junk food news stories on Newser

California Students Eating Less Junk Food

Dustin Lushing — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:12:48 CDT

Why do teens in California consume fewer calories a day than young people in other states? It's because they snack less when at school, a new study finds, and they snack less because state laws have curbed the sale of junk food and banned the sale of soda and sugary...

Docs to Obama: Enough With the Burgers, Dogs

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:12:31 CDT

Part of being president is being photographed chowing down on burgers and hot dogs, but a group of DC doctors thinks President Obama needs to put a stop to the practice. “The White House would never set up a photo op of a president with a cigarette, so why show...

McRib Too Healthy for You? Try the McRibster

Evann Gastaldo — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:12:05 CST

Everyone knows the McRib is awesome, inspiring obsessed devotees to drive 10 hours for a taste . But what would be awesomer? How about breading the "rib" meat, deep-frying it, topping it with cheese, throwing on some "spicy-sweet chili sauce" and honey mustard, and then, because that's not quite enough, adding...

Potatoes Make Junk Food —but They're Not Junk

Evann Gastaldo — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:17:20 CST

Corn and potatoes get a bad rap, due to the fact that we mainly consume them in junk food form. But corn and potatoes themselves are, Mark Bittman reminds us in the New York Times , "real food"—unlike, say, Pringles, which are potato chips that contain just 42% actual potato....

Mars Slims Down Candy

Kevin Spak — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:15:58 CST

Kiss your king-size Snickers goodbye. Mars Inc., the maker of Snickers, Twix, and M&Ms, among other confections, has announced that it will stop selling chocolate products containing more than 250 calories by the end of next year. A spokesman for the Virginia-based company says the switch is part of Mars'...

No. 1 Source of Salt in Our Diet Isn't Chips ... It's Bread

Kate Schwartz — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:47:59 CST

If you had to bet $5 on whether more salt in your diet came from bread or chips, you'd probably be out five bucks. Potato chips, pretzels, and popcorn actually rank a distant No. 10 on the CDC's list of the top 10 sources of sodium, released yesterday. Bread and...

How Much Will We Spend on Super Bowl Snacks?

Evann Gastaldo — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:17:05 CST

It's not nearly as much as we spent on Halloween candy , but it's significant: Americans will spend $1.02 billion on Super Bowl snacks this year, according to a TurboTax infographic obtained by AdWeek . That includes $184.4 million on potato chips, $40 million on pretzels, and $36.3 million...

It's Time for Twinkies to Die

Evann Gastaldo — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 07:20:00 CST

Hostess' bankruptcy filing probably won't mean the death of the Twinkie—rather, a restructuring of the company—but even if it did, it would be a death we should celebrate, writes Mark Bittman in the New York Times . The food columnist admits he ate his fair share of Twinkies as...

Taxpayers Subsidizing Junk Food: Report

Kevin Spak — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:36:48 CDT

Is America’s obesity epidemic government subsidized? That’s the question CALPIRG and the US PIRG Education Fund set out to answer with a new study, and its answer was affirmative, according to the LA Times . From 1995 to 2010, the government handed $16.9 billion in farm subsidies to people involved...