Seen recently at the 99 cents only store

There's got to be a story behind this.

Feeling better about (most) fast food

From the Washington Post

On Thursday, Panera became the latest fast-food chain to announce its plan to use only cage-free eggs. The commitment, which the company will carry out by 2020, is quickly becoming an industry-wide standard: McDonald's, Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks and many others have made similar announcements.

But cage-free eggs, which come from hens that are free to move and lay eggs in nests, are hardly the only promise fast food companies are making these days. Raising chickens without antibiotics, which Panera made a priority more than 10 years ago, is something many others are now offering or working toward achieving. Efforts to end the confinement of pigs and cattle are becoming more popular, too.

The reality is that animal welfare, broadly speaking, has become something that people care about, and companies have moved to honor. It's something you have to do, or at least have to seem to want to do, if you want to woo customers.

That is, unless you are Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, or KFC.

"When you look at the major fast food brands, Taco Bell really stands out," said Leah Garces, who is the U.S. director of Compassion in World Farming, an animal rights group. "They're the only big player in the United States that doesn't have plans to change how it sources its food."

All of the brands belonging to Yum! Brands, the parent company which owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, were given an F grade in a recent report by six organizations, including the Consumers Union and Center for Food Safety, on industry sourcing practices. What's more, it has made no clear promises to fix that.

The closest the company has come was last year, when Greg Creed, who used to served as Taco Bell's CEO but now is at the helm of Yum! Brands, told The Wall Street Journal that he would like for Taco Bell and its sister brands to switch to hormone- and antibiotic-free meat, but that it wasn't currently possible.

There hasn't been a peep about animal welfare since.

Damn, those pull tabs look strange now

Seventies-era Coca-Cola ad.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into this...

But I suspect the Kellogg's Variety Pack was another product of the Baby Boom.

Popsicle Pete and friends

Popsicle (now owned by Unilever of all people) was another staple of kids' advertising.

In April 1939, Popsicle Pete was introduced on the radio program Buck Rogers in the 25th Century as having won the "Typical American Boy Contest." The character told listeners that they could win presents by sending wrappers from Popsicle products to the manufacturer. During the 1940s, Popsicle Pete ads were created by Woody Gelman and his partner Ben Solomon. The ads appeared in print, television commercials, and activity books until 1995.

But the real fascination came with those red dots.

Pop culture historian has a more personal take.

That's right: It's the dictionary definition of empty calories — the orange popsicle. I liked the way they looked. I liked the way they tasted. I liked that nothing bad ever happened to you while eating an orange popsicle and I regretted that that time period lasted such a brief time. Sadly, you couldn't draw it out and make the "safe" feeling last because the popsicle would melt at a rapidly-accelerating pace and drip all over you and become more of a problem than a joy. Still, it was great while it lasted.

This feeling, by the way, only applied to orange popsicles. A grape popsicle or a red one was just a hunk of frozen flavored water. I was never sure what the red ones were. I think they were whatever you wanted them to be. If you asked for strawberry, they gave you a red one. If you asked for cherry, they gave you the same red one. Or raspberry. Or one time, even apple. I'm sure that if I'd asked for a tomato popsicle, they would have handed me one of those red ones. It tasted as much like tomato as it did any of those other flavors.

As wonderful as they were, there was another downside to orange popsicles: The two sticks. I could rarely get the one-stick variety in my area. which was silly. Think how many trees they could have saved by only inserting one…but they gave you two on the faulty premise that some folks might want to split the popsicle in half and share it with a friend.

First thing wrong with that concept: Share it with a friend? Never. Let my cheapo friend get his own orange popsicle. Even if you were eight, it wasn't a significant expenditure.

Second problem: Splitting one of those things in half was about as easy as splitting the atom and almost as dangerous. I certainly never successfully accomplished either.

Usually, attempting it would send one entire half of your beloved orange popsicle plunging to the pavement. Or one stick would come out, making the popsicle impossible to share and awkward to eat. In the TV commercials, some trained ninja popsicle-divider would grasp the two sticks, give an artful twist and bisect the popsicle perfectly. They should have put up a little disclaimer: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME — because it never worked like that in reality.

