As cited in an article in AdAge today, Kellogg’s is removing anti-oxidant claims from its Rice Krispies cereals– another move following the elimination of the “Smart Choices” food labeling system. The FDA is also now going to also create its own front-of-pack labeling system, which will surely be as easy to read as the USDA’s food pyramid.
What about some new food sourcing guidelines??
After being in market for under a year, the FDA has ordered food companies to discontinue the usage of the “Smart Choices” food labels, citing concerns over the standards used to choose products that are included in the program.
My feelings on the issue are mixed– at its heart, I dont’ think the program was meant to do harm to consumers, and perhaps, even if included on a box of Trix, it made people more conscious of food nutritional values. Or maybe it just made them buy more and think they were being “healthy.” In either case, the program will be no-more for a while.
I am sure that many in the industry are happy (especially Marion Nestle), but hopefully a meaningful and nutritionally-beneficial program will come out of this. I think the idea is there and is good– it’s time for the food companies and the FDA to make it a reality.
PS: I know that I owe you all a few entries on Paris. It’s been nuts here, so I apologize.
So it’s Advertising Week here in NYC, and amidst all of the marketing jargon being thrown around, there was an event entitled “Team Earth: Empowering a Sustainability Movement.” AdAge called it “an event to seek out,” and a last-minute scheduling snafu did not get the even as much publicity as it probably deserved, but it did allow me a seat.
And, it nicely commenced at 5pm, getting me out of the office and on my way to Locanda Verde to meet BG for dinner.
Anyway, the panel was led by some guy at CNBC that I’ve never heard of. The panel consisted of the Chairman of Conservation International, Peter Seligmann, the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, and the Chairman of Wal-mart, Rob Walton. These heavy hitters in the conservation movement were talking about sustainability and how it has to play a crucial role in business moving forward.
Seligmann threw out a few interesting points. His first point was that the quality of the environment is going down. I guess we all knew that anyway, but he reiterated it. But, he said that engagement, awareness, and understanding is up, and that’s a good thing. The public only really dedicates something like 17% of its interest to the sustainability movement, which is shockingly low, considering that every person on this planet is directly affected by what we’re talking about here. He also stressed the importance of including corporations, hence his sitting on a panel with C-suite execs from two huge global brands.
Schultz, who can’t seem to catch a break these days, despite all of the advertising efforts (did anyone see the Businessweek brand rankings this week– they’re down 16% in brand value), echoed Seligmann’s sentiments, saying that sustainability will simply be part of the rules of engagement moving ahead. There is a balance needed, he said, between making money and having a social conscience. Since everyone refers to coffee as “tall” and “grande” these days, maybe he should have had a social conscience back then when he made us sound like losers when we want a small coffee.
He went on to talk about how people are willing to pay to support it and it has to be a real business change, and not just a marketing ploy. It has to be a truly integrated strategy, part of the company’s DNA, and so on. Now, coming from him, who convinced the country that four bucks is a perfectly acceptable price for a cup of coffee, I’m not sure that he can speak to “willing to pay for it” from the right perspective. If people are willing to pay $4 for a cup of coffee, they will probably still pay $4 for a very slightly smaller cup of free trade coffee. Or $4 for a smaller cup of coffee and a series of about 40 advertising panels in the tunnel between Times Square and the Port Authority. Either way, people do have a social conscience, and by paying a little extra, they think they are helping.
Lastly, Rob Walton talked about Wal-mart’s commitment to sustainability. The thing about Wal-mart is that when they talk, people listen. I personally am not a huge fan of Wal-mart. I’ve been to one once, and I didn’t enjoy the experience. I think their business practices are questionable, and I think they ruin neighborhoods. All of that aside, I do applaud them for what they are doing to drive the food industry around the world to embark upon a path to more environmentally conscious production (remember that whole “when they speak…” bit?).
