OK, here’s one that’s hot off the press. I was reading the Sunday paper and I saw an article that hit me. "It’s about time," I said. About time for what? Well, it’s no secret that we Americans are a bit overweight. Well not really a bit, many of us are extremely obese and getting larger. So now we have this vending machine company called Canteen Vending Services that will be replacing junk food with tasty, nutritious items. It’s about time! Thank goodness somebody is making a brave attempt to change our eating habits for the better. You know what it’s like. You get a craving for a snack and the vending machine only stocks those chips, cookies, or candy bars we know we really shouldn’t be eating. So you choose the lesser of two evils and press the button for the least offensive item that will kill your diet.

The vending machine industry for snacks is a 30 billion dollar a year business. That’s a lot of cookies and soda. I predict that consumer demand for these "good snacks" will be very high. Officials in the vending industry say that the concept will turn the industry on it’s head. The CEO of Canteen Vending says that "it will change from indulgent and convenient to nutritious and convenient.

And what items will the company offer in it’s machines? Well, get a load of these: fresh melon (yum), berry fruit cups (yum-yum), turkey and reduced fat Swiss cheese wraps, granola bars (these can be high calorie, so watch it!), vitamin-enhanced waters, and even vitamin packs. Maybe it will help U.S. companies lower the 12 billion dollars they spend in health care for overweight employees each year.

Canteen Vending is in the process now—well, actually during the next 45 days—of replacing some of it’s best-selling products. Their candy bars, soft drinks, and pizza are being replaced with nutrition bars, water, and salads. They state that they will continue to keep and carry their most popular vending items. But they are following the health craze by adding items that will give the consumer a better, health conscious choice.

The company says that schools and hospitals were early adopters of the new marketing strategy, but now the biggest customers are health-conscious companies.

Under their own self-set guidelines, fresh food that is offered will be 600 calories or less and contain 7 grams of fat or less. The snacks will have 260 calories or less (per serving), 7 grams of fat or less, and strive for items that are lower in sodium.

Nutritionists hail this move in the vending industry as a major plus. Where once we thought of vending machines as just offering us only candy and soda, Americans now have a choice to up their nutrition and to keep true to their diets. The whole eating landscape has been changed. I say it’s about time!

I also found some other interesting tidbits in the newspaper that may help the many millions of Americans who suffer from food allergies. Seems the House of Representatives is expected to pass a bill next week that will require food manufacturers to label the eight most troublesome ingredients that set off allergies and, in some cases, require a visit to the emergency room for treatment. These eight bad guys of the food industry are: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish (crabs, shrimp, etc), tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soybeans. These eight account for nearly 90% of the nation’s food allergies.

The Senate passed the Bill unanimously in March of this year and the President is expected to sign it into law. Several companies have the new labels on their food products already, but all would have to adopt the new practices by January 1 of 2006.

Fully 3.5% of Americans are allergic to some type of food. It is a very significant and growing problem among the population. Allergic reactions to food range from relatively mild skin swelling to respiratory or heart failure. In the most severe cases, anaphylaxis, a violent allergic reaction, can cause a person’s death in 5 to 15 minutes. Now that’s fast! While an immediate injection of adrenaline can help prevent most deaths, there is no antidote.

It is estimated that about 30,000 people a year require emergency room treatment, and according to the bill, about 150 die.

Food companies will now have to print the allergen’s common names, either by themselves or in parentheses after the scientific name. If, for instance, an ingredient is listed as casein, then the word milk must appear with it. Also words like ghee, lactalbumin, rennet casein, lactoglobulin, or even whey must have the word milk next to them on the labels. And words like albumin, livetin, ovalbumin, ovomucin, ovomucoid, and ovovitellin would be labeled as egg.

The bill also wipes out a regulatory loophole that allowed spices, flavors, and colors to be named collectively. If any of these 3 ingredients contain an allergen, it has to be labeled. We will no longer have to guess what the mystery ingredients in our food are. They will have to state what is exactly in those "natural ingredients." Some of these natural items can set off an allergic reaction. It is a big victory for all allergy sufferers. And it’s a big victory for us non-sufferers, too. Don’t you want to know what’s being put in your food? I sure do!

See you at the beach!