So you'd just eat the popsicle with two sticks, which would put you perpetually off-balance. Whichever one you held was the wrong one. But I still loved them…up until about the age of twelve or thirteen.

When you're in that age range, much changes in your world. Certain toys you own seem childish and you toss them out as a rite of passage. You have to start seriously thinking about a career or at least a way of start making spending money. If you're a boy, girls suddenly seem a lot less yucchy. And orange popsicles lose a large chunk of their magic.

That Seventies Show

I'm not sure if this ad did a good job promoting 7 Up, but it is certainly one hell of a time capsule.

"Since John Harvey Kellogg gave C.W. Post his first enema"

I generally like Justin Fox, but in this Bloomberg piece, he's working really hard to avoid the obvious conclusion.

On Monday, software engineer Rob Rhinehart published an account of his new life without alternating electrical current -- which he has undertaken because generating that current "produces 32 percent of all greenhouse gases, more than any other economic sector." Connection to the power grid isn’t all Rhinehart has given up. He also doesn’t drive, wash his clothes (or hire anyone else to wash them) or cook anything but coffee and tea. But he still lives in a big city (Los Angeles) and is chief executive officer of a corporation with $21.5 million in venture capital funding.

That corporation is Rosa Labs, the maker of Soylent, a “macronutritious food beverage” designed to free its buyers from the drudgery of shopping, cooking and chewing. In the 2,900-word post on his personal blog, Rhinehart worked in an extended testimonial for Soylent 2.0, a new, improved version of the drink -- algae and soy seem to be the two most important ingredients -- that will begin shipping in October.

“Macronutritious” is a bit of a stretch. Soylent is not all that nutrient dense (make sure to note the calories).

Nutrition

The following summarizes the nutrition facts and ingredients for Soylent 1.5.^[35] The nutrition facts are based on one serving of 115 grams (4.1 oz).^[35] Each Soylent pouch contains four servings.

Soylent 1.5 Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 115g	Servings per Container: 4
Calories	500
Calories from fat	200
	Amount per Serving	% Daily Value*
Total Fat	23g	35%
Saturated Fat	2.5g	13%
Trans Fat	0g	N/A
Cholesterol	0 mg	0%
Sodium	360 mg	16%
Potassium	866 mg	25%
Total Carbohydrate	57g	19%
Dietary Fiber	3g	12%
Sugars	15g
Protein	20g

For less than a fourth of those calories, here's what you get with a bowl of black beans.

I'd also recommend adding some nonfat Greek yogurt to your spicy bean soup as a sour cream substitute

Nor do you have to cook to do better than Soylent. I did a quick check at the grocery store last night and I found lots of frozen entrees that gave you more nutrition for less calories than Rosa Lab's product.

Basically, when you cut through all of the pseudo science and buzzwords and LOOKATME antics, Rhinehart is simply peddling a mediocre protein shake with the same tired miracle food claims that marketers have been using since John Harvey Kellogg gave C.W. Post his first enema.

Here's what happens when actual scientists look at these claims:

Susan Roberts, Professor at Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, likened Soylent to already available nutritional shakes. While there might be some benefit to Soylent's low saturated fat content, she said, there are certain risks inherent in a non-food diet. "[T]here are so many unknown chemicals in fruits and vegetables that they will not be able to duplicate in a formula exactly," she said in an email. She says that, if Soylent is formulated properly, a person could certainly live on it, but she doubts they would experience optimal health. She fears that in the long-term, a food-free diet could open a person up to chronic health issues.

Tracy Anthony, Associate Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Rutgers University, speaking to us in an email, criticized the formula specifically:

    [T]he fast-digesting soluble protein source (whey) in combination with the simple sugar source (maltodextrin) creates a product that is very high glycemic. This product would not promote healthy glucose control, satiety and cognitive well-being with insulin spiking at each point of Soylent consumption.

She also echoed Roberts' sentiment, that ingesting the minimum nutrition required by the human body is not the same thing as maintaining a healthy diet. Could a person live off of Soylent for a while? Certainly, she says, for quite a while; but that doesn't mean that they are taking in the nutrients necessary to prevent disease, manage disease, or live a long life.

