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By Stephanie Osmanski

Jan. 11 2021, Published 12:37 p.m. ET

What are GMOs?

According to the Non-GMO Project, a GMO is an organism - plant or animal - whose genees have been modified or mutated in a laboratory, when an engineer identifies a "desirable trait." The gene is isolated and then manipulated, resulting in more organisms of its kind, that wouldn't occur in nature on their own, with a new and likely "more desirable" traits.

For example, foods are often genetically modified so that they grow faster, bigger, in more difficult terrain or weather conditions, and taste "better." However, "faster," "bigger," and "better," might not necessarily equate to healthier, and many people wonder about the overall safety of foods that use GMOs.

Are GMOs harmful?

There are pros and cons to genetically modified organisms and foods. While many farmers rely on GMOs to help their plants survive harsh conditions - to get the best possible yields and make money - they also harbor controversy. The Non-GMO Project says there is "no scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs," as more research is required before we can begin to understand their longterm impacts.

However, many professionals in the field stand by the safety of GMOs - in 2015, 300 scientists, physicians, and scholars signed an official statement alleging the media artificially constructed the concept of GMOs being harmful. A 2018 meta-analysis found that genetically modified corn increased crop yields and provided health benefits such as reducing the corn's carcinogen levels.

That being said, the WHO runs an ongoing campaign to discourage genetic engineers from using the DNA of known allergens, and asks genetic engineers to prove the gene doesn't cause allergies. There is also widespread concern that GMOs can cause birth defects and cancer. However, despite these claims, the American Cancer Society has issued a statement saying there is no evidence to support this idea.

Are GMOs linked to allergies?

A 2014 national survey found that the link between GMOs and allergies is a "prime concern of consumers," though the research is inconclusive. As R.D. Jennie Schmidt told Forbes:

"No, [GMOs do not cause allergies]... There is nothing inherently different about food from GMO crops than food from conventional crops. Just the fact that a crop has been genetically modified does not make it more allergenic than it was to begin with."

Schmidt also pointed out that of the eight most common allergens in the U.S. - eggs, fish, milk, nuts, peanuts, shellfish, soy, tree nuts, and wheat - only soy is available in a GMO. She also maintained that genetic modification could curb allergies, as scientists are looking for ways to "turn off" the allergens in peanuts. The WHO, however, has publicly discouraged genetic engineers from using DNA of allergens.

Can GMOs cause birth defects?

While harmful toxins like pesticides and herbicides have been irrefutably linked to birth defects, there is no scientific data that directly links GMOs to birth defects. But according to Responsible Technology, genetically modified crops become resistant to herbicides, causing farmers to use even more herbicides on said crops. Therefore, genetically modified foods are at higher risk of herbicide exposure.

While GMOs themselves might not cause birth defects, the treatment of GMO foods with herbicides certainly is. Some herbicides - such as glyphosate - have been infertility, genetic damage, hormone disruption, birth defects, and even cancer.

Can GMOs cause cancer?

Another massive health concern regarding GMOs is their potential to cause cancer. Some researchers believe that GMOs are directly linked to the development of certain cancers. This argument states that because GMOs contain mutated DNA, introducing those mutations into the body could spark mutations inside the body.

Despite this belief by some researches, the American Cancer Society refutes any evidence of these claims. As of right now, there is not enough long-term evidence regarding the relationship between GMOs and cancer - or allergies and birth defects - to fully understand the effects of GMOs.

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What Can GMOs Actually Do to Your Body? Here's What Experts Think

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By Stephanie Osmanski Jan. 11 2021, Published 12:37 p.m. ET According to the Non-GMO Project , a GMO is an organism - plant or animal - whose genees have been modified or mutated in a laboratory, when an engineer identifies a "desirable trait."

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Burger King is serving up a new global ad campaign with its iconic burger covered in mold.

No, the "Moldy Whopper" is not a new menu item, but Burger King announced Wednesday that it is letting the burger rot to make a statement.

The fast-food chain said in a news release that it's showing mold "can be a beautiful thing" to highlight removing artificial preservatives from the Whopper in most European countries and in select U.S. markets.

