June 16, 2024 — All-you-can-eat is a trap. In repeated case studies, it drives restaurants to lose money, sometimes to the point of bankruptcy. The latest poster child is Red Lobster and its Endless Shrimp deal that brought the chain financial misery and a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. How did this happen? Why did management seemingly have no clue […]
April 19, 2023 — Breathtaking. That’s the only word we can find to describe the claims coming from a cost effectiveness study of calorie labeling on restaurant menus for preventing cancer deaths. Published yesterday in BMJ Open, this study is already generating headlines like this one: “Thanks to calorie-counting menus, fewer Americans are dying of obesity-related cancers” Making an […]
June 18, 2022 — Two new studies in AJCN provide observations on the relationship between health outcomes and fast food, take-out, café, or home-cooked meals. These studies find an association of worse outcomes with fast food and take out. But the real question is, why? What are the causal relationships behind these observations? In an editorial, Barry Popkin suggests […]
October 14, 2021 — It only took five years. But then, the U.S. government has been through a lot in those five years. Yesterday the FDA finally released voluntary guidelines aiming to cut sodium in prepared foods by 12 percent over the next two and a half years. In a joint statement, Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock and CFSAN Director […]
April 13, 2020 — You’ll find lots of speculation about the implications of the COVID-19 lockdown on nutrition. Much of it promotes familiar themes about bad dietary habits. Nutrition guilt trips should be banned in the lockdown, but apparently, they’re not. However, a more interesting and related subject is how the lockdown is totally disrupting the production and distribution […]
March 5, 2019 — Three decades have passed since McDonald’s started selling us fast food salads. Consumers want to eat healthy – whatever that is. So fast food outlets are serving us ever more healthy-sounding food that tastes great. In larger portions, with more calories and more sodium than ever. These are the findings of new study by Megan […]
December 13, 2018 — We seem to need the boogeyman. That little hobgoblin who gets the blame for whatever ails us – especially for obesity. So naturally, we have a long list of bad guys to blame for obesity. Fast food has long been one of them. But a new study of portion sizes in the BMJ suggests that fast […]
November 7, 2018 — Way back in 2016, some pundits described the U.S. presidential election as a victory of Cracker Barrel over Whole Foods. That was then. This is now. In the match between comfort food and healthy eating, our verdict is that neither one is clearly winning. Not so different from the mid-term election results we just witnessed. Everyone […]
October 1, 2018 — The government machine that will grind out 2020 dietary guidelines is already rumbling along. Thanks to an act of Congress, sustainability probably won’t be much of a factor. Nonetheless, consumers are already focused on this dimension. You can see it clearly in fast casual restaurant marketing. Trendy chains are fighting to persuade you that they […]
September 11, 2018 — Ever increasing reliance on restaurant food is high on just about everyone’s list of suspects to blame for rising obesity. But what’s the right response? One answer, from CSPI, is to call out ridiculously unhealthy menu items. CSPI unveiled its latest lineup of absurd entrees last week. 2018 Xtreme Eating Awards Truly, the winners on […]
