Category Archives: Food

July 10, 2011 · 10:10 pm

Major Grocer Getting Rid of Self-Checkout Lanes

Well, this is a step in the right direction.

I hate these self-checkout lanes.  They are impersonal, don’t work right half the time and take jobs away from people.

Hell, we are supposed to be a service-based society now that we don’t manufacture anything anymore.  This was just another way to destroy service and service jobs…

Good riddance!

Hat tip to AmericaBlog where I first saw this link to MSNBC:

One of the nation’s major grocery store chains is eliminating self-checkout lanes in an effort to encourage more human contact with its customers.

Albertsons LLC, which operates 217 stores in seven Western and Southern states, will eliminate all self-checkout lanes in the 100 stores that have them and will replace them with standard or express lanes, a spokeswoman said.

“We just want the opportunity to talk to customers more,” Albertsons spokeswoman Christine Wilcox said. “That’s the driving motivation.”

Privately held Albertsons LLC operates stores in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. To find a store, click here.

The move does not affect stores operated by grocery giant Supervalu, which operates more than 450 Albertsons stores in 16 states including Nevada, southern California and the Pacific Northwest.

Wilcox said the replacement of automated checkout lanes with human-operated lanes likely would mean more hours available for employees to work.

The move marks a surprising step back from a trend that began about a decade ago, when supermarkets began installing self-checkout lanes, touting them as a solution to long lines. Now some grocery chains are questioning whether they are really good for business.

Kroger, the largest grocery chain in the U.S. (with some 2,500 outlets), is experimenting with removing all self-checkouts in at least one Texas store, reports StorefrontBacktalk, an industry publication. Publix, another major chain, is “on the fence” about self-checkout, according to a report quoted in the story.

Self-checkout industry leader NCR Corp., which counts Albertsons among its clients, does not see the grocery chain’s move as a threat to its business, said company spokesman Cameron Smith.

He said more than 150 retailers in 22 countries use the company’s self-checkout lanes, and not just for groceries. The market is projected to grow by about 15 percent annually, he said.

“Ultimately, customers appreciate the choice of self-checkout,” he said.

via Major grocer getting rid of self-checkout lanes – Business – Consumer news – Retail – msnbc.com.

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June 14, 2011 · 4:02 pm

Tomatoland

Fascinating article about grocery store tomatoes from Barry Estabrook’s blog and new book “Tomatoland.”  I just ordered a copy of the book.

I very rarely buy out of season tomatoes.  Now, I don’t think I’ll ever do it again…

Besides, the grocery store tomatoes have no taste.  They are just a waste of time and money.

I always look forward to June when the first fresh tomatoes come in at the Farmer’s Market and I can buy them there.  They are so much better…

Supermarket produce sections bulging with a year-round supply of perfectly round, bright red-orange tomatoes have become all but a national birthright. But in Tomatoland, which is based on his James Beard Award–winning article, “The Price of Tomatoes,” investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge human and environmental cost of the $5 billion fresh tomato industry. Fields are sprayed with  more than 100 different herbicides and pesticides. Tomatoes are picked hard and green and artificially gassed until their skins acquire a marketable hue. Modern plant breeding has tripled yields, but produces fruits with a fraction of the calcium, Vitamin A, and Vitamin C, and fourteen tiimes as much sodium as the tomatoes our parents enjoyed. The relentless drive for low costs has fostered a thriving modern-day slave trade in the United States. How have we come to this point?

Estabrook traces the supermarket tomato from its birthplace in the deserts of Peru to the impoverished town of Immokalee, Florida, a.k.a. the tomato capital of the United States. He visits the laboratories of seedsmen trying to develop varieties that can withstand the rigors of agribusiness and still taste like a garden tomato, and then moves on to commercial growers who operate on tens of thousands of acres, and eventually to a hillside field in Pennsylvania, where he meets an obsessed farmer who produces delectable tomatoes for the nation’s top restaurants.

Throughout Tomatoland, Estabrook presents a Who’s Who cast of characters in the tomato industry: The avuncular octogenarian whose conglomerate grows one out of every eight tomatoes eaten in the United States; the ex-marine who heads the group that dictates the size, color, and shape of every tomato shipped out of Florida; the United States attorney who has doggedly prosecuted human traffickers for the past decade; the Guatemalan peasant who came north to earn money for his parents’ medical bills and found himself enslaved for two years.