Fox seems to imply that being "chief executive officer of a corporation with $21.5 million in venture capital funding" undercuts the impression of flakiness, but wouldn't it make more sense to flip that around and ask what the flakiness says about the state of venture capital.

There is no reason to believe that Rob Rhinehart is anything more than a snake oil salesman with a propensity for idiotic babbling or that Soylent is anything more than a crappy protein shake dressed up with bad science and a standard miracle-food spiel. The fact that someone gave this guy a twenty million does not reflect well on the judgement of VC firms, but in their defense, the company that issued that check was Andreessen Horowitz, and no company co-foundedd by  Marc Andreessen  can be considered representative when it comes to flakiness.

I love (East) LA

Particularly the block that has Al and Bea's

Tired of those "Make your favorite restaurant treats at home" articles?

This is the post for you (from the good people at Cracked.com).

5 Famous Snacks That Are Surprisingly Hard To Make At Home

"How many licks..."

People have been quoting these lines for closing in on fifty years now.



From Wikipedia:

Tootsie Pops are known for the catch phrase "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?". The phrase was first introduced in an animated commercial which debuted on U.S. television in 1969.[3] In the original television ad, a questioning boy poses the question to a cow, a fox, a turtle and an owl. Each one of the first three animals tells the boy to ask someone else, explaining that they'd bite a Tootsie Pop every time they lick one. Eventually, he asks the owl, who starts licking it, but bites into the lollipop after only three licks, much to the chagrin of the boy, who gets the empty stick back. The commercial ends the same way, with various flavored Tootsie Pops unwrapped and being "licked away" until being crunched in the center.[4]

While the original commercial is 60 seconds long, an edited 30-second version and 15-second version of this commercial are the ones that have aired innumerable times over the years. The dialogue to the 60-second version is as follows:

Questioning Boy (Buddy Foster): Mr. Cow...
Mr. Cow (Frank Nelson): Yeeeeesss!!?
Questioning Boy: How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?!
Mr. Cow: I don't know, I always end up biting. Ask Mr. Fox, for he's much cleverer than I.
Questioning Boy: Mr. Fox, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?!!
Mr. Fox (Paul Frees): Why don't you ask Mr. Turtle, for he's been around a lot longer than I! Me, heheh, I bite!
Questioning Boy: Mr. Turtle, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
Mr. Turtle (Ralph James): I've never even made it without biting. Ask Mr. Owl, for he is the wisest of us all.
Questioning Boy: Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop!?
Mr. Owl (Paul Winchell): A good question. Let's find out. (He takes the Tootsie pop and starts licking) A One... A two-HOO... A tha-three..
(crunch sound effect)
Mr. Owl: A Three!
Questioning Boy: If there's anything I can't stand, it's a smart owl.
Narrator (Herschel Bernardi): How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
(crunch sound effect)
Narrator: The world may never know.

"R.C." and Quickie in "RACE WITH DEATH!"

Lots of cereals, candies and sodas used mini-adventure strips as ads, often with proprietary superheroes (Captain Tootsie, Volto from Mars). "R.C." and Quickie didn't have superpowers or flashy costumes but John Wayne drank their cola and that had to count for something.

Honest Ads

More smart and funny from Cracked.

WPA Milk Posters

Classic posters from the Library of Congress.

Title: Milk - for health, good teeth, vitality, endurance, strong bones
Related Names:
   Federal Art Project , sponsor
Date Created/Published: Ohio : WPA Art Program, [19]40.
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster for Cleveland Division of Health promoting milk, showing a large bottle of milk next to couples smiling, playing golf, tennis, and two babies.

Title: Milk - for summer thirst
Date Created/Published: [Ohio : Federal Art Project, 19]40.
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster for Cleveland Division of Health promoting milk, showing a young man holding a glass of milk with the sun shining in the background.

Title: Milk - for warmth Energy food.
Related Names:
   Federal Art Project , sponsor
Date Created/Published: Ohio : WPA Art Program, [19]41.
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster for Cleveland Division of Health promoting milk, showing a woman wearing winter clothing holding a glass of milk.

