MSN money asks use to to take a moment and imagine if no one in the US were overweight. I lose. I can't do it! I know so few people, myself included, who aren't overweight (they consider overweight to be 20 or more pounds too heavy). However, I'll humor them by suspending disbelief, and attempting to imagine.
MSN says, "add the savings up on health, food, clothing and efficiencies, and you could buy a professional home gym for every U.S. household -- or hand each $4,270 in cash." There would be a total of $487 billion dollars in national savings. Read the article for details on how they came up with that number.
What would you do with your extra $4,270 dollars? I'd definitely go out for lots of fancy dinners with no skimping on the dessert course. Hmm.. that would defeat the point though, wouldn't it?
Writing in Slate, Sara Dickerman complains about how, despite the looming recession and sky-high food price inflation, food writers continue to rhapsodize over black truffles and $24 a pound Papillon Roquefort, without even a nod towards the fact that these ingredients cost more than many people's weekly food budgets. Any cookbook that mentions cost tends to be the kind of retro, housewifely home ec treatise that recommends things like sloppy joes and cabbage stew. Why not combine price-consciousness with foodie flair, Dickerman wonders?
Over at Salon, the always-hilarious Heather Havrilesky writes about the recession and the comforts of coupon clipping and worrying over the price of a $1 bag of dried navy beans. In hard times, people will need to get back to basics, quit obsessing about the origin of their organic lambs lettuce, return to crock pot cooking and making do. Maybe Dickerman can combine her food savvy with Havrilesky's thrift and write a cookbook?
In old movies and cartoons, it was common to see someone use a cake to smuggle a file, which they could use to break themselves out, into an inmate at the local prison. At the cartoon end, the file could be replaced with anything from dynamite to a jackhammer, as the characters didn't have to be particularly subtle to get themselves out of the slammer. Things have to be done more subtle for those who want to smuggle things into prisons in real life, but food can still play a roll. A prison guard at Leflore County jail in Mississippi was arrested after he was caught smuggling in money and marijuana in a large pile of mashed potatoes (That green stuff? Those are just chives...) in at lunch time, when an unidentified woman dropped them off for him. His undoing was a food preference issue, not being careless with the contraband itself. The thing that made investigators suspicious was that the officer said that he didn't eat potatoes and couldn't explain why he was getting such a large portion of them delivered to him at work.
Obesity in Britain, as it is in the US, is often referred to as an epidemic due to the quickly expanding waistlines of so many in the country. The Department of Health puts the number of overweight or obese people in Britain at 24.6 million, or around 40% of the total population, and they expect to see numbers increase over the next decade. People in the US are slightly healthier than they were lest year, in part because of trends towards healthier eating (even though we are still seeing a tremendous amount of very unhealthy food out there), but this same trend is not noticeable in the UK, according to a new study.
This study, which surveyed more than 12 million consumers about their shopping habits over the past four years, found that only 8% of Britons made an effort to buy healthier, more nutritious foods, such as organic products and "food with labels such as fresh, lite or low fat." 44% of British shoppers had made no effort to buy healthier foods, sticking with "value or extra-value lines" of products." Interestingly, there wasn't much difference in price between the baskets of the healthy shoppers and those who opted for cheaper, less nutritious foods. The healthy baskets cost an "average of £71.78compared with £71.18 for an unhealthy one," which means that most shoppers were buying what they perceived as value at a cost to their health and without saving anything in their wallets.
Recorking is a term applied when a partially full bottle of wine is re-sealed so that the patron can take it to-go if they haven't finished it by the time their meal is over. Some restaurants even stock specially sized bags - clear in states that require it and discrete brown in most other locations - for packing up the unfinished bottles. Packing up bottles of wine is less common than packing a regular doggie-bag, so not all restaurants will have appropriate bags, but even without them, restaurants are starting to use recorking as a means of increasing their margins, boosting liquor sales by encouraging patrons to buy bottles, rather than just a glass at a time.
Getting the bottles to-go can be trickier than it sounds, however. Thirty-four states may currently allow it, but forty states have open-container laws that prohibit open bottles of alcohol, even corked ones, from being in a moving vehicle (the specifics depend on the state).
Difficulties of getting the bottle home aside, does recorking make you more likely to go for the full bottle? Would it if a favorite restaurant began to offer the service?
It is probably not surprising to hear that kids often use money they are given to purchase school lunches to buy junk food, either on campus or after school. What is surprising is the number of students who do it. Researchers in the UK found that more than 2 million students, about 25% of all students from 4 to 16, skip lunch and buy junk foods with the money, and roughly 1 million students in the same age range "fib" about the amount of fruits and vegetables that they eat.
If there was ever a good reason to take the time to pack a lunch at home for kids to take to school, and to make sure kids are eating healthy at least while they are at home, this is it. Kids can still have cookies, chips and candy sometimes, but the report indicated that "some [students] even cheat by throwing away oranges and bananas in their lunchboxes but bringing home the peel." Kids should also to learn to eat - and appreciate - the foods that are good for them to develop healthy eating habits.
It is not surprising to note that a meal eaten at a restaurant is more expensive than one eaten at home. You are paying for the cooking and service, as well as for the food itself. What is surprising is that people are actually spending more money eating out than eating at home overall.
