THE CHEF FROM HELL

~ All The News That's Fit To Eat ~

What's the buzz this week?  Let's see....

From the Associated Press site:  "FDA Plans Regulators In China!  The Food and Drug Administration announced plans Friday to place regulators in China, pending approval from the Chinese government.  The agency said the State Department had approved a plan to establish eight full-time, permanent FDA positions at U.S. diplomatic posts in China. The FDA also plans to hire five Chinese employees to work with the FDA at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the U.S. consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou."  One can just see how quickly the Chinese government will agree to this deal, eh?  Read More...

Here's an interesting item from the ABC Rural site:  "Nestle head warns biofuels will damage food production!  The head of the world's biggest food and drink company says using crops like wheat and corn to make biofuels is putting world food supplies in peril.  The chairman and chief executive of Nestle, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, says there'll be nothing left to eat if 20 per cent of the world's oil demand is fulfilled by biofuels, as predicted.  He says it's morally unacceptable and irresponsible to grant enormous subsidies to bio-energy.  Mr Brabeck-Letmathe says water, and land for cultivation, are becoming rarer, while biofuel demand is driving up the price of maize, soya beans and wheat."  What I want to know is why the government is bailing out any big business at all?  Harumph!

More jibber-jabber on the food industry from the Food USA site:  "Food Industry Takeovers Continue To Rise!  The number of mergers and acquisitions in the North American food industry continued to grow in 2007, continuing the rapid pace of consolidation that began in 2006, according the latest edition of the annual food business survey by the Food Institute."  This seems to be the template that business in all sectors seems to be following-- the larger outfits gobbling up the smaller "units"--- which creates a standardization to the goods that are sold and the experience we get from said goods.  I refer you to the first post I ever did for this blog about a year ago:  The Home Depot-ization of Restaurants.  Harumph! 

From the heraldsun.com.au site:  "Food Critic Dumps On Gordon Ramsay!  A leading French food critic could face the famed acid tongue of British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, after giving his restaurant a bad review.  A review by food critic Francois Simon in the Le Figaro newspaper threatens to sour the grand opening of the Trianon in Versailles, which houses a fine-dining restaurant and sister brasserie called the Veranda."  Arrrgh!! Pieces like this make me realize that today's herd of "Celebrity Chefs" need to have one thing and one thing only to be a success... (no, not cooking ability, but..) a great press agent!  This fluff is so obviously a press item plant that I found myself gagging on my breakfast cereal.  Harumph!

Our last item comes from the website of Marion Nestle, one of the most bona-fide food journalists on ye olde planet:  "Do Food Stamps Make People Fat?  The USDA has just come out with a report looking at the relationship of Food Stamps to obesity. Because rates of obesity are higher among the poor, USDA economists wanted to see if Food Stamps, which raise the amount of money low-income people can spend on food, were associated with higher rates of obesity. They were not, at least for most people, but they were associated with obesity in younger women. I have no idea what to make of this, really. It seems self-evident that having more money - enough money - to spend on food means that people will eat more healthfully. But Food Stamps are notorious for their unreliability in meeting people’s real needs.  They typically run out after three weeks, which leaves recipients scrambling to meet food needs during the fourth week of the month. Food Stamps do help to address income disparities, but not nearly enough. I’d like to see the USDA do an experiment: give women enough Food Stamps to really meet their needs and see if diets improve."  I see this in our supermarkets every day--  Carrots 2.99 lb!  A 5 gallon jug o' Mayonnaise?  99 cents! 

HOO HAH!