials. He calls these supplements “21st century snake oil.”

In the United States, the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act of 1994 sharply limited the US Food and Drug Administration’s ability to regulate supplements. Unlike pharmaceutical products that have to be proven safe and effective for their intended use before a company can market them, the FDA doesn’t have to approve dietary supplements before they can be sold. It is only after they are on the market and are proven to be unsafe that the FDA can step in to regulate them.

“Patients believe studies have been done and that they are as effective as statins and can save them because they’re natural, but natural doesn’t mean safe and it doesn’t mean they’re effective,” Nissen said.

The study was funded via an unrestricted grant from AstraZeneca, which makes rosuvastatin. The company did not have any input on the methodology, data analysis and discussion of the clinical implications, according to the study.

The researchers acknowledged some limitations, including the study’s small sample size, and that its 28-study period might not capture the effect of supplements when used for a longer duration.

In a statement on Sunday, the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association for the dietary supplement industry, said “supplements are not intended to replace medications or other medical treatments.”

“Dietary supplements are not intended to be quick fixes and their effects may not be revealed during the course of a study that only spans four weeks,” Andrea Wong, the group’s senior vice president for scientific and regulatory affairs, said in a statement.

Dr. James Cireddu, an invasive cardiologist and medical director of University Hospitals Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute at University Hospitals Bedford Medical Center, said the work is going to be helpful.

“They did a nice job collecting data and looking at the outcomes,” said Cireddu, who did not work on the study. “It will probably resonate with patients. I get asked about supplements all the time. I think this does a nice job of providing evidence.”

Dr. Amit Khera, chair of the AHA Scientific Sessions programming committee, did not work on the research, but said he thought this was an important study to include in the presentations this year.

“I take care of patients every day with these exact questions. Patients always ask about the supplements in lieu of or in addition to statins,” said Khera, who is a professor and director of preventive cardiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “I think if you have high quality evidence and a well done study it is really critical to help inform patients about the value, or in this case the lack of value, for some of these supplements for cholesterol lowering.”

Statins have been around for more than 30 years and they’ve been studied in over 170,000 people, he said. Consistently, studies show that statins lower risk.

“The good news, we know statins work,” Khera said. “That does not mean they’re perfect. That doesn’t mean everyone needs one, but for those at higher risk, we know they work and that’s well proven. If you’re going to do something different you have to make sure it works.”

With supplements, he said he often sees misinformation online.

“I think that people are always looking for something ‘natural’ but you know there’s a lot of issues with that terminology and most important we should ask do they work? That’s what this study does,” Khera adds. “It’s important to ask, are you taking something that is proven, and if you’re doing that and it’s not, is that in lieu of proven treatment. It’s a real concern.”

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November 6, 2022
Whoopi Goldberg says she didn’t wear a fat suit for ‘Till,’ correcting a reviewer | CNN

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Whoopi Goldberg is correcting the record after a review of her new film, “Till,” purported that Goldberg was wearing a fat suit during filming.

In a mixed review, a Daily Beast reporter mentions Goldberg only once, writing that Goldberg was “in a distracting fat suit” for her role as Emmett Till’s grandmother. The review has since been edited to omit that line and features an editor’s note.

“I don’t really care how you felt about the movie, but you should know that was not a fat suit,” Goldberg said on Monday’s episode of “The View.” “That was me. That was steroids.”

Goldberg was referring to the health challenges she experienced last year with sciatica, a type of nerve pain, for which she was hospitalized and started using a walker. She said on “The View” that at the time, she was taking steroids, which can be used to treat sciatica symptoms.

“It’s OK to not be a fan of the movie, but you want to leave people’s looks out,” Goldberg said.

It’s not uncommon for a popular and awarded actress in a prestigious film to wear a fat suit, though. Plenty of stars have donned fat suits, sometimes in demeaning ways. From Gwyneth Paltrow as an obese woman in 2001’s “Shallow Hal” to Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp in last year’s “American Crime Story: Impeachment,” the actors inside the fat suits are often not fat. Men, too, have worn fat suits, largely in comedic roles, including John Travolta in “Hairspray,” Ryan Reynolds in “Just Friends” and Eddie Murphy in “Norbit.”

