Restaurant menus abound with unhealthy choices. Photo: smoorenburg, flickr

Hanna Raskin's first waitressing job was at a small Greek diner in Michigan. In the 15 years since, she's worked at a chop suey joint in Mississippi, an exclusive Arizonan country club, a vegetarian eatery and an Irish pub. She currently picks up odd shifts at a seafood eatery in the North Carolina mountains, where she cracks crab legs for helpless tourists. This is the ninth in a series of posts.

Server discretion, like sobriety checks and seat belts, helps prevent deadly car crashes.

Backed by laws that decree certain ruin for restaurants that serve drinks to overly intoxicated patrons, most servers don't hesitate to cut off customers who've had enough. But they're understandably reluctant to police other equally dangerous behaviors observed at the table, raising the question of whether servers ever have an ethical obligation to intercede.

Restaurants are in the business of providing their guests with food and drink, which makes the prospect of withholding either seem counterintuitive at best. But when the requested item would harm the diner, does the "just doing my job" argument falter?

Strawberry and raspberry fool. Photo: kimberlykv/Flickr

• "Fool" isn't always a slight. Sometimes it's a fresh raspberry dessert.
• Rather than "eating for two" when pregnant, eat for health and focus on nutrients. Two Twinkies doesn't equal an apple.
• Regal Springs Tilapia is hosting a recipe contest that could earn you a nice $5,000 prize.
• Dr. Michael Roizen, one of Oprah's go-to docs, raves about the health benefits of walnuts.
  
• Have beans and franks when you're celebrating independence.
• Product spotlight: Flavored sparkling water, extra-virgin olive oil and Disney snacks, plus Edy's Red, White and No More Blues.
• Recipes: Grilled Shrimp with Southeast Asian Dipping Sauce, Butter Beans with Okra

Want to protect your unborn kids from getting asthma and allergies? You might want to add fish and apples to your diet.

Researchers in Scotland and the Netherlands have discovered that apples might have an effect on asthma in kids aged 5 and that fish might have an effect on the risk of eczema in children.

This isn't the first study involving the same group of children. Earlier studies suggested that mothers who had more vitamin E, vitamin D and zinc while pregnant might also lower the risk of asthma, allergies and eczema.

There has been a 75% increase in the "twinning" rate since 1980 and a new study published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine is saying that it has to do with dairy consumption. In a study that compared omnivores, lacto-vegetarians and vegans, omnivores were the most likely to have twins. The scientists attributed this to the fact that they had much higher levels of  insulin-like growth factor (IGF) in their bloodstream, and that those levels, which were also lowest in the vegan women, directly corresponded to the likelihood of having twins.

Common sense should tell you that humans have been consuming animal products - including dairy - for thousands of years. A change in the birthrate over the last two decades is indicative of something that happened in the last several decades, not with dairy in general. And, in fact, the physician in charge of the study noted that the increase "may also be a consequence of the introduction of growth-hormone treatment of cows to enhance their milk and beef production." This seems like a logical explanation, since it offers a reason why dairy may now be having an effect on the birth rate of twins.

Doctors in the study suggested that women consider non-animal protein sources during their pregnancies to help decrease the risks associated with multiple births. It sounds like they should be recommending that women increase their non-animal diet before becoming pregnant, as well.

Pregnancy can affect you in weird ways. Cravings - including the famous pickles and ice cream combination - are not uncommon, though they are frequently for ordinary things, like candy bars. Candy bar cravings aren't a problem when you can dash out to 7-11, but when you live in Namibia, it can be a lot more difficult to get a Reese's.

Angelina Jolie reportedly had a crate of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups flown to her in Namibia, straight from the Hershey's factory in Pennsylvania, when she was unable to obtain any locally. Reese's are good, but are they that good? It must have been some craving - either that or she's planning to share with Maddox, Zahara and Brad.

Scientists at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Pennsylvania claim to have found periods in the first seven months of life in which taste preferences are developed. If it is true, it might mean that the foods that the mother eats during pregnancy will influence what foods the child prefers later in life. It also means that, since the taste of a mother's milk can vary according to her diet, that the foods a mother eats while breast feeding could also have a long-term impact on a child.

I have a hard time believing this, aside from the bit about finding flavor variation in mother's milk. As anyone with a sibling (or with multiple children) will note, most kids have different eating preferences. Most mothers do not radically change their diet from one pregnancy to another. I think that children develop tastes depending on what they are exposed to and how they are introduced to it, not based on some residual "memory" from infancy.

ABC News also notes that "the data could be used to influence how baby formula is designed, so infants are exposed to tastes that will help them enjoy healthy foods later in life." Attempting to program children, in infancy, to pick spinach over sugar? Excuse me while I laugh at how ridiculous that sounds. Just because a child was given spinach flavored formula does not change the fact that they will probably like ice cream the first time they try it.

 Blogging Baby reported that pregnant Gwyneth Paltrow indulged in a Guinness beer while at a small BYO sushi restaurant in New York. The article they cited, in the NY Daily News, pointed out that "some experts recommend a little Guinness for expecting mothers, because of the brew's high iron content." Guinness might have a high iron content for beer, but at 0.3mg of iron per pint, it can hardly be called a "good" source of iron. The recommended daily allowance of iron is about 14mg for women and 11mg for men. An egg has 1.1mg of iron. A packed half cup of raisins has 2.5mg of iron. One cup of cooked spinach has 4mg of iron. If using Guinness as a source of iron is 5-month pregnant Gwyneth's excuse for downing a drink while dining, it is a poor one. At least her representative said that she didn't eat any raw sushi, sticking to cooked food instead.