A movement about movement. 

Our amazing TEA (that’s the Texas Education Agency) notified me today that Wednesday May 5, 2010 is Make the Movement Day.

This is the ACTIVE Life Movement’s annual, day-long initiative to encourage the public to create and share their “Moments” of physical activity (Move), healthy eating (Fuel), and personal and environmental health (Honor) to promote healthy, ACTIVE lifestyles.

Create your own.

Hundreds of teachers, families, and kids have already pledged to make their classroom a healthy one tomorrow.  For example, one teacher in Houston, TX is going to have her class do 10-minute aerobic activities in their classroom tomorrow.  Another in Galveston, TX has pledged to have her class eat fruits and vegetables as snacks during the school day.

To join in the efforts, participate in an existing moment or create your own in the Create a Moment section.  Consider adding Playnormous to your goal!

Our office manager, Renate, recently visited Memorial Hermann hospital.  She’s always kind enough to scope out the health education materials every time she visits a doctor’s office.  This time she came back with a cute little DVD all about shopping healthy at the grocery store.  What a treat!

The DVD start out with a monologue from a man dressed head to toe in red spandex.  “Hey it’s me, your heart,” he says.  I’m hooked already!

A fat primer.

Before beginning any heart healthy grocery shopping, the experts at Memorial Hermann say it’s important to know your fats and what kinds to avoid.  There are four types of fats, some good and some bad:

1. Saturated fats
   1. Avoid these!
   2. They are in animal products like egg yokes, butter, lard, whole milk products, coco butter, coconut and fatty meats.
   3. Eating too many of these can raise bad LDL cholesterol which is directly linked to increase risk of heart disease!
2. Trans fatty acids
   1. Avoid these!
   2. They are in hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated foods like vegetable shortening, margarine, commercial snacks, French fries.
   3. Eating too many of these can raise bad LDL cholesterol which is directly linked to increase risk of heart disease!
3. Monounsaturated fats
   1. Eat these instead of saturated fats.
   2. These are in nuts, olive oil, canola oil, avocados.
   3. Can lower cholesterol without affecting HDL or good cholesterol.
4. Polyunsaturated fats
   1. Eat these instead of saturated fats.  One type is omega 3 fatty acids that we hear so much about.
   2. These are in corn, soybeans, sunflower seeds, soft margarine, and mayonnaise.
   3. Can lower cholesterol without affecting HDL or good cholesterol.

Heart healthy shopping.

To stay heart healthy, here’s what the experts at Memorial Hermann recommend you shop for:

1. Pick Fresh Produce
   1. Choose ones that have deep and vibrant colors which indicates high vitamin content.
   2. When cooking, always leave on the peel to get extra fiber.
2. Find Whole Grain Fiber
   1. Help you fill up fast and stay full.
   2. Loaded with fiber for colon health.
   3. Select cereals with flaxseed added.
3. Purchase Lean Protein
   1. Choose fish with fins, a great source of omega 3.
   2. Watch out for mercury levels in fish like shark, swordfish and tuna for young children and pregnant women.
   3. Eat white meat with no skin.
   4. Eat red meat that’s lean and doesn’t have marbling.
   5. Avoid pre-marinated meat and processed meat since these have a higher sodium content.
   6. Always choose unsalted nuts and don’t overeat since these tend to be high in fat.
   7. Add soy products to the menu.

For help on identifying fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean protein, we recommend you play our health games Lunch Crunch and Pyramid Pile Up!

Is it just bologna?

Yesterday Kraft Foods announced they are cutting about 10% sodium out of more than 1000 Kraft products, including their famous Mac ‘N Cheese and Oscar Mayer Bologna.  The company says that over a period of two years, consumers should see an average of 10-20% salt reduction for Kraft products sold in North America. By 2012, that will be a whopping 750 million teaspoons of salt eliminated from Kraft Foods.

According to Rhonda Jordan, president of health & wellness at Kraft Foods,

“We are reducing sodium because it’s good for consumers and, if done properly, it’s good for business. A growing number of consumers are concerned about their sodium intake, and we want to help them translate their intentions into actions.”

So expect your favorite cup of Easy Mac to now only have 560 milligrams of sodium versus its traditional 700.  That’s still 24% of an adult’s daily allowance for sodium, but it’s a start.  We’re glad to see Kraft is taking the salt down a notch, especially in kid-popular foods.

