Eat My Florida

Scared to send your child out of the house for hours at a time to run off their summer vacation energy? Now you’ve got something else to fear.

According to a NYT article, kindergarten and 1st grade kids put on body mass two to three times faster during the summer, compared to the school year. Some of that has to do with the lack of scheduled eating and activity enforced by schools, some has to do with sitting around watching TV and playing video games. Sadly, kids who need to gain weight also did better during the school year, putting on more mass, likely thanks to the almost-guaranteed offer of two-to-three squares a day from the government.

School cafeteria food may not be ideal, but Sarasota has the right attitude to help kids with nutrition. Pinellas and Hillsborough are a little behind the curve.

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Grass Root is by far the best vegan/raw restaurant in the Bay area. Ok, it’s the only vegan/raw restaurant around these parts, but you’ll still find a bevy of dishes that even an omnivore would love (especially that delectable miso soup). Owners Spencer and Sabrina Sterling “cooked” up this part vegan/part raw menu for a breakfast (or anytime) meal that they say will heal your body and help the environment just as much as it relieves your budget. Better yet, there is very little effort involved, since a lot of the ingredients are bought pre-prepared.

Check the recipes — and the Sterlings’ comments about the healthful nature of the dishes — after the break. (more…)

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I’ve waxed mildly poetic about Tampa’s raw/vegan restaurant Grass Roots (the miso soup is worth a visit all by itself). I was less enthusiastic about Veggie Magic, a Sarasota raw food shop involving raw ambassador and amateur filmmaker Jenna Norwood. Hey, I support amping up everyone’s consumption of raw fruits and veggies, but on the whole I find this particular dietary fetish — no food cooked over 105-115 degrees, no flesh, no dairy — to be philosophically and scientifically flawed. More importantly, most of the “cuisine” created by raw chefs runs the gamut from blah to blecch.

That’s not stopping raw food impressario and culinary hottie Matthew Kenney from transplanting himself from progressive New York City to the most dreadful city in Florida. Yep, he’s opening a raw restaurant in Orlando called Cafe 118 (referring to the max temperature it’s food will reach). The place isn’t open yet, but the website already features a link for anyone interested in franchise opportunities. Before you jump on the burgeoning raw food bandwagon and start shelling out your uncooked dough, be forewarned that one of the reasons Kenney may be expanding out of his home base in NYC involves litigation and bankruptcy relating to some of his previous businesses. Whatever, Florida is all about second chances, right?

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• “April 12th’s Saturday Night Live featured three clips of Ashton Kutcher dressed up as a giant chocolate bar with a killer instinct, cute mime clown face and all.” (Thanks Serious Eats)

• “What was supposed to be a temporary financial safety net for imperiled family farmers has become a huge boondoggle for a fraction of wealthy farmers, including landowners who’ve never gotten close enough to a barn to slip on the manure.” (Thanks PBS.org)

• “A simulated outbreak of the disease — part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called “Crimson Sky” — ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation’s National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets.” (Thanks AP)

• “Planners couldn’t come up with enough organic or sustainably grown food from Georgia to nourish just 600 people over two days.” Hmm, maybe I’ll have to start giving back to my alma mater. (Thanks AJC)

• “Smart owners, of course, have always carefully watched their costs, but when every bill comes with a “gasoline-price surcharge” and fewer people are walking through the door, it’s hocus-pocus time.” (Thanks WP)

• WORLD FOOD CRISIS UPDATE: “Cropland is suddenly in heavy demand, a situation that is fraying old alliances, inspiring new ones and putting pressure on the Agriculture Department, which is being lobbied directly by all sides without managing to satisfy any of them.” (Thanks NYT)

• WORLD FOOD CRISIS UPDATE: “When millions of people are going hungry, it’s a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels,” said India’s finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, in an interview.” (Thanks WSJ)

• WORLD FOOD CRISIS UPDATE: “As we know in the past, sometimes those questions lead to war,” he said. “We now need to devote 100 percent of our time to these questions.” (Thanks NYT)

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Anyone who wants to find both a good – and another bad — side to the ongoing economic woes of our fair country just has to look at their bottom line. Or, more accurately, the line of their bottoms.

Lately, local food and health advocates have stapled a silver lining onto the recession by claiming that higher prices of industrially-produced corn, meat and soy – caused by elevated oil prices, among a bevy of other factors – means that people will be eating more fruits and vegetables from local farms, since those prices have stayed largely stable. That’s good for the environment, public health and the local economy. The NYT had a piece about this today, featuring quotes and wishful thinking from luminaries like Michael Pollan and Alica Waters.

The problem is, prices for local and organic fruits and vegetables are only “bargains” in relation to those industrial products’ increased prices. That’s great for the environmental- and health-conscious middle and upper classes who already seek out better foods. But, mass-produced food is still less expensive and easier to obtain, especially for lower-income families, which means the unhealthiest, most inexpensive commercial foods might see as big a jump in consumption as local and organic products.