Title: A good lunch - one hot dish, meat, vegetables - sandwich - fruit - milk WPA school lunch.
Related Names:
   Federal Art Project , sponsor
Date Created/Published: Oklahoma : WPA Oklahoma Art Project, [between 1936 and 1941]
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster promoting good eating habits in school.

Title: Eat these every day
Related Names:
   Federal Art Project , sponsor
Date Created/Published: NYC : NYC WPA War Services, [between 1941 and 1943]
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster promoting consumption of healthy foods, showing dairy products (milk, cheese), eggs, fruit, vegetables, bread and cereal, and meat.

Title: Give to the needy Join the mayor's welfare milk fund : Monster vaudeville show at the Laurel Theatre.
Date Created/Published: [New York City] : WPA Federal Art Project, Dis. 4, [between 1936 and 1939]
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster announcing vaudeville show to raise funds for the needy through New York City Mayor Edwards' milk fund, showing a large bottle of milk.

Title: Milk truckers do not! pick up milk at farms where there are cases of diphtheria, scarlet fever, infantile paralysis, spinal meningitis, smallpox, typhoid Report all cases on your route to .... Food and Drug Administration [sic].
Related Names:
   Federal Art Project , sponsor
Date Created/Published: Ohio : WPA Art Program, [between 1936 and 1940]
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster encouraging truck drivers to report to proper authorities cases of communicable diseases encountered on their routes.

Everything That Will Kill You... From A to Z

If you're in an Edward Gorey kind of mood.

Repost -- Evolution and the breakfast landscape

From TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2013

Here's a question about evolutionary psychology. Not a rhetorical question or a snarky question (even though I have been a bit snarky on the subject in the past). Everyone knows why we evolved to seek out salt, sugar and fat in our diet, but why did we evolve to favor an extremely rugged yet malleable culinary landscape?

Take breakfast, for example. Sometimes (though not often) I'll hit a diner and say what-the-hell and get coffee, juice, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and biscuits. With the exception of the juice and the bacon (which are already optimized), I will add the right level of flavorings to each dish to get it to its landscape maxima (sugar for the coffee, salt and pepper for the eggs, hot sauce and ketchup for the hash browns, jam or maybe even sausage gravy for the biscuits).

The optimization is done on a dish-by-dish basis and is, for the most part, independent. If only eggs are available, I'll have a sugar-free breakfast. If all I have around the house is coffee and fruit, I'll have a low-sodium breakfast. Though there's an evolutionary imperative that makes me crave sugar and salt, it is somehow dependent on the other coordinates of the landscape. I want sugar but not salt with my coffee, salt but not sugar with my eggs and both salt and (caramelized) sugar in my hot chocolate.

Small children complain loudly and adults mumble grumpily when certain foods mix on a plate even though, as parents often remind us, it all goes to the same place.

How did our places get so context-sensitive?

"Grow it yourself Plan a farm garden now."

From Wikipedia:

Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I and World War II. They were used along with Rationing Stamps and Cards to reduce pressure on the public food supply. Besides indirectly aiding the war effort, these gardens were also considered a civil "morale booster" in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown. This made victory gardens a part of daily life on the home front.

Title: Grow it yourself Plan a farm garden now.
Creator(s): Bayer, Herbert, 1900-1985, artist
Related Names:
   United States. Rural Electrification Administration , sponsor
Date Created/Published: NYC : NYC WPA War Services, [between 1941 and 1943]
Medium: 1 print (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster for the U.S. Department of Agriculture promoting victory gardens, showing carrots, lettuce, corn, tomatoes, and potatoes growing.

"The Children Must Learn"

Fascinating little covering circa 1940 views of nutrition, education and rural poverty.




Two of the comments were worth noting

Reviewer: roncox -  - September 8, 2011
Subject: My sister and her family
This film is of my sister Nellie and her family. Mr. and Mrs. Marion Lynch with their children, Norma Doris, Winnona and Harold D.. The couple on the porch is Marion's parents Dudley P. and Mary Lynch. This is the Lynchtown School at Drip Rock KY.

