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Long John Silver’s has gained some notoriety in the past for serving up what the food police dubbed the most unhealthful meal in America. (A.K.A., heart attack on a hook.)

But the fast food chain is out to change its reputation. One step in this new direction: a quick transition from partially hydrogenated oils that contain bedeviled trans fats. Today, the chain announced it is moving to a 100 percent soybean oil that is trans-fat free.

It’s great news and a big step on their journey to revitalize the brand overall,” Gary Gerdemann, a PR man who is working on behalf of the food chain to promote the announcement, told us in an email.

“We are very pleased to improve the health profile of our entire menu and transition all of our fried products to trans-fat-free soybean oil,” Mike Kern, Long John Silver’s chief executive officer, said in a press release.

“Whether choosing delicious baked or our classic batter-dipped fried fish, our guests can order with the confidence that their food has zero grams of trans fat,” Kern continued.

So, will consumers notice a difference in taste? Likely not, says Gary Gerdemann. “We’ve been converted now fully since the end of the year,” he said, adding, “The vast majority of our guests do not notice a change.”

The menu changes earned praise from the Center for Science in the Public Interest — a nutrition and healthy policy watchdog group that last year gave Long John Silver’s the dubious distinction of having the “worse restaurant meal in America.”

In a press release, CSPI’s executive director, Michael F. Jacobson, said, “We were glad to work collaboratively with Long John Silver’s leadership team and are pleased that the company achieved its ambitious goal in six months’ time.”

CSPI says the FDA can now take note of how much time it should take other food manufacturers and restaurants to make the change to eliminate trans fat.

As we reported last year, the FDA is requiring all food manufacturers to phase out trans fats from the food supply. That’s because the fat has the dubious distinction of wrenching our cardiovascular systems by simultaneously raising bad cholesterol (LDL) and lowering good cholesterol (HDL).

Yikes — good riddance!

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

There’s fresh evidence that a Mediterranean diet can help cut the risk of atherosclerosis, a disease caused by the build up of plaque in the arteries.

A new analysis, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, builds on the work of a prior study, which looked at how diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fish and healthy oils — namely olive oil — cuts the risk of heart attacks and strokes. That earlier study found that the risk was 30 percent lower for people eating the Mediterranean diet compared to those on a standard low-fat diet.

The new analysis looked specifically at how a Mediterreanean diet influences the development of peripheral artery disease. This is a common condition among older men and women in which arteries narrowed by atherosclerosis cut off the flow of blood to limbs such as legs and feet.

The study, which included some 8,000 men and women in their 60s and 70s, had participants follow either a Mediterranean diet with extra olive oil, a Mediterranean diet with extra nuts or a standard low-fat diet. The researchers found that the people on the Mediterranean diets had less build-up of fatty deposits in their arteries that leads to peripheral artery disease compared to the men and women on the low-fat diet.

“We were surprised because of the great magnitude” of the association between the diet and the reduced risk of PAD, study author Miguel Martínez-Gonzalez, a researcher at the University of Navarra in Spain, tells us in an email. “This is a very important step in confirming a truly causal relationship between the [Mediterranean-style diet] and cardiovascular protection.”

As we’ve reported, there are a host of beneficial compounds in olive oil that may play a role in reducing inflammation and build up of fatty deposits.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

If you’ve ever shopped at Whole Foods, you’ve probably noticed that some of the foods it sells claim all kinds of health and environmental virtues. From its lengthy list of unacceptable ingredients for food to its strict rules for how seafood is caught and meat is raised, the company sets a pretty high bar for what is permitted on its coveted shelves.

Now, Whole Foods is dictating what kind of fertilizer the farmers that grow its produce can use. Specifically, the company recently confirmed that the produce rating system it’s launching in September will prohibit produce farmed using sludge.

Sludge? This doesn’t exactly sound like something you’d want near your food. Also known as biosolids, it’s a type of fertilizer made from treated municipal waste and derived, in part, from poop. And though many farmers gladly accept sludge to enrich their soil, it’s a product with a pretty big PR problem.

