july 2021 donation

a little late this month since I started a new job, then thaddeus came for the weekend. but anyway, this month I donated to the united farms workers, which is an org that was started in 1962 and "is the nation’s first enduring and largest farm workers union."

"The UFW continues organizing in major agricultural sectors, chiefly in California. Recent years have witnessed dozens of UFW union contract victories protecting thousands of farm workers, among them agreements with the some of the largest berry, winery, tomato, dairy and mushroom companies in California and the nation. More than 75 percent of California’s fresh mushroom industry is now under union contract. Many recent UFW-sponsored laws and regulations protect all farm workers in California, especially those at non-union ranches. They include the first state standards in the U.S. to prevent further deaths and illnesses from extreme heat and in 2016 the first law in the country providing farm workers in California with overtime pay after eight hours a day. The UFW continues to actively champion legislative and regulatory reforms for farm workers covering issues such as worker protections, pesticides and immigration reform."

somehow I started following them on twitter and have learned a lot about working conditions on farms, how some produce is harvested, and the tremendous work that is rewarded with incredibly little pay. 

also, for some extended reading: 
National Farm Worker Ministry - Children in the Fields
The Atlantic - The Overlooked Children Working America's Tobacco Fields

it ain’t easy being green

I forget what my 2017 new year’s resolution was. I’m pretty sure it was to eat less beef, which I totally have. I did it because our “regular” cows are terrible for the environment. they hella pollute our land, air, and water. damn things taste so good tho!

this year I’m going to focus on lessening my overall negative environmental impact. starting last week, lol. I’ve always donated lightly used items rather than throwing them away, and have always been careful about conserving electricity and water, and, of course, recycling paper, aluminum, and common plastics. since volunteering with SoCal harvest a number of years ago, I’ve also been pretty aware of my food waste and convinced my dad to get a compost bin for our yard. and I think he’s also on the verge of getting a rain barrel, yahoo! of course, since volunteering with algalita I’ve cut more and more plastics out of my life and have mostly stopped frivolous shopping too.

but the other day, ab said something that really got me thinking. she said that ocean institute had asked her to give a 20 minute talk at their facility down in Dana Point, which is a 60-90 minute drive from here. I said that is they were also willing to compensate her driving time... she said that even so, it wouldn’t be worth the greenhouse gases of driving down there. she is so right!

I don’t mind driving, long distances anyway. and I always try to carpool, take efficient driving routes, and don’t idle my car for more than a couple minutes (more than a minute or two, the co2 released is more than how much you would produce turning off the car and restarting it). but I really don’t think anything of driving 40 minutes away for a meal. and while I think about riding my bike to work, if I’m honest, I haven’t really seriously considered it. well, I’m gonna. ...not bike to work. it’s winter and too damn cold. but if I need to go to stater brothers up the street, I’m going to bike. and when it gets warm again I’m really really going to consider biking to work and especially to practice. and maybe get a skateboard so I won’t drive to whole foods for lunch. ...tho first learning to be way better at skateboarding, ha. tell ya what tho, I’m probably going to eat out less too. it’s not that great for the environment either. I’ll be working at the farmers market once a month anyway so can get locally sourced stuff there. ...now to learn to cook...

I’m really really gonna stop buying bottled shampoo and body wash, even the refill stuff. I’m gonna remember to avoid stuff with palm oil and too many chemicals. I’m going to pay more attention to where my food comes from and try harder to eat locally and less processed stuff and less meat in general. I’m going to start asking more often for “no straw please” and bringing my bento box for leftovers when I do eat out. and more! oy, there’s a lot to remember and do but it’ll totally be worth it!!

let them eat meat

have been thinking about vegetarianism a lot lately. ab is mostly one, al is sometimes one. and both do it for ethical reasons. at cmg back in may, ashley said she became one after many years of knowing about the issues and caring about them, but not quite caring enough. one day tho, it just clicked.

when i was much younger i used to want to become a vegetarian. a fruitarian even, after a flight where the woman next to me got a special fruit only meal. back then i wanted to because it seemed cool somehow. and also because it seemed like an interesting exercise in discipline. i didn't do either tho because i didn't really care to commit and i ate at home where my mom made at least one meat dish every meal, and still later i realized that i LOVE meat. ha.

but starting maybe 10 years ago, i started becoming aware of all the environmental issues concerning eating meat. i always knew about animal rights, but they didn't really bother me much because i felt that 1. humans had evolved to eat meat and 2. nearly all the animals we eat only exist because we domesticated them for food.