This year alone has seen a surge of famous actors wearing fat suits: Renée Zellweger in “The Thing About Pam” and Tom Hanks in “Elvis” are two examples of Oscar winners who have worn fat suits for roles. Emma Thompson wears one in the musical adaptation of “Matilda” due out later this year, and in the awards season vehicle “The Whale,” Brendan Fraser plays an obese man at the end of his life under several pounds of prostheses.

Viewers often criticize the practice, particularly when a filmmaker chooses not to cast an actor whose body type already matches that of the character. In a recent interview with the New York Times, retired professor and media researcher J. Kevin Thompson said that uses of fat suits in media – particularly when the characters portrayed by actors in fat suits are made fun of or portrayed in an unflattering light – can be psychologically damaging to viewers and that women disproportionately incur most of that damage.

“These roles were most often associated with ‘humor,’ which, of course, might not be so funny if one were the butt of the joke,” Thompson told the Times.

For its part, “Till” ostensibly does not feature actors in fat suits. The film, which focuses on Mamie Till’s activism and her contributions to the civil rights movement after the murder of her son, Emmett, will be released on October 14.

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October 3, 2022
Opinion: A piece of paradise lost | CNN

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“Buy land,” the saying goes, “they’re not making it anymore.”

Variously attributed to Mark Twain and Will Rogers, the advice fits well with the national fixation on real estate, home values and location, location, location. The scarcity of land that can be developed – and surging demand for desirable locations – drove US median home prices over $400,000 for the first time last quarter before interest rate hikes started cooling the market.

In Florida, a warm climate, expansive coastline and low taxes helped fuel a long-term boom, making it the third most populous state. As Hurricane Ian carved an awful path of destruction through the center of the state last week, the damage to people and property was severe. At least 66 people died, homes and businesses were destroyed and for many people, power may be out for weeks.

Florida tightened its building standards after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 but even with stronger structures, there’s little chance of avoiding catastrophic damage when 150 mph winds, torrential rain and steep storm surges hit a populated area.

“The simple fact is that when more people are exposed to a natural hazard such as a hurricane,” wrote Stephen Strader, an associate professor of geography and the environment at Villanova University, “the odds for a major disaster to occur are greater. As our population and built environment grows and expands, we are more readily placing ourselves in harm’s way. The wetlands and mangroves that once acted as natural ‘buffers’ to the rising waters and waves that come with hurricanes are now shrinking or gone. They have been replaced by subdivisions.”

Strader traces Florida’s boom back to the early 1910s, when “a man named Carl Fisher (best known as the automobile magnate responsible for building the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) decided to take a vacation on what is now known as Miami Beach.”

“He quickly realized the moneymaking opportunity at hand, buying, clearing and filling in thousands of acres of swamps and mangroves to make way for new waterfront property where investors would line up for the foreseeable future to build homes and hotels for those seeking a piece of paradise,” wrote Strader.

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“There are very few things that test political leaders like natural disasters,” Julian Zelizer pointed out. “When mother nature wreaks havoc, presidents, governors, and legislators are forced to deploy resources to address the dire needs of those affected….”

“At the federal level, President Joe Biden needs to demonstrate he has the leadership and rigorous governing skills that are necessary to help Florida out of this mess,” Zelizer added. “At the state level, Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is billed as a potential Republican presidential nominee for 2024, needs to show that he can achieve more than political stunts like the one he orchestrated earlier this month when he sent migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.”

As Jack Shafer, writing for Politico, noted, DeSantis sounded a different tone this week, promising to work with the Biden administration to help his battered state recover. “In throttling back on the vitriol, DeSantis proves himself a wiser politician than (former President Donald) Trump, the man who reset politics in 2016 to establish senseless fight-picking and name-calling as part of the normal political arsenal and allowing somebody like DeSantis to rise. Trump, unlike DeSantis, never figured out how to turn off the meshugana theatrics, even when it could have benefited him. Imagine if, for example, Trump had approached the Covid crisis with the reassuring cool of Barack Obama instead of roasting the issue in a bonfire every time he called a presser. He might still be president today.”