Unlike viral images and videos that have shown restaurant burgers changing very little over several years, the Burger King ad is a time-lapse referencing the number of days passed since the sandwich was prepared and showing the growth of mold. It includes a line that reads, "The beauty of no artificial preservatives."
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Fernando Machado, global chief marketing officer for Burger King's parent company, Restaurant Brands International, told USA TODAY that officials wanted to do something that would stand out.

"The beauty of real food is that it gets ugly. It's common knowledge that real food deteriorates quicker because it is free of artificial preservatives," Machado said. "Instead of featuring our Whopper sandwich with the classic flawless and often too perfect photographic style typically used in fast food advertising, we decided to showcase something real, honest and that only Burger King could do."

A Whopper with no preservatives, colors or flavors from artificial sources is now available in 400 U.S. locations and "will reach all restaurants throughout the year," Christopher Finazzo, Burger King's president for the Americas, said in a statement.

The company also announced that more than 90% of food ingredients at Burger King restaurants are free from colors, flavors, and preservatives from artificial sources. MSG and high-fructose corn syrup have also been removed from all food items, the company said.

Moving away from artificial ingredients isn't new.

Rival McDonald's announced in 2018 that most of its burgers were free of fake colors, flavors and preservatives.
Follow USA TODAY reporter Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko
A growing number of national fast-food chains have also said they would rid their chicken or beef supplies of antibiotics, including Chick-fil-A, which met its goal in May, months ahead of schedule.

Millennials also tend to favor foods with fewer artificial ingredients and that are less processed, Beth Bloom, market research firm Mintel's associate director of U.S. food and drink, told USA TODAY in August.

"It's OK for something to have fat," Bloom said. "It just needs to be kind of whole ingredients."

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A moldy Whopper? Burger King launches campaign to highlight removal of artificial preservatives

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Burger King is serving up a new global ad campaign with its iconic burger covered in mold. No, the "Moldy Whopper" is not a new menu item, but Burger King announced Wednesday that it is letting the burger rot to make a statement.

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Source: Getty Images

By Stephanie Osmanski

Jan. 19 2021, Updated 11:46 a.m. ET

As a person - maybe a parent - who prioritizes their health and wants to understand labels and what exactly goes into our food, it's totally understandable to be somewhat mystified by GMOs. After all, nothing on labeling is really straightforward as far as what a GMO is, and how safe GMOs are.

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If you'd like to learn more about GMOs - what they are, how they work, when they were invented, and perhaps most importantly, whether or not it's safe to eat GMOs - then keep reading all about the history and potential future of GMOs.

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What does GMOs stand for?

GMO stands for genetically modified organism, and it is categorized as a food that has been genetically engineered. Genetically engineering crops could mean many different things. A crop can be genetically modified to grow bigger, grow faster, resist certain chemicals, thrive in certain climates, and more.

In the agriculture community, GMOs have been important as they aid in the growth of crop yield. If less crops die because of weather conditions, pests, or other factors, there is obviously more profit for the farms. And if small strawberries and apples aren't really selling in the supermarkets, it makes sense that farmers would transfer their efforts to exclusively growing bigger strawberries and apples - something that genetic modification can help a lot with.

Are GMOs safe?

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According to the Non-GMO Project, there is "no scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs." Basically, there is still a lot of research that needs to be achieved before we can truly understand how GMOs impact public health.

In fact, a 2018 meta-analysis backs up this claim. The analysis shows that genetically modified corn not only increases crop yields, but also provides health benefits such as reducing corn's mycotoxins, a carcinogenic toxin that harms both humans and animals. The study found that GMO corn contained lower mycotoxin levels, as it decreased insect crop damage by 59.6 percent. Mycotoxins have been linked to increased risk of liver cancer.

Are GMOs tested for safety?

Independent studies are done on the impacts and risks of genetically modified organisms all the time. Some of these studies have found genetically modified organisms to be problematic to public health, while others have found GMOs to actually contain health benefits. However, the Food and Drug Administration does not specifically test genetically modified organisms for safety and does not have safety regulations for GMOs.

However, the FDA states it is "confident that the GE [genetically engineered] foods in the U.S. marketplace today are as safe as their conventional counterparts."

The FDA maintains that it is the manufacturer's responsibility to ensure all foods - but also foods treated with GMOs - are safe for human consumption.

