Balance of Food

Podcast link to Canadian food event is now online

As promised, as soon as the podcast link was posted, I wanted to make sure my readers had a chance to hear the program, in case you weren't there.

As a reminder, the program was a combination of my love for things Canadian (CanadianCrossing.com) and my coverge of food and nutrition trends (BalanceofFood.com).

The program was held on June 19 at Kendall College. The podcast you will hear is courtesy of WBEZ Amplified, and we want to give them generous thanks for the production as a way to let the spirit of the program live on.

For those who want to learn more about what we did, here is a summary:

Canadian food event was a success

To access the podcasts, check them out in the podcast library.

Nathan's hot dog eating contest turns lame without Kobayashi

UPDATE: When you couldn't think the stupidity and lameness of the people who run competitive eating couldn't get any worse, it did. They had Takeru Kobayashi arrested at the Nathan's contest. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

The person who made your industry somewhat viable — created whatever you have — and you spit on him and literally turn him into a criminal. If you want to save whatever it is that you do, sport or otherwise, make some severe apologies.

When you think of the Fourth of July, you think of Nathan's hot dog eating contest, the pinnacle event on the Major League Eating's organizational calendar.

You think of Joey Chestnut, Tim Janus (Eater X), Pat Bertoletti, Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas, and of course, Takeru Kobayashi.

Unfortunately, for fans of the sport, if we can call it that, Kobayashi was prohibited to participate. Depending on which side you believe, either this is a labor impasse or MLE and the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE) is upset that Kobayashi got a visa on his own. When IFOCE had a visa for Kobayashi, it could limit his appearances to IFOCE-sanctioned events.

So the usual excitement for the contest disappeared faster than a hot dog in this competition. If you didn't beat Chestnut, you might as well have set your money on fire.

Chestnut had won 3 in a row, all against Kobayashi, who had won the previous 6 events. It was clear on Sunday that two things would happen: 1) Chestnut would win in a landslide, and 2) Chestnut would eat far fewer hot dogs.

Last year, Chestnut ate 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes; this year, he only ate 54. Janus came in second with 45 and Bertoletti took third with 37.

The show, which is produced by Major League Eating, compared calorie counts to Olympic gold medal winner Michael Phelps to the hot dog eating contest. The graphic pointed to Phelps eating "only" 12,000 calories while Chestnut's 68 hot dogs and buns at 20,196 calories.

This year, by that mark, Chestnut only had 16,038 calories.

The last three years, the contest has been portrayed as "U.S. vs. Japan" — especially on the heels of the Fourth of July. This year, the top and only contenders are from the USA. Given our collective stomachs, are we that surprised?

Pat Bertoletti impressed us by setting a poutine eating record in May. And Tim Janus has excelled for a number of years. But neither of them are in a league with Chestnut and Kobayashi — in terms of hot dogs. And until Kobayashi is let back into the league, Nathan's will be even more lame.

Oh, by the way, don't try this at home. I did eat hot dogs while watching the contest, though I limited myself to two.

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One side note: Throughout the telecast, Prilosec ran numerous ads and Pepto-Bismol is a major sponsor of the event. Pepto-Bismol's presence is so obnoxious that their logo is on the championship belt, and the company makes the winner — Chestnut — drink it on camera. If you think people stuffing hot dogs in their faces looks gross, watching someone casually drinking Pepto-Bismol like Chablis on a warm summer afternoon is much more gross.

Manny Howard shows us how not to do an urban farm on 'Colbert Report'

Stephen Colbert jokes about his "Colbert bump" — watching his guests' books do better after being on the "Colbert Report."

So when I heard Manny Howard was going to be on the show, I was hoping for a successful interview. After all, Howard had written a book on how he turned his New York City back yard into an urban garden.

This was one of the worst "Colbert Report" interviews. This was a great guide on how not to do an interview.

Howard mocks locavores. There wasn't much growing success. The farm costs $11,000 and he only got 60 meals. Maybe you can learn what not to do with an urban farm.

And there was a depressing story about a rabbit. You have to see it for yourself.

Maybe the book is better than the interview would let us know. Probably not.

The episode also featured Colbert's look at the recent recall of Spaghetti O's for being underprocessed. As part of the "Threat Down" segment, Colbert "attacked" actual food. As Colbert put it:

"If we don't have processed Spaghetti O's, what we are going to eat? Spaghetti? Do you have any idea how hard it is to tie those things into tiny O's?"

Next week, Colbert talks to Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers of America, on Thursday. That will have to be a much better interview.

Commercials within TV shows damage credibility of people we're supposed to trust

What seems like a long time ago, but was actually in the mid-90s, I covered marketing. I received an unofficial education into marketing and its impact on consumers.

One trend I would not have predicted is that commercials would air within shows and consumers would be nonplussed about them.

Jillian Michaels complained in March about Subway having a commercial, er, "show integration" in "The Biggest Loser." Then Michaels shows Subway on her own show in a "show integration."

I was also considerably critical of Green Giant for its "show integrations" within "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution."

People trust Jamie Oliver, Jillian Michaels, and other celebrities. The people feel like they know and like these people inside their TVs. And they are more likely to be interested in the product if it is hawked by someone they like and trust.

