Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Nothing says congratulations better than a cold burger. It was the least he could do, so he did it. With his government shutdown in full swing, President Basket Case could have had his hotel next door cater the affair, but no. So, when it came time to recognize the NCAA Football Championship winning Clemson Tigers on Monday, Trump invited them up to the White House for some fast, and no doubt, cold, fast food from the shameless likes of Wendy's, Burger King, McDonalds, etc. He even boasted that he paid for it himself. Yeah, whatever. I bet he tries to have Taco Bell pay for the whole soiree or maybe he'll try to lift some hurricane relief funds to pay for it all. Could have been worse. Apparently, there was no Chipotle and nothing from the number one choice of typical Republican homophobes Chick-Fil-A; probably just an oversight.

My favorite thing about this picture, though, is that I see what could be a noose hanging right over Trump's head. Could be a case of wishful thinking. The Liberace candelabras are a nice touch; probably a suggestion from Pence, not that there's anything wrong with that, other than the hypocrisy.

Here's hoping that the shot of a gleeful Trumpanzee surrounded by fast food becomes his Official Presidential Portrait, very, very soon!

Our Corporate Masters Are Poisoning Us And Making Us Sick-- For Quick Profits

Let me take a break from the election for a minute-- at least in terms of politicians. There were also food policy issues on the ballot around the country. The results were mixed.

Colorado Proposition 105: This statewide ballot initiative pushed for the labeling of genetically modified foods, requiring most GM foods to bear a label reading "produced with genetic engineering." Burrito chain Chipotle and Whole Foods came out in support of the measure, while agribusiness giants Monsanto, PepsiCo, and Kraft came out against it. (Unsurprisingly, 105's opponents raised more than $12 million-- many times what supporters brought in.) Outcome: Colorado voters resoundingly rejected Prop 105, with nearly 70 percent of voters voting no.

Oregon Measure 92: This ballot measure was nearly identical to Colorado's, requiring foods with GMO ingredients to be labeled. Like in Colorado, Big Ag mobilized big-time against Measure 92, raising more than $16 million. But 92's supporters-- including Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps-- raised an impressive $8 million. Outcome: Oregon voters barely rejected the measure-- just over half voted no. The narrow defeat means there are no GMO labeling laws in place anywhere in the country.

San Francisco Measure E and Berkeley Measure D: These two Bay Area cities both considered levying taxes on sugary beverages. San Francisco's Measure E proposed a 2 cent per ounce tax, while Berkeley's Measure D proposed 1 cent per ounce. Both races were considered something of a last stand for the soda tax-- if it couldn't pass in these two bastions of liberalism and healthy living, it was essentially doomed everywhere else. No surprise, then, that Big Soda spent more than $7 million in San Francisco and some $2.1 million in Berkeley (population: 117,000) to defeat the measures. Outcome: Failing to gain the necessary two-thirds supermajority, the San Francisco soda tax failed. Berkeley's passed overwhelmingly, with 75 percent voting yes.

Maui County, Hawaii, GMO Moratorium Bill: Hawaii's Maui County-- which includes the islands of Maui, Lanai, and Molokai-- considered one of the strongest anti-GMO bills ever: a complete moratorium on the cultivation of genetically engineered crops until studies conclusively prove they are safe. Agriculture is big business on Maui: The island is a major producer of sugarcane, coffee, and pineapple, among other things. Monsanto is among the companies operating farms in Maui County, and this bill would've effectively shut it down. (Under the law, farmers knowingly cultivating GMOs would get hit with a $50,000 per day fine.) Opponents raised nearly $8 million against the measure, making it the most expensive campaign in state history. Outcome: Maui citizens approved the temporary ban, with 50 percent voting yes.

Here in my own super-progressive Los Angeles district, grassroots independent, Steve Stokes, ran against corporate whore Adam Schiff and because Schiff was a big booster of the Monsanto Protection Act, Stokes tried to make GMO labeling a big issue. He raised a total of $6,893 for the campaign-- against Schiff's $819,788 (plus the $2,000,000-plus war chest Schiff is sitting on for the race for Boxer's Senate seat). Predictably, Schiff won-- but Stokes did surprising well-- 69,944 for Schiff to 22,083, almost a quarter of the voters). A lot more work needs to be done, apparently even in enlightened bastions like Silverlake, Los Feliz, Glendale, Hollywood, and West Hollywood. April McCarthy reported this week that scientists have officially linked processed foods to an increase in auto-immune diseases like multiple sclerosis, alopecia, asthma and eczema. Scientists from Yale in the U.S. and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany have found that "excess refined and processed salt may be one of the environmental factors driving the increased incidence of autoimmune diseases." And, as McCarthy reminds us, "Junk foods at fast food restaurants as well as processed foods at grocery retailers represent the largest sources of sodium intake from refined salts."

The Canadian Medical Association Journal sent out an international team of researchers to compare the salt content of 2,124 items from fast food establishments such as Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Subway. They found that the average salt content varied between companies and between the same products sold in different countries.

U.S. fast foods are often more than twice as salt-laden as those of other countries. While government-led public health campaigns and legislation efforts have reduced refined salt levels in many countries, the U.S. government has been reluctant to press the issue. That’s left fast-food companies free to go salt crazy, says Norm Campbell, M.D., one of the study authors and a blood-pressure specialist at the University of Calgary.

Many low-fat foods rely on salt-- and lots of it-- for their flavor. One packet of KFC’s Marzetti Light Italian Dressing might only have 15 calories and 0.5 grams fat, but it also has 510 mg sodium-- about 1.5 times as much as one Original Recipe chicken drumstick. (Feel like you’re having too much of a good thing? You probably are).