Puerto Rico is still recovering from Hurricane Fiona, which was cited as a factor in at least 25 deaths, according to the island’s health department.

“Nearly five years to the day since Maria slammed our island, on September 18 of this year, Hurricane Fiona delivered yet another knockout punch,” wrote Brenda Rivera-García, senior director of Latin America and Caribbean programs for Americares.

“With Maria, we thought we experienced a 100-year flood. But, after only a half-decade later, it seems another century of water has enveloped us: Maria dumped more than three dozen inches of rain in some parts of the island over two days and last week Hurricane Fiona drowned us with 31 inches in a 72-hour period. A week after the storm, nearly 20% of the island was still without potable water, and nearly 60% still had no power, according to Puerto Rico’s government data. Once again, our air is filled with a familiar lullaby — the hum of generators.”

“More and more,” Rivera-Garcia added, “I hear from family, friends, neighbors and people on the street saying, ‘I’m tired. It’s one crisis after another. I can’t take it anymore.’ With multiple generations often living together, family members have always been each other’s rock. But what happens when that rock is shattered?”

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After conducting a series of votes widely viewed as a sham, Russia is moving to annex regions of eastern Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin is warning that attacks on these territories would be viewed as an assault on Russia itself. He’s raised the fearsome prospect that tactical nuclear weapons could be used to defend what he now claims is part of the homeland.

That poses the huge question of how NATO should react. Hamish De Bretton-Gordon, former commander of the UK & NATO Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Forces, said that “the West must make it absolutely clear to Putin that any use of nuclear, or chemical or biological weapons is a real redline issue. That said, I don’t think all-out nuclear war is at all likely.”

“NATO must direct that it will take out Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons if they move out of their current locations to a position where they could threaten Ukraine, and must also make clear that any deliberate attacks on nuclear power stations will exact an equal and greater response from NATO.”

“This is the time to call Putin’s bluff. He’s hanging on by his fingertips, and we must give him no chances to regain his hold. Russia’s forces are now so degraded that they are no match for NATO and we should now negotiate, with this in mind, from this position of strength.”

The UK’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng played starring roles in a week of market turmoil around the globe.

As Frida Ghitis observed, “In the midst of a wave of inflation that is battering the world and prompting central banks to raise interest rates in hopes of cooling inflationary pressures, Truss’ plan to slash taxes, especially for the wealthiest, amounted to opening a firehose filled with gasoline into that raging economic fire.” The pound tumbled, nearly reaching parity with the dollar, and the Bank of England had to announce it would buy bonds to restore confidence.

“Economists and politicians left and right largely agreed that, if not the policy itself, the abrupt rollout and the timing could not have been worse…”

“They came at a moment when the world – and the West – stands on a knife’s edge, with Russian President Vladimir Putin annexing large pieces of Ukraine and hinting at using nuclear weapons as his invasion falters. With mysterious explosions causing leaks in the Nordstream pipeline applying further anxiety just ahead of a dreaded winter with gas supply shortages across Europe, all of this is happening when democracy finds itself under pressure the world over.”

The prime minister’s policy is far from the only thing unsettling investors, as central banks around the world aim to tame inflation with rising interest rates, a strategy that risks choking off economic growth.

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Bill Carter has a confession to make: he has not read all the books about Donald Trump.

“I can’t even remember all the books about Donald Trump,” he wrote.

“I know Bob Woodward has written three. So has Michael Wolff. Sean Spicer wrote one (or was it two?). “Mooch” – that is, Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s White House communications director ever so briefly – wrote one. So did Omarosa, for heaven’s sake.”

“This week marks the release of yet another: New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman’s ‘Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.’” Carter cited a New York Times reference to an analysis by NPD BookScan, which found more than 1,200 titles about Trump were released over four years – not including the avalanche of books published since the 2020 election.

