Balance of Food

Lyfe promises healthy fast food; will customers like their brand of healthy?

Not quite like combining chocolate and peanut butter, mixing the concept of fast food with healthy fast food is the goal of Lyfe, a new restaurant from two McDonald's execs and help from one of Oprah Winfrey's personal chefs.

There are local places that specialize in high-quality fast food. And the food is usually quite good – and expensive. Not expensive in a way such as “OMG. I can't pay $4 for a 'real' burger when a Whopper is on sale for $2.” More like “We are so cool, so we know you will pay more for this burger.”

And so, even in the best of times, they are an occasional indulgence.

Lyfe, or any other outfit to try this concept, will live or die based on accessibility. That accessibility is based on price points and viable options. In English, the places must be open to a wide variety of customers who would be there for different reasons.

And there is the whole issue of what a place constitutes “healthy.” From the Chicago Tribune:

"In the Lyfe kitchen, butter, cream and high-fructose corn syrup are banned, and none of the food is fried. Sweet potato fries, for instance, are oven-baked. All of Lyfe's menu items contain less than 600 calories, including signature dishes that include a Niman ranch beef burger with agave ketchup and pickles. The desserts are expected to be dairy-free."

Those regular readers know that a ban on high-fructose corn syrup would be a welcome sight in a restaurant. However, butter and cream might have their place, especially given the alternatives. And for those who can have dairy, they might want desserts that have some moo-type element.

Baked sweet potato fries, if done properly, would be a really nice alternative to the traditional deep-fried potato. And that burger sounds really good right now.

Outside of Northern California, we won't have to worry for awhile about whether the concept will succeed. But this advice works for any place trying this type of strategy.

People want healthy food that is relatively quick and at a decent price point. This is inconsistent, but restaurants and food manufacturers need to have those goals in mind. We wish them good luck.

Oprah shows a road to being vegan, but there are multiple paths

About a year ago, when Oprah Winfrey had Michael Pollan on her show, Winfrey also had Alicia Silverstone on extolling the virtues of a vegan lifestyle.

Oprah must have been rather impressed with what Silverstone said because she issued a challenge that finished one week ago for herself and 378 staffers to go vegan for a week.

Most people don't have their boss force a significant eating change on them, but if you work for Oprah Winfrey, you can't be surprised when it happens.

Now, it has been a week since those staffers — and Oprah — went vegan for a week. Some went longer than a week, but most stopped at 7 days.

Of the 378 staffers, 300 were successful. And even the other 78 learned a lot from the experience.

Now, going vegetarian — even for a week — would be a challenge for most Americans. Going vegan, well, good luck.

Going vegetarian for a day is seen as easily attainable, thanks to programs such as Meatless Monday. Going vegetarian accidentally for a day without being aware is actually possible.

Yesterday's Jeopardy had a whole column on vegetarian options — "Don't have a cow, man." "What are lettuce, tofu, (fakin') bacon, soy, and portabello (mushroom)?"

Going vegan does feel like the thought of riding a motorcycle when your bicycle still has training wheels.

The outside of the rules are simple: eat vegetables, fruits, and grains while avoiding meat. The tricky part is the new stuff: butter, cheese, eggs, even gelatin is off limits.

Quinoa, beans, peanut butter, whole grain pasta — there are plenty of sources of protein that don't involve animals. But being vegan means a lot more forethought to finding the food supply that fits this lifestyle. Being omnivores requires much less work.

The pressure of having to go on national TV and admit that you "failed" would put pressure on you to give it a good try. Those in real life don't have those pressures nor do they get the benefit from having that pressure.

Silverstone's story didn't speak about the cruelty to animals; her concerns were about health and personal energy, both of which improved for her after going vegan.

But Silverstone shrugged off the ease in transitioning to being a vegan. This was a life lesson opportunity — a teaching moment — that was lost.

Why won't most people try being a vegan — even for a week? A lack of knowledge and a fear of failure. Oprah and her 378 staffers have a great story after having gone vegan for a week.

That story isn't necessarily that they succeeded or even that they loved it. Their best stories will be the point of temptation, and yes, even a few failures.

Making changes to your eating habits is one of the most difficult transitions to make. Unlike heroin and cigarettes, you still have to eat food every day.

Did Oprah and her staffers try eating more vegetables or did they use seitan, tofu, and other non-animal sources of protein? Did they accidentally consume an animal product? What was the hardest part of the experience? What was your worst temptation? Did you feel better? Healthier?

We got a little bit of that, but would love to have seen more struggles.

And for those who criticized the show for emphasizing fake meat over adding more vegetables, well, that bandwagon needs a few more floats to hold all the people who agree with that assessment.

Being vegan or vegetarian doesn't have to be the answer, and there are many good ways to go about that, should you make that decision. And the prestige of a national show draws needed attention to different options.

Just don't feel the need to do it because Oprah said so, and don't think the way on her show is the only way to make changes.

