"dietary" news and stories

Kosher food is a new trend in stadium food. Over the past couple of years, exclusively kosher stands have been sprouting up at more sports venues, offering food that even very strict Jewish people, those who follow the dietary laws of kashrut, can eat. The glatt kosher hot dogs and other meat products are held to a different standard from ordinary ones and, of course, do not involve pork products. They are proving popular in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, despite that fact that the stands are not typically open on the two busiest times of the sporting week: Friday nights and Saturdays. One other risk of selling the kosher food is that it is typically more expensive than the nonkosher offerings at stadiums and since stadium food is not inexpensive to begin with, this can mean that consumers might be paying as much as 25% more for kosher products. That being said, the slow and steady success of such vendors indicates that there is a market for kosher products in these settings, from both those who keep kosher and those who, like some fans, "like the taste better [and] assume the quality is better."

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Bioavailability is a term that describes how much of a nutrient within a food can be absorbed by the body and while the specific amounts will vary from person to person, applying some of the concepts of bioavailability to daily diets can help us get the most out of the foods we eat. For example, the vitamin C in orange juice can dramatically increase the amount of iron that can be absorbed by the body from spinach. And, as we have noted before, some of the nutrients in raw vegetables are more easily absorbed with fats.

Does this mean that every time we eat a spinach salad it must be washed down with a glass of orange juice, or doused with a fatty dressing? No, but it does mean that making a few simple changes in diet can help us to make up for any nutritional deficiencies that we may have. A balanced diet doesn't have to be one that is totally functional in every respect (after all, a piece of pie and a scoop of ice cream serves little purpose other than making you feel good), but knowing how to keep your body functioning is never a bad thing.

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