… I love Starbucks. I know it’s probably a terrible waste of money, but I love their coffee. But it’s more than their coffee. It’s the whole “Starbucks Experience” that I love – the atmosphere, the comfortable chairs, the lighting, the music they play, and the smiling, friendly people who greet you and make you feel like you matter by catering to your personal tastes. …
Food-makers should have to prove the validity of their health claims …
In March the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued warning letters to 17 food and beverage manufacturers concerning false or misleading health and nutrition claims on their products. It was an unusually expansive crackdown for the agency, whose regulatory power over food companies has declined over the past decades, thanks to Congress and the courts, which have tended to come down on the side of the food companies. …
In 2006 Europe began holding food makers to rigorous scientific standards. Since then, the European Food Safety Authority has rejected, on the basis of insufficient evidence, a whopping 80 percent of the more than 900 claims they have assessed thus far. …
Differences between the lenient U.S. system and the more restrictive European system are easily apparent. For instance, visitors to the Web site for Activia (www.activia.com)—a yogurt product from Dannon—will have a very different experience depending on which country they indicate they are from. The U.S. version prominently displays the product’s putative health benefits, asserting that it can “help regulate your digestive system by helping reduce long intestinal transit time.” …
… Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car! …
Currently:
Thanks to one Rotten Ronnie’s going belly-up in California …
… in the high desert of northwestern Nevada, you’ll find antelope, wild horses, and the Lower-48′s new-and-improved McFarthest Spot …
At the grocery yesterday I could buy grapes for $99/lb … or $2.99/lb.
They look and taste identical to me.
Is it true that the cheaper grapes are plucked by slaves. … And that they cause Global Warming?
… I’m a skeptic.
Recall the TerraChoice study in 2007 that found that all but one of 1,018 products that made environmental claims, were misleading. Call it Greenwashing.
For a movement that’s always been touchy about being labeled elitist, the food movement has been surprisingly outspoken lately about the virtues of expensive food. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Michael Pollan sang the praises of sustainable eggs that cost eight dollars a dozen and delectable peaches that go for $3.90 each.
Such prices would seem less shocking, he assured readers, if conscientious consumers were willing to “pay more, eat less.” Likewise, when asked to explain how average (i.e., not famous and rich) consumers could actually be expected to spend more on food in the midst of a recession, Alice Waters was as clear as she was unabashed: “Make a sacrifice on the cell phone or the third pair of Nike shoes.” So there.
Needless to say, the backlash—as Pollan and Waters must have known it would be—was swift. Anthony Bourdain, who dedicates a full chapter of his latest book, Medium Raw, to attacking Waters’s airy idealism, scoffs at the idea that people should be willing to spend more on food: …
… So you’ve decided to switch from beer to vodka. Congrats on making the healthy choice. I have existed on not much more than pork fat and vitamin V for the last 10 years or so, and it has reversed the aging process for me. Thanks to Brother Smirnoff I am now 34 years old.
But seriously, good vodka is much better for one’s health than most alcoholic beverages because it is free of impurities. Unless one considers ethyl alcohol an impurity.
As for which brand of vodka I would recommend, it depends how you intend to drink it. If you are going to be mixing it with anything, then your best bets are brands like …
I’ve spent much quality time at Starbucks over the past year. I log in using my $10/month Boingo account.
No more.
… the free-for-all begins today. As of this very moment, the next US / Canadian corporately-ran Starbucks that you enter should be offering free one two-click WiFi, meaning that no password is required and no time limits will be set.
Of course, this also means that you’ll never see an open chair in any Starbucks ever again, but hey — that’s why sidewalks were created, right? …
Statscan found that 18 per cent of adult Canadians, about 4.4 million people, were classified as obese in 2009, up from 15 per cent in 2003.
We’re still getting fatter.
With less leisure time to exercise.
* One in five Canadian adult feels “caught in a time crunch,” experiencing high levels of time pressure
* That number is on the rise: the proportion of those who said they were in a time crunch grew to 19.6 per cent in 2005 from 16.4 per cent in 1992
* The average proportion of our waking lives devoted to social and leisure activities dropped by 20 per cent between 1998 and 2005
* A much higher proportion of females than males reported time pressure in 2005 — 22.7 for women, 16 per cent for men
* More than one in four employed Canadians were responsible for the care of an elderly dependent, and one in five (16.8 per cent) had responsibility for both child care and elder care in 2009
* The proportion of Canadians worked non-standard hours (weekends, evenings, nights, rotating shifts jumped from 23 per cent in 1992 to 29 per cent in 2009 …
… I love Starbucks. I know it’s probably a terrible waste of money, but I love their coffee. But it’s more than their coffee. It’s the whole “Starbucks Experience” that I love – the atmosphere, the comfortable chairs, the lighting, the music they play, and the smiling, friendly people who greet you and make you feel like you matter by catering to your personal tastes. …
Rick McCharles 