McDonald's: More Devious Marketing, Dumbed Down Menu Changes

McDonald's persists as the devious poster child for what's wrong with the American fast food mega-industry....

Not just because it's the world's largest fast food corporation, which it is with $28 billion in U.S. sales and 34,000 outlets worldwide in 2012.

And not just because the unhealthiness of its food is legendary. McDonald's greasy fare is intentionally larded with addicting doses of fat, salt, and sugar to create a permanent customer base.

But because McDonald's is quite extreme in its single-minded, often stealth corporate goal of profits over people. public health be damned. 

Again, McDonald's has recently rankled health-conscious Americans with...

McDonald's Mighty Wings, newly introduced at the advent of wing-chomping football season. "Mighty Wings are basically McNuggets With Choking Hazards," commented one NPR on-air host. "I was as surprised to find an actual bone in this as I would be to find a bone in a banana," quipped another. 

Bones in Mighty Wings are about as natural as McDonald's ribless McRib sandwich. 

Mighty Wings are three, five, or ten "pieces" (McDonald's website lingo) per box, with the same ranch, barbecue, or honey mustard sauces used for Chicken McNuggets. Ten Mighty Wings have 960 calories, 60 grams of fat, and a whopping 2,900 mgs. of sodium (salt), 121% of the recommended daily salt intake for an adult. 

Misleading headlines about soft drinks in kids' meals hailed "McDonald's Ditches Soda in Happy Meal Menus," and similar, clearly stating that soft drinks would be eliminated in McDonald's popular Happy Meals.  This very positive change was supposedly brokered with the Clinton Foundation, and released as happy news at Michelle Obama's recent White House to-do on food marketing. 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest naively penned:

"Ronald McDonald’s slow march toward healthier meals made a major advance today... Getting soda out of Happy Meals is historic progress that should immediately be adopted by Burger King, Wendy’s, and other chains. Soda and other sugar drinks are leading promoters of obesity and diabetes and one day it will seem crazy that restaurants ever made this junk the default beverage for kids."

Turns out that McDonald's "major advance" is more fast-food baloney. Reading the fine print revealed that McDonald's agreed only to:

• Promote water, juice, and milk in external advertising directed at children
• New beverages will be "evaluated according to McDonald's food commitment pledges"
• In 3 years, McDonald's will fulfill this commitment in "50% of the 20 markets."
• In 5 years, McDonald's will fulfill this commitment in "100% of the 20 markets."

Lucrative soft drinks dropped from McDonald's Happy Meals? Not hardly, not now. Perhaps when public-health hell freezes over... 

Higher-quality hamburgers were dropped by McDonald's last May presumably because the one-third lb. Angus burgers took too big a bite out of company profits.  NBC News noted that U.S. "beef prices hit all-time highs" and cited"The U.S. Department of Agriculture's wholesale beef market report... showed choice beef carcasses rising 24 cents per hundred pounds (cwt) to a record $204.91 per cwt..."

Introduced in 2009, McDonald's Angus burgers provided better quality beef options than the ubiquitous Big Mac, Quarter-Pounder Cheeseburger, or the dollar-menu $1 Cheeseburger. 

"Who would pay $4.79 for a sandwich when the two sandwiches on the Dollar Menu are perfectly good?” defended one McDonald's consultant to Time magazine. Indeed, what foolish consumer would actually expect a quasi-quality sandwich at McDonald's? Nobody, now. 

Disappearing salads on McDonald's menus include its Fruit & Walnut Salad, which was quietly dropped along with Angus burgers.  The Fruit & Walnut Salad was genuinely delicious with "wedges of crisp apples, juicy red grapes, candied walnuts and our low-fat vanilla yogurt,"

Relegated to a tiny corner of the menu are meal-sized "premium" salads: Caesar, Southwest, Ranch, grilled or crispy chicken optional "with select mixed greens, elegant toppings, and choices galore." 

This near-invisible menu marketing ensures that premium salads will rarely be ordered in lieu of more profitable, more addictive,  carb-heavy burgers, fries, wraps, desserts, and sugar-drenched drinks. Look for premium salads to likely also be dropped because sales were low. 

We must begrudgingly admire McDonald's though, for disciplined corporate consistency. Consistency in:

• Pitching unhealthy fast food to kids, regardless of public and political pressure
• Dumbing down their menu to the cheapest, fastest, saltiest, fattiest food possible
• Eliminating healthier options if profit margins don't reach those of cheap burgers and fries

And consistency in extraordinary corporate profitability at the direct expense of public health.  