Tomatoland reads like a suspenseful whodunit and an exposé of today’s agribusiness systems and the price we pay as a society when we take taste and thought out of our food purchases.

via Tomatoland.

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May 22, 2011 · 12:17 pm

The Man, The Can: Recipes Of The Real Chef Boyardee : NPR

I don’t think I could choke this stuff down today if I had to…

But growing up with a Mother who couldn’t- or wouldn’t- cook anything edible, we would have starved without Chef Boyardee!

Unlike the friendly but fictional food faces of Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, Chef Boyardee — that jovial, mustachioed Italian chef — is real. Ettore “Hector” Boiardi (that’s how the family really spells it) founded the company with his brothers in 1928, after the family immigrated to America from Italy.

Though America came to know him as Chef Boyardee — in the apron and trademark tall hat — Anna Boiardi knew him simply as Uncle Hector. Anna carried on her family’s culinary tradition; her new book, Delicious Memories, is part cookbook, part family history and part homage to her ancestors — immigrants who made their way in a new country.

via The Man, The Can: Recipes Of The Real Chef Boyardee : NPR.

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May 12, 2011 · 2:40 pm

McDonald’s Revamps Stores to Look Like Starbucks

I’m glad they are so focused on the aesthetics, but what about the food?

Remember that Happy Meal Test?

They are still serving those hamburgers that never decompose when left outside for months….

McDonald’s is looking less like McDonald’s and more like Starbucks.

By Brian Blanco, for USA TODAY

At a time when most of McDonald’s competitors are still shell-shocked from the recent recession, the fast-food giant is undertaking its biggest store-by-store makeover in the chain’s 56-year history: The 500-pound clown of fast food is trying to look more like a grown-up.

It’s a $1 billion-plus undertaking that McDonald’s and its franchisees hope, by 2015, will have the vast majority of America’s 14,000 McDonald’s looking comfortable enough to hang out in long after you’ve gobbled down your burger, fries — and smoothie.

For the next generation of McDonald’s customers, the notion of what a McDonald’s restaurant looks like inside and out could be turned on its head. Goodbye, fiberglass tables and industrial steel chairs. Adios, neon-yellow, bright-red interiors. Hello, wooden tables, comfortable faux leather chairs and interiors newly painted in muted oranges, yellows and even subtle greens.

Take away all the McDonald’s signage — and the familiar front counter area — and customers who were to drive by or step inside wouldn’t likely know they were face-to-face with a McDonald’s. Even from the street, many of the changes are immediately apparent. No more clown-red roofs. No more confusion about what door to use. And that all-too-familiar white facade has been replaced with more inviting earth tones and glass.

More:  McDonald’s revamps stores to look more upscale – USATODAY.com.

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May 10, 2011 · 9:56 pm

7 Restaurant Tricks – Ways for You to Spend More

Interesting article from Dr Mercola and Yahoo Finance…

Menu engineering is used by restaurants to steer you to order high-profit items. Yahoo finance has collected a list of some common menu ploys:

  1. First in show. You are more likely to order the first item on a list in a given section of the menu (such as the “chicken” or “beef” section.) That’s where many restaurants place the most profitable dish of that type.
  2. Menu Siberia. Unprofitable dishes, on the other hand, tend to get banished to a corner that’s less noticeable.
  3. Visual aids. Many menus box off something they want to promote, because if you draw a line around it, people will order it. Photos also sell dishes.
  4. Package deals. Even if only a small percentage of the McDonald’s customers spend some extra dollars on a meal package, that translates to millions in additional revenue.
  5. Dollar-sign avoidance. Some menus avoid dollar signs and decimals — keeping money abstract makes spending less threatening.
  6. The small plate-large plate conundrum. A restaurant may offer two sizes of the same dish; that price differential is almost pure profit.
  7. Ingredient embroidery. If the menu makes each ingredient sound ultra-special, it will sell better; it may be the same dish you would get anywhere else, but you’ll start to think you can only get it there.

via 7 Restaurant Tricks – Ways for You to Spend More.

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April 30, 2011 · 11:19 am

Secret shame: Paula Deen hides diabetes from fans while continuing to promote high-fat recipes | Mail Online

Is anyone truly surprised by this?

