But, looking at the bottle, there isnt exactly a lot of information about where this is from and what is in it. While it is true the back of the bottle actually has a map showing where it is from and I can make my way through the excellent a href=http://kermitlynch.com/Kermit Lynch Wine Merchent website/a (http://kermitlynch.com/) to find info about what is in this wine. But the fact is, not only does that require me to actually put aside the wine, go to my computer (KLWM website built on flash so It doesnt work on an iPhone or iPad) and remember what I am looking for, but the KLWM site doesnt actually tell you what is in this wine. It does tell you some great trivia about the family making the wine but I still want to know what is in this wine!

So, I go to the Italian website. And, low and behold, the wine is made from Corvino. According to Wikipedia, Corvino is also Corvina and used in Italy to produce a light to medium body wine with light crimson color.

OK, so I think this is great and I am glad to know this info. But, I gotta ask, if KLWM can make its own label and but its logo on the back of the bottle, why not the KLWM webiste URL and a QR Code I can use with my phone to go directly to a page about the wine? After all, if I had been anywhere but at home, Igettig this info would have been almost impossible since I would not have remembered to do all of this research later.

br /br /a href=http://foodfortherestofus.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120131-100408.jpgimg src=http://foodfortherestofus.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120131-100408.jpg alt=20120131-100408.jpg class=alignnone size-full //a

Odds are you have. Even if you are a non-capable, nearly hulu only tv viewing person such as I, the odds are that you have seen some sort of clip or video of yiayia calling a stay at home dad a wife or telling a young unmarried couple they are “going to hell” on TV, the web or even the YouTube channel yiatube.

According to the Wall Street Journal, these adds are a part of Kraft’s new approach to marketing that includes the company aggressively adopting and incorporating social media into it’s new campaigns.

So, how is it working? Well, good ol yiayia has more than 150,000 Facebook friends and her own YouTube channel with close to three million uploads. And its not limited to yiayia either. According to the WSJ, Kraft discovered that twitter postings about Mac &Cheese numbered in the thousands some days. So, Kraft capitalized on this popularity by building a contest out of it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304450604576416051591186240.html?KEYWORDS=Kraft+spiffs+up+it%27s+old+brands

The question that comes to my mind is this: if it works for craft, why couldn’t his work for you?

All Kraft is doing is using social media to help spread the word or tell a unique story while engaging a huge audience.

Basically, they either created a unique story or recognized how they are already being perceived and then used social media as a vehicle to get the word out and tell more people.

While I am not saying you should go out and run a twitter contest or build a YouTube channel, I am saying that if you take the time to talk with you customers to tell them why your food, wine, cheese, spirits (liquor) or what not are unique, maybe it might be good to consider investing just a little bit of time and effort to use social media to help you tell the same story to hundreds or thousands of people at the same time.

The fact is, if you are a completely original, unique or special producer or company and no one knows about you or your uniqueness, in the eyes of your consumer you are not unique or special. People love uniqueness and social media thrives when it tells a story that is unique, so if you think you are unique, there is much to be gained by using social media.

By being a small local food business, you are already unique, so why not see if you can make this work for you. After all, if a multinational food company can use social media to make themselves look unique, and it works for them, and you are already unique, why couldn’t it work for you?

Basically, the idea is restricting the quantity of starches being served in school lunches will force a greater selection of vegetables to be offered, and ultimately consumed, as a part of school lunches. “Under the USDA proposal, school cafeterias would have to limit starchy vegetables such as potatoes, corn, peas and lima beans to a total of one cup per week for lunch.”