Bread is the No. 1 source of refined salt consumption in the American diet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just one 6-inch Roasted Garlic loaf from Subway-- just the bread, no meat, no cheeses, no nothing-- has 1,260 mg sodium, about as much as 14 strips of bacon.

The team from Yale University studied the role of T helper cells in the body. These activate and ‘help’ other cells to fight dangerous pathogens such as bacteria or viruses and battle infections.

Previous research suggests that a subset of these cells-- known as Th17 cells-- also play an important role in the development of autoimmune diseases.

In the latest study, scientists discovered that exposing these cells in a lab to a table salt solution made them act more “aggressively”. They found that mice fed a diet high in refined salts saw a dramatic increase in the number of Th17 cells in their nervous systems that promoted inflammation. They were also more likely to develop a severe form of a disease associated with multiple sclerosis in humans.

The scientists then conducted a closer examination of these effects at a molecular level. Laboratory tests revealed that salt exposure increased the levels of cytokines released by Th17 cells 10 times more than usual. Cytokines are proteins used to pass messages between cells.

Study co-author Ralf Linker, from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, said:

“These findings are an important contribution to the understanding of multiple sclerosis and may offer new targets for a better treatment of the disease, for which at present there is no cure.”

Multiple Sclerosis develops when the immune system mistakes the myelin that surrounds the nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord for a foreign body. It strips the myelin off the nerves fibres, which disrupts messages passed between the brain and body causing problems with speech, vision and balance.

Another of the study’s authors, Professor David Hafler from Yale University, said that nature had clearly not intended for the immune system to attack its host body, so he expected that an external factor was playing a part. He said:

“These are not diseases of bad genes alone or diseases caused by the environment, but diseases of a bad interaction between genes and the environment.

“Humans were genetically selected for conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, where there was no salt. It’s one of the reasons that having a particular gene may make African Americans much more sensitive to salt.

“Today, Western diets all have high salt content and that has led to increase in hypertension and perhaps autoimmune disease as well.”

...Refined, processed and bleached salts are the problem. Salt is critical to our health and is the most readily available nonmetallic mineral in the world. Our bodies are not designed to processed refined sodium chloride since it has no nutritional value. However, when a salt is filled with dozens of minerals such as in rose-coloured crystals of Himalayan rock salt or the grey texture of Celtic salt, our bodies benefit tremendously for their incorporation into our diet.

Eating Native Foods Is One Of The Pleasures Of Foreign Travel-- Being Careful With Your Restaurant Choices Might Keep You Alive

You maybe be aware that we also have a travel blog-- and we cover eating in strange places-- whether the bacon craze in Jersey City, the raw food craze in London, how to eat healthy in Bali and Bangkok or even the best eatery in Mali. And we always try to alert readers to problems with food safety-- contaminated bottled water here, filthy food there and... well an article by David Sedaris prompted us-- precisely 3 years ago-- to ask the question How Important Is Food In Determining Where You Travel? Hygiene? Everything is clean and even pristine in Japan, he asserts, but not in China. I'll skip the parts about the toilets-- but feel from to hit the link and read it all--and head right off to the a restaurant he ran across called Farming Family Happiness:

As far as I know there wasn't a menu. Rather, the family worked at their convenience, with whatever was handy or in season. There was a rooster parading around the backyard and then there just wasn't. After the cook had slit its throat, he used it as the base for five separate dishes, one of which was a dreary soup with two feet, like inverted salad tongs, sticking out of it. Nothing else was nearly as recognisable.

I'm used to standard butchering: here's the leg, the breast, etc. At the Farming Family Happiness, rather than being carved, the rooster was senselessly hacked, as if by a blind person, a really angry one with a thing against birds. Portions were reduced to shards, mostly bone, with maybe a scrap of meat attached. These were then combined with cabbage and some kind of hot sauce.

Another dish was made entirely of organs, which again had been hacked beyond recognition. The heart was there, the lungs, probably the comb and intestines as well. I don't know why this so disgusted me. If I was a vegetarian, OK, but if you're a meat eater, why draw these arbitrary lines? "I'll eat the thing that filters out toxins but not the thing that sits on top of the head, doing nothing?" And why agree to eat this animal and not that one?

I remember reading a few years ago about a restaurant in the Guangdong province that was picketed and shut down because it served cat. The place was called The Fangji Cat Meatball Restaurant, which isn't exactly hiding anything. Go to Fangji and you pretty much know what you're getting. My objection to cat meatballs is not that I have owned several cats, and loved them, but that I try not to eat things that eat meat. Like most westerners I tend towards herbivores, and things that like grain: cows, chickens, sheep, etc. Pigs eat meat-- a pig would happily eat a human-- but most of the pork we're privy to was raised on corn or horrible chemicals rather than other pigs and dead people.

There are distinctions among the grazing animal eaters as well. People who like lamb and beef, at least in north America, tend to draw the line at horse, which in my opinion is delicious. The best I've had was served at a restaurant in Antwerp, a former stable called, cleverly enough, The Stable. Hugh was right there with me, and though he ate the same thing I did, he practically wept when someone in China mentioned eating sea horses. "Oh, those poor things," he said. "How could you?"

I went, "Huh?"

It's like eating poultry but taking a moral stand against those chocolate chicks they sell at Easter. "A sea horse is not related to an actual horse," I said. "They're fish, and you eat fish all the time. Are you objecting to this one because of its shape?"

He said he couldn't eat sea horses because they were friendly and never did anyone any harm, this as opposed to those devious, bloodthirsty lambs whose legs we so regularly roast with rosemary and new potatoes.

