Let's see what I packed for you:
One diet soda:
"Coca-Cola to address obesity for first time in ads" by Candice Choi | Associated Press, January 15, 2013
NEW YORK — Coca-Cola became one of the world’s most powerful brands by equating its soft drinks with happiness. Now it’s taking to the airwaves for the first time to address a growing cloud over the industry: obesity.
I rarely drink the stuff, which must explain my rather thin physique.
The Atlanta-based company on Monday was to begin airing a two-minute spot during the highest-rated shows on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC in hopes of flexing its marketing muscle in the debate over sodas and their impact on public health. The ad lays out Coca-Cola’s record of providing drinks with fewer calories and notes that weight gain is the result of consuming too many calories of any kind — not just soda.
Except the high fructose corn syrup -- which is really just rot gut sugar -- makes you hungry.
For Coca-Cola, the world’s number one beverage company, the ads reflect the mounting pressures on the broader industry. Later this year, New York City is set to enact a first-in-the-nation cap on the size of soft drinks sold at restaurants, movie theaters, and sports arenas. The mayor of Cambridge, Mass., has already introduced a similar measure, saying she was inspired by New York’s move.
Related: Judge Gives Bloomberg the Burps
Even when PepsiCo Inc., the number two soft-drink maker, recently signed a wide-ranging endorsement deal with pop singer Beyonce, critics called for her to drop the contract or donate the funds to health initiatives.
New research in the past year also suggests that sugary drinks cause people to pack on the pounds independent of other behavior. A decades-long study involving more than 33,000 Americans, for example, suggested that drinking sugary beverages interacts with genes that affect weight and enhances a person’s risk of obesity beyond what it would be from heredity alone.
Born that way like the gay.
Michael Jacobson, executive director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, was skeptical about Coca-Cola’s ads and said the company would stop fighting soda taxes if it was serious about helping reduce obesity.
‘‘It looks like a page out of damage control 101,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re trying to disarm the public.’’
The group has been critical of the soft drink industry and last year released a video parodying Coke’s famous polar bears becoming plagued with diabetes and other health problems.
Coca-Cola said its ads aren’t a reaction to negative public sentiment. Instead, the idea is to raise awareness about its lower-calorie drinks and plans for the coming months, said Stuart Kronauge, general manager of sparkling beverages for Coca-Cola North America.
Not even soda guys tell the truth in AmeriKa.
‘‘There’s an important conversation going on about obesity out there, and we want to be a part of the conversation,’’ she said.
In the ad, a narrator notes that obesity ‘‘concerns all of us’’ but that people can make a difference when they ‘‘come together.’’ The spot was produced by the ad agencies Brighthouse and Citizen2 and is intended to tout Coca-Cola’s corporate responsibility to cable news viewers.
Another ad, which will run later this week during ‘‘American Idol’’ and before the Super Bowl, is much more reminiscent of the catchy, upbeat advertising people have come to expect from Coca-Cola. It features a montage of activities that add up to burning off the ‘‘140 happy calories’’ in a can of Coke: walking a dog, dancing, sharing a laugh with friends, and doing a victory dance after bowling a strike.
The 30-second ad, a version of which ran in Brazil last month, is intended to address confusion about the number of calories in soda, said Diana Garza Ciarlante, a spokeswoman for Coca-Cola Co. She said the company’s consumer research showed that people mistakenly thought there were as many as 900 calories in a can of soda.
The company declined to say how much it was spending on the commercials, which it started putting together last summer. It also declined to give details on its plans for the year ahead. But among the options under consideration is putting the amount of activity needed to burn off the calories in a drink on cans and bottles.
The company noted that it already puts calorie counts on the front of its cans and bottles. Last year, it also started posting calorie information on its vending machines ahead of a regulation that will require soda companies to do so by 2014.
Coca-Cola’s changing business reflects the public concern over the calories in soda....
But that's not why they are doing it.
