Balance of Food

Temptation of the Week: Preparing for the global bacon shortage

Global bacon shortage.

What a scary thought.

All those little piggies that didn't make it to market will account for this upcoming global bacon shortage (GBS). Never mind that many in the world don't eat bacon or don't have access to bacon or dare we say, aren't as interested as bacon as we are.

Still, people feel the need to panic even though we are still months away from any GBS.

So as a public service, here are some ways to prepare for the eventual loss of bacon:

-- Freeze bacon. Bacon freezes quite well, but even this won't completely solve the problem in a long-time GBS. Still, you can ride out some if not all of the GBS with plenty of stock in the freezer.

-- Canadian bacon. Okay, so Canadian bacon isn't really bacon. The same pigs that bring you bacon would also bring you Canadian bacon. If you are easily fooled, this might be the easiest solution.

-- Better than bacon. One of the local farmers at the farmers market carries a pork shoulder marketed as "better than bacon." True, that might cost more but you get a lot more meat and a lot less fat in a pork shoulder than regular bacon.

-- Turkey bacon. Uh, yeah. Turkey bacon. After all, turkeys didn't suffer in the drought. Sure, uh, maybe. You could close your eyes and imagine that you are eating traditional bacon. You could use one slice of regular bacon and one slice of turkey bacon and hope the "real" bacon comes through taste-wise.

-- Label a food with the word "bacon" and not put any inside: I stood in line for puffs at Chipotle Fest in Chicago specifically for a "chocolate covered bacon" puff. I paid $5 for this puff with the idea of combining chocolate and bacon. I tried the puff and discovered no bacon, no bacon flavor, no wisp of bacon. Needless to say, I was miffed. I did get my money back as they explained to me that they usually tell customers there is no bacon in the puff. Well, then they shouldn't put bacon in the title if there is no bacon. Try that in a GBS and see what kind of reaction you will get.

-- Baconnaise. Again, Baconnaise has no bacon in it, so the spread can make you think you're doing bacon without actual bacon.

-- Bacon Salt. See Baconnaise.

-- Bacon jerky. The beauty of bacon jerky is that this would last longer than regular bacon. According to the Web site, this is actually made from bacon.

-- Take a picture of bacon. Sure, this won't be the same as eating bacon. But you can recall great memories of the times you and bacon spent together. For an added bonus, run the pictures through Instagram and imagine that bacon is off to fight a world war while you are at home waiting for the bacon to return home from the fight.

-- Take some time away from bacon. This may be the hardest step of them all. After all, bacon is a reason some people get out of bed in the morning. But you realize that sometimes in a close relationship, you need some space, some "alone time."

Sure, you would be tempted to have bacon stick around, even if the price is higher and the quality not as good. Then you would start to resent bacon for its high-priced lifestyle even if bacon isn't at fault for the higher prices.

Don't let your relationship with bacon deteriorate over a financial spat. Learn to love other meats or try going meatless or mostly meatless. Then you'll appreciate bacon once it's back in your life.

Mukwonago students strike because their lunches are 'only' 850 calories

Most students at Mukwonago (WI) High School recently went on strike over their school lunches. Not because they were bad tasting, though they aren't crazy about the taste. Not because they are bad for you, in fact, they're healthier. Not because they're healthier, though they don't like that part. No, the students were on strike because there isn't enough food.

The kids in Mukwonago are protesting because the new school lunches are capped at 850 calories.

In a world where 2,000 calories should be is the norm, 850 calories for lunch seems very reasonable. The amount would be enough to get you to after school and a snack. A decent breakfast, a 850-calorie lunch, snacks, a good-sized dinner, and dessert can easily be around 2,000 calories.

For some kids — athletes — they don't feel like 850 calories is enough. And on the first day of the strike, 70% of the high schoolers and 50% of the middle schoolers reportedly boycotted the lunches.

Now we don't know how many calories the kids were getting before the changes, but assuming a sharp enough drop that kids would protest over a reduction to 850 calories, we can conclude that these kids are used to a much larger lunch.

When you start to eat better or a diet, you are going to feel hungry, especially at the start of your weight loss. You have to give your body time to adjust to fewer calories at mealtime. If you didn't feel hungry, something would be seriously wrong.