Super Bowl Monday morning ad analysis: PepsiMax signifies jealousy, violence more than diet

The Doritos commercials were particularly dumb, and the Coca-Cola ads were pretty lame. There wasn't much to write about food-wise about the Super Bowl ads. And we're not counting the Wendy's slapping chicken sandwich ad since it aired after the game.

There was one commercial, for a diet soft drink, that did exemplify the dieting mentality.

PepsiMax ran an ad at the 8:17 mark in the first quarter entitled "Love Hurts." The hapless guy, similar to the beer ad hapless guys, is seen trying to order French fries but his wife gets him (by kicking his thigh) to order the fruit cup, his face is later smashed into a pie on the kitchen counter, and then tries to sneak a fast food sandwich in the shower, but has the sandwich taken from him and replaced in his mouth with a bar of soap.

Of course, the man is allowed to drink the PepsiMax because the soft drink has no calories.

The tie-in is that the diet soft drink is as much fun as the French fries, pie, and hamburger, but without the built-in calorie problem. If you getting most of your food fun from diet drinks, no wonder that diets don't last too long, or do too well.

Of course, sneaking food in the shower isn't a healthy way to live a better eating lifestyle.

Given that diet drinks anecdotally led to eating more food, pushing the diet drink might increase sales, but isn't necessarily the best way to improved eating.

And when the dieting target (and the young woman who got knocked out by the product) is in better shape than the person doing the pushing, well, that seems weird even in the world of advertising.

"Yeah, I want to drink a soft drink where I weigh too much and drinking it makes me angry and jealous enough to commit battery." Uh, no thanks.

Super Bowl ads tend to run more in the dumb category than typical advertising, but there still needs to be a remote tie-in with the product. PepsiMax tried to imply that it is as cool as the forbidden treats (it isn't) and the lasting memories of the ad are jealousy and violence. The ad and the product don't look so tasty after all.

Daily Show, Colbert fall short this time, but still better than most on food marketing criticism

Editor's note: No podcast this week, so we may bring you the extra special analysis below. Hope you aren't getting too much snow where you live.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were active this week on the food front. Colbert weighed in on DiGiorno's fake wings, known legally as Wyngz, Nestle's attempt to make food that tells you when you should be full, and Michelle Obama lending her reform identity to Wal-Mart.

The Daily Show used Lewis Black and his "Back in Black" segment to take on the Taco Bell lawsuit.

Jon and Stephen usually have funnier, sharper shots at the world of food. Their shots came up a little light, almost as if they didn't have enough meat to them.

Lewis Black portrayed Taco Bell eaters as drunk at 3 am, then tried to tie-in minor stories about an extravagant burger at a minor league baseball park in Akron, Ohio, and the idea of artificially growing meat.

Black's rant might have been more useful if a) he had spent all the time on the Taco Bell lawsuit and b) if Colbert hadn't already done a better job first.

Colbert spent time on Nestle working on food to tell us when we should be full. Colbert did a nice job in mocking this idea. Yes, there are two major issues in overeating: what we eat and how much. The amount we eat is the easier of the two issues.

The "wyngz" bit was cute, but maybe a stretch.

The usual cynicism seemed missing from the Wal-Mart segment, which Colbert stretched out into the next segment with an interview with Wal-Mart VP Leslie Dach. The assumption was that Wal-Mart would do what it promised — Colbert played up the "let the market decide" angle.

(One of the amusing notes in getting the links to these videos is sitting through more than one ad for the McDonald's Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus burger. Very ironic.)

The Daily Show and Colbert Report are excellent purveyors of commentary on food marketing and politics news. They aren't always going to be perfect. One suggestion for the shows is to be more topical right away (don't wait too long), and see the bigger picture.

Even if the shows don't take my advice, their current efforts are still better than most of what is out there, especially on television.

Michelle Obama incorporates hockey into 'Let's Move'; Is Sarah Palin listening?

In case you missed the coverage of the NHL All-Star Game, you might not have seen this PSA for Let's Move. Michelle Obama extolls the virtues of hockey as a form of exercise.

But the First Lady doesn't forget the nutritional element to the story: "Let's eat better so we have the energy we need to play."

Unless the PSAs have been running during basketball, I haven't seen too many of the PSAs for the Let's Move project. So the PSAs that ran over the NHL All-Star Game weekend were a welcome sight.

People who watch sports love sports but aren't always in the best game condition. So a nice reminder that exercise — and nutrition — are important needs to be seen by the sports-watching audience.

The hockey tie-in is also nice because the sport doesn't get enough recognition, and skating around is a lot better exercise than sports such as soccer.

Hockey isn't always seen as an opportunity for people of color, and having a strong African-American woman tell us that hockey is for everyone sends a stronger message than a First Lady might otherwise do.

And the best reason for Michelle Obama's praise of hockey: Sarah Palin is a hockey mom. At least, she was when her oldest son, Track, was playing hockey.

The former half-term governor of Alaska and GOP vice-presidential candidate has been a vocal critic of the First Lady and the Let's Move program. Perhaps praising hockey might sway Palin into seeing the good in the Let's Move program.

