In 1982, Scientific American published an article suggesting that snorting cocaine was no more addictive than eating potato chips. People continue to use when the stuff is around, and simply stop when it’s gone, the researchers argued. The paper was later widely denounced for minimizing the risks of what soon became known as the most addictive drug all. Cocaine, that is, not Fritos. (See pictures of what makes you eat more food.)

The funny thing is that the same headlines are still making news — except written in reverse. On March 29, the New York Daily News declared: “Fatty foods may be just as addictive as heroin and cocaine: study.” Indeed, a look at Americans’ collectively expanding waistline — with two-thirds of adults qualifying as overweight or obese — would suggest that the Scientific American article may have actually understated the addictiveness of junk food, not cocaine. Some addiction researchers might even argue that potato chips — and other high-fat, high-calorie foods — are more effective than a crack pipe in terms of keeping “users” hooked long-term.

via Can Eating Junk Food Really Be an Addiction? – TIME.

Some honey makers dilute their honey with sugar beets or corn syrup, their competitors say, but still market it as 100 percent pure at a premium price.

And last year, a Fairfax man was convicted of selling 10 million pounds of cheap, frozen catfish fillets from Vietnam as much more expensive grouper, red snapper and flounder. The fish was bought by national chain retailers, wholesalers and food service companies, and ended up on dinner plates across the country.

“Food fraud” has been documented in fruit juice, olive oil, spices, vinegar, wine, spirits and maple syrup, and appears to pose a significant problem in the seafood industry. Victims range from the shopper at the local supermarket to multimillion companies, including E&J Gallo and Heinz USA.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE WASHINGTON POST:  FDA pressured to combat rising ‘food fraud’ – washingtonpost.com.

Eat It to Beat It

We all know that tension can wreak havoc on our eating patterns. But the right (healthy!) foods can often help tame mindless munching and cravings and, better yet, actually lower overall anxiety and its symptoms. Eight of our favorites:

Dark Chocolate

High in flavonoids, which are lauded for their relaxing properties (chamomile tea is another great source), chocolate also contains phenethylamine, a chemical that enhances your mood. The darker the chocolate, the more healthy substances you’re getting in your diet, so look for bars that are 70 percent cacao or higher.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO YAHOO! NEWS:

8 Foods that Fight Stress on Yahoo! Health.

While the need to eat isn’t something you can avoid, there are some steps you can take to keep the costs in check.

1. Eat at Home
Dining out is an expensive proposition. Just about any nutritious meal that you buy in a formal restaurant can be made at home for a fraction of the price. Even good coffee is cheaper to make if you do it yourself. Fast food is excluded from the category, as high-calorie, low-quality food can be had a bargain price, but the impact on your long-term health overrides the benefit of short-term savings. (If you love restaurants, try investing in them instead of eating at them. To learn more, see Sinking Your Teeth Into Restaurant Stocks.)

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR INVESTOPEDIA: 22 Ways To Fight Rising Food Prices.

“The common thinking was that as weight rises, kidney stone risk rises as well, but our study refutes that,” says study leader Brian R. Matlaga, assistant professor of urology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of stone diseases and ambulatory care at Hopkins’ James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute. “Whether someone is mildly obese or morbidly obese, the risk for getting kidney stones is the same.”

The findings are published in the February Journal of Urology.

Over the last decade, several epidemiological studies have shown a strong connection between obesity and kidney stone disease. However, as obesity continues to rise worldwide, Matlaga and his colleagues wondered whether different subcategories of obesity, ranging from mildly to morbidly obese, presented different risks.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR SCIENCE DAILY: Obesity — mild or severe — raises kidney stone risk.

Clipping coupons hardly sounds like the subject of high finance — or even medium finance.

Save a dollar on cat food, some detergent or a couple of boxes of cereal. Who can be bothered? Who has the time?

A growing number of people, it turns out. And they’re shrewder than it may at first appear.

The Great American Coupon is making a big comeback — thanks to the Great American Recession.

We redeemed some 3.3 billion coupons last year — a remarkable 27 percent leap from 2008, and the first year-on-year increase in 17 years, according to a report issued at the end of January by Inmar, a coupon-processing agent. (Online coupon use skyrocketed — companies issued twice as many as in 2008, but redemptions rose 360 percent.) The big upturn took off in October 2008, just after Lehman went belly up.

At first blush you can see why coupons fell out of fashion for so long — and why so many consumers still ignore them.

You have to make time to visit a coupon Web site or collect the flyers from your mailbox, the supermarket or newspaper inserts. You need to sort through to find the ones you want, cut them out, stick them in your purse or wallet — and remember to use them when you are at the cash register and you are trying to remember whether you bought everything on your shopping list and where you parked the car.

Average saving per coupon: Just $1.44, according to the Inmar report.

But let’s treat this low finance topic for a moment the way we treat high finance. Let’s subject it to the same math.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLIKC THIS LINK FOR YAHOO! Yahoo! Finance – Business Finance, Stock Market, Quotes, News.

That’s just one of the findings from new research that suggests that family behaviors can have a significant impact on the weight of preschool children. Other behaviors that may help youngsters stay slim include getting adequate sleep and limiting time in front of the TV.

“Four-year-olds who regularly ate dinner with the family, got enough sleep and watched less than two hours of TV a day were 40 percent less likely to be obese,” said the study’s lead author, Sarah Anderson, an assistant professor of epidemiology in the College of Public Health at Ohio State University in Columbus.

“One of the things that’s potentially useful about recommending these routines, if they’re suggested as part of obesity-prevention counseling, is that they may have other benefits, too. And, for pediatricians and other clinicians, we don’t have easy, effective treatments for obesity in children, so it’s very important to try to prevent obesity,” said Anderson.

Results of the study are scheduled to be published in the March issue of Pediatrics.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR BUSINESS WEEK: 3 Home Habits Help Youngsters Stay Slim – BusinessWeek.

The newspaper found that McDonald’s and other fast-food chains are far more rigorous than the government in checking for bacteria and dangerous pathogens in beef. USA TODAY also found that the government lacks ways to quickly alert schools when products have been recalled or implicated in safety investigations.

The measures outlined Thursday are intended to address each of those points, bringing the standards and testing protocols in line with those used by the most selective restaurants and retailers. “It’s a big deal,” food safety consultant David Theno said of the USDA measures. He said the moves will push companies to “play to a higher standard” if they want to continue to supply food to schools.

The USDA also pledged to review the safety records of its school lunch suppliers more carefully and bar companies that have had repeated problems with their commercial products.

Such a move could affect companies such as Beef Packers, a Fresno company that recalled 826,000 pounds of ground beef last summer because it contained a drug-resistant strain of salmonella. Public health officials warned consumers to discard products from the company, which had a history of salmonella problems, but USA TODAY found that the USDA paid Beef Packers hundreds of thousands of dollars for 450,000 pounds of ground beef made during the period covered by the commercial recall.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR USA TODAY: USDA tightens requirements to assure school lunch safety – USATODAY.com.

“Consumers need honest labeling so they can spend their food dollars wisely and avoid diet-related disease,” said CSPI senior staff attorney Ilene Ringel Heller, co-author of the report. “Companies should market their foods without resorting to the deceit and dishonesty that’s so common today. And, if they don’t, the FDA should make them.”

You can often decipher the truth amid the lies and misdirection by carefully reading food labels.

We take a look at nine things the CSPI identified as the most common ways food labels mislead so you can prepare before your next trip to the grocery store.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO YAHOO! Don’t be misled by these food label tricks | Yahoo! Green.