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"Coke to defend safety of aspartame in new ad; Pushes diet soda benefits, disputes obesity link" by Candice Choi | Associated Press, August 14, 2013
NEW YORK — Sales of diet sodas are falling at a faster rate than regular sodas in the United States, according to Beverage Digest, which tracks the industry....
The declines come even though the Food and Drug Administration says aspartame may be safely used in foods as a sweetener, and the ingredient can be found in a wide array of other types of drinks and foods. The American Cancer Society also notes most studies using people have found aspartame is not linked to an increased risk of cancer, including the largest study on the topic.
Maybe you should just pass on the carbonated sugar water anyway.
Still, some feel there may be effects from consuming large quantities of artificial sweeteners over a lifetime that haven’t been detected. Artificial ingredients in general are also falling out of favor as people increasingly move toward organic and natural ingredients....
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They are PRINT ads? Who is going to see them?
A French Vanilla yogurt:
"Poisoned yogurt kills 2 girls in China" Associated Press, May 03, 2013
BEIJING — Chinese state media say two girls have died after eating poisoned yogurt placed outside their kindergarten at the direction of the head of a rival school.
The Xinhua News Agency said police believe the poisoning was motivated by competition for students between the schools.
It said the woman confessed that she injected the yogurt with rat poison and asked a man to place it with notebooks on the road to the rival kindergarten in Pingshan county in Hebei Province.
Xinhua said Thursday that the girls’ grandmother found the books and yogurt and took them home April 24. The children suffered convulsions after drinking the yogurt and died later.
Xinhua said police detained the woman and the man.
Police referred queries to Pingshan county’s information office. Calls there rang unanswered.
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Related: Sunday Globe Special: Breakfast Bite From India
They didn't even make it to lunch.
I would have put some fish in the box, but I couldn't even make it to the ocean because of the traffic and it doesn't keep well. Besides, the lady frying it up got burned:
"A federal judge Monday threw out race discrimination claims by a former Savannah restaurant manager whose lawsuit against Paula Deen has already cost the celebrity cook a valuable chunk of her culinary empire. Lisa Jackson sued Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers, last year saying she suffered from sexual harassment and racially offensive talk and employment practices that were unfair to black workers during her five years as a manager of Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House. Deen is co-owner of the restaurant, which is primarily run by her brother. But claims of race discrimination by Jackson, who is white, were gutted in the 20-page opinion by US District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr. The judge agreed with lawyers for Deen and Hiers that Jackson has no standing to sue her former employers for what she claims was poor treatment of black workers, regardless of her claims that she was offended and placed under additional stress."
And wait a minute, there are BUGS in the BOX!
"Hult Prize accelerator preps competitors for $1m" by Christina Reinwald | Globe Correspondent, August 15, 2013
CAMBRIDGE — The problem: finding a high-quality source of protein for hundreds of millions of people that can be raised quickly, without consuming a lot of land, water, and other resources.
The solution: bug farms.
Breeding and raising edible insects is just one of the ideas of six teams of college and graduate students competing for a $1 million prize to tackle one of the world’s biggest challenges: providing nutritious food to a nearly 1 billion people in the developing world without damaging the environment and contributing to global warming.
Well, SOMETHING STINKS!
The prize, financed by the family of Bertil Hult, founder of EF Education First, one of the world’s largest international education firms, will provide the seed money for the winning team to launch a social enterprise to put its ideas into practice.
The teams are winners of regional contests held around the world.
They have spent the past six weeks at the Cambridge campus of the Hult International Business School, an institution started and supported by Bertil Hult, honing their business models and pitches for the final round, which will he held in New York next month. The winner will be selected by a panel of judges led by former President Bill Clinton.
The day I see that fat fuck and his ilk chowing down the bugs will be the day I might give this a look see. Until then, he looks like he is making rather well at the buffet table.
