The Healthy Meal Incentive Act is being called a Happy Meal Ban because it bans toys in kids meals like the Happy Meal. Image: Flickr / gadgetdude / CC-BY

In a measure that was first introduced in October and voted on today, the so-called “Happy Meal ban” has been passed. This San Fransisco measure limits which meals can include a free toy. Santa Clara County has enacted a similar Happy Meal Ban, despite heavy lobbying of several restaurant associations.

Happy Meal Ban focuses on high-fat meals

The “Happy Meal Ban” passed by San Francisco’s board of supervisors on Tuesday focuses on the nutritional content of a meal. Restaurants are banned from offering toys in certain meals. In order to offer a toy, a meal must have 600 calories or fewer total, including the drink. Less than 35 percent of the calories in the meal can come from fat, as well. Finally, a meal must include a half of a cup of vegetables. In short, in order to offer a free toy, a restaurant has to have a meal that follows basic good nutrition.

Happy Meal Ban does not actually ban meals

Though the Healthy Meal Incentive legislation is being called the  “Happy Meal Ban,” that is a misnomer. The Healthy Meal Incentive simply states toys cannot be offered with high-fat, high-sugar meals that do not represent a healthy diet. Opponents of the measure come down on two very distinct sides of the debate. Some say banning the toys is removing consumer choice and an anti-business move. Others argue that parents who cannot say no to their children and help their children make good nutritional choices need education, not legislation. Either way, the city legislation passed with a veto-proof majority.

Healthy Meal Incentive Act following a trend

The Healthy Meal Incentive legislation is not the first legislation to try to control what cities eat. In 2006, New York City passed a ban on all artificial trans-fats in restaurants. After that ban was passed, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Arby’s, Applebee’s, Cheesecake Factory and thousands of other restaurants quit using trans fats. Even Crisco shortening has been reformulated to eliminate trans fats. Is the Healthy Meal Incentive Act another positive step in limiting the food we eat, or do you think these bans should themselves be banned?

Sources

BanTransFats.com
LA Times

Looking for Bay to Breakers Race Results

In order to get an official time, the runner (or walker) must cross the timing mats at both the Start and Finish lines. The official results will be posted on the Bay to Breakers website at www.baytobreakers.com. A week after the race, Official Finishers Certificates will be available to the participants, also on the website. A special souvenir edition of the San Francisco Examiner has the top 10,000 timed finishers and is available on the Monday following the race. For the first time this year, registered participants who finish the race had the option of signing up to have their official start time, finish time and overall race results texted to them for an additional cost of $3 for the first cell phone number and $1 for each additional cell phone number.

Where did the Bay to Breakers name come from?

The name comes from the race itself. The race starts at Bay (the northeast end of the downtown area a few blocks from The Embarcadero), and runs west through the city to finish at the breakers (the Great Highway which is adjacent to the Pacific coast, where breakers crash onto Ocean Beach).

Bay to Breakers History

Bay to Breakers was started as a way to lift the city’s spirits after the devastation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It is considered the longest consecutively run footrace in the world. During World War II sometimes there were fewer than 50 registrants, but they still ran. The Bay to Breakers race held May 18, 1986, was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest footrace with 110,000 participants. Currently the average is between 70,000 and 80,000 participants. This year there was an attempt again at another Guinness record. Participants attempted to build the longest human centipede.

Did they do it? Did they break the record? Did you run? How did you do? How did the elite runners do? Check the Bay to Breakers race results to see!

Five measures of efficiency

Little things can make big differences when it comes to getting through a day as efficiently as possible. The report identified five simple criteria for measuring urban time-efficiency and ranked cities based on their combined scores in all categories.

