Friday Faves No. 171

our favorite finds from the front lines of food

From the You Can't Make this Stuff Up files, Joan Crawford goes to the supermarket, in white gloves, in a 1969 Pepsi promo (video above). You can read here about where this wacky three and a half minutes of TV came from. (Stargayzing)

The Next Hot Trends in Food as identified by the Wall Street Journal. Not a lot of surprises here for those who keep up with the food scene and sustainability discussions, but concepts like "regenerative agriculture" might get more mainstream. (Wall Street Journal)

Is Dry Farming the Next Wave in a Drought-Plagued World? Some fruit growers in California eschew irrigation and have escaped the financial fallout experienced by fellow farmers in recent years. “There’s all this talk about watering the almonds...When you set up almonds to receive water every few days and the roots don’t go deep, then yeah, they will die if we don’t water them. But almonds were once dry farmed in many parts of California, including San Luis Obispo County, southern Monterey County, and the Sierra foothills.” (Food & Environment Reporting Network)

As with our politics, fast food keeps getting weirder and more over the top. Why fast-food chains are making ‘increasingly outrageous’ creations to get you through the door. (Washington Post)

Entrepreneurs getting creative with seafood byproducts “If all fish were processed and all the byproduct collected, it is estimated that globally there would be around 36 million tons of raw material available, producing about 9.5 million tons of fishmeal and 1.5 million tons of fish oil,” according to the University of Stirling/IFFO report. (Seafood Source)

Meat packers add plants to plate as consumers, competition shift. "We are going to see the meat industry recognize that it needs to diversify." (Reuters)

The Real Soylent Sickness "Silicon Valley’s failure to capture our appetites lies at the heart of what the technology industry misses about so many other things in this world. Though it may be possible to create technically feasible products for any aspect of our lives, those only succeed if they improve—rather than seek to replace—the human, highly tactile, and pleasurable world we want to live in." (New Yorker)

Friday Faves No. 170

our favorite finds from the front lines of food

Grand Lake Farmers Market, Oakland, CA. Photo by Polished Brands.

Investors urge food companies to shift from meat to plants "'The world's over reliance on factory farmed livestock to feed the growing global demand for protein is a recipe for a financial, social and environmental crisis,' said Jeremy Coller, founder of the FAIRR initiative and chief investment officer at private equity company Coller Capital." (Reuters)

Your phrase for the day "carbon confident" Greener pastures: the dairy farmers committed to sustainability. Biological farming, conservation planning and water recycling are part of a concerted push to make the milk industry more ‘carbon confident’ "The report says dairy farmers want to create “a carbon-confident industry” and various software has been created to help to calculate and reduce farm emissions. These include the dairy climate toolkit and the dairy greenhouse abatement strategies calculator." (Guardian)

A Dickensian headline on a situation that should not still be in 2016: Skipping Meals, Joining Gangs: How Teens Cope Without Enough Food At Home "Roughly 7 million children in the U.S. aged 10-17 struggle with hunger, according to one report, which examines teenage access to food. Dogged by hunger, teenagers may try a wide range of solutions, from asking friends for meals to bartering sex for food." (NPR/The Salt)

Is tech the answer to a streamlined restaurant experience, or just another distraction? Danny Meyer has found a use for the Apple Watch with his staff. "When Meyer’s 30-year-old Union Square Cafe reopens in Manhattan next month, every floor manager and sommelier will be wearing an Apple Watch. And when a VIP walks through the front door, someone orders a bottle of wine, a new table is seated, a guest waits too long to order her or his drink, or a menu item runs out, every manager will get an alert via the tiny computer attached to their wrist." (Eater)

Most concepts in food live or die by logistics. A peak behind the production to delivery curtain: How One Delivery-Only Service Makes Dinner Without a Restaurant  (Eater)

Friday Faves No. 164

our favorite finds from the front lines of food

image via National Geographic

Is Jackfruit (above) the Next Big Meat Substitute? Nutritious, plentiful, and meaty, this Indian staple is poised to catch on with eco-minded consumers hungry for variety. (National Geographic)

Why are so many men are cooking? I guess they want to eat? "What's driving the trends? The higher level of cooking overall among men and women may be driven by an era of stagnant wages that makes cooking at home the more affordable option, as well as the fact that broad Internet access and the popularity of social media make it more fun and easier to do than perhaps ever before. While women are cooking at about the same rates they have been for several decades, it's the surge in men's cooking at home that may be most noticeable. Companies that make money off food are weighing how to take advantage of the trend, deciding whether to treat cooking as a distinctly masculine activity or to show foodie-ism as a gender-neutral hobby." (Washington Post)

Key to ending food waste on a big scale is finding new uses for products that are now treated as trash. How Food Waste From The Coffee Industry Is Making Chocolate More Delicious The fruits of the coffee plant used to be garbage. Now they are being used to create a nutritious, tasty flour that can flavor everything from pasta to candy. (Fast company)

America Wastes $160 Billion in Food Every Year But Is Too Busy to Stop "Almost 80 percent said they feel guilty when throwing food away, but 51 percent said it would be difficult to reduce household food waste. And 42 percent said they don’t have enough time to worry about it." (Bloomberg)