“The robust sales for many of these books attest to the hunger among readers to hear every gobsmacking detail about a real-life character who is beyond the imagination of most fever-dreaming fiction writers.”

“But even ravenous levels of hunger can be sated – eventually. After seven or eight – or 12 – courses, a bit of bloat is likely to set in … Every book seems to contain a sufficient number of ‘bombshell revelations’ to drum up media coverage, along with some combination of amusing, enraging or revolting personal details (previously unreported, of course, and almost always disputed by the former president)…”

But do they have an impact anymore? A “defining aspect of the collected works on Trump,” Carter concluded, “is that virtually nothing in any of them – none of the ‘bombshells’ or details about his character – seems to have substantially changed people’s minds about him. That may be because Trump acolytes don’t tend to read critical accounts about him – and his opponents aren’t likely to read the hagiographies.”

SE Cupp noted a Vanity Fair report that lifted the curtain on the rivalry between DeSantis and Trump, which included this description of Trump attributed to the governor: “A TV personality and a moron, who has no business running for president.”

“The love loss seems to go both ways. According to reporting by Maggie Haberman, Trump has called DeSantis ‘fat,’ ‘phony,’ and ‘whiny.’”

“As is often the case,” Cupp observed, “the courage to criticize Trump – even among Republicans who might want to run against him – is almost always reserved for private conversations. When will DeSantis get the spine to attack Trump frontally?”

As the Supreme Court begins its new term Monday, the reverberations of its June decision on abortion are still playing out. As Fareed Zakaria wrote, “The Court has been growing more ideologically predictable – that is, politically partisan – in recent years. Judges appointed by Republicans now almost always rule in ways that Republicans want them to. Ditto for judges appointed by Democrats. It is all part of the hyper-polarization of American life.”

“But it is also partly because of the strange way in which America’s highest court is structured,” observed Zakaria, who noted that “no other major democracy gives members of its highest court life tenure.”

The court “has moved in a direction that has weakened its own legitimacy. It might be an occasion to begin a national conversation about what reforms could be put in place to make it less partisan, less divisive and more trusted by the vast majority of citizens. After all, that is the only way its rulings will be truly accepted in a diverse democracy of more than 330 million people.” (Watch Fareed Zakaria’s special report Sunday at 8 p.m. ET and PT: “Supreme Power: Inside the Highest Court in the Land.”)

For more:

Jill Filipovic: This Texas Republican in full sprint is a metaphor for the GOP’s stance on abortion

Steve Vladeck: America’s most powerful court owes the public an explanation

One morning in 2016, Eric Adams, a former police officer turned politician – and now New York’s mayor – couldn’t see the numbers on his alarm clock.

“I went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with Type 2 diabetes. He told me I might have my driver’s license revoked due to vision loss, and I might have permanent nerve damage in my fingers and toes.”

After googling “reversing diabetes,” he connected with “Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn at the Cleveland Clinic, who told me I could treat my diabetes with lifestyle changes, including overhauling my diet and exercising.

“I was skeptical at first. But reducing meat and dairy consumption in favor of fresh produce and grains made an immediate difference in my health … Within three months, I lost significant weight, lowered my cholesterol, restored my vision and reversed my diabetes.” But not everyone has the resources to get expert medical advice and turn their health around so dramatically.

“The disproportionate effect of Covid-19 on Black and brown communities was tragically compounded by existing diet-driven health disparities. While higher-income neighborhoods have overwhelming options when it comes to fresh fruits and vegetables, low-income communities of color often live in nutritional deserts with fewer grocery stores and a higher concentration of processed foods, sugary drinks, and shelf-stable products…”

“Now is the time for our country to make the shift from treatment to prevention, from feeding the illness to giving people the tools to build sustainable lifestyles and healthier, stronger communities.”

Dana Summers/Tribune Content Agency

Michael Fanone: What my January 6 assailant deserves

Ruth Ben Ghiat: Casting doubt on Brazil’s election, Bolsonaro follows Trump’s lead

Matthew Bossons: My 5-year-old just confirmed our decision to leave China

Peter Bergen: The British Empire – A legacy of violence?

