"supersize" news and stories

It seems the fast-food chain that invented the notion of "supersizing" just can't help itself. McDonald's is testing a new version of its Chicken Snack Wrap, and it's not a snack any more: the Chicken Grande Wrap is a full-fledged meal in and of itself.

The Sante Fe BBQ wrap comes with BBQ ranch sauce, black beans and corn. McDonald's has also come up with a Garden Ranch version and one called "Roma Pesta," with tomato pesto and garlic aioli. All three wraps are made with diced cucumber, shredded cheese, sliced tomato and lettuce, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. And you can get the chicken either grilled or fried. These wraps cost about $4, more than twice as much as the "snack" versions.

The real question we have is: why wraps? Didn't that craze sort of peak back when everybody's uncle was on the Atkins diet and Krispy Kreme stock was tanking? Even as McDonald's has introduced the snack wraps and its Angus versions of the same, it seems like every time we go to a Mickey D's, everyone is just eating burgers. Which begs the question: who's ordering these strange sandwich-burrito hybrids? Perhaps they're of the same elusive demographic as those voters who are "undecided" two days before election day and people who actually buy stuff from Joan Rivers on QVC.

Vibrant Swiss chard from the Torrance farmers' market. Photo: clayirving, Flickr.

In the "treacherous food landscape" of today's supermarkets, noted New York Times contributor and author Michael Pollan has culled a collection of "Rules to Eat By" to help readers navigate "through the minefields of the modern-food marketplace or restaurant menu."

He requested suggestions from New York Times readers in March as research for an upcoming book and received more than 2,500 in just a few days. With food policies ranging from the innate ("Don't eat egg salad from a vending machine"), to quirky ("Don't yuck someone's yum"), to moral ("Don't eat anything you aren't willing to kill yourself"), Pollan's 20 favorites provide a helpful guide to eating right.

As food takes a longer and longer path -- and transformation -- from its origins, and the food industry gains increasing influence over what is deemed "nutritious" according to federal standards, eating right has become more and more abstruse. With the constant rise of misguided or unsound food principles -- Paula Deen categorizing her strawberry cake as "fruit" on "The View," KFC's Double Down sandwich swapping its bun for two servings of fried chicken, a markedly "Supersized" culture -- Pollan stresses the importance of the elementary practice of trusting culture, and following our leaders -- mothers and fathers and friends -- rather than increasingly convoluted federal nutrition guidelines when making appropriate food choices.

Weary of the "era of dazzling food science, supersize portions and widespread dietary confusion," Pollan published "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," took the James Beard Award for best food writing and is currently the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley.

One of the pastry classes at the Oregon Coast Culinary Institute took on a big task this year. They learned how to recreate preservative-laden childhood favorites without using the preservatives or the machines that are typically used to engineer candies like gummy worms, Zingers and lollipops. And then they made them giant.

At their final exhibition, there were cupcakes and candies that would have fit in perfectly at Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Perhaps the most impressive was the creation made by Brandon Finley: a giant tootsie pop. Pictured here, the lollipop weighed more than 40 pounds and used a 24-inch french rolling pin as a "stick." The chocolate tootsie center weighed about 15 pounds alone. Finley said that he had planned to make the confection larger, but the school actually ran out of sugar after the other students finished their projects and Finley used more that 25 pounds of it in his.

I wonder how many licks it took to get to the center of that pop.

[Image The Worldlink]

Source

As if the Whopperettes weren't bad enough, food-as-clothing hit the catwalks in New York's Fashion Week. Designer Jeremy Scott seemed to decide that the world's selection of fast food-themed clothing was sorely lacking, as he turned cloth versions of packages of French fries and hamburgers into dresses and sweaters. Of course, the French fry packet dress might be an actual "super size" wrapper from McDonald's, filched before the fast food giant eliminated the size, since the real box was probably large enough to fit one of the Mr. Scott's models. Several other pieces in the collection were also food inspired, such as an ice cream cone dress and a pizza robe/dress.

Image from Consumerist

 

Source