The FDA also does not require independent pre-market safety testing for GMOs. Instead, agrochemical companies can submit their studies to the FDA in voluntary consultation, though these companies do not have to submit the studies in full. Once the information is provided to the FDA, the FDA then reviews and assesses the studies on foods treated with GMOs. Furthermore, these studies can be entirely independent and are not required to be peer-reviewed by any outside parties.

And animal safety testing? As it stands now, that's not sufficient either, as the longest testing done on animal safety as it pertains to GMOs only lasted at most three months. Longer-term testing is going to need to be done if scientists are to understand the long-term effects genetically modified organisms have on humans and our health.

Which foods are commonly genetically modified?

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If you are trying to avoid food made with GMOs, the best way to do that is buy organic or food with a "non-GMO" label. However, it's also important to note that canola, corn, soy, and sugar beet are some of the most popularly genetically modified crops in the U.S. Since these ingredients are often included in most packaged foods, you're more likely to be ingesting genetically modified organisms if you regularly eat non-organic packaged foods.

According to the Non-GMO Project, crops at high risk for GMOs include alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, papaya, soy, sugar beet, yellow summer squash, animal products, potatoes, microbes and enzymes, and zucchini. Alternatively, low-risk crops include avocados, lentils, sesame seeds, spinach, and tomatoes.

Can GMOs be organic?

Organic standards are very stringent. If a food is labeled non-GMO, that means it has been grown on its own without any modifications to its genes, pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and other toxic farming methods. When referring to "organic" in terms of meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products, the animals who produced these byproducts were not fed growth hormones or treated with antibiotics.

The United States Department of Agriculture states, "the use of genetic engineering or genetically modified organisms (GMOs), is prohibited in organic products." This means that food that is organic cannot also be treated with GMOs, and any food labeled "non-GMO" is legally required to not have been treated with GMOs. To find non-GMO foods, check out the Non-GMO Project's database of verified non-GMO foods.

This is where the standards get really rigorous. Organic foods cannot grow from GMO seeds, nor can livestock producing organic byproducts eat GMO alfalfa, corn, or any other GMO-treated food. According to the USDA, "An organic soup producer can't use any GMO ingredients," either.

If you are trying to avoid GMOs, the easiest way to do that is to look for foods labeled organic or non-GMO.

When were GMOs invented?

With 60% of the world's seed supply in the hands of just four corporations, the industrial food system isn't really designed to feed people but rather "to increase the power of a few dominant firms." But there are better ways! https://t.co/qyERC8oxiU
- Non-GMO Project (@NonGMOProject) January 14, 2021

Genetically modified organisms have been around for a while now, almost 30 years. The first-ever genetically modified food approved for the shelves was the Flavr Savr tomato in 1994. This particular tomato was genetically modified to last longer on grocery store shelves, meaning it wouldn't rot or mold as quickly as traditional tomatoes. This was achieved by inserting an antisense gene, which delayed the tomato's natural response of ripening.

Basically, there's no official, clear-cut scientific consensus on the safety of consuming GMO foods, and it's something you'll have to decide on for yourself based on the information out there - though know that entirely avoiding GMO foods is a near-impossible task.

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Is It Safe to Eat GMOs? Here's What the Science Says

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By Stephanie Osmanski Jan. 19 2021, Updated 11:46 a.m. ET As a person - maybe a parent - who prioritizes their health and wants to understand labels and what exactly goes into our food, it's totally understandable to be somewhat mystified by GMOs.

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Are GMOs Good or Bad? Genetic Engineering & Our Food

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In the 1960s, the sugar industry funded research that downplayed the risks of sugar and highlighted the hazards of fat, according to a newly published article in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The article draws on internal documents to show that an industry group called the Sugar Research Foundation wanted to "refute" concerns about sugar's possible role in heart disease. The SRF then sponsored research by Harvard scientists that did just that. The result was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967,with no disclosure of the sugar industry funding.

The sugar-funded project in question was a literature review, examining a variety of studies and experiments. It suggested there were major problems with all the studies that implicated sugar, and concluded that cutting fat out of American diets was the best way to address coronary heart disease.

The authors of the new article say that for the past five decades, the sugar industry has been attempting to influence the scientific debate over the relative risks of sugar and fat.

