Avoiding the word "vegetables" in commercials

The perception (and half-truth) of American children and their relationship with food is that they are processed food-ivores, and incapable of ingesting such victuals as (whispered) *vegetables.* This perception and taboo on vegetables is only furthered by recent commercials for Bush's Baked Beans and Progresso Soup.

Allow me to regale you with my grievances about these two commercials in epistolary format.


Dear Bush's Baked Beans,

Beans are legumes, not vegetables.

Sincerely, Informed Citizen

Dear Progresso Soup,

The actor that plays the father in your commercial pronounces "vegetables" in a way that makes me uncomfortable. He practiced it way too many times in front of the mirror.

Yours truly,
Uncomfortable Viewer

Dear Bush's Baked Beans,

The fact that there is twice as many grams of sugar than protein in your baked beans makes me sad.

Regards,
Disappointed Consumer

Here's the bottom line: I don't want to write these pathetic letters to these apparently uneducated companies. Reinforcing the idea that kids won't eat vegetables and thereafter replacing the fresh, whole veggies with canned beans and soup is doing nothing to help this sorry perception in our country.

source: progresso.com

So I'm asking you, informed citizen, uncomfortable viewer, and disappointed consumer, to not give in and to spread the word: "KIDS CAN LOVE VEGETABLES!"

We should all be advertising agents for Vegetables & Co., so children are not reduced to meek creatures who live on diets of "Brown Sugar Hickory" Baked Beans and "Chicken Cheese Enchilada Flavor" Soup.

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Gourmanda

The Organic Effect

Hi!

I found this really cool video on one of my favorite website the other day that I'd like to share with all of you. It's called "The Organic Effect" and it follows a family and how their health changes after going organic! I urge you guys to share this video to anyone who is a nonbeliever in organic food - it really makes a difference! 

See you later!

Gourmanda

Consuming at Consumer Camp: The Cornell University Food and Brand Lab

Hello everyone!

Did you know that roasted crickets taste like popcorn?  

I sure didn't until I went to Consumer Camp at the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, the premiere lab in the country for the study of food psychology. And no, food psychology is not analysis of the inner thoughts of broccoli and its opinion of kale. :) Food psychology is defined as the study of the behavior of consumers in relation to food. 

I got interested in food psychology through my high school's science research program. When I found out about the Food and Brand Lab's Consumer Camp, I was so excited, I had to go. And so, my family piled into the car and we headed up to Ithaca for a fun food-filled weekend. 

Me posing in front of a food mural

At the Consumer Camp, I got to participate in several experiments, including one that was studying consumers reactions in response to "extreme foods," with one end of the spectrum being fried Twinkies, and the other being crickets! I learned that distinguishing between strawberry yogurt and yogurt with chocolate sauce while blindfolded is harder than it seems, as was trying to pour a healthy-sized bowl of cereal and guess calorie amounts in cookies. I also got to listen to a lecture by the head of the lab himself, Dr. Brian Wansink. He talked about the simple changes that we can make to our environment to help us make healthier eating decisions without having to diet. I strongly recommend his new book Slim By Design. It has tons of helpful healthy eating tips and compelling insights about an eating environment's role in our eating behavior.

All in all it was a great weekend and I am looking forward to possibly studying with them in the future!

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Gourmanda

Kuli Kuli is really Kool!

Hi guys!!!

Their logo

I was just surfing around on one of my favorite websites, TakePart.com, when I came across a story about a new superfood called "Moringa." It is an extremely nutritious plant that grows naturally in Africa and all over the world that company Kuli Kuli Foods is turning into nutrition bars and powder to be sold on the national market. If you guys want to be ahead of the latest food trend, or maybe just want to try something new, check Kuli Kuli out! They have a really interesting story and an even more interesting product.

Happy Saturday!

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Gourmanda

FED UP!

On July 2nd I went to go see a new film with my family. This film is called Fed Up and it is an eye-opening, jaw-dropping movie that everyone needs to see. The film was produced by Laurie David and former news anchor Katie Couric and directed by Stephanie Soechtig.

Fed Up follows four different teenagers struggling with obesity who share their experiences. Ms. Couric, the narrator, then explains the science behind the growing epidemic and why it is worsening everyday. Many credible experts such as Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, and Bill Clinton speak on different points throughout the movie as the point are illustrated using simple graphics and video clips.

"'Fed Up' is probably the most important movie to be made since 'An Inconvenient Truth,'to which it’s related in a couple of ways," said Mark Bittman in his article about the film (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/opinion/bittman-an-inconvenient-truth-about-our-food.html?referrer=&_r=0). "One of its producers is Laurie David, who also produced “An Inconvenient Truth.” Climate change, diet and agriculture are inexorably intertwined; we can’t tackle climate change without changing industrial agriculture, and we can’t change industrial agriculture without tackling diet."

What I learned from the movie is this: Sugar is the root problem of the obesity epidemic in our country and if we don't do something about it now, the majority of the population of America will have food-related diseases (diabetes, heart disease) in the near future.

