My Last Chipotle Burrito: Person With Integrity.

Much has been written about Chipotle's food safety woes of the past year, so there really isn't much to say that hasn't already been said.

Everyone from late night hosts to #GMO supporters to Bill Marler have taken their shots at Chipotle, many with great joy. 

I was a little sad about what happened.

Don't get me wrong, I liked seeing the organization humbled.  I was sad that a restaurant with good food and a moniker about "Food with Integrity", neglected the most important aspect of their lives...

The food.

They became evangelical about a marketing campaign about the idea of food, not the actual food, itself.  The marketing campaign is pure liberal guilt and shame. It's faux activism and for all the wrong reasons.

It's also populism.  The food brought people in, but the guilt brought them back... and the shame stopped them from going elsewhere.

People in some circles were really worried about hormones, probably because they didn't know what hormones were, as well as animal welfare, and whether they were spending too little on food.  The people that Chipotle's marketing evangelism worked on, tended to believe anything about food, so long as it was negative. 

All of this had been happening as Organic grocery stores started to take off. So the guilt over eating animals with hormones or veggies with trace amounts of pesticides fed growth in organic food.  Those people could then gather at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's and talk about the uneducated Wal-Mart people eating at McDonald's or Subway, then go on and on about how uh-mae-zing Chipotle is.

See how we really aren't talking about the food - even while talking about food?

Exactly.

Chipotle was too wrapped up in their meta-marketing twister to consider that they are supposed to be a fucking restaurant.

They featured specific brands like Niman Ranch and Belle Evans without considering whether those entities could keep up with Chipotle's demand.

They kept raising prices to afford brands they couldn't even secure a reliable supply of, while at the same time substituting brands like Tyson when they ran out of Belle Evans chicken.

So I guess it's no surprise that food safety wasn't a top priority.  Food safety is a culture that you must have 100% buy-in for, or it will fail. Your employees need to know why they are doing what they do.  They need to be able to make food safety judgement calls on their own, while managers aren't watching them or when there isn't a specific rule written about a specific scenario.

I don't get the sense that Chipotle has that culture.  You can see it in various ways, like how sloppy they are with ingredients in their cold well, getting corn salsa in the sour cream and steak in the chicken. Even after the food borne illnesses, they let cooked meat set on the prep table and not in a hot well or heated cabinet.

I was done with Chipotle for a while, before the food safety scare, because of how their characterization of modern ag, as well as their anti-GMO stance.

A friend of mine told me about a special number you can text and Chipotle would send you a link to get a free burrito.

So just like a tired couple who know it's over and decided to have one last romp, I decided I would have a break up burrito.

I used the link they sent me to get a free burrito:

They now charge $7.50 for a steak burrito! I'm glad this one was free...

White rice, steak, red chili tomatillo salsa, sour cream and cheese. I got a drink and they charged me, because as the girl at the counter pointed out, the drink wasn't included... 🙄

The burrito was good, as they usually are.  Remember, I have no issues with the taste of the food, it's just Chipotle's marketing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Here is an example:

They use real ingredients, not like the science experiments those no good scientists prefer.

This location still has a way to go towards creating a culture of food safety. When I walked in, there was the obligatory pan of chopped up chicken setting on the prep table, but there was also a guy with dreads cutting a huge block of Monterey Jack with a wire and no hair restraints.  

Here is a pic of the guy:

Put a hat on.

I drank a Coke with my burrito and giggled thinking about Chipotle's anti-GMO stance, even though Coke is sweetened with HFCS, which is derived from corn, and much of our field corn is genetically modified(all things I'm fine with).

The floor around their condiment station could use some attention:

Notice the conspicuously placed rodent trap.

This facility passed their last health inspection in September 2015.  In Ohio, you get 2 inspections a year at random times. I think they're overdue a visit, and given the recent food safety troubles, I'm shocked they didn't return.

I couldn't get a pic, but as the employee with the dreads came out of the walk in, I could see unlabeled pans, stacked on one another without a lid, so the bottom of the top pan was smashing what was under it.

Here is the back of the health inspection sticker:

And for good measure, here's my receipt.  Maybe some day Chipotle will stop fearmongering about modern ag and GMO, but until they straighten up, I'll eat at Hot Head Burrito or Q'doba.

It's not me, it's you:

Knee-Jerk Reactions To Monsanto Hurts GMO Advocacy.

While the science supporting the safety of GMO is all but settled(no credible, reproduceable studies showing harm exist), public opinion seems to be less open to the technological process.

I blame Monsanto...