Truthfully, the state of the nation’s nutrition is a major problem and should be treated as a long term crisis with economic, financial, political and military implications. Since most kids and teenagers eat at least one meal a day in a school cafeteria, there is a logic to the approach of establishing rules and regulations designed to encourage better eating and nutrition in school cafeterias.
But, I am not entirely sold that restricting the quantity of starches being served in school lunches will have the intended result.
First, it is important to remember the nutritional quality the starches being restricted. According to the National Potato Council: “Potatoes deliver a good source (providing at least 10% of DV) of two of the four nutrients of concern for children – potassium and dietary fiber. In fact, according to the DGA 2010, one small baked potato is the #1 source of potassium in the diet, providing 738 mg potassium in just 128 calories, and is listed among the top sources of dietary fiber (3 gm).”
Second, I don’t understand the logic or assumption of restricting the quantity of starches being served resulting in increased consumption of other vegetables. Yes, it is true that restricting the quantity of serving starches will result in other foods being served. But, just because other things are being served does not mean they will be eaten. After all, if you were given the choice between potato foods such as french fries, hashbrowns, tater tots or other similar things and broccoli, asparagus, brussel sprouts or other vegetables, which would you choose if you were eating in a school cafeteria? Based on my memories of cafeteria food and what I know about how we all eat, I don’t think it is a far stretch to think the potato choices will win.
The truth of the matter is that the intention of this effort is good, however, the result of the effort will probably not produce the intended result. Instead of focusing on what is served, why not focus on how it is served? Maybe it might be better to focus on how it is served or consumed? So, instead of getting rid of fried or “oven baked” or “oven fried” foods that are very high in statured fats, why not draft regulations designed to encourage cafeteria foods that are prepared in healthy, low fat ways and consumed without the addition of horrendous toppings such as mounds of sour cream, bacon bits, excessive amounts of cheese, or other “toppings” that are enough to cause a coronary in school kids?

For more on this issue, the National Farm to School Network has put together a very interesting briefing on the proposal and problems with implementing the proposal.

Here is the opening paragraph:

“A recent study conducted in 58 schools nationwide found that children choose flavored milk over unflavored milk nearly 70 percent of the time. And when flavored milk was not an option, milk consumption dropped.”

My immediate response to this: DUH!

Hmmm, lets think about this for a minute. Human beings are naturally and instinctively drawn to fast and “cheap” sources of fuel. Sugar and Fat are two fuels that meet this criteria. So, as a result, we tend to be drawn to foods offering us lots of “cheap” fuel and we tend to need pushing (from parents or that parental side of our minds, a.k.a. rational control) to make sure we eat foods that not as high in fats, sugars or other “cheap” fuels. So, given that children are renown for their ability to rationally control themselves, why isn’t it surprising that children “prefer” flavored milks over unflavored milk?

One of the things that puts this article over the edge is the fact that the whole spin of the study and resulting media outreach is that the study is being used as a justification for having flavored milks stocked and distributed in schools:

“Hopefully, school systems and parents will use information like this when making decisions about the kinds of milk they make available to students,” said Tony Banks, a commodity marketing specialist forVirginia Farm Bureau Federation. “Flavored milk is still milk, with all the nutritional benefits of regular milk, and milk is still among the most nutrient-dense food items available to children in schools.

“Even milk that has additional sugar because it is flavored can be a healthier beverage choice than sodas and some fruit drinks.”

The reasoning is that drinking flavored milk is better than drinking no milk at all. While it is true that flavored waters, soda/pop drinks, and other beverages contain more sugars, sweeteners, artificial flavorings and other “bad” stuff,  I don’t really buy into this argument. To me, it is about the same as saying that since red wine offers some potential health benefits, it is OK to drink red wine instead of eating the fruits and vegetables that offer the same health benefits. The problem is, the benefits offered by red wine or flavored milk are significantly less than the health detriments offered by everything else that is contained in the red wine or the flavored milk. Or, to put it another way, saying it is better to drink flavored milk over no milk at all is about the same as saying it is better to eat fastfood over canned or fresh vegetables. It just doesn’t make sense.

Also, to make one more point that should probably go into another blog, the purpose of the VA Farm Bureau and the Save Our Food sight is to help promote, protect and preserve local farming and food production in Virginia. Wouldn’t it be a better use of money to promote how local milk is  better for kids, the environment and the economy than promoting a type of consumption that is not necessarily good for kids and a product that tends to not come from local farms and is more commonly from larger industrial farms that are frequently out of state, especially when it comes to the foods that are offered in local schools?