"It was a very smart thing the sugar industry did, because review papers, especially if you get them published in a very prominent journal, tend to shape the overall scientific discussion," co-author Stanton Glantz told The New York Times.
Money on the line
In the article, published Monday, authors Glantz, Cristin Kearns and Laura Schmidt aren't trying make the case for a link between sugar and coronary heart disease. Their interest is in the process. They say the documents reveal the sugar industry attempting to influence scientific inquiry and debate.

The researchers note that they worked under some limitations - "We could not interview key actors involved in this historical episode because they have died," they write. Other organizations were also advocating concerns about fat, they note.

There's no evidence that the SRF directly edited the manuscript published by the Harvard scientists in 1967, but there is "circumstantial" evidence that the interests of the sugar lobby shaped the conclusions of the review, the researchers say.

For one thing, there's motivation and intent. In 1954, the researchers note, the president of the SRF gave a speech describing a great business opportunity.

If Americans could be persuaded to eat a lower-fat diet - for the sake of their health - they would need to replace that fat with something else. America's per capita sugar consumption could go up by a third.

But in the '60s, the SRF became aware of "flowing reports that sugar is a less desirable dietary source of calories than other carbohydrates," as John Hickson, SRF vice president and director of research, put it in one document.

He recommended that the industry fund its own studies - "Then we can publish the data and refute our detractors."

The next year, after several scientific articles were published suggesting a link between sucrose and coronary heart disease, the SRF approved the literature-review project. It wound up paying approximately $50,000 in today's dollars for the research.

One of the researchers was the chairman of Harvard's Public Health Nutrition Department - and an ad hoc member of SRF's board.
"A different standard" for different studies
Glantz, Kearns and Schmidt say many of the articles examined in the review were hand-selected by SRF, and it was implied that the sugar industry would expect them to be critiqued.

In a letter, SRF's Hickson said that the organization's "particular interest" was in evaluating studies focused on "carbohydrates in the form of sucrose."

"We are well aware," one of the scientists replied, "and will cover this as well as we can."

The project wound up taking longer than expected, because more and more studies were being released that suggested sugar might be linked to coronary heart disease. But it was finally published in 1967.

Hickson was certainly happy with the result: "Let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind and we look forward to its appearance in print," he told one of the scientists.

The review minimized the significance of research that suggested sugar could play a role in coronary heart disease. In some cases the scientists alleged investigator incompetence or flawed methodology.

"It is always appropriate to question the validity of individual studies," Kearns told Bloomberg via email. But, she says, "the authors applied a different standard" to different studies - looking very critically at research that implicated sugar, and ignoring problems with studies that found dangers in fat.

Epidemiological studies of sugar consumption - which look at patterns of health and disease in the real world - were dismissed for having too many possible factors getting in the way. Experimental studies were dismissed for being too dissimilar to real life.

One study that found a health benefit when people ate less sugar and more vegetables was dismissed because that dietary change was not feasible.

Another study, in which rats were given a diet low in fat and high in sugar, was rejected because "such diets are rarely consumed by man."

The Harvard researchers then turned to studies that examined risks of fat - which included the same kind of epidemiological studies they had dismissed when it came to sugar.

Citing "few study characteristics and no quantitative results," as Kearns, Glantz and Schmidt put it, they concluded that cutting out fat was "no doubt" the best dietary intervention to prevent coronary heart disease.
Sugar lobby: "Transparency standards were not the norm"
In a statement, the Sugar Association - which evolved out of the SRF - said it is challenging to comment on events from so long ago.

"We acknowledge that the Sugar Research Foundation should have exercised greater transparency in all of its research activities, however, when the studies in question were published funding disclosures and transparency standards were not the norm they are today," the association said.

"Generally speaking, it is not only unfortunate but a disservice that industry-funded research is branded as tainted," the statement continues. "What is often missing from the dialogue is that industry-funded research has been informative in addressing key issues."

The documents in question are five decades old, but the larger issue is of the moment, as Marion Nestle notes in a commentary in the same issue of JAMA Internal Medicine:

As for the article authors who dug into the documents around this funding, they offer two suggestions for the future.

"Policymaking committees should consider giving less weight to food industry-funded studies," they write.

They also call for new research into any ties between added sugars and coronary heart disease.