You see, for several years now, a small group of activists has claimed that biosolids are toxic and full of heavy metals, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. They argue that when farmers use biosolids to nourish their soils, they’re putting consumers at risk of getting sick.

But scientists who study sludge and waste experts say that this form of fertilizer actually delivers big environmental benefits.

The de facto leader of the sludge opposition is John Stauber, author of the 1995 book Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry.

Last week, one of the three groups Stauber founded, the Center for Media and Democracy, posted an article cheering the Whole Foods decision and claiming credit for pressuring the company into it.

Whole Foods spokeswoman Lindsay Robison tells The Salt that biosolids were banned in the name of transparency and being consistent with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program, which doesn’t allow the material on fields where any certified organic product is grown. But, she adds, the company’s new biosolids ban won’t actually impact any of the company’s growers because, as far as the company knows, none of them use the material.

According to Rebekah Wilce of CMD, who wrote the article, Whole Foods’ move is a victory for consumers. “The assumption has been that biosolids are safe, but there’s been very little scientific research on that,” Wilce tells The Salt.

Actually, as we reported back in May, biosolids are heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and have been ever since the 1980s, when the agency cracked down on wastewater treatment facilities and what they could discharge.

When the EPA developed the standards for biosolids, it identified the chemicals and metals that are the greatest risk to human health and the environment and set strict concentration limits on them. (As we recently reported, the government has less strict standards for organic farmers who want to put untreated animal manure on their fields.)

Still, Wilce’s group isn’t happy with the standards for biosolids — she says they’re insufficient. But when we asked for specific examples of facilities handing out biosolids with excessive amounts of dangerous chemicals or examples of people getting sick directly from them, Wilce did not supply us with any.

Chris Peot, director of resource recovery for the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, argues that biosolids are actually a very safe material. His treatment plant has been turning the city’s waste into biosolids since the 1990s, and giving them away to farmers in the mid-Atlantic to use as fertilizer. And he’s confident that his bisolids don’t pose a risk to anyone eating produce grown with them — because he’s constantly testing them, per EPA rules.

“Our material is extremely clean, and the metals that are in there are at extremely low levels,” Peot tells The Salt. “There are trace amounts of flame retardants, but they’re ubiquitous in the home now, where you’re much more likely to be exposed to dangerous levels of them. Still, we need to be ever vigilant, and continue to look for new chemicals that might be risky, so we do.”

Scientists and waste experts say there’s actually a large net environmental benefit to farmers and gardeners recycling the material as a soil amendment. They say it returns valuable nutrients like nitrogen back to the land and keeps the sludge out of landfills and waterways. And even though the small group of activists has raised consumers’ fears, scientists say that the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that sludge is safe and useful.

“This is a resource that’s really undervalued,” says Sally Brown, a soil scientist at the University of Washington who has been studying biosolids for over a decade. “If you do the carbon accounting, you see that biosolids actually capture carbon, unlike synthetic fertilizer, which is what farmers would otherwise be using.”

The opposition to biosolids comes from the fact that people are still uncomfortable with any material made from human waste, even if it’s been heavily processed and treated, Brown notes.

“People have been taught that poop is dangerous and it makes you sick, and so they’re suspicious of it,” she says. “And municipalities have done a terrible job of communicating what they do and what wastewater treatment really is.”

So where does the Whole Foods ban come in?

“Whole Foods,” says Brown, “made a business decision rather than a sustainability or environmentally based decision.”

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

When it comes to feeding little kids, adults know best. But some nutritionists now argue that children could also benefit from a bit of autonomy at mealtimes.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that parents let kids as young as two-years-old serve themselves at home. And in 2011, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics advised that childcare providers should serve meals “family-style” – present kids with a few different dishes and allow them to take what they want.

Why? Because there’s now research showing that when kids are allowed to serve themselves, they’re less likely to overeat. They also tend to be more open to trying different kinds of foods.

Despite this guidance, the majority of parents and most childcare centers still make up plates for kids, according to Brent McBride, who directs the Child Development Laboratory at the University of Illinois.