Approximately one third of the world’s people suffer from a lack of micronutrients. Micronutrients are “any substance, such as a vitamin or trace element, essential for healthy growth and development but required only in minute amounts”  More specifically, micronutrients in food include essential things such as: folic acid, iron, vitamin D and iodine. Although they are consumed in minute amounts, the have profound implications on our health and wellbeing.

According to the World Health Organization, “these substances are the “magic wands” that enable the body to produce enzymes, hormones and other substances essential for proper growth and development. As tiny as the amounts are, however, the consequences of their absence are severe. Iodine, vitamin A and iron are most important in global public health terms; their lack represents a major threat to the health and development of populations the world over, particularly children and pregnant women in low-income countries.”

The proposal to address this problem is to enrich food staples and salts with micronutrients. It is true that enriching food staples such as adding iodine to salt and vitamin D to milk has been practiced in the US for a long time and is a primary cause in the elimination of nutrition based diseases such as rickets. Also, the article correctly notes that the cost of fortifying food stables with micronutrients is extremely cost efficient.

But, doesn’t this seem a bit like treating symptoms instead of treating problems?

The problem is not exclusively a lack of access to foods containing micronutrients. In all reality, the problem is a lack of access to an entire diet capable of meeting the current nutritional needs of people.

In a sense, fortifying food staples is the somewhat the nutritional equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The situation is akin to switching from regular to diet drinks as a way to regulate sugar and calorie consumption. The switch comes with the trade off of increased caffeine consumption as well as increased exposure to artificial sweeteners. At the end of the day, all you are doing is playing a game of nutritional three card monty by trading one bad thing for another.

It is critically important to ask what food staples that will be fortified. If fortified food products in the US serve as an example, they will be highly refined or processed, bearing little-to-no resemblance to their traditional form or place in a person’s regional or ancestral diet.

Considering:

“[When we eat refined foods] … we limit the opportunity to bolster our immune system, keep our blood sugar and emotions balanced, keep our blood sugar and emotions balanced, protect against degenerative diseases, maintain a trim and fit body, and in general, keep our integrated experience of life harmonious.”

“Our desire to overeat can stem from eating foods that are refined and therefore missing ingredients; these deficient foods can foster addiction as we are instinctively driven to over consume them in our endeavor to obtain the missing nutrients that are never there.”

Healing With Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford (2002 edition) pgs 16 -18

And, according to Harriet V. Kuhnlein, Professor of Human Nutrition and Founding Director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE) at McGill University in Montreal, Canada:

The development, health and scientific communities do not usually understand the food resources that indigenous people know and use. Scientific identifications and laboratory data for nutrients and other phytochemicals for a food system may be unknown for many species.

A possibly better solution to this issue might be re-examining and then reintroducing traditional dietary and agricultural practices “upgraded” for current daily life instead relying upon artificially fortifying foods derived from highly refined and processed foods frequently from foreign sources and diets.

So, at first impression it seems this spouse deserves a gold star for supporting the partner and understanding the challenges of following an unconventional diet with many possible restrictions.

Then the spouse laments for the days of gluten foods and half jokingly says gluten free foods taste “like straw”. Now, it seems that re-evaluating those gold stars might be a god idea.

Since this is “FOOD for the rest of us” and not “MARRIAGE counseling, guidance, and judgement for the rest of us”, I lets focus on the food.

This spouse is not the only person in the world to consider gluten free foods to be unpleasant.  In fact, I have previously blogged about a NYT article where celiacs’ laments for gluten foods such as pasta and breads were followed with praises to the food industry for coming up with increasingly “better” imitation foods as substitutes.

