Walking the Talk
The New Hope Natural Products Expo team donated a record amount of food—105,000 pounds—to the DC Central Kitchen food bank following the Washington, D.C., show. It was the single largest food donation the food bank had received in its 14-year history. DC Central Kitchen delivers more than 3,000 meals daily to homeless shelters, youth centers and senior citizen programs in the Capital region. The New Hope donation came just in the nick of time, too, as Hurricane Isabel wrought its damage days later. The DC Central Kitchen was able to send tons of nonperishable products to partner agencies along the East Coast.

A Collective Shrug About GM Foods
A recent survey of New York state residents found that nearly a third have no opinion on the availability of genetically modified food. The survey, conducted by Cornell University's Survey Research Institute, discovered that 39 percent of those polled oppose the use of GM food, 33 percent approve of it and 29 percent neither support nor object to it. Likewise, 37 percent of New Yorkers said the risks of using biotechnology in food outweigh any benefits; 36 percent said the benefits make it worth any potential risks; and 28 percent judged the risks and benefits to be equivalent. Opponents are most likely to be liberal, young and female, while supporters are generally male and politically moderate. Another study, conducted by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, reported that most Americans oppose a ban on GM foods but want the Food and Drug Administration to be directly involved in oversight.

Real Men Don't Eat Rice Cakes?
A pair of British researchers think that men's macho attitudes get in the way of making healthy lifestyle choices. University of Southampton professor Colin Pritchard has suggested that the reason male diabetes-related deaths outnumber those of women 2-to-1 is that young men pursue risky behavior and resent having to rein themselves in or restrict their lifestyle in any way. Pritchard and his colleague Robert Peveler found that during the period from 1974 to 1997 there was a disproportionately higher death rate among men, even as the overall number of young adults dying from diabetes fell.

—L.B.

Natural Foods Merchandiser volume XXIV/number 11/p. 24