If Jillian Michaels came on in a commercial break and touted the wonders of Subway, her followers and those in the media would criticize her for "selling out." But these "show integrations" are advertisements, even if there is a "promotional consideration" tag in the closing credits. And the camera does linger longer on promotional considerations than in the hard working people on that program.

And they are worse than ads because they're not seen as ads, making the message seem rather ambiguous.

Marketing experts will tell you that show integrations are necessary because, thanks to DVRs and TiVOs, people are fast forwarding through commercial breaks. And that companies need to do commercials in ads, er, show integrations, to get their point across.

The only way this doesn't work is if companies get the message that their messages aren't working. If you are offended by the concept, don't buy from those companies. And let them know that you won't support them for that reason.

I gave up following "The Biggest Loser" because of the product placements and mini-commercials within the show. The hosts don't like them. The viewers are offended by them. Somebody is ordering these commercials to happen, but no one is taking credit, or blame.

If these are honorable quests for our attention, then treat the customer with respect. Call an ad an ad. Insulting our intelligence as food consumers won't sell your products. And using people we trust is offensive to the helpful things they are trying to do for us.

Jillian Michaels promotes Subway, even though she knows it uses high-fructose corn syrup

If you eat Subway sandwiches, you wouldn't be surprised that the bread tastes sweet. And you probably wouldn't be surprised that bread at Subway contains high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

But what was startling is that Subway's 9-grain bread contains more HFCS than any of the whole grains. The whole grains on the ingredient list fall in the 2% or less category, the virtually useless list of ingredients listed on the panel. From Subway's official Web site:

9-GRAIN WHEAT Enriched wheat flour (wheat flour, barley malt, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, yeast, high fructose corn syrup, whole wheat flour, wheat gluten, contains 2% or less of the following: oat fiber, soybean oil, salt, wheat bran, rolled wheat, rye nuggets, dough conditioners (DATEM, sodium stearoyl lactylate), yeast nutrients (calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate), degermed yellow corn meal, rolled oats, rye flakes, caramel color, triticale flakes, parboiled brown rice, refinery syrup, honey, barley flakes, flaxseed, millet, sorghum flour, azodiacarbonamide, natural flavor (maltodextrin, natural flavor, silicon dioxide, lactic acid). Contains wheat.

Thought the bread is brown, the color doesn't come from grains — according to this report — but from ammonium sulfate, a commonly used plant fertilizer, and caramel coloring.

The Italian bread doesn't have HFCS, but does contain sugar. In the bread, the three primary ingredients are enriched flour, water, and sugar. While this is better for you than a HFCS-version, the bread is still too unnecessarily sweet.

While the Subway-HFCS connection has been floating around the Internet for some time, the kicker came courtesy of Tuesday night's episode of "Losing It with Jillian." As you may recall, Subway got an in-show ad on the program as a way for the Vivio family to eat better.

So Jillian Michaels, who has her own show, and theoretically has control over her show, endorses Subway. But that same Jillian Michaels came out in March blasting Subway for having HFCS in its bread. Yet we saw Jillian promote Subway on her own show, three months later.

Subway also ran in-show ads during "The Biggest Loser," the backlash of which caused Michaels to respond back in March. Her excuse at the time:

"We're obligated to do show integrations per NBC contract. We're not paid for them. However, I only do the ones I eat personally," Jillian responded via Facebook. "I eat the veggie 1 all the time but, the HFCS is a bummer."

The "show integrations" are fancy words for commercials within the program. Jillian Michaels co-created her own show and is one of many executive producers on her own show. So how did Subway get a "show integration" on Jillian Michaels' own show when they serve bread containing high-fructose corn syrup?

After learning about Subway having HFCS in its bread, Jillian said the following:

"I told em if they take it out of their bread I'll do a commercial for free."

Admittedly, Tuesday night's commercial wasn't free, but Jillian was very effective in selling the Subway idea. In her defense, the only bread she mentioned was the Italian bread, which is HFCS-free. But the Italian bread still has plenty of sugar.

Jillian Michaels knows Subway bread contains high-fructose corn syrup, launched her own show, and still did an ad for Subway. Jillian Michaels hawked Subway products on her own show knowing Subway uses high-fructose corn syrup. And not just in the bread:

9-Grain Wheat Bread, Sourdough Bread, Oven Roasted Chicken Strips (Teriyaki Glaze), Meatballs, Chipotle Southwest Sauce, Fat-Free Honey Mustard (first ingredient), Chocolate Chunk Cookies, and All Fruizle Express Flavors

This doesn't count all the regular, non-diet soft drinks, all of which contains high-fructose corn syrup.

You can't — with one side of your mouth — throw out condiments that contain high-fructose corn syrup and yet promote products that contain high-fructose corn syrup. That is called hypocrisy. And in the hands of someone TV viewers trust to do good by them, Jillian Michaels has let us down.

It has been bad enough that the show doesn't take good advantage to help people eat better, but pushing products that don't help — even though you know better — is doing more damage than help.

Take what you can from the world of TV "helping" shows, but keep your cynical hats on. The information you get isn't always the best for you.