In fact, while making a birthday cake with two layers of genoise brushed with sherry and iced with mocha butter-cream and chocolate icing using regular all purpose flour, I found myself thankful for not having to counter balance any of the garbanzo bean flavor sometimes found in many gluten free flour mixes. I was also glad to focus on the cake and not if the amount of xyntham gum added was sufficient or too much.

So, while I wasn’t saying it tasted like straw, I was viewing it as something inferior to a gluten based product. Then I realized this was probably due to the fact that I was automatically assessing the possible tastes and textures of something made with out gluten against something made using gluten.

Just as substituting beef or chicken with some sort of soy based product, using vitamin pills instead of eating fruits and vegetables, or eating farm raised vs wild or “free range” fish, fowl, or beef leads to all kinds of dietary issues and doesn’t taste all that good; forcing an over processed, chemically stabilized, and artificial-in-nearly-all-aspects-of-its-existence food item to replace is not exactly a good idea.

Instead of looking for substitute food products or items that can be swapped in and out of your eating habits as if they computer parts or brake pads, maybe it is better to consider it time to undertake a food odyssey, searching for new to you foods that are fun to eat and do not conflict with your dietary choices.

After all, just because a meal or a specific dish or food item is made to be gluten free does not mean the food should not be good.

For example, the other weekend I cooked great meal.

The salad included fresh cherry tomatoes, sweetened red onions, basil, sheep’s milk feta, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

For the main course, I roasted beef sirloin with a rosemary, sage, thyme, parsley, Grana Padano cheese and garlic crust. The beef was accompanied by roasted apples, parsnips, sweet potatoes, and turnips, a pan sauce, and rustic mashed potatoes.

For dessert, I used Giffords’ double chocolate ice cream with warmed “Last of the Season” peaches and a ruby reduction.

Although I added toasted bread croutons with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, parsley, and basil to the salad, and the salad would have been equally good without them, the meal was essentially gluten free.

Nothing came out of a box, was almost entirely gluten free and it did not taste like straw. In fact, I was later told the meal was “Kick A** Good.”

It is easy to look around at the bounty of fruits, vegetables, and other foods being reaped during this time of harvest and believe the cornucopia is endless and offers limitless healthy food to all.

But, the cornucopia is neither endless nor offering limitless healthy food to all.

Instead, 36 million Americans, including 13 million children, struggle with hunger every day.

You may ask how is it possible for our American society to be plagued by such a horrible problem while our American society is also considered to be plagued by an obesity pandemic. Similarly, how is hunger among so many possible when so many fast food restaurants offer $1 menus?

The answer is not that food is not available. Neither is the answer that hunger equates to lacking of access to food.

Instead, it is better to consider the hunger crisis in terms of access to information about nutrition and foods offering dense nutritional value.

A body’s energy comes from three sources: Proteins, Carbohydrates, and Fats. Proteins and Carbohydrates offer about 4 calories per gram while fats offer about 9 calories per gram.

Considering our instinct is to seek out those foods offering the most energy and not necessarily the most nutrition, and the foods offering most energy happen to be fats, is there any real wonder why we would choose to eat an order of chicken nuggets dipped in a BBQ sauce with high fructose corn syrup as the primary ingredient, over a salad of fresh tomatoes with salad greens, thinly sliced steaks and a sauce of basil, garlic, parsley, olive oil and balsamic vinegar?

Similarly, when you walk into a coffee shop, what catches your eye longest? The lovely looking cracked bulgar salad with green onions, parsley, and tomatoes or those plump cinnamon, spice and rum soaked raison scones with the crunchy sugar sprinkles twinkling like stars and just enough to be seen? Since I just made myself hungary by typing the second description, I suspect the scone is the correct answer.

If you are tempted, what about everyone else? What about someone who might not be as interested in food as you and I, or someone who might not have the time, money or other resources to shop and cook the same as you?

So, during this time of amazing bounty, transition and the beginning of the fall and winter holidays ultimately leading us into 2011, it is important to remember the bounty offered to us can only be for all of us if each of us takes action to spread change and help those how ever possible.