The dishes we had at the Farming Family Happiness were meant to be shared, and as the pretty woman with the broad face brought them to the table, the man across from me beamed and reached for his chopsticks. "You know," he said, "this country might have its ups and downs but it is virtually impossible to get a bad meal here."

I didn't say anything.

Many Americans think they can avoid that kind of collision with alien reality by sticking to a now ubiquitous McDonald's or KFC. Bad news on that front as well. Note: I have no trouble fasting for a few days or even a week when I have to-- and I would certainly resort to that than ever consider eating in a McDonald's or any facsimile abroad. There's one on the ground floor of the apartment we always rent in Bangkok. Just walking through it-- a shortcut to the elevator-- makes me want to throw up, although it's always filled with happy middle class Thais and relieved American tourists. Is the food they serve filthy and unhealthy? I always assumed so-- and that has been borne out this week by another food scandal in good ole China, a virtual cesspool to begin with. McDonald's and the other fast food companies have been buying meat from a typical food supplier-- typical because in the unregulated universe of Ayn Rand capitalism that holds sway there-- even serving human bits and pieces is within the realm of possibility-- as long as it's profitable.

[A]n undercover local TV reporter found workers repackaging and selling expired and spoiled meat at Shanghai Husi Food Co., owned by the Illinois-based OSI Group. The Shanghai Food and Drug Administration has halted Husi’s operations.

The latest food safety scandal could be a blow to McDonald’s and Yum [KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell] as both hopes to expand in the Chinese market. The pair has already vowed in 2012 to ensure the safety of food they serve after China Central Television reported the companies may have sold chicken fed with unapproved antibiotic drugs and growth hormones.

The Husi investigation shows that the culture of food safety still hasn’t taken root in China, where infants have been killed and sickened after consuming milk powder tainted by industrial chemical melamine. Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group, once told me that the problem lies in the country’s porous and outdated supply chain, where every link could go awry.

Tourists and the Chinese middle class expect foreign restaurants to be more reliable and less likely to kill them or make them sick. But we're talking about McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell so... I wouldn't eat in one down the road from where I live let alone in China or anywhere else. They serve garbage and their food and business culture is garbage. So what else could anyone possibly you expect? Starbucks? The Husi Food Co scandal has moved across the Sea of Japan.

The scandal surrounding Husi Food, which is owned by OSI Group of Aurora, Illinois, has added to a string of safety scares in China over milk, medicines and other goods that have left the public wary of dairies, restaurants and other suppliers.

Food safety violations will be “severely punished,” the food agency said on its website.

Starbucks Corp. on Tuesday said it removed from its shelves sandwiches made with chicken that originated at Husi. Burger King Corp. said it stopped using hamburger it received from a supplier that used product from Husi. Pizza restaurant chain Papa John’s International Inc. announced it stopped using meat from Husi.

In Japan, McDonald’s Corp. said it stopped selling McNuggets at more than 1,300 outlets that used chicken supplied by Husi. It said the Shanghai company had been supplying chicken to it since 2002.

Let's hope the "severe punishment" will include extraditing American ex-bankster, billionaire Sheldon Lavin, OSI's sole owner (most of whose political donations go through the Desert Caucus).

Digestive-aid stocks plummet at news of latest Sbarro bankruptcy -- but there might be "good news in its decline"

Says Dunder Mifflin Scranton manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell): "I always like to come to New York a little bit early and hit some of my favorite haunts, like right here, my favorite New York pizza joint -- and ah'm gonna go get me a New York slahce."

"The last time I ate at one of [Sbarro's] 800 locations was in an airport where the next best alternative was a turkey wrap that looked as if it had been in the chiller even longer than the Sbarro pizza had been under the heat lamp."

-- from Neil Irwin's NYT "Economix" blogpost,
"This Is the Real Reason Sbarro Is in Bankruptcy"

by Ken

First, my apologies for the dreadful quality of the picture above, a screen grab from a mediocre embedding-disabled video clip. Second, a hat tip to Thrillist's Kristin Hunt and to tweeter Caroline Moss (@socarolinesays), whose tweet is included among Kristin's "10 Best Twitter Reactions to Sbarro's Bankruptcy" ("As if the Taco Bell Grilled Stuft Nacho's death wasn't enough, the people of Twitter were forced to confront their own mortality yet again when Sbarro announced it was filing for bankruptcy"). The reaction embodied by Caroline's tweet finished at No. 7:

7. They fought through the tears with a classic Steve Carell bit.

[Here's the working YouTube link again.]

And I'm personally grateful to the Times's Neil Irwin, first for noting --

The food at Sbarro, the pizza-and-pasta chain, isn’t very good. The pizza crust manages to be both thick and limp, the tomato sauce bland, the cheese the victim of sitting for too long under heat lamps.

And then, perhaps more important, for establishing that there is nevertheless a sort-of-sane reason why some of us actually repeat the seemingly insane act of ordering a Sbarro's slice. In my case it was also at the airport, at the Fort Lauderdale terminal where I usually caught return flights while I was making frequent trips to try to help my mother during her long decline. I often arrived at the airport hungry, and sized up the options pretty much the way Neil describes, with the added stipulation that his description of the quality of the pizza is on the generous side, at least judging from my experience, which usually entailed attacks of gas and nausea. Which calls to mind the Twitter reaction to the Sbarro news which Thrillist's Kristin Hunt's Twitter put at No. 9:

9. They worried how the Dow would take the news.

Yet somehow each time I managed to persuade myself that the slice couldn't be as nasty as I was remembering it, and each time I was wrong.

Perhaps the most alarming reaction to the Sbarro news is a near-terminal outbreak of punning, which accounts for Kristin's reactions No. 5 through No. 3:

5. They unleashed the puns . . .

4. . . . with great veneance.