recently tho, it's really starting to bother me. even the animals rights stuff. we treat our livestock terribly. really really terribly. and eating large-scale commercially sourced meat is bad for the environment. really really bad.

my parents leave on a month-long vacation later this year. i think i'll try out vegetarianism then. i probably won't be too strict on it, but i'll try much harder than i am right now. currently i'll do non-meat when i remember to, and when i feel like it. to be fair, i usually feel like it, but i very often forget. that's the problem when your convictions aren't too strong, i guess. anyway, why not now? because most of my main meals are prepared for me by my mom or even j. ...i know, i know... but let's save that ethical dilemma for another post, yeah?

ps, while vegetarian, should i come across a restaurant serving roadkill tho i'll probably stuff myself silly. it sounds gross, but here's why.

last meal

On Death Row, Women Want Salad for Last Meal. It’s no secret that men and women eat differently. Turns out, they stay true to their habits to the very end.

firstly, i wonder what women in other countries / cultures want. is it the same type of thing? do women or men in the isolated jungles of the amazon also do this?

second, i wonder what i'd want! i'm tempted to list every food i love, but they'd never let me have so much... i'd definitely order a lemonade. maybe steak and mashed potatoes. well... some kind of potatoes. or maybe a grilled cheese sandwich and herbed potatoes. mac and cheese with scalloped potatoes? or ramen from santouka, or a cup o noodles, or french onion soup, or soondubu. maybe some charcuterie and a simple cheese plate, with olives. a fruit salad with berries mango and pineapple, or strawberry surfrider smoothie from jamba juice. or a small bit of french bread with tons of butter. for dessert i'd want either a fruit sorbet or rainbow sherbet. hahaha, i'm pretty set for the drink and dessert, it's everything in between i'm having trouble with. there are definitely fruits in my last meal tho. veggies... not so much.

third, alcohol is prohibited, right? that's why no one got any? that seems a little unfair. i mean, they haven't even have like, half a shot of whiskey or half a pour of gin?

what about you?

buffets

Jed Oelbaum - All-You-Can-Eat Buffets: The Scourge of Modern Behavioral Economics

interesting article! and so many interesting factoids i'll list them here!


“Given a choice between…their absolute favorite food or…a choice from a buffet of options, capuchin monkeys will opt for variety.” ... people ate almost 43 percent more M&Ms when there were 10 versus seven colors of candy in the bowl. In fact, the more options we have, the more us hungry, hungry hominids will eat in general, leading to the next point in buffet economics: the glutton factor."

"Other researchers have correlated the quantity of repeat trips one makes to a Chinese buffet with a set of traits, including body mass index, or BMI. While this conclusion—overweight people eat more—might seem obvious, the researchers also connect the quest for seconds and thirds with factors like plate size, how long one spends surveying their options before taking their initial serving, and whether the patron is seated facing, or turned away from, the steaming trays of lo, chow, and other various meins."

"People also may think they’re at buffets to eat a lot of cheap food, but according to science, the cheaper that buffet is, the less happy you’ll be... low prices at buffets leave people feeling less satisfied. That’s right, paying more for one’s food is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, also tied to our sense of value."

"Eat at pricier buffets with as many options as possible, in order to maximize your own satisfaction and the appeal of the meal you’re taking on. Use a large plate, and sit facing the buffet. By doing these things, you increase your chances of actually “beating the house”


me? i don't like buffets (according to the author, this is because i'm apparently a jerk!) because i can never eat even close to the charged amount. therefore, i prefer breakfast buffets. because i don't generally fill up on bread items like waffles, pancakes, toast (i prefer meats) and i LOVE berries, which are expensive.

my usual modus operandi at a buffet is to hit up every station, but one at a time. unless i know i won't like something i take a little bit of every item and go back to my table to try it all out. this way, if it turns out i don't like something and don't want to finish it, i waste very little. after finishing my samples from that station, i go back and get the items i like. if i didn't like much, i move onto the next station and repeat the process. i always try fill my plate and generally eat everything on it. i start with salad and finish with dessert. sometimes i try the soup, but not usually since i find most soups rather salty, and besides, they take up valuable stomach space. or, if i'm interested in the soups. i'll fill up on the main courses first then move back to soups. i also generally do not try to "over" eat on the expensive items. i like what i like and i'm not going to eat food i don't like just to "make it worth my money."

