nutella sued for being the most delicious part of a child’s breakfast

I have my own reasons for considering Nutella a health food. I used to go through family-size jars every week during my semester abroad in Italy and still managed to lose weight. And once I instinctively reached for a spoonful of Nutella when I was weeping, it not only stopped the crying but left me bizarrely elated. But at half-a-jar serving portions, I was severely ignoring what the Nutella company suggests as a reasonable portion: a quick thin wipe of the chocolate-hazelnut on whole wheat bread.

The news is that a UK mom named Athena Hohenberg is suing Nutella for leading her to believe that it “could form part of a wholesome, balanced breakfast for her 4-year-old daughter”- and that the fat, sugar and calorie content suggest otherwise. Slate tackles the argument swiftly, showing how Nutella fares in the breakfast landscape among Frosted Flakes, Smuckers and sugar-added peanut butter, coming to the conclusion that it is the lesser evil: “Nutella loses on the fat front, but wins out on sugar and on the positive categories of fiber and protein… kids given high-sugar cereals typically eat twice the recommended serving amount, on average consuming 5.7 teaspoons of sugar.”

The problem is- and Twitter users will back me up on this- that no one eats the recommended amount of Nutella. We binge it, we crave it and sometimes we pay 6 euro for a tiny jar in the middle of the night at a Milan creperie because we just need it and the supermarkets are closed on Sundays. Nadia Arumugam suggests that the way we consume chocolate is part of the culprit:

Our problem with Nutella may, in part, be fused with entrenched cultural beliefs about chocolate. Chocolate is perceived as both a reward and a guilty pleasure: a rare indulgence permissible on special occasions, or savored in secrecy. The premise that we should embrace this “treat” as functional, everyday fare is entirely at odds with such deeply embedded ideas, and so we reject it. Or sue it.

Indeed, Nutella seems to have always marketing its product as an accessory for bread, either as breakfast or a snack. Like fruit jelly or butter or peanut butter. Eating it on a slice of whole wheat and a glass of milk and fruit juice is certainly just as reasonable as any chocolate croissant+coffee combination. Nutella hasn’t been doing anything wrong, unless making millions of kids happy all the time with it’s “hazelnut spread” that obviously contains a good deal of cocoa.

It certainly hasn’t been telling you it’s a “Smart Choice” like major U.S. food companies started doing on their products last year. That initiative was just a lie.

this week’s grocery list: organic water

Do you drink organic water because

a.) You think you’re helping planet Earth with your plastic bottle purchases
b.) You think it is technically possible for two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom to somehow be organic
c.) It’s some kind of statement, like those “I <3 Organic” bags
d.) It was on sale and you were thirsty

I’m not a big fan of organics because of all the politics and dirty stuff that go on behind the scenes in order to give you the opportunity to pay more for a certified organic product, and I am not a big fan of bottled water because tap water is just fine.

But if organic products and bottled water is your way of life- and that’s just fine- don’t let the labels make the decision for you. I bought a jar of jam that made a big deal out of containing 75% fruit, but hid the fact that the rest is HFCS. As Good Magazine points out: “Like salt (NaCl), water contains not a single carbon atom, meaning it’s not alive. Not alive means it can’t be certified organic; it’s that simple.”

This product is a lie, therefore the only correct answer to today’s quiz question is D, because you were melting in the DC summer and any sort of water will do.

i’m back from hiatus. now let’s talk about milk.

What, you didn’t think I cared about food marketing anymore? You’re wrong. I’m back.

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Offending ladies is an art: do it right and you’ll get yourself a date, or do it wrong and you’ll end up blacklisted. These Got Milk ads played the game right, and got something even better than a date: they got the Internet talking about them. Especially women.

I imagine that the Got Milk ad guys, who represent the California Milk Processor Board, have only two real goals: 1.) To get you thinking fondly about milk and 2.) to get you to your nearest food retailer to pick up some of that cold, refreshing generic food staple humans have been consuming since they domesticated cattle a zillion years ago. And for this, they invented a very simple two part campaign.

Part One: Put out some new scientific results via a colloquial frat joke. This campaign capitalized on the mildly offensive stereotypes associated with PMS, which itself occupies such a gray area on our current spectrum of political correctness that you can still kind of get away with it. After all, women still whip out the PMS card when their behavior gets out of hand- so why can’t everyone else? I think PMS is one of those things we can joke about with our friends, but we’re obligated to be offended once it hits a national scale.