There's a reason why McDonald's persists as the devious poster child for what's wrong with the American fast food mega-industry: they've earned and deserve it. 

My only question: when will Americans finally stop supporting McDonald's profits-over-people agenda for our nation's health? For our children? 

McDonalds vs Flame Broiler: Kids Making Healthier Choices? Surprising Good News!

"Flame Broiler" exclaimed my favorite eight-year-old when I asked where she'd like to have lunch.  "I love Flame Broiler!" she exuded, once she realized that Chuck E. Cheese wasn't an option on our fun but busy school-shopping day together.

"Huh?" I wondered. "Not McDonalds with their new Despicable Me 2 toys? The gigantic in-door playground? She dives with gusto into those greasy chicken nuggets and fries."

Is this the same girl who, two years ago, adamantly refused to eat anything green, especially broccoli?

I was startled.  After all, this is a smart girl who's plugged into third-grade trends. Every cool gadget and toy. The best "in" spot for birthday parties.  The newest movies and TV shows for kids. Gabriela always knows... 

Besides, per a recent, in-depth study of 25,000 TV ads for meals aimed at kids:

• 99% of all ads aimed at kids came from McDonald's or Burger King.
• 80% of the kids ads aired on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Disney, or Nicktoons.
• Over 50% mentioned a major movie.
• 70% of kids ads focused on a toy giveaway of some sort.

Flame Broiler instead of McDonalds? That low-key fast-food eatery that bills itself as "The Healthy Option"? I'd never been to one, but was certain I'd seen a couple in our suburban town. 

Gabriela knew the menu, and proudly explained it to me.  Flame Broiler serves three simple options, in three sizes, over white or brown rice:

• Beef
• Chicken
• Veggies (carrots, broccoli, cabbage)
• Any combination of these. 

Condiments offered are green onions, jalapenos, "magic" sauce, and hot sauce.  The 142-outlet regional fast food company promises "No dairy. No frying. No trans fats. No skin. No MSG." and:

"Our commitment to friendly service, a clean and inviting environment, and healthy food served fast has already won the approval of our customers of all ethnicities. Also, for health's sake, we are working towards the goal of serving all organic, 100% natural food. Not perfect, but always working towards perfection!"

The beef and chicken were quite delicious, albeit a bit salty. The rice was fluffy and perfectly done. The veggies weren't soggy, over-cooked messes, but steamed, crisp, and  freshly colorful. (Note: The ultra-tasty "magic" sauce is akin to a syrupy teriyaki concoction, and boasts 60 calories and 480 mg of sodium in a very tiny container.) 

Gab savored our lunch together with her trademark exuberance, and so did I.  I silently marveled again at Gab's wise parents, my son and her mother. And am grateful for the all-encompassing nutrition agenda at her elementary school. 

Are kids making healthier food choices these days?  Is ever-aware Gabriela a harbinger of yet another trend?

"Teenagers are exercising more, consuming less sugar and eating more fruits and vegetables," reported the New York Times this week, citing a new study in Pediatrics, a professional journal.  The Times continued... 

"Younger children had the highest levels of physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption. But as children got older, the frequency of eating junk foods and engaging in sedentary behaviors crept up... Teenagers also reported drinking slightly fewer soft drinks and eating less candy.

"In the past year, other studies have hinted at improvements in the obesity rate among younger children, with some even showing a decline in some cities... Dr. Iannotti said the findings seemed to suggest a pattern. 'I think the public health message is beginning to be accepted,' he said."

That kids are voluntarily making healthier food choices is good news for for their physical and mental health, and thus, good news for the health of our nation.  

But it's also superb news that powerful, pervasive advertising by industrial food mega-corporations... McDonalds and Burger King, makers of highly processed cereals, soft drinks, and the like...  is fading in influence over our children. 

I can't imagine better fake-food news. Can you? 

Dieters as Profitable Yo-yos: Corporate Lures, Bamboozles

Americans have been bamboozled by leading diet corporations. Hookwinked. Tricked. Lured into bleeding endless streams of cash into the coffers of companies who profess to help us become healthier.  

Turns out top diet conglomerates don't want you to become lean. At least, not for very long... After all, once you're slim, you no longer need their pricey services. They lose a paying customer. 

So what's a clever, profit-hungry corporation based, in part, on the diet industry to do to bring once-chubby customers back?   Believe it or not, if you answered "Make 'em chubby again," you're correct.   