Well, let me be more specific; I blame people's knee-jerk reaction to Monsanto, and in turn, our knee-jerk reaction to people's knee-jerk reaction to Monsanto.

I'm sure that, like myself, many science communicators find it odd that the same people who support science when it comes to climate change, and support science when it comes to evolution, put their fingers in their ears and go 'la la la, not listening... la la la, Monsanto' when it comes to #GMO.

I think anti-corporatism explains this.  Many people who haven't read the literature on Climate Change are all too happy to support it because it's an indictment against 'Big' fill-in-the-blank, namely, Big Oil.

They're not pro climate change(phrasing?) so much as they're anti big oil.

While religion isn't a corporation per se, it is structured like one, and organized religion is certainly not without its series of scandals.  So while many people are against evolution because they see it as an attack on their religious beliefs, I would argue there are at least as many people who support evolution because it disrupts religion, just as climate change disrupts big oil.

For years, when arguing in favor of GMO, I would preface the argument by divorcing the issue from Monsanto.  In hindsight, I was handing the anti-GMO activists a winning debate strategy.

For years, we never bothered to challenge claims that activists would make about Monsanto: they go after small farmers, their products have lead to suicides in India, they're the ones responsible for agent orange, et cetera.

So when anti GMO activists engage in a debate, they've been able to stake unchallenged claims FOR YEARS that we ceded to them in order to get to the meat of the argument, science.

The trouble is that we never got to the science because Monsanto was the Skip, Reverse, and Draw Four of their Uno deck.

Monsanto gets worked into every counter-argument, and we couldn't do anything about it, because we tacitly accepted the premise that Monsanto was some evil, corporate monster.

If we want to reach more people, eliminate the activist driven stigma against GMO, and as a result, eliminate the labeling efforts meant to silence that technology, then we need to fight back against all the anti Monsanto nonsense, which is really just anti-corporate nonsense.

When we neutralize that argument, the activists have nothing but discredited studies from anti Monsanto activists parading as anti GMO activists...

And we can beat them, every time.

P.S.

I'm not paid by Monsanto, but I did solicit them, tongue-in-cheek, for a donation, so I could get a place to live.  Even if they give me money in the future, my views on GMO are already complimentary to theirs, so no COI would be possible.

That being said, I really am homeless, and would not turn down any donations that would help me get an apt.  I'm not trying to get a fancy downtown loft, just a decent place in a walkable neighborhood.  

I have zero savings and a new job, so it's going to take a while to save up money for an apartment.

If you would like donate, please visit the link on my Twitter profile page.

If you want to read more about my sad, strange misadventures in poverty and homelessness, check out my other blog, 

Poor Blog: http://samispoor.blogspot.com/

An Investment In Future Shoppers.

I've already blogged about the #GMO debate many times, but I think it's important for me to bring some clarity to the issue, to paraphrase the great Todd Glass.

Ok, so we have the Washington state #GMO labeling initiative I-522. If this passes, then most foods that have genetically modified ingredients will have to have a label stating so.

Why do farmers, scientists, science writers, and people in the industry have an issue with this?

First of all, the label serves no safety or educational function. If you buy the wrong kind of flour, your bread may turn out horrible. If you buy something with an undeclared allergen, you could go into anaphylactic shock and possible die. So it's important to label things like what kind of flour because cake and all purpose flour and flour made with summer or winter wheat may function differently.  We label allergens so people can easily see what to avoid... for obvious health reasons.

If you accidentally buy a food with a #GMO ingredient, nothing different will happen to you. Nothing.

So why label it?

Why would the Organic Foods lobby be funding I-522?

For those of you that don't know, foods classified as 'Organic' must not use #GMO inputs in their production.  So at first glance, it would appear that the Organic Foods lobby would have no dog in this fight... so why be involved?

This is where the label's purpose comes into focus...

Ok, so let's say you are Whole Foods and business is pretty good.  Organic food as an industry has been growing at around 25% a year for at least the last 5 years now. Pretty soon, that growth will reach a lag phase and start to level off.  Whole Foods is aware of this and know that they need fresh customers to sustain year over year growth.

Well, one way to guarantee more customers is to tell people your food is intrinsically better because it isn't #GMO.  

So how do you do that?  

You could list all the ways that non-GMO foods are demonstrably better... but what if you can't prove that?  The other option is the tried and true practice of propaganda.  You don't tell them why your food is better, you tell them the other food is so much worse.  Doubt is easy to grow and impossible to discount completely because one cannot disprove a negative.