3. Seriously, they couldn't help themselves.


Naturally the people maintaining this vigil over the wounded Sbarro are poignantly aware that this is the second time in three years that the company has filed for bankrupcy.

8. They recalled that other bankruptcy filing.


But it's important to remember that the bankruptcy is a Chapter 11, not a Chapter 7, meaning that it's aimed at reorganization rather than liquidation. Last month, you may recall, Sbarro announced that it was "Closing 155 North American Locations in Comeback Effort" (as Bloomberg put it), meaning an effort "to improve the company's profitability." (Bloomberg also noted: "Even as it scales back operations in its home country, the company added South American locations last year.") As Reuters reported Monday:

The pizza restaurant chain Sbarro filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time in three years after struggling with too much debt and fewer customers in malls that house many of its restaurants.

Lenders would take control of Sbarro, which is based in Melville, N.Y., under a prepackaged Chapter 11 reorganization. The company on Monday said that could allow a "quick exit" from bankruptcy, before May 7.

Sbarro expects to cut its debt load by more than 80 percent, and said nearly all its lenders supported its restructuring, which requires court approval. The company will invite other buyers to submit better offers.

In all, according to the Bloomberg report:

The company said it recently closed more than 180 money-losing restaurants, and expected to close about 50 more. It said it now had 799 restaurants in more than 40 countries, employing about 2,700 people. Sbarro said the bankruptcy did not affect the 582 restaurants owned by franchisees.

Sbarro fans weren't taking the threat lying down.

10. They valiantly tried to save their fallen compadre.

6. They readied their picket signs.



IS SBARRO FIGHTING A LOSING CAUSE? AND MIGHT
THERE BE "GOOD NEWS BURIED IN ITS DECLINE"?

Which brings us back to Neil Irwin's nytimes.com piece, which is presented as "a preview of The Upshot, a New York Times site dedicated to demystifying politics, economics and other subjects" which is coming to nytimes.com "this spring." Neil is the one who sees the possibility of "good news in [Sbarro's] decline." To begin with, he points out that "plenty of fast-food places serve food that isn't very good," facing bankruptcy.

The reason Sbarro is having a rougher time than other, more solvent purveyors of not-good food goes to the root of its business: You eat Sbarro not because you want Sbarro, but because it is the food that is available at the moment you want some food. . . .

The company is in financial trouble because one of its big bets on real estate -- that Americans will keep going to mall food courts en masse - has turned out to be wrong.

And there's an "underlying problem," says Neil, "with a strategy built around selling mediocre pizza at the right place and right time."

It means that owners of the real estate in question can extract much of the value of the crowds they attract, not the restaurant chain.

Other fast-food chains may offer mediocre food, but their real estate strategies are less exposed to the epic decline in foot traffic in the nation’s malls. As people do more shopping online, fewer are visiting the mall -- and more seem to be putting a bit more thought into their food.

I don't go to malls much, but when I do, and I think it might be nice to have a little something to eat, I get the same sticker shock I do at the airport.

And then I remember that the prices must be a function of the rent they're paying for space in those malls and airports. What Neil is pointing out here is that the "extra value" that comes from having us would-be eaters as hostages in malls doesn't go to the food vendors, it goes to their landlords.

But what if those landlords are no longer in a position to gouge their tenants -- and by extension the tenats' customers (i.e., us)?

Tyler Cowen, a George Mason University economist and prolific writer on food, argued in his book An Economist Gets Lunch that the best way to get delicious food at a good price is to seek out low-rent districts. There, restaurateurs can afford to experiment and take risks. In effect, the harder a restaurant is to find, the lower the rent is likely to be, and the more the restaurant will be seeking to attract customers with the quality and value of its food rather than mere convenience.

So the good news buried in Sbarro's decline is that if consumers' inclination to shop at malls keeps declining, and landlords must slash rent charges to keep them full, rents could fall low enough to invert the entire food-court business model. With low enough rents, the food court could become the new hotbed of innovation, the place where entrepreneurs find the space to try a new concept, with a bit more upfront expense than a food truck but less than a standalone restaurant.

AND SO IN THE END, SBARRO FANS . . .

. . . may have to follow the lead of those who have already taken matters into their own hands.

2. They desperately sought alternative fixes.



IN CASE YOU'RE WONDERING WHAT KRISTIN
HUNT'S NO. 1 TWITTER REACTION WAS --

1. They got incredibly, unbelievably nostalgic.

#

Aaron Schock, GOP Closet Twink, Defends Twinkies' Right To Poison You Without Government Interference

Twinkies

Aaron Schock is still whining he just hasn't met the right gal yet but he isn't fooling anyone in Peoria-- and especially not anyone who went to Richwoods High School or Illinois Central College. He likes Ding Dongs a lot more than he likes ladies. And he did an OpEd for Politico about it this week. The overly ambitious closet case-- second youngest Member of Congress after the equally conservative Patrick Murphy-- wants to run for governor of Illinois. So he's burnishing his credentials as a pro-Business, anti-regulations Ayn Rand fanboy. Perhaps he hopes it will get voters' minds off his ethics problems. He's demanding that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stop warning people about junk food-- particularly junk food made in his district. (Keep in mind that Apollo Global Management, huge political contributors, has just bought Hostess Brands' Twinkies.) Schock:

Already, the CDC has awarded $650 million of grants to states and communities through a program called the Prevention and Public Health Fund. In many cases, the grant recipients have used these federal dollars to run advertisements against “sugary products” or other food and beverages that they believe have an adverse impact on the health of American citizens, regardless of the quantity consumed. We are talking about hundreds of millions of tax dollars that are being used to discourage the consumption of lawfully marketed American-made products.

