Teh One Who Knocks
05-22-2014, 11:20 AM
By Tim Darragh, Of The Morning Call
http://i.imgur.com/YGH90f3.jpg
Let's face it. When you go to Coca-Cola Park for an IronPigs game, many of us give in to the urge to, well, pig out.
And the team upped its game this season with the introduction of bacon scratch-and-sniff wear and official bacon caps, to go along with all of its porcine comestibles.
Who could resist?
Try the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The Washington-based nonprofit, which promotes vegan diets and alternatives to animal testing, thinks the IronPigs' going whole-hog on bacon is neither a fun marketing ploy nor an appropriate health choice. The science is strong that a diet high in red and processed meats increases the risk for colorectal cancer, it says.
To make its point clear, the group is asking team owners Joseph Finley and Craig Stein to "stop glorifying bacon" by posting a billboard just outside the ballpark equating bacon with cigarettes.
"It's not about being a killjoy," said Cameron Wells, a dietitian with the committee. "It's really about the larger campaign and really getting the message out that bacon and processed meats really are not safe for consumption."
The billboard is scheduled to go up Friday and will be visible to fans driving east on the Tilghman Street Bridge. It will say, "Keep kids safe. Ban bacon from ballparks."
A new study produced by a team of University of Southern California researchers makes the billboard fair game, the committee says. Scientists tracked a large group of adults for nearly two decades and found that eating a diet rich in animal proteins during middle age increases by a factor of four the likelihood of dying by cancer than someone with a low-protein diet. That, the USC study said, is a mortality risk factor comparable to smoking.
That study built on years of other findings that links processed meats to colon cancer. The World Cancer Research Fund says no amount of processed meat is good for you.
"When you glorify bacon, you're really glorifying cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity," Wells said in a letter sent Monday to Finley and Stein. "You wouldn't pass out free cartons of cigarettes to the children of the Lehigh Valley, so why provide them with open access to bacon crumbles?"
This, to a team that features a costumed character named Chris P. Bacon, a concession stand called The Bacon Strip and a bacon-enhanced delight called "Three Lil' Pigs."
The committee also released a letter Wells wrote to Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski, asking him to join the committee in urging the 'Pigs to cut back on the bacon.
Wells said the committee is offering to team up with the city to promote to children the consumption of fruits and vegetables — something the city Health Bureau already does. Included in the packet to Pawlowski was a set of baseball cards showing athletes who promote healthy eating, said Laura Anderson, a communications assistant for the committee.
Pawlowski's spokesman Michael Moore said the city has not yet received the letter.' IronPigs General Manager Kurt Landes did not respond to a call or e-mail.
It's not the first time the committee has gone after a team's culinary excesses. Earlier this year, the committee took on the fare offered by the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, including a "Beast Burger," a monster sandwich that included three different types of meat, cheese, French fries, onion rings, and Skittles.
If it appears the committee is taking on a sacred cow with the IronPigs, consider what it did last year, when it posted signs in PNC Park in Pittsburgh advising men to lower their risk for prostate cancer by curtailing their diets.
The offending food?
Milk.
Wells says the committee's campaigns are more about educating the public than getting the IronPigs to pull the pork. She said the committee's survey work shows 70 percent of the public is unaware of the increased cancer risk posed by processed meat.
But if bacon and ballpark hot dogs are foods you can't live without, there also is this perfectly apt illustration of American health along the walls of Coca-Cola Park: signage promoting Capital Blue Cross, Urology Specialists, and Lehigh Valley and St. Luke's University health networks — the people you'll need after gorging on all that bacon.
http://i.imgur.com/YGH90f3.jpg
Let's face it. When you go to Coca-Cola Park for an IronPigs game, many of us give in to the urge to, well, pig out.
And the team upped its game this season with the introduction of bacon scratch-and-sniff wear and official bacon caps, to go along with all of its porcine comestibles.
Who could resist?
Try the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The Washington-based nonprofit, which promotes vegan diets and alternatives to animal testing, thinks the IronPigs' going whole-hog on bacon is neither a fun marketing ploy nor an appropriate health choice. The science is strong that a diet high in red and processed meats increases the risk for colorectal cancer, it says.
To make its point clear, the group is asking team owners Joseph Finley and Craig Stein to "stop glorifying bacon" by posting a billboard just outside the ballpark equating bacon with cigarettes.
"It's not about being a killjoy," said Cameron Wells, a dietitian with the committee. "It's really about the larger campaign and really getting the message out that bacon and processed meats really are not safe for consumption."
The billboard is scheduled to go up Friday and will be visible to fans driving east on the Tilghman Street Bridge. It will say, "Keep kids safe. Ban bacon from ballparks."
A new study produced by a team of University of Southern California researchers makes the billboard fair game, the committee says. Scientists tracked a large group of adults for nearly two decades and found that eating a diet rich in animal proteins during middle age increases by a factor of four the likelihood of dying by cancer than someone with a low-protein diet. That, the USC study said, is a mortality risk factor comparable to smoking.
That study built on years of other findings that links processed meats to colon cancer. The World Cancer Research Fund says no amount of processed meat is good for you.
"When you glorify bacon, you're really glorifying cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity," Wells said in a letter sent Monday to Finley and Stein. "You wouldn't pass out free cartons of cigarettes to the children of the Lehigh Valley, so why provide them with open access to bacon crumbles?"
This, to a team that features a costumed character named Chris P. Bacon, a concession stand called The Bacon Strip and a bacon-enhanced delight called "Three Lil' Pigs."
The committee also released a letter Wells wrote to Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski, asking him to join the committee in urging the 'Pigs to cut back on the bacon.
Wells said the committee is offering to team up with the city to promote to children the consumption of fruits and vegetables — something the city Health Bureau already does. Included in the packet to Pawlowski was a set of baseball cards showing athletes who promote healthy eating, said Laura Anderson, a communications assistant for the committee.
Pawlowski's spokesman Michael Moore said the city has not yet received the letter.' IronPigs General Manager Kurt Landes did not respond to a call or e-mail.
It's not the first time the committee has gone after a team's culinary excesses. Earlier this year, the committee took on the fare offered by the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, including a "Beast Burger," a monster sandwich that included three different types of meat, cheese, French fries, onion rings, and Skittles.
If it appears the committee is taking on a sacred cow with the IronPigs, consider what it did last year, when it posted signs in PNC Park in Pittsburgh advising men to lower their risk for prostate cancer by curtailing their diets.
The offending food?
Milk.
Wells says the committee's campaigns are more about educating the public than getting the IronPigs to pull the pork. She said the committee's survey work shows 70 percent of the public is unaware of the increased cancer risk posed by processed meat.
But if bacon and ballpark hot dogs are foods you can't live without, there also is this perfectly apt illustration of American health along the walls of Coca-Cola Park: signage promoting Capital Blue Cross, Urology Specialists, and Lehigh Valley and St. Luke's University health networks — the people you'll need after gorging on all that bacon.