So you spread propaganda about #GMO and you associate #GMO with big corporations(unlike mom & pop stores like Whole Foods).  You introduce doubt by saying the studies aren't big enough or long enough or independent enough.

The next step for Whole Foods is to warn people about every product you don't want them to buy... a label.

The label serves as a warning or to put it mildly, a reminder to choose a different food.  Now here's the catch: most grocery stores sell conventional foods and have a small organic section.  The organic section isn't really the big money maker and is subsidized by all the regular groceries. Grocery stores in general operate on a pretty thin profit margin.  So when people read what is essentially a warning label, they will start to buy USDA Organic foods, which means that regular grocers will see sales drop on about 90% of it's inventory.

This is where Whole Foods comes in...

Stores like Safeway and QFC will take a big hit to their private brands as well as the nightmare of having to segregate stock for Washington stores from it's distribution inventory for Oregon, Utah, Idaho, etc.  They may even have to close some Washington stores because of this.  But who will be there waiting with their mostly #GMO free inventory and a distribution system already designed to keep certain foods separated?

Whole Foods.

And you can bet Whole Foods can expect to pick up major market share as sales from their competition drops. It will be a major windfall for them.

Soon, Washington residents may have no major grocer to go to except Whole Paycheck, and Whole Foods will be waiting with open arms.

The single most important issue in all of food and agricultural sciences.

Credit to the internet for this meme pic. I think it may be traceable to RDFRS. Beyond that, I don't know.

I replied to a Facebook post in regards to an article posted on the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science Facebook page...  You know how the internet is...  Anyway, I spent enough time on the response that I thought I would post it.  The battle for GMO survival has become the single most important issue in all of food and agricultural sciences. Every scientifically literate person has a responsibility to read up on the arguments for, against, and all of the credible research.

Nothing else has been more closely studied, scrutinized, and validated for safety as GM foods that are approved for market.  No other foodstuff gets more criticism from unsubstantiated claims and from people thoroughly unqualified to discuss plant genomics than GMO.  

For the longest time, subject matter experts in biotech ignored the anti-gmo activists because they just assumed everyone else would see how irrationally hysterical they were being.  So we finally have SME's from both academia and industry speaking on behalf of biotech, but it's almost too late.  

Just as it is with racism, anti-semitism, and creationism, the science minded people will just have to hold on until more smart people are born and understand the scientific principal before we reach a critical mass of science literacy where these fairytale crisis dissipates quietly.  Education doesn't work if the anti side is so dug in and accuses anyone on the pro side of being a 'shill', but that doesn't mean the true SME's and the science literate public won't keep trying.  And similar to opponents of gay rights, the anti-gmo crowd will not be looked upon favorably 20 or 30 years from now.  As I would say to the anti-gay crowd, 'Don't you see where the future is heading?'.

Love it?  Hate it? Have a credible peer reviewed journal link for an article that wasn't already discredited? Post below.

Also... I'm poor.  This is a hard thing to say since most of my readers are fiercely self-reliant, 'up by the boot-straps types', but I was wondering if anyone noticed the PayPal Donate button on my blog.  I'm currently in between jobs and I'm getting behind enough to the point where I don't know how much longer I can stay in my meager apt.  

I'm not asking to be completely subsidized, I'm just asking that those who can, donate.  For my part, I will continue to look for work while posting more than I have been in the past.  I grew up on a hog farm with an outdoor toilet and a wood burning furnace, so hard work is something I grew up on. So while it's easy to grunt, 'Get a job!' and 'Get off yer ass!', please understand I am not a lazy person and I wouldn't so shamelessly promote the donate button if it wasn't getting serious. 

Hopefully, something good will come my way quickly, but until then, hope isn't paying the rent.  Thank you in advance for any donations, and to those who can't or won't donate, I still appreciate you taking the time to read this.

Sam

GMO Labeling or How To Best Protect The Right To Misinform Consumers.

It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I would dust off blogger and add another 1AM missive.  It get's harder to write about this stuff because it's already been said before and also there are now a respectable number of subject matter experts who are finally starting to write about food and ag issues.

What follows is a story about proposed GMO labeling legislation, one person's intro to that story on G+, and my comment on both.  It is not necessary to read the story.  You could even skip the intro to the story, but you may lose some of the context of my comments...

From +Malthus John 

The bipartisan legislation would require clear labels for genetically engineered whole foods and processed foods, including fish and seafood. The measure would direct the FDA to write new labeling standards that are consistent with U.S. labeling standards and international standards.

