A little known provision nestled in the momentous healthcare bill passed this week means a big change for all those who eat out.  Over the next year, the FDA is mandated to write rules that will require calorie counts on menus of all restaurant chains with 20+ locations.

It turns out that reinforcing calorie counts with the 2000 calories a day recommendation is most effective.  Let’s hope the FDA takes note.

Studies are still being done on the effectiveness of this approach, with early ones showing no change to a 6% reduction in purchased calories.  Either way, giving consumers more information can only be a good thing.

Calorie count laws have already passed in New York City, Seattle, and California. This legislation is a great example of popular local initiatives bubbling up to the national level.

Update: And I suspect this is why the Restaurant Association was lobbying against the healthcare bill.

While I don’t necessarily believe that Big Food really wants to make their food healthier, we all have to acknowledge that in our culture, healthy food has become synonymous with bad tasting food.

Yes, that’s sometimes true.  But it is becoming less and less true.  And often we like the things we like, aka high fat and salt content, because we’re used it, and probably wouldn’t miss it once we’ve become acclimated to less.

Pictures really do equal a thousand words.

Yep, that would be beer, butter, and soda that have enjoyed the major declines.  And fresh fruits and vegetable that have seen the steepest increases.  Ben over at consumerist asks the obvious question - hey washington what’s up with subsidizing corn syrup and soy, but nothing for broccoli?  we live in a topsy turvy world when a six pack of Coke is cheaper than some bell peppers.

Ms Piggy and the Owners (photo credit: the.piggery)

Those are some of the names of the sows that will be chopped up and delivered to homes in the NYC area this year. The Piggery is offering the first meat-only CSA in the Big Apple, and it is sure to get bacon lovers all hot and bothered.  Here’s the deal:

At the Piggery, animals are raised among the squeaking and squealing until they weigh about 250 pounds. Then they’re shipped to a USDA-certified slaughterhouse. The meat is returned to the farm, where Sanford and Marshall butcher, cure, cook and package it for customers in Ithaca and New York City.

Their top menu items include thick pork chops, bacon, creamy patés, sausages, salami, pulled pork and chorizo.

Customers can choose between a “whole hog” order which will cost $1200 per season, a half-hog at $600, and a quarterhog at presumably $300, although the website does not explicitly state its price.  A customer that goes half-hog can expect to get at least the following through the 24 week season:

I personally am dying to know what a Boston Butt is.

Now a key trait of CSAs is that the food is supposed to be local.  The Trumansburg-NYC trip is a stretch, clocking in at over 3 hours.  However, its a lot closer than the factory -farm meat that travels to the east coast via I-80 from the western skies. So for CSA lovers, it definitely is a judgement call.  And for the health conscious there is the matter of whether one should incorporate so much bacon fat into a diet.

Sadly, its not food pills you pop in the microwave and out comes a Thanksgiving feast.  Luckily, it doesn’t require GMOs.  All that’s required is some coding and a well populated database:

“Food miles, food safety, animal well-being and exceptional quality are important issues that guide my purchasing practices,” said Joe McGarry, an executive chef with Bon Appetit Management Company. “FoodHub allows me to use these factors to sort through the database and find the best suppliers.”

Sophisticated search capabilities allow buyers, both large and small, to instantly discover ready suppliers with a few clicks of their computer keyboard. Conversely, sellers can use FoodHub search features to identify new buyer leads and build targeted customer databases. All registered users can complete an online profile that includes a detailed description of their operation and preferred methods for doing business. FoodHub supports both direct market relationships and leverages existing distribution channels to encourage growth in regional food sales.

Meet FoodHub.  Membership for buyers is a cheap $100 a year.  Another reason why Portland is probably the most kick ass American city.

OK, now I feel doubly lied to.  Not only did the Food Network insinuate that the First Lady would play a key role in their White House Iron Chef, but now it turns out that the produce used in the cooking segment was not the same produce picked in the White House garden by the famous chefs.

At the beginning of the two-hour special, the chefs were shown picking sweet potatoes, broccoli, fennel and tomatillos from the White House garden. Then the chefs were seen walking into Kitchen Stadium, produce in hand. One problem: The show is filmed in New York City.

“Due to the production delay between the shoot at the White House and the shoot at Food Network, the produce used in Kitchen Stadium during the ‘Super Chef Battle’ was not actually from the White House garden,” said Food Network spokeswoman Lisa Krueger in a statement to The Talk.

Instead, the chefs used replacement produce, though only the same types of fruits and vegetables picked from the White House garden.

Replacement produce!  You can’t replace the Secret Ingredient on Iron Chef.  When you specifically name the ingredient to be produce from the White House garden, you can’t substitute fare from your local Whole Foods.  It’s like replacing Beluga with your local sushi takeout roe.  They may both be fish eggs, but no one is going to spend $5K for a kilo of sushi roe. Now I just want to slap Jane Seymour for each time remarked on how unbelievably “fresh” the produce tasted.

Additionally, this was just dumb.  It’s a 3 hour trip from DC to NYC, there is no reason why they couldn’t use the same produce if it was planned properly.  Or they could have filmed in DC.  Either way, this was a pointless lie, and an obnoxious one at that. The Food Network may have been served extra helpings of viewers for its White House special, but how many viewers are now left with a sour taste in their mouth?

image courtesy of flickr user immolation scene

Sadly, my local Farmers’ Market over in Mount Pleasant shut down for the season about a month and a half ago.  Only 4 blocks away, it was incredibly convenient way to find fresh and often organic fresh fruits and vegetables.  Since then, I have attempting to scour my local grocery (Giant) for my local and organic fare.