After a summertime of having presumably more than 850 calories for lunch, the kids barely allowed time for a transition. As for what they ate in the last school year, 3 months of summer vacation erases those past patterns pretty quickly.

Even in a city with fewer than 10,000 people just southwest of Milwaukee, 70% of the high school students can't be athletes "starving" for extra calories. The needs of a football lineman aren't the same as a cross country runner or a wrestler trying to make weight.

Meanwhile the large kid who isn't an athlete — the target of the help — is being told to protest because the lunch is "only" 850 calories.

By having a sensible meal served at school, kids who are struggling with their weight can learn from that and hopefully adapt their families to eating better outside of school as well.

If certain athletes can't get by on 850 calories, they can pack snacks, such as nuts, which are high in calories, fiber, and protein. Maybe the school can supply nuts or some other food to help out the athletes who need more calories.

The fact that the students protested the new policy isn't that bad of an event. They are learning that people are trying to make a difference in their lives, and that change is hard. Kids go to school after all to learn lessons, and they are certainly getting an education.

"The sub sandwich line at Mukwonago High used to let students pile veggies on a six-inch French bread bun. Options now include a fist-sized whole wheat roll or multigrain wrap, and the once popular line is now mostly empty."

Adding veggies doesn't add that many calories but does add fiber that should make kids feel more full. You might question the use of the French bread but if that got kids to eat more veggies, you could have a trade-off.

There can be some breathing room in making a transition. 8 tortilla chips on a super nacho plate sounds pretty low, but they don't have to go back to a diet of "chicken nuggets and mini corn dogs."

Learning to eat healthier is a period of adjustment for students, parents, and administrators alike. All sides need to be cooperative and communicative. Students who eat better learn better in school, and that is the ultimate goal that matters.

Mitt Romney's 47% just want food help when times are tough

"There are 47 percent … who are dependent upon government … who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it." -- Mitt Romney

"Finally, a candidate with the courage to say half of all Americans are freeloaders who believe they're entitled to food. What do they think? Food grows on trees? No. We job creators know that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Lunch is $50,000 a plate." -- Stephen Colbert

"Let them eat cake." -- Marie Antoniette (allegedly)

Colbert feeding shrimp to the "mindless masses" was as out of touch as what Romney was suggesting about the 47% of people who he thinks will never vote for him.

People need food every day, but even the most dependent person doesn't insist they are entitled to food. After all, homeless people on the streets aren't begging for shelter, they're begging for food or money toward food.

What Romney and his fellow Republicans are really focused on is food stamps, food assistance, SNAP. You've heard the political rhetoric about President Barack Obama and food stamps. Being the "food stamps president" is supposed to be a source of shame, but it also means that the president wants to help people who really need help.

Standards for SNAP are pretty high; you have to be really poor to be qualified to receive assistance. And if you think government gets in your face too much, SNAP requires government in your face to make sure you really are worthy.

Republicans have a point where ideally private outlets would be a better way to help neighbors who are down and out. However, even in pretty good times (e.g., summer 2008), the demand is too high and the private options fall way short.

Presidential elections are about the future: which candidate will do better? But each race gives the challenger the hypothetical of what things would have been like under that leadership. Mitt Romney would not want to be known as the "food stamps president," but that would have meant millions of Americans not getting the help they need.

When it comes to food assistance, Romney and a lot of members of his party and some of the Democratic side of the aisle have no problem with food assistance as long as it falls into the hands of rich people and corporations. We are coming to the end of the current Farm Bill at the end of the month. Reducing the deficit and reducing the impact of factory farms are worthy bipartisan/nonpartisan goals that can be helped by a strong farm bill that helps farmers who need the help but not those that are doing just fine. Yet getting a decent farm bill is a gigantic chore in the GOP-led House.

Even as food assistance (food stamps) has less of a stigma, no one wants to be on food stamps if they can't help it. There are lazy people and even some fraud. But the government has worked to make it a lot harder to get away with waste, something that can't be said for giving food assistance to those who can afford to eat.