Reviewer: juanita lynch -  - September 5, 2011
Subject: My Family
Despite the economic hardships of the era in which they lived, my parents, Marion and Nellie Lynch were hard working, honest people who always had a sense of dignity and pride which they passed on to all their children. This documentary is very special and I am so thankful to have them as my parents. Thank you to all who have made this possible.

Fans of classic films like the Hustler may also recognize the voice of the narrator, Myron McCormick.


Children Must Learn, The
by Educational Film Institute of New York University and Documentary Film Productions, Inc.

Published 1940
Usage Public Domain
Topics Education, Appalachia, Rural America


Educating the children of Appalachia.
Director: Willard Van Dyke.
Script: Spencer Pollard.
Photography: Bob Churchill.
Narration: Myron McCormick.
Editor: Irving Lerner.
Music: Fred Stewart.


Run time 12:34
Producer Educational Film Institute of New York University and Documentary Film Productions, Inc.
Sponsor Sloan (Alfred P.) Foundation

Wow, I had no idea Grape-Nuts could do that

Advertisement for Grape-Nuts cereal 1900

1900 was kind of the golden age for ludicrous food claims, but we are trying to catch up.

American Agriculture Movement pins from the Smithsonian

I tend to be distrustful of protest movements. They make a lot of noise, but when the dust settles, the results are mainly cathartic, and I have remarkably little interest in other people's catharsis.

American Agriculture Political Pin

MEASUREMENTS:
overall: 3 in; 7.62 cm
OBJECT NAME:
button
SUBJECT:
Agriculture
CREDIT LINE:
Gift of Clifford Hamilton
ID NUMBER:
1993.0188.010
ACCESSION NUMBER:
1993.0188
CATALOG NUMBER:
1993.0188.010
DESCRIPTION:
The American Agriculture Movement was started in the fall of 1977 in response to the 1977 Farm Bill which had the adverse affect of dropping commodity prices to a level lower than the cost of production. President Jimmy Carter’s agricultural policies were considered detrimental to the American farmer by many members of the American Agriculture Movement. Here newscaster David Brinkley is seen pulling President Carter’s strings as if President Carter was his puppet. President Carter, as well as his cabinet officers, were often vilified for their ineffective policies.

The American Agriculture Movement was started in the fall of 1977 in response to the 1977 Farm Bill which had the adverse affect of dropping commodity prices to a level lower than the cost of production. In February of 1979, members of the American Agriculture Movement organized a tractorcade, a protest on tractors, in Washington, D.C. Farmers from around the country, some driving from more than 1500 miles away, arrived by the thousands. On February 5, they convened in Washington, D.C. from four different directions. In order to accommodate both the protesters and the city’s residents, the D.C. police required them to park on the National Mall and restricted their protests to specific times during the day.

Not exactly a food ad, but still too tacky to be forgotten

Virginia Slims (from the good people at Phillip Morris)

In the 1960s and 1970s, the themes of feminism and women's liberation, with the slogan "You've Come A Long Way, Baby" were often used in the ads, and often featured anecdotes about women in the early 20th century who were punished for being caught smoking, usually by their husbands or other men, as compared to the time of the ads when more women had equal rights, usually comparing smoking to things like the right to vote

Captain Tootsie -- a spokeshero goes mainstream

In the Golden Age of Comics, regular readers saw a lot of Captain Tootsie

Captain Tootsie is an advertisement comic strip created for Tootsie Rolls in 1943 by C C Beck, Peter Costanza and Bill Schreider (1950 onwards). It featured the title character Captain Tootsie and his sidekick, a boy named Rollo, and two other young cohorts named Fatso and Fisty. It had stories in the form of full color one-page Sunday strips, black and white daily strips, and two issues of a comic book of the same title released by Toby Press. The advertisement comic was featured by many publishers and in the newspapers.

For fans of the medium. The name C.C. Beck should ring a bell. He co-created Captain Marvel, arguably the most popular comic book character of the era.

The character was popular enough to have his own comic book for a couple of issues. Surprisingly, there was no mention of Tootsie Rolls in either the stories or the ads.