I've Been Thinking About This For Awhile

I sometimes dread going into the Netflix documentary listings because of the number of food documentaries that are there.  Not that I have anything against food documentaries in general, but it's just that it seems like the goal of a lot of these filmmakers is just simply to bash the big business of food.  Whether it's over genetically modified food or fast food or whatever grievance they have about the food industry, it basically almost always ends with the same message -- either it's to just simply bash the industry or to get people to eat organic.

So far, the only real documentary that I've seen on the subject that I've liked is "Fat Head" (which I reviewed in my last post).  I watched "Supersize Me" when it came out on video, and thought it was entertaining enough as a piece of fiction.. Most of these documentaries I looked at the description adn it turned me off.

Penn and Teller have had some decent shows on the topic of food. The "Eat This!" episode tackles not only diets but also GM food and food snobbery.  And the "Organic Food" episode tackles the idea that organic food is better for us.

But all this talk about food and the politics behind it just got me thinking about doing my own documentary on the subject.  As much as I liked "Fat Head," it's still advocating a particular diet (something close to Atkins, which I plan on starting soon).  What I would like to look at is the industry of food politics. You have so many documentaries and shows on the subject, what is the ultimate goal? And are they really changing minds?

I think I would have to figure out financing on a project and resources before starting.  But it would be interesting.

"Fat Head" -- You HAVE To Watch This!

Tom Naughton is a comedian and former nutrition writer who has created a documentary that is not only eye opening, but also very funny.

Going after Morgan Spurlock's documentary "Supersize Me," where Spurlock went after the fast food industry by living on fast food for 30 days to prove that the industry was purposely making people fat, Naughton sought out to prove that people could lose weight eating fast food for 28 days.  At the same time, Naughton also advocates for a high saturated fat, low carb diet citing numerous studies that show that saturated fats do not cause heart disease as we've been told, but that those things we were told that are supposed to be healthier, such as processed oils like corn and soybean, are worse.

Along with parodying certain aspects of Morgan Spurlock's documentary, Naughton also takes information that could possibly be very dry and makes it entertaining.  With a lot of research on his side, Naughton doesn't simply present the facts -- he presents them in a way that anyone can understand.

If you have a Netflix account, it is now available for streaming. Otherwise you can either watch the film on Hulu or get the DVD from fathead-movie.com. 

Newsweek Goes Beyond Food Snobbery

Okay, this article was making the rounds yesterday.  I first saw it linked from Fark, but have seen it in a few other places since.

The author, Lisa Miller, is trying to make a point on how food has become the new marker to social class.  But she kind of loses me when she starts the article out this way.

For breakfast, I usually have a cappuccino—espresso made in an Alessi pot and mixed with organic milk, which has been gently heated and hand-fluffed by my husband. I eat two slices of imported cheese—Dutch Parrano, the label says, “the hippest cheese in New York” (no joke)—on homemade bread with butter. I am what you might call a food snob. My nutritionist neighbor drinks a protein shake while her 5-year-old son eats quinoa porridge sweetened with applesauce and laced with kale flakes. She is what you might call a health nut. On a recent morning, my neighbor’s friend Alexandra Ferguson sipped politically correct Nicaraguan coffee in her comfy kitchen while her two young boys chose from among an assortment of organic cereals. As we sat, the six chickens Ferguson and her husband, Dave, keep for eggs in a backyard coop peered indoors from the stoop. The Fergusons are known as locavores.

Do I really care about what kind of pot you made your coffee in?  I don't even have a coffee pot in my house! (Not necessarily because we can't afford one, but because it would take up counter space and we tend to be tea drinkers, mostly) Telling me what kind of a pot you make your coffee in goes beyond food snobbery.  It's just plain snob.

From later in the article:

And so the conversation turns to the difficulty of sharing their interpretation of the Pollan doctrine (ed. note: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan) with the uninitiated. When they visit Dave’s family in Tennessee, tensions erupt over food choices. One time, Alexandra remembers, she irked her mother-in-law by purchasing a bag of organic apples, even though her mother-in-law had already bought the nonorganic kind at the grocery store. The old apples were perfectly good, her mother-in-law said. Why waste money—and apples?

The Fergusons recall Dave’s mother saying something along these lines: “When we come to your place, we don’t complain about your food. Why do you complain about ours? It’s not like our food is poison.”

This just strikes me as rude.  You're telling your host that what they cook isn't "good enough."  You don't make any converts to your cause this way.  We tolerate it because we are in your home.  If you want to be stupid enough to pay $5 for a carton of eggs just because they say "free range," be my guest.  But when you are facing an economy where people are trying to save money in any way possible, expensive apples don't come across as being "healthy" or "smart."

Miller tends to think this gulf between lower vs. upper class is now divided by food.  To me, the food issue is more of an issue of politics.  If I get anything that's labeled "organic," it's usually because by some miracle it might be cheaper than the regular stuff.  You won't see much "organic" or "free trade" items in my pantry for the simple fact that 1) it's more expensive on average, and 2) it's not necessarily healthier just because the word "organic" is on the label.  If you have an entire cupboard of organic food, I'm going to assume you're a lefty.

If Miller really wanted to make a difference in the chasm, she would donate some of that overpriced food to a food pantry.

California Bans Trans Fat

Idiots.

LOS ANGELES — California, a national trendsetter in all matters edible, became the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Friday to phase out their use.

Under the new law, trans fats, long linked to health problems, must be excised from restaurant products beginning in 2010, and from all retail baked goods by 2011. Packaged foods will be exempt.

New York City adopted a similar ban in 2006 — it became fully effective on July 1 — and Philadelphia, Stamford, Conn., and Montgomery County, Md., have done so as well.