usually, at home, i eat until i first feel full. then i'll finish my bowl. when eating out, if i can't finish what's on my plate, i'll generally eat half so i can take the rest home. i don't like taking home less than a meal. it seems wasteful. when at a buffet i always overeat, lol. another reason i hate buffets! but i tend to eat slowly so can actually eat way more than i normally do. i seem to have a very elastic stomach. a time or two, at a $40+ vegas buffet i've actually eaten until my stomach hurt after. :( that was stupid and i don't intend to do it again. tho, coincidentally, i usually have to poo midway thru a long meal. and always after eating a big meal, within the hour!

quotations

the other day i was reading thru my posts tagged "quotations" and i was surprised at how many good ones i'd completely forgotten about! i also stopped posting them on this site and will start up again. :)

from alan richman - fork it over: the intrepid adventures of a professional eater

"you should not look for the spots of the sun but the light that it gives."

"nobody is more close-minded than me when it comes to vegetarian cuisine, regardless of whether it's vegan, macrobiotic, or vegetarian... i find vegetarian restaurants both smug and culinary unsuccessful. still, i have always been inclined to allow vegetarians to go about their business without interference from me. but i don't feel quite the same about vegans. what infuriates me about them is their self-righteousness, their insistence that we miscreants give up our enjoyment of food and eat what the eat."

omg, the last one. t keeps telling me i'm a picky eater. and yeah, i'm the first one to admit it. but isn't she also? she doesn't eat a few things she doesn't like (goat cheese, blue cheese, lamb) but she doesn't eat tons of things because they're "unhealthy", like cow milk, especially not whole milk. it's just so annoying because i'm not pretentious about my dietary habits but she totally is. ugh! you're not better than me just because you eat healthy. we just value different things. oh, right, and i'm not an ass.

oink!

the following reminds me of the lab-grown meat from earlier this year. julian baggini - the pig that wants to be eaten

after 40 years of vegetarianism, max berger was about to sit down to feast on pork sausages, crispy bacon and pan-fried chicken breast. max has always missed the taste of meat, but his principles were stronger than his culinary cravings. but now he was able to eat meat with a clear conscience.
the sausages and bacon and come from a pig called priscilla he had met the week before. the pig had been genetically engineered to be able to speak and, more importantly, to want to be eaten. ending up on a human's table was priscilla's lifetime ambition and she woke up on the day of her slaugher with a keen sense of anitcipation. she had told all this to max just before rushing off to the comfortable and humane slaughterhouse. having herd her story, max thought it would be disrepsectful not to eat her.
the chicken had come from a genetically modified bird which had been 'decerebrated.' in other words, it lived the life of a vegetable, with no awareness of self, environment, pain or pleasure. killing it was therefore nomore barbarous than uprooting a carrot.
yet as the plate was placed before him, max felt a twinge of nausea. was this just a reflex reaction, caused by a lifetime of vegetarianism? or was it the physical sign of a justifiable psychic distress? collecting himself, he picked up his knife and fork...

as much as i love meat, i have some problems with eating it. most of the meat we eat comes from industries which are really not good for the environment and treat the animals very cruelly. but would i give up meat for these reasons? no. and honestly, it's just cause i like the taste too much. i do think that humans should eat meat as our bodies are made to do so, but i'd much prefer that that meat come to us in nicer ways.

i don't have a problem with lab grown meat. it's a little weird. but i can get over it. what i cannot get over is a talking pig. even if i could somehow convince myself that it's no smarter or more developed than regular meat pigs, i wouldn't really believe it when it tells me it wants to be eaten. ...well, no. i'd believe it. but i'd think it was, like, brainwashed into thinking it. it's bred to want to be eaten. which is weird and unethical somehow. like taking away someone's freedom of choice. no one wants to be killed and eaten unless something is wrong with you. ...right?

mentally vegetated chicken? i'm somehow fine with eating that. probably because it doesn't think. which is weird cause all current animals do think and somehow i'm okay with eating them. ...so long as they're not talking. ...i am full of contradictions...

guava jam

i've been in a "crafty" mood lately, so when my dad and i picked like 40 pounds of guavas from our other house, i decided to make guava jam!

in trying to find a recipe, i found out that jam and jelly are different. jelly is made from the juice while jam is made up of the flesh of the fruit. and marmalade includes the rind. ::cue music:: the more you know!

i used this jam recipe. tho i was also kind of looking at this jelly recipe also. i mostly followed the recipe but balked at putting in that much sugar. dumb me thought "well, i like sour anyway!" 

it started out okay, but the stuff was just so watery! even after an hour of simmering to help evaporation it looked more like apple sauce than anything. i mean, it tasted good. really good, but it clearly wasn't the right texture.
 
