I'm not a big fan of the book Eat This, Not That. It purports to tell you which foods you should be eating in restaurants instead of other foods. Sometimes the comparison is good, but other times it just seems to save a person 100 calories here or a few grams of fat there and doesn't seem worth the bother (and sometimes the "eat this" choice has more carbs or salt). But I guess it's good to have the info.
Now Men's Health editor Dave Zinczenko exposes some restaurant secrets. Why don't some chains want us to know the nutritional numbers of their foods? What foods are often cooked with other foods in the kitchen? Do some fast food chains actually have healthier options than sit down restaurants?
Get ready to laugh: among Health magazine's top healthiest restaurants are - drum roll, please - Denny's, Bob Evans, and Romano's Macaroni Grill.
Hmm - the kings of maple syrup-drenched sausage and carb-heavy pasta dishes, respectively, are also the healthiest?
Granted, I don't go out to eat very often. But - are these places actually healthy? I find it hard to believe.
The magazine's other choices are equally as confusing: Olive Garden? Uno Chicago Grill? Last time I checked, phrases like "extra cheese" and "more breadsticks" were the norm at these haunts.
When I was young and my family lived in Los Angeles, we had a tradition that we'd go to Wendy's for dinner any time the power went out. In our little Eagle Rock bungalow, the power went out nearly every time it rained, which meant we got over to Wendy's at least once every couple of months. My parents liked Wendy's because they had baked potatoes and a salad bar, and as far as fast food went, it seemed better than many of the other alternatives.
However, it looks like Wendy's, soon won't be Wendy's, at least not as we currently know it. Arby's, the chain known for big (and in my opinion, mediocre) roast beef sandwiches, is gobbling up Wendy's for a cool $2.34 billion dollars. I am sure that Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's, is rolling over in his grave. According to this AP article, the rest of his family certainly isn't happy about it.
There's a new magazine out of France, and it's kinda cool in that weird, hipster-y PoMo sort of way. It's called Yummy, and its calling itself a "JunkFoodDesignMagazine" (because spaces between words are so passé).
The magazine - and web site - are mostly en Français, but obviously, art transcends language, and all that jazz, so your lack of French-speaking skills will not hinder your appreciation - or revulsion - from the site.
The featured art runs the gambit from Whodonut?, Virginia Barre's slightly disturbing illustrations of people living in a fast food nation, to Show Her, which seems to be a big excuse for the artist to show photos of a half-naked woman in a rainstorm, occasionally holding a soda bottle (hence, the food connection, I suppose).
Go check it out - you might just be inspired to make some food art of your own. Or just be really grossed out.
However, in an effort to woo back customers who have denied the fried for health reasons, the fast food fried chicken joint will start adding grilled chicken to their stores. The chicken will be called Kentucky Grilled Chicken (so it is KGC), but the company will continue to serve its namesake, fried chicken. The new grilled chicken has been and is currently being tested in Indianapolis, Colorado Springs, San Diego, Oklahoma City, Jacksonville, Fla., and Austin, Texas, with plans for the full national rollout in early January 2009.
We don't usually hear or read too much about food cart vendors. You know the ones - everyone has grabbed lunch from them at some time or another - whether in an unfamiliar city with no immediate restaurant choices, on a quick break from a long meeting, food cart meals are the original "go-to meals," before the term "go-to meal" even existed.
But the anonymity of vendors has changed this week, as articles appeared in both The New York Times and The Washington Post about the food carts and the businesspeople who run them.
In New York, Latin food vendors who have served the players and fans at Brooklyn's Red Hook soccer fields for the past 33 years faced being ousted from their spots if the Department of Parks and Recreation succeeded in "regulating" its permit process. In the end, the vendors were all allowed to stay and were issued a new six-year permit. But despite vendor fees remaining about the same (about $10,500 per year), reps of the vendors worry that the permit's new rule of standardizing equipment will mean vendors paying hefty fees for updated ovens and plumbing.