Now, being the businessman he is, Walton said that what got Wal-mart involved was the opportunity to make a difference… in a profitable way. Wal-mart got you again! But, seriously, that’s the only way to make big business change their tune. At the end of the day, a business is there to make money. For any of this sustainability stuff to stick, it’s going to have to make someone some Benjamins. Even Seligmann admitted that you’ve gotta keep your feet on the ground and not keep your head in the clouds with some pipe dream. For the big guys to get involved, you’ve gotta tell them what it’s going to mean for them business wise. It it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense.
Anyway, interesting stuff. Check out Team Earth. It’s like a feel-good forum for big companies.
Courtesy of wickedtastyharvest.com
Sustainable food sources took center stage at a chefs collaborative event over the weekend out in Chicago. Rick “i’m the mexican man” bayless rocked out the mic with hard-hitting talk about sustainability in the food industry. Ok, his talk wasn’t so hard-hitting (I mean, come on, you’ve seen the guy), but he had some great points about sustainable food sources and the progress that needs to be made in order to make this the way that Americans can eat.
As I’ve been saying, locally produced small-scale farming is the wave of the future– everyone has pointed to indepdendent business as the only way to get the economy jump-started again. What better industry that the one that can jump-start the workers, too?
Anyway, check out this article, and hit the greenmarket this week. BB can’t go this week, because of the UN General Assembly.
By the way, I did some serious eating this weekend, and as uberchef mentioned in his post, I’ve got more damage to do tonight. Next up, fried chicken!
I’m not really one to comment about restaurant cleanliness and all of that. Maybe it’s the complete desensitization from watching too much Anthony Bourdain or my generally cavalier attitude about trusting eating establishments (“if you build it and people come and they don’t come back because they either die or get sick, they won’t keep coming”). And, for those of you who don’t know me, it is true that I will not eat off of my own stovetop, but I will eat food off of tables in restaurants. And, yes, I realize that those two facts diametrically oppose one another.
But sick restaurant workers is something that I do not stand for. I think I saw a waiter blow his nose one time while standing at the POS station and nearly flipped my shit; since I have a really calm and cool exterior, I did it on the inside and hopefully it will stay repressed and come out as a panic attack in about 15 years (while doing something REALLY stressful, like getting my car washed). However, a new New York City proposition might make this a fact of the past, according to an article I saw today on the NRN website.
It looks like the New York City Council is looking to make those tougher-than-thou restaurant biz give some sick days and not have employees worry about paying the bills. Of course, since this would obviously double the hourly pay costs when someone calls in sick, the restaurant lobbyists are against it in full force. According to Rick Sampson of the New York State Restaurant Association (NYRSA), this would place undue burden on the restaurant industry, and that it’s “totally ri-donkey-dick-ulous” (my words, not his).
I have a few issues with this. First of all, who the hell wants to be around sick people? Sometimes I don’t even want to be around healthy people. Secondly, who wants these sick people to be either a) cooking their food or b) serving their food or c) anywhere near their food. Come on Rick, give me a break– next time you walk out of your office, wait on the street corner until someone visibly ill walks by and hug him/her. Really get up in there nice and tight. Then lick his/her hand.
That sounds disgusting? Tell that to the line chef who has to come in to work with 104 fever and a nose running like a faucet just to keep his family fed. Then have him make you a tuna melt.
Rick is quoted, “I don’t know how in this economy an industry such as ours can afford something like this.” Again, come on, man, that’s just a dumb statement. Last time I checked I don’t know what Rick’s credentials are, maybe he is a brilliant businessman who just says stupid things. In this economy when people are hyper-sensitive of where they are spending their money and health care is at the center of mass debate (MASS DEBATE, MASS DEBATE! Get it?), I don’t think you can afford to NOT do this. I mean, think about it this way: I open a restaurant and tout the fact that I give my employees paidsick days. I make a HUGE deal of it. People start wondering, “why is this guy telling me his restaurant gives its employees sick days? That’s really weird.” Then they realize that maybe some other restaurants don’t give their employees sick days. All of a sudden, you are a slave driver and I am a saviour. My restaurants go gangbusters, yours are in the hole. Sure, maybe I have slightly higher fixed costs, but I’m a good guy. People like eating in my restaurants. My employees are happy and people feel good about eating there. Maybe I charge a couple extra bucks for it, too, and buy myself a nice Ferrari.