Everyone knows how unhealthy our native Southern cuisine is…

And Paula Deen’s version is Southern Cuisine on Steroids….

You can’t blame her from trying to hang on to what made her rich and famous…

Still, you also would think she would start preaching a little moderation…

A family friend of Deen’s told the Enquirer: ‘When Paula was diagnosed with diabetes I think she was worried that if her secret got out, it would make her look like a hypocrite.

‘Ironically, the very thing that made her rich and famous turned her into a poster child for what could happen if you follow in her footsteps.’

One of Deen’s most famous dishes is the Lady’s Brunch Burger, which is a hamburger topped with bacon and a fried egg and served on a glazed donut.

Her devastation at allegedly being diagnosed with diabetes went further than her career – the friend told the Enquirer that she simply loves to eat high-fat, high-calorie foods.

The source said: ‘At first she resisted doctor’s orders to drastically change her diet, but eventually she realised that if she didn’t it would put her into an early grave.’

Her health conscious husband Michael Groover is said to have helped to persuade Paula to change her ways, added the source.

This thing is disgusting….

INGREDIENTS OF PAULA’S BRUNCH BURGER

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

3 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley leaves

2 tablespoons grated onion

2 tablespoons butter

3 eggs

6 slices bacon, cooked

3 hamburger buns

3 English muffins

6 glazed donuts

via Secret shame: Paula Deen hides diabetes from fans while continuing to promote high-fat recipes | Mail Online.

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April 26, 2011 · 7:48 pm

Jon Bon Jovi’s New Restaurant Is Pay-What-You-Can

This is really cool…

From TakePart.com:

For anyone who’s living on a prayer—or looking to give love a good name—a new opportunity is springing up in Red Bank, New Jersey: it’s Jon Bon Jovi’s Soul Kitchen, a restaurant where patrons pay what they can afford and volunteers help run the restaurant.

The Soul Kitchen, which will enjoy a grand opening this Spring, is founded on the principle that a healthy meal can feed the soul. Diners can pick any item on the menu and pay what they’re able. Patrons who don’t have money can volunteer an hour of their time in the kitchen to cover the cost of their meal, and anyone who can afford to give a little more than the recommended donation of $10 will be helping to feed someone with less means.

Most importantly, stresses the Kitchen’s website, the restaurant is a place for conversation and community. Volunteer staff serve diners with respect and friendliness, and patrons are encouraged to meet and greet new friends.

via Bon Jovi’s New Restaurant Is Pay-What-You-Can | TakePart – Inspiration to Action.

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April 15, 2011 · 9:54 pm

Meat contaminated: US meat contaminated with staph bacteria

And the Republicans want to cut funding for Food Safety inspections?

From the LA Times:

Meat in the U.S. may be widely contaminated with strains of drug-resistant bacteria, researchers reported Friday.

Nearly half of all meat and poultry sampled in a new study contained drug-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus, the type of bacteria that most commonly causes staph infections. Such infections can take many forms, from a minor rash to pneumonia or sepsis. But the findings are less about direct threats to humans than they are about the risks of using antibiotics in agriculture.

Researchers from the Translational Genomics Research Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research center in Phoenix, analyzed 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey from 80 brands. The samples came from 26 grocery stores in five cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Flagstaff, Ariz., and Washington, D.C.

About half — 47% of the samples — contained S. aureus, the researchers reported Friday in Clinical Infectious Diseases. Of those bacteria, 52% were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics. DNA testing suggested the animals were the source of contamination. The research was funded by the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming.

“The fact that drug-resistant S. aureus was so prevalent, and likely came from the food animals themselves, is troubling, and demands attention to how antibiotics are used in food-animal production today,” said Lance Price, lead author of the study and director of TGen’s Center for Food Microbiology and Environmental Health, said in a news release.

Antibiotics are routinely given to livestock to promote growth and prevent disease in crowded pens. Last summer, the Food and Drug Administration urged the meat industry to cut back on antibiotics use over concerns that the bacterial resistance bred in stockyards makes antibiotics less effective in humans.

About 11,000 people die every year from S. aureus infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than half of those deaths are from the hospital “superbug” methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA).