after some research, i found out that sugar isn't just for taste! most jams require pectin to help it gel. guavas naturally have a lot of pectin, so the recipe didn't require any to be added. but sugar also helps set jams (so does the lemon juice, btw). so including only half the amount of required sugar meant that no amount of simmering was ever going to get it to set. doh!

so in hopes of fixing my jam, i went to target and picked up a box of pectin. i followed the recipe and crossed my fingers. the next day (you have to give it 24 hours to set after adding in pectin), i opened up a jar to see... no change at all! :( it still had the exact color and consistency of apple sauce.

i ate it anyway.

next time tho, i follow the recipe. haha!  

over-nutrition

just finished michael pollan's the omnivore's dilemma. and while there were a LOT of interesting things. this one stuck out to me:

"the disease formerly known as adult-onset diabetes has had to be renamed type II diabetes since it now occurs so frequently in children." (102)

also: "...the united nations reported that in 2000 the number of people suffering from overnutrition--a billion-- had officially surpassed the number suffering from malnutrition--800 million." (102)

related video on the pasture-raised chickens.

lose lose

farm-raised or wild fish

i feel like you just can't win anymore. sure, farm-raised is worse in nutrition and the farms can be terrible for the environment. but wild fish is definitely bad for the environment, and since there's tons of illegal dumping and random pollution in the seas, you can't know what chemicals are in your fish.and  people don't catch fish sustainably, you wouldn't be able to run a large business if you did, probably not even a medium sized one.

i have kind of a weird thing with organic. i don't care too much about the chemicals i'm ingesting (i hate bugs!!). i am much more concerned about how the chemicals we put into our foods are affecting the environment. it's polluting everything!

the best way to be "safe" is to grow your own food. but how many of us do? at my home we grow a few things: basil, peppers, loquats, jujubees, oranges, and we get lemons from our neighbor. but we produce very little of any of this stuff, any my mom still has to buy all of the above from the store. and that's the thing too. even if you do grow your own stuff, you probably don't grow enough of it. and if you did grow enough to feed yourself every meal, you probably aren't getting a good variety of nutrients and minerals and stuff. ...the problem continues.

i think growing stuff is great. i intend to have a little garden later. but i wish life was just easier, with clear good and bad ways to get food.

flavor

eric schlosser & charles wilson - chew on this: everything you don't want to know about fast food

     "Consumers prefer to see natural flavors on a label, our of a belief that they are healthier. But the difference between artificial flavors and natural flavors is much less simple than it sounds. Both kinds are manufactured at the same factories. The differences between them is based more on how the flavor additive has been made than on what it actually contains. Natural flavors and artificial flavors sometimes contain exactly the same chemicals, produced through difference methods. Amyl acetate, for example, sullies the strong aroma of banana flavor. When you make amyl acetate from bananas, it is a natural flavor. When you make amyl acetate by mixing vinegar with amyl alcohol and sulfuric acid, it is n artificial flavor. Either way, it smells jut like a banana." (115-116)

     "McDonald's didn't use any beef flavoring in [the french fries sold in] India. Nor did it add beef to the fries in Great Britain, a country with a large Hindu population. Without telling anyone, McDonald's was quietly using difference French fry recipes in different countries. In India and Great Britain, it didn't use any beef. In the United Sates, it used beef flavoring. And in Canada, Japan, Mexico, and Australia, McDonald's still made French fries the old-fashioned way, cooking them in beef fat.
     "McDonald's apologized to the vegetarians in the United States... The apology led other restaurants chains to admit that they were also using animal products to make their French fries taste better. At Denny's and Church's Chicken, the fries were flavored with beef. At Burger King the fries were flavored with chicken. Fries that taste like chicken may sound gross, but they're not as gross as some of the fries mad in France. At restaurants over there, in the nation that invented French fries, they're sometimes cooked with horse fat."(127)

new year's resolution

source

i don't usually make a new year's resolution because i think we should be improving ourselves all the time, not just at the beginning of the year. anyway, mine this year is going to be eating less beef. if you know me, you should have gasped, because beef is my favorite food next to cheese, potatoes, tomatoes, and bacon. (i love eating healthy. HA!)

i'm doing this for a few reasons: 1. i should eat less meat anyway (livestock is bad for the environment) 2. i should really eat less red meat (for health reasons) 3. cows are really not great for the environment: a. they take up lots of room b. they eat too much c. they make lots of poo d. they make lots of methane!

