Tom Angleberger

The New River Valley-based reporter answers your questions Mondays in his column, What's on Your Mind?

Recent columns

• For 'chemtrail' theories, the sky is the limit
• Myriad of factors prompted closure of Lakeside Amusement Park
• Unsold items go from shelves to food banks
• AT bridge in Botetourt was built for more than hikers
• From Mountain Lake to the Mississippi and beyond
• Media likely ignored monument on artistic grounds

Q: New York City prohibits its 20,000 restaurants from serving food that contains more than a minute amount of trans fats, considered by doctors and nutritionists to increase the risk of heart disease.

What is being done in Roanoke to protect restaurant patrons from trans fats?

-- Larry Pierce, Roanoke County

A: I think we clearly need someone to protect us -- I know I do -- but this ain't New York City and we aren't likely to let the government come between us and our fries, our potato wedges, our hush puppies and certainly not our biscuits.

"Trans fat is found in some shortening, margarines, crackers, cookies, microwaveable pizzas and many other foods made with or fried in partially hydrogenated fats and/or oils," explained Robert Parker, the regional public information officer for the Virginia Department of Health.

What's so bad about trans fat? It raises your chances of developing heart disease and also influences diabetes, arthritis and more, Parker said.

While New York City has gone whole hog and banned the stuff from restaurants, Virginia has rejected taking a much smaller step to protect children from the bad fat.

"As you may know," Parker wrote, "Sen. John Edwards [D-Roanoke] introduced bills into the ... General Assembly each of the past two years requiring the Virginia Department of Education to develop guidelines eliminating trans fat from school menus. The bills did not pass."

It might be even tougher to get something passed at the local level. Can you imagine the anger the Roanoke City Council would get if it passed an ordinance requiring beloved restaurants to change the recipes of some of their most popular dishes?

Q: Do you have any idea why we have seen so few hummingbirds this summer? I see maybe two to three a week when normally this time of year I see dozens. Several of my friends in Clifton Forge have had the same experience, and then I spoke with a friend in nearby Covington, and she is also bewildered.

-- Josephine Dellinger, Clifton Forge

A: I don't have a definite answer for you, but I can report that you and your friends are not the only ones who have noticed.

"Everyone seems to be asking this question," wrote Virginia Tech ornithologist Jerry Via in an e-mail response to your question.

He has a couple of possible answers, stemming from that cold, wet spring we had.

The hummingbirds are migrants, as you know, and they "may hold back on their migration if the weather is not right to continue north," Via suggested.

Something I certainly did not know is that the hummingbirds who return early eat sap from holes made by yellow bellied sapsuckers. Via noted that the sapsuckers seemed to be low in number this year, too.

Another possibility: when the birds got here they didn't find as many flowers in bloom as they had hoped for, so they moved on.

"Those that arrived and set up shop seem to be pretty normal," he noted, "It is getting to be pretty busy this year. The numbers are building as the young are coming to the feeders."

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I had an interesting response to the recent question about the origin of the term "flea market." I reported that it came from a French term for markets of used merchandise that either attracted fleas or already contained them.

But Donna Graboczyk of Roanoke provided another possibility: in those less hygienic days, the flea market offered a "service" to help get you cleaned up.

"Monkeys were available at the flea market to pick the fleas out of the person's hair," explained Graboczyk, backing up her claim by citing European tapestries depicting such a scene. (Why someone bothered to weave a tapestry of monkey grooming is a question for another time.)

Just a reminder, that it's almost time for the summer edition of Ask the Readers. If there's some obscure piece of information you need to know about anything that ever happened or ever will happen in the Roanoke or New River valleys, my readers may have the answer.

If you have questions, send them in to woym@roanoke.com or leave them on my voice mail at 777-6476 (please be sure to speak clearly and spell your name). I'll need your name, location and phone number or e-mail address.

Look for Tom Angleberger's column on Mondays.