Has Jamie sold out, or upped his food revolution reach? Fresh food champion Jamie Oliver signs frozen meals deal with Brazilian chicken giant (Telegraph)

In Alaska's Remote Towns, Climate Change Is Already Leaving Many Hungry "The Inuit know how to adapt, but they need to be supported." (NPR/ the Salt)

Friday Faves No. 152

our favorite finds from the front lines of food

image via Civil Eats

Oyster farmers and lobstermen are turning to probiotics to fight bacteria that has been wreaking havoc for more than a decade. "The problem of bacterial infections in hatcheries has been worsening over the past decade as the waters of the Northeast warm. Rheault, who is now the president of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, says that thanks to climate change, bacterial infections now kill off 10 to 20 percent of the Northeast’s shellfish larvae each year. And because the bacteria, Vibrio, gets into the tanks via seawater, it affects not only shellfish but also lobsters, by turning their shells black and making them impossible to sell." (Civil Eats)

More Hospitals Are Ditching Antibiotics In The Meat They Serve "Hospitals understand antibiotic resistance, and they're being asked to steward their own use of antibiotics. So it's very easy for them to say, 'Livestock producers need to be doing their part, too.' " (NPR)

Nation's first vegan butcher shop to open in Minneapolis "The pair have attracted quite a following since they first started serving up their signature maple glazed bacon, Sriracha brats and other meatless wonders at farmers markets around the Twin Cities in 2014. They spent three years perfecting the recipes, using ingredients such as yeast, soy, juices and a blend of seasonings. The opening of a vegan butcher shop is yet another sign of the rise of fake meat in American diets. Since 2012, sales of plant-based meat alternatives have grown 8 percent, to $553 million annually, according to the market research firm, Mintel." (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

NOAA expands opportunities for U.S. aquaculture: Groundbreaking rule opens the door for seafood farming in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Hopefully the Gulf of Mexico is just a start: "The groundbreaking rule creates a coordinated permitting system for the Gulf of Mexico, opening the door for the region to expand seafood production and create new jobs in an environmentally sustainable manner." (NOAA)

Slow fish: Preventing waste via packaging: BluWrap technology extending product shelf life, reducing carbon footprint of seafood. "He’s making it his mission to get fresh fish off airplanes and onto ocean-bound cargo ships where it may take weeks to reach its destination. And he says he can do it without ice or environmentally unfriendly Styrofoam — lingering symbols of just how antiquated the seafood supply system is in comparison to today’s high-tech world. 'There’s a myth that time is the biggest enemy to fresh proteins,” he said. “But the truth is that oxygen and temperature, not time, threaten freshness.'” (GAA Advocate)

Everything you ever wanted to know about salmon propagation, but were afraid to ask: To Save Its Salmon, California Calls in the Fish Matchmaker. At a hatchery on the Klamath River, biologists are using genetic techniques to reduce inbreeding, though some argue natural methods are more effective. (New York Times)

Friday Faves No. 130

our favorite finds from the front lines of food

You think those little individual K-Cups of coffee are cute, do you? Sure, this little video is just a dramatization of what could happen. That's what you think now. But it's time to kill the K-Cup before the plastic wins. Don't say you weren't warned. (NPR)

New York’s Health Department Wants to Freeze All of Its Sushi An attack on authenticity? Good public heath sense? Other states already do it. (Munchies) 

Relax, people. You are the boss of your food. Stop being afraid of it. We’re "clean eating" our way to new eating disorders. Is orthorexia about to join the DSM?  (Salon) 

We see perfect produce. He sees pain and danger.  How the produce aisle looks to a migrant farmworker. (PRI/The World)

Bad for fish and bad for people: Meant to Keep Malaria Out, Mosquito Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In  (New York Times)

A Compound in Beer Might Save Your Brain from Degeneration "The beneficial compound is a flavonoid called xanthohumol, which is found in hops (and thus, in beer)." (Munchies)

If that inspired you to get your geek on, and throw around doozies like oxidation and red anthocyanin molecules, we've got you covered. Everything you ever wanted to know about cork, but were afraid to ask. A Chemist Explains Why Corks Matter When Storing Wine  (Wine Folly)

What does a fictional world taste like? Londoners will get a sample as a Game of Thrones pop-up restaurant offers a taste of Westeros. How about a sample of a dish called: “The Lies of Tyrion Lannister and his Proclaimed Innocence” which happens to be poached veal tongue with beetroot, horseradish and Oldtown Mustard”. (Guardian)

And if you think that sounds unappealing, how about beer made from treated waste water? A trial of home brewers and one commercial brewery in Oregon are giving it a go. "Clean Water Services spokesman Mark Jockers said his company is the top provider of recycled water in Oregon. Its high-purity water treatment system turns sewage into water that meets or exceeds all drinking water standards." Want a cricket burger to go with that? (NPR)

Will fish be the next up and coming fake meat? Sounds pretty good compared to "recycled" beer, right? (NPR)