If you responded "Trigger yo-yo dieting instincts by igniting cravings for salt, sugar, and fat," you win the prize. 

Seriously... the corporate owners of several huge diet companies quietly also control major makers of ice creams, candy bars, junky breakfast cereals, mayonnaise, margarine, sausages, frozen pizzas, and all manner of fake, industrial-made foods.    

Once you graduate from chubby to lean or grow from lean to chubby, industrial fake-food corporations don't want to lose your business.  So they cynically diversify their portfolios to include both diet companies and junk food companies, and constantly lure Americans into unhealthy yo-yo- dieting, hence a continuous flow of hefty corporate profits.

Take Jenny Craig Inc, owned since 2006 by Nestle, which reported worldwide sales of $92 billion and profits of $10.6 billion in 2012.  Besides "weight management" company Jenny Craig, Nestle owns or controls hordes of less-than-healthy foods including:

• Dreyer's, Haagen-Daz (in U.S.), Drumsticks, and six other ice cream makers
• Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Nestle Crunch, KitKat, 100 Grand, and many more candy bars
• Hot Pockets, DiGiorno frozen pizzas, Stouffer frozen entrees, Lean Cusine
• Trix, Cheerios, Golden Nuggets (in U.K.), Nesquik powdered chocolate drink

Consider SlimFast, maker of "meal option" shakes, snacks, and packaged foods meant to help people better manage their weight.  SlimFast was quietly acquired by Unilever in 2000.  Other food companies owned or controlled by Unilever include:

• Ben & Jerry's, Breyer's, Klondike, Popsicles, Fudgsicles, and Heartland lines that dominate European ice cream sales
• Hellman's and Best Foods mayonnaise and other products
• Country Crock, Brummel & Brown, Imperial, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, and many other margarines
• Many European makers of mayonnaise, mustard, catsup, other condiments.

Weight Watchers was sold in 1999 to wealthy private investors, and went public in 2001. Half of Weight Watchers shares are controlled by a stealthy private equity firm, The Invus Group. Five of nine Weight Watchers Board of Director members are also key leaders of The Invus Group.  

While little is publicly known about Invus' client list, its website also describes a successful investment in and turn-around of Keebler, which was later sold to Kellogg.  Keebler is the largest cookie and cracker manufacturer in the United States. Among Keebler highly processed products are Cheez-Its and Wheatables crackers and eight varieties of Chips Deluxe cookies. 

Yes, Americans (and Europeans, too) have been bamboozled by some leading "weight management" corporations into believing that they have our health at heart. 

Lured  by advertising and enticed by store shelves, newly-lean food aficionados again buy and feast on foods rich in sugar, salt, and fat.  First a little, then a lot.  Candy bars, ice cream, cookies, cheesy crackers, junky cereals, mayonnaise, margarine, sausages, highly processed frozen fare... 

(Read "Salt Sugar Fat" - Stunning Big Food Tactics to Hook, Trick, Harm Americans.")

And so the yo-yo dieting cycle continues. Lean, chubby, lean, chubby.  And the same industrial food mega-corporations profit handsomely from both unhealthy sides of the cycle.  

Only the consumer gets hurt... financially and personally.  Hurt by their own human weaknesses and natural reactions.  Lured like a hungry mouse to a cheese-laden trap.   Seduced into an endless culinary cycle of temptation and guilt, binge and purge, sin and redemption. 

It's a brilliant bamboozle, worthy of the sharpest flim-flam artists in American retail history.  A type of bait-and-switch trick that's engineered to be nearly irresistible to a public enamored of its junk food habits. 

And as long as consumers continue to take the fake-food diet-industry bait, this destructive, greedy cycle will continue to flourish. 

Ag-Gag Laws to Hide Factory Farms: Good News and One Huge Caution

Some great news, and a caution, from state lawmakers as the U.S. Congress remains mired in gridlock, bickering, and indecision...

"Ag -gag" bills were killed in all 11 states pondering punitive measures for truth-telling by journalists and activists about factory farming practices. 

The 11 bills died, were defeated or vetoed as 2012- 2013 legislative seasons ended in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Ag-gag laws are legislation aimed at prohibiting or severely restricting the filming or photographing of meat-industry factory farms, commonly called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). 

In 2013, CAFO-grown animals account for more than 85% of all beef, pork,  and poultry sold for human consumption in the United States.  A plethora of major public health and environmental hazards can be directly traced to CAFO's, including:

• Contaminated meat resulting from diseased animals
• Meat laced with antibiotics, growth hormones, many other drugs
• Heavily contaminated area water systems
• Deterioration of air quality, increase in greenhouse gases
• Squalid animal living conditions
• Unsanitary working conditions

For more, click these links to see Contaminated Meats in Grocery Markets Grow Due to Gag Laws (Fake Food Watch) and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (Wikipedia). 

