Sunday, January 27, 2008

Heart Stroke and Food Lables

I watched an episode of Market Place on the Heart and Stroke foundation's heart healthy logo. Big surprise, the logo is meaningless. It reflects products that may have reduced salt or fat content, however, it does not mean that product is the healthiest choice. Further, it does not rate all foods, only products from companies that are willing to pay for the use of the logo. Although this is a great way for H&S to raise funds, it does not provide meaningful information to consumers.

Two things struck me when I watched the program.

1) Does anyone really believe that anything made by Vachon is healthy? Further, when you pick up a bag of french fries do you think you are making a healthy choice? Tastes great and healthy are not one in the same. Even with a heart logo on a Vachon product I know that I am eating crap. High sugar content and lousy ingredients. It is a cake after all what would I expect?

2) Somewhere along the line the woman that Represented the H&S program lost her believe in said program. She was struggling to support and back it up and under fire she was shot down. Perhaps she did not have the knowledge of the program to answer the questions. It was, however, clear to me that she did not have the passion or the vision to be speaking for the Heart logo.

The rest of the piece discussed other food check systems. I fail to see why we need one. I think we all know that buying frozen dinners and bags of french fries is really not the way to go. If we want to be heart smart and healthy buying fresh line caught salmon and having a salad is the way to do it. I think if we are honest about it the issue would go away. I love junk food, I over eat junk food and that is why I am out of shape. No mystery to me and I do not need a logo or a food check system to figure it out. When I am ready I will buy that salmon and pick up some cucumbers and a couple of tomatoes. I will also hit the gym. I'll cut back on refined sugar and stop buying cookies and food that comes in cans and boxes. I wont rely on H&S or any other marketing machine to show me what is healthy. There are lots of unbiased sources to research to find the truth. Here is one: Dr. Oz's and Dr. Roizen's site There are others as well. If you want to eat well and feed your children a healthy diet pull yourself out of the world of brands and marketing and just get back to the basics.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Pit Bull Ban

The Toronto Star ran a story today about a Pit Bull that escaped the yard of its home. This is what our city Politicians spend our tax dollars on. Killing dogs. What escapes me (and it is not my dog I have a shepherd and they like to stick close) is how anyone thinks banning an animal solves the problem. So once again for those of you that do not get it. it is not the dog, it is the owner. Dog's know exactly how to be dogs. It is us Humans that screw them all up.

Consider this as well. Those that have uncontrollable viscous Pit Bulls are most likely drug dealers (ok a stereo type perhaps but check it out). Why would a ban make any difference to someone that is actively breaking a federal law? The ban makes the situation worse. It drives people to hide their dogs which means the dogs are not socialized properly. Which means the dogs are more of a threat; which is of course not the dog's fault. If we truly want to improve the situation we need to licence dog owners, not the dogs. Before you can buy, own, breed or keep a dog you should have to write an exam on the topic of dogs. Then we can hold you accountable for the behaviour of your dog. It is pretty simple but I hazard a guess that passing a useless ban on an innocent animal gained more votes than doing something intelligent. Humans!

I hope that she wins the case and saves her dog. Not to mention all the other dogs her victory would save.

These two songs...

I love to rock to these two songs. Timbaland is quite something. I have not taken the time to figure out who and what he is, but he brought together some great talent and produced a great album. As for Good Charlotte, I wonder why they do not get much radio play. Every time I tune in I am hearing about tears on my guitar and tattooed hearts. Blah blah blah. Apologize gets a lot of air play too. Being on Timbaland's album I am liking the song but why do we have to hear it every hour on the hour? I would like to start my own radio station. On the Internet so as to avoid all the rules that plague FM radio. I play all kinds of stuff, never a dull moment on radioroy!

Check out:

www.goodcharlotte.com You can play videos that pop up in another window. Play Dance Floor Anthem, loud, really loud. Check out The River as well, it is voted most popular song.

www.timbalandmusic.com Play all of it...