Using taxpayer dollars to attack the beverage and food industry might seem like a good idea to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but it’s this exact type of harmful government spending that we can ill afford and serves no purpose in the overall wellness debate-- other than to be critical of domestic companies that employ thousands of hardworking Americans.

When a company like Hostess-- which employed hundreds of employees in my congressional district-- dedicates millions of dollars to market its products, it shouldn’t have to worry about the company’s tax dollars being used against it to dissuade the public from buying its products. In fact, the brand damage that occurs from these government-funded attack ads results in businesses having to dedicate even more resources toward marketing-- money that could otherwise be used to give pay raises to their employees or reinvest and grow their business.

...I believe the CDC-- which does great work on early detection and prevention of, and treatment for breast and cervical cancer, as well as work on immunizations, flu vaccines and a host of worthy efforts-- simply should change its priority from singling out one product and attacking American job creators to focusing its efforts on a more comprehensive approach to combating obesity.

As a result, I have introduced the Stopping Taxpayer Outlays for Propaganda Act, the STOP Act, which will ban taxpayer dollars from funding such ads so the public can focus on meaningful steps to address obesity and promoting a healthy lifestyle. This includes prohibiting the use of federal money for print, radio and television or any other media advertisement, campaign or form of publicity against the use of a food or beverage that is lawfully marketed under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

I fully support and try to live a healthy life, myself, by making smart choices about what I eat and drink and by working out regularly. These are the types of behavior we should be promoting-- not using our precious tax dollars to attack job creators in a time of sustained levels of high unemployment.

Last year, the NY Times took a look into what's in the Twinkies that Aaron Schock wants to see marketed without interference from government regulatory agencies charged with safeguarding the health of Americans-- and they found that not everything in a Twinkie comes from good old American-grown wheat. Let's take, for instance, the Chinese-made petroleum products that go into a Twinkie. And Twinkies aren't just filled with petroleum products; they also contain gypsum, trona, limestone and phosphorus ore. There's an interesting discussion of "the Twinkie Industrial Complex."

Processed food ingredients are made in large parts from the most common industrial chemicals, like phosphoric acid and sulfuric acid and ethylene, which comes from natural gas.

...One thing I noticed in my travels is there are certain food processing hubs in the Midwest where these large plants that process beans and seeds are located. The power needed to run these things is extraordinary. That was very unfoodlike, in my mind, and really surprised me.

...It seems that the “cream” is probably partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. I think the key ingredient is polysorbate 60, and possibly cellulose gum. The filling has to be of a consistency that works well in the pumps and tubes that make these things. On the label they call it a “creamy filling.” They don’t actually say what it is.

...They get hard, but they don’t spoil. I’ve got a bunch of them scattered around my office. I’ve got one from 2005 in my hand. It’s a little hard. I don’t think I’d want to eat it. It’s solid, but it hasn’t spoiled. As part of my research, I made Twinkies at home. We made cake from scratch with whole-food ingredients. It was yellow cake and cream filling from whipped cream with sugar and vanilla. It was absolutely delicious, and we devoured most of them right away. I wrapped one in plastic wrap and put it aside, and it was solid green in a week.

But Aaron Schock wants liberty-- not some regulators snooping around figuring out what's in Twinkies and what effect they have on children's health. When it looked like Twinkies might cease to exist, Michele Bernard, an RN wrote that "We’ll miss some of its wonderfully fattening ingredients,  like sugar, animal shortening, cottonseed and canola oil, beef fat, dextrose, mono and di-glycerides, artificial flavors, caramel color, yellow No. 5, red #40. There are also a who’s who of corn products in each delicious Twinkie including corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, modified cornstarch, cornstarch, corn flour, and corn syrup solids."

We bring this up because obesity has been closely linked to mental illness. Dutch researchers have found that adolescents who perceived their bodies as “too fat” were at greater risk for internalizing problems (e.g., depression, anxiety) and externalizing problems (e.g., aggression, substance abuse). Also, weight-based teasing and discrimination that are often inflicted on obese kids can have devastating effects on their emotional well-being.

The physical hazards of being overweight are already well-known and include an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer, as well as generalized fatigue and weakness.

What's Wrong With Our Food?

I was horrified by the little story we listened to yesterday by Bill Moyers-- the one about hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio comparing Americans to wildebeests being eaten alive by unregulated and ravenous hedge fund billionaires hyenas. I haven't been able to get Dalio's images, especially the horrific video I added to the post, out of my mind. And then, today I came across a radio interview-- the video above-- with Frederick Kaufman, food journalist and author of Bet The Farm. Kaufman makes the point that Wall Street is industrializing agriculture, driving farmers off the land and financializing food while they plot to do to the world's food supply exactly what they did to the American housing market. He makes the case that we can save ourselves by definancialization-- getting the bankers out of the food system, probably even more important than getting rats out of the food system.

I lived for many years overseas. I could never figure out why when I bought a baguette, some tomatoes and cheese in France it was so much more delicious than the same components in America. Kaufman has the answer-- to that and much more important questions, like why we're producing more food than ever while starvation and malnutrition is worse than ever. Kaufman, unlike Dalio, is decidedly not a fan of greed. He wrote the book to explore why the food on our tables is getting less healthy and less delicious even as the world's biggest food companies and food scientists say things are better than ever.

To unravel this riddle, he moves down the supply chain like a detective solving a mystery, revealing a force at work that is larger than Monsanto, McDonalds or any of the other commonly cited culprits-- and far more shocking.

Kaufman's recent cover story for Harper's, "The Food Bubble-- How Wall Street Starved Millions And Got Away With It," provoked controversy throughout the food world, and led to appearances on the NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, Fox Business News, Democracy Now, and Bloomberg TV, along with features on National Public Radio and the BBC World Service.