The movie drew an interesting parallel by comparing the Sugar Industry to the tobacco industry. Thank goodness I am not old enough to have grown up with cigarette/cigar/chewing tobacco advertisements on TV and billboards without the Surgeon General's warning, but many people did live through this time. We need to urge those people to implement the successful strategies used to win against the tobacco industry on the big sugar companies such as Coca Cola, Kelloggs, McDonalds, and Pepsi. Today kids are unarmed in facing the commercials that bombard them with sickly-sweet messages. Sugar cereals, Go-gurt (I used to like that stuff, but now that I think about it, I was squeezing sugary goop out of a tube and into my body,  BLECH!), McDonalds, Chuckie Cheese's, and many, many more.

So how do I get started? How can I improve my eating habits without sacrificing some of my favorite foods? One easy way for you and your family to embrace healthy eating and eliminate sugar and processed chemicals from your diet is to purchase Laurie David's new cookbook The Family Cooks. It contains lots of delicious healthy recipes for every meal, beautiful pictures, and helpful shopping and eating tips. I have already made five recipes from the book and I bought it three days ago!

I will be posting a lot about this movie so stay tuned because this is an issue that desperately needs our (and our government's) attention and support.

MUCH MUCH MORE!
Gourmanda :)

P.S. Did you notice the clever title "Fed Up" contains many different meanings?

Shades of Summer: Today at the Farmer's Market

On my bike sporting my Chappaqua Farmer's Market T-shirt!

Wildflowers

Leafy Beets

Rooty Radishes!

Vibrant Tomatoes

Colorful Swiss Chard

A variety of hummus's! Hummi?

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SUMMER!!!

Wow I thought I would never say those words ;). But seriously, this is a day worth celebrating. And the perfect way to celebrate? An early morning trip to the Chappaqua Farmer's Market!! At around 9:00 this morning my lovely mother and I biked to the train station to reap the benefits of the cornucopia that is our market! We purchased spinach, tomatoes, whole wheat sourdough, a berry lassi, delicious Taiim truffle hummus, and a big fat carrot!

I hope your weekends are filled with delicious farm fresh food and fun!

More to come!
Gourmanda

P.S. Shout out to my mommy and dado who are celebrating their 16th wedding anniversary!! I love you guys!!

Reusing our food (Choice 2)

28% out of the 46% of Organic waste is food!

There are two paths that as a world we can choose to follow when it comes to feeding our looming estimated population of 9 billion. Choice 1: Finding alternate food sources, like the ones I mentioned in my previous post. Or choice 2: Finding ways to reuse leftover unexpired food. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, food waste makes up about 28% of our landfills. 28%! That's more than 1 out of 4 pieces of pie! 

I already talked about different alternate food sources so now we will discuss choice 2. The other day I found this excellent advertisement from an organization called Food Recovery Network. Here is an except from their website:

"Food Recovery Network unites students on college campuses to fight waste and feed people by donating the surplus unsold food from their colleges and donating it to hungry Americans. Founded in 2011, FRN has grown to include chapters at more than 90 colleges and universities in 25 states, DC and Puerto Rico that have recovered over 340,000 pounds of food. Each chapter works with on-campus dining halls and other, off-campus eateries to divert food from the landfill to community members in need, while also raising awareness on issues of food waste and hunger in America. By May 2015, Food Recovery Network aims to be on 150 campuses and to have donated 610,000 pounds of food."

Who, do you ask, benefits from these donations? Exactly the people who deserve to: the homeless, people who cannot afford to buy food, and many more. 

This is a very smart way to approach our potential famine problem and we should all support this organization and other ones like it.

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Gourmanda

The Future of Food

Hi all!

I came across two intriguing stories this week. One was an article and one was a video. They both talked about the future of our food culture and how we, the world, are going to support our exponentially enlarging population with a limited food supply. Both stories offered inspired approaches to this serious problem. 

The article I read appeared in The New Yorker and was entitled "The End of Food." It made the novel suggestion of blending all the most basic components of our diet to make a liquified version of an ideal meal. It's called Soylent and it might be change the way we think about "food" forever. The shake is chock full of protein and other nutrients (find the full list of ingredients here) and to taste testers, has a distinct doughy flavor.

It seems obvious and simple to turn to the purest forms of essential nutrients that our bodies need. In Wall-E the 2008 Disney Pixar movie that depicted the earth's environmental demise also showed the obese people of the starship living off of "Lunch in a cup!" The alternate food source the people consumed sounds very much like Soylent. 

Bitty Logo

I've recently become addicted to TED Talks. And when I came across this talk, I was completely enraptured by the speaker's concept. This other solution to our future famine is one that could be a bit controversial with Entomophobiacs/Insectophobes. It is the brainchild of Megan Miller, a former employee of the USDA and founder of Bitty. Bitty is a company that sells baked goods, but here's the twist: all of their foods are made with cricket flour. What is cricket flour? It is essentially dead crickets that have been ground up into a flour that has been described as "nutty" and "wholesome." The genius behind this idea is it's incredible sustainability. Crickets are in abundance and incredibly cheap to farm. Also, cricket flour is very healthy and nutrient-rich as well and would be a much cheaper alternate to buying big brand refined white flour. 

So how do these alternate food sources help? I think the end goal of both companies is to take a large slice, if not the whole pie, away from the pizza of world hunger by sending their products to impoverished nations. Soylent could be used as a filling form of nourishment and become a staple in poorer county's food support system, while cricket flour can be substituted for other flours in foods such as bread, muffins, or even cookies!

So which would you prefer to be the future of our food? Both? Neither? I'd definitely like to try both!

More,

Amanda