Provided the economy does improve (Romney might want to ask his fellow Republicans why the GOP-led House hasn't passed a jobs bill in 21 months), fewer people will need food assistance. But there will always be some people who need help, and unless we come up with a better system, government has the resources to help those who need a hand.

Government assistance isn't an entitlement. People pay taxes so we have a safety net. The person who may be in good shape one day might not be in good shape the next day. The depressive recession of 2008 produced a lot of people who have said, "I never thought this would happen to me." And these people were glad there was help for them when they really needed assistance, food assistance.

Temptation of the Week: buying food by volume

Would you think differently about a burger and fries if you paid for them by the ounce?

After all, when you buy frozen yogurt or take in a salad bar, you load your containers without having a clue as to how much you are getting and how much you will pay.

Am I getting 4 oz. of frozen yogurt or 6 oz.? How much more is the blue cheese salad dressing costing me than vinegar and oil?

If you could choose between 4 oz. of meat vs. 6 oz. vs. 8 oz., that 8 oz. burger isn't as tempting. After all, if you could save $1, that 6 oz. burger is looking better.

An establishment might tempt you to get the bigger portion by pricing food so that the larger size feels like the bargain. Yet in a system that is weighed by the ounce, you can't play favorites.

Sure you might get the green beans instead of the broccoli because you think the broccoli weighs more. Creamy dressings add extra weight. Bacon bits add flavor without much weight.

For salad bars, buying by weight might not be so bad because the salad is a meal, and in most cases, cheaper per ounce than that fast food burger. Frozen yogurt is dessert or s snack, and buying by weight might make you more self-conscious.

If you are a typical frozen yogurt buyer, you aren't even worried about how much your snack weighs. They'll weigh it at the register, and since it's a treat, who cares how much you pay as long as you get what you want. Sprinkles don't take up much weight, but crushed candy bars can add up in calories and money.

You might decide that with frozen yogurt and salad bars and any other similar measures that you don't care about how much your food weighs and how much you pay. You might nitpick in other situations where the weight is pre-determined. But a good way to reduce your food bill is to pay attention to how much you are getting, especially when how much you pay directly reflects how much you get.

Not going bananas for spraying seafood shells on bananas

We know we can't compare apples to oranges, especially when fruit is no longer purely fruit. The newest idea is to protect bananas by making them non-vegan and non-Kosher.

To make the bananas last longer, they will be sprayed with a substance made from shrimp and crab shells. The spray helps the bananas last two weeks longer.

The "old school" concept of food just being food is being taken over by "food innovation" — a term that should bring excitement but instead brings panic and concern by food consumers. We don't want to monkey around with our food supply.

Extended shelf life led to using trans fats to make sure cookies and crackers last much longer than they should. This was marketed as "food innovation."

Bananas have a built-in system to let us know when we should throw them in the freezer to make banana bread. Green, yellow, black: even a child knows the clues.

Extending shelf life helps grocers and food companies protect financial margins regardless of what that might do to those who suffer from allergies, have religious concerns with food, or otherwise are freaked out by the idea of combining seafood with bananas.

So what about those consumer concerns. Let's see a few of them.

If the bananas are sprayed on the outside, will that affect the inside?

Would the spray penetrate to the inside part of the banana? Sorry to answer your question with a question. If you spray an apple with seafood, you will definitely be eating that seafood spray. Keeping the skin yellow helps the appearance of the banana stay "normal," but to last two weeks longer, you would think the spray makes some impact on the inside, but we don't know.

Will we know which bananas are being sprayed?

Given the history of lack of information on food labels, somehow the answer will be "no." Unless people stop eating bananas if they aren't sure. Short of that, you'll be on your own to ask, and hope your grocer knows. And your grocer probably won't know.

What if sprayed bananas touch non-sprayed bananas? Should we wear gloves?

You might be at that point to wear gloves anyway. If grocers won't know which bananas are which, they certainly won't know what bananas touched which ones in the food handling process.

The definition of natural has been thrown out the window, twisted by humans for financial gain. Sure, the seafood shells are natural, even if spraying them on bananas isn't natural. Castoreum is natural, as in natural flavor, but beaver anal gland is only natural to the beaver.

