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CHICAGO (AP) — Americans’ eating habits have improved — except among the poor, evidence of a widening wealth gap when it comes to diet. Yet even among wealthier adults, food choices remain far from ideal, a 12-year study found.

On an index of healthy eating where a perfect score is 110, U.S. adults averaged just 40 points in 1999-2000, climbing steadily to 47 points in 2009-10, the study found.

Scores for low-income adults were lower than the average and barely budged during the years studied. They averaged almost four points lower than those for high-income adults at the beginning; the difference increased to more than six points in 2009-10.

Higher scores mean greater intake of heart-healthy foods including vegetables, fruits, whole grains and healthy fats, and a high score means a low risk of obesity and chronic illnesses including heart disease, strokes and diabetes. Low scores mean people face greater chances for developing those ailments.

The widening rich-poor diet gap is disconcerting and “will have important public health implications,” said study co-author Dr. Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health. Diet-linked chronic diseases such as diabetes have become more common in Americans in general, and especially in the poor, he noted.

“Declining diet quality over time may actually widen the gap between the poor and the rich,” Hu said.

Harvard School of Public Health researchers developed the healthy diet index used for the study. It is similar to federal dietary guidelines but features additional categories including red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened beverages and alcohol.

The study authors used that index along with government estimates on trans fat intake to evaluate information in 1999-2010 national health surveys that included interviews with people about their eating habits. The results are published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Hu said the widening diet gap reflects an income gap that deepened during the recent financial crisis, which likely made healthy food less affordable for many people. Hu also noted that inexpensive highly processed foods are often widely available in low-income neighborhoods.

The overall diet improvement was largely due to decreased intake of foods containing trans fats but the disappointing results point to a need for policy changes including better nutrition education, Hu said.

In recent years the government and manufacturers have moved to phase out use of artificial trans fats in foods including processed cookies, cakes, frozen pizza and margarines. Trans fats contribute to unhealthy cholesterol levels and can increase heart disease risks. These fats are made by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil to improve texture and shelf life.

The study authors say their results are consistent with an earlier report showing that “nearly the entire U.S. population fell short of meeting federal dietary recommendations.”

The federal guidelines are updated every five years and new ones will be issued next year. The current recommendations emphasize limiting intake of trans fats, sodium, processed foods and added sugars. They don’t specify amounts but encourage diets high in whole grains, vegetables and fruits.

The Harvard index has a similar emphasis with some specifics; to get a top score would include eating daily more than two cups of vegetables, at least four servings of fruit and at least one ounce of nuts.

A JAMA Internal Medicine editorial says the Harvard diet index isn’t perfect because it puts equal emphasis on various foods that may not contribute equally to health. Still, the study highlights a “growing chasm” that is a public health concern, the editorial says. It suggests that government efforts to close the gap with programs including food stamps may be insufficient and that limiting government benefits to cover only healthful foods might be a better strategy.

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Online:

JAMA Internal Medicine: http://jamainternalmedicine.com

Federal dietary guidelines: http://tinyurl.com/9yjgeoz

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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VERONA, Wis. (AP) — There’s a good chance that many of the suddenly trendy vegetables that foodies latch on to in the next decade will benefit from research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

While plant breeders at many public universities focus on improving field corn, soybeans and other crops used in food manufacturing or livestock feed, those in Madison want to produce better-tasting vegetables.

The university has long had ties to the vegetable processing industry, as Wisconsin is among the top two or three states in producing canned or frozen sweet corn, green beans and peas. But vegetable breeders say the local food movement has created additional opportunities with a boom in organic farms, farmers markets and farm-to-table restaurants. The challenge is coming up with varieties consumers like, even if they can’t always articulate what makes one ear of corn better than another.

“Apples are almost the only fruit or vegetable that when you go to the grocery store, you see 30 different apples all by name,” said Bill Tracy, a sweet corn breeder who chairs the university’s Department of Agronomy. “We could do the same thing for corn, and I’m not saying we need 30, but we could have a corn that’s perfect for roasting, or soup use.”

Horticulture professor Julie Dawson is leading a project in which vegetable breeders work with local farmers and chefs to figure out what makes vegetables taste great and then produce easy-to-grow varieties with outstanding flavor. Participating chefs receive weekly deliveries of produce that they evaluate on a 5-point scale for qualities like sweetness and texture.

Dan Bonanno, the chef at A Pig in a Fur Coat, estimated he’s tasted 80 varieties of tomatoes — “I never knew there were so many different tomatoes” — since mid-July. For him, the big find has been a sweet corn bred to have a less sugary taste and firmer texture than most popular varieties.

“I ripped open the husk, took a bite, and it was like eating a pear,” Bonanno said. “It was so juicy … I’m like, wow, you can make a very nice sauce or gelato with it because it’s already naturally sweet and buttery and it had so much water.”

Very sweet corn, which most Americans have become accustomed to, becomes mushy when stirred into a dish like risotto, Tracy said, and the sugary taste may conflict with other ingredients.

“If we understand what chefs want, we can produce it,” he said. And, Tracy is confident chefs will be able to sell those new varieties to the public, given how they have popularized ramps, broccolini and other once-obscure fruits and vegetables.

On Wednesday, chefs, farmers and members of the public sampled and rated Tracy’s corn, along with multiple varieties of tomatoes, peppers and melon at a university farm in Verona. Dawson will use the information to see how closely the chefs’ opinions match that of regular eaters and develop an evaluation system that can be used early in the breeding process to select the best-tasting prospects from hundreds of cultivars.