btw, i know that cow burps don't nearly make as much methane as the media has led us to believe. but every little bit helps no?

btw, for a vaguely related article, read this one about how a chef is turning a non-native crab into food. i think this is such a fabulous idea! 'when i grow up' i'm totally getting into the locavore movement. well... more into it, anyway.

cheap vs fast food

i've heard a lot of people complain about how one of the reasons they wanted to quit smoking cigarettes was because it was just too expensive a habit. i think the same thing can apply to eating healthier. imagine how many people would eat less fast food if it was also super expensive!

source

we should tax fast food and use that money to subsidize healthy stuff. taxes from burgers make peaches cheaper. wouldn't that be awesome? experts say that we don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, but if they were a lot cheaper, i think people would totally eat them.

btw, notice that i'm not saying that the govt should tax fast food restaurants. mcdonald's offers salads, water, milk, fruit parfaits, apple dippers, etc. those things can remain tax free. but if you plan to get fries with that order, you'll need to pay extra.

btw, i'm not talking about like a 10% tax. i mean it when i compare this to the cigarettes. maybe an 80% tax? i haven't thought too much about the numbers, but i do think it should be significant enough to deter people from eating unhealthy fast food. because as long as prices are close, the convenience of fast food cannot be overlooked.and  i think one way to help eating better easier is to make healthier food significantly cheaper than fast food.

seeds

source

the end of the world does not scare me. i don't think it'll happen in my lifetime. but even were it to, i have the feeling that i'll be in the majority of people who dies pretty early on, maybe not in the first wave, but certainly before human kind really starts rebuilding. but while watching the very poetic, tho not very good, climate of change documentary, i found out about the svalbard global seed vault. which, honestly, kind of scared me.

the svalbard global seed vault is a secured seedbank on a norwegian island in the arctic. "The facility preserves a wide variety of plant seeds in an underground cavern. The seeds are duplicate samples, or "spare" copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. The seed vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises." (wikipedia)

source

this is probably a really great idea. but for some reason it also creeps me out. i mean, i know we should plan for a huge natural disaster where we can't find viable seeds to plant foods. but that the whole thing was paid for by the norwegian govt, which seems like serious bunch of people (unlike the taiwanese govt who pretty consistently has fist fights during congressional meetings) is just... i can't describe it. anyway, just thought i'd share this freaky bit of "news".

food integrity

highlights from daniel klein's article: are chipotle and trader joe's really selling food with integrity?

"Beyond helping them [immigrant farm laborers] to know their rights, CIW also created the Campaign for Fair Food asking the major tomato purchasers in this country (fast food chains, grocery stores) to pay a penny more per pound for tomatoes, and asking farmers to put that penny towards the workers... Taco Bell has agreed to join the plight for farm workers, as have 9 other major corporations including McDonald's, Subway, Burger King, and Whole Foods. But guess who wont: Chipotle and Trader Joe's.

"Yep, the two corporations whom you would assume would be at the forefront of workers rights issues, are distancing themselves... And that Chipotle --  the company who promotes the integrity of their food and practices more than anyone -- wont partner with CIW in adopting the Fair Food Principles is especially baffling.

"Both have written statements about their uninterest in partnering with CIW... These actions seem very at odds with the Trader Joe's and Chipotle image. They both claim to be doing it their own way, but as Eric Schlosser was quoted as saying: "Claiming you support farm-worker rights but refusing to work with CIW is like someone in the '60s saying they support civil rights but they won't work with Martin Luther King, Jr. or the NAACP.""


btw, if you're for gay rights, here's some more food for thought. chick-fil-a donated nearly $2 million in 2009 to groups that have anti-gay agendas (source).

sounds salty

from time.com

"Experimenting with how sound affects taste, chef Heston Blumenthal found that playing a recording of breaking waves makes an oyster taste 30% saltier than the same food eaten to the noise of barnyard animals. At the Fat Duck, a restaurant in Bray, England, his Sound of the Sea dish comes with an unusual side: an iPod loaded with sea sounds."

for more interesting stuff about heston you can read this, there's a video about making egg and bacon ice cream!

last meal

 

texas no longer serving death row inmates a special last meal

i think that kind of sucks. i agree that the dude in this article took advantage but to deny everyone in the future the privilege is not nice. the article says that "some states require the meal within a specific time period, allow multiple 'final' meals, restrict it to one or impose 'a vast number of conditions'..." which i do think is a good policy. maybe we can allow a person three special last meals, and if they don't eat the first one, or if they do crappy stuff with it, they don't get any of their remaining two.