This wouldn't be as major a concern if bananas sprayed with shells were kept separate from other bananas, and those "new" bananas were properly labeled. But that hasn't seemed "natural" by the FDA, USDA, and food companies in the United States. Pardon us if we don't go ape for that philosophy.

Food trucks road trip: Calgary and Edmonton

Since I live in a city where the government still struggles with the concept of food trucks, once again, I must take to the road to find food trucks that operate at full capacity.

This time around, I attempted to sample from the food trucks in Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. Again, like the trek to Minneapolis, we were dealing with cities that are much smaller than Chicago.

The one disadvantage in Canada was not having regular access to 3G since roaming charges wouldn't have been worth accruing. Finding a food truck is a lot easier when you can rely on 3G anywhere instead of searching for wi-fi. As much as food trucks use Twitter, sometimes the messages don't come through even if you finally find wi-fi.

While Calgary has quite a few innovative food trucks, two of the more well-known entries are Alley Burger and Fries and Dolls. Finding them proved to be more challenging, even with Twitter and Facebook.

I had two windows in Calgary: Tuesday/Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. The weekdays would be easier, especially being downtown. But I needed that Saturday afternoon to accomplish my mission.

This isn't to say that I didn't see food trucks in Calgary during the week. Stephen Avenue (no relation to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is from Calgary) is a pedestrian-only stretch. The food trucks didn't strike me as being unusual.

Alley Burger was out on Tuesday, but nowhere near downtown. And I had arrived too late into town to find them by 1 pm, since they weren't easily accessible by public transportation. Alley Burger took Wednesday off.

Alley Burger's Twitter feed spoke of a Saturday event with several food trucks. Unfortunately, we never found out from Twitter and subsequent research about this great Saturday event. I could have possibly found the truck outside Charcut House, its sister restaurant, but timing made that difficult.

Cool is one thing, vague is another.

Fries and Dolls was off on Tuesday but noted on its Twitter feed that it would be back on Wednesday. If Fries and Dolls was anywhere on Wednesday, Twitter didn't know anything about that.

Fortunately, Fries and Dolls had a Saturday location about a block away from where I was staying. For those who don't know what Fries and Dolls is all about, they serve up kicked-up fries with 50s diner waitress charm and attitude.

The fries are named after female sex symbols such as Farrah and Sophia. The fries come in two sizes: B cup and D cup.

The Farrah was garlic fries with parsley and cheese. I ordered the B cup Farrah since "B cups were the best." I really wanted the smaller size, but I figured part of the charm was being involved in the theme.

While I was waiting for my order, I overheard her address the sizes as small and large to a family. Some people can't handle the theme.

At $6.50 (B cup/small) and $9 (D cup/large), you are paying premium prices. They were mixed pretty well with good garlic flavor. Overall, the fries were worth the experience, factoring in the whole experience.

I supplemented my fries with a trip to the Red Wagon Diner, a handful of meters away from Fries and Dolls. I tried the Montreal smoked meat sandwich with housemade mustard ($7) with a kosher pickle ($1).

The difference between lean and fatty on a Montreal smoked meat sandwich is substantial. The sandwich came out real fatty; I'm a lean kind of guy. The pickle was really good.

The bigger surprise was that the sandwich contained hardly any mustard. This was the signature point — the housemade mustard. I went back to get more. They were very happy to give me more and took my feedback well (on the lack of mustard).

The housemade mustard was good, really strong, too strong but tasty. The taste felt like horseradish and some kind of pepper.

The Edmonton experience was hoping to find one food truck (Drift) while hoping that I would stumble upon more.

Drift's usual location was 108 Street and 100 Avenue downtown. Downtown Edmonton was filled with construction, so that intersection was in really bad shape. My wi-fi ability was not as strong in Edmonton as it was in Calgary. Fortunately, luck kicked in.

I came across Drift at Jasper Avenue and 107 Street. I settled on a braised pork shoulder sandwich with Swiss cheese, back bacon, pickles, cabbage & grainy mustard. This was the kind of sandwich that screamed "food truck."