But having the requirement imposed on the most populous state’s 88,000 restaurants, as well as its bakeries and other food purveyors, is a major gain for the movement against trans fats. That movement has been led by scientists, doctors and consumer advocates who trace the largely synthetic fat to a variety of ailments, principally heart disease.

When are these "advocates" going to realize that it is not the actual substance itself, but the quantity in which you eat?

Earlier this year, "King of the Hill" had an episode where the city council banned trans fat from Arlen. It highlighted the fact that 1) Bans only turn law abiding people into criminals, 2) The thinking that the government is only there to protect you is wrong, and 3) the silliness of the whole thing.

And The Latest Scourge Of Food Cops Is...

The DQ Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard.

Everyone knows that Girl Scout cookies aren’t health food. But even the trained nutritionists at the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest were shocked to see just how bad a new Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard from Dairy Queen is. The large, which weighs more than a pound, has more than 1,000 calories, 31 teaspoons of sugars, and provides more than a day’s saturated fat. It’s like drinking two Big Macs, according to CSPI.

CSPI said today that the Girl Scouts of the USA should have thought twice before lending (renting, actually) its good name to the ice cream chain.

“Our partnership with Dairy Queen enables us to reach the public in new and unexpected places,” said Laurel Richie, who holds the position of “chief marketing officer” of the Girl Scouts of the USA, in a press release. Those “unexpected places” will include the waistlines and coronary arteries of at least 10 million people by the end of the month if the company meets its projections. Dairy Queen is on track to sell that many Thin Mint Blizzards by the end of July it told USA Today, but the chain and the Girl Scouts are both mum on how much money has changed hands.

“Selling cookies door to door is one thing,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. “But renting out its nonprofit brand name to a junk-food chain is a major badge of shame for the Girl Scouts. It runs counter to the Girl Scouts’ mission, and this product and its marketing campaign deliver a very unhealthful message to young girls and others. If you were designing a product with the intent of promoting obesity and type-2 diabetes in girls, it would look exactly like the Thin Mint Blizzard.”

The Center For Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is one of the leading food cops in the country. If it's tasty, they will attack it. If I weren't diabetic, I would grab a large one just to spite these people. Then send them a picture of me enjoying this from every angle.

Chicago Residents Can Now Enjoy Their Goose Liver

The fois gras ban has been repealed.

The alderman whom Mayor Daley derisively calls Joe "Foie Gras" Moore (49th) now knows how the geese and ducks feel.

Two years after the City Council banned the liver delicacy made by jamming a steel pipe down a bird’s esophagus, Daley essentially did the same to Moore on the City Council floor.

By a vote of 37-6, the foie gras ban that Daley claims made Chicago an international laughingstock was repealed, thanks to a legislative end-run that set a new standard for violating protocol and rolling over the opposition.

A repeal ordinance quietly introduced last year and referred to the friendly Rules Committee — bypassing a Health Committee that had approved the foie gras ban — was moved to the Council floor without a hearing, something that is seldom, if ever done.

When Moore objected and tried to exercise his right to postpone the vote, Daley ruled him out of order.

When Moore tried to debate the merits, Daley ruled that the measure was not debatable. He ordered the clerk to call the roll and to continue, even as Moore shouted for the right to be heard.

"If it can happen to me, tomorrow it could happen to you," Moore warned his colleagues.

"Thank you, Ald. Joe ‘Foie Gras’ Moore," Daley said.

After the show of force, Moore denounced the mayor as a dictator and Wednesday’s meeting as a new low.

"Even in the ugliest days of one-man rule, members of the City Council still had the opportunity to ... state their case. For the mayor to fail to recognize me to debate the merits of this issue was the height of arrogance," Moore said.

"The city had placed its mark as a city of compassion, a city that was standing up against [animal] cruelty and it’s taken a giant step backward. But, it’s also taken a giant step backward in ... good old fashioned democracy. ... There was no reason that this issue had to be ramrodded through today," Moore said.

Daley argued that the animal cruelty issue has been debated ad nauseam, that "everybody knew" about the repeal and it was high-time to reverse a foie gras ban that damaged the city’s reputation in international dining circles.

You would think that a city like Chicago would have learned their lesson after prohibition. All it did was make people want it more, especially those who had never had it.

The End Of Snap, Crackle, Pop?

The Center for Consumer Freedom, the same people who run PETAKillsAnimals.org, have a post today about how the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) are making an attempt to ban on internet food marketing directed at youth.

Using common sense, most of us can easily determine what’s healthy and what’s not. We know the difference between carrots and candy without some contrived government calculation. Rigid formulas endorsed by food cop fanatics fail to offer new insight into obvious dietary choices. And they also tend to sully the good reputation of “nebulous middle ground of foods like cheese, sunflower seeds, and guacamole, all of which may seem wholesome but are also high in fat and calories.” That explains why commercials for cheese have been banned by the UK’s Food Standards Agency. In fact, according to the FSA’s criteria for “junk” food, sugary cereals and cheeseburgers are considered “healthier” than cheese.

Other “junk” foods banned from advertising during children’s TV shows include low-fat cheddar, bran flakes, instant hot oat cereal, reduced calorie mayo, multi-grain hoop cereal, Greek yogurt, low-fat spreads, peanuts, cashew nuts, pistachio-nuts, peanut butter, raisins, currants, olive oil, and ketchup. Just to name a few.

Okay, so let me get this straight.

There are a lot worse things that kids can see on the internet, and they're worried about food advertising? Last time I checked, I had choice in what I fed my kids in this country.

They're trying to turn us into a Nanny State. Gee, looked how well it worked for the English.