AND…

Bill Bramhall/Tribune Content Agency

To fans of the New York Yankees, there’s an almost mystical connection uniting the team’s pantheon of heroes – including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Derek Jeter. And now by hitting 61 homers in a single season – tying Maris, who bested Ruth’s record of 60 home runs – Aaron Judge has arguably joined those ranks.

As Billy Crystal’s 2001 movie, “61*” made clear, though, those ties have long been frayed – Mantle and DiMaggio had a frosty relationship and there were tensions between Mantle and Maris. But if you widen the lens beyond the Yankees and look at the entire history of Major League Baseball, as Jeff Pearlman wrote, the picture surrounding Judge’s achievement is even more clouded.

“By allowing rampant steroid and human growth hormone usage throughout the 1990s and early 2000s,” Pearlman observed, “Major League Baseball ruined and disgraced its own record book, and Judge’s shot merely (yawn) tied the American League home run mark.”

“When, in 2001, San Francisco’s Barry Bonds broke (Mark) McGwire’s record with 73 homers, we all knew it was nonsense. Not some of us – all of us. Here was a man, at age 36, with muscles growing atop muscles and a skull size that – as I reported in my Bonds biography, “Love Me Hate Me” – had actually increased in recent years (this is physically impossible without the help of HGH). I was in San Francisco the night Bonds passed McGwire, and it was…stupid. Just so damn stupid. The local fans stood and cheered, but it felt flat and meaningless and a bit embarrassing. Like spotting a magician’s fake thumb.”

“All the while, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association did … nothing. Home runs were great business, so team owners shrugged off PED suspicions while the union made clear it would refuse to have its players be tested in any sort of methodical, impactful manner. The result was temporary long ball excitement, followed by the quiet-yet-crushing realization (by most involved in the game) that the record book had been rendered meaningless.” Eventually, baseball woke up and instituted testing for performance enhancing drugs.

As for Aaron Judge, according to Pearlman, “the 30-year-old slugger has had a season for the ages – he’s all but locked up the AL MVP award, and at this moment is in line to become the Yankees’ first triple crown winner since Mickey Mantle in 1956.

“This should be an historic time for baseball.

“This should be an historic time for Aaron Judge.

“Instead, greed destroyed baseball – and took its history with it.”

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October 2, 2022
White House seeks to tackle food insecurity at first hunger conference since 1969 | CNN Politics

CNN
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Groceries cost 13.5% more than they did a year ago. Nearly 25 million adults live in households where there isn’t always enough to eat. Some 40% of food banks saw increased demand this summer.

At a time when the affordability of food is in the spotlight, the Biden administration is hosting a White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health on Wednesday with the goal of combating food insecurity and diet-related diseases.

Overall, food insecurity has declined since former President Richard Nixon convened the first and only White House conference on food, nutrition and health in 1969, which led to nationwide expansions of the food stamp and school meals programs and the creation of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, among other changes. General economic growth and the reduction in poverty have also contributed to the improvements in food security in recent decades.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic and soaring inflation have increased the attention paid to food insecurity in the US over the past two years. The Biden administration released a 44-page playbook on Tuesday aimed at the “bold goal” of ending hunger by 2030 and increasing healthy eating and physical activity to reduce diet-related diseases.

Among the key proposals: expand free school meals to 9 million more children by 2032; allow more people to qualify for food stamps; broaden the Summer Expanded Benefit Transfer program to more kids; increase funding for nutrition programs for senior citizens; and improve transportation to and from grocery stores and farmer’s markets, among other initiatives. Many of the efforts would need approval from Congress.

President Joe Biden announced at the conference more than $8 billion in private and public sector commitments as part of the administration’s call to action.

“In America, no child, no child should go to bed hungry,” Biden told those gathered at the conference Wednesday. “No parent should die of disease that can be prevented.”

More than 100 organizations have made commitments, including hospitals and health care associations, tech companies, philanthropies and the food industry.