This sandwich was a blend of nice flavors and textures. I also got fries with housemade ketchup. The ketchup was more of a finely ground tomato sauce. The ketchup was so unlike ketchup that it could have legitimately been called a vegetable.

I went back for malt vinegar for the fries — got to love that from the Canadians. I ended up using the ketchup on the sandwich.

Some hype is fine, but I want a bit more consistency in food trucks. Be somewhere. Be where you say you will be and let us know where that will be. People still want value, even with food trucks. They have to be better than brick-and-mortar restaurants since I can easily find the traditional restaurants, and they are less about hype than the food trucks.

Temptation of the Week: Frozen yogurt toppings

A frozen yogurt place moved into my neighborhood recently. In a similar vein as ice cream places, they offered an opportunity to try some of the flavors.

The frozen yogurt was pretty good and a stronger temptation when the weather is really warm, even at night.

Looking around, the frozen yogurt wasn't really the temptation. The toppings were why people were there. Frozen yogurt wasn't sweet enough or interesting enough. Nope, cereal, chococlate chips, cookies, crumbled candy bars. This is why people were in there.

As we learned earlier this week, frozen yogurt is healthier for you than ice cream -- provided you don't put anything on top. Ice cream usually comes in whole-fat, while frozen yogurt is either low-fat or fat-free. Just because frozen yogurt is lower in fat, the cool concoction still has a lot of sugar.

People put these same ingredients on ice cream, but ice cream stores aren't showcasing extensive toppings. "Aah, but frozen yogurt is healthier, so we can justify the toppings."

Well, with the toppings, you would be better off with ice cream with no toppings, depending on your toppings tolerance.

Even if you think you are strong, the visuals will prove you wrong. In a location in my neighborhood, the toppings are separated into two different spots. The floor in between will need to be replaced more often than the rest of the establishment.

Gummi bears and worms will never tempt me, though I might be in the minority. The cereal toppings intrigue me, but that goes back to the days of Cereality, the store devoted to cereals that made a brief splash long ago.

You want a little bit of a cereal when you're tempted. Cap'n Crunch. Cocoa Pebbles. I don't want to buy a whole box, but an occasional taste. Even on the warmest nights, the toppings are more tempting than the frozen yogurt.

But nobody goes into a frozen yogurt store and gets a cup of toppings. They should, but they don't.

Frozen yogurt with some toppings is good for an occasional treat, if that tempts you. Or you can buy a box of cereal for less than the price of a frozen yogurt, buy some milk, and have a nice treat. Follow your temptations to wherever they take you. Just don't visit too often.

Woman's Day exposing food myths led to more food myths

Being a guy means I'm not the target audience for women's magazines. But also being a journalist, I'm skeptical about the ways that they try to help women.

Needing women to buy their magazines over and over means solutions can't be too good. But when I came across Woman's Day 8 food myths, I needed to set the truth straight on its myth-busting. The sad part is that our very good friend, dietitian Melissa Dobbins, is quoted in the article. We can agree to disagree on the following.

-- Myth: Grass-fed beef is healthier than grain-fed beef. "There's no difference nutritionally," says Dobbins. "Some people choose grass-fed beef because they believe it tastes better." I seriously hope that Dobbins was misquoted.

Grass-fed beef is leaner with fewer calories per ounce, more dietary protein, more Omega 3s (which you need and aren't getting) and fewer Omega 6s (you get plenty of these), more Vitamins A and E, and higher in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a good fat.

People generally eat grass-fed beef because of the health and nutrition, not as much for the taste. The taste takes getting used to if you are used to grain-fed meat.

The funniest line in the whole story is "Go with whichever kind of beef you favor, keeping in mind that grass-fed beef is usually more expensive." In other words, the article thinks you are wasting your money eating grass-fed beef because it sees no health difference.

The article lists no information to back up its incorrect thesis and goes out of its way to insult those who choose this option. This myth-busting example is so wrong that we literally had to deal with this before dealing with one of our long-time enemies.