The direct risk to meat consumers – a staph infection from the meat — can be reduced by cooking meat thoroughly and washing all foods or surfaces that come in contact with raw meat. But the wider danger is to public health—that antibiotics will become increasingly ineffective in humans.

via Meat contaminated: US meat contaminated with staph bacteria – latimes.com.

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April 3, 2011 · 11:55 am

How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick : NPR

This article from NPR is further evidence of the harmful effects of the modern diet.

I really think this is going to be a bigger story as the current generations age and life expectancy drops…

This crap that passes for food now just isn’t good for you!

But, again, the Corporations control the government that frequently subsidizes the practices behind this trend.

I can’t say it often enough:  Buy local food, buy seasonally produced food and buy organic food whenever possible….

And encourage your representatives to support these healthy and sustainable practices instead of subsidizing Monsanto….

In a conversation on Fresh Air, Patterson tells Terry Gross that the effects of urbanization are making people everywhere in the world both fatter and sicker.

“Type 2 diabetes historically didn’t exist, only 70 or 80 years ago,” says Patterson. “And what’s driven it, of course, is this rise in obesity, especially the accumulation of abdominal fat. That fat induces changes in our receptors that cells have for insulin. Basically, it makes them numb to the effect of insulin.”

For a long time, the human body can compensate — the pancreas secretes even larger amounts of insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels. But over time, the pancreas begins to fail to secrete enough insulin, and that is when diabetes develops.

He explains that the increase in abdominal fat has driven the epidemic of diabetes over the last 40 years in the developed world — and that he’s now seeing similar patterns in undeveloped regions that have adapted Western eating patterns.

Patterson explains that in his Canadian practice, where he takes care of indigenous populations near the Arctic Circle, there is a marked increase in the number of diabetic patients he sees.

“The traditional Inuit culture of relentless motion and a traditional diet consisting mainly of caribou, Arctic char, whale and seal has been abandoned over this period of time for Kentucky Fried Chicken and processed food and living a life very similar to ours,” he says. “[They’re] spending a lot of time in front of a glowing screen.”

Part of the problem, says Patterson, is that it’s so much cheaper for processed food to be flown into the Arctic Circle than fresh food.

“There’s no roads or rail access to any of those communities,” he says. “So a 4 liter jug of milk can cost you $10 or $11. But there’s a very clear parallel between that and the inner city. In poorer neighborhoods in North American cities, fresh food is either not available or extremely expensive compared to — on a calorie-by-calorie basis — compared to fast food available on every street corner.”

MORE:   How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick : NPR.

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March 31, 2011 · 8:16 pm

Know the Dangers and Health Effects of Soda Consumption

Interesting info here…

I never touch the stuff, so I can gloat a little…

I’m convinced High Fructose Corn Syrup is evil…

From ABC news via Dr Mercola…

Click the link for the video:

Soda is on my list of the five absolute worst foods and drinks you can consume.  The video above offers a compelling illustration of why I make this claim.

In it, reporter Yunji DeNies drinks a 20-ounce glass of cola, which contains the equivalent of 16 teaspoons of sugar in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This is nearly three times the maximum daily sugar intake recommended by the American Heart Association.

HFCS typically contains a mixture of 45 percent glucose and 55 percent fructose (although recent investigations have found that many brand-name sodas actually contain 65 percent fructose!).

Once ingested, your pancreas rapidly begins to create insulin in response to the sugar. The rise in blood sugar is quite rapid. Here’s a play-by-play of what happens in your body upon drinking a can of soda:

Within 20 minutes, your blood sugar spikes, and your liver responds to the resulting insulin burst by turning massive amounts of sugar into fat.

Within 40 minutes, caffeine absorption is complete; your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, and your liver dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. As you could see in the report above, DeNies’ blood glucose level was 79 at the outset of the experiment, and after 40 minutes it had risen to 111!

Around 45 minutes, your body increases dopamine production, which stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain – a physically identical response to that of heroin, by the way.

After 60 minutes, you’ll start to have a blood sugar crash, and you may be tempted to reach for another sweet snack or beverage.

As I’ve discussed on numerous occasions, chronically elevated insulin levels (which you would definitely have if you regularly drink soda) and the subsequent insulin resistance is a foundational factor of most chronic disease, from diabetes to cancer.

via Know the Dangers and Health Effects of Soda Consumption.

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