The week that was....

RIP Slimming & Health
I'm sad to report the demise this week of Slimming & Health. In the world of magazines, S&H was the little engine that could – hard-working, reliable, solid and useful. Sadly, forced to live at a company that wants everything to be the Orient Express, its value was no longer appreciated. Demise is in fact an inappropriate way to describe its closure as sales were solid and readers were loyal to the end but unfortunately it will no longer grace our newsstands. In fact, it was one of the few women's titles to experience growth in readership last quarter. With news outlets reporting that supermarket sales are up, eating out is in decline and the health market is growing, you would think this would a prime time for a mag like S&H. Seems it's not so. As someone noted to me when informed of the closure, 'It's a shame as it was the only mag with anything useful in it.'



Say NO to liquid calories
Despite the best efforts of CHOICE, that guy who is suing Coco-Cola on the basis of misleading claims and my ranting to anyone who will listen, Vitamin Water continues its assault. A friend informed me that a PR delivery was frantically snapped up by her colleagues like it was a miracle health tonic. Armed with my ranting in her head, said friend was a lone voice in the chaos, willing people to PUT DOWN THE LOLLY WATER. 'It's cordial,' she urged. She's not sure anyone heard over the slurping or in the haze of the resultant sugar high but the crusade continues.

Don't be fooled by the words on the bottle – energy, focus, revive, vitamin – this drink will not make you healthy. Vitamin Water is better named Sugar Water as a bottle contains 27g of the stuff, or about the same as a chocolate bar and not much less than a can of Coke.

Some highlights from their website include celebrating that it's 'Gluten Free!' (as opposed to gluten-rich regular water I normally drink?) and that yes, it contains sugar but it's 'a proprietary blend of crystalline fructose and pure cane sugar.' Phewf, now that I'm fooled into believing that the sugar is healthy because it's pure, and confused into thinking the made-up-in-a-laboratory sugar is better for me, I can happily gulp down litres every day. Thanks Coca-Cola for caring about my health.

This yoghurt tastes like mayonnaise....

Not really. Just a perfect chance to use one of my all time favourite movie quotes courtesy of Spike in Notting Hill. It was with great excitement that my nothing-like-Spike friend Amy V alerted me to the opening of Igloo Zoo in Australia. It's inspired by (read: ripped off from) Pinkberry in the US and it sells delightful frozen yoghurt and a selection of brightly-coloured treats to top it with. I was pleased as unlike ice-cream I can stomach frozen yoghurt.

It pitches itself as a healthy alternative to ice-cream, emphasising its antioxidant content, low-fatness and active cultures. Amy's unbridled excitement was tempered only by a final question to me about whether or not it was really healthy. I felt equal parts pride and guilt at her question - pride that I was her go-to girl for an honest and studied appraisal of the product. Guilt that I may turned my friends to be as cynical as I am.

Igloo Zoo have a very fancy website which is as informative as it is funky. I was able to answer her question from the nutritional information supplied from the site. There have been studies about nutritional labels and how many people have no idea how to read them, even when they think they do. That's mostly because to make a proper assessment you really need to do some reading between the lines, as well as have peripheral knowledge. I won't bore you with a lesson here but have some insights into how I was able to declare Igloo Zoo a good choice as an occaisional treat.

Serving size
Labels usually give info per serve and per 100g. The trouble is, WTF is a serve? These guys were generous enough to point out that a small is one serve, medium is two and large is three serves. Some high school maths and I could properly re-gig the figures for my purposes.

But a new Mexican takeaway joint at my local mall is a good lesson in why all is not as it seems when it comes to serves. They place their nutritional brochure front and centre on the counter. It's an obvious marketing ploy, as in 'We aren't trying to hide anything therefore we must be healthy.' Healthy, I don't know, but faced with other options in the food court I was hoping it would at least be healthier. A quick glance at the brochure led me to believe yes – until I noticed all nutritional info was per 100g. Me: 'How many grams in a burrito?' Teenager behind the counter: 'Er, 200.' Thereby doubling all the figures and quickly demisting my rose-coloured glasses.

Kilojoules v calories
A kilojoule by any other name is a calorie. They are both measurements of energy - one is metric (kJ), the other is imperial (cal). As Australia went all modern and metric in 1966 we're supposed to use kJ. The trouble is the US and the UK are still on calories so both remain in common usage. Damn that imperialistic imperialism. One kJ is 4.184 calories. The number of kJs you need to eat daily is dependent on so many things but should roughly be around 6,500-8,000 for an average-sized woman. For example that might be 1,500kJ for breakfast, 2,500kJ for lunch and 3,000kJ for dinner.

As previously discussed, I'm not a calorie/kJ counter but knowing this makes it easier to understand why you should order a medium at Igloo Zoo, when a large frozen yoghurt has 1,400kJ before you add any of the sugary toppings.

Sugar
Low fat isn't everything when it comes to food. We know Igloo Zoo is 99.4% fat free because their marketing material shouts it at us, so reading that part of the label offers little enlightenment. What they don't print on a sandwich board to put outside their shop, it that a large size, sans toppings, contains about 15 teaspoons of sugar. You can read why I believe sugar is very bad to have in your diet here.

THE VERDICT
I'm not buying into the spin that this frozen yoghurt is a health food. The antioxidant content is not special enough for them to explain it further and the live cultures would be in numbers too small to be useful, not to mention strains that are ineffective. But it is low in fat, decent for kilojoules and as bad for sugar as any sweet treat, and that includes fruit juice. Will I breakfast on it daily? No. But I'll definitely be trying it and hoping it tastes as good as it looks.