-- Myth: Avoid high-fructose corn syrup at all costs. On an episode of "Second Opinion" on PBS, a doctor was talking about how "sugar was sugar" but also pointed out that excess fructose was a major cause of the obesity epidemic. Well, high-fructose corn syrup has more fructose (55-45 vs. 50-50) than sugar, ergo, high-fructose corn syrup is worse for you than sugar. As for "avoid high-fructose corn syrup at all costs," well that would be the way we put it, but not everyone thinks that way. To say that is a common myth is more of a scare tactic.

"Sugar is sugar," says Dobbins. “It doesn't matter what kind of sugar it is." When sugar was the dominant sweetener, look at where the obesity levels were versus the dominance of high-fructose corn syrup. Not that there is a 1:1 correlation, but the conventional wisdom won't even consider a possible connection. As we'll see later on in the Woman's Day story, they are willing to say more about something else with much less research.

Dobbins gets it right on the money when she says, "It's quantity that's the problem.” Too much sugar as pure sugar is still a concern, but not as much of a concern as too much high-fructose corn syrup.

The article equates all forms of sugar from high-fructose corn syrup to "brown sugar, molasses, honey, fruit juice concentrates and anything ending with -ose such as dextrose or maltose." Fruit juice concentrates and honey are more natural sources of sugar than the artifically produced high-fructose corn syrup. Many would disagree with lowering those to the standard of high-fructose corn syrup.

As for the other 6 tips, two of them really don't belong here; the other four range from good to OK.

-- Myth: Sea salt is better than table salt because it contains less sodium. This is more true in food products you would buy since you can't control the level of salt they use. Sea salt works better because you get the taste while using less salt. The crystals are bigger, but also because sea salt is more flavorful, you'll want to use less. The article does make this clear: "In theory, though, you may use less sea salt in cooking: Those crystals are larger than table-salt crystals, so fewer of them fit in a teaspoonful."

-- Myth: All yogurt is good for you. This was the best tip, especially since women are more likely to eat yogurt tham men. They recommend low- or non-fat versions and note that Greek yogurt has more protein. Watch out for added sugars. The article also recommends to "look for yogurts that contain live and active cultures, such L. acidophilus, which are helpful for digestion."

-- Myth: There are certain foods you should never eat. This one is obvious to our audience but a good reminder for the Woman's Day audience. "Everything can fit into a healthy diet," says Dobbins. "Denying yourself certain foods typically doesn't work because you end up overindulging when you get access to those eats." Good advice. One question I get asked is whether this means you can have some high-fructose corn syrup. Well, high-fructose corn syrup affects some people worse than others. Short of a corn allergy, a little bit still isn't good, but not the worst thing in the world.

-- Myth: Diet sodas can help you lose weight. This is an intriguing myth because while people generally believe that diet sodas don't necessarily help people lose weight, there isn't any scientific proof. In fact, the evidence against high-fructose corn syrup is more substantial than the evidence against diet sodas. "But there’s some preliminary research that says diet sodas may perpetuate a craving for something sweet," says Dobbins. We would agree, but to say this myth is busted needs further review.

-- Myth: Fresh produce is more nutritious than frozen or canned. This is true and false. If you follow all the right steps, then yes. If you don't rinse off the sodium or the sugary syrup, then no, they aren't as nutritious. Fresh produce tastes better so you might eat more produce than you would of canned fruit and vegetables. Canned fruit and vegetables offer more ways to reduce the impact of the produce through salt and sugar. Fresh produce has no such temptation. The article does note to "Eat fresh fruits and veggies in season; they’re less expensive then, and some nutrients, such as vitamin C, begin to break down as soon as foods are harvested."

-- Myth: Frozen yogurt is better for you than ice cream. "In general, a frozen yogurt that size (1/2 cup) has about 120 calories and 5 g of fat, versus 180 calories and 10 g of fat for a half-cup of ice cream (light or lowfat ice cream is less)." Sounds like frozen yogurt is better for you than ice cream, if you don't put anything on top. "Tart frozen yogurt flavors, which typically have less sugar, may translate into fewer calories." In a sea of unhelpful advice, a nugget of help. Flavors do matter more with frozen yogurt than with ice cream. Overall, the myth depends on how you use frozen yogurt and ice cream. Not much of a myth-buster. While not as wrong as the grass-fed beef and high-fructose corn syrup examples, this one shouldn't have made the cut.

