Three points for government involvement in our food supply and consumption this week. First, in an effort to sustain fishing for the future, the US will this year become the first country to impose catch limits for every fish species it manages; this policy, forged by the Bush admnisitration and finalized with Obama’s backing, marks an unusual collaboration across party lines: (full story)
Second, the USDA’s trying to play an active role in Americans’ day to day health: their new “SuperTracker” website offers three ways to track our diets: (full story)
And third, New York City’s Department of Health has decided that oversize restaurant portions are making New Yorkers fat, so they’re taking aim at the food industry in a new subway ad campaign launched Monday: (full story)
A growing number of grocers are signing up to have the packaged foods they sell evaluated and ranked for nutritional content. But I’m with Marion Nestle on this one: “it doesn’t matter whether one potato chip is slightly better for you than another….if you want to encourage people to eat healthy, you want to encourage them not to eat food products. You want them to eat real food.”: (full story)
Everyone has their favorite parts of favorite foods, whether it’s muffin tops or the white middle of an Oreo; increasingly, food fanatics are finding each other online, creating Facebook pages that focus on favorite parts of food (like “I love sticking my finger in the cake and eating the frosting”), and innovating around their favorite parts to create tools like the “bagel scooper” and “edge brownie pan”: (full story)
In what seems to me like a reaction to consumer aversion towards their over-roasted coffee beans, Starbucks is launching a “blonde” coffee line; interesting to see the big dogs changing their offerings due to preference for beans that taste truer to their pre-roast flavor (a trend we’ve witnessed here at the Market): (full story)
Todmorden, a town in England’s West Yorkshire, has a “cheeky” plan: they want to be first town in the country to be self-sufficient in food by 2018: (full story)