Sixty-four countries around the world already require the labeling of GE foods, including all the member nations of the European Union, Russia, Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand.

“This legislation is supported by a broad coalition of consumer groups, businesses, farmers, fishermen and parents who all agree that consumers deserve more – not less – information about the food they buy.”

According to surveys, more than 90 percent of Americans support the labeling of genetically engineered foods. In fact, many consumers are surprised to learn that GE foods are not already labeled.

Thanks +Bernie Sanders & Barbara Boxer!

Here is the story about the bill that Bernie Sanders(whom I like) and Barbara Boxer(whom I also like) have cosponsored

And here are my comments on the whole matter from my g+ acct:

 It's not because you want to know or that you want a choice, it's that you think there's a difference.  People who already made up their mind based on whatever misinformation they've bought into, probably already buy organic anyway.  This isn't for them.  This proposed legislation is for the minds of the uninformed consumers that the anti-gmo activists want to pollute with unjustified fear and misinformation.

The fact of the matter is that for all intents and purposes, there is no difference between, for instance, corn that is gmo and non-gmo.  For the consumer, there is no difference, but you want to scare them into thinking there might be.  

Anything approved to be on the market has already had allergenicity and toxicology studies validating it's safety, but no amount of studies will ever be enough for the anti-science, anti-gmo activist.  

It's the same as the conspiracy theorist who believes Sandy Hook was faked or the creationist that can never see enough evidence to convince them that evolution is real.  

You are just like them.

A Lack of the Killer Tomatoes.

I was initially very happy when I saw this story in the New York Times.


The story talks about how plant geneticists cracked the code on why red tomatoes seemed more bland.  It was fascinating as well as exciting, because they now knew what gene was turned off because of the red ripening mutation... which means they could simply turn on the flavor producing gene, in theory.


What really bummed me out about this article was the following sentences; 'But were the genetically engineered tomatoes more flavorful? Because Department of Agriculture regulations forbid the consumption of experimental produce, no one tasted them.'


I'm all for regulation of food and ag, as I've posted about before, but at a certain point, we have to shed this pre-millennial thinking that scientists are reckless and don't know what they are doing.  At this point, I think plant geneticists and bio-engineers have the ability to make a strong hypothesis about potential gene outcomes, such that they may take a bite out of a fucking tomato.


This thinking leads into the next self defeating paragraph in the article; 'And, Dr. Giovannoni says, do not look for those genetically engineered tomatoes at the grocery store. Producers would not dare to make such a tomato for fear that consumers would reject it.'


So what, don't even bother?  Why would the public reject it?  I think the doctor is referring to the anti-science activists that have romanticized any kind of old-timey ag of yore where poor, perpetually underfed subsistence level farmers broke their ass to make a crop that we would return to the grocery store for quality reasons.


Why not educate throughout the process?  Why not put up the varying steps on YouTube with annotations on why each step is done and have links to accompanying notes for background reading?  We need much more educational outreach, because clearly the activists... the 'Anti's' are growing their numbers every day with a steady stream of misinformation.  Shying away from progress in this world for fear that we may be misunderstood is a cop-out.


Imagine if that story ended with them taking a bite out of that tomato and noting that it tasted much better...  Would it mean we would see them in the store next year without any safety validation?  No, but it would take a step towards dulling some of the anti-scientific, conspiratorial rhetoric out there.

Mecca Flakes

 So we have several companies that make corn flakes.  Hundreds of workers are responsible for this breakfast classic that has been a part of the American breakfast for many decades.

What if I propose a rule saying that any company that employs a Muslim man or woman must put a symbol on their boxes when they worked on the line that produced that box of cereal?

Presumably, we've already done the same background checks as we have for every other employee.  The employee has received many hours of food safety, GMP, bio security, and other basic company/HR training.  The employee has also received the same on the job training that any other line worker gets and is monitored closely for a period of time after he/she is trained.

"But still.... how do we know that he/she won't.... you know???  I'm concerned for my family... I should have a choice between corn flakes made by friendly white people and ... you know...  Look, I know they're not ALL bad, but... you know... I've heard things.  A few of them have been known to be bad in the past... and well... I don't want to take any chances."

Would this bother you?  Would you be outraged?  Would you think it was a load of crap that the person proposing such a rule would hide behind 'choice' when we all know they're motivation is either fear or misinformation?

Suppose this rule went into effect and several groups boycotted the companies that manufactured these 'Mecca Flakes' as they will call them.  Pretty soon, those companies will get rid of any Muslim employees and a general panic may be stirred up about the role of Muslims in our society, despite all assurances of safety and all calls for sanity and for reason.