i get that we only execute really bad people (well, we try to anyway). and usually the crimes have to be pretty gruesome of us to kill them for it. violent crimes, nothing like tax evasion or theft or anything like that. so of course you can argue that we shouldn't give them any privileges at all, not even a request of a last meal. but just cause they're messed up doesn't mean we have to be also.

the last meals project features some interesting last meals. very simple and sad. actually, they're pathetic because they are so simple. all john r thompson wanted was a glass of fresh squeezed oj. doesn't that kind of make you want to cry? gerald lee mitchell wanted one bag of assorted jolly ranchers. i don't know why he wanted them, and i can think of some really twisted reasons, but maybe those were his favorite candies as a child and as he sucked on each one in the hours leading up to his death, he thought about that one time he was so was so scared by that rabid dog that he peed his pants. and his dad, rather than getting mad like he always did, hugged his son, said that it was okay, and slipped him a jolly rancher or two. maybe he thought about the last halloween with his mom. he wanted to be a barnyard animal, but all they had was his brother's old green sweatshirt so his mom made him a frog costume. gerald was so mad; who wants to be a frog?! he made such a fuss about it but his mom dragged him door to door anyway. and the next day she ran away with their neighbor's husband. at seven years old, all gerald could think was that if only he hadn't told his mom he hated that costume she wouldn't have left him.

...i mean, who knows?

the f word!

i know this is several years old, but i only just discovered this... have you heard of chef gordon ramsay's f word? it was a tv from a few years ago in the uk. i haven't watched enough episodes, but gordon talks about food, eats some, cooks, meets celebrities and sometimes challenges them.

the funniest one i've seen so far is with him and james may from top gear (the british version of course, since the american version flipping sucks).

no more mctoys

last year san fransisco banned mcdonald's from giving out free toys in their happy meals. people say the toys in un-healthy meals gives kids extra incentive to want to eat fast food, which could eventually lead to childhood obesity.

cnn reports that "40% of preschool-aged children ask to go to McDonald's on a weekly basis, and 15% ask on a daily basis. Also, 84% of parents say they've taken their children to eat fast food at least once in the past week."

yeah, i'm pretty sure that isn't because of the toys. do these kids only play with the toy and discard the food? no, they want all of it. cause let's face it, the food tastes pretty damn good.

btw, it's the parents who take their kids, no? because parents decide what to feed their kids. kids can ask for whatever they want, but they don't matter, the parents do. i get that sometimes your kids drive you crazy so you cave in and do what they want, instead of what's good for them. but that's still up to you.

also, "the fast food industry spent $4.2 billion on advertising in 2009." which apparently these kids are falling for since they ask their parents so often to take them. (tho, again, parents don't have to do whatever their kids ask for) so maybe instead of banning the toys, which i know a lot of adults enjoy too, maybe don't let fast food places advertise during kids shows. just like how companies aren't allowed to advertise alcohol or sexy 1-900#s during kids shows. a few counties actually don't allow companies to advertise at all to kids under a certain age.

the ban isn't for every meal offering though. if restaurants want to continue to give away toys, the meal it comes with will need to "contain fewer than 600 calories [drink included], and less than 35% of total calories will come from fat. The meal must contain half a cup of fruit and three-fourths cup of vegetables, and offer less than 640 milligrams of sodium and less than 0.5 milligrams of trans fat."

it'll be interesting to see kids ask for the healthy toy-included meals instead of the regular now toy-free happy meals.

happy meal updated. no word about those toys tho.

dismemberment

animal cookies: 1890s, england

source

originally, the "british animal crackers came in only a handful of shapes, the american menagerie boasted a circus of seventeen different creatures (though the cookie came in eighteen distinct shapes): bison, camel, cougar, elephant, giraffe, gorilla, hippopotamus, hyena, kangaroo, lion, monkey, rhinoceros, seal, sheep, tiger, zebra, and sitting bear. the eighteenth shape was a walking bear.

"although a box of animal crackers contained twenty-two cookies, no child... was guaranteed a full representation of a zoo... the randomness added an element of expectancy to a gift box of animal crackers, a plus the company had not foreseen. and soon parents were writing to nabisco and revealing another unanticipated phenomenon (either trivial or of deep psychological import): children across american nibbled away at the animals in a definite order of dismemberment: back legs, forelegs, head, and lastly the body."

i totally ate my cookies the same way. creepy!

from charles panati's extraordinary origins of everyday things