1. Ease of movement and travel (traffic congestion, commute and walking efficiency, airport timeliness)
2. Ready accessibility of health and safety services (waiting times for medical appointments, number of physicians, emergency response times)
3. Availability of information and technology (broadband and wireless, bookstores and libraries, telephone hotlines)
4. Environmentally sensitive time-savers (efficient and inexpensive recycling programs, bicycle friendliness, farmers’ markets, community gardens)
5. Lifestyle time-savers (take-out restaurant food, personal trainers, personal organizers)

Honorable mention for a sixth modern convenience

Ready availability of payday installment loans and short term loans for bad credit didn’t merit a separate time-efficiency category in the CNN Living report.  In all major U.S. cities, however, the best payday loans can be found online very quickly; and logically, their availability is subsumed in the information and technology category.

Ten top time-saving cities

1. Seattle. Seattle boasts extensive public-transit systems and a state-of-the-art signal-optimization program that synchronizes hundreds of traffic lights to promote smooth vehicular travel through the city. Seattle is also known to have one of the most on-time airports in the country, and in the last two years, the city has added 50 miles of new bike lanes. Seattle has several Neighborhood Service Centers where people can pay utility bills and parking tickets, apply for passports and even hold a hearing with a magistrate — all in one stop. Waiting times for doctor appointments are said to be short. Not surprisingly, the city has more coffee shops than any other city in the U.S. as well as the most Wi-Fi spots.

2. Portland, Ore. Bike-friendly Portland is home to the nation’s fourth-largest light-rail system, and airport delays are few. Emergency services are so responsive that the city has one of the country’s highest cardiac-arrest survival rates. Equally important from a time-saving perspective, finding an inexpensive lunch is reputed to be very easy.

3. San Francisco. San Francisco offers smart technology to help residents make the most of time. San Francisco ties Seattle for the most booksellers per capita and offers an endless array of fast dining options. San Francisco has a 24-hour 311 information hotline, a 511 hotline and online services providing updates on biking, public-transit and traffic conditions.

4. Boston. Not only does Boston have the highest walk-to-work rate in the nation, it also offers technological tools such as Boston’s Citizens Connect app for instant reporting of problems or complaints (with or without photos for proof) from an iPhone. Single-stream recycling pickup means residents don’t spend time sorting, and abundant farmers’ markets make “green” a time-efficient choice.

5. Minneapolis. Minneapolis is number one for farmers’ markets, number two for bicycle accessibility and among the top few in terms of community gardens per capita. Snow alerts are available via text message, e-mail and online social networks. No matter how cold the day, in just a minute and a half, residents get hot Neapolitan pies at Punch Pizza, a popular Twin Cities restaurant chain.

6.  Denver. Denver offers a city-wide bicycle-share program that makes commuting by bike a time-efficient choice. Waits for doctor visits are short, and Denver has the largest number of certified personal trainers per capita in the nation. Denver also speeds the flow of information with wide-spread library services and internet accessibility.

7. Washington, D.C. The nation’s capital has the second-highest non-car commuting rate and one of the highest ratios of farmers’ markets to population. Other time-savers include proportionally large numbers of take-out restaurants, certified personal trainers, and professional organizers.

8. Pittsburgh. Public transit in Pittsburgh is impressive for a city of its size. Most notably, the system includes three bus-only highways to maximize commute-time efficiency. Pittsburgh is also one of the top five cities in the country in terms of the number of bookstores per capita.

9. Miami. Miami has the highest number of doctors per capita of any city surveyed, which should translate to short wait times for appointments. It’s also easy to save time when parking on Miami city streets. Miami is the first major U.S. city to make it possible to pay for street parking by cell phone. Not only do you save time by not having to run somewhere for meter change, when you pay by cell phone, text alerts tell you when time is running out. Miami also has widely available internet access, free single-stream curb recycling, and a wide array of take-out food.

10. Atlanta. Atlanta has the shortest wait for doctor’s visits of all cities surveyed. Traffic moves at a snail’s pace, but the city makes up for lost time with abundant community gardens and an efficient recycling program.

Eleven more time-efficient cities

To see how Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and eight other major U.S. cities help people save time, read the full report at CNN Living.