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50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists To Point Blame At Fat

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In the 1960s, the sugar industry funded research that downplayed the risks of sugar and highlighted the hazards of fat, according to a newly published article in JAMA Internal Medicine. The article draws on internal documents to show that an industry group called the Sugar Research Foundation wanted to "refute" concerns about sugar's possible role in heart disease.

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poor diet and not enough healthy food killing us

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What we aren't eating is killing us, global study finds

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Poor diet is the top risk for death and disability around the world, according to a new 27-year global study of 195 nations.

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Remarkably, most of us have already become unhealthy eaters. These days, we prefer to eat far too much starch, cheese, red meat and sugar than eating natural foods like fruits and vegetables. Now, we consume larger amounts of calories than we ever did in the past.

Our clean eating habits are poor because we are culturally over wedded to a food model of quantity over quality, as we are extremely deferential to the interest of big corporations. Although great efforts must have been made on the intake of yogurt and chicken, as well as sugar and beef, yet it may not be universally healthy to take on wildly popular processed items like noodles, pasta, fried foods, confectionary and pizza. These foods do reflect our skillful ability to create a diet by trying out new foods that are greatly multicultural which are almost all bastardized versions of their original incarnations.

Even though most of us have made considerable healthy efforts in lowering our consumption of beef and soda, and eating more chicken, our level of fruit and vegetable consumption is still significantly low.

Due to the disgraceful nature of our food system, a significant percentage of our population is not spared by the number one killer, diabetes and heart disease. Honestly, something has to change because the way we are eating is killing us.
The mission of GTCL is to introduce lesser known superfoods like pili nuts and honey from stingless bees that have not been affected by commercial farming - bringing benefits to consumers and also helping promote biodiversity.

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Why 80% Of Food We Are Eating Is Killing Us

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Many of us are digging our own graves with our teeth without us knowing, due to the type of food we consume on daily basis. Every day these foods are slowly killing us.

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In this day and age, we're always on the lookout for scams. Our inboxes are filled with an endless stream of phony emails requesting banking information and passwords. Our telephones ring off the hook with calls from would-be con artists pretending to be the IRS. Even knocks at the front door prompt a chain of warnings across neighborhood social networks. It can feel like everywhere you turn someone is trying to swindle you.

But it can't be all bad - there's got to be some rest for the weary, say when you walk into your neighborhood burger joint. You can let your guard down knowing they're going to take good care of you, right? Sorry, but nope. Unfortunately, fast food restaurants are not the safe haven you might be hoping for - they've been known to take advantage of their customers, too. Whether it's shady business practices or misleading advertising, here are all the ways your favorite eateries might be scamming you.

The french fry carton trick

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If you've ever felt like you polished off that order of McDonald's french fries in embarrassingly short order, your voracious appetite might not be to blame. Thanks to a Reddit thread titled "What did your job want you to hide from customers?" we now know that under-filled cartons could be the culprit. One former Golden Arches employee alleged, "I worked at McDonald's and they taught me how to pinch the fry carton just right while putting the fries into them so that it looked full, but actually wasn't. I only had 1 customer call me out on it. He shook the fries out into his bag and poured them back into the fry carton himself and it only filled up half way, so I had to give him more fries. I was impressed and embarrassed." Another commenter chimed in, confirming, "I f**king hated that practice and basically refused to do it. Never got fired, but managed to have a few customers ask me when my shifts were the next week so they could have me filling their fries."

McDonald's denied any knowledge of this practice, saying, "We believe these claims to be fictional, there are no 'secret tricks' and we have strict operational procedures in place to ensure that fry portions are not under-filled." It might be a good idea to keep an eye on those french fry cartons, just in case.

Container sizes can be misleading

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Do you get the cup of soup or the bowl? Do you go for a child's shake or indulge in a regular? Bad news: The items might be the same size. Even worse news: One might cost more than the other. Thanks again to Reddit, we now know we should be paying more attention to container sizes.

"The cup of soup and bowl of soup were the exact same size," one Redditor warned. "People would pay more for a bowl, and just get a cup of soup in a bowl that was shorter and wider at the bottom than the cup." While the reference is vague, commenters maintained that Steak 'n Shake is guilty of this practice, claiming, "100% they do. I've poured water into one after eating and then poured it out into the other and they're the same."