That means they may be missing an opportunity to help kids form good eating habits in the pre-school and kindergarten years, McBride tells The Salt.

“If you serve pre-plated meals to children, the adults are deciding how much to eat,” McBride tells The Salt. And adults tend to overestimate how much small children can eat.

A recent study by McBride and his colleagues found that most independent and government-supported childcare centers didn’t serve meals family-style more than half of the time. The exception was centers in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Head Start program. They were much better about allowing children to serve themselves — because the program requires teachers to follow the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics guidelines.

But McBride says that a lot of childcare providers feel that serving food family-style just isn’t practical. It takes more time, requires a lot more clean-up and often results in some amount of food waste.

Still, many teachers do manage to make it work, McBride says.

“Often adults don’t trust children can do it,” says Laurel Branen, a dietician and a professor emeritus of food and nutrition at the University of Idaho. “But they just need practice.”

At childcare centers, Branen tells The Salt, teachers can always supervise to make sure the kids aren’t licking the spoons or making a huge mess.

And allowing kids to serve themselves isn’t the same as giving them free reign over their diets, Brenan says. “[Adults] need to explain what a serving is,” Branen says. “It means ‘Take a spoonful and you can always have more.'”

The strategy gets more complicated with kids who don’t have access to regular meals at home. These kids may not know when they can expect their next meal so they tend to binge whenever food is available, Branen says. And while these are the kids most at risk of childhood obesity, meals at childcare centers are also critical in preventing hunger, she says.

Of course, relinquishing control over serving size isn’t easy for adults. “I know this is really, really challenging for parents because you also want to make sure [kids] are eating a balanced diet,” says Barbara Fiese, a professor of human development at the University of Illinois.

Initially, it can be hard to watch your child pass on the broccoli time after time, Fiese tells The Salt. But parents should take heart – kids have to be exposed to new foods 12 to 15 times before they learn to accept it.

And family-style meals are good for kids’ development in other ways, Fiese says. When kids handle serving spoons and ladles, they’re practicing their motor skills and coordination. And the conversations that occur between the kids and adults during leisurely family-style meals have major social and emotional benefits.

The days of loading up kids’ plates and then rewarding them for making it to the “clean plate club,” Fiese says, are long gone. That’s, at least, as far as these scientists are concerned.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Traditional Japanese cuisine, known as washoku, is now an Intangible Cultural Heritage, according to the United Nations.

Tofu, mochi and miso are a few examples, but it’s the buckwheat noodle, or soba, that many consider the humble jewel of Japanese cuisine. It’s not easy to find in the U.S., but one Los Angeles woman is helping preserve the craft of making soba.

In a cooking classroom off a busy street in L.A., Sonoko Sakai is teaching about the simplicity of making buckwheat noodles.

“Basically, soba is only two things: flour and water,” Sakai explains.

A handful of students gather around the slender Sakai as she shows them how to mix the flour and water together.

“As we’re mixing the dough,” she instructs them, “we want to distribute the water into the cells of the buckwheat and wheat flour as quickly as we can.”

The key ingredient is buckwheat, and despite its name, it is not part of the wheat family. The triangular brown seeds are actually more closely related to rhubarb or sorrel.

One of the students who came to the class is Mikie Shioya. She’s a native of Japan and wants to eat authentic soba here in the U.S.

“Soba is my favorite food,” she says.

But finding genuine versions in the U.S. is difficult. The packaged noodles available in grocery stores are made mostly of wheat flour. And only a handful of restaurants stateside serve it up in the traditional way, meaning the chefs make the dough and cut and boil the noodles in front of customers. Shioya hopes to recreate that taste in her own kitchen.

“I don’t know anybody who makes soba at home,” Shioya says. “If you live in Japan, you can just go to a really good soba place. But here in L.A., there’s no where to go.”

“You get so desperate,” Sakai chimes in, “you have to make it.”

Sakai explains that the beloved noodle is a Japanese creation, unlike, say, the Ramen noodle, which originated in China.

