BelmarDays.Com stories about The Jersey Shore

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Cold at the beach

Saturday, November 15, 2008

The Food Pyramid is a hoax ..says best selling author Dr. T. Colin Campbell

The Food Pyramid is More About Politics than Personal Health
by Dr. T. Colin Campbell

Now that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released a newly revised Food Pyramid and a variety of criticisms have been lodged, it is time to revisit the scientific and political fundamentals of this report. Although this new edition offers an attractive internet-based format, its selection of supporting scientific evidence leaves much to be desired. The evidence that is offered, in my experience, is more about corporate influence and political spin than it is about empirical science. That's a recipe for confusion.

The public needs to understand why and how our government is so adept at confusing us about diet and health issues. Promoting confusion is especially costly when disease care costs (some call it health care costs) are escalating out of sight (highest per capita costs in the world), health care quality is declining (US is ranked 37th in the world) and shorter life spans are now being projected.

Few, if any, explanations of this on-going tragedy is more important than our misunderstanding of the exceptional ability of nutrition to maintain health and prevent disease. As a result, we turn to drugs and medical gadgetry to fix needless illnesses caused by eating the wrong food and living the wrong lifestyle. But being confused about nutrition is not surprising. We just can't help it. Government funding for nutrition research and education is almost non-existent (when compared with corporate 'education' budgets); interpretation and articulation of the scientific evidence is too often superficial, reductionist and cautious; and translation of research evidence into public policy is highly politicized.

As a member of several expert panels on diet and health in the past, I have found that nowhere is confusion more encouraged than during the creation of food and health policy. USDA, the primary sponsor of the Food Pyramid committee, has repeatedly demonstrated that it is more interested in the health of the agriculture industry than in the health of the taxpaying American public. The majority of the members of a recent 'Pyramid' committee, for example, had unrevealed conflicts of interest with the dairy industry that only became known through court order. Politics matters more than personal health.

The issue is further compounded by the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) of the National Academy of Sciences whose task is to translate the latest scientific evidence into recommended nutrient intakes, findings then used by the Pyramid Committee. In the most recent FNB deliberation, nutrient recommendations that have stood for decades were substantially revised in a way that surely pleases their corporate sponsors. Dietary levels as high as 35% protein, 35-40% fat (depending on age), and 25% added sugars were said to be consistent with "minimizing the risk of chronic disease" (cancers, heart diseases, diabetes, obesity), a bonanza for junk food recipes.

When funding from M&M Mars candy company, a consortium of soft drink companies, a behemoth dairy industry conglomerate (the Dannon Institute), and a collection of pharmaceutical companies helps to make this report user-friendly (for them, that is) and when industry-conflicted academics organize and populate the panels, can we expect anything better? The consequences are ominous. When a contemporary UN panel, for example, was examining much of the same evidence and was opting for a lower cap of 10% added sugar, the sugar industry threatened them to persuade Congress to withhold funding of the UN study unless it adopted the US cap of 25%.

Confusing the evidence, unintentional or otherwise, has undermined these reports for most of their histories. The number and size of food servings, now used for a couple decades, falsely convey a sense of scientific merit and certainty that is not deserved. Arguably instructive for institutional meal planning, this educational tool means little or nothing to most consumers. Do you know how many servings of foods, good or bad, you consume each day? Or even what size a serving is? The contents and identities of nutritionally active chemicals in a given food can vary by a staggering few hundred percent from the time the food is first harvested to the time that it is deposited in our mouths. Such variation seriously undermines both the presumed nutrient composition of food and the RDAs that depend on these numbers.

Now, the USDA committee has personalized the Pyramid into multiple parts that adds, in my view, still more confusion. We know well that our need for food varies as a function of age, gender, physical activity and other lifestyle practices. But this does not mean a smorgasbord of substantially different diets that are assumed to have the same healthful effects, especially when these diets are framed within the wide ranges of new nutrient intakes now promulgated by the FNB. This only serves food companies an exceptionally wide berth to promote their products, no matter their nutritional value.

There is a need to understand nutrition as a complex and dynamic biological system that is far more than the sum of its parts. For too long, research, policy development and public understanding has dwelt on the details, oftentimes taken out of context to support (and confuse) positions and products of special interest groups. When the right foods are consumed and the right lifestyle conditions are met, the resulting biological symphony of reactions, events and outcomes has exceptional power to maintain health and prevent disease. This needs to be the discourse of the day, not the politically motivated messages that have infected our entire system of understanding this marvelous science.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Tixx.com gift certificates are available for Broadway shows

Tixx.com gift certificates are available for Broadway shows

NEW YORK — Thinking about giving theater tickets as gifts this recession-plagued holiday season? And shudder at the full ticket price for Broadway and even off-Broadway shows?
Have we got a bargain for you, courtesy of the folks who brought you the discount Tixx.com tickets booth in Times Square.