The "model" ag-gag law, drafted in 2002 by controversial pro-corporate lobbyist group ALEC, makes a crime of "entering an animal or research facility to take pictures by photograph, video camera, or other means with the intent to commit criminal activities or to defame the facility or owner."

A consortium of 70 established groups, led by the U.S. Humane Society and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have successfully fought ag-gag laws on the grounds of freedom of speech, public health, animal welfare, and environmental issues.    

The 70 citizen-activist groups represent food, farming, public health, civil liberties, environmental, animal welfare, labor, and journalism interests. 

Strict ag-gag laws remain in force in six states, all with large CAFO facilities : Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah.

The great news is that the political tide is turning against ag-gag laws. Thanks to public pressure and that of public interest groups, state-level politicians have been forced to ignore the demands of wealthy meat-industry donors... and instead legislate for public good! 

Commented Nancy Perry, senior vice-president of the American Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) to Food Safely News:

"Ag-gag legislation threatens a wide array of public interests—including animal welfare and food safety—by silencing the very people in a position to document abuse.

"We hope the defeat of these 11 bills encourages lawmakers to shift their focus toward achieving accountability for those who are inflicting abuse on animals and putting consumers at risk instead of focusing on misleading efforts to suppress whistleblowers who want to expose those problems."

Caution!  Don't assume, though, that the threat from ag-gag laws has been neutered.  In Pennsylvania this year, the fracking industry attempted to have passed the nation's first ag-gag law "to criminalize anti-fracking activists who seek to expose environmental harms brought on by the gas drilling industry."  

Use This Food Policy Report Card for Congress to Force Change

Terrific news as Congress returns to work next week after summer break: a report card to grade U.S. Senate and House members on national food policies.  

American voters can use this handy tool to force Congress to change its unhealthy ways on food policy. 

The National Food Policy Scorecard is published by Food Policy Action, a nonprofit group that advocates for...

"...policies that support healthy diets, reduce hunger at home and abroad, improve food access and affordability, uphold the rights and dignity of food and farm workers, increase transparency, improve public health, reduce the risk of food-borne illness, support local and regional food systems, treat farm animals humanely and reduce the environmental impact of farming and food production."

Included on the Board of Food Policy Action, an outgrowth of the respected Environmental Working Group, are:

• Michael Jacobson, Executive Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest
• Ray Offenheiser, President, Oxfam America
• Rev. David Beckmann, President, Bread for the World
• Robin Schepper, former Executive Director, "Let's Move!"
• Tom Colicchio, Chef, Restauranteur, Head Judge of Top Chef
• Ken Cook, President, Environmental Working Group

Click the following links to use the National Food Policy Scorecard to view...

Congressional legislators, by state, each with a percentage rating on their voting records in support of food policies. "Click a state to see whether your legislators voted to keep food safe, healthy and affordable." Senators are rated on 18 votes and House members on 14 votes taken in the 112th Congress. 

Results of U.S. Senate votes on 18 food policy bills in 112th Congress. Also includes brief explanation of each bill. 

Results of U.S. House votes on 14 food policy bill in 112th Congress. Again, includes brief explanation of each bill. 

Pending Food Policy Legislation under consideration by Congress. Use this page to understand the issues, then contact your elected officials with your views.  Congress is considering issues such as...

• Antibiotics, Drugs - Halts use of antibiotics and other drugs in meat "unless the applicant can show that there is a reasonable certainty of no harm to human health."
• Arsenic - Requires that the FDA establish limits on the amount of arsenic allowable in rice. 
• Food Marketing  to Children - Mandates now-voluntary guidelines for industrial food corporations to stress healthy choices
• Food Safety - Forces Congress to fund and the White House to issue final regulations for the "Food Safety Modernization Act," which was passed into law in 2010. 

Our nation's disastrously unhealthy food policies clearly support industrial fake-food mega-corporations, their powerful lobbyists, and their highly processed products rife with additives, chemicals, fillers, emulsifiers, and artificial flavors and colors.. 

Only American voters can cause Congress to change its unhealthy ways on food policy. The power is in our hands to force political leaders to vote for healthy, real foods, not the fake chemical-laced processed foods sold by their wealthy political donors.  

