Round-up: Travels, a beautifully unimproved cleanser and food in the news

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The kitchen was closed this week while we were on a trip to the Pacific Northwest. Seattle, Portland and all gloriously green, mountainous, forested and ocean-viewing points in between. Plenty of great food moments too, including Seattle’s Pike Place Market, shown above, that are sure to inspire future posts here. In the meantime, here’s a quick look at my new post on the USA Character Approved Blog, plus some food stories making the news recently.

Bon Ami Cleanser: Old, unimproved and still just right. Cleaning product makers have been leaping onto the green bandwagon, with mixed results. But Bon Ami has been green since it was just a color. For more than 120 years, it’s been made of a handful of simple, real ingredients. And it’s been cleaning like crazy, while living up to its promise of “hasn’t scratched yet.”

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Bon Ami packaging recently got a makeover courtesy of Celery Design Collaborative, but the product itself remains wonderfully unimproved. To more about this good news for the environment and for people with chemical sensitivities, check out my latest USA Character Approved Blog post.

Small bites: Food and drink news you can use

A rose by any other name. According to market research, “about 58 percent of Americans say they are concerned that high-fructose corn syrup poses a health risk.” Well, the Corn Refiners Association, which represents firms that make the syrup, wants to do something about it. They want to change high-fructose corn syrup’s name to “corn sugar.” Yeah, that’ll help. Read the whole story about their petition to the FDA to make the confusing change in the New York Times.

Study: Atkins diet increases all-cause mortality. Lowering your intake of “bad carbs” is good. Replacing them with lots of meat and fat can actually shorten your life. In a 20-year study of more than 100,000 people, “men and women who ate an animal protein-based low-carb diet were 23 percent more likely to die during the course of the study.” So enjoy some meat, but eat plenty of vegetables too. You can read more about the study here.

Can advertising save us from junk food? And finally, a trio of funny, smart commercials tries to beat junk food at its own game, selling baby carrots as junk food—and selling them on TV! An old saw that is unfortunately true more often than not is that if food is advertised on television, it’s not exactly the healthy stuff. That’s because typically it’s the packaged goods that can afford to advertise. You won’t see TV spots for broccoli, for instance. Or tomatoes.

But now, thanks to “a bunch of carrot farmers,” some people are seeing ads for baby carrots, telling them to “eat ’em like junk food.” To see all three entertaining commercials and read the story behind them, click here.

5 thoughts on “Round-up: Travels, a beautifully unimproved cleanser and food in the news

  1. I’ve been using Bon Ami since the days when I could buy it for 27 cents a can. Believe it or not, that was the 1980s. It’s still a real value!

    But I avoid high-fructose corn syrup as best I can.

  2. I really like the bites you bring to us, Terry.
    My mother used Bon Ami and I did too as a young adult. Somewhere along the line, Ajax took over my shopping list. Thanks for the reminder for this simply natural product.
    I like that you’ve spoken up about the high-fructose corn syrup folks who, probably rightly, think they can fool the public by calling it corn sugar. I was appalled.
    A number of years ago I espoused the Atkins diet and was a major meat consumer. It took me a few years to realize that so much meat was probably not such a good idea. Now fruits and veggies rule and protein takes up just a small portion of the plate, if at all.

  3. Thanks, Christine! Regarding the Atkins diet, I think any diet that doesn’t promote a balance of foods is basically flawed. And you’re right on track with those advocating better health for yourself and for the planet by having meat take up a smaller portion of the plate.

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