The hot fake
What I talk about when I talk about Food, Inc 2 -- a new documentary with a familiar name, the conundrum of nutrition research and the sustainability of eating snakes.
Hello new subscribers. A bunch of you found me through my post on LinkedIn, which I don’t do all the time, so hooray me. If you work anywhere in food that comes with the luxury of writing things off, please consider supporting my work.
Next Friday’s supporter-only newsletter will include a Q & A with Karen Constable, a fascinating food fraud and food safety expert; plus my review of Saluhall, the newest food hall to open in downtown San Francisco. Will it survive the real estate hex on 5th and Market? For all San Franciscan’s, I hope so.
Have you seen me in your movie theater? Food, Inc 2 is out now – in theaters and streaming– and I’m in it! To celebrate its release, I’m giving away a signed copy of the Food, Inc 2 companion book of essays. I’ll be selecting a name at random from my paid supporters next Thursday, April 18th. Please consider upgrading, even if it’s only for one week. (Kidding of course.)
On with the biz. This week's free newsletter is a round-up of things I find interesting, and why you should care.
Chocolate prices remain high making most chocolatiers grumpy – this despite passing along price increases to customers who are also grumpy. Makers are paying a bit more for cocoa because they want to appear most sustainable; and the folks that trade cocoa are worried they won’t have quality beans so there’s a bit of a scarcity mindset going on here. This commodity time bomb opens the door to cocoa-free ‘chocolate’ makers like Voyage Foods, WNWN Food Labs, Nukoko, and Planet A Foods. I recently tasted several products from Planet A – wafer cookies, granola and cookies – and all were delicious. I didn’t miss real chocolate one iota.
In an impressive first (I think), Bluestone Lane is launching Atomo Coffee, a startup making beanless espresso, on the menu at all of its locations across the country. The climate-resilient coffee alternative is an interesting take on our morning habit. This is a huge vote of confidence for the entire this-without-that product category: honey (Melibio), chocolate, wine (Kally) and cheese (Stockeld Dreamery)--to name a few.
Ever want to find out exactly one answer to a nutrition question? Good luck. The latest example is the recent announcement that eating in a time-restricted window aka intermittent fasting, led to a 91% rise in cardiovascular deaths. But wait for it and read this wonderful take down by Stat around the ‘facts’ used in this news, which include self-reporting and our general forgetfulness plus the self-selecting that happens in any study of people who diet. In another twist, here’s a study that showed a 2.5 year decrease in median biological age for folks that followed fasting-mimicking diets. (Also folks that self select because they eat well.)
Would you eat a python if I told you they were sustainable? Researchers in Australia say that '“compared to typical livestock, pythons expend much less energy, use little water and land.” Also: pythons are incredibly efficient at turning food they eat into body mass. (Yes, they do still need to eat animal protein.) And the taste, oh yeah that. It’s “tough like calamari and flavorless like chicken breast.” (Yum?) Bonus points: Go visit this vivarium in Berkeley, CA to see if you can handle the idea.
Worst offenders award:
How Trader Joe’s copies innovation of exciting brands and then sells them on the cheap to shoppers that think ‘Joe’ is some amazing global traveler bringing home the good stuff.
David Chang was certainly not the first person to sell “chili crunch,” but he’s hoping to bully everyone out of calling their versions by the same name. Great way to get a lot of people never to buy your product.
After a brief test at 160 McDonald's locations in Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky, where consumer excitement and demand exceeded expectations, Krispy Kreme will be supplying donuts to all MCD’s by the end of 2026. (Why are there so many locations in those two cities? Sad me.)
As if meat labeling bans weren’t bad enough, Iowa is adding in language to keep folks on SNAP benefits from using the state aid to buy fake eggs. They can buy Coke but not plant-based eggs?
Just the good stuff:
The EPA recently imposed national limits on forever chemicals in our water. This is being done to get PFAS out of our drinking water, which are linked to increases in cancer rates – most of us (including babies) have these chemicals in our blood. It’s great the EPA is finally doing this, but you can too by watching what you buy and bring into your home. It won’t reverse what’s happening but it’s a start.
Dan Barber posted about these Organic blueberries on his Insta. (You gotta trust Dan.) If you’re feeling flush please send me some while you’re at it.
Where you can find me:
Food, Inc 2 is out now. I actually had the good fortune to see the preview in the theater and it was very eek worthy.
I appeared on an NPR-member station in LA talking about cultured meat. Listen to the short segment.
I’ll be at the CIA’s Global Plant-Forward culinary summit in Napa next week. My first panel will kick off the event. You can watch it live on Tuesday, April 16th at 3:10 pm PST. (You’ll see a link to download the summit’s schedule of sessions that are available to watch and you can scroll down for the webcast player.)
Congratulations on Food, Inc 2! I haven't heard of forever chemicals until reading your newsletter. So glad the EPA is taking steps in the right direction. Hopefully the next step will be banning carrageenan.