Use the National Food Policy Scorecard to keep tabs on your elected representatives. Use it today and make your views known! 

Urban Farming Ignites Thanks to Alice Waters: Return to American Roots

Everything old is new again, at least in U.S. urban farming.  A much-needed return to American agriculture roots. 

And that's very good news for tens of millions of city dwellers today, especially school-age children. 

Alice Waters, innovative chef and leading real food activist, is credited with igniting America's return to urban agriculture by founding her Edible Schoolyard Project two decades ago. 

The White House staff, led by First Lady Michelle Obama, stylishly reinforced the principles of the Edible Schoolyard Project by replanting and publicizing a vegetable garden on White House grounds. 

Before the 20th century, Americans grew much of their family food supply. During both World Wars, U.S. presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt urged Americans to cultivate backyard produce gardens to ameliorate food shortages. At its height, the National Victory Garden movement produced 9 million pounds a year of fruits and vegetables during World War II, about 44% of the nation's produce. 

Urban agriculture largely died after World War II, as U.S. households eagerly bought the new ultra-convenient industrial-made foods filling supermarkets and sold by a rapidly expanding new breed of restaurant, the fast food joint.  The rest is American fake-food history...

In 2013,  a remarkably powerful resurgence of urban farming has been fueled by Alice Waters' pioneering 20-year-old agenda to restore "edible education" to urban school children and their families.  

Per a report released last week by the UCLA School of Public affairs, Los Angeles County, home to 10 million residents, boasts...

"... 1,261 verified urban agriculture sites — categorized as school gardens, community gardens and commercial primary growing sites... School gardens make up the majority of L.A. County's urban agriculture activity, with 761 sites. Commercial agricultural operations (nurseries and farms) total 382 sites, and the researchers documented 118 community gardens."

Los Angeles' tally of localized farming operations hasn't surged this high for nearly one hundred years, when midwest farmers were famously drawn west to California for its fertile land and fair weather. (See ad at right, circa 1929.)

The revitalized push to bring fresh produce to urban dwellers via local agriculture isn't confined to greater Los Angeles, which is uniquely suited in its vastness to accommodate growing crops.    

Similar projects proliferate across the nation, including in...

Seattle, where the city Office of Sustainability and Environment vigorously fosters urban farming, even declaring 2010 the "Year of Urban Agriculture." In 2008, the Seattle City Council passed the Local Food Action Initiative "to improve the local and regional food system."

Detroit, where urban farming has boomed as the sole source of fresh produce for a plethora of residents of the financially battered city. 

Chicago, where city zoning ordinances were elaborately amended to "allow agricultural uses like community gardens and urban farms in many parts of the city." 

Atlanta, where the Urban Agriculture Training Program has met massive statewide response in its program of "cultivating urban farmers and gardeners to build healthy, vibrant local food communities."

New York City, which is "starved for space, but increasingly, residents are filling every last inch they can find with (healthy) things they can grow and eat," notes WellandGoodNYC.com in an article on New York City's Biggest Urban Farms. "When The Design Trust for Public Space released its Five Borough Farm report last year, it found more than 700 food-producing sites within the five boroughs..."

The urban agriculture trend has exploded worldwide, as well. And just in time to partially meet demands of both American and worldwide hunger and healthy-food-shortage crises:

• 50% of the world's population lives in cities.
• By 2015, 26 cities in the world are expected to have a population of 10 million-plus.
• 250 million hungry people in the world live in cities. (Source - Wikipedia)

Thanks to one low-key meeting between Alice Waters and a public middle-school principal in her Berkeley neighborhood two decades ago, one acre of blighted school yard was tilled, seeded, and tended into a glorious vegetable garden that transformed those students' lives... and transformed our national mindset about urban farming.

Or rather, reawakened Americans to the empowerment of growing our own produce, just as our families did before the powerful rise of industrial fake-food mega-corporations. 

Everything old and valuable and healthy is new again in U.S. urban farming. 

Carl's Jr, Hardee's: Sex, Lusty Decadence with Salt, Sugar, Fat

Carl's Jr has finally abandoned all pretense of its former image of offering a panoply of heart-healthy (but quite delicious) fast food options.  

Instead, the 1,400-location western-states fast-food purveyor is gleefully appealing to the lustiest cravings of the I-don't-give-a-damn crowd.  (Carl's Jr also owns the 1,900-location Hardee's chain.) 

"Eat Like You Mean It!" crows Carl's newest round of TV ads, featuring gorgeous models seductively downing sloppy burgers the size of a small child's head. Or shaggy, shirtless surfer boy-men gazing at ocean waves while enjoying an oozing sandwich bigger than some beach balls.   