At least $2.5 billion will be invested in start-up companies that are focused on solutions to hunger and food insecurity, according to the White House. More than $4 billion will be dedicated toward philanthropic efforts to improve access to nutritious food, promote healthy choices and increase physical activity.

The President also urged Congress to make permanent the enhancement to the child tax credit, which was only in effect last year. Parents used the additional monthly funds to buy food and basic necessities, which Biden said helped cut child poverty in half and reduced food insecurity for families by 26%.

Congress has poured billions into special pandemic assistance programs aimed at enabling struggling Americans to have enough food to feed themselves and their families – even as millions of jobs were lost in 2020.

“That’s why it’s so consequential that at the onset of the Covid-19 recession, the combination of fiscal support to households – whether it is from the economic impact payments, unemployment insurance, refundable tax credits, enhanced SNAP benefits or pandemic EBT – all combined to prevent an increase in food insecurity over the past two years,” said Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.

The pandemic aid, particularly a temporary enhancement to the child tax credit, helped keep kids fed last year, Bauer and anti-hunger advocates maintain.

Food insecurity among children fell in 2021, reversing a spike during the first year of the pandemic, according to a recent US Department of Agriculture report. Some 6.2% of households with children were unable at times to provide adequate, nutritious food for their kids last year, compared with 7.6% in 2020, the report found. Last year’s rate was not significantly different than the 2019 share.

And the prevalence of food insecurity in the families who have kids dropped to 12.5% last year, the lowest since at least 1998, the earliest year that comparable records exist.

But elderly Americans living alone and childless households both experienced an increase in food insecurity last year, the report found.

Overall, the share of households contending with food insecurity remained statistically the same in 2021 as the year before.

This lack of improvement in general food insecurity despite the surge in federal spending on food stamps, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, is a red flag for Angela Rachidi, senior fellow in poverty studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

“When the solution is always ‘let’s just spend more on SNAP or spend more on school lunch or WIC,’ I think that that’s not always the best use of federal dollars,” she said.

Rachidi would like to see more of an emphasis on nutrition and healthy eating, which are among the pillars of the White House conference.

“Many more people in the US die from diet-related disease than die from hunger,” she said, noting the health problems caused by obesity, diabetes and other conditions.

The pandemic aid that helped keep Americans afloat has largely been exhausted, and Congress has shown little appetite to dole out more assistance – even as high inflation is squeezing many families.

The share of people who say they live in households where there was either sometimes or often not enough to eat in the last seven days has climbed to 11.5%, according to the most recent US Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey conducted in late July and early August.

That’s up from the 10.2% recorded by the survey in late December and early January, just after the final monthly child tax credit payment was distributed. The share had been even lower in the late summer and early fall of 2021, when the monthly installments were being sent.

Meanwhile, shopping in the supermarket is taking a bigger bite out of people’s wallets. Egg prices have skyrocketed nearly 40% over the past year, while flour is 23% costlier. Milk and bread are up 17% and 16% respectively, while chicken is nearly 17% more expensive.

Starting next month, it will be a little easier for those in the food stamp program to afford groceries because the annual inflation adjustment will kick in. Beneficiaries will see an increase in benefits of 12%, or an average of $26 per person, per month. This comes on top of last year’s revision to the Thrifty Food Plan, upon which benefits are based, which raised the average monthly payment by $36 per person.

Still, the upward march in prices has driven more people to food pantries, which are also struggling to stock the shelves amid higher prices.

Some 40% of food banks reported seeing an increase in the number of people served in July compared with June, according to a survey conducted by Feeding America, which has more than 60,000 food pantries, meal programs and partner agencies in its network. The average increase was about 10% more people. Another 40% said demand remained about level.

Many food pantries don’t have the resources to meet this increased demand, said Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, Feeding America’s CEO, noting that she’s seen sites with nearly empty shelves but long lines out the door.

The network provided 1.4 billion fewer meals in the fiscal year ending June 30 than the year before.

The USDA announced earlier this month that it will provide nearly $1.5 billion in additional funding for emergency food assistance, which will help alleviate the supply shortages at food banks and pantries.

