Balance of Food

Temptation of the Week: Bacon in desserts

When you've tried deep-fried butter and the Double Down, people expect you to try every unusual dish.

Such as the Burger King bacon sundae.

I don't have any interest in trying the bacon sundae, but not because of the bacon. Soft-serve ice cream is not something I normally eat. "Smooth caramel" doesn't get me off the couch.

Bacon in desserts? I can be in favor of that.

I chased down a dessert place on St. Denis in the Plateau neighborhood in Montréal. This place has a frozen maple bacon cake. I went out of my way to chase down this bacon dessert.

My tip was correct with one catch. They sold the cake but not by the slice. $48 and it would all by mine. I would have to find 11 strangers to finish this cake.

The young gentleman offered me maple sugar ice cream. Montréal and Quebec are known for their maple sugar and maple syrup, though this was at the end of the maple season.

The ice cream would have been a nice runner-up if only I could add one ingredient: bacon. I begged the guy to see if he could put bacon on my ice cream. He checked in the back.

Would I get the taste of bacon and maple? Alas, he couldn't find any cooked bacon to fulfill my dream.

The maple sugar ice cream was very good, even without the bacon. Though bacon would have made it better.

This cookie (left) has bacon in it. This was a bacon oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. I don't know who baked in but this was part of a battle of departments for charity.

You can see the pieces of bacon inside the cookie. This wasn't going to be bacon with maple syrup ice cream, but this would be bacon in a dessert.

If this has been a bacon chocolate chip cookie, tasting the bacon would have been easier. The oatmeal, a good thing in cookies, was too overpowering in this cookie.

So while I appreciated the bacon, the smoky meat was more of a sidelight instead of being the star of the cookie. Still, the oatmeal chocolate chip cookie was made a little bit better by the presence of bacon.

Bacon on a dessert makes better sense than bacon in a dessert. As good as the cookie was, sprinkled bacon on that maple syrup ice cream would make me race back to Montréal.

This review points out that Burger King uses quite a bit of bacon, and we are pleased to hear that. If I'm going to put bacon on a dessert, that dessert has to be worthy. Bacon is worthy. I am worthy.

Fast food should look more like food photography

 

Despite how good the food looks in the ad, we know the food won't come close to looking like that in real life. Makes the airbrushing of young actresses and models almost seem closer to reality in comparison.

We profiled the huge contrast between the Double Down sandwich in the ad and the actual Double Down sandwich you get. That was an extreme situation, but illustrates that the pictures are there to get you to the food, reality be damned.

McDonald's in Canada decided to show us that while the pictures are meant to be different, the magic comes in putting things in the sandwich so just you know they are underneath the bun.

That smell may not be cow, but more like bulls---.

When you are clearly from McDonald's corporate, and you walk into a McDonald's with a camera crew, everyone will be smiling and you will get a better looking sandwich than the average person (you) would ever get in person. The sad part is even her sandwich still won't measure up to the sandwich in the picture.

To make the fake sandwich, they just grill the edge of the burger, so the patty keeps its quarter-pound size. Yes, your Quarter-Pounder is never 4 oz. when served to you, though that has always been in the fine print. But the fake sandwich is 4 oz., something the company knows literally can't be true when the customer orders one.

They melt the edge of the cheese so it looks like it has been melted all over. Though I don't personally eat the burgers with cheese, I have seen with my own eyes when they mess up my order that they don't really make the cheese melt in the burgers you eat anyway.

They place onions and pickles along with squirts of ketchup and mustard to illiustrate the four condiments you are supposed to get with the McD's Quarter-Pounder. They point out that the fake burger contains the exact ingredients found in the burger you would order, though not in proportions noted in the fake sandwich.

In what feels like ancient times, McDonald's hamburgers used to come with mustard. I doubt seriously that I am the only customer not getting mustard, but I consistently get a trace to no mustard on a burger. So the mustard in the fake burger feels like a deception since you can't get the mustard you see on the fake burger.

The fake sandwich is significantly larger than the real sandwich. The PR woman has an answer.