"All of our products are indulgent, decadent," commented Carl's Jr CEO Andy Puzder to the Los Angeles Times. 

Decadent, indeed! Check-out this remarkably lascivious 60-second fantasy commercial by barely clad super-model Kate Upton:



In case sex isn't enough to lure you to sabotage your health with their addictive calorie-and-cholesterol traps, Carl's Jr has upped the sugar, salt, and fat ante with greasier, tangier, sweeter menu offerings that must set new records of culinary extremism, even among industrial fake-food corporate giants. Among Carl's Jr's concoctions in 2013 are their... 

• Six-dollar Guacamole Bacon Burger (1,120 cal; 2,160 mg of salt; 81 grams of fat)
• Green Burrito Taco Salad (960 cal; 2,000 mg of salt; 60 grams of fat)
• "Low Carb" Breakfast Bowl (900 cal; 2,050 mg of salt; 73 grams of fat)
• Double Six-dollar Burger (1,522 cal; 2,574 mg of salt; 110 grams of fat)

If it's a sugar rush you crave, look no further than Carl's Jr's newest ode to the indulgent, anti-health-food agenda... the Strawberry Pop-Tart Ice Cream Sandwich, which the industrial mega-giant rolled out in commercials invoking sacred deities and featuring majestic classical music. 

With about 13 teaspoons of sugar (51 grams) comprising more than 200 of its supposedly 320 calories, Carl's Jr's Strawberry Pop-Tart Ice Cream Sandwich is truly for the I-don't-give-a-damn-about-diabetes crowd. Be decadent... order two! Live like you mean it!

As if to emphasize the special decadence of this attention-grabbing confection, Carl's Jr introduced it by advertising that "For a limited time, guests can receive a free Strawberry Pop-Tarts Ice Cream Sandwich with the purchase of a Super Bacon Cheeseburger combo at participating Carl's Jr. restaurants."    

The limited-time Super Bacon Cheeseburger features six juicy strips of bacon along with the usual high-calories, high-fat, high-salt fare. What the heck after all that! Why NOT add a Strawberry Pop-Tart Ice Cream Sandwich or two? 

Seriously... does it really matter after a certain decadent, indulgent point? 

I do vaguely remember Carl's Jr, though, when a large portion of their menu... mainly charbroiled chicken sandwiches and generously-stocked salad bars... featured heart-healthy symbols of the American Heart Association. 

Guess those fell by the fast-food wayside years ago, when Carl's Jr stopped giving a hoot about offering a plethora of genuinely healthy options to their customers....rather than only caring about gigantic profits at the expense of American public health. Or caring about you and your family's health. 

Farmers Markets, CSAs: A Blow for American Freedom of Choice

Farmers markets and farm coops, such as CSAs, are delicious antidotes to industrial fake food products. 

And both provide a powerful marketplace for people to directly support family farms, gardeners, and local communities. (CSA is an acronym for community supported agriculture.)

 August is the gloriously perfect month to enjoy... or begin to enjoy... fresh produce. Farmers' markets are open across the country in mid-summer, and bursting with freshest goodness... with melons, corn, tomatoes, zucchini and summer squash, peaches and nectarines, bell peppers, blueberries and strawberries, eggplant, and much more, depending on the U.S. region.

This week, my CSA carton will include a watermelon, two varieties of peaches, two lbs of tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, baby broccoli, a bunch of basil, potatoes, bell peppers, and a unique red romaine lettuce. (All for $38!) All was grown, harvested, and distributed by small family farms in Central California. 

To locate a farmers market, call or check the website of your local city government or Chamber of Commerce.   Or search here using the USDA's comprehensive "Farmers Markets Search" database. 

To find a CSA that serves your community, search here at Local Harvest's database. At Local Harvest's website, you can also learn about the workings of CSAs, and about the advantages for both farmers and consumers.  

One more reason I urge everyone to shop farmers markets and CSAs: freedom. 

Freedom from the unhealthy industrial fake foods that dominate supermarkets. Freedom from supporting major industrial corporations rather than local entrepreneurs.  Freedom from the federal government's funding agenda (via the farm bill) of genetically-modified foods teeming with chemicals, additives, fillers, and artificial flavors and colors... fake foods manufactured by political donors.  

Besides being sunny fun, think of shopping farmers markets and CSAs as striking a blow for American freedom of choice. 