Yes, I had head this claim before, and had always written it off as media pandering. But, a bit of recent news has changed my mind.

According Hal Arkowith and Scott Lilienfeld in the Sept/Oct 2009 Scientific American Mind:

“Two thirds of American adults and one third of school-age children are either overweight or obese (defined as extremely overweight).”

But this sounds a bit abstract, right?

They go on to state:

“From 1960 to 2002 the population of overweight and obese adults increased by roughly 50 percent, and the corresponding increase for children was 300 percent.”

So, in less than 50 years our society has gone from “thin” to “fat.”

This is our entire society, not just a handful of indulgent adults or spineless parents allowing children to overeat junk food. Also, if you want to blame genetics,while it is true genetics plays heavily into our weight, metabolism and how we process stress, sleep and other environmental factors affecting our weight, genetics are personal not societal and can not evolve quickly enough to account for these changes throughout our entire society.

Want to blame the “Industry” – Restaurants, Food Manufacturing Companies, the Government, our Schools, etc.? Well, while it is true that they must shoulder a responsibility for providing clear, easily understood and comparable information about ingredients, calories and other such things ….

“… the root of the obesity problem ‘must lie in the powerful social and cultural forces that promote energy-rich diet and a sedentary lifestyle’” (Scientific American Mind Sept/Oct 2009)

Before you go off to round up the pitchfork and torch brigade and head off to your closest MacDonalds or 7-11, consider what Gavin Fitzsimmons, Professor of Marketing and Psychology at Duke, has to say:

“There is a notion that if we all just had the full nutritional information on menu or food items, we’d choose rationally … [b]ut that isn’t so. There are too many unconscious environmental cues that prove too strong.” (Psychology Today, Sept/Oct 2009)

Additionally, we fool ourselves:

“[Brian Wansink, Dir of the Food and Brand Lab, Cornell Univeristy]… has demonstrated we consume more food when it is served on a larger plate, in a bigger bowl, or in bulk packaging. And if it’s labeled low-fat, we chow down even more – consuming, on average, 20 percent more caloriesthan we would were it not so labeled.” (Psychology Today, Sept/Oct 2009)

So, should we tax things that make us fat?

According to Yale Psychologist Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas Freiden, at the CDC, social policies such as taxes on “one of the biggest contributors to obesity: sugar-sweetened beverages.” (Scientific American Mind Sept/Oct 2009)

This cry is also supported by Dr Barry Popkin, one of the first researchers to identify a link between high frutcose corn syrup and obesity in his well known study published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2004.  As quoted in Food Navigator’s recent article, Fructose in the firing line:

“The idea is very simple, that essentially in America – and the rest of the world – when you consume any caloric beverage, particularly sugar-sweetened beverage, [including corn-based sugar] you don’t reduce your food intake.”

“We know that if you increase the price of sugar-sweetened beverages, you will reduce their impact,” he said. “Much like cigarette taxes have worked grandly in the US and elsewhere to reduce smoking…These are one of the only foods and beverages with no health benefits and clearly defined health cost.”

But, much like prohibition on alcohol in the 1920′s, wouldn’t a tax on bad foods result in them possibly becoming even more attractive by being “bad”?

“A recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that the mere presence of health offerings on a menu or on display in a restaurant or even in a vending machine can often be enough to vicariously satisfy our long term health and nutrition goals-and trick our brains into allowing su to make more indulgent food selections, ones we would not otherwise make. (Psychology Today, Sept/Oct 2009)

So, basically, even if we know something isn’t good for us, by having  a healthy alternative is available we can placate our selves with the thought or intention of having that food while actually eating the “bad” food.

To me, this all boils down to changing your lifestyle since I don’t think taxes, government labels or other top down solutions will really do all that much good.

Simply put, say what you do, do what you say and find ways to give yourself success.