Part Two: Take it down and apologize (because you have to) and put up the Twitter & Facebook-laced website you’d had sitting there all along. The Got Milk guys could probably predict one thing about these unpredictable anger bears known simply as “women”: that it would the stir up the kind of controversy where you wait for the ladies at Jezebel to get mad, put up an interactive website called GotDiscussion.org, where you simultaneously flatter members of the media and blogosphere -and- maintain a degree of control over what is a pretty tame “controversy” to begin with.

Well played, Got Milk guys. At least one of those ladies who was so incensed over your mainstream PMS joke, will likely recall the next time she is doubled over in monthly hormonal pain and anger…that a cold glass of milk might help.

veggie burger no longer bullied on playground, picked last for the kickball team

The Ultimate Veggie Burger from 101Cookbooks

The veggie burger, which was once hated just as much as beet roots and fat-free cream cheese still are (it can’t be just me, you guys), finally caught its break. Congratulations America, for catching onto something vegetarians have been quietly making in their kitchens for years.

Veggie burgers can be delicious, disgusting and anything you want them to be: it’s up to you. But grinding up beans, grilled veggies, nuts and grains into a spicy little cake that you slide around in some EVOO on a pan inherently makes sense.

Here’s an NYT article outlining the veggie burger’s sad childhood in America:

For meat-lovers, the veggie burger was long seen as a sad stand-in that tried to copy the contours and textures of a classic beef patty while falling pathetically short of the pleasure. And for meat-refusers, the veggie burger served as a kind of penitential wafer: You ate this bland, freeze-dried nutrient disc because you had to eat it (your duty as someone who had forsaken the flesh) and because at many a restaurant or backyard barbecue, it was the only option available.

The PR problem veggie burgers always had in the minds of carnivorous Americans was that it was meant to be a hamburger replacement. And since there’s no fun in a meat substitute, vegetarians were largely left with the soy and wheat-gluten based BocaBurger.

But now, chefs all over the place are getting creative and it’s paying off, at least around NYC: “Westville’s deep-fried blend of corn, cauliflower, broccoli, roasted red pepper and other ingredients now sells out on a regular basis.”

Umami Burger, a LA-based joint, offers up things like “mushroom-and-edamame patty with ricotta, truffle aioli and cipollini onions.”

I believe the advent of MorningStar Farms products really planted the concept of the veggie burger as its own animal, not just as an afterthought at a summer BBQ.  With its bright green packaging and distinctive placement in frozen food aisles at the grocery store, the idea of a veggie burger tasting like a garden, not processed soybean became mainstream.

The idea of fake meat and burger substitutes seems problematic anyway since they’re far from anything natural after all the processing and additions. Which is why BocaBurger now distinguishes between its new “veggie patties” and their grosser original counterparts. Good trendspotting, Boca marketers.

Everyone’s going “duh” in the Middle East, by the way. Falafel, the original veggie burger, has been around forever. It’s cheap and totally delicious.

 

 

all food tastes like olive garden food when you’re on a plane

Most of us will NEVER KNOW whether airplane food sucks because it’s just terrible to begin with or because we are terrified and drunk off of a mile-high gin & tonic, because we only have this cuisine experience thousands of feet up in the air.

However, I would assume that this study that Gawker blogged about is spot on: airplane food tastes bland to so many because your basic senses are literally stunted due to in-flight white noise. I’d think it’s also a combination of the dry, sterile airflow and perhaps even the inherent loneliness of eating your sad little TV dinner facing a sea of more seats.

Eh, but what’s the revelation here other than that food’s not as tasty when you’re supremely uncomfortable, out of your element and debating what to do with your bladder?

Flying is the worst. To quote a wise man, “Nobody flies without medication anymore. Why shouldn’t you enjoy the same luxuries as a dog?”

what is more american than eating breakfast three times, anyway?

What do you eat for breakfast? Do you even eat breakfast? Do you eat breakfast like, THREE times maybe? Quick Service Restaurant mag (QSR) says that not only is breakfast food a growing category for fast food restaurants, but there’s this multi-part quick meal trend too:

It’s also turned into a multi-meal occasion, where you’ve got some who will have a little something at home on their way in to work, pick up something in the drive thru, and then about 10 a.m. go have a specialty coffee or something like that. We did a study a little while back, and about 27 percent of consumers said that it was a multi-meal occasion for them.

Ok, some people like breaking it down. Small meals more times throughout the day, I get it. But there was a time when we just ate breakfast once and held out till lunch and snacked on something before dinner. Oral fixation. Are we headed to a place where we have an excuse to munch on something at all times of the day?

More importantly, will companies use the revenues to create wholly unimaginative and contrived man-humor ads?

