All Natural Buzz

As we begin our adventure to reduce sugar by 50% in our bakery, I have been studying the different alternative sweeteners on the market and am starting to become very intrigued by Stevia. It is starting to garner strength in the States as the FDA has recently approved several name brands for distribution here.

Stevia is a South American herb that has been used as a sweetener by the Guarani Indians of Paraguay for hundreds of years. The leaves of this small, green Stevia rebaudiana plant have a delicious and refreshing taste that can be 30 times sweeter than sugar. What strikes me most is that it has minimal processing and incorporates that all important buzz word, “natural.”

It seems very clear that organics has waned and possibly run its course entirely, but the “all natural” buzz has gained a foothold due to the fact that quality and price remain fair. In other words, natural products are being produced without hormones and antibiotics using minimal processing while the cost has remained fairly flat. Organics on the other hand have had smaller yields leading to higher unsustainable costs. Also, they are losing support in the industry.

Americans love the next “best thing.” It was “no MSG”, and then organics, than sustainability, and now the market is driving “all natural” as the catch phrase for the decade in my opinion. It also goes well with First Lady Michelle Obama’s four point plan to reduce obesity which is a good start, but a little thin on implementation. Anyway, these idealistic initiatives have to start somewhere and I believe this tends to wake up people out of complacency. Yes, we are getting less healthy and overweight! Let’s do something about it eh?

David

Of All Things…

I often brag about the expertise of our culinary staff here at Rice and today was no exception with regards to that wonderful little red radish. I was cruising through the kitchens today and was taking a look at the produce when one of the salad preps caught me eyeing the radish she was preparing. She immediately said, “I know, they look terrible.” “We won’t be serving them today.” Took the words right out of my mouth…

Although we have seven ACF certified chef’s, the real value of that knowledge is passing it down to people who are still learning. This was a great example of that “trickle down” experience that comes from high culinary standards and training. This just reaffirms the importance of continued education in all areas.

I remember a story my Dad told me about being an apprentice carpenter… He said that when he was learning, nobody would show him how to do anything because people would fear for their skilled job. He then told me how he overcame this by working tirelessly figuring out the rise and run of a 7-11 stair case so he could become more valuable. Although there is definitely something to be said for learning a skill on your own, in the food business, training needs to be passed on or else someone could get sick. Figuring out if a radish is bad by sickening someone is not the experience I was referring to. The experience to stop that happening is…

A day in the life...

David

Healthy Thoughts

Why is “health” food more expensive? It’s an interesting thought that healthy food is now served at a premium in restaurants and stores… When I was growing up, just about all food was healthy. It had a lot to do with how it was prepared though that made it unhealthy. Now, in order to eat healthy, there are restaurants and stores that exist solely on this premise. I actually used to manage one myself. A really glorified salad bar with soups, pastas and a bakery.

I thought to myself, this is a great concept, but one could just do the same at home for much less! What I have found in the University Dining Industry is that it costs my operation slightly more to rid the kitchen of sodium, sugar, and saturated fat and return to healthy preparation. How did this happen? Why are more nutritious products more costly?

I believe the answer is simple market principles at play. Supply and demand for fast and easy has driven prices down, while slow and challenging drives prices up. This sort of goes with the slow food movements, but I look at it from the commodity industry side rather than the philosophical side. In other words, prepared foods are now more popular than sloe foods and thus the prices are at a premium. I am hoping for a paradigm shift at some point to reverse this trend, but I am not sure what it will take. Should we bring back Home Economics as a required course in schools? Who knows…

David

Fructose Debate

I was reading an interesting study by Princeton researchers which states that High Fructose Corn Syrup causes considerable obesity in rats. The study seems justified, but the Corn Refiners Association also had their own opinion which disputes the claim of the study.

Here’s my take… Does anybody dispute that colas are actually bad for you? Since I was a little boy, my parents limited the amount of cola I drank because it is bad for you, I was told. I preach the same thing to my kids and students 30 years later. I really don’t believe we need to study the effects of individual ingredients in a cola, because the answer is simple. Drink lot’s of cola = gain weight. Try it if you do not believe me. When you are done with this simple experiment, you may need to go hit the gym though.

Read here about PepsiCo and their decision to drop HFCS.

With obesity at all time highs in the US, I believe the answer is a reduction in processed food with specific ingredients related to saturated fats, sugars, and sodium. I challenge you all to go cook for yourselves. It is not that difficult and with a little practice, you will be creating culinary delights for your family daily.

An interesting side note to this… At one of our serveries we make home-made chicken fingers from scratch, but one day we subbed them with a frozen product. I received an email the next day from a student that stated that the improved chicken strip offered was much better. Yup! The frozen one with high amounts of sugar and sodium was preferred over scratch cooking… Why I believe this is happening will be a topic for a future entry.