Shakes, too. "Where I work the child's milkshake goes into the normal child's cup which is 12oz. The regular milkshake goes into a milkshake cup which looks bigger because of the shape and the dome lid but still only holds 12oz. However the child's milkshake is cheaper than the regular," another Redditor confessed. But what about potential lawsuits? "We never actually claim they are different sizes. The only place where we state the size is on the nutritional board and they are accurate on that. The sizes available when asking for one is 'kids,' 'regular' and 'large.' So technically the company isn't falsely advertising anywhere."

Your McRib is definitely not rib

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If you love the McDonald's McRib, you're definitely not going to love this bit of behind-the-scenes truth. (Though really, you had to think something was off about this sandwich, didn't you?)

Think about the shape of the iconic McRib patty... it looks like rib meat, right? Ribs and bones, to be exact. Well, obviously there aren't bones, since you can munch your way through the whole sandwich. So what's up with the shape? One Reddit user gave us a peek behind the curtain, and it's definitely weird. Turns out, the patties arrive to your local McDonald's flash frozen, pink, and in the same rib shape you're familiar with. That's not terribly surprising, but what is surprising is that without that browned look, and sans sauce, it looks nothing like ribs - and definitely not like something you'd want to eat.

McDonald's finally coughed up an ingredient list for the McRib in 2014 (spoiler: it's ground pork), so we know it's not rib meat we're actually eating. Still, with the shape of the patty, the saucy glaze, and of course, the name Mc Rib, and it all adds up to a shady trick to make you think you're eating something you're not.

The Domino's Tracker might be a total sham

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Ordering pizza for delivery has never been easier, thanks to the internet. You don't even have to talk to a real person! But one downside to all this technology is that systems can be manipulated, and not in the customer's favor.

Take the Domino's Tracker. This webpage allows you to see the exact status of your order - the problem is that it can be a bit misleading, according to one Redditor. "Domino's pizza tracker isn't accurate. Employees can enter s**t on the computer to make your order to appear at a different stage than it actually is... Apparently some stores show where the driver is, those are to my knowledge pretty accurate. The thing the employees change is the step in the series of steps to make and deliver your pizza. For example, the manager doesn't like the orders sitting on the shelf. The tracker says its passing quality inspection (sitting on a heated rack). So he will dispatch the order before a driver is there to take it. It makes the stores out the door time more impressive for the OERs [Operations Evaluation Report]."

Now if you've been waiting for a pizza that supposedly left the store an hour ago, you know why.

You might not be getting what you order

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Fast food slogans like "Have it your way" and "We don't make it until you order it" have led us to believe that we'll get exactly what we order every time. Unfortunately, we know that this isn't always the case - everyone's had to send back a cheese-less cheeseburger at one time or another.

But what if you can't see any difference? You're going on blind faith that your order is correct, and according to these former fast food employees it might not be. One Redditor spilled a dirty coffee secret, saying, "The decaf at Burger King isn't actually decaf. It's just the regular coffee, but watered down." While some said they could relate to similar practices, others argued that this didn't apply to the company as a whole. The poster elaborated, "I'm just relating what I experienced when I worked at a Burger King. At mine, I was specifically instructed to water down the regular coffee. They had me do half and half."

If you have a strong preference for full-fat mayo, maybe think twice about noshing at Subway. Another Redditor confessed, "Former Subway employee. We put light mayonnaise in both bottles because it's cheaper than normal mayonnaise."

While these particular swaps might not be a big deal to everyone, you have to wonder how often this happens with other ingredients.

Your delivery order might be smaller than you expected

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Would it ever occur to you to count the pieces of food in your delivery order? According to this former Domino's employee, there's a good reason to start doing just that. "Was a delivery driver for Domino's. I never did this personally because, well I just didn't lol but a few of the drivers ate the customers food in transit," they explained on Reddit. "[The drivers] wouldn't take a slice of pizza obviously because that would be noticed. But did you order 16 wings? You may end up with 14. 32 parmesan bread bites? Count again, there are 27. They'd also pick toppings off the pizza."

Unfortunately, unless you're willing to wait for a whole new order to be delivered, you're probably just going to settle for fewer wings and bread bites - but at least next time you'll know to tip accordingly if you get the same driver.

Grill marks mean nothing

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Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that we can see grill marks on our food, and we can taste a distinct grilled flavor, yet there is not a grill to be found in most fast food kitchens? How in the world are they getting grill marks from a flat cooking surface? Spoiler: They're not.