• Visits the front lines of the food supply system and food politics as Kaufman visits farms, food science research labs, agribusiness giants, the United Nations, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and more

• Explains how food has been financialized and the powerful consequences of this change, including: the Arab Spring, started over rising food prices; farmers being put out of business; food scientists rushing to make easy-to-transport, homogenized ingredients instead of delicious foods

• Explains how the push for sustainability in food production is more likely to make everything worse, rather than better-- and how the rise of fast food is bad for us, but catastrophic for those who will never even see a McNugget or frozen pizza.

Bad Eats

First and only time I was ever in a White Castle was when The Dictator's did their album jacket

"Hi. This is Congresswoman xxxx. I'll be in L.A. next month and I was told you and Digby and John take people to the best restaurants in town." I had never spoken with her before, nor written much about her. She's a bit of a backbencher, but a solid liberal in a deep blue district. I had no idea why she was calling. She didn't either. Other than the food. And we do like taking Washington progressives out for good meals when they come to L.A.... but usually ones we know. But-- what the heck-- I've never seen her take a bad vote in her career and I'm always happy to meet new congressmembers who can be counted on to stand up for working families. "Have you ever tried molecular gastronomy," I began. I think that confused her even more. Then I recalled that one of her closest colleagues had had an amazing dinner with us a few weeks before, at Mozza, one of California's most food forward Italian restaurants. And he was raving about how great it was. He must have told her. And everybody loves Italian food.

Now one thing anyone coming to L.A. who wants to have dinner with the Blue America crew knows they'll never have to worry about is being dragged into some right-wing fast food joint serving cheap anti-nutritious garbage, and especially not the ones who recycle their profits into right-wing politics. Last week we took a little look at the anti-LGBT hysteria that is part and parcel to the Chick-fil-A food empire. Believe it or not, they even have one at 6750 Sunset Blvd, in one of the most LGBT-friendly areas in the country. I bet that isn't working out too well for them. We don't usually go for industrialized processed food anyway. I enjoy preparing my own food-- and worked for years as a chef-- so unless there's some love and intelligence behind food preparation, I'm happy staying home and making my own meals. Yesterday, though, Lauren Kelley put together a nice little list of the worst food companies of all at Alternet. Lauren only used one criterion: propensity to help fund right-wing politics. As she warns, "a number of food companies are owned by far right-wingers who’ve spent significant money opposing gay rights, abortion rights, and other important causes and funding attack ads against left-leaning politicians." And for me that alone is enough reason to never go near any of these places. She started with-- surprise, surprise-- Chick-fil-A, which is being boycotted by the LGBT community and was dumped this weekend by The Muppets.

1. Chick-fil-A

It won’t be news to many readers that Chick-fil-A’s owner is deeply entrenched in conservative politics and social issues. The chain has been in the news many a time for its owner’s anti-gay attitudes, in particular.

The latest Chick-fil-A hubbub has been especially high-profile. Chain president Dan Cathy, who is the son of Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy, said in a recent interview with the Baptist Press that “as an organization we can operate on biblical principles.” Asked about the company’s support of the "traditional family,” Cathy answered, “Well, guilty as charged... We are very much supportive of the family-- the biblical definition of the family unit... We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.” ...

2. Carl's Jr.

Carl’s Jr. founder Carl Karcher, who died in 2008, had been a supporter of anti-abortion causes for decades. In particular, Karcher was fond of funding the anti-choice group Operation Rescue. He also had a mean anti-gay streak as well. From the AP story that followed his death:

He was reviled by abortion rights activists for his contributions to anti-abortion groups and his oft-repeated story about talking a Carl's Jr. employee out of an abortion. Gay rights groups dubbed his hamburgers "bigot burgers" after Karcher supported a 1978 proposition that would have allowed school boards to fire teachers who were gay or advocated homosexuality.


3. Domino’s Pizza

Like Karcher, Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan is an unapologetic supporter of anti-choice groups, including Operation Rescue, Right to Life, Priests for Life, and the Committee to End State-Funded Abortion in Michigan. (Domino’s itself has noted that it does not, as a company, support “either side of the reproductive rights issue.”)

Monaghan is a devout Catholic who also founded Ave Maria University. It’s said that he was inspired by a visit to the Vatican in the 1980s to found the Ave Maria List, an anti-choice PAC.

4. White Castle

White Castle joins Carl’s Jr. on the list of beloved burger joints with right-wing ties. According to a recent ThinkProgress report about companies that have helped bankroll right-wing attack ads, White Castle has given $25,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC, a group linked to House Speaker John Boehner that is supporting conservative candidates in the November election.

5. Waffle House

Waffle House (or Awful House as I used to call it growing up) is also mentioned in the ThinkProgress report. The breakfast joint has given $100,000 this election cycle to the Karl Rove super PAC American Crossroads. Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy reported on the donation:

This is surprising because one doesn't normally associate Big Waffle with big scary super-PACs, but also not that surprising: CEO Jim Rogers Jr. is a longtime supporter of Republican causes, and the company's political action committee has given exclusively to Republicans (in considerably more modest quantities). His ties to Romney date back to 2006, when he joined the finance team of Romney's political action committee, Commonwealth PAC.