The Hult Prize was founded in 2009 as a student-run competition with no prize money aimed at promoting social entrepreneurship, which uses business practices and innovation to solve social problems. Prize money was first offered in 2011....
Past competitions have focused on issues like energy and water quality, and resulted in social enterprises such as SolarAid, which, as the largest solar panel producer in Africa, is bringing electricity to remote areas.
This year, students were challenged to address world hunger. Access to nutritious yet affordable food is the problem facing 200 million people in urban slums. And the problem is expected to worsen as populations grow and urbanization spreads....
They mean nutritious, affordable, and SAFE, right?
And the winner?
McGill University students discovered many people in developing nations were getting enough food, usually carbohydrate-laden staples such as rice, but inadequate nutrition.
They also discovered that about 30 percent of the world’s population eats insects, a good source of protein and nutrients.
Yeah, I love seeing maggots in my gruel.
But many can’t afford to buy them, especially when the insects are only seasonally available.
Then go catch some.
That is how they came up with the idea of insect farms to breed and raise edible bugs.
You first!
“Pound for pound, crickets provide approximately equivalent amounts of protein, four times the iron, and at least five times the calcium that can be obtained from eating beef,” said Gabe Mott, an MBA student at McGill University in Montreal. Meanwhile, crickets require much less feed, land, and water than cows.
If I can find the one chirping away in the basement, I will kill it and eat it.
“For a planet that is running low on crops, water, and land, insects are of the food of the future,” said Mott. “No one imagined we would be creating insect colonies when we started our MBA.”
Related: The Food of the Future
That's your entree; the bugs were just a side dish -- although I didn't see them on the menu at the U.N.
This is the first year the competition has included an accelerator, a fast-paced program offering seminars in business strategies and mentorship from local business leaders, like Roger Berkowitz, the chief executive of Legal Sea Foods. It also included legal training, on topics such as incorporating as nonprofits, from the Boston law firm Foley Hoag.
I'd rather go to Pier 4 if I had to choose.
Ahmad Ashkar, who developed the idea for the Hult Prize while a student at the Hult International Business School, said the Boston area was chosen to host the accelerator because of its entrepreneurial culture and specialists from local universities and management consulting companies....
The regional competitions were held at Hult International Business School’s satellite campuses in Cambridge, San Francisco, London, Shanghai, and Dubai, as well as online.
The ideas range from high to low tech. Pulse, the teamfrom the Hult International Business Schoolcampus in San Francisco, would use cheap mobile phones to allow residents of urban slums to pay for food, helping them to increase savings and protect their money from being stolen.
And make phone industry profits phat in the process.
The London School of Economics won the online submission spot. The team, Sokotext, gathers multiple food requests into one order to get cheaper wholesale prices for people living in alum areas. Team Poshnam from the Asian Institute of Management in the Philippines wants to create a new market for the blemished produce that farms typically discard, providing low-cost and nutritional, albeit “ugly,” fruits and vegetables.
The team of University of Cape Town in South Africa wants to provide a low-cost gardening method in which prefertilized seed strips allow the gardener to cut water consumption by 20 percent.
Origin, the team from the ESADE Business School in Spain, would use low-cost tablet computers to allow farmers to directly sell produce to customers in urban slums....
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Hell with it, let's go get something ourselves and I know just the place!
"McDonald’s predicts flat sales, tough year" by Candice Choi | Associated Press, July 23, 2013
NEW YORK — McDonald’s is mixing up its menu with healthier, fresher sounding items such as its chicken McWraps, but not enough customers are biting.
The world’s biggest hamburger chain on Monday reported a second-quarter profit that rose 4 percent but fell short of Wall Street expectations. It also said July sales are expected to be relatively flat and warned of a tough year ahead, given the heightened competition and rough economic conditions around the world....
The figure rose by the same amount in the United States, where McDonald’s has been touting its Dollar Menu while also trying to adapt to changing eating habits with items such as its vegetable-filled chicken wraps and egg white breakfast sandwiches.
