"convenience food" news and stories

The California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA) just released the results of a study they conducted on California's Food Landscape, entitled "Searching for Healthy Food." Basically, the study started with the facts that the state of California had " more than four times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors" back in 2005 and the CCPHA wanted to see if California was in a better state today.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like things have improved all that much during the course of 2006. There are still an average of just over 4 times as many fast-food restaurants and convenience stores as supermarkets and produce vendors, with a range of 1.84 in Santa Cruz County to 5.72 in San Bernardino County. CCPHA suggests trying to encourage supermarkets and farmers markets to develop in underserved areas to try to stop the spread of the convenience-types of stores and restaurants, as the greater their concentration, the higher the obesity risk tends to be.

The worst counties were: San Bernardino, Sacramento (5.66), Fresno (5.34), Orange (5.13), Solano (5.08), Kern (4.87), Stanislaus (4.79), Contra Costa (4.66), Riverside (4.63) and Alameda (4.61).

The worst cities were: Bakersfield (6.63), Fresno (6.23), Long Beach (5.80), Riverside (5.58), Sacramento (4.97), Anaheim (4.79), Stockton (4.73), San Jose (4.62), San Diego (4.58), Santa Ana (4.40) and Los Angeles (4.24), with San Francisco (3.85) and Oakland (3.81) just barely cutting under the state average.

Source

We already know that not all prepackaged food combinations are a good idea (like the hot dogs with microwaveable buns), but manufacturers cannot resist trying to come up with new ones anyway. Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick is a frozen breakfast food, an all-in-one breakfast that is ready after just two minutes in the microwave. As good as chocolate chip pancakes are, the idea of a frozen chocolate chip pancake wrapped around a sausage just doesn't sound all that tempting. Possibly even less tempting is the blueberry pancake variety that is listed on the Jimmy Dean site.

This is one food that sounds as if it would have a better reception at a state fair, with other foods on sticks, where it can be with its own kind.

Source