Yikes.

As January comes to a close, I thought some scary health statistics might inspire those with New Years resolutions to keep up the good work.  According to The American Journal of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control, between 1988 and 2006…

• The percentage of obese adults ages 40 to 74 increased from 28% to 36%
• People eating 5 or more fruits and vegetables daily dropped from 42% to 26%
• People who are physically active 12 times or more per month has decreased from 53% to 43%
• Individuals with significant health problems, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, were no more likely to adhere to healthy lifestyle habits than people without those risk factors
• Only 14% of US adults and 9.5% of teens eat 2 servings of fruit and 3 servings of vegetables per day.
• The five states with the lowest percentage of adults eating their 5-A-Day are Mississippi (8.8%), Oklahoma and South Carolina (9.3%), Alabama (9.8%), South Dakota (10.1%)

And the surprise statistic of the day: What city has the largest percentage of adults eating 5-A-Day?  Washington DC!  Those politicians know how important it is to stay strong and healthy.  DC may have one of the highest murder rates in the country, but at least they go down fighting.

For those of you working hard to make 2010 a healthy year, way to go!  It looks like we need it.  Learn more about how to get your 5-A-Day by playing our most popular Playnormous health game Lunch Crunch or our newest health game all about food groups, Pyramid Pile Up.

The myth.

According to a food science study conducted by experts at Urbana-Champaign, 70% of women and 56% of men are familiar with the five-second rule.  For those of you that aren’t, the Five Second Rule basically states that if you drop something edible on the floor you have only five seconds to pick it up before it’s crawling with icky germs.  Pick it up within the five seconds and it’s safe to eat.  The origin of this myth is unknown, but nevertheless, people around the world follow it.  This brings us to our myth of the week: Is food really safe to eat if it’s picked up off the floor within five seconds?

The truth.

Medical experts agree that there are several factors that determine how safe a food is to eat when it’s picked up off a floor.

• First, the type of food that is dropped will determine germ adherence.  If it’s something sticky or wet such as ice cream, odds are you’ll be out of luck regardless of how quickly you pick it up.  Cookies and crackers, on the other hand, are less likely to pick up any bacteria lurking on a standard clean floor.
• The second thing to consider is the surface on which the food is being dropped.  According to Dr. Carroll and Dr. Vreeman from the Indiana University School of Medicine food doesn’t tend to pick up many germs when it hits carpet, but be sure to watch out for carpet fuzz.  Drop your food on tile or wood floor and you are likely to pick up a large amount of bacteria.
• Third, how virulent or infectious are the germs on the floor?  An infectious does is the smallest number of bacteria needed to cause illness.  For example, to become sick from salmonella, all it takes is 10 bacterium.  Fewer than 100 E. coli bacterium can make you deathly ill as well.  If you drop food on a floor contaminated with harmful bacteria with a low infectious dose, your chances of becoming ill are much greater.

But does food collect more bacteria as it sits?  Professor and Food Scientist Paul Dawson at Clemson University put this portion of the five second rule to the test.  His food of choice was bologna sandwiches dropped on tile, wood and nylon carpet contaminated by salmonella. Sandwiches left on the surfaces collected 150 to 8,000 bacteria.  If they were left for a full 60 seconds, ten times more bacteria were found.  Read the details of this fascinating paper in the Journal of Applied Microbiology.

The caveat.

As a general rule of thumb,  if you drop any food on a floor (or counter for that matter) that is already contaminated with germs like E. coli, it doesn’t matter how quickly you pick it up.  You’ll be consuming E. coli in some capacity along with your tasty snack.  In 2003 intern Jillian Clarke of the University of Illinois conducted a five-second rule test by inoculating tile with E. coli and dropping gummy bears and cookies. The result?  Contaminated gummy bears and cookies after five seconds.  She tested this on typical public floors too but found the floors to contain so little bacteria that they couldn’t even be counted. Unfortunatley in the real world, we never know what type of microscopic germs are lurking on floors.  That’s a chance you’ll just have to take if you decide to eat off the floor.

In conclusion, this is a tricky myth.  Food that is dropped for five seconds on your typical floor is safe to eat if the floor is generally clean and your food isn’t too moist.  Food that is dropped on a bacteria-infested floor is going to pick up bacteria, and the longer you wait to pick it up, the worse the problem will be.  Food, germs and floors…busted!