"The box that our sandwiches come in keep the sandwiches warm which creates a bit of a steam effect, and makes the bun contract a little bit."

Those boxes do little to keep the sandwich too warm, since if you don't eat the McDonald's burger right away, the heat disappears quickly. The box may not help, but blaming the box is akin to blaming the scarf if you are cold in 20° weather without a jacket.

Though I don't consume as much fast food as I used to do, I can't be surprised that McDonald's scored last in customer satisfaction, according to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index.

The PR woman talks about how quickly people get their food at McDonald's. Yes, we aren't paying much for being in the restaurant, but most people would wait a little longer to get a better product. I'd be willing to wait an extra 5 seconds to actually get mustard on my hamburger.

If you can't make fast food look (and taste) as good as what you see in the ads, then make the ads more realistic or start making better looking food.

Shouldn't need a math degree to know how many calories are in a pizza

Should you have to be good at math to understand how many calories you get from eating pizza?

Pizza companies are fighting back against proposed federal regulations that would list the calorie count of a whole pizza.

Without thinking, how many slices did your last major chain pizza come in? 8? 10? And if this theoretical pizza had 2,200 calories, could you tell us how many calories per slice?

If the pizza were 2,000 calories, simple math could tell you that in a 8-slice pizza, each slice would be 250 calories, and a 10-slice pizza would be 200 calories per slice. So even if you couldn't quite compute 2,200 calories, you might be able to guess that you could add 12.5 calories per slice for every 100 calories in an 8-slice pizza and 10 calories per slice for every 100 calories in a 10-slice pizza.

If the math is confusing you, in an 8-slice pizza, if you eat 2 slices, you are eating ¼ of the pizza. Divide the total calories of the pizza by 4 and get your total. So two slices of an 8-slice pizza where the pizza was 2,200 calories would come to 550 calories.

Domino's tells us there are 34 million ways to customize a pizza, so accounting for all those pizzas would be problematic when it comes to math. However, within those 34 million ways, you would mostly need to worry about the calories in a regular cheese pizza (1), the 5-6 meat toppings available on a pizza (5-6), and extra cheese (1). That comes to 6-7 more options. Most people can process that math.

In the 34 million combinations, you don't have to worry about mushrooms, green peppers, and onions. If you really think the calorie count of vegetables on your pizza is the problem, then you should stop counting calories. If you order pineapple on your pizza, and you eat more than one whole pizza, then you can be concerned.

As for meat, if pepperoni over a whole pizza is 290 calories (hypothetical), then add 290 calories to a regular cheese pizza if that is all you will order. Round it up to 300 in case the pizza maker gets a little sloppy and adds more.

The American Pizza Community, which goes all the way back to January, says the proposed rules of showing the calorie count for the whole pizza are unfair since the average consumer eats only 2.1 slices of a pizza. So in a 8-slice pizza, divide by 4. In a 10-slice pizza, divide by 5.

Having an exact measure of how many calories you consume in food is really important for the mega calorie counters. Even having a ballpark idea of how much you are consuming will help even the most casual pizza eater. Each of these pizza chains has specific requirements for how much of an ingredient goes on a pizza. So they know rather precisely how many calories you are getting in a pizza and per slice. The question is, will you?

We have come out against calorie counts right on the menu board, provided the information is easily accessible. Unlike hamburgers and other fast food, most pizza consumers don't set foot in the pizza establishment, preferring a delivery for their pizza. For those who come in, the restaurant should have a board off to the side listing ingredients, calorie count, and other vital health stats. Chains should certainly have information on their Web sites.

We've seen in other food categories how many more calories goes into a chain equivalent of popular foods. Take the expectation of what we would do in making a pizza and multiply that 2-3 times to get an estimated calorie count of a chain pizza. If you don't want to do the math, make your own pizza.

Temptation of the Week: Doritos Tacos Locos

On the BalanceofFood.com Twitter feed, I wrote recently "Who the BLEEP is buying the 100 Million Doritos Tacos Locos?"

To Taco Bell's credit, the company tweeted back, "America."