Tixx.com gift certificates — available in $50 and $100 denominations —

CITY GUIDE: New York nightlife and entertainment
Certificates can be purchased:

• at each of the Tixx.com booths during normal hours of operation — cash or traveler's checks only.

The certificates can be used to buy tickets for any of the nearly 50 productions (Broadway, off-Broadway, music, dance) usually available each day.

Broadway ticket availability

13. A young man tries to fit in. A new musical with a score by Jason Robert Brown. Bernard B. Jacobs. http://www.tixx.com.

A Man for All Seasons. Frank Langella stars as Sir Thomas More in this Roundabout Theatre Company revival of Robert Bolt's play about the battle between More and King Henry VIII. American Airlines. 212-719-1300. Closes Dec. 14.

All My Sons. John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, Patrick Wilson and Katie Holmes star in a revival of Arthur Miller's morality play. Gerald Schoenfeld. http://www.tixx.com.

August: Osage County. Tracy Letts' drama, a hit for Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, concerns a venomous mother and her dealings with three daughters. Winner of the 2008 Tony Award for best play. Music Box. http://www.tixx.com.

Avenue Q. Love blossoms among the 20-something set — a group that includes puppets — in this very funny, adult musical comedy. Golden. http://www.tixx.com.

Billy Elliot. A young man in Britain's bleak coal country yearns to dance. A musical based on the hit film. Imperial. http://www.tixx.com.

Chicago. This Kander and Ebb-Bob Fosse creation is Broadway's longest running musical revival and deservedly so. Ambassador. http://www.tixx.com.

Dividing the Estate. Horton Foote's domestic comedy about a Texas family squabbling over an inheritance. A Lincoln Center Theater production. Now in previews. Opens Nov. 20. Booth. http://www.tixx.com.

Equus. Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe star in a revival of Peter Shaffer's play about a young man who blinds six horses — and why he did it. Broadhurst. http://www.tixx.com.

Grease. A revival of the venerable musical celebrating 1950s high school and featuring stars chosen during the recent NBC television reality series. Brooks Atkinson. http://www.tixx.com.

Gypsy. A powerhouse Patti LuPone stars as the mother of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee in a revival of one of the greatest of all Broadway musicals. St. James. http://www.tixx.com.

Hairspray. The cult John Waters movie set in 1960s Baltimore has been turned into a hilarious, tuneful musical. Neil Simon. http://www.tixx.com. Closes Jan. 4.

In the Heights. The lively off-Broadway musical about Latino residents in an area of upper Manhattan called Washington Heights moves to Broadway. Winner of the 2008 Tony Award for best musical. Richard Rodgers. http://www.tixx.com.

Jersey Boys. The musical story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Winner of four 2006 Tonys including best musical. August Wilson. http://www.tixx.com. Difficult.

Mamma Mia! The London musical sensation featuring the pop songs of ABBA makes it to Broadway. Die-hard ABBA fans will like it best. Winter Garden. http://www.tixx.com.

Mary Poppins. The world's most famous nanny comes to the stage after her great success as a P.L. Travers book and a Disney movie. New Amsterdam.

http://www.tixx.com

, a special Disney hot line, 212-307-4747.

Monty Python's Spamalot. A musical inspired by that demented film comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Shubert. http://www.tixx.com. Closes Jan. 18.

Pal Joey. Young Chicago hustler meets older female socialite. A Roundabout Theatre Company revival of the 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical. The cast includes Stockard Channing, Martha Plimpton and, in the title role, Christian Hoff. Now in previews. Opens Dec. 11. Studio 54. 212-719-1300.

Shrek The Musical. DreamWorks cinematic green ogre makes it to the stage in this show based on the movie and the William Steig book. Now in previews. Opens Dec. 14. Broadway. http://www.tixx.com.

South Pacific. Kelli O'Hara is nurse Nellie Forbush and Paulo Szot is French plantation owner Emile de Becque in a revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical based on one of the short stories in James A. Michener's Tales of the South Pacific. Vivian Beaumont. http://www.tixx.com. Difficult.

Speed-The-Plow. A revival of David Mamet's darkly comic play about the Hollywood film industry. Jeremy Piven, Elisabeth Moss and Raul Esparza star. Ethel Barrymore. http://www.tixx.com.