I mean, let’s think of the worst possible scenario. Line cook Joe comes into work, really not feeling well. He was tossing and turning all night, and then felt nauseous all morning. He goes to work anyway since he can’t afford to miss that day of pay. He gets the whole work staff sick, and a few customers get sick also. It’s not a pretty picture.
Adding some actual history, let’s go back to December, 2006. Dinosaur BBQ, Syracuse, New York. 1,000 people get sick from the norovirus after eating at Dinosaur BBQ; the source of the virus is unknown, maybe it was a staff member, maybe it was a customer. The restaurant closes for THREE days, and all of their food is thrown out AND they have to pay employees to sanitize the restaurant. How much money do you think was lost there, Rick? Step into 2009, homeboy– SWINE FLU is a-comin’, and cooking that bad boy low and slow doesn’t seem to make it any tastier. Stop being so short-sighted, thinking only about today’s profits and failing to think about the long-term.
But wait, there’s more! Rick’s not the only one against it– Robert Bookman has also gotten a sound bite out there. He is the legislative counsel for the NYSRA, so he’s a lawyer or something, and he must be smart (right?). He has said, “We don’t believe the city has the authority to pass such legislation… For one thing, the city has no enforcement mechanism. There is no city department of labor. Who is going to oversee this?”
Are you kidding me? The NYC restaurant business has over 30 percent of its work force comprised of illegal immigrants, and you’re playing the labor enforcement card? Is this some sort of fancy lawyer trick? Or are you going to say, “of COURSE they don’t get sick days, they don’t even get rights!”
Clever.
Anyway, I will go on record that I would pay one dollar more for my food if I knew that the guy preparing it wasn’t heaving in the bathroom prior to making my quesadilla. I’m sure 100 other people would, too. There’s Joe’s sick day right there. If you can’t muster up 100 diners, you’ve got bigger problems.
And I’m done.
By the way, went to Grand Sichuan on 24th street tonight for dinner– tremendous. Any semblance I had of a cold has been sichuan peppered out of my system.
Everyone that knows me well knows that I am not the biggest fan of Michael Pollan. I don’t DISlike him, but there’s something about him that just gets to me, and it’s really frustrating because I agree with his general arguments, but I just feel like something is missing there. I find his intents to be good, but I think that his vision is a bit narrow-minded, and, like any good convincing writer does, excludes a multitude of factors in explaining individual phenomena (much like Malcolm Gladwell).
In any event, Mr. Pollan, has been featured in a recent edition of the New York Times, with an article entitled “Big Food vs. Big Insurance.” Not surprisingly, he attributes a large portion of the health industry’s costs to poor diet and America’s general fatness from eating cheap calories. He throws a bone to other factors, such as smoking, but fails to mention anything environmental or exercise-related. That aside, the article is a thoughtful piece (per usual, I will admit), and definitely worth a read. Also worth a read is this article found on the Huffington Post, by Christopher Gavignan. Both articles speak to the question of access to healthy, natural food, and how the relative “cheapness” of heavily subsidized and processed food has caused this major dilemma.
As I mentioned above, my major complaint with both authors is a complete avoidance of the word “exercise” and the word “moderation.” Now, I’m not trying to say that the abundance of cheap fast-food and soda is a good thing (and I will address that a bit later) BUT I think that in large part the obesity problem can be linked to something much more personal than agribusiness and less processed food. That momofuku bo ssam I devoured was minimally processed, yet I’d have trouble squeezing into my jeans if I ate that a couple of times a week.