Obama, Bush, Romney, Clinton: "Let Them Eat Cake" Politicians on Organics

Who eats organic fruits and vegetables? Top U.S. political leaders, both liberals and conservatives, but most desperately don't want you to know.

Many, many D.C. politicians select the highest-quality, healthiest foods for themselves, but insist that far lower quality fare (often grown by their donors) is good enough for the rest of America. 

Wanting to eat organic produce is understandable, given that organics are:

• Not genetically modified.
• Free of chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides
• Free of antibiotics
• Free of chemical fertilizers, plant steroids
• Not prematurely ripened with chemical gases

Understandable, since these bureaucrats have likely heard that the EPA, which is part of the U.S. Agriculture Department, "considers 60% of herbicides, 90% of fungicides, and 30% of insecticides potentially cancer-causing."

Or maybe our leaders have heard the dire results of research done on this new experiment called genetically modified foods. "The results range from intestinal damage, allergies, liver or pancreatic problems, testicular cellular changes, tumors, and even death in the experimental animals."  (Source - Care2.com)

So who are these "let them eat cake" politicians who quietly quaff organic goods while foisting legislation and federal agency appointees on us to aggressively force non-organic food on American homes? 

Supermarket Chickens Laced with Bacteria, Feces, Chemicals

Chickens are supermarket bargains for the budget-conscious, often priced as low as $3 and rarely more than $7 per semi-frozen bird or package of choice parts. Shoppers feel relieved to find a source of inexpensive protein for delicious, popular dishes. 

I used to stock-up on chickens at cheap prices and freeze them for future use.  Five years ago, I roasted at least two supermarket birds weekly to feed my then family of three.  

No more. Today, I'm nauseous at the thought of buying, handling, and particularly serving these contaminated industrial food products. 

What changed? I got educated on the hidden, ugly, unhealthy realities of industrial-produced chickens. Despite "natural" appearances, they're a particularly disgusting food product of the industrial fake-food industry. 

Per Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine:

"'More and more people are realizing that chicken is anything but a healthful, wholesome food,' says Joseph Gonzales R.D., L.D., a registered dietitian with the Physicians Committee. 'Adding grilled chicken to your salad or sandwich can actually add carcinogens, chlorine, cholesterol, superbugs—and worst of all, feces.'"

Life Magazine on America's Bounty of Food: The Way We Were and Could Be Again

"Food, perhaps alone among the riches of the earth, pleases all the senses of man," exuded the November 22, 1962 Life magazine.  

"Taste, of course, and smell. Vision? Behold it. Sound? Who has not placed a crisp vegetable on a pine board and heard the delicious noise of a keen knife cleaving through leaf and stalk? And touch? In this picture, it is texture most of all that delights: the rough and smooth, soft and firm, all invite the hand."

"Could odor arise from these cold pages, how sweetly would they fill the air! The tang of apple, pear and such small fruit would drift above the smell of sun-warm strawberries, blending with the rich scent of melons."

Distinguished British historian and Oxford professor Arnold J. Toynbee (1889 - 1975) believed that the health of a nation is only as good as the health of its diet, and that a downward spiral in the quality of a nation's diet foretold a nation's cultural and political death spiral. Toynbee illustrated his hypothesis with innumerable examples of fallen countries throughout civilization and pre-civilization. 

In 1962, the United States was a robust and growing nation that enjoyed a healthy, balanced diet, much of it still grown by local family farmers (although food-chain industrialization and commercial pesticide use had begun in earnest). 

Observed Life editors, "After the lush variety of the modern American diet, as shown in this issue of Life, it is rather unsettling to see how the rest of mankind eats."

In the 50 years since this 1962 Life magazine, Americans have gullibly adapted the fake-food message of greedy U.S. industrial manufacturers that only real-food facsimiles oozing with fat, sugar, and salt are culinary nirvana.   (For details, click here for "Salt Sugar Fat" - Stunning Big Food Tactics to Hook, Trick, Harm Americans.)

The results have been truly disastrous for U.S. public health.  Many historians today detect Toynbee's cogent hypothesis to be sadly observable in 21st century America. Today, "it is rather unsettling" to see how America eats. 

It doesn't have to be this way, friends.  We can return to healthy, deeply delicious diets. And the U.S. can easily return to being the world's envy with "the miracle of our plenty" grown by American farmers.