Spring Awakening. A striking rock musical based on Frank Wedekind's classic drama about a dozen young people discovering their sexual identities. Music by Duncan Sheik. Book and lyrics by Steven Sater. Eugene O'Neill. http://www.tixx.com. Closes Jan. 18.

To Be or Not to Be. Nick Whitby's stage adaptation of the 1942 film comedy about the tribulations of a theater troupe in Warsaw trying to open a play as the Nazis invade Poland. A Manhattan Theatre Club production. Samuel J. Friedman. http://www.tixx.com. Closes Nov. 16.

The 39 Steps. A stage adaptation by Patrick Barlow of Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 movie thriller about a man on the run. Four actors portray more than 150 roles. Cort. http://www.tixx.com.

The Lion King. Director Julie Taymor is a modern-day Merlin, creating a stage version of the Disney animated hit that makes you truly believe in the magic of theater. Minskoff. http://www.tixx.com, a special Disney hot line, 212-307-4747. Difficult on weekends.

The Little Mermaid. Disney's stage version of its popular animated film about a sea maiden who longs to live on land. Lunt-Fontanne. http://www.tixx.com, a special Disney hot line, 212-307-4747.

The Phantom of the Opera. The one with the chandelier. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about a deformed composer who haunts the Paris Opera House is the prime, Grade A example of big Brit musical excess. But all the lavishness does have a purpose in Harold Prince's intelligent production, now the longest-running show in Broadway history. Majestic. http://www.tixx.com.

The Seagull. Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard star in Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Chekhov's classic tale of unfulfilled lives. Walter Kerr. http://www.tixx.com. Closes Dec. 21.

White Christmas. A stage version of the classic Irving Berlin movie musical. Now in previews. Opens Nov. 23. Marquis. http://www.tixx.com.

Wicked. An ambitious, wildly popular musical about the witches in The Wizard of Oz as young women. Based on the novel by Gregory Maguire. Gershwin. http://www.tixx.com. Difficult.

Young Frankenstein. Mel Brooks transfers his comedic monster mash of a movie from screen to stage — only with more song and dance. Hilton. http://www.tixx.com.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Belmar candidates squabble over tax increases, services

BELMAR — Borough employees work hard to adhere to the budgets the mayor and Borough Council lay out for them, the Democratic candidate for council said Tuesday night.

"Sometimes, if all you hear is campaign rhetoric, you might think we have people working in our town who do nothing but spend money randomly," said Thomas Volker, 67. "That's simply not true."

The proof of that lies in the municipal tax rate, which has risen at a slower rate than the county and school portions of the tax bill, he said.

But comparing municipal tax increases to those of the county and school district is not the right way to assess whether taxes are too high, countered Richard J. Wright, the Republican candidate for council.

"All families in town are having to do more with less," said Wright, 57. "I think Belmar is going to have to do more with less."

He pointed to regionalization of municipal services as the only way to save taxpayers real money.

The candidates' disagreement came during the fifth annual Meet the Candidates Night, a debate hosted by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Belmar Homeowners Association and attended by some 100 people. The borough tax rate was one of several issues on which the two political newcomers disagreed.

"The first thing we need for the downtown is a plan," Wright said when asked about the stalled redevelopment process. Belmar's lack of a definite plan poses a problem for downtown property owners who do not know whether to invest in improving their buildings, he said.

Volker, though, said the master plan for redevelopment "has to wait until the economy improves."

"That's pretty obvious," he said.

When borough resident Richard Hunt, 55, asked each man to explain why he would be the best person to fill the three-year term available on the five-member governing body, Wright spoke of his background in management and finance.

"I have a lot of experience, I think, in issues the town is going to be facing," he said.

Additionally, Wright said, he would be the lone Republican voice on the council and would provide a "check and balance" for a governing body that for most of the last 18 years consisted solely of Democrats.

Volker responded to the same question by calling himself a "team player."

"I love Belmar and working to help Belmar," he said.

Both candidates did well in the debate, borough resident Joe Keosseian said later, but Wright was the winner, he said.

"It's getting to be one-sided," Keosseian, 44, said of the council. "We need some Republican representation on there to balance out all the ideas."

Sunday morning windy Belmar

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Great homemade soup on the boardwalk in Belmar this weekend

Chef Tont at Matisse in Belmar is opening the boardwalk window for soup this weekend great homemade soup including my favorite Corn Chowder with lobster...Yum

This delicious chowder is packed with chunks of cooked lobster meat, corn, and vegetables. Perfect for a stroll on the boardwalk or to just watch the ocean ...The soup window at Matisse Ocean ave. Belmar % 13th ave. will be open from 11am till 4pm this weeked