Europe to ban hundreds of herbal remedies
Safety concerns sparked drive to outlaw products

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Thursday, 30 December 2010

Hundreds of herbal medicinal products will be banned from sale in Britain next year under what campaigners say is a "discriminatory and disproportionate" European law.

With four months to go before the EU-wide ban is implemented, thousands of patients face the loss of herbal remedies that have been used in the UK for decades.

From 1 May 2011, traditional herbal medicinal products must be licensed or prescribed by a registered herbal practitioner to comply with an EU directive passed in 2004. The directive was introduced in response to rising concern over adverse effects caused by herbal medicines.

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The USDA’s Organic Deception


By Barbara H. Peterson
Farm Wars
Organic is organic, or is it? It would seem that it is all a matter of perspective when one takes a stroll through the mountains of documents on the FDA and USDA websites.

The word “organic” is fast becoming a high-dollar money-maker for corporations smart enough to jump on the bandwagon and start marketing their products as “made with organic ingredients,” or “certified organic.” Even Monsanto is taking advantage of this burgeoning market, and people naïve enough to believe that what we have traditionally thought of as pure, organic food, is still that way, are being duped.

It makes perfect sense, however, in a Machiavellian sort of way. Flood the food supply with poisons, then lead people to believe that the only safe choice left is USDA Certified Organic. Then buy up the organic companies one by one, and start changing the “organic” rules from the inside out via the bought and paid for government agencies so that you can reap the profits from those trying to escape the poisons.

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FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

PepsiCo Inc. is betting that consumers want to "snackify" drinks.

As part of its strategy to tap into the market for more nutritious convenience foods, the company is hoping people will pay a premium for a new pureed fruit product that it considers thick enough to be a snack rather than a beverage.

Tropolis, an 80-calorie fruit puree, which comes in brightly colored pouches, will be marketed to moms and kids. PepsiCo's Tropicana unit is rolling out apple, grape and cherry Tropolis pouches in test markets in the Midwest next month, at $2.49 to $3.49 for a four-pack.

It's not clear how profitable a niche product that is more complicated to produce and distribute than juice will be for the food and beverage giant, whose shares have been underperforming U.S. rivals Coca-Cola Co. and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc.

Coke and Dr Pepper have no significant food business and have made bigger bets on soda, which is by far the industry's most profitable product.

PepsiCo is best known for its namesake cola and Lay's potato chips, part of its "fun-for-you" (Doritos, Mountain Dew) and "better-for-you" (Baked Lay's, Diet Pepsi) portfolios, which make up $50 billion of the company's $60 billion in revenue.

But Chairman and Chief Executive Indra Nooyi is staking her reputation on building out the company's "good-for-you" portfolio, uniting the Tropicana, Quaker and Gatorade units under one umbrella and expanding their product lines. Ms. Nooyi has said she wants to build the nutrition business to $30 billion from $10 billion by 2020.

To that end, PepsiCo announced earlier this month it would buy Russian dairy and juice-maker OAO Wimm-Bill-Dann in a deal valuing the company at $5.4 billion. "We see the emerging opportunity to 'snackify' beverages and 'drinkify' snacks as the next frontier in food and beverage convenience," Ms. Nooyi said. She cited examples such as kefir, a sour, yogurt-like drink that is popular in Russia and that some say aids in digestion. She said she expects to see dairy products mixed with juice, grains, fruits and nuts, all of which PepsiCo markets.

Mehmood Khan, a former Mayo Clinic endocrinologist who heads PepsiCo's nutrition group, said in an interview that it's outdated to think that snacks are dry and beverages are wet.

"Consumers don't wake up in the morning and say, 'I'm going to have a whole grain; I want a dairy product,'" Dr. Khan said. "They're looking for combinations of those things." Dr. Khan wouldn't specify what combinations might come next.

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FROM THE TELEGRAPH


A study by academics from the University of California and Northwestern University claimed that "the causal link between the consumption of restaurant foods and obesity is minimal at best."
It argued that a tax on high-calorie food, as proposed by many health campaigners in the US and Britain, may therefore not be an effective way for governments to tackle the problem.
 

The study analysed data compiled by the US Department of Agriculture on calorie intake around the country.

It found that people living closer to restaurants were not significantly more likely to be obese than people living further away, indicating that easy access to restaurants had little effect.

It also showed that while restaurant meals typically held more calories than home-produced food, many customers often offset this by eating less throughout the rest of the day.

Obese people who ate at restaurants, the study indicated, "also eat more when they eat at home."
The US government estimates that about one in three Americans, or 100 million in total, are obese.

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