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Morning Brew: Toronto Zoo eager for new pandas, Giambrone weighs in on transit plans, new theory on TO gridlock, and kids don't like healthy food at schools
We might be losing our elephants, but we'll be gaining two pandas — that is if the Toronto Zoo's board has anything to say about it. Regarding reports that a big panda announcement is supposed to happen next week, councillor Paul Ainslie, the vice-president of the zoo board, is pretty sure the zoo will receive viable private-public support for the an exhibit despite the zoo's financial woes. After all, everyone loves cute, fuzzy bears who won't hesitate to maul you.
Former TTC chair Adam Giambrone weighs in on the current Eglinton LRT drama. His advice to those who are trying to figure all this out: remember why LRT was chosen in the first place. Giambrone argues that Transit City was thoroughly studied, so alternatives should be just as carefully weighed. He thinks that implementing BRT in certain areas (like FInch) will end up costing Toronto more in the long run, and does not promote urban regeneration, and that extending the subway isn't really practical, either.
Apparently one-third of our city's annoying downtown traffic consists of drivers just looking for a place to park. So what could help alleviate this headache? You could raise parking prices in high traffic areas and lower them in less desirable areas to ensure there are a few spots free; or, develop an app that uses GPS to locate vacant parking spaces (and obviously one that's better than that Green P parking app).
Try as the province might to offer healthy menus at schools, the kids just aren't having it. The Toronto District School Board projects it will lose $700,000 this year because kids are basically saying "Screw you, healthy food" and are getting their fatty food fix elsewhere. One teenage girl said of the new menu: "It's healthy and it's nasty."
IN BRIEF:
- Tarragon playwright leaves theatre after his play about Stephen Harper is nixed
- Here's what $1-million will buy you east of the DVP. No, seriously.
- The oldest shoe store on Queen
Photo by Andy Carroll in the blogTO Flickr pool
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If you visit many ethnic homes, which are the majority in Toronto, ethnic foods are very unhealthy and unbalanced diets. The foods at school and the mall are much healthier for students than what they would eat at their homes.
Indian food uses so much cooking oil and butter. Soul foods use salted meats for flavoring greens, beans, lots of fried chicken and fish. Chinese food uses fatty duck, pork belly, sodium soy sauce, estrogen infused tofu. Many diets ethnic diets use a whole plate of rice as a stable. Latinos deep fry pork rinds, eat it with pinto beans with rice, plaintain fryed in margarine and fried eggs for breakfast!
McDonalds is actually much better for kids than the fried chow mein etc that they'd eat at
home!
Hardly. The DRL has been shelved and reshelved since before Giambrone was born.
It'll be floated (and sunk) until the end of days, unfortunately.
If a DRL was built, it should have been built from around 1910-1940, and in the manner previously shown here at BlogTO in a post/story. As it is now, any building of a DRL would most likely now just come into opposition, especially if houses have to be torn down to make way for emergency exits (see 'Residents upset about planned subway exits' here:http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/07/12/14692146.html)
It's time to give subways and subway building in Toronto a LONG, long rest, and go with LRT as our primary mode of rapid transit, once and for all.
Its amazing what theyve started in San Francisco. www.SFpark.org is really revolutionary and we would be lucky to have a mayor that looked to SF for guidance on parking.
The patients refered to me come primarily from ethnic communities. They have high rates of heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, tooth decay etc. It is manily to do with their ethnic diets. We don't do home visits because places like The West Lodge or substandard not to code housing are dangerous. There were times when a lone female would do a home visit for a senior but there was a household of 15 home in the daytime!
Anyway, I try to encourage my clients to consume dairy. Eat something like 4 ounces of roast turkey breast, with at least 3 diff vegs for dinner. Eat lots of vegs for snacks etc. Avoid cooking with MSG! Eating canned corned beef and spam, snacks like processed spiced chick peas...
I also try to give friendly reminders on what foods are appropriate to bring to work and school. Rice porridge with liver and fish heads won't make your child any friends. Perhaps ham and cheese or pb & j if allowed. Adults should also refrain from cooking foods that cause the entire hallway to smell or leave their clothes with odours. Its bad when it comes to finding work or social interaction.
Shouldn't you be giving the mayor his hourly enema?
The closest we'll ever get to a DRL is closing off King Street to cars, and making the 504 an express route.
Second, your descriptions of different cuisines are highly clichéd and touch only on stereotypes. It doesn't mean people are eating only those foods, all the time.
Fast food like McDonald's is generally loaded with excess salt, sugar, fat and empty calories so it is completely undeserving of recommendation.
Finally, what people cook at home and take to work/school is none of your business.
Do you really believe the North American diet is superior to those "ethnics" you talk about? Then why does North America have higher rates of obesity, heart disease, stroke, you name it, than just about anywhere else in the world? Is it the superior diet?
Frightening.
You're a bigot already, at the tender age of 25.
NOTE TO EVERYONE ELSE:
In Ontario, anyone can call themselves a 'nutritionist'.
In Ontario is not required to have the education or standards held by dietitians and anyone is allowed to claim the title of nutritionist.
My advise, to 'Nutritionist':
Keep being a 'pro' online, because in real life, you know very little. Stick with forums. Where no one can tell you you're a fucking idiot to your face.
"Indian food uses so much cooking oil and butter. "... applying that *only* to North Indian food... the rest of the ethnicities within India I can't comment on with much evidence but from what I have seen it's much better....
In the restaurants AND in the home. I go to people's home in Toronto... and India for that matter... tons of butter and oil... even my uncle.. AFTER he had a triple bypass was still eating this stuff... I had to force my mom to stop cooking like that. Indian food can be very healthy if made appropriately... typically it ain't... and having many friends in the community who are doctors and dietitians... this is completely normal.