Food Labels, Truth or Not?

I will be the first to tell you that I may not always read the labels on products. A lot of the time I will look at it and see a sticker saying it is healthier for you to buy it without thinking. After reading http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/24/smart-choices-food-labeli_n_332477.html I was shocked to see that the green label was being put on food products such as Fruit Loops and Cracker Jacks. Everyone know that they may taste good but those products are not very high on the nutritional scale. I believe that it is a great idea to postpone the green label use until they do a further investigation to find out if the foods using this label are truly meeting its believe requirements. It is a falsehood to people when they believe they are buying something that they, or their families, not only like but is healthy for them when in reality it is not. http://www.stoplabelinglies.com/news/Food-Labeling---The-Problems-of-Mandated-Information-for-Biotechnology.html is a website that is devoted to trying to get consumers to be more specific about labeling their food but making sure it is understandable to those of us who do not know everything about food products. While this site may be allowed to be considered one sided in some ways it does a great job of showing some of the problems with food labeling that consumers deal with and how it is easy to understand why they would just choose a food because it has a green, healthy choice, label on it.

I believe that until the producers of these products realize the potential harm or violation they are causing their consumers they will continue to be harassed to make their labels more specific. Of course it is always the choice of the consumer to buy the product but most of the time they buy it without knowing anything about it. It is a right for the consumer to know and maybe by doing this companies will not have to worry about getting in trouble for keeping the realities of their products a secret.

Demonstration Speech

Watching my demonstration speech has been enlightening. After watching myself I have learned my strengths and weaknesses. To start I will talk about some of my strengths. I feel that my introduction was pretty good. I kept my voice loud and clear during the presentation making it easy for my audience to hear. Organization was good because in order to field a ground ball you have to learn how to field it at you and then you move to the side. Also the relevance of my topic was similar to my class since it is mostly an athletic based audience. My conclusion was not great but it was not bad. Maybe not ending it so quickly will help. With my speech I have also noticed a few negatives. The first being the time limits that were set. Our speeches were to be between five to ten minutes and mine was almost two minutes short. More practice next time will allow me to make sure I meet the time requirements. The next is language use. While my words were not inappropriate, eliminating the word "um" and "gonna" may make my audience not lose interest and keep my presentation more appropriate. Finally I feel that eliminating some of my nervous jitters such as extra hand movement and giggling. Eliminating these aspects can help me to give a better presentation.

Overall my presentation was not bad. There is room for improvement and I believe it is the little things such as time limits and more practice that hurt me in this presentation. So next time I know that I will need to practice more in front of myself and an audience to improve my overall effect. As they say, with practice comes perfection.

Which is better for you, whole or low fat milk? When people ask this question they are usually told low fat milk because of the reduction in calories and fat. What most people do not know is that whole milk is better for you up to a certain age or under certain circumstances. According to http://pediatrics.about.com/od/milk/i/05_milk_2.htm, whole milk is best for you from the time you are born until you are two years of age. The reason for this is while you are growing you need the fat provided from whole milk. But the older you get the less you need whole milk, except with certain situations. It is shown that when you get older, and if you are not underweight, whole milk can provide extra calories that can add to weight and fat gain. A few circumstances allow people to continue to drink whole milk, if they are underweight or if they are picky eaters who are at a healthy weight. It is shown that most of the time the extra calories from whole milk will not make a difference. But for people who are older, have a slower metabolism, or consume a lot of excess calories whole milk is not a good choice. According to http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/nutrition/whole_milk_vs_lowfat.html, most people who consume three eight ounce glasses of milk will reach their limit of saturated fat for a whole day. So while milk, or calcium based products, are essential to our physical health a high consumption can be detrimental as well.

I agree with what the experts say on milk. As a younger child, whole milk is essential to our growth and development, but once we reach a certain age low fat or skim milk is what is healthier and more beneficial. The numbers show how many more calories come from whole milk than low fat milk and that can make a huge difference. Of course, naturally, there are exceptions of people who can go their entire life drinking whole milk. But, I believe that low fat milk is more beneficial to you as you age because you are getting your calcium intake without the extra calories and the older you get the less likely you are to maintain a high metabolism.