Special Reports

Since the early 1940s, when multivitamin/mineral supplements first became available, Americans have popped countless such pills in hopes of nutritional insurance and making up for any dietary shortfalls. Today, more than one-third of all Americans take a multivitamin, and multivitamins alone account for more than 40% of all vitamin and mineral supplement sales-an estimated $5.4 billion annually. Yet the scientific evidence for the benefits of multivitamins is mixed at best, with large recent studies reporting no association between usage and better cardiovascular or cognitive health and only modest cancer protection.

For the first time, Americans are spending more money eating out at restaurants than buying food in grocery stores. According to the US Census Bureau, consumer spending at restaurants narrowly edged grocery-store purchases in December 2014, $50.4 billion to $50.2 billion. That tiny gap has widened, with restaurant spending exceeding groceries by nearly 3% as of April. Factors driving the switch included an increasing trend to buying groceries in warehouse and club stores, with cheaper prices, and lower gas prices freeing up funds for eating out. The total doesnt include ready-to-eat dishes purchased at upscale supermarkets, which further diminish what were cooking from scratch.

Popular coverage of diet and weight-loss strategies often summarizes the bottom line with a twist on President Bill Clintons campaign mantra, Its the economy, stupid. When it comes to managing your weight, as this line of thinking goes, Its the calories, stupid.But a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition challenges this conventional wisdom. It builds on earlier work that suggests all calories are not the same, says Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, DrPH, dean of Tufts Friedman School and senior author of the study. All foods have complex mechanisms that help or hinder weight long-term. The simple math of calories in versus calories burned is true if youre testing food in a test tube. But human beings are not just inert buckets to put calories in.

Not since the TV-cartoon heyday of Fred Flintsones modern Stone Age family have cavemen been so in vogue. The Paleo Diet, a book by Loren Cordain, PhD, has been a bestseller since it was first published in 2002, and it has spawned a pile of cookbooks and a glossy magazine devoted to modern day primal living. A Google search for Paleo diet retrieves 7.7 million hits. Actor Chris Pratt credits the Paleo diet for getting him in shape to star as the buff hero in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

Reduced sodium or low sodium-The term reduced means a product has 25% less sodium than the same food with a normal amount, so a reduced sodium choice is better than a conventional one. But even reduced sodium foods may be higher in sodium than those labeled low sodium, which can contain no more than 140 milligrams per serving. A reduced sodium can of beans, for example, should contain 25% less than the 311 milligrams of sodium found in a serving-233 milligrams, more than the low sodium limit. Check the Nutrition Facts panel to see what youre really getting.

The USDA has specific rules governing the use of familiar terms such as fresh and free range when labeling meat and poultry products:

A trip to the supermarket can feel like running a gauntlet of buzzwords. This product promises its reduced sodium, while that one is natural and gluten-free. Is a food made with extra fiber better than excellent source of fiber, or vice versa? Just how low in calories does a food have to be to boast that its low-calorie-and should you pick that label over one thats lower calorie or light?

The yogurt aisle presents a dizzying array of choices. Nonfat to low-fat to cream-top. Greek-style, Icelandic or Australian. Cows milk, goats milk or no dairy milk at all.

Americans consume more than $7 billion a year worth of yogurt, with hundreds of new yogurt products introduced annually. In survey after survey, consumers say the healthfulness of yogurt is top among the reasons they eat it.

Surveys have shown that a large majority of Americans are confident in the safety, quality and effectiveness of products marketed as dietary supplements (a term derived from a 1994 law that questionably grouped drug-type herbal and botanical extracts with essential vitamins and minerals). So many were shocked at the recent news that four out of five popular herbal remedies sold at some of the nations leading retailers didnt contain any of the promised ingredients. The investigation by the New York State attorney generals office charged GNC, Target, Walgreens and Walmart with selling fraudulent and potentially dangerous products and demanded the products be yanked from store shelves.