American Food Policy: Toxic, Starting With Children, Especially From Poor Families

U.S. food policy has been really bad; it's about to get much worse. As we saw a few days ago, the horribly corrupt Blue Dog dominated House Agriculture Committee is about to become and even more horribly corrupt Republican dominated House Agriculture Committee. For years the committee's main focus has been about extracting campaign donations from AgriBusiness in return for passing legislation dictated by..., yes, you guessed it... AgriBusiness. The result was apparent this week at the release of a report by the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale showing that fast food marketing is up while fast food nutritional value is down. Are we poisoning our children so that politicians' careers can prosper? Precisiely. And it's very bipartisan, just the way Americans like it, part of the problem with allowing Blue Dogs and other conservative Democrats to mussy the water and distort the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

Fast food companies speak to children early, often, and when parents are not looking. Fast food is the most unhealthy food product marketed to children, other than sugar-sweetened beverages, and is relentlessly and aggressively targeted toward children starting as young as age two. Food marketing to children negatively influences the dietary choices and health of society's most vulnerable citizens. Given the childhood obesity epidemic at hand, we need meaningful solutions and real change.

AgriBuisness and the fast food industry spend immense amounts of money to make sure Congress is not part of the solution. Since 1990 AgriBusiness has spent $215,510,053 bribing Republicans and $123,201,065 bribing Democrats (primarily Blue Dogs and other conservative Democrats) to make sure Congress would allow them to continue promulgating a toxic "business friendly" (consumer deadly) agenda. The 8 biggest recipients of bribes from AgriBusiness currently serving in Congress:

John McCain (R-AZ)- $3,849,451
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)- $3,682,059
Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)- $2,515,452
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)- $2,278,472
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- $2,009,713
Pat Roberts (R-KS)- $1,759,728
Marion Berry (Blue Dog-AR)- $1,751,655
Davin Nunes (R-CA)- $1,721,407

And Frank Lucas (R-OK), who is about to take over as Agriculture Committee Chair from Peterson stashed away another $1,195,044. Here's a summary of the report from Yale:

Fast food marketing is relentless.

• The fast food industry spent more than $4.2 billion dollars in 2009 on TV advertising and other media.

• The average preschooler (2-5 years) saw 2.8 TV ads per day for fast food; children (6-11 years) saw 3.5; and teens (12-17 years) saw 4.7.

• Young people's exposure to fast food TV ads has increased. Compared to 2003, preschoolers viewed 21% more fast food ads in 2009, children viewed 34% more, and teens viewed 39% more.

• Although McDonald's and Burger King have pledged to improve food marketing to children, they increased their volume of TV advertising from 2007 to 2009. Preschoolers saw 21% more ads for McDonald's and 9% more for Burger King, and children viewed 26% more ads for McDonald's and 10% more for Burger King.

• Even though McDonald's and Burger King only showed their "better-for-you" foods in child-targeted marketing, their ads did not encourage consumption of these healthier choices. Instead, child-targeted ads focused on toy giveaways and building brand loyalty.

• Children saw more than child-targeted ads. More than 60% of fast food ads viewed by preschoolers and children promoted fast food items other than kids' meals.

Youth-targeted marketing has spread to company websites and other digital media.

• McDonald's web-based marketing starts with children as young as age 2 at Ronald.com.

• McDonald's and Burger King created sophisticated websites with advergames and virtual worlds to engage children (e.g., McWorld.com, HappyMeal.com, and ClubBK.com).

• McDonald's 13 websites got 365,000 unique child visitors and 294,000 unique teen visitors on average each month in 2009.

• Nine restaurant Facebook pages had more than one million fans in 2009, and Starbucks' boasted more than 11.3 million.

• Smartphone apps were available for eight fast food chains, providing another opportunity to reach young consumers anytime, anywhere.

Fast food marketing also targets teens and ethnic and minority youth-- often with less healthy items.

• Taco Bell targeted teens in its TV and radio advertising. Dairy Queen, Sonic, and Domino's also reached disproportionately more teens with ads for their desserts and snacks, and Burger King advertised teen-targeted promotions.

• Hispanic preschoolers saw 290 Spanish-language fast food TV ads in 2009 and McDonald's was responsible for one-quarter of young people's exposure to Spanish-language fast food advertising.

• African American children and teens saw at least 50% more fast food ads on TV in 2009 than their white peers. That translated into twice the number of fast food calories viewed daily compared to white children.

• McDonald's and KFC specifically targeted African American youth with TV advertising, targeted websites, and banner ads.

Fast food marketing works.

• Eighty-four percent of parents reported taking their child to a fast food restaurant at least once a week; 66% reported going to McDonald's in the past week.

• Forty percent of parents reported that their child asks to go to McDonald's at least once a week; 15% of preschoolers ask to go every day.

Most restaurants do offer some healthful and lower-calorie choices on their regular and children's menus, but unhealthy options are the default.

• Just 12 of 3,039 possible kids' meal combinations met nutrition criteria for preschoolers; 15 met nutrition criteria for older children.

• Just 17% of regular menu items qualified as healthy choices.

• Snacks and dessert items contained as many as 1,500 calories, which is five times more than the 200 to 300 calorie snack for active teens recommended by the American Dietetic Association.

• The average restaurant had 15 signs promoting specific menu items, but just 4% promoted healthy menu items.

• When ordering a kids' meal, restaurant employees at McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, and Taco Bell automatically served french fries or another unhealthy side dish more than 84% of the time. A soft drink or other unhealthy beverage was served automatically at least 55% of the time.

• Subway offered healthy sides and beverages 60% of the time, making it the only fast food restaurant in our study to routinely provide healthy choices.

As a result:

• Teens between the ages of 13 and 18 purchased 800 to 1,100 calories in an average fast food visit.

• At least 30% of calories in menu items purchased by children and teens were from sugar and saturated fat.

• At most restaurants, young people purchased at least half of their maximum daily recommended sodium intake in just one fast food meal.

• Teens ordered more fast food than any other age group during non-meal times after school and in the evening.

