Better Lighting for Better Eating & Checking Your Refund
Better Lighting for Better Eating & Checking Your Refund plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.
Researchers are borrowing a technique used by supermarkets and applying it to school cafeteria food choices. David Glenn of the University of Connecticut explains how lighting techniques in school cafeterias may lead to healthy food choices among teens.
GLENN: The study will go until summer in a set of test schools that we’ve selected in Connecticut and then we will publish it during the summer. In addition this is called a pilot test, how you go about putting this into effect. How do you get the lighting company to help provide the right kinds of lights and then essential we measure the takeaway of say broccoli versus pizza on a week-by-week basis going through several months and to see if we are having a lasting impact on food choices. That’s how the research will evolve or that’s how it’s working.
The IRS is doing something nice for us. Don’t be too shocked. They have unveiled a smartphone app that allows you to check on that refund you are getting this year. if you e-file, the refund function of the IRS2go phone app will work within about 72 hours after you receive an e-mail acknowledgement saying the IRS received your tax return. If you file a paper tax return, longer processing times mean you will need to wait three to four weeks before you can check your refund status.
Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.
Remember Bill Cosby’s stand-up comic routine about “loving to see Harold get a beatin?” I have to be honest; I’m that way when it comes to Wal-Mart. So it came as no surprise that I got a secret pleasure reading the recent headline, “Does Having A Wal-Mart Come To Town Make You Fat?” Two economics professors have traced the influence of the growing number of Wal-Marts across the country to the growing number of obese consumers. Their research shows that an additional Supercenter per 100,000 residents parallels an increased obesity rate in that area by 2.4 percent; implying the cheaper the food, the more consumers buy, and the more they eat. Of course no one is forced to shop at Wal-Mart, it’s a personal choice, as the two researchers were quick to point out, stating they didn’t want their results to be taken as a ban on all Wal-Marts. And, hard as it is for me, I have to admit they’re right. It isn’t Wal-Mart, the local McD’s, the doublewide fridge, that comfortable recliner, farmers, or the government that makes us fat, it’s simply a “hand to mouth” personal choice. But for one brief moment I enjoyed blaming Wal-Mart
Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