Now, replace the word Muslim with GMO.

"Oh Sam, that's different!"

Bullshit.  The traits of one worker on one line in one factory that hammers out thousands of boxes of cornflakes a day is NO different than one gene in a plant that produces corn in a field that produces many thousand of bushels.

Do you think it's wrong to require a company to disclose it's Muslim employees?  Good.

"But what about choice?"

'What's the difference?', I say.  In both cases their safety has been verified and their performance thoroughly analyzed.  In both cases, a non Subject Matter Expert stirs up fear and misinformation, recruiting others that are ignorant about the issues to call for labeling so they have a 'choice'.

Labeling of GMO comes from two agendas: 1. I don't know enough about science to know this is safe, I'm afraid and fear drives my choices or 2. I want more people to be afraid and stirred up about this and with GMO labeling, we will have something specific to boycott so we can drive the technology out of the market altogether.

Remember when Rush Limbaugh was trying to get people to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Presidential Primaries?  He wasn't doing so for any genuine reasons(sorry Ditto Heads), he knew that the GOP had a strong campaign ready to go against her,  The Anti-GMO activists know that they can drive mass hysteria IF there is something to point at and be hysterical about. 

I don't support labeling because:

1. Safety has already been verified.

2. It IS the same commodity -  Corn is corn & soy is soy

3. USDA Organic already has guarantees for being GMO free

4. I want to take a stand against runaway activism that preys on the ignorance and fear of others to get what they want.

Creating Evil.

When you hear advocates for sustainable ag and organic production talk about what they do, you are left with the impression that conventional farmers do not do those things.

If you click the title to this post, you'll be directed to a WaPo article by Eric Schlosser, Author of Fast Food Nation and co-producer of Food Inc.  In the article, Schlosser writes a rebuttal to foodies being called elitist.  Within that rebuttal, Mr. Schlosser makes several broad statements about food and ag.  He says that modern ag is, 'overly reliant on monocultures, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, chemical additives, genetically modified organisms, factory farms, government subsidies and fossil fuels'.

Eric Schlosser wants the public to believe that modern agriculture doesn't use crop rotation, no-till, cover crops, wind breaks, grass waterways, etc.  He paints the picture of 1 big, monolithic building run by an evil villain whose only goal is to poison children.

I knew about crop rotation, no-till, grass waterways, etc, before I ever knew what organic was.  His charge against conventional ag is incredibly misleading, considering that organic farms also use pesticides, fertilizers, fossil fuels, and government subsidies.

I spent many years of my youth on a farm and my college education is specifically designed to give me the training to run a food manufacturing facility.  Given that, I have never seen a 'Factory Farm'.  This is meant as an expletive that is all too often said by people who aren't educated enough to recognize what they are looking at in a large operation.  Of course, ignorance leads to fear, and ultimately, name calling.

Large operations have insanely huge input costs.  To control those costs, farmers have invested in precision agriculture in the past 15 years.  Many tractors now have in cab computers, gps systems, and auto-steer.  Soil samples are taken all over the field and plotted with gps so variable rate spreaders can be used so the farmers don't waste a drop of the increasingly expensive fertilizer.  GM crop varieties reduce the amount of pesticides needed, which also means that farm equipment is run for less hours.  This means reduced consumption of fuel lowered maintenance costs over the life of the equipment.

The farm isn't the only place Eric Schlosser has fostered the view point that everyone else is evil.  He also takes several shots at the food industry.  He makes reference to consolidation among meat packers and then likens it to the climate that existed when The Jungle was written.  It's as if having more owners would magically improve the safety of the world's safest food supply.

He talks about the food and ag system being centralized.  While some companies only have one plant, most food companies set up plants in different areas of the country... you know... in regions.  Of course, this must be a lie if Mr. Schlosser insists that our system is centralized and if foodies all call for a regional food system.  Kroger is one of the nations largest grocer's and has it's own manufacturing, named Kroger Manufacturing.  Kroger Manufacturing has bakeries, dairies, and various other facilities spread all over the country.  In all, Kroger Manufacturing has over 40 facilities where food is produced.  That doesn't seem very central to me.

Mr. Schlosser mentions how sick everyone is getting due to our very unsafe food supply... actually, he only mentions children, which is kind of cowardly if you ask me.  He fails to mention that you can't go anywhere else in the world and find safer food.  He makes a mention of pesticide residues and how bad that is for kids, but leaves out the part where residue limits are set so far below the amount that can make people sick, that it's virtually impossible to get sick from the residues. For instance, a child would need to eat 154 servings of apples in one day to get sick from the highest amount of residue allowed in apples by the USDA.  To calculate your own limits, go here.