Recommendations

Young people must consume less of the calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods served at fast food restaurants. Parents and schools can and should do more to teach children how to make healthy choices. Above all, fast food restaurants must drastically change their current marketing practices so that children and teens do not receive continuous encouragement to seek out food that will severely damage their health. 

Fast food restaurants must establish meaningful standards for child-targeted marketing that apply to all fast food restaurants-not just those who voluntarily participate in the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative.

• Nutrition criteria for foods presented in child-targeted marketing must apply to all kids' meals served, not just items pictured in the marketing.

• Restaurants must redefine "child-targeted" marketing to include TV ads and other forms of marketing viewed by large numbers of children but not exclusively targeted to them.

• McDonald's must stop marketing directly to preschoolers.

Fast food restaurants must do more to develop and promote lower-calorie and more nutritious menu items.

CNN's coverage of the report emphasized some of the specific culprits in terms of which companies are poisoning American children the most effectively. "'The worst meal was at Dairy Queen,' said Jennifer Harris, director of marketing initiatives at the Yale center, and the lead study author. 'It was a cheeseburger, french fries, a sugar sweetened soft drink and a chocolate Dilly Bar, which totaled 973 calories.' The No. 2 culprit: KFC's popcorn chicken kids meal, served with a biscuit, soda and a side of string cheese-- totaling 840 calories." The bottom line is that children are being sold on meals that are high in calories and low in nutritional value. It makes that fat and stupid, the results of which can be seen throughout our crumbling society, particularly in last week's election results. USAToday also sounded the alarm this morning, although, like the rest of the news coverage, none of this is ever connected to the politicians of both parties who accept bribes from AgriBusiness.

Yes, Yes, We Are What We Eat

Do Republicans want you and your family to die? Not necessarily. Republican Party orthodoxy adamantly opposes federal regulatory protections and has steadfastly claimed that the market-- which they worship far more assiduously than Jesus-- should correct health and safety issues, not the government. And if we lived in a rural 18th century setting they might be at least partially correct. But we don't; and they're not. Sure poisonous food will tend to put a company out of business-- the market forces in action-- but how about if a hundred or a thousand children die first?

Today's NY Times has a very different kind of editorial: "Food Safety For People Who Don't Cook." Being a raw foodist, I couldn't wait to read it. But it wasn't about people looking for nutritious diets by avoiding cooking and cancer-causing oils. It's about the polar opposite-- people who eat processed fast food-- and how avoiding outbreaks of foodborne illnesses is lately being called part of consumers' personal responsibility by the lucrative food processing industry. The Times assembled an impressive panel to debate the issue.

First up was Douglas Powell, an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University and the editor of barfblog.com. He makes the point that self-serving irresponsible companies like ConAgra are being ingenuous when they try to shove responsibility onto consumers.

Food safety isn’t simple-- it’s hard. For decades, consumers have been blamed for foodborne illness-- with unsubstantiated statements like, “the majority of foodborne illness happens in the home.” Yet increasingly the outbreaks in foods like peanut butter, pot pies, pet food, pizza, spinach and tomatoes have little to do with how consumers handle the food.

Everyone from farm-to-fork has a food safety responsibility, but putting the onus on consumers for processed foods or fresh produce is disingenuous-- especially for those who profit from the sale of these products.

Ann Cooper is a chef and author of Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children. For someone who eats cooked food her perspective is remarkably sane:

Large multi-national corporations started taking over our food supply a generation ago, convincing consumers that processed food would be safer and easier. If we look at advertisements from the 1950s, the message was that processed food would help mothers get out of the kitchen while providing nutritional food to their kids. The notion that processed is safer has carried over to school food service administrators all across the country, causing them to switch from roasting fresh chicken to highly processed chicken nuggets, pizza pockets and burritos, all hermetically sealed.

These plastic wrapped frozen lunch items are touted as safer because you heat them in the plastic, hold them in the plastic and serve them in the plastic, never needing to worry about contamination.

In fact these companies have gotten so good at marketing the safety of these products that most schools in our country are truly afraid of cooking raw chicken–- as if it’s a foreign object from another planet–- as opposed to a food that families have been cooking for eons.

And now, these food manufacturers-- the ones that convinced us to stop cooking and that good food can come frozen in plastic-- have realized that mass production can lead to unsafe food, and so they are trying to transfer the responsibility back to consumers who no longer know how to cook.

This is crazy. We now have a generation that doesn’t cook. If the companies are selling a fully cooked highly processed product, they-- not the eater-- should bear responsibility for its safety.

If we want a safe, healthy and delicious food supply we need to cook. We need to realize that highly processed foods aren’t better and even the companies are realizing that they’re not safer.

They close-- fair and balanced-- with right-wing ideologue Walter Olson, an apologist for Big Business: [W]hat seems to be increasing is not so much food-borne illness itself as our ability to trace its origins accurately, and get the word out about it widely and quickly. As for why food processors are moving to more conservative (higher-temperature) cooking recommendations, wouldn’t you do that too if faced with mounting political pressure and lawsuit risk? ...There has never been a guarantee that nasty bugs would not grow on food, and there isn’t one now."

I travel a lot and I prefer renting a house or apartment to staying in a hotel partially because it is so much more healthful in every way to prepare your own food than to eat out all the time. The apartment I rent in Bangkok is over a McDonald's and although the main entrance to the building is not through the McDonald's, it's a shortcut. It's also the only times I've ever been in a McDonald's. I don't eat that stuff; I don't even think of it as "food," just manufactured feeding materials. Have a great weekend. Here's your chance to learn something about eating healthy raw food as an alternative to the processed stuff that will make you sick and kill you.