Other highlights include the Pop Tart Emporium that just opened in NYC. Apparently it’s not open during breakfast hours. I’m interested to see if this store will last, because unlike the successful and established M&Ms store in Times Square, Pop Tarts lack the personality and taste to be a smashing success. They also just don’t taste good.

you’re getting fat. so please, lay off the breath mints

I recently had a job interview, but I hadn’t quite thought through the consequences of eating a tub of garlic hummus earlier that day. So I ran into the 7-Eleven and bought this:

Later, when I was killing some time, I saw on the back:

35% fewer calories than our regular mints. Calorie content has been reduced from .8 to .5 calories per .2g of mints.

If anything will make you fat, it’s the mints you pop into your mouth after your uh, your breakfast: 

But really, why had the Tic Tac company, for example, invested so much in its “The 1½ Calorie Breath Mint” slogan? Do American consumers really base their mint purchase decisions on calorie intake? I usually decide on mints or gum, then a flavor, then a brand. I thought everyone goes through some combination of that process. But if multiple companies are touting their low calories, there must be a sizeable segment of consumers who include that in the decision-making process.

I wonder if a particularly excellent 2 calorie mint is a dealbreaker for a 1.5 calorie-only consumer?

On a side note, few things are grosser than the orange-flavored Tic Tac.

what a treat: each of the 37 ingredients of the Twinkie is ready for its closeup

Gawker posted this photography project of Dan Eschliman first. Which is more terrifying? The pictures themselves or the fact that Twinkies contain 37 ingredients. Friends don’t let friends eat Twinkies, even if we survive a nuclear attack and those are the only things left to eat. Go organic and grill a cockroach instead.

(Dear Gawker, don’t kill me for being lazy and using your image. I linked it back to you.)

mcdonald’s now tells us its brilliant logic behind those hindi “free smoothie” promos

I emailed McDonald’s PR people, and here’s what I got in response. (In related news, being a PR rep for a multi-national corporation seems like the most soul-crushing career path for any human anywhere. Imagine writing stuff like this all day, everyday):

Thank you for taking the time to contact McDonald’s. I appreciate this opportunity to respond to your concerns regarding McDonald’s use of languages other than English in our advertising and marketing efforts.

First, it’s important to understand that McDonald’s proudly serves more than 25 million customers each day in the US. As such, we recognize, value and appreciate the broad diversity of our entire customer base. Utilizing advertising and marketing tactics in languages in addition to English where it makes good business sense allows us to communicate with all of our customers in meaningful and relevant ways and further supports our commitment to embracing the diversity of the American cultural landscape.

You are a valued customer, and your comments are important to us. Please be assured that I’ve shared your comments with our Marketing team…

Jessica
McDonald’s Customer Response Center

Lady, you’ve got it all wrong. If you want to connect with Indians in meaningful ways, by all means, expand your clever promotional campaign to include all 14 languages we speak. Plenty of Indians don’t speak Hindi, plenty don’t even find Hindi relevant to their everyday lives and plenty of Indian-Americans don’t speak ANY Indian language because we grew up here, and find this scheme a bit discriminatory and derogatory.

Really, why stop here. Why not promote to Irish-Americans in Celtic? Or black Americans in Swahili? If anything, this promotion shows a LACK of understanding of the Indian peoples and diaspora.

It also shows insensitivity towards immigrants and children of immigrants, for whom cultural and national identity is a weighty issue. Some of us don’t identify with the countries our parents came from and I don’t like that McDonald’s went all grassroots marketing on me and decided my cultural identity FOR me from this handpicked list of Indians, or Census Bureau raid…have we figured out how they found us yet?

I do appreciate the free smoothie, however.

let us all just keep WasteNot Saks a secret from Vera Bradley

I was browsing online for a new bag on Etsy a few nights ago, when I came across these. They’re not purses, but reusable sandwich and snack bags:Called Waste Not Saks, your kids can take them to school instead of throwing out a brown bag and a couple Ziploc bags at the end of lunch everyday. You can take one with you to work. Find one to match your Trader Joe’s reusable grocery bag. These are as cool as Book Sox.  There’s no reason for these not to catch on. Here’s the eco-blurb on their usefulness, from the sellers:

Welcome to WasteNot Saks™, your place to find reusable bags for your sandwich and snack storage and transport needs. Each eco-friendly bag is made with a stylish cotton exterior and lined with a water-resistant, food safe nylon. Our items contain no PVC, no Phthalate, no BPA, and no Lead. An added bonus of using nylon is that your food will not come into contact with polyurethane as it would with a PUL liner.

My friends may be getting these for Christmas. Eating out of plastic bags is so 20th century.