Official figures released in Britain show that people are spending £2 billion more on restaurant food than on food that they might cook themselves. On top of that, spending on food and drink has more than doubled in the same time period, which indicates that people are eating more food, more often.
With the rise in popularity of cooking programs and the ever-growing trend for gourmet home cooking, it is possible that the numbers will hold as they are, though few people want to give up "exotic" foods that they think they can't cook at home, like curries and sushi.
Intelligentsia Coffee is on a mission to get the best beans money can buy, and they have an unusual strategy for getting results. Instead of seeking out beans and trying to get the at the lowest price point possible, they seek out direct trade relationships with growers, help them to grow the best coffee they can and then pay them far more than the going rate for the beans. In fact, they pay growers over 25% more than the Fair Trade coffee prices. They charge their customers a fair price, too, and no one is complaining.
Why isn't Fair Trade's standard good enough for Intelligentsia? "Fair Trade relates to working conditions, not the quality of coffee beans." And while the working conditions are important, it is the beans, not the workers, which flavor the coffee. With the growers, Intelligentsia offers financial incentives and trains them to improve their growing methods, producing premium beans. They also help communities develop coffee tasting centers and teach them to evaluate their own products, because Intelligentsia pays individual farmers based on their products, not a flat rate to a production company or co-op. Furthermore, one of their guarantees to their growers is that their rates will only increase over time.
The company's promise to consumers is some of the best coffee in the world.
Some schools are offering parents a new way to watch what their kids eat. Instead of simply offering healthier choices in the school cafeteria, students will have to use a fingerprint scanner to "pay" for their foods. The scanner debits an account that the parents maintain and it will have built in spending limits, so parents can set aside $5, or whatever the cost of the school lunch is. The main benefit of the scanner is not to provide an easier way to pay for lunch, but to prevent kids from buying unhealthy junk foods when they're off campus. If they don't have any cash, they will be forced to "buy" their food as school, rather than skipping lunch and eating a king sized Kit Kat and a Slurpee after school.
There are other applications to the fingerprint scanners that might make them a more useful choice for schools, as well. For example, they could replace the regular "roll call" and students could sign in by scanning their finger when walking in to class.
Apparently, some "experts" want Mother's Day to be canceled on the grounds that there "should be no such thing" and mothers should be appreciated every day. True enough, but in my experience, everyone likes to feel special sometimes, and having one day that is a little extra special is a very enjoyable thing. It's like treating yourself to an ice cream cone on a hot day instead of just having a Coke to cool down. It is possible, however, that things are getting a little out of control - especially when it comes to dining out.
Mother's Day is the most popular day of the year for dining out, followed by Valentine's Day. I've already speculated as to why this is, but that's not the issue. The issue is where people are eating. I remember walking down the street to have a pancake breakfast with my mom, or perhaps driving out to the beach to be near the water. I was definitely not paying $70 per person for a prix fixe menu, as touted in my local paper by some establishments, nor do I intend to in the future. It's not that my mom doesn't "deserve" that, it's just that Mother's Day is about spending time with your mom and appreciating her, even if it's just over a cup of coffee.
Are you taking your mom out to eat this year? Is it somewhere really "special" or just somewhere you can enjoy her company?
Health magazine put together their list of what they considered to be the "best foods for busy women." What they
clearly meant to say was the "best pre-packaged meals/snacks for busy women". There isn't anything
necessarily wrong with this sort of meal, but I would hardly go so far as to say it is the "best," since my
definition of "best" does not generally include a lot of shelf-stable pre-packaged meals. Nevertheless, here
are their picks:
Breakfast South Beach Diet Denver-Style Breakfast Wrap Post Raisin Bran Cereal Bars
One of the first major studies on the birthday
industry has been done in England. It showed that over £1.6 billion pounds, or approximately $2.8 billion
dollars, are spent annually on birthday celebrations. The average Briton spends about £47.77 pounds on their own
special day and around £30.69 on birthday presents for others. The managing director of the financial firm which
conducted the study suggested that the amount spent reflects the advance planning that events like birthdays receive,
because people now plan months in advance for something that was once simply marked with a cake.
MSN money asks use to to take a moment and imagine if no one in the US were overweight. I lose. I can't do it! I know so few people, myself included, who aren't overweight (they consider overweight to be 20 or more pounds too heavy). However, I'll humor them by suspending disbelief, and attempting to imagine. 
Writing in 
In old movies and cartoons, it was common to see someone 
It is probably not surprising to hear that kids often use money they are given to purchase school lunches to buy junk food, either on campus or after school. What is surprising is the number of students who do it. 
It is not surprising to note that a meal eaten at a restaurant is more expensive than one eaten at home. You are paying for the cooking and service, as well as for the food itself. What is surprising is that people are actually 
Intelligentsia Coffee
Some schools are offering parents a new way to watch what their kids eat. Instead of simply offering healthier choices in the school cafeteria, students will have to use a 
Apparently, some "experts" want 
Health magazine put together their list of what they considered to be the "
One of the first major studies on 
DIY Foods: Making homemade sausage
Cakes so amazing they'd be hard to cut into
Fruit juice: An invitation to diabetes?