I hasn’t been easy.  Over the past year, all sorts of organic produce has been appearing on the shelves, mostly under the brand “Nature’s Promise”.  Better than conventional, and of course more expensive, it’s still industrial farmed organic, so I have trust issues with it.  Plus, there’s still plenty of items Giant doesn’t carry organic - sweet potatoes, pears, green beans. Very frustrating.

So this weekend I have resolved to brave the cold and head over to one of the take-no-prisoners-open-all-year Farmers’ Markets and find out what the true believers are selling.  My suspicion is that there will be lots of root vegetables and baked goods.  The former is better than buying at Giant, the latter ridiculously over priced.  Will let you know what I harvest.

Speaking of retrospectives, here a great, albeit quick and dirty, recap of food stories from the past decade.

The big one they missed? The massive food price shocks that rocked the third world.

Out of the bin of extraordinairly bad ideas, Redwood gives us our first ever $15 veggie burger. First off, veggie burgers are almost universally bad no matter how pricy they are.  Think about it - this is a food born with a split personality.  Is it supposed to be a burger?  A patty of veggies?  What is it supposed to taste like?  Is it supposed to taste like anything at all?

Secondly, if you are going to go ahead and make a $15 veggie burger, it should really taste a whole lot better than this:

The veg burger at Redwood combines white beans and wild mushrooms into a mammoth patty that apparently wants to compete, in terms of sheer volume and prestige, with the 8- to 10-ounce gourmet steakhouse burgers out there.  To its credit, the burger tastes light on traditional binders like breadcrumbs and rice. But it has other problems, like a mushiness that I can only compare to oatmeal, even when the patty is topped with house-made pickles and tomatoes.

Sorry Redwood, you’re just giving veggie burgers a bad name.  Now Spike on the other hand, he’s got it going on.  Panko encrusted, deep fried veggie burger?  Hell yes, thank you, please.

It’s like eating Quaker Oats between two brioche buns. The flavor isn’t much better.

Did you know there was a World Cheese Awards?  Nope, me neither, but now I have another thing on the list of things to do before I die.  This year, the World Cheese Awards was held on the Canary Islands. But it was a Canadian goat cheese that took home the top prize:

A Canadian goat’s-milk cheese named Cinderella (Le Cendrillon), was named best cheese in the world at the 21st annual World Cheese Awards.
Recipe Included

The log-shaped, ash-covered cheese from Quebec beat out 2,440 other entries from 34 countries to claim the coveted Grand Champion title in the world’s largest cheese competition. It was the first time ever that a Canadian cheese won the top spot.

Le Cendrillon is produced by La Maison Alexis de Portneuf (which is owned by Saputo, one of the world’s largest milk processors) in St. Raymond de Portneuf, about 30 miles northwest of Quebec City on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. It is described by the producer as a “vegetable ash-covered, soft surface-ripened soft goat cheese with a semi-strong, slightly sour taste that becomes stronger with age.”

All together now - SWOON.

The Rudd Center has a great little calculator that estimates how much revenue a city or state could generate with a tax on sugar sweetened beverages.  On the low end with a tax of 1 cent per ounce, Washington, DC could generate $25 million per year:

The big winner? California with an estimated intake of $1.8 billion per year.  And we all know they could use the money.

(H/T Bitten)

$2.68 a lunch?  Heck, a trip to Starbucks costs more than that.

And secondly, what child willing chooses a salad bar? I joke, but actually, healthy meals are completely doable in that price range.  But they need to cook smarter, not shop harder.

We’re in harvest season, when all things are bountiful. And soon we won’t be.  So what to do over the winter frost?  There is an option.  Our ancestors used to store, store, store.  So maybe there is a lesson to be learned.  Here’s soom useful tips on how to squirrel away nuggets for some winter eating.

photo courtesy of flickr user thisisbossi

Sigh.  Next they will be concern trolling that secret police will be raiding the kitchens of apple pie baking grandmas everywhere.

For the record - no one sane has proposed any kind of food ban (with the exception of extremely endangered species, but that’s not health concern related).  People should be free to eat as many jelly donuts as they like.  Of course, the it would be nice if the health costs were reflected in the food prices.

So I was all excited to go down and check out the opening of the White House Farmers Market this afternoon.  Yes, its yucky and rainy, but hordes of people showed up, many in their work clothes, indicating they snuck off for an hour from the job just to come check out the kickoff.

The White House farmers market was your run-of-the-mill farmers market.  Except for the secuirty line, metal detectors, and lots of serious guys with little wires coming out of their ears. Other than, perfectly normal.

I, of course, forgot to charge my camera, so instead I got a single shot off of my blackberry.

That’s Michelle, Secretary Vilsack, and Mayor Fenty speechifying for all us farmer markets groupies.  But don’t take my work for it, go over to Obama Foodaroma for the good shots.

This is by far the smartest, most innovative way to make the farm to fork connection I’ve seen so far.  They call it an Online Farmers Market. It’s run by Start Hollow Farm in Pennsylvania, and they offer a design-your-own CSA box.  There’s no requirement to buy each week, nor do you have to spend a specific amount. They offer everything from peashots to shiitake mushrooms to apple cider.  Pick what every you want and they create a box for you that you can then go pick up in a central location. Essentially its the Peapod of farmers markets.