In D.C., vendors are feeling similar pressure, but for a different reason: instead of cutting back, D.C. wants to expand, but not among the current food options. Instead, citing surveys of citizens who say they want a larger food selection, the city is opening up the market to companies like Zipcar, an electric car company that wants to expand into gourmet and healthy food vending.
Don't you hate it when you're sitting down in a Jack In the Box with a Sourdough Jack, large bacon cheese potato wedges and a Diet Coke and suddenly you get this urge to, oh, I don't know? -- check out who's left messages on your wall on Facebook -- and you can't get online?
Don't you hate that?
Not to worry anymore, as is it is seems that Jack in the Box actually offers free wi fi in their restaurants. All you have to do is look for a giant TV screen, snatch the five-digit code off the screen, and get online. It's not a rumor, because the wi-fi is actually available according to Knowzy, but Jack In the Box has not officially confirmed.
McDonald's is really reaching now. They're in the process of converting hundreds of their restaurants into feng shui havens to create soothing environments for their customers. The first restaurant to undergo the transformation is, where else? Los Angeles.
Feng shui is a philosophy that manifests in very specific arrangements of space and arrangement of objects. In this first McDonald's with a feng shui environment, earth tones, plants, and running water replace the circus red and yellow of old.
So you can relax while you're throwing down a couple of Big Macs now.
The foods were chosen based on sheer caloric impact alone, because in the end, it all comes down to the number of calories we consume and burn. However, some "allowances" were made for excessive carbohydrates and fat, added sugars, trans fats, and sodium. After all their calculations, the Aussie Cheese Fries weigh in at 2,900 calories, 182 g fat, and 240 g carbs. Even if you do the polite thing and share the order with three other people, your starter alone will already put you over a dinner's worth of calories before the server even brings your entree to the table.
So I guess that means, order the Aussie Fries and a glass of water for dinner, right?
Thinking about the coming recession? Wondering where on your already tight budget you can make some cuts?
Don't worry. Fast food is here to save the wallet!
Apparently, fast-food chains have already felt the pinch of recessions fears with slacking sales, and in anticipation of what might become a full-blown hit, have begun offering value items on their menus. Wendy's introduced the double cheeseburger "Stack Attack" on its 99-cent value menu, Burger King's usually $2 Double Cheeseburger is half price for $1 now, and even non-burger fast food restaurants like Tao Bell are in the discount game with 99 cent gorditas.
I'm just waiting for In N Out to offer a $1 Double Double. Animal-style, of course.
Recently, German researchers fed lab mice separate "human" and "chimp" diets, and within just two weeks, were able to notice distinct psychological and genetic differences in the rodents.
There were three different diets: a raw food-only diet; meals from the researchers' local cafeteria; and a pure fast-food diet. The researchers found a huge difference in the livers of the mice with a chimp diet versus those with a human diet (I'm scared to hear about the difference in their hearts and arteries!) They found thousands of differences in the genes expressed in the mouse livers, which they think may be caused by our differences in diets.
...You got all that? Okay. The scientists also found that said genes seemed to evolve faster than other genes.
So, basically, our ancestors' adoption of meat and cooked foods may have shaped us into the carnivorous, brownie-eating, beer-guzzling beings we are today.
If you're hungry and willing to fork over the cash, there are plenty of companies that will be willing to deliver you a meal. MSNBC recently noted a few companies that are now bringing their goods right to your front door (or, in some cases, your kid's school).
For $100, California-based RAWvolution will send you a box filled with two soups, four entrees, four side dishes and two desserts, all - you guessed it - raw and organic.
For parents who are way too busy to throw an apple and a pb&j in a paper bag for their kid, they can schedule to have Freshlunches deliver Junior a healthy, organic lunch (about $4-$7 per day), just like mom would make. Except...she didn't. Some company did. Oh, well - guess it's better than Lunchables, right?