I went by there, looked at the new dollar menu, the clerk said can I take your order, I said uh.... uh.... uh, forget it. There was not one thing on there that looked appealing.
But the small sales bump in the United States wasn’t enough to offset the higher advertising and promotional costs for those new items, as well as the reduced efficiency in restaurants. Operating margin declined slightly as a result.
‘‘We threw a lot of new products at restaurants this quarter,’’ chief financial officer Pete Bensen said in a call with analysts. ‘‘So our efficiency per crew hour was down a little bit.’’
Yeah, blame it on the slaves.
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"Cheap eats helped lift McDonald’s sales; Chain struggled as public shifted eating habits" Associated Press, June 11, 2013
NEW YORK — McDonald’s Corp. based in Oak Brook, Ill., has been struggling to increase sales as it faces changing eating habits and weak growth in the broader restaurant industry. Late last year, the company reported a decline in the monthly sales figure for the first time in nearly a decade. Soon after, it ousted the head of its US division and renewed its focus on value and refreshing its menu.
McDonald’s is facing battles on different fronts. It’s fighting for price-conscious customers, but also trying to cater to those who want healthier, fresher choices. In response, it has been rolling out menu changes that aim to attract different customers. Although prices vary in different markets, the menu items can range from $1 for a grilled onion cheddar burger to $7.79 for a grilled chicken sandwich with a drink and fries.
Specifically, the company is trying to attract customers by touting its Dollar Menu and other promotions, such as two Big Macs for the price of one. Some analysts say the strategy is bad for profit margins, but the company says it’s necessary to steal market share, given the weak growth in the broader restaurant industry.
Its aggressive focus on value has forced competitors to respond. Burger King and Wendy’s, which had been working on improving the image of their food, have switched gears to step up marketing on deals.
I care about taste. It all looks good up in lights.
Subway, which is privately held and does not report sales figures, also recently introduced a deal for a $4 lunch combo....
That looks like a fresh take on a hot lunch!
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Yeah, it's the place for breakfast staples and late night treats.
Besides, what did you want me doing, going Chinese? That stuff can make you sick, and I wouldn't trust the chicken, either.
Refill on the soda, sir?
"Soda sales lose some fizz in quarter" by Candice Choi | Associated Press, July 25, 2013
NEW YORK — Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta, blamed the sluggish sales on a cold, wet spring. But the declines continue a years-long trend....
Another problem is that people now have so many more choices when it comes to drinks. An endless array of bottled waters, teas of many colors, even energy shots and ‘‘relaxation’’ drinks are vying for the attention of the thirsty, with store coolers getting more crowded all the time.
The trend ‘‘won’t change and will probably get worse without a major breakthrough in new sweeteners,’’ said John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest.
PepsiCo’s decline for the period came despite stepped-up marketing over the past year; the company signed pop star Beyonce to star in ads and signed a multiyear deal to sponsor the Super Bowl halftime show. It also introduced a midcalorie soda called Pepsi Next to win back people who have quit soda because they don’t like the calories in regular or the taste of diet....
Not me.
Coke has even taken on the question of obesity head-on in TV commercials, hoping to convince people that physical activity can let them enjoy some guilt-free refreshment.
To make up for the declines in the meantime, the industry is relying on bottled waters, teas, sports drinks, and other beverages to boost sales. They’re also looking overseas to emerging markets, where middle-class populations are growing and there is a greater potential to sell them more drinks.
Still, the North American soda market remains crucial for Coke, Pepsi, and Dr Pepper. Their executives have steadfastly expressed optimism that a yet-to-be developed soda made with a natural, low-calorie sweetener can help turn around the soda slide.
PepsiCo has said its work on a sweetener mix could potentially ‘‘alter the trajectory of our cola business in a meaningful way.’’
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I've had enough, buuuuurrrrrrpp!
And as usual, I end my Globe lunch with an upset stomach.