Burger King CEO John Chidsey nailed that problem in a Wall Street Journal Q & A last week: “It’s very hard for me to imagine that the economy could ever get so bad that somebody could not afford to go buy a Double Cheeseburger from McDonald’s or a Whopper Jr. from us for $1. If you go to the grocery store, I really challenge you to find something for under $1.”

When I tried the Food Stamp Challenge last year, I experienced those same issues. Making the best out of a small budget and and healthy desires takes precious time that the working poor don’t usually have in abundance. When money is tight, really tight, healthy eating falls quickly to the convenience of a cheap and filling fast food meal.

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This week, Men’s Health released their annual list of the worst foods in America. For them, “worst” is more a calculation of fat and calories than overall taste, but several items could qualify in both respects. Their targets are big national chains, with McDonalds, Chilis, Chipotle and Macaroni Grill making the list for egregious concoctions designed more for small villages or Dom Deluise look-a-like conventions than the single servings they purport to be.

Topping the list is the Bay area’s own Outback Steakhouse, with their “Aussie cheese fries with ranch dressing.” 2900 calories. 182 grams of fat. It’s nice to know that, yet again, Tampa is leading the way when it comes to dining.

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A Purdue University study funded by the National Institutes of Health recently found that consuming artificial sweeteners instead of sugar may result in weight gain. Rats were fed snacks of yogurt (some sweetened with saccharine, some with sugar) before their regular meals. At the end of five weeks, the rats fed yogurt with artificial sweetener gained 20% more weight on average than rats fed the sugary snack.

This comes on the heels of another recent study that tracked 9500 adults for nine years to find underlying conditions that contribute to heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other conditions commonly referred to as “metabolic syndrome.” No surprise that Michael Pollan’s dreaded “Western diet” accounts for much of the increased problems, but diet soda is the biggest villain in the story. People who drink one diet soda a day have a 34% higher risk of developing the syndrome than people who drink no diet soda.

Looks like I’ll be getting a packet from the Calorie Control Council soon, just like the info from the fine people at Big Corn.

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The federal WIC (Women, Infant and Children) Program has provided food assistance targeted at “low income pregnant, breastfeeding, non-breastfeeding postpartum women, infants and children up to five years of age who are at nutritional risk” since the 1970s. Recently, WIC has been criticized for the lack of fresh food options that it allows participants to purchase, relying on milk, eggs, cheese and breakfast cereal to feed America’s youth. Until last month, the only fruits and veggies permitted were carrots for breastfeeding mothers. I wonder what Michael Pollan would think of WIC’s reliance on “scientific nutrition rationale.”

In December, the USDA changed its mind. Next month, states will implement an addition to the program that provides a whopping $8 to each WIC recipient for the purchase of fruits and vegetables. Not much, to be sure, but most WIC participants also get benefits from other programs, like Food Stamps.

Around these parts, that $8 will have to spent at the supermarket.

You see, there is already a WIC program in place — the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program — that provides money to moms and kids to be used at farmers’ markets for the purchase of locally grown fruits and vegetables, but Florida isn’t pushing participation. In 2007 we received less federal money for the program than 22 other states and districts, including places like Washington, D.C. and Iowa. The FMNP coupons Florida does distribute are only authorized for use in 17 out of 67 Florida counties. Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Manatee are not on the list.

All of this comes on the heels of a UCLA study that followed two groups of WIC participants — one given an extra $10 in coupons for local farmers’ markets and one given $10 for fruits and vegetables at the supermarket. After 6 months, the farmers markets group consumed almost twice as many extra daily servings of fruits and vegetables than the supermarket group.

Now that’s an efficient way to promote nutrition.

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Appearing later this week in lieu of the weekly restaurant review:

This space is usually devoted to appraising the kinds of food that we eat pretty much every day, served by people who devote their lives and livelihoods to its preparation. Rarely do I delve into the nitty-gritty of America’s relationship with food. It’s a complex subject, easy to ignore in the face of so many damn fine things to eat.

In some ways, 2006’s Omnivore’s Dilemma — arguably the best food book of the decade — changed all of that, at least for me. In Omnivore, author Michael Pollan broadly set the scene for dietary self-examination, detailing the history of our unhealthy relationship with corn and soy and lamenting the distance (both physical and psychological) between our plates and the sources of our food. In the process, he fleetingly raises a couple of troublesome questions: Why do we eat what we eat? And, perhaps more important: What should we eat?

In Defense of Food, Pollan’s latest book, is his answer.

(more…)

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Only in Japan would they spike your cookies with “breast enhancing herbs.” Each cookie has 50mg of the magical boobie herb, Pueraria Mirifica. (According to Peuraria corporate press: “As miracle herb has been proved its efficacy of “high Content of Active Ingredients” for building up confidence among women to be more Perfect! Lady.” Lady, indeed!) The text is Japanese, but these graphics tell the tale.

Brings new meaning to Two-a-Day!

(Sorry Jaden, couldn’t resist adding some stuff! -BR)

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After a week of bad news for Florida and the Bay Area, we’ve finally gotten to a happier story:

Only a little over 1 in 5 Floridians are obese! That puts us at a very respectable 34th most obese state in the nation! Yeah! (Maybe it’s all the food poisoning.)

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