Three Potato Four will send you a week's worth of food (or so they say), which includes four organic vegetarian entrees, two side dishes, soup, salad, dessert, and bread. Heck, they even throw in some flowers for ambiance!
Now, these options are all well and good, but if you want healthy food delivered to your family, why not join a CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) program, and support your local farms while going easy on transportation emissions in the process? And if you need some company to make your kid's lunch every day, maybe you should re-assess your super-busy schedule, no?
NYC's Board of Health attempted last year to pass a measure that forced fast food joints to post calorie counts on their menu boards, right where people could see them (and, I guess, be horrified by them and run screaming from the restaurant. Or...something. Not quite sure what the city's goal was).
At any rate, a judge struck down the measure, so now they're back to where they started. But they're not giving up on trying to hoard their mighty caloric knowledge on the citizens of New York! By golly, they will succeed in getting people to acknowledge the 600 calories in that Premium Crispy Chicken Ranch BLT Sandwich they're eating! And then the Board of Health officials will sleep soundly at night, feeling virtuous that they have single-handedly handled the "obesity epidemic." Right?
For the record, Burger King and McDonald's already make this information available (it took me half a minute to find how many calories were in that Chicken McWhatever listed above), they just don't advertise it like the marquee outside of Radio City. Currently, if the city's restaurants want to display their food's nutritional info, they are more than welcome to.
And I mean, really, how many people nowadays don't know that fast food is bad for them? I highly doubt that prominently displaying caloric information will make people who have already walked through a eatery's doors gawk at the fat content and walk out of the store in a huff. I mean, if I want a cookie, I'm eating the cookie knowing that it's bad for me (and even secretly reveling in that fact).
If enacted, the regulation will go into effect March 31. So, until then, we can remain uneducated, bumbling masses. Sound good?
It's pretty stiff competition out there now in the pizza chain delivery business. First there was online ordering so you wouldn't even have to break your stride while working away at your computer. Then came Papa John's ordering via text message. Driving home from work and don't want to stop somewhere to pick up dinner? Just send a text message with your order. Not soon after we saw Papa John's implement pizza ordering via text message, Pizza Hut is offering the same service.
This doesn't quite apply to me because I wake up before sunrise without an alarm (probably because I have coffee pulsing through my veins in place of blood), but for anyone who happens to be "morning impaired," the Society for the Morning Impaired wants to bribe you out of bed with a free Sausage McGriddle from McDonald's. You sign up to join the society, then supposedly an electronic coupon appears in your email inbox. We say "supposedly" because we tried to sign up -- we may not be morning impaired but we fall all over ourselves for anything off of McDonalds' breakfast menu -- and were told that the offer is not available in our area (we're on LA's westside). Obviously, this is a marketing program from McDonald's but we certainly don't have a problem with that. Market away if it means free food!
Have you ever stashed a Coke in the freezer, hoping to chill it quickly, then forgotten all about it, only to have it explode all over your frozen peas?
I'm not a big fan of the book Eat This, Not That. It purports to tell you which foods you should be eating in restaurants instead of other foods. Sometimes the comparison is good, but other times it just seems to save a person 100 calories here or a few grams of fat there and doesn't seem worth the bother (and sometimes the "eat this" choice has more carbs or salt). But I guess it's good to have the info.
When I was young and my family lived in Los Angeles, we had a tradition that we'd go to Wendy's for dinner any time the power went out. In our little Eagle Rock bungalow, the power went out nearly every time it rained, which meant we got over to Wendy's at least once every couple of months. My parents liked Wendy's because they had baked potatoes and a salad bar, and as far as fast food went, it seemed better than many of the other alternatives. 
Well, not really. 
Don't you hate it when you're sitting down in a Jack In the Box with a Sourdough Jack, large bacon cheese potato wedges and a Diet Coke and suddenly you get this urge to, oh, I don't know? -- check out who's left messages on your wall on Facebook -- and you can't get online?
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