Just yesterday, I picked up my family's weekly carton of freshly-picked produce from California family farms... a huge carton for the bargain price of $37, overflowing with:

• Three kinds of tomatoes: large red, cherry, and heirloom
• Four large cucumbers
• Half a dozen sweet peppers
• A watermelon
• Eight ears of sweet corn
• Two eggplants
• Two generous heads of romaine lettuce
• Four zucchini
• A plethora of the sweetest stone fruit imaginable: peaches, nectarines, apricots

My carton could have graced the cover of Life's 1962 "Bounty of Food" issue.  

One inexpensive trip to the grocery store, plus to the butcher for perhaps three nights' of better-quality meat, and my home is set for a week.  Both our budget and healthy eating habits are in top shape.  And we feel better! Much better... 

In 2013, the United States is not nearly the robust and growing nation it was in 1962, nor does it  universally enjoy either a healthy, balanced diet or even passably acceptable public health.  

According to Professor Toynbee's theories, we could start to return our great country to its former glory and world preeminence by first cleaning up our own lives and ways. 

That starts with each of us taking responsibility for our own personal health, and our food choices. 

That starts with ignoring the false message of industrial fake-food corporations that fatty, sugary, and salty highly-processed foods are the stuff of the good life. 

They're not. They're the stuff of bad personal and public health, bad federal food policies, and quite possibly, the implosion of great cultures and nations. 

First Fourth of July Meals: Finest Ingredients, Not Hot Dogs or Other Chemical-Laced Food

The first Fourth of July celebration occurred on July 4, 1777 at the City Tavern in Philadelphia, when members of the Continental Congress gathered to mark the one-year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  

The City Tavern website proclaims:

"The Tavern was built 'for the convenience and credit of the city' by a group of eminent Philadelphians who felt that their hometown deserved a fine tavern which reflected its status as the largest, most cosmopolitan city in British North America... "

Because leaders of our fledgling nation were dining at one of Philadelphia's best public houses, the first meal marking the birth of the United States was elaborate and of the finest ingredients.  

"Current tavern chef Walter Staib says the menu likely was based on the recipes of the British culinary authority Hannah Glasse,whose book 'The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy' dictates not only every dish of the three-course dinner, but where it should be placed on the table.

"Glasse’s July menu suggests the signers of the Declaration would have supped on roast turkey and fricasseed rabbit, pigeon, crayfish and lobsters. There would have been tongue and turnips and lamb testicles. And for dessert, apricot tarts and roasted apples, plums, jellies and custards.

"Because Philadelphia was a major port, the meal likely also would have included delicacies from abroad, Staib says. Limes from the West Indies were used for lime curd. Exotic fruit such as mangoes, pineapples and coconuts might have been available, as well as spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, mace and vanilla. Plus, there was local seafood, such as salmon, sturgeon and oysters." (Source - The Japan Times News)

The former longtime owner of Cambridge, Massachusetts mainstay The Fishmonger, had her own historic take Fourth of July fare:

"Every year Dorothy Batchelder, whose father's family settled in Massachusetts in the 1600's and whose mother traces her family's arrival in this country to the Mayflower, eats poached salmon, peas and new potatoes and strawberry shortcake on the Fourth of July.

"Now that Ms. Batchelder owns a shop called the Fishmonger in Cambridge, she poaches the salmon there, just as she does for her customers, and takes it to her mother's house in Beverly Farms where there are always about 20 people for lunch.

"The Batchelders, like thousands of other New Englanders, are simply following a tradition begun by Abigail and John Adams on July 4, 1776... this stunning combination of salmon, sweet peas and new potatoes became a New England tradition simply because of seasonal availability." (Source - New York Times, June 28, 1989)

In the 21st  century, Americans greet Fourth of July not with culinary elegance or the finest, first-fruits ingredients, but with unhealthy fake-foods hawked by corporations... hot dogs made with scraps and mystery meats, hamburgers dripping with Kraft "cheese" products, weirdly-flavored potato chips, and industrial ice creams laden with chemicals, emulsifiers, additives, and artificial colors and flavors. 

Our Early American ancestors would be appalled by the casual, chemical-laced junk food we merrily consume to mark one of the most important days in the life of our great nation.   They would no more have gobbled grimy pub food to mark the Fourth of July than we would serve cheap take-out pizza at our family Thanksgiving tables... 

My pipe-dream is that someday, 21st-century Americans will respect our nation's history and culinary heritage, and their health, enough to commemorate the Fourth of July with glorious, homemade meals of the finest meats, breads, produce, and dairy.... including a return to drop-dead delicious homemade ice cream.

I'm just saying... wouldn't that be a grand birthday party for America?