Of the 8 myths, two were completely wrong, two had great misgivings, and the other four tips were good to OK. Not that Woman's Day sets high values in journalism, but women who do have problems with food and diet deserve a better batting average than .500. More people will read the Woman's Day article than this column, but this once again goes to prove that just because something is on the Internet doesn't mean you should take it at face value.

Temptation of the Week: Chocolate maple milkshake

You could drink a chocolate milkshake and have a good time. Or you could jazz up the milkshake by mixing in a little maple.

I never would have thought of having a chocolate maple milkshake until I ran across an old-school burger and fries place in Calgary called Peters' Drive-In. Yes, plural possessive. 

I try and avoid milkshakes since ice cream by itself can put me to sleep. But on the Western Canadian trip, I needed extra calories.

Peters' Drive-In allows you to mix different milkshake flavors, creating thousands of possibilities. I would not have considered two, much less three, flavors until the question was put in front of me.

I thought chocolate or fruit-based for the milkshake. And then I saw maple. Of course, maple is very Canadian so the choice felt appropriate, even if we were thousands of kilometers away from the maple trees.

The combination of chocolate and maple proved to be a great match. I don't usually repeat food items on vacation, but when my blood sugars were falling, providence led me at another chance at that milkshake. The second one was equally as good, and felt really good to pick myself up.

The nice element about combining milkshake flavors is that I don't have to drink a maple milkshake and a chocolate milkshake. I combine the two into one shake, reducing the need for a second milkshake. Of course, if you like the combination, you might end up drinking two milkshakes, defeating the purpose of mixing the flavors. That is the chance that you take.

For me, milkshakes are a very occasional treat. Adding maple would make that an extra special treat.

Medium-rare elk burger can be found without traveling to Canada

Yesterday, we focused on the difficulty of getting a medium-rare burger in Alberta, home of AAA beef and exotic wild game meat.

Now, the conclusion of how I finally found a medium-rare elk burger in a restaurant.

My standard for cost was an establishment in Banff that offered an elk burger for $15. A lot of places had what seemed to be overpriced food, so $15 for an elk burger seemed pretty reasonable. The burger came with melted pepper jack cheese, pineapple relish, lettuce and tomato on a pretzel bun with chili mayo. You got your choice of two sides, including soups, salads, cole slaw, and fries.

So my quest was to find a restaurant that would offer me a medium-rare burger with cheese and fries for a comparable price. The exchange rate between the two countries was about even. Chicago's sales tax is about 10% while in Alberta, 5% is all you pay (all federal).

I had remembered a specialized place where I could get an elk burger. I hadn't thought about getting one there since the house prime blend was quite good. But it was a place where buffalo and elk were options.

We are assuming the burgers in question were all 8 oz., but we don't completely know. The elk burger cost $13, cheese included, with fries being an extra $2.75. While this would put me over, especially with tax, I factored in that I didn't have to tip at the place in Chicago while I would have had to do so in Alberta. The soup or salad in Banff probably gave that burger the edge, ever so slightly.

The place in Chicago offers spice blends. They offered a woodsy blend but worried that the spice would dominate the elk. I went with the simple salt and pepper, but regretted that choice.

As it turned out, getting a medium-rare elk burger in Chicago was pretty easy. Walked up to the counter. Ordered an elk burger medium-rare. Paid. Sat down. Had medium-rare elk burger with fries brought to my table. Ate said medium-rare burger. The End.

The burger came up perfectly medium-rare. I ate the burger and enjoyed the meat (despite the spice blend). Elk has a really nice taste, more similar in taste to beef than bison/buffalo.

Maybe the elk in Canada would have tasted better. Maybe the elk steak would have been worthwhile, even at twice the price. But if a place had so little faith in its wild game, why should I trust them even with a steak?

You can't expect every restaurant to trust everything it serves, though you would hope for some standard. Unfortunately for Canadians and Canadian tourists, the country of Canada has set that standard so artificially high, the true connoisseur will walk away disgruntled 98% of the time. And served with extra attitude in some establishments in the Canadian Rockies.