In 10 weeks, the company sold 100 Million Doritos Tacos Locos. The taco creation is a standard Taco Bell taco with an outer shell of Doritos. Simple yet very effective.

The synergy of Taco Bell, owned by Yum Brands, an offshoot of PepsiCo, using Doritos, owned by Frito-Lay, which is owned by PepsiCo. is deliberate, like the tightness of the taco shell and the Doritos shell. There is also the synergy given that Taco Bell customers are also likely to be Doritos consumers. And the youthful audiences that attend the Colbert tapings also fall into the Doritos and Taco Bell demographics.

But why has this particular food combination done so well so quickly?

Those of a certain age remember when McDonald's counted how many hamburgers it had sold. As iconic as McDonald's hamburgers were (are?), 100 million in 10 weeks would have been an incredible feat.

KFC hasn't sold 100 million Double Down sandwiches. Burger King won't sell 100 million bacon sundaes. So why 100 million Doritos Tacos Locos?

Tacos have an advantage since ordering more than one doesn't seem greedy. Ordering 2-3 at one time wouldn't be shocking. Unlike McD's in the beginning, Taco Bell locations are all around and open late at night, when people would get the kind of munchies where a Doritos Tacos Locos sounds like a good idea.

Maybe the success of the idea is that under the influence of alcohol/pot, this sounded like a great idea. And even when they became sober again, the idea was still a good one.

In the "Thought for Food" segment, Colbert brings his audience into their inner fantasies: what would happen if you filled the Doritos Tacos Locos shell with more Doritos chips. Shortly after biting into that concoction, Colbert goes off-camera presumably to spit out what he ate.

"That's so good, I'm going to chew the rest of that later."

If I ate at Taco Bell more than 1-2 times a year, I would have tried the Doritos Tacos Locos by now. I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to try it. I did learn from the Colbert segment that the taco has two shells: the regular shell and the Doritos taco shell. The fact that the Doritos shell is on the outside means you will get orange stuff on your hands and looks more marketable since the orange is on the outside, not the inside. While some may be eating the enhanced tacos for the Doritos taste, the fact that the Doritos Tacos Locos looks cool does not hurt its sales.

Perhaps this is why I am not as tempted to try this Taco Bell sensation: the taco looks better than it probably tastes.

Miracle Whip with sugar found in Canada; Heinz Canada moves sugar up to #2 in ingredients

I had a passing thought in Montreal to bring home Heinz ketchup and Miracle Whip. Sure, I would have had to check the luggage, a small price to pay. As it turns out, flight delays would have made that a really bad move. So while I brought none home, I did get some important Condiment Central updates.

As we noted earlier this year, Miracle Whip in the United States flipped back quietly to high-fructose corn syrup. As we've seen when Miracle Whip had high-fructose corn syrup the first time, the Canadian version was made from sugar.

Since then, glucose-fructose (high-fructose corn syrup) has entered the Canadian market. In the grocery store, I found that the regular and fat-free versions were made with sugar, while the calorie-wise (low-fat in American talk) version was made with glucose-fructose.

While reading the label is going to have a standard for Miracle Whip every time you are in the store, at least our Canadian friends have better options.

The bigger discovery was almost by accident. I happened to pick up a Heinz ketchup bottle and found that liquid sugar, while still the sweetener, was now second in the ingredient list, not third as had been tradition on both sides of the border.

You might wonder if Quebec would have different standards, but you can't imagine that any major food company would separate out different versions by region. And yes, I can read enough French to know the ingredient list (they are also in English).

I still have some left from the bottle I bought in Windsor back in November, and that says liquid sugar is third behind vinegar. I will follow up on this either in Alberta this summer or for sure in Windsor next November.

If the Heinz trend stays true, that would put them in the same combination as every other major ketchup brands of tomato paste, sugar (or glucose-fructose/HFCS), and then distilled white vinegar.

Amazingly, I didn't try any ketchup on the Montreal trip. hard to think about ketchup when your fries are covered in cheese curds and gravy.

Think food prices are high? Try the northern territories of Canada

Would you take to the streets to protest the high cost of food?

