?Diet Soda: Fewer Calories In The Glass May Mean More on the Plate

Researchers report that overweight and obese people who choose diet beverages consume the same amount of calories as those that choose regular soda. Despite drinking less calories, diet soda drinkers make up for reduced liquid calories in their diet, with solid food. ?Overweight and obese adults are about twice as likely as their healthy-weight counterparts to drink diet beverages, according to findings, which appear in the?American Journal of Public Health.?It turns out that overweight adults who drank artificially sweetened beverages ate on average 88 more solid-food calories per day than those who drank sugary beverages.?This suggests artificial sweeteners may be messing with the body’s feedback loop when it comes to sweet tastes. When we eat sweet-tasting foods, a signal is sent to our brain to release hormones to process the sugar. It’s part of a mechanism that tells the body how much energy it’s just taken in, and when it’s had enough.?But in people who are regular drinkers of diet sodas, the theory goes, the body gets confused and no longer releases enough hormones. As a result, researchers suspect, diet drinkers end up eating more ? and gaining weight. Ultimately, soda should be avoided all together, but if you need to satisfy a craving once in a while, stick with the regular soda – and preferably one made with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.

Smithfield Asks Pork Suppliers To Dump Pig Crates

Smithfield, the world’s largest hog and pork buyer, announced last week that it will ask the independent farmers with whom it has contracts to get rid of stalls for pregnant sows to improve the animals’ living conditions. To nudge these farmers to make the changes to their facilities by 2022, Smithfield is offering to extend their contracts once they’ve converted their gestational stalls into group houses, which are generally considered more humane. The move is significant because 40 percent of Smithfield sows are raised on farms owned by independent farmers. The company has contracts with 2,100 farms across 12 states.?Smithfield says it has already moved 54 percent of pregnant sows on its company-owned farms in the U.S. out of the the narrow stalls, known as gestation crates, and into group housing. The hog industry’s standard practice for years has been to confine pregnant sows in the 2-foot-wide steel crates for the length of their four-month pregnancies. The idea behind the crates is to keep the sows from squashing their babies, fighting and stealing each others’ food. But animal welfare groups have long called the crates cruel and unnecessary, and pressured big producers like Smithfield to end the practice. Advocates argue that the crates restrict the animals’ movement too much ? the sows can’t turn around at all ? and are simply devices to pack as many animals into a house as possible. Group houses, by contrast, are bigger, and allow pregnant sows to come and go from their stalls. Smithfield’s announcement comes as 60 of the world’s largest food retailers ? from to Safeway, Costco and Oscar Mayer ? have said they won’t tolerate gestation crates in their supply chains anymore, either. Smithfield said that the change it is requesting is not required, but contract extensions “will be less likely” for farmers who keep gestation crates. The Humane Society of the U.S. says that Smithfield’s announcement spells the eventual end of the gestation crate.

?Congress Blocks Slaughtering Horses For Meat In U.S.

When a federal ban on slaughtering horses to produce horse meat was lifted several years back, ranchers including , a New Mexico rancher and owner of Valley Meat Co., stepped up to start operations with an aim to export the meat. But, as we’ve seen, his plans for a horse meat slaughterhouse have hit major roadblocks. There have been lawsuits to stop him and others trying to get into the business. And plenty of stories about the ick factor evoked by the image of butchering a beautiful thoroughbred. Now, given a bit of language written into the omnibus spending bill that was approved by the Senate?on Thursday?night, it’s seeming more certain that there will be no horse slaughtering on U.S. soil in the foreseeable future. The House already approved the spending measure, which now heads to President Obama for his signature. The provision bans the funding of U.S. Department of Agriculture inspections at horse slaughter plants. And without inspections, slaughterhouses can’t be in business. Game over. For retiring Rep. (D-Va.), it’s a win he helped usher through. “These incredible companion animals don’t deserve to be callously slaughtered for human consumption,” his office wrote in an email to The Salt. “We fought hard for the past three years to reinstate this ban to prevent slaughter facilities from reopening on American soil.” The flip side of the argument is that horse slaughter is a practical way to handle the problem of old and retired horses. Horses can be very expensive to maintain, and when owners can’t afford them, it’s not unheard of for them to be sent to factories in Mexico and Canada. That’s the argument put forth by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who tried but failed to strike the ban on funding inspections from the spending bill. ?And Inhofe is not giving up yet. Before?Thursday?night’s Senate vote, Inhofe said he and Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OKla.) plan to introduce separate legislation that would lift the ban on funding for horse slaughterhouse inspections.