The study of 400,000 people is the largest ever done on the issue, and the results should reassure any coffee lovers who think it’s a guilty pleasure that may do harm.

“Our study suggests that’s really not the case,” said lead researcher Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute. “There may actually be a modest benefit of coffee drinking.”

No one knows why. Coffee contains a thousand things that can affect health, from helpful antioxidants to tiny amounts of substances linked to cancer. The most widely studied ingredient _ caffeine _ didn’t play a role in the new study’s results.

It’s not that earlier studies were wrong. There is evidence that coffee can raise LDL, or bad cholesterol, and blood pressure at least short-term, and those in turn can raise the risk of heart disease.

Even in the new study, it first seemed that coffee drinkers were more likely to die at any given time. But they also tended to smoke, drink more alcohol, eat more red meat and exercise less than non-coffee-drinkers. Once researchers took those things into account, a clear pattern emerged: Each cup of coffee per day nudged up the chances of living longer.

The study was done by the National Institutes of Health and AARP. The results are published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

Careful, though–this doesn’t prove that coffee makes people live longer, only that the two seem related. Like most studies on diet and health, this one was based strictly on observing people’s habits and resulting health. So it can’t prove cause and effect.

But with so many people, more than a decade of follow-up and enough deaths to compare, “this is probably the best evidence we have” and are likely to get, said Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health. He had no role in this study but helped lead a previous one that also found coffee beneficial.

The new one began in 1995 and involved AARP members ages 50 to 71 in California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Atlanta and Detroit. People who already had heart disease, a stroke or cancer weren’t included. Neither were folks at diet extremes _ too many or too few calories per day.

The rest gave information on coffee drinking once, at the start of the study. “People are fairly consistent in their coffee drinking over their lifetime,” so the single measure shouldn’t be a big limitation, Freedman said.

Of the 402,260 participants, about 42,000 drank no coffee. About 15,000 drank six cups or more a day. Most people had two or three.

By 2008, about 52,000 of them had died. Compared to those who drank no coffee, men who had two or three cups a day were 10 per cent less likely to die at any age. For women, it was 13 per cent.

Even a single cup a day seemed to lower risk a little: 6 per cent in men and 5 per cent in women. The strongest effect was in women who had four or five cups a day _ a 16 per cent lower risk of death.

None of these are big numbers, though, and Freedman can’t say how much extra life coffee might buy.

“I really can’t calculate that,” especially because smoking is a key factor that affects longevity at every age, he said.

Coffee drinkers were less likely to die from heart or respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, injuries, accidents or infections. No effect was seen on cancer death risk, though.

Other research ties coffee drinking to lower levels of markers for inflammation and insulin resistance. Researchers also considered that people in poor health might refrain from drinking coffee and whether their abstention could bias the results. But the study excluded people with cancer and heart disease _ the most common health problems _ to minimize this chance. Also, the strongest benefits of coffee drinking were seen in people who were healthiest when the study began.

About two-thirds of study participants drank regular coffee, and the rest, decaf. The type of coffee made no difference in the results.

Hu had this advice for coffee lovers:

-Watch the sugar and cream. Extra calories and fat could negate any benefits from coffee.

-Drink filtered coffee rather than boiled–filtering removes compounds that raise LDL, the bad cholesterol.

Researchers did not look at tea, soda or other beverages but plan to in future analyses.

Lou and Mariann Maris have already compared them. Sipping a local brew at a lakefront coffee shop, the suburban Milwaukee couple told of how they missed coffee after briefly giving it up in the 1970s as part of a health kick that included transcendental meditation and eating vegetarian.

Mariann Maris switched to tea after being treated for breast cancer in 2008, but again missed the taste of coffee. It’s one of life’s great pleasures, especially because her husband makes it, she said.

“Nothing is as satisfying to me as a cup of coffee in the morning,” she said.

Lois Berrigan found that when she approached her local Sobeys store about providing some of the foods familiar to the people she was serving at the St. John’s Association for New Canadians.  Then just a small store, the manager agreed to stock specifically requested items.

Access to things like samosas, okra and a range of Halal products makes a big difference for new families, and to keeping these much needed members of the work force.  “Food is familiar.  It’s a little piece of home,” says Berrigan.  “It’s like Newfoundlanders with their salt beef.  If you went to Florida and someone invited you over for salt beef dinner, you’d think you had it made.”