A growing number of concerned citizens in the northern territories of Canada started a Facebook group — Feeding My Family — and have organized protests outside their food stores to draw attention to ever-rising food prices.

This is an area where food prices are traditionally high. So if you live in the northern territories of Canada, you know your food will be more expensive than in Toronto or Pittsburgh or Atlanta.

As food prices have been going up everywhere else, imagine the impact on an area that regularly struggles with high food prices.

So how much are they paying these days? Some sample prices:
-- $65 for a pound of chicken
-- $28 for cabbage
-- $14 for 2 liters (about a ½ gallon) of milk
-- $19.29 for 3 liters of orange juice.

Feeding My Family started about three weeks ago, and now boasts more than 15,000 members.

"I want everyone to step in. Not just organizations or governments. I want everyone to step in and help us lower the food cost," said Leesee Papatsie, the Iqaluit woman who started Feeding My Family.

Canada already subsidizes healthy foods in remote areas through its Nutrition North Canada program, though concern is growing that much more needs to be done.

The Facebook protests were helped out by a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food as he visited Canada in May.

"What I've seen in Canada is a system that presents barriers for the poor to access nutritious diets and that tolerates increased inequalities between rich and poor, and Aboriginal non-Aboriginal peoples. Canada is much admired for its achievements in the area of human rights, which it has championed for many years. But hunger and access to adequate diets, too, are human rights issues — and here much remains to be done." -- Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food.

Food in Canada, even southern Canada, is more expensive than in the United States. I've been to low-cost grocery stores in Ontario and Quebec that had products more expensive than regular grocery stores in the States.

Some of the American coverage has focused on the high prices without the context. Distance and transportation combine to make accessing food rather difficult. Small airplanes are often the best way, especially in winter, to bring in food. The growing season, well, isn't. This makes providing low-cost food rather difficult.

The great part about the Facebook connection is that people who otherwise might not realize their struggles can see the outrageous prices that those in the North pay for food, much of that same food we would complain about the price, even if the cost is 20% of what they pay.

apples photo credit
broccoli photo credit
peanut butter photo credit
protester photo credit

Temptation of the Week: Mexican fast food your way

"Special orders don't upset us."

If you are of a certain age, or really know fast food advertising history, you associate that with Burger King.

The good news is that special orders don't upset fsat food places. The customers get upset if they mess up those special orders. In part, friction is reduced because no matter how you get your burger, you'll pay the same price.

Back in those times, fast food chains would have two prices for their burgers, with or without cheese. That way, if you didn't want cheese, you didn't have to pay for it. Now, cheese is assumed, and if you don't want cheese, that is money in their pocket, not yours. Even if you don't want the cheese, you pay for it.

When you order less than what you pay for, you feel a little cheated by the system. A small price, yes, but a price nevertheless.

The difference comes when you want something else as a substitute for the ingredients you don't want. They want you to pay for the ingredients you want AND the ingredients you don't want.

I love the idea of good quality Mexican fast food; we aren't talking Taco Bell. But I don't go as often because I get frustrated by having to pay for stuff I want and don't want.

Let's take Chipotle as an example. Not to pick on Chipotle, because other places have similar philosophies, but I would like to eat at Chipotle more frequently.

You could get tacos, a burrito, a burrito minus the shell — whatever — all for the same price. Don't want rice and beans? Same price. Don't want sour cream and cheese? Same price. Want guacamole? $1.50.

Yes, guacamole is expensive, not $1.50 expensive. And sour cream and cheese are relatively inexpensive.

Getting three small tacos for almost $7 doesn't sound like a bargain, though their food is better sourced. You get the three tortillas with a decent amount of meat, lettuce, salsa, sour cream, and cheese. The sour cream and cheese are supposed to set off the heat from the salsa, something that guacamole does better in terms of taste and type of fat.

When you're paying for sour cream and cheese, and you don't want them, you shrug it off. There is this part of me that wants them to go "okay, we'll take off 35¢ for the sour cream and cheese, but only if you pay $1.50 for the guacamole. 40¢ — that's my final offer."