Interestingly,

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Financial-Industry/Fructose-in-the-firing-line?utm_source=exclusive_interview&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Exclusive%2BInterview

Don’t you agree it is a wonderful day in the neighborhood? Well at least it was a wonderful day in the neighborhood.  With fall finally showing some gusto over the last few days, Wife, Dog, and I took a trip out to the Northern Neck area of Virginia.

We ended up camping at the Westmoreland Virginia State Park campsite.  It is very beautiful there and definitely worth checking out, especially now while the days still offer some warmth and the crowds are not around.  If you have time, make sure to hunt for fossils on Fossil Beach, look for Osprey and Eagles from the cliffs near the visitor center, and then remark on the ironic fact that George Washington and Robert E. Lee were born and raised approximately 10 miles from each other.

More to the point of this blog, we toured around the area on Sunday and ended up stopping at the Ingleside Winery as well as the Westmoreland Berry Farm.  Two very special but very different places.

Pulling into the Ingleside winery was a very pleasant surprise.  After a very short but picturesque cruz down the gravel driveway along vines flirting with fall colors on the leaves, a turn into the parking area reveals a happy but simple entrance marked by old oak foudres and an ivy covered silo.

Deciding to leave Dog in the car, we parked in the shade with the windows rolled down and water in his dish. Walking through the entrance revealed a pleasant outdoor seating area with a bubbly fountain in the middle and tables with umbrellas and fall leaf garland wrapped around each post.

After a quick sugar snack of delicious shortbread cookie and coffee cake, the pre-wine tasting snack of champions, we stepped back into the winery tasting room and shop, after all we were there for the wine as well as the atmosphere.

Wife choose the regular tasting for $3 and I chose the full, $10. Both tastings came with a complementary glass form the winery. The full allowed me to taste the regular, and the reserve wines while Wife was limited to regular wines only.

As it turned out, Wife didn’t seem to enjoy the few sips of reserve wines she mooched from me.  Although I thought the reserve reds were good and very food friendly, she wasn’t all that impressed.  We both agreed the merlot was a little of a let down compared to Merlots from Western Virginia we sampled recently and the Syrah seemed to be a mutual favorite. I also thought the Petit Verdot was another good food wine, seeing how I could easily pour it with smoked ham or turkey, roast pork or beef, and winter vegetables roasted and served with a sweet and tangy mustard.

With our mutual dislike for heavily oaked Chardonnay, we both were surprised and happy with their Chesapeake Chardonnay.  It was light with acids, having just enough to not be too sweat, and just enough mineral to go with and not against oysters, heavy cream or blue cheese, tangy asian chicken, summer melon wrapped in prosciutto, or even roasted figs with pancetta. At the same time, by avoiding the curse of oak barrel aging, oak is good for some wines but not and especially Chardonnays, the Chesapeake Chardonnay doesn’t offer the same woody and thick taste as many of its counterparts, including Ingleside’s Reserve Chardonnay.

All in all I had a great time and was pleasantly pleased with the wines.  I greatly look forward to going back and trying their wines as well as the many wines offered by the wineries of the Northern Neck sometime very soon.

As a kid, my friends and our parents would head out to Sauvie’s Island to pick berries in the summer, pumpkins in the fall, pet goats and hold freshly hatched chicks in the spring. Watching kids climb aboard a hay ride, bounce and bumble down the lane past the plank climbing goats, and descend upon the pumpkin patch as if searching for a leprechaun’s pot of gold brought back many of those gilded memories. Feasting upon a very good pulled pork barbeque sandwich, baked beans, coleslaw, and a truly glutinous and yet gleefully great strawberry combo (strawberry shortcake with ice cream and whipped cream) created new gilded memories and very full tummies. Originally I would have said one combo was enough to last a long while. But, after using some of their blackberry preserves on freshly baked cornbread at breakfast this morning, I am now wondering if they serve a blackberry combo and if it would taste better with the air just a little cooler.

All in all, I have to say that I am grateful to have ventured out to the Northern Neck area of Virginia and look forward to venturing out there again soon.