However, Feeding America feels more should be done. It recently surveyed nearly 36,000 people for their recommendations to end hunger. Many felt that food stamp benefits should be increased and eligibility should be expanded. Nearly half felt their communities need more food pantries, grocery stores and fresh food.

The recent infusion of federal funds will help pantries distribute more food, though it doesn’t completely close the gap. And it will take time for the supplies to arrive, Babineaux-Fontenot said.

“Today, people are going to be looking for ways to feed themselves and their family, and there will be scarce resources for them to do that,” she said.

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September 28, 2022
New US Army regulation could result in more soldiers failing body fat assessments | CNN Politics

CNN
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As the US Army moves to a new way to measure soldiers’ body fat, officials acknowledged Wednesday that some soldiers who had previously passed under the old regulations may now fail under the new.

The Army is changing its tape test – a method to measure soldiers’ body fat by taking the circumference of various parts of a soldier’s body with a measuring tape. The tape test, an often-dreaded practice among soldiers, is used when soldiers’ weights do not fall within the mandated body mass index screening table.

Previously, men were taped around their neck and abdomen, while women were taped around their neck, waist, and hips. Now, all soldiers regardless of gender will be taped in one area – around the navel – to calculate their body fat.

Many soldiers had cheered the Army’s efforts to update its Body Composition Program when the study started in 2021.

But Holly McClung, a lead researcher on the Army’s Body Composition Study that resulted in the change, told reporters Wednesday that more soldiers will fail the new test.

Army data provided to CNN showed that 34% of people were passing the previous version of the tape test when they should have failed. The new test is expected to align with the regulations and lead to more failures, the data said.

The change is a potential concern considering that soldiers who fail to meet the weight standards can be separated from the service, after several months of attempting to get within their weight standard.

Asked about concerns over more soldiers potentially failing because of the updated body composition study, Sgt. Maj. Christopher Stevens, the senior enlisted leader of the Army’s personnel office, told reporters on Wednesday that the Army is “putting everything on the table to really look at how we can ensure that we continue to assess and retain quality.”

The tape test practice has long been criticized as outdated and inaccurate, particularly as the Army shifted to a new fitness test that introduced more weightlifting than the old test, sparking concerns that the body assessment wouldn’t account for gaining muscle mass.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the measurement of waist circumference can help predict who may be at higher risk of developing obesity-related health problems like diabetes and heart disease, but it is not a diagnostic tool to determine body fatness or health.

Indeed, the Army said in March that soldiers “with a high volume of lean muscle mass were still at risk of failing the body fat assessment.” So the Army made an exemption for soldiers who scored a 540 out of 600 total points on the Army Combat Fitness Test, saying that those soldiers would not need to be taped. The exemption requires a minimum of 80 out of 100 points earned in each of the six fitness tests.

“As soldiers leverage all domains of Holistic Health and Fitness and strive to reach their maximum potential, our policies should encourage their progress, not constrain It,” Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston said at the time.

McClung said Wednesday that efforts by the Army to link data of body composition to soldiers’ performance is “kind of groundbreaking.”

“And what we hope is that over years to come, maybe the bar will get heightened and that it won’t be a 540 it’ll be a 550, it’ll be a continuous moving benchmark because the soldiers will become more fit,” she said.

For the next year, soldiers will have the option of using the previous measuring methods if they fail the tape test under the new regulations. If a soldier fails both, they have the option of requesting another assessment using specific machines that use X-ray or other methods to measure body fat.

Soldiers who still weigh outside the required standard for their gender and height are enrolled in the Army Body Composition Program, which is meant to help them lose weight and get back within standards. Army regulations say they will be provided “exercise guidance” by a fitness trainer in the unit and meet with a registered dietitian.

Soldiers who fail to get within standards after six months can be separated from the service.

McClung said Wednesday that those who had been inaccurately passing would not be “necessarily separated from the Army.”

“We want to help them,” she said, “we want to put them on a health promotion track, work with some dietitians and some trainers, and bring them up to standards.”

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April 12, 2021