A net of $1.10-$1.15 still might get you to pay more for guacamole, but the offer would put me in a mood to go "hey, why not."

What if tacos came with tortilla, meat, lettuce, and salsa, and you have to pay extra for sour cream and cheese? The idea of paying for cheese is as ancient as that Burger King jingle. And Americans would insist that sour cream was a standard as much as salsa or meat.

The last few times I have been to Chipotle is with a buy 1, get 1 coupon. Getting 6 tacos for about $7 is a great bargain, especially since their tacos are good.

I'm not saying they should be that cheap. The burrito — for the same price — comes with rice and beans, meat, veggies, sour cream, and cheese. Even if you order the tacos as is, you feel cheated.

If the tacos were $1 cheaper than the burritos (reasonable), I could get store credit for the lack of sour cream and cheese (not reasonable), paying $1.50 for guacamole would be a lot more reasonable. And I would frequent Chipotle a lot more often.

I can get a Chipotle taco my way, but I have to pay a lot more to get it my way. The special order won't upset them. If they are paying attention, I'm improving their bottom line, well, the company's bottom line.

If I, and many others, could order fast food the way we wanted it and pay accordingly, companies would make more money with more customers. If we could have it our way.

Will Allen gains new audience with Good Food Revolution

You would think there would be a lot of duplication in comparing people who read BalanceofFood.com and those who know the work of Will Allen. Outside those worlds, some are discovering what is happening with Allen and Growing Power up in Milwaukee for the first time.

Stephen Colbert sure acted this way when the Colbert Report interviewed Allen on last night's show. Colbert was armed with urban farm jokes, and they never even talked about the worms.

If you don't know about the worms, well, you have a bit more to learn.

Allen is out promoting his new autobiographical book, The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities. For those who know or think they know Allen's story, this book is a natural opening to talk about Growing Power.

I first discovered him in Fresh but even if you saw that movie, how many of your friends saw that film?

Allen pointed out that less than 1% of food in urban cities is locally grown, particularly troubling given all the serious food deserts in urban settings.

BalanceofFood.com film coverage

Colbert and Allen explored the concept of urban farms and vertical farms. Colbert mentioned Detroit as a prime opportunity for urban farms. Detroit already has a bunch of urban farms. Maybe this will inspire Colbert to come to Detroit or Milwaukee to see urban farms and bring attention to them in the same manner in which Colbert has brought attention to rural farms.

If Will Allen has anything to do with that, his 6 minutes on the Colbert Report will have greater meaning beyond introducing Allen to a wider audience.

Overusing 'food desert' diminishes those truly suffering from lack of fresh produce

According to the Chicago Tribune, I live in a food desert. This would be funny except stretching the definition of a food desert denigrates the real concern of residents who live in significant food deserts.

I qualify because I live "farther than a half-mile from stores larger than 2,500 feet that sell fresh produce." Those in rural areas and small towns would snicker at that definition, because over 99% of people would fail that test. In the inner city, a mile or two can make a difference.

Let me take you into my area and show you the "horrible" conditions of my "food desert."

Outside my window is a Mexican restaurant. Two blocks down (¼ mile) is a really good Mexican restaurant. But we aren't talking restaurants. I live one block from a 7-11 where there are bananas on occasion. Haven't bought a 7-11 banana.

About ¾ mile west is a store of at least 2,500 feet that sells fresh produce. I have another large grocery store about 1 mile northeast and another store from that same chain 1 mile east. These big stores all have door-to-door bus service from my corner.

I don't generally go to those big stores for fresh produce. Across the street from the big store northeast of me is a Mexican supermercado that has great produce for cheap prices. I just bought beautiful romaine lettuce for 89¢ that looks and tastes better (and cheaper) than what is across the street. Heading east but just under a mile, I can find a small grocery store that specializes in African and Caribbean products with good looking produce. Hard to find things for rather nice prices.

I have a specialty store that sells organic and fancier things that is virtually ½ mile, though that is new enough that it wouldn't be on the map. I haven't bought produce there, but they have some nice selection. There is the Middle Eastern place that is less than ½ mile; lots of food there but maybe not produce. All these places are smaller than 2,500 feet.