For example, one of the fittest people I know drinks a six-pack of Coke a day. He also works out for 2 hours a day, and has a body fat percentage around 8%. Now, I understand that there are always statistical anomalies, and that r-squared for obesity and its associated diseases is not 100. But then riddle me this. An article published in the American Journal of Medicine (I’m not a doctor, but I trust that doctors contribute to the publication) found through a study of the US population’s diet that fat and caloric intake actually decreased over the period from 1976 to 1991. Yet, obesity rates grew about 31 percent. What was this caused by? 60% of the US population lives a “sedentary lifestyle.” Sixty percent. That is ridiculous. And it’s something that is completely unaffected by BIG BUSINESS and GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES (read those words out loud in your BIG MAN voice). Living in the spoils of New York City, you forget that it is possible to have a sedentary lifestyle. As my aunt once said to me, “the official New York City sport is walking.” And it’s true. It’s easy for us urban dwellers to say, “well, those people are fat because they eat a bunch of cheap crap at McDonald’s.” I would argue that’s not entirely true. You can get fat off of expensive crap.
Now, as a former fat kid, I can attest to the fact that when you don’t exercise, you don’t keep weight off. I got a Nintendo, I got a spare tire, it was pretty much that simple. My friends and I ate the same food, yet I was the overweight one. I think that too much emphasis for these guys is being placed on what is so bad about the food system in the US. I think that it is certainly important, and I myself eat a minimally processed diet, mostly because I enjoy cooking and the greenmarket and because it impresses burgergal when I pick up cool local food stuffs and cook her dinner. But, I would like to see equal vigor placed on physical fitness. Michelle Obama’s got a vegetable garden? Great. Let’s have a running track built around it.
I’ve got some other random thoughts related to the same topic:
– The big food guys aren’t necessarily bad guys. Like it or not, they need to be involved in order to solve the problem. They simply have a) too much money and b) too much political leverage for them to not be involved (and no, I do not work at a big food company). I think that McDonald’s has done a great job at expanding healthy offerings at their locations. But I don’t think it’s enough, and I don’t think that using local sustainable ingredients is the solution. I think that McDonald’s and its brethren need to promote moderation and exercise like they do value meals and snack wraps. This might have an immediate impact on profitability, but I think the longer term trends indicate that profitability might go down anyway, so why not help everyone out? Make a compelling case for them to help, that makes business sense, and they will help. Don’t paint a picture of gloom and doom and “down with McD’s.” It can actually bring in new customers and can help them have a “nice guy” image. Where has Ronald McDonald been, anyway?
– Junk food tastes good. I love Chicken Nuggets. I think they are among the best foods on the planet. I also like chips (Doritos Cool Ranch). And I like KFC fried chicken. And countless other things. People don’t care if they are eating a locally grown spear of asparagus if they don’t like asparagus. You can’t make them like it, either. I think it’s myopic to think that having locally grown food available and cheap will make people buy it. As I mentioned above, I think it’s about changing the way we think about chicken nuggets. Don’t make me feel bad because I like them and support the company that makes them.
– Don’t mistake a result for the problem. Take, for example, a case mentioned in Food, Inc. An immigrant family must eat fast food because they cannot afford to buy fresh produce for the family the way that they can buy six burgers at a fast food chain. Now, on the surface, the problem appears to be “wow, if the fresh food were cheaper, they would be able to eat more healthily.” To that I say, “incorrect.” The real argument is, “wow, if the income gap weren’t so large, they would be able to afford to buy the fresh produce and eat more healthily.” As a study in the UK found, “Obesity, diabetes mortality, and calorie consumption were associated with income inequality in developed countries. Increased nutritional problems may be a consequence of the psychosocial impact of living in a more hierarchical society.” I’m not going to touch the second part of that finding, but I think that is the real root of the problem with cheap calories. Don’t make them less cheap, make them even cheaper.
And I’m done.