Sobeys has seen the benefits too.  “The international aisle has become a key piece in the innovation and the new offering we have in the newly built stores,” says spokesperson Cynthia Thompson.

Dozens of Atlantic stores have expanded international food offerings due, in part, to demand from new Canadians settling in Atlantic Canada.

The rapporteur, Olivier De Schutter, has just wrapped up an official trip to investigate hunger and poor diet across Canada.

He says he has severe concerns about the ability of families on social assistance and aboriginal peoples to afford a balanced diet.

He is also struck by the high rates of obesity linked to poor diet, which costs the public health system dearly.

But Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says the United Nations is wasting time and money and undermining its own reputation by sending someone to investigate one of the wealthiest countries in the world while people are starving in developing nations.

Whether they’ll actually do so is another matter.

CIBC and Rogers Communications (owner of Canadian Grocer) announced a partnership Tuesday that will harness the Near Field Communication technology built into newer BlackBerrys, allowing the phones to act like a credit card at checkout.

The technology will work exclusively with CIBC credit card accounts and BlackBerrys on the Rogers network at launch, which is tentatively scheduled for “later this year.”

“Some people might not carry a wallet but they’ll always have their smartphone,” said David Williamson, senior executive vice president of retail and business banking for CIBC.

But consumer surveys suggest Canadians may not be all that keen on the notion of a digital wallet.

New research released Tuesday by Google suggested Canadians are lukewarm on the idea of using their phones to make online purchases. After speaking with 1,000 Canadian smartphone users, only 20 per cent said they had made a mobile purchase and only 16 per cent said they expected to boost their mobile shopping in the following year.

Meanwhile, a Mastercard research project called the Mobile Payments Readiness Index ranked Canada as the second-best of 34 global markets in terms of being set to embrace mobile transactions (Singapore ranked first).

But while Canada ranked high for its partnerships between banks and governments, and its business and regulatory environments, it was below average when it came to the consumer readiness metric.

Mastercard estimated only about 15 per cent of Canadian consumers were willing to use a mobile phone to pay in stores, which was two percentage points below the global average.

But Ian Shelley, a partner at KPMG, believes that figure is probably low-balling Canadian interest in the technology, which is sure to grow as word about it spreads.

“The 15 per cent number is really just the tech-savvy individuals who have kept up with the mobile payments agenda,” said Shelley.

“But once these sorts of announcements come up I think you’ll see much greater adoption.”

Adam Chow, 20, said the only thing holding him back from trying out the technology is his choice of phone, Apple’s iPhone. While CIBC said it would eventually make other phones compatible with its mobile payment system, probably starting with Google Android models, the latest iPhone doesn’t support NFC.

Chow could imagine wanting to pay with his phone, since he’d probably have it in his hand anyway while waiting in line.

“It’s quick, right, you have your phone in your hand, just wave it and the purchase is done.”

But it may be more difficult to sell the technology to some consumers early on, before the functionality is fully fleshed out,“ Shelley said.

“What makes this attractive for me today? Because I do have a wallet and it works quite well,” said Shelley when asked to predict consumer reaction.

But he said it probably won’t be long before other banks and credit card companies, as well as loyalty card programs, get involved.

Williamson admitted he’s anxious to see that happen.

“I’ve got two inches of cards for car rental places, hotel loyalty cards–this, that and everything kind of cards–so if I could put those on the phone, I could get rid of the ridiculous number of cards I carry,” he said.

“I’d be all over that.”

And don’t be surprised if digital government ID cards become a reality in the not-too-distant future, Shelley added.

The final report of the Task Force for the Payments System Review, which was commissioned by the federal government, called for a safe, secure form of digital ID to be created.

“Propel the build of a digital identification and authentication (DIA) regime to underpin a modernized payments system and protect Canadians’ privacy,” reads a recommendation in the report, which notes that federal and provincial governments have been proactive on digital ID talks.

“Thinking about the credentials you have in your wallet,” Shelley said, “pretty much any of them can go away.”

CIBC shares closed down 13 cents to $71.54 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday while Rogers shares closed up 38 cents at $35.88.