David

The Best Things are Free!

I had a significant amount of responses to my blog yesterday about reducing the 3 S’s in which many were positive and some negative. One thing that got me thinking, was a comment that I should give students the choices to eat healthy or not. This of course is a free market society. As a parent, this is difficult for me to comprehend, but I will try.

So… In the free market society, many things are wanton and I have often heard that America’s favorite price is free. Let’s examine what one could get for free by not eating healthy. Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, Elevated Tri-Glycerides, Obesity, Dehydration, Kidney Stones, Gall Bladder Stones, Ulcers, Ulcerative Colitis, Indigestion, Heart Burn, Lethargy, Scurvy, Rickets, and I am sure a lot more if I were a med student studying such things.

As a parent and a responsible administrator, I will not be held accountable for the poor choices you make if you desire any of the best things for free listed above. These comments about a free market society remind me of a student complaining that I rid the dining halls of Styrofoam since it was a modern wonder of the world and I should embrace it. Sorry, I am going to serve healthy food whether you like it or not… without Styrofoam…

David

Poor Choices & the 3 S’s

I have come to the stark realization that no matter what we do to promote or market the correct way to balance a diet in our serveries, that students and we alike are making poor dining choices. The solution is in the food itself. Making the food more wholesome and nutritious so that students do not have to make the choice makes sense. The three looming issues that need to be addressed are sodium, sugar, and saturated fat. Reading the article about Pepsi the other day really got me thinking and due to some other issues last week regarding proper goal setting, have set our goals brightly ahead in tackling nutrition and wellness. This has been a long standing goal, but we have failed to act accordingly. We achieved eliminating the low hanging fruit, but that last 10% up in the canopy can be difficult. Well, no more!

Meeting with my Senior Executive Chef and Senior Operations Manager, we agreed to take this challenge head on. We are going to reduce the amount of saturated fat by using less cream and also using the Combi technology more rather than using flat tops. My Senior Operations Manager made a great point about fried foods… When you eat at home do you always have French fries? Of course not, you go get them when you go out to eat. Our students live here at the university and consider this their home… Why do we always have French fries? We will begin parsing down the use of fried foods immediately.

Sodium is a big and ever growing factor in health risks, but is often very difficult to reduce or eliminate. My Senior Executive Chef proposed a bold initiative to be a “no salt added” kitchen. I thought this is going to be great! The solution is in using salt substitutes such as potassium instead of sodium. Brilliant! There are several products on the market currently that will meet our needs and we will begin implementing them ASAP. As you may recall, I was ranting about New York imposing a ban on salt in restaurants… I was not upset with the reduction in salt, but the fact that legislation was involved at all. If Pepsi were to come out with this initiative earlier, then the consideration of legislation would not have been necessary. The market is driving the salt out!

Reflecting on the Pepsi initiative to reduce their three S’s by 25% over the decade; made me realize that we need large companies to spearhead initiatives to be more widely accepted. Thank you Pepsi; for waking us up out of our complacency. In essence, we will parallel this initiative, but take it further since we are a leading university in many ways. I am calling on other universities to do the same. Yes, we should keep on battling the sustainability and locally grown initiatives, but in the end, these things do not really make for a healthier diet. How and what we cook do!

Our Goal? Question every ingredient and ask ourselves, “Can we use something different to make it healthier?”

David

Pepsi Gets It!?

As I have said before, less government regulation and the market driven forces will act accordingly for a better and healthier world. Pepsi is going to the lead the way with a 25% reduction in sugar, saturated fats, and sodium by the end of the decade. Why? Because it is the right the thing to do. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ee1d609a-351a-11df-9cfb-00144feabdc0.html

The World Health Organization has said that reductions in these ingredients could help tackle diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other conditions. It said this was of increasing importance in the developing as well as developed world.

Furthermore, the cuts go beyond what the governments actually are recommending. That is market driven capitalism at its core.

Derek Yach, senior vice-president of global health policy, said: “This goes beyond many of the calls for action by governments. . . [which] have mostly lacked any competence to launch, implement and monitor reductions. The advantage of a self-regulatory system is it puts the costs of action and enforcement on industry.”

One of the important ways that a reduction in saturated fats will be accomplished is a conversion to sunflower oil while artificial sweeteners will replace the fructose. Along those same lines, many industries including universities have switched to either canola or soy oils and if they have not yet, they should be in order to be leaders.

What this means to a university dining operation? We have to put on our game faces and do the same if not more. University Dining is always on the leading edge of transformation and letting Pepsi out do us would be embarrassing to say the least. Come on everyone; let’s get on with reducing the fat, sugar, and sodium from our menus for a healthier world. Maybe if we do this, we won’t need healthcare for all. Oh well, we just got it! Now we can focus on lowering the healthcare costs with a better diet...

David