So Let’s Eat More SnickersPut your books...

So Let’s Eat More Snickers

Put your books away and get out a fresh sheet of paper. Today’s pop quiz on fiber facts and fallacies, compliments of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, is about to begin.

Which has more fiber: a Nature Valley Granola Bar or a Snickers? Nature Valley, you say? Wrong. How ‘bout an ounce of Health Valley Tortilla Chips or an ounce of Quaker Oat Bran Cold Cereal? Quaker? Wrong again. Go to the back of the class!

And when you get there, make sure that you write a letter to the Washington-based organization, ordering your own personal copy of “Rough It Up: CSPI’s Fiber Scoreboard.” The poster lists the fiber content of more than 300 foods, ranging from almonds, roasted in oil, to a Wendy’s Double Cheeseburger.

“Everybody says to eat more fiber, but, you know what? It’s not (listed) on food labels,” says Richard Layman, CSPI communications director. “And so we wanted to produce a poster on fiber for a long, long time for that very reason. It’s hard to figure out where you can get it in your foods.”

The Problem Is Keeping It Off

When talk show host Oprah Winfrey revealed her dramatic weight loss in late 1988, many hospital-based weight-loss programs saw their enrollment more than double overnight. Hospital-based program revenues soared to about $5.5 billion in 1989, according to Marketdata Enterprises.

Winfrey lost almost 70 pounds on Optifast, a medically supervised program offered only in hospitals and medical groups.

Nationwide, however, the fat profits that hospital-based programs saw in 1989 are waning in 1990 because of increased competition from other weight-loss programs and an apparent decrease in consumer enthusiasm for the the strict regimen and steep fees, according to a recent report in Modern Healthcare.

And, alas, Winfrey appears to be gaining back some of the lost weight.

A Real Garden of Eden

Few companies have been as relentlessly concerned about the environment as British-based Virgin Atlantic Airways, due to begin Los Angeles-to-London flights May 16. Last year, Richard Branson, its president, declared Virgin Atlantic a “green” airline, stocking it with biodegradable duty-free bags and “natural” toiletries, offering nonsmoking transatlantic flights and banning tobacco ads from his planes. Now, in tandem with TreePeople and Earth Communications Office, two California environmental groups, the airline promises to plant a tree for every Los Angeles passenger who flies to London in 1990. Adam and Eve take note: The airline dubs the marketing program “Virgin Forest.”