The World Health Organization’s tally of the latest global health statistics for the first time includes a look at blood pressure and glucose levels, two of the risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Among the findings released Wednesday were that 29.2 per cent of men and 24.8 per cent of women have high blood pressure, while 9.8 per cent of men and 9.2 per cent of women have raised fasting blood glucose levels.

Officials in charge of compiling the yearly snapshot of statistics from 194 nations for the U.N. health agency say rich nations have exported some of their disease risk factors to the developing world.

Dr. Ties Boerma, director of WHO’s health statistics, said tobacco use, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity “are no longer diseases of just affluent countries.”

But the spread of smoking and a taste for fast, processed and salty foods is also hitting populations that are living longer.

“Globalization, urbanization and aging populations are spreading around the world, so four out of five deaths due to the so-called diseases of affluence are in low and middle-income countries,” Boerma said. “It’s also being a victim of your own success.”

Colin Mathers, who co-ordinates WHO statistics on mortality and disease, says obesity is “rising everywhere” even as many children lack enough to eat. WHO says in its latest report that child malnutrition remains the underlying cause of an estimated 35 per cent of all deaths among children under 5 years old.

But there’s good news too, say Boerma and Mathers.

Boerma cited “major progress” in fighting infectious diseases and malnutrition, as the proportion of children in developing countries who were underweight has declined to 18 per cent in 2010 from 29 per cent in 1990.

The number of women who died during childbirth declined 47 per cent over the same period to 287,000 deaths in 2010, down from 543,000 in 1990. That’s a drop of 3.1 per cent a year on average.

The mortality rate among also children declined 35 per cent between 1990 and 2010, WHO says. Still, almost 20 per cent of deaths in children under the age of five–mostly from pneumonia and diarrhea–are preventable by vaccines.

The chef, his wife and their two teenage sons are eating for a week on the equivalent of a food stamp budget in protest of potential cuts pending in Congress to the benefit program used by more than 46 million Americans.

That’s $31 per person for the week, or about $1.48 per meal each.

Goodbye restaurants, free nibbles on his talk show “The Chew” and all the luxe offerings at Eataly, the high-end New York City market he co-owns. Hello Trader Joe’s, Jack’s Dollar Store, Gristedes and Western Beef, a low-cost supermarket chain.

“I’m (expletive deleted) starving,” said Batali, who’s on the board of the food relief agency Food Bank for New York City, which issued the challenge to celeb pals like Batali and anybody else who wants to know what it’s like.

Batali said his first reaction when asked to join was a big “gulp,” then he realized while shopping for Friday’s start of the challenge that with a little forethought it wouldn’t be all that brutal.

One lesson: forget organic and anything pesticide- or hormone-free. “The organic word slides out and saves you about 50 per cent.”

So what’s on the Batali menu through Thursday? Lentil chili with onion, water and cumin was one dinner that came with a complaint from his wife when he bought two bags of lentils instead of one, until he convinced her the extra cost would mean cheap eats for the next day.

“Rice and beans is in my lunch every day,” Batali said. “We got a bag of mini gala apples for $3. We bought a pork shoulder roast for $8 and got two and a half meals out of it. I got a whole chicken for $5, but it was spoiled so I had to return it and got a $7 chicken instead. They were out of $5 chickens.”

Convenience also has been sacrificed, like the afternoon his boys, 14 and 15, were running late and the family really wanted to grab hot dogs before a basketball game but couldn’t.

His kids are doing well and didn’t have to be dragged into what Batali described as less of a publicity stunt and more of a conversation starter about what it means to be hungry in America today.

“They’re having more peanut butter and jelly than they’ve had in the last 10 years because bread is inexpensive and peanut butter and jelly, if you buy it at the right place at the right time, is cheap,” Batali said.

Also, the boys are eating school lunch, as those in low-income families do for free.

The Batalis have been joined on the weeklong challenge by wholesale meat purveyor Pat LaFrieda, who has a new Food Network series, “Meat Men,” Margarette Purvis, who heads the food bank, as well as more than 200 others who registered to complete the challenge. And anti-hunger groups in Las Vegas, Philadelphia and parts of Maryland and Ohio have led similar challenges over the last several months.

“Nearly 3 million New Yorkers have difficulty paying for the food they need,” Purvis said. “They live in every single neighbourhood. We’re not trying to compare the food stamp challenge to the very real challenges people face. We’re just trying to raise awareness that it’s no longer just the homeless. It’s working families who use the food stamp program. It’s seniors. It’s a lot more children, in every single neighbourhood.”

