The Many Milks

Image via Wikipedia

Once in a while I break down and actually get a latte at a local coffee shop, Cafe Patteen, and the conversation with the owner (I'm usually drawn to places where the owner actually works) often comes around to talking about milk due to the rather strange way I order.  IF I order a latter, it's always a decaf latte, extra hot, made from 50% half-and-half, and 50% water.  You may ask, "why not just order 2% milk, in that case?" But there are reasons to my insanity. Sometimes.

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Listen to This Man (Jamie Oliver)

This is really the first year that I've come to know Jamie Oliver, the Naked Chef, and I don't really even know him very well at all. Additionally, I haven't really followed the TED awards and talks much before this year either. But I think the combination of both of them has come to be one of the most important events in the growth of our food supply. I find myself strangely torn between optimism and pessimism on this subject. I want so badly for people to be healthy, it thrills me beyond belief to see the subject come up as the First Lady's "problem to deal with" or as the central theme of the latest reality show. Yet when I peek over at the next checkout lane in the grocery store to see it piled high with the very processed junk that is poisoning our children everywhere, I can't help but feel that some people are going to be beyond help, forever.

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Your Money or Your Health

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It's interesting to see what pops up when you concern yourself with the food that you eat. After recent conversations about restaurants and local "health drinks" I was shown a website about a local weight loss program, Hopkins Fusion,  that sells Herbalife, the same protein powder/sports mix that City Blendz sells, and out of optimistic hope to be able to make a difference I wrote to the company to see if, at least, they knew about the unhealthy ingredients in their "health" shakes, forwarding the link to my recent article about their product. I was a bit taken aback by the response I received.

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Who Told You About Girl Scout Cookies?

Image by The Suss-Man (Mike) via Flickr

As a result of my recent post about Girl Scout cookies, a couple of conversations came up from friends and acquaintences of mine, and it occurs to me that a lot of people might have similar questions.

Dan, a guy came into our office today helping his daughter with her girl scout cookie sales so I looked at his sheet tallking about all the kinds of cookies and EVERYONE of them stated that they had 0 trans fats. So who told you they were loaded with trans fats?

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Trans Fat Ignorance

via @labnol on Flickr

It took a decade starting from 1989 before the government even agreed to make a decision about trans fats. Three four after THAT it was finally made law - but producers had a grace period of until 2006. Thus it is 2010, four years after the final deadline for manufacturers to label the amount of trans fat in products, ...and many people everywhere are still unaware of how much trans fat might be in their food.

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A Little Sludge, er Biosolids on Your Salad?

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This is a guest post by Libby from Whose Authority about a local and nationally-widespread problem that affects your health. She was recently informed from one of her neighbors that their rural area had been targeted for depositing of what's being called "biosolids" as a friendly way of masking its true nature, which is the remaining residue from sewer sludge. Libby forwarded this letter to me; it began as an email to Michele Meyer of the Red Wing city council.

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City Blendz Definition of Nutrition

City Blendz Nutrition opened a retail location in the skyway near our work. I'm not sure whether it's part of a chain or not, but if it is, it's probably a small chain because no one here as ever heard of them. I usually get excited for mom & pop -sized stores, because usually only with individual entrepreneurships will you see innovation in menu choices. None of my group could really tell whether this was going to be a coffee shop or not, because we could see syrup bottles while they were setting up shop, which usually implies coffee. However, as one could also tell by their website, www.mycityblendz.com, it's a smoothie joint. And not just any generic kind, either - one that advertises its food is good for weight loss.

Uh, oh.

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The Supply of Restaurants

I stumbled into today's story. My family and I were planning to attend the "Minneapolis Healthy Life Expo" and meet up with a friend there. The expo turned out to be more of a joke that I expected it to be; I supposed there would be simply a showing of health-related vendors and if I were lucky maybe a semi-interesting spontaneous seminar, but it the vendors weren't even entirely health-related. There were housing/repair and vacation vendors as well. Since it was as much an insult as a disappointment, we called our friend and told her to not even bother showing up.  Our friend and her family were at the moment shopping at a very nearby restaurant supply store, and thus we met up with them there.

Inside it looked like most any regular buying club-style grocery store. You may already be familiar with Sam's Club or CostCo, and that's the same kind of impression I got when I walked inside. The only thing you have to keep in mind was that this particular business is catering specifically to restaurants as clients. I believe you're supposed to have a registered business in order to sign up with their club. With that in mind, the feelings I had after that ranged from disappointed to appalled when I saw what kinds of things were on the shelves.

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