The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "nutritional" ...
-
What's on the Menu?
Eight stations in the E.W. Scripps Television station Group worked together to investigate claims by national restaurant chains about low-fat and low-calorie menu items. The group specifically gathered menus from restaurants who listed the fat and/or calorie content directly on their menus, and decided to have the food tested at Analytical Laboratories, Inc. in Boise, Idaho. They created an excel spreadsheet and assigned each station three foods listed on various low-fat/low-calorie menus on the same way. The stations each packed their food the exact same way and videotaped this procedure to verify protocol. The packages were then sent overnight to Analytical Laboratories, Inc. for testing. The test results showed that out of the 23 items tested, 78% were over the fat limit and almost 69% were over the calorie limit listed on the package. A producer from KNXV-TV then contacted all the restaurants involved in the test and asked for a response. No company would go on camera for the story, though the company that owns Chili's and Macaroni Grill apologized and said they would work to reinforce the menu standards.
Tags: food; nutrition; low-fat; low-calorie; Ohio; false advertising
-
Catering Expensive Taste
The Memphis City Schools' nutrition department was found to have little regulation over questionable spending, wasting food and providing employees and public officials free food for private events.
Tags: audit; taxpayer funds; school board; school district; cuisine; nutrition; meals;
-
The Hundred Year Lie: How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health
This book "shatters dozens of myths being perpetuated by the chemical, pharmaceutical, and processed foods industries. It shows how early advances led to a buildup of industry, and how the profit motive then led companies and even our own government to ignore troubling signs of widespread illness and disease.
Tags: health sciences; nutrition; chemicals; public health; FDA; toxins
-
Rating the Diets
The authors used an "evidence-based approach" to rate nine different popular diet programs in terms of their nutritional value and usefulness.
Tags: nutrition; dieting; Weight Watchers; Slim-Fast; Zone diet; computer assisted reporting; calorie analysis; weight loss
-
Food for the Taking; Food bank practices more loose than first disclosed; The hunger market
The San Diego Union-Tribune investigated the San Diego Food Bank, the only major charity distributing donations of the America's Second Harvest network in the region. Although hunger was at an all-time high, the food bank tolerated widespread theft of tons of donations over many years. Many of the stolen goods were sold at swap meets and in discount stores around San Diego County, and hundreds of tons a year were shipped into Mexico. The reports also explored the nutritional value of donations; much of it is not edible and some food that is distributed lacks nutritional value. America's Second Harvest, the national food-distribution network, has done little to reform its San Diego affiliate. The investigation also found that the top five participants in the food bank's Charitable Food Distribution Program are charities run by people whose backgrounds include a felony conviction, bankruptcy, court orders for child support and multiple lawsuits. The last story explored the national charity's strong-arm tactics used to secure donations from corporations.
Tags: Charitable Food Distribution Program; America's Second Harvest; San Diego Food Bank; charity; hunger; Zeev Buchler; Jim Greene; Neighborhood House Association
-
CR Investigates: Dangerous Supplements Still at Large
"This article documented the continuing availability in the U.S. of nutritional supplements that are drugs in all but name, and are capable of causing serious side effects including death. We showed how easy it was to obtain the 12 most dangerous of these products by making purchases ourselves in retail stores and on the Internet. We then examined how loopholes and lax enforcement of supplement regulatory laws in the U.S. have allowed purveyors of these hazardous products to flourish. We also examined and debunked the widely held belief that supplements are safe because they're 'natural.'"
Tags: nutrition; Food and Drug Administration; dietary supplements
-
BALCO Steroid Conspiracy Case
These stories from the San Francisco Chronicle, investigate two men who were suspected of supplying elite athletes with steroids that could not be detected through drug testing. These two men worked with a nutritional supplement lab and supplied steroids and human growth hormones to NFL football players, major league baseball players and Olympic athletes.
Tags: Food and Drug Administration (FDA); steroid supplements; Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative; Victor Conte; drug use by athletes; drug testing; NFL; baseball
-
Bitter Aftertaste
Antonia Demas, a graduate student, feared that some professor might steal her idea--and in this case, one did. Hers is a cautionary tale of a nutrition expert obsessed with justice, the professor who took credit for her work, and a university unwilling to do much about it . The Chronicle of Higher Education calls it a "stark case of academic misappropriation."
Tags: Cornell University; Antonia Demas; academic misappropriation; USDA; research; David A. Levitsky; university ethics
-
Is your kid failing lunch?
School lunches in America are rarely inline with USDA guidelnes and when they do the children rarely take advantage of the healthier choice.