4¢ for an extra fast food beef patty seems an easy call, but costs more in the end

You probably would pay 4¢ more for an extra beef patty, but should you?

I was caught in bureaucratic hell on Monday, and I was either going to pass out from lack of lunch, or forced to go across the street to a regally spokesmodel oriented fast food selection.

When I do frequent the national fast food chains, I do look at the "value menu" figuring if I spend less money, the experience will seem less horrible.

The other frustrating part of menus at fast food places is that they don't show the price of a regular hamburger, or they hide it so people can't find it.

The woman in front of me had a different financial dilemma. She asked if there was a special on the signature burger, and was told that you could get 2 of those for $4.

As I was well-past my lunch time, yet not close to getting bureaucratic help across the street, I was tempted to get the two large sandwiches. But I didn't want to spend as much as $4 to do so.

As I was still waiting, I noticed on the value meal that they had a double hamburger for $1, but double hamburger don't taste as good as the regular hamburger. Was hoping that the regular hamburger was significantly cheaper than a double hamburger.

I finally got to the front of that line (still faster than the bureaucratic hell across the street) and asked how much a regular hamburger cost. "96¢."

Let's do the math: You can get one hamburger patty between two buns for 96¢ and two hamburger patties between two buns for 4¢ more.

The logic screaming in your face is to spend the extra 4¢ (plus tax) and get the extra meat. And I succumbed to that logic. In hindsight, this was a mistake.

Sure there was more food for virtually the same amount of money. And more food means more value. But in the eating world, especially in that scenario, sometimes virtually free food isn't worth it.

Now you might ask if I knew better, why did I succumb to the temptation and get the extra meat.

Because I and others are human. Because stress, temptation, and the value of value led to a lesser choice.

I was staring at the calorie information on the side wall while waiting for the food. The food amount in two double hamburgers felt like a lot of calories, sodium, fat, et al. And that extra beef patty did make a significant difference.

Dishing out 4¢ for an extra beef patty seems logical. But the fast food world doesn't always fit in with logic. Next time, I'm eating lunch before I jump into bureaucratic hell.

Chick-fil-A or gay: you should choose, but choose wisely

Is a chicken sandwich, even a good one, worth sacrificing your principles?

Choosing a food philosophy that is free of politics is rather difficult. Sure you can be a locavore because you think that is the right choice, but there are political overtones. You can not choose to frequent a place, but if that place is on a boycott list, you might get swept up in that movement.

Other embrace the relationship between food and politics. Then there is the opposite tangent — when politics you agree with threatens the food you want.

There has been a long-standing boycott of Domino's Pizza for its contributions to anti-abortion groups, but given the overall crappy product (which Domino's has admitted), there isn't much temptation if you lean this way politically.

But for some, the Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich means supporting an anti-gay agenda, putting principles and palate at opposite sides.

The Chick-fil-A political stances isn't new, but the controversy was raised recently with a Pennsylvania outlet's sponsorship of a marriage seminar by a very outspoken group against homosexuality.

So which way to go: gay or Chick-fil-A?

The actions of Domino's Pizza were that national profits literally went to controversial groups. So far, no one has linked national money from Chick-fil-A to these groups.

On the other hand, Chick-fil-A has worked with Focus on the Family to distribute CDs with kids' meals and has required, as The New York Times has noted, "potential operators to discuss their marital status and civic and church involvement."

Eaters at Chick-fil-A have known for years about the chain's hard-core Christian principles. Chick-fil-A locations are never open on Sunday.

In-n-Out burgers also have Christian principles in their regional establishments, but they also treat their employees really well.

And some may not feel gay marriage is worth losing a chicken sandwich, even if they believe that gays are equal.

People have been eating Chick-fil-A for years, knowing or not knowing their background. But people's attitudes have changed toward gay people over the years.

And people who have very little power in the world, and that is most of us, can vote with our pocketbook, our principles. But our concern have to be channeled properly.

Dan Cathy, president of Chick-fil-A, said all people are welcome at the chain, and that "marriage has long been a focus of Chick-fil-A."

Cathy noted that "providing food to these events or any event is not an endorsement of the mission, political stance, or motives of this or any other organization."

So you would think that an individual Chick-fil-A would provide food to an organization that endorses gay marriage, since Chick-fil-A doesn't have to endorse the POV of the group.

That won't happen.

Chick-fil-A's niche is Christian-friendly; that hasn't changed, that won't change. It has the freedom to go that way, and you have the freedom to decide.

The Chick-fil-A issue has been on my mind for months. The chain is coming to the Chicago area in 2011, a long way from its headquarters in Atlanta.

For the record, I have consumed one sandwich from there since at least 1996, and that was last fall in Washington, DC, as I didn't have much time to eat, and quite frankly, was a bit curious.

I also believe heavily in equal rights for all, especially for those that have been traditional targets of discrimination, such as gay people.

I don't honestly know what will happen. I need to do more research because I want to see where the profits are going. Follow the money. And ultimately, follow your heart … and stomach.

You should follow yours.