Any surprises for the chef?

“I thought spare ribs were cheap,” Batali said. “Spare ribs this week are $5.95, so I’m making pasta sauce with two pork chops that were $1.39 a pound. It won’t have as many bones to chew on but it’ll have more edible meat, which at the end of the day is probably a better deal.”

Batali has taken his challenge to “The Chew,” where he and his crew will be chatting all week about eating on less.

“We, hopefully, aren’t pretending or being like a bunch of yuppies saying, ‘Oh yeah, this is how you can do it. Look, we can grind our own oats!’ We want people to think about calling and talking to their representation about cuts to the Farm Bill and the food stamp program,” he said.

Subsisting on food stamps, especially when food is made from scratch, is doable, he said, “as a way to live, but certainly not as a way to thrive. You can always have pasta with tomato, but that’s not thriving.”

“All year long we need to be really careful about how we manage food, how we handle food, from cleaning, separating, cooking and chilling,” Dr. Robin Williams, associate chief medical officer of health for Ontario’s Health Ministry, said in an interview.

“Now clearly when you move into the warm weather families get more relaxed at all levels. We move outdoors, perhaps we put things out on counters a little earlier than we should or we leave them sitting out in the sunshine because we’re enjoying a barbecue in the backyard.

“We don’t have to worry about leaving our groceries in the car in the chill of January, but you need to change your thinking when you come to June, July and August.”

The result of improper handling or preparation of food can be a nasty bout of food poisoning. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency estimates there are about 11 million cases of foodborne illness in Canada every year.

To avoid having illness haunt you or your guests after a party or other event, just remember four key points: clean, cook, separate and chill, said Williams, who is based in Toronto.

Cleanliness when handling food is paramount.

“Your hands need to be clean, the things that you cook with need to be clean, you need to make sure the surfaces you’re working on are clean,” said Williams.

Soap and water are perfectly good for washing hands, Williams said. Hand sanitizer is fine too _ “whatever is easier.”

Sanitize countertops and use separate cutting boards for anything that can cross-contaminate, such as poultry, raw meats and fish. When defrosting them in the refrigerator, put a plate underneath so they don’t drip onto anything else.

Cook food thoroughly at the correct temperatures. Most food poisoning happens when people eat food that contains harmful bacteria, viruses or toxins. You may not see, smell or taste them, but harmful organisms can multiply rapidly in the danger zone between 4 C and 60 C (40 F and 140 F).

“Don’t get too relaxed and leave things sitting out either in the sun or on a counter while you’re trying to assemble the family,” said Williams. “Anything out on a counter for more than two hours needs to be refrigerated or dispose of it.

“If you leave the potato salad out all afternoon, you know what? Bye, bye.”

And don’t give it to your pets either. They also can get ill.

After grocery shopping or when you’re on the way to the cottage or a party, keep food cool and refrigerate it as soon as possible after arrival.

Marinating should be done in the refrigerator and marinade should be tossed after use.

Anyone is susceptible to food poisoning, but young children, pregnant women, people over age 60 and those with compromised immune systems may be more at risk based on other illnesses or treatments.

Signs of food poisoning include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps. In serious cases, certain types of food poisoning can cause the victim to have trouble swallowing or breathing, double vision and nervous system problems like paralysis.

Onset of symptoms can vary.

“With some kinds of food poisoning it can be two to four hours, with other kinds it’s eight to 12 hours and with others it can be days,” she said.

In general, mild flu-like symptoms are probably going to be underdiagnosed, Williams said. But in cases where there is extensive diarrhea or blood in the diarrhea, people usually consult a health-care professional.

“If it’s a disease of significance where there might be a contaminated food product that you’ve brought into your home that we need to sort out and trace back, then that’s where public health becomes involved,” said Williams.

Your grilling equipment should also be clean and well maintained.

Before firing up your barbecue for the season, grilling specialist Ted Reader advises cleaning out particles, dust and cobwebs that may have built up over the winter. Remove grates and clean thoroughly with soap and warm water. Clean burner ports to ensure they’re free of dirt and rust.

“There are many safety elements that most folks forget to check, and can potentially be very dangerous,” Reader said in a release.