Foodies get called elitist because they advocate an antiquated method of farming that, if implemented, would leave a large portion of the planet without food(hunger is already a huge problem throughout much of the world).  Any volunteers to never eat again?  No?  Hmm.  They also scoff at how little we pay for food as a percentage of our income, which is an indicator of economic health, not personal health.  Ethiopians pay a huge amount of their income(for those fortunate to have incomes) for food and they are starving.  Many foodies brag about how much more they spend for food.  Sound elitist?  Yes.  The cost of food didn't make us fat, our abundance of calories did.  We're still wired to eat and screw as much as possible, so it takes a fair amount of education to get people to willfully waste calories by exercising and not eating so much.  The elitist solution is to make food even more expensive for the poorest people in this country.

Many Works of Fiction and Hysteria...

Hello blog world, haters, and curious eavesdroppers.  It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I would toss together a tolerable hodgepodge of food things...

Cloned meat has reportedly been found in the UK...  cue the music... dun dun duuuuunnnn!  Oh no!  Run everybody, ruuuun!  Cloned cows!  Holy cow!  Panic!  Freak out!

Don't worry... don't panic... and don't freak out.  There is no science that I am aware of that supports any theories about meat coming from cloned animals being anything less than safe.  Seriously, it's cool.  It's just more panic from the Food Hysterics that I think stems from a lack of fundamental science knowledge.  

Remember these simple rules when wading through these stories:

1.  Just because someone puts it in a book, doesn't make it true.

2.  Established science, and a consensus of credible, peer reviewed scientific studies can never be undone by one study.  Never.

3. Always pay close attention to the Expert's area of expertise before you consider what they're talking about.  Don't take medical advice from a food scientist, don't take environmental science info from a doctor, and certainly don't give much credence to what an environmental scientist says about food.

4. Chef's have almost zero food science knowledge.  Same goes for journalism professors.

5. Beware of percentages in the absence of hard numbers. Percentages often sound worse than they really are. i.e.  Grass fed cows have 60% more omega-3 fatty acids than grain fed cows....  but the grain fed has 1.2 and the grass fed has 1.92. When you see actual data, the percentages get less scary.

Hooter's update...

For those unaware of my writings about Hooter's, please read this as well as this.

I met someone that was going to train to be a Hooter's manager several months back.  I caught up with him recently and asked how it was going.  He quit the training and made several complaints about the company and told one interesting anecdote.  He says he went to get some raw wings to bread and fry from the cooler and noticed some had a greenish tint and smelled foul.  As any good kitchen worker does, he immediately alerted the manager in charge.  The manager took a look and advised him to go ahead and cook them.  For those concerned for their health, the training location was North of Columbus in the Polaris area and the store is located on Sancus Blvd.  I advise nobody to eat there.  Hooter's never got in touch with me and their training continues to be ignorant of the most basic food safety logic.  If anyone from Hooter's is reading this... I can help you.  You need to seek help from someone before your food kills someone, especially since more families and children are eating there.

School lunch...

I'm all for nutritious school lunches, but aside from the money needed to increases the free lunche program, it shouldn't cost more per person.  The school lunch bill being considered now is confusing.  It aims to simultaneously reduce childhood hunger while fighting childhood obesity.  The bill includes an increase in the number of kids eligible for free lunches, and also includes stricter controls on fat and sodium.  

Here is what Mrs. Obama has not considered... the other 18 hrs that the kid isn't in school.  They assume that kids blow their diets at school, which I'm not so sure of.  Kids get 1 meal at school in most cases, and while they may go for higher sugar, higher fat foods, are they eating more calories than they do at home?  Also, the law states that they must get a full 1/3 of the minimum daily calories from the school lunch... shouldn't calories be cut to reduce obesity?  I've heard they have provisions aimed at encouraging schools to go local and organic, so they'd be paying a premium for the same food without any health benefits.  

Who does this benefit other than organic farmers?  Here's a plan: offer a tax break to families that brown bag it.  That way, the parents have only themselves to blame for fat kids.  Secondly, simplify the menu with lunch meats, and fruits/veggies.  Less to cook means lowered energy costs and these foods are already lower in fat/calories.  You don't need to increase the spending on this, aside from what you spend to increase free lunches.  This seems to be another bill based on more emotion/opinion than logic, reason, and science.