I have a sausage/deli specialty place slightly more than a mile away, and another Mexican supermercado about 1¼ miles away.

In the summertime, we have a weekly farmers market exactly ½ mile from my house and a smaller weekly summer market just under a mile away with lots of fresh produce. The larger market runs about 16 weeks a year.

The stories you hear about real food deserts involve bus rides of 3 miles or more, more than one bus to get to a large store with fresh produce, bus routes involving crossing gang areas, and lots of temptations that are quicker than cooking at home.

My nearest McDonald's is just beyond the distance to the grocery stores. And I have plenty of restaurants and cafes that are better and healthier all within a mile of my place.

If you are older or disabled, the difference between ½ mile and a mile isn't fun. We don't want to diminish that. If the standard was ¾ mile, I would not be in a food desert. But I can get better produce at stores a very short distance further for cheaper prices. In real food deserts, the smaller places have worse quality produce for higher prices. This is not a problem I or my neighbors have.

Do not cry for me or anyone else in my neighborhood. Cry for those with real issues and real problems in getting fresh produce. Expanding the definition of food deserts hurts those who really need the help, and diminishes their suffering.

Cranberry Caucus politicians want to protect cranberry juice, but few Americans drink it pure

Years ago, when I drank more mixed drinks, I liked vodka with cranberry juice with a splash of lime. Since I wasn't thinking much about my food, I know now that I drank a lot of "cranberry juice" that had very little cranberry juice in it.

I thought about this as Massachusetts politicians from both sides of the aisle fought to protect cranberry juice from the attacks on sugary drinks.

"The cranberry has very special characteristics in terms of health and also the way they're produced, the independent farmers who really are sort of the heart of America, if you will," said Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), a co-chair of the new group Cranberry Caucus. "There are also enormous benefits in terms of land conservation."

"I put cranberries on my Cheerios, like, every day," said Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), the other Senate co-chair of the caucus. "I'm deeply concerned that cranberries should not be placed in the category of other sugar-sweetened beverages and products. That's critically important."

Cranberries are very healthy in their purest form, though Americans rarely consume cranberries in their purest form. Lots of good antioxidants and known to help urinary tract infections. Between cranberry sauce and cranberry juice cocktail, a splash of cranberry is more of what they get surrounded by water, sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and low-calorie sweeteners.

Even if you get a cranberry juice product that is 100% juice, chances are highly slim you have 100% cranberry juice. Pure cranberry juice runs tart, especially in the context of the American sweet tooth. The amount and the type of sweetener put into cranberry juice cocktail is not something politicians should be protecting.

This is like politicians asking to protect lemonade to help lemon growers, except the term "lemonade" implies that it isn't pure juice. Ask your favorite bartender sometime whether the cranberry juice being served is a) 100% juice, b) 100% cranberry juice, and c) if not, what are the extra sweeteners. Good luck finding that out.

Wanting to know what we put in our bodies is a very reasonable request, as long as we are reasonable about this. "Cranberry juice" is one of those areas where bar and restaurant patrons are at the mercy of unknown factors.

The U.S. labeling system allows "cranberry juice" to be a lot of different things, which dilutes people's perception of what cranberry juice is. Maybe the senators from Massachusetts would agree to bipartisan legislation supporting the purity of cranberries and cranberry juice.

With careful consideration, you can buy 100% pure cranberry juice and dilute it yourself. You can cut it with grapefruit or pineapple juice for an exotic taste. Orange juice might be a nice touch. Or you can go almost hardcore: just a little bit of lime juice. Might not even need the vodka to make that work.

You can always resort to water to cut it further, but instead of paying someone to put water in a bottle, you can put water in your own bottle for the cost you already pay for water.

Sen. Brown says we shouldn't place cranberries in the category of "other sugar-sweetened beverages and products." Right now, most cranberries are in that category. Perhaps the politicians on both sides of the aisle would also work toward a cranberry purity bill, allowing to only use the word "cranberry" to apply to products with a sufficient purity level of cranberry health and goodness. I'd drink to that.