Here are some more tips from Reader to ensure a safe barbecuing season:

Check that connections are tight and that there are no leaks. You can brush a mixture of soap and water onto the connections and hoses (a 50/50 mix) and any rising bubbles will indicate a leak.

Rusty, damaged propane tanks should be replaced.

Position your grill in an open area away from enclosures and overhangs for ventilation and safety reasons.

If a grease fire occurs, turn off burners and fuel source, close the lid and let the fire burn out on its own. You will know it’s a grease fire if you see billowing black smoke and large orange flames. Baking soda is also a good option for controlling a grease fire.

If you burn yourself, run the affected area under cool water for five minutes. If your burn is serious (charring, blistering) seek medical attention immediately.

Williams also advises not breathing in any smoke wafting from the barbecue as that can carry dangerous particulate matter.

“Celebrating life, celebrating family, those are so important for family development, early childhood development, all those things. I’m a pediatrician by background and I care deeply about that,” she said. “

“On the other hand we need due attention to safety, food safety, accident prevention and that includes barbecue, barbecue burning, falls.”

Beef Products Inc. executives initiated this second round of layoffs in response to intense negative publicity about the company’s lean, finely textured beef. BPI has said it took a “substantial” financial hit after social media exploded with worry over the product and an online petition seeking its ouster from schools.

The company confirmed earlier this month it was closing its three plants in Kansas, Texas and Iowa, resulting in 650 lost jobs. A fourth plant in Nebraska will remain open but at reduced capacity. The latest job cuts will hit the company’s accounting, logistics, engineering and human resources departments, as well as a machine and assembly shop in South Sioux City, Neb.

“We are deeply saddened by today’s events,” Regina Roth, the company’s co-founder, said in a statement. “This causes very personal heartache for us. We are not some big conglomerate, but a small family-owned business. We personally know and have worked side by side with these people and our family business will never the same with this loss.”

BPI has declined to discuss financial details since the onslaught of social media criticism and the online petition drew hundreds of thousands of supporters. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided that school districts may stop using the filler meat product, and some retail chains have pulled products containing it from their shelves.

Company officials had hoped to recover but have since realized that doing so wasn’t possible in the near future, Jochum said Monday.

The filler has been used for years and meets federal food safety standards. During its processing, bits of beef are heated and treated with a small amount of ammonia to kill bacteria.

Eldon Roth, a company co-founder, said BPI has worked for the last 30 years to produce the “safest, highest-quality, all-natural lean beef that has been enjoyed by millions of Americans.”

“We continue to stand by our product as 100 per cent safe, wholesome and nutritious,” he said. “We’re convinced that consumer demand for our high quality lean beef will return.”

A spokesman for the Atlanta-based company says the drinks will be tested in only four markets for a limited time.

The drinks will be called “Sprite Select” and “Fanta Select” and will have half the calories of regular. They will be made with a blend of sugar and other artificial sweeteners, including Truvia.

PepsiCo Inc. earlier this year launched its Pepsi Next, which has half the calories of regular.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have tried at mid-calorie drinks in the past. In 2001, Coke rolled out “C2” and Pepsi in 2004 introduced its “Pepsi Edge.” Both were taken off the market because of poor sales.

The new Coca-Cola tests were first reported by industry publication Beverage Digest.

“Reel in the Solution!” is a sustainable seafood program developed by Federated Co-operatives Limited and SeaChoice, a partnership between five Canadian conservation organizations that provides science-based sustainability assessments of seafood.

A green SeaChoice label indicates a “Best Choice” item that is well managed, abundant, and caught or farmed in an environmentally sustainable way. A yellow label means there are some concerns about the product, while red labels indicate items that should be avoided.

Bill Wareham, a marine conservation specialist and SeaChoice’s representative from the David Suzuki Foundation, believes the new labeling system and take-home reference cards will help educate customers. He says it will also send a message to underperforming fisheries to improve their methods.

“The power of the retailer to put the right products on the shelf is really where change happens,” Wareham added. “We’re thrilled that Co-op has come onboard.”

SeaChoice was founded in 2006 as a joint initiative between the Suzuki Foundation, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the Ecology Action Centre, the Living Oceans Society, and Sierra Club B.C.

Calgary Co-op is one of North America’s largest retail co-operatives, with 23 locations in the greater Calgary area and annual sales of over $1 billion.