Soba, Sakai says, “came to Japan as a porridge, and the Buddhist monks who studied in China had it during their long meditative journeys. And they brought it back to Japan, and the people in Japan turned it into noodles.”

From start to finish, it takes Sakai only 15 minutes to make and cook the noodles from scratch. She can’t imagine doing it any other way. For her, there’s a joy in making something by hand, and while Sakai loves the taste, soba is more than just food; it’s an art form.

Sakai and the her students cut the noodles into long, slender strips as thin as matchsticks. They’re dunked in boiling water for just a minute and then shocked cold in an ice bath.

The students get a new appreciation for the subtle flavor, as they taste it plain, in broth and with soybean powder.

“It’s very much like wine,” Sakai says. “It’s like eating fresh fruit, and you don’t want to mask it with other things. So yes, it’s a very bland flavor, but if you acquire the taste for it, you begin to really appreciate the depth of soba, of buckwheat and the work of the artisans.”

And Sakai is going beyond just crafting and teaching soba. She’s learning to grow buckwheat and even bought a stone mill to make her own flour.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Lots of consumers are smitted with local food, but they’re not the only ones. The growing market is also providing an opportunity for less experienced farmers to expand their business and polish their craft.

But they need help, and increasingly it’s coming from food hubs, which can also serve as food processing and distribution centers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that there are about 240 of them in more than 40 states plus the District of Columbia.

Donna O’Shaughnessy and her husband, Keith Parrish, are first-generation farmers in rural Chatsworth, Ill., about two hours south of Chicago. They sell dairy products and meat, and raise a host of animals, including a few colorful peacocks.

For many years, they ended each year in the red. But business took off about five years ago, with restaurant owners as far away as Chicago putting in orders.

They say they owe a lot to a year-round local food hub called Stewards of the Land, started in 2005 by Marty and Kris Travis, farmers in nearby Fairbury, Ill. It’s one of two the couple started in rural Illinois.

The Travises became middlemen to fill a hole in the market. “As we go, we can incubate these farms, and get them on their feet to do their own things,” Marty says.

Members of their food hubs include about 40 small family farmers, each of whom pays a small fee to join. In exchange, they get cheaper liability insurance, and access to a much larger pool of clients and training.

“The new generation of farmers is a little over half the group,” says Marty. “Many of them were under the age of 18 when they joined. We’re very interested in growing great produce, but we’re also very passionate about growing great farmers.”

One up-and-coming farmer is Derek Stoller, 16, of Fairbury, Ill. He joined Stewards of the Land when he was just 9-years-old and growing Indian corn. Since then – working in his parents’ backyard and putting his family to work – he has moved on to other things like beets, parsley and carrots, grossing about $15,000 in 2012.

Stoller admits he has no idea if he will stay in agriculture forever, or what he will do with the rest of the life. But he’s encouraged by his success so far.

Doug O’Brien, the acting under-secretary of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says the infrastructure for local food is still lacking but growing fast. “Food hubs respond to that call,” he says.

The USDA was awarded a nearly $100,000 grant in June 2012 to provide technical assistance to farmers to form three food hubs in Central Illinois.

One of the people behind that effort is Terra Brockman with the Edible Economy Project, a group working to create a community-owned food hub and farmer-owned cooperative serving farmers and consumers in a 32-county region of central Illinois.

She estimates the region loses about $5 billion annually because people buy food and agricultural inputs from outside the area.

“It used to be that when we talked about rural development, we talked about prisons and factories, and you know we’re finally at the point where it’s like, ‘Hey, look around. In Illinois, when you’re talking rural, you’re talking farming,”‘ Brockman said. “Particularly this kind of small farming, direct marketed, feed your community kind of farming, where the money does stay and circulate within your community.”

O’Brian expects the USDA to continue supporting food hubs, though some farmers worry that could lead to more regulations. But at least for now, they do not appear to be keeping food hubs from growing.

Sean Powers is a reporter at NPR member station WILL in Urbana, Ill. A version of this story appeared on the site of Harvest Public Media, a public radio reporting collaboration that focuses on agriculture and food production.

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