“The flavor is much harder to fix at the end,” she said. “If you have the flavor, the other things are easier to fix.”

That’s where farmers come in.

Mark Voss has been testing five varieties of tomatoes at his urban farm, which supplies Madison restaurants. He looks for resistance to disease and good production, but taste and aesthetics are important, too.

The varieties include a few big tomatoes with bold flavor as well as some smaller, cocktail tomatoes that he’s “not so passionate about” because they “take a long time to pick.” He prefers bigger fruit with thin skins and a lot of flesh — characteristics that make tomatoes more likely to bruise during shipping but aren’t a problem when he’s selling locally.

“I think there’s an inverse relationship between bruise-ability and flavor,” Voss said.

That’s the kind of feedback Dawson is seeking. “Because really,” she said, “it has to work for farmers as well as chefs.”

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If You Go …

Two more public tastings are scheduled from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sept. 22 and Oct. 24 at the UW West Madison Agricultural Research Station, 8502 Mineral Point Road, Verona, Wisconsin; 608-262-2257; http://www.news.wisc.edu/23065.

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Follow M.L. Johnson on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MLJohnsonOnline.

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — The owner of bikini coffee stands in Washington state banked more than $2 million in just three years because her baristas were also selling sex acts, according to local prosecutors.

Snohomish County prosecutors charged Carmela Panico, a 52-year-old former nude dancer, with promoting prostitution and money laundering, alleging that she operated drive-thru brothels throughout the county north of Seattle, The Everett Herald reported Thursday (http://bit.ly/1lliY1P ). Her baristas made money mostly on tips, saying they could earn hundreds of thousands of dollars, authorities said. The women said they could make up to $14 for baring their breasts or genitals and charged more for sex acts, according to charging documents.

“Panico’s businesses were driven by prostitution and lewd behavior,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Bob Hendrix wrote in the documents. Panico was charged Thursday, the newspaper reported.

Her attorney told Snohomish County Superior Court that she left the coffee business and sold some of her stands and leased others.

Authorities allege that she didn’t report her full earnings to the Internal Revenue Service by dealing in large amounts of cash. A search at Panico’s home last year resulted in the seizure of nearly $250,000.

The investigation has also led to the prosecution of a veteran sheriff’s sergeant. Darrell O’Neill is accused of tipping off Panico and her workers to police scrutiny in return for sexual favors. O’Neill resigned after his arrest last year and has pleaded not guilty. His trial is scheduled for November.

Authorities allege that baristas had a certain dollar amount they were supposed to make for Panico, and the rest the women could keep.

“The sales goals were effectively rent that the girls paid to have the opportunity to perform lewd conduct or acts of prostitution,” Hendrix wrote.

The documents say that Panico could deduct money if the women failed to wear high heels throughout their shifts, did not have a tan or failed to put on makeup.

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Information from: The Daily Herald, http://www.heraldnet.com

POCANTICO HILLS, N.Y. (AP) — Setting aside for a few hours the pressures of trying to calm the world’s trouble spots, President Barack Obama assumed the role of spectator for something more joyous: the wedding of the first family’s longtime chef and friend.

Chef Sam Kass and MSNBC host Alex Wagner tied the knot Saturday at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a farm-to-table restaurant in Pocantico Hills, just north of New York City.

The president and his chef have a close relationship, which Obama highlighted earlier this month when he spent several hours at dinner at Kass’ apartment amid the turmoil in Iraq, Ukraine and Ferguson, Missouri.

It’s long been said that time is a president’s most precious commodity. That Obama would spend five hours at Kass’ home on one of the aide’s final evenings as a bachelor was a testament to their bond.

Obama’s rounds of golf are often his only other outings that last as long — and those games sometimes include Kass.

Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, attended the ceremony and reception at the restaurant, which is a favorite of both Kass and Mrs. Obama. The first lady hosted the spouses of world leaders there in 2010.

Obama wore a dark suit, and Mrs. Obama and their daughters each wore sleeveless black dresses. The first family spent about six hours at the wedding. Obama had no known role, other than to give his best to the bride and groom. The Obamas returned to the White House early Sunday.

The union of Kass, 34, and Wagner, 36, also served to highlight what some contend is too much togetherness between the media and the people they report on. Naturally, the guest list was expected to include staff from both the White House and the liberal-leaning cable news outlet, with people from both sides breaking bread at the same dinner table.

Kass began preparing meals for the Obamas when the family lived in Chicago and the Obamas persuaded him to join them at the White House. He is now among the Obamas’ longest-serving aides.

Besides cooking for the family most weeknights, Kass also serves as senior nutrition policy adviser and executive director of the first lady’s anti-childhood obesity initiative.

It’s not unusual for presidents, including Obama, to attend or participate in weddings.

Obama hosted a Rose Garden wedding last October for Pete Souza, the president’s chief official photographer.

In June 2012, Obama, his wife, daughters and mother-in-law attended the Chicago wedding of the daughter of White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.

In May 2008, George W. Bush was in office when his daughter, Jenna, married at the family ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Bill Clinton was best man for his brother, Roger, in March 1994.

Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, participated in the August 1984 wedding of their daughter Patti Davis. Reagan spoke one line in the ceremony. He responded “Her mother and I do” when asked who would give away the bride.

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Associated Press news researcher Barbara Sambriski in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap