Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Paragraph: "Bounciest Democrat on November's statewide ballot? It might be Hank Gilbert, making his second hard charge for state agriculture commissioner versus Todd Staples, the Republican who topped him four years ago. Gilbert, ever prowling for issues, recently trumpeted that the Texas Department of Agriculture is looking at buying thousands of stress balls -- squeezable toys. He said in a Sept. 24 press release: ""Make no mistake, Texans love their balls: footballs, baseballs, basketballs, and soccer balls. But 300,000 stress balls? It seems a little extreme, but that's the quantity of grape, barbell, and book-shaped polyurethane stress balls the Texas Department of Agriculture could be spending taxpayer dollars on...""  Really? To our inquiry, Gilbert's campaign provided Web links to the agriculture agency's June request for bids as well as a September post on a state website indicating that a $99,000 contract to provide promotional materials was awarded to a Massachusetts company, Oceans Promotions. We downloaded the June 29 bid-request package from a site for state requisitions overseen by the state comptroller's office. The package shows the department was seeking bids to provide up to 300,000 stress ""relievers,"" which we're guessing are not balls because they're not round. Precisely, the package says, the agency sought bids to make ""promotional items with logo imprints to follow through on (the) TDA Food and Nutrition Texans Bring It Campaign,"" with the items to include grape-shaped stress relievers with ""Texans Bring It"" written on them or ""Eating Right,"" which would be made of polyurethane and be two inches high by three inches wide. The package says a second set of stress relievers, each one called ""Dumbbell,"" would be imprinted ""Texans Bring It"" and ""Exercise"" and be five inches high by 1.8 inches in diameter. A third stress reliever would be imprinted ""Book"" and ""Texans Bring It,"" according to the bid package, while other promotional items would include pencils, buttons and bumperstickers. The package says the bids were sought for various quantities, starting from 2,500 and topping out at 100,000 each. It electronically links to a Branders.com site showing what the agency wanted the stress relievers to look like (our interpretation: bunches of purple grapes). Is all this a real deal? To our inquiry, Bryan Black, Staples' spokesman, replied via e-mail: ""An invitation for bid was issued for these federally funded educational items to reduce the $5.8 billion avoidable health care expenditures, paid by taxpayers, associated with overweight and obesity health problems."" We followed up with Black, asking if it's accurate to conclude that up to 300,000 of the stress relievers are being purchased. We also wondered why the purchase was being made. Black said he'd limit his comment to his e-mailed statement. Surely the agency would pipe up if Gilbert got its purchase plans wrong." Claim: Hank Gilbert Says the Texas Department of Agriculture seeks to purchase up to 300,000 promotional stress balls.
Hank Gilbert says Texas Department of Agriculture could be buying up to 300,000 stress balls

Paragraph: The story doesn’t specifically address costs, but it does discuss some of the most common types of fiber-rich food — such as fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains. Given the diversity, and widespread availability, of these foods, we’ll give this a Satisfactory rating. However, it would have been nice to see some acknowledgment that many people — people particularly people with limited financial resources — live in so-called “food deserts,” which have little access to fresh produce, etc. The story discusses a wide range of benefits, ranging from reduced risk of heart disease to weight loss. But the focus of the story was on weight loss, so that’s what we’ll focus on here. The story refers to two studies, only one of which appears to have been published. The first study is an analysis of people who have used the MyFitnessPal app in an attempt to lose weight. In that case, users who came within 5 percent of their weight loss goal consumed an average of 29 percent more fiber than users who did not come close to their weight loss goals. The second study was actually published (in 2015), and compared weight loss across two groups of study participants who had metabolic syndrome. One group followed the American Heart Association’s recommended diet, while the other was told only to eat 30 grams of fiber per day. Both groups ended up eating the same amount of fiber per day (19 grams), and both groups lost weight. At the end of a year, the AHA diet group lost more (an average of 5.6 pounds), but the second group still lost 4.6 pounds. Neither of these studies are in the mold of a conventional intervention/health-benefit paradigm. But then neither is specifically looking at either a precisely-defined intervention (such as a pharmaceutical trial) or a disease — they’re looking loosely defined dietary guidelines and weight loss (and while weight can be a risk factor, it is not an illness). Bearing that in mind, the story does a satisfactory job of quantifying the relevant benefits in each instance. In general, eating more fiber carries few potential harms. The primary risks are, as the Mayo Clinic notes, “adding too much fiber too quickly can promote intestinal gas, abdominal bloating and cramping.” To minimize that risk, the Mayo Clinic urges people to “Increase fiber in your diet gradually over a period of a few weeks. This allows the natural bacteria in your digestive system to adjust to the change. Also, drink plenty of water. Fiber works best when it absorbs water.” This story does not outline these harms specifically, which is too bad. But the story does tell readers that they should “add fiber slowly and with plenty of water.” That’s enough to rate this as Satisfactory (though it’s clearly not ideal). The two studies, mentioned above under benefits, have some problems: It’s not clear where the unpublished MyFitnessPal data come from or how they were analyzed; and the 2015 study was of only 240 volunteers. These limitations were not noted. Also, the story would have been much stronger if it had addressed one key question: Were there any differences between groups (in either study) in regard to their age, sex, or physical activity? Any of those factors could play a key role in differences in weight loss, and the story sheds no light there. A side note: As we mentioned above, this story discusses a wide range of other benefits associated with eating enough fiber, ranging from reduced risk of heart disease to reduced risk of diabetes. We mention this because the story links to relevant research supporting each of those claims. We applaud that. There is no overt disease mongering. But we did want to point out two things. The story states: “fiber may play an important role in that ever-elusive health goal, weight loss.” First, while being obese may be a disease, simply being overweight is not. Second, many people who aspire to lose weight do so for reasons other than health (and aren’t overweight in the first place). Those are important distinctions, and ones that this story doesn’t make. The story quotes from a wide variety of sources, and clearly labels each source’s affiliation. One issue that’s not addressed in the story is the utility of fiber supplements. Are they good? Bad? Beneficial? Useless? The story doesn’t offer any insight here. It would be useful for readers to know whether such supplements may be useful tools for meeting daily fiber intake goals. Foods that contain fiber have been around longer than humans have, so we’ll rate this N/A. Dietary fiber isn’t new, and the story doesn’t claim that it is. We’ll rate this N/A. The story doesn’t appear to be based on a news release. (In fact, given that the story doesn’t seem to draw on any particularly new studies, guidelines or other external drivers, we’re kind of curious as to what spurred this story. We’re suspecting a pitch from MyFitnessPal.) Claim: It’s Comical. It’s Critical. It Might Even Help You Lose Weight.
This story urges people to make sure they’re eating enough dietary fiber, with a focus on fiber’s role in promoting healthy weight loss. And, overall, it does a fairly good job — though giving a high-profile to unpublished data from a privately-owned fitness app (MyFitnessPal) is a little unusual. To draw causal conclusions about a specific food/dietary component, without providing fulsome data is worrisome. Also, we’re unaware of any studies at this point that speak to the veracity of MyFitnessPal dietary record keeping, and the accuracy of its collection is probably worth validating and exploring–or at least noting its limitations. And, on a broader level, focusing on a single ingredient such as “fiber” feeds nutritionism–the notion that the presence or absence of a particular nutrient makes a food healthful or not. We don’t have nutrition drilled down that specifically. This point would have made the story stronger. Fiber–especially from whole fruits and vegetables–is an important part of a healthy diet, with institutions from the Mayo Clinic to Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health outlining the myriad ways that a fiber-rich diet reduces health risks. And, as this story notes, most people don’t get enough fiber. Recommendations for daily intake of fiber vary, but tend to come in between 25 grams per day to 38 grams per day, depending on age and sex. A 2014 paper from USDA’s Food Surveys Research Group found that Americans consume an average of 16 grams of fiber per day. Given the potential benefit of eating more fiber, this would seem like a conversation worth having. And that appears to be the goal of the story.

Paragraph: The virus killed a further 462 people overnight in Spain, Europe’s second hardest hit country after Italy, bringing the death toll to 2,182. Nurses, doctors and other health workers have echoed the complaints of their counterparts in other countries, saying they lack protective equipment like masks. The national health service is “demonstrating a great capacity to respond in an exceptional situation”, Health Minister Salvador Illa told a news conference. He warned the next week would be difficult, and that the epidemic could reach its peak in Spain in the coming days. Health workers account for nearly 12% of Spain’s total 33,089 registered cases which rose from 28,572 on Sunday. Military personnel have been visiting the nursing homes that have come under increasing pressure as the disease spreads, Defence Minister Margarita Robles told broadcaster Telecinco. “On some of its visits, the army has seen some old people, the elderly, absolutely abandoned if they were not dead in their beds,” Robles said. She did not say what had caused those deaths. Soldiers were also deployed to Barcelona to help build a temporary homeless shelter at the city’s Fira event centre. The shelter, to be managed by the Red Cross, will allow up to 1,000 homeless people to isolate themselves in hygienic conditions, Barcelona’s Mayor Ada Colau said. In Madrid, struggling with the highest number of cases, the municipal funeral home said it would stop collecting bodies from Tuesday due to a shortage of equipment. Private funeral homes are still operating in the capital. City authorities decided to use an Olympic-sized ice rink as a morgue, near a conference centre which has been kitted out with hospital beds and already received 126 of the 1,300 patients it expects in the coming week. Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo was hospitalized on Sunday with a respiratory infection, the government said on Monday, adding that the minister, who has born in 1957, is awaiting coronavirus test results. Two other ministers and the wife of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez have tested positive for the virus over the past weeks. The official in charge of the health emergency, Fernando Simon, said 87% of those who had died were aged 70 or older. Economy Minister Nadia Calvino said a nationwide lockdown, which has kept most Spaniards confined to their homes, was beginning to take a heavy toll on the economy. “Economic activity, which was dynamic until February slowed significantly last week,” she said, adding that the food, electricity and telecoms industries had continued to function normally. Supermarket group Corte Ingles said it had set up a phone number and email address for health workers to do their shopping, with free delivery to their homes. Claim: Spain lauds the medics on the front line of coronavirus crisis.

Spain paid tribute on Monday to front-line staff battling a worsening coronavirus outbreak that has infected nearly 4,000 health workers, who make up more than a tenth of known cases in the country.