Most fast food restaurants receive product from companies whose job it is to add those grill marks, and while they're at it they also add flavor enhancers to make it taste like it came straight off the barbecue. According to Food Republic, the deceptive burger patties and chicken pieces are soaked in a solution that includes salt, animal fats, smoke flavoring, and other preservatives before being cooked with blasts of hot air (nope, still no actual grilling happening here). After that, it's the pièce de résistance - the not-grilled food is branded to make it appear grilled.

You have to wonder: Wouldn't it be easier to just actually grill the darn things?

The beef might not be as beefy as you think

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Everyone remembers the McDonald's pink slime scandal - you know, delicious burgers made out of beef trimmings treated with ammonia? Mmm. Since then, fast food companies have tried to put their best foot forward when it comes to transparency and quality of ingredients. McDonald's even invited a former Mythbuster into their facility to witness the patty-making process, and have assured all their customers that their beef is now free of pink slime. According to their website "every patty is 100% real beef with no fillers, additives or preservatives."

Not all companies have followed suit, though. Taco Bell admitted that their seasoned meat contained just 88 percent beef after a lawsuit alleged it contained only 35 percent. The company did disclose exactly what the remaining 12 percent is made up of - fillers, seasonings, emulsifiers, and thickeners - but aside from the clarification of ingredients in their seasoned beef, there came no promise to improve or make changes. In fact, according to NPR, Taco Bell actually released a statement saying it would not be making any changes to its products. So it's really up to you, now that you're informed - but is 12 percent non-beef really worth never having a Chalupa again?

Receipts that don't add up

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Even with today's advanced technology, computers don't always get it right. And as several Panera customers learned, it can pay to be diligent about checking your meal receipts.

In 2017, Curtis Marquardt Jr., a Panera regular, told Chicago's WGN9 that he noticed an inflated total on a visit. "We go to Panera quite regularly and usually the total comes to about $30-$35," he said. "This one was over $40. [I thought] they must have raised their prices." But a price increase wasn't to blame - a computer glitch was. "There was an additional $9 in the subtotal but there was no item in the line items above that suggested it should add up to that amount. It was just an invisible $9 charge," Marquardt said.

In a statement to CountryLiving, the company said, "Panera takes the report of inaccurate receipts extremely seriously. As soon as we were made aware of this issue we began working to identify the cause. We found a rare glitch in the system which resulted in the charge... we implemented a change on our receipt structure which we believe has resolved this issue." However, others came forward with similar claims after hearing Marquardt's story, so this glitch may not have been so rare after all. Bottom line? Always check the bottom line on your receipts.

"Medium" is deceiving

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Would you ever guess that the size of your soda cup could trick you into ordering more food? It can, and it does. Leave it to the fast food companies to figure out how to squeeze a few more dollars out of you.

Dr. Lisa Young, an internationally recognized nutritionist, wrote in Huffington Post that customers who order a medium soda will often give themselves a pat on the back for not ordering the large (make that obscenely large) soda, and then reward themselves with an extra food item, like French fries. But here's the thing: That medium soda that you're so proud of yourself for ordering is probably a whopping 20 to 30 ounces, which is at least twice as big as medium sodas once were. So not only are you drinking way more soda than you probably realized, you're also eating (and paying for) another item. Doesn't sound like such a win now, does it?

Speciality sandwiches can be a rip-off

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When did Big Macs and Ultimate Cheeseburgers and Bacon Kings get so expensive? A trip through the drive-thru isn't quite the bargain it used to be, but some frugal Redditors have proven you can chow down on that specialty burger (or something very close) without feeling like you've been scammed out of cash - you just have to know how to order. Whether or not these following tricks work will depend on your local menu prices, but you'll get the idea. Think like these geniuses if you really want a deal:

"Why buy a Big Mac when you can buy a McDouble for a dollar, hold the ketchup and mustard, and pay an extra quarter for Big Mac sauce? Get two of them for about $3, still under the cost of one Big Mac and way more food."

"Same thing with Jack in the Box. Instead of ordering the double bacon cheeseburger for like $4, get 2 of the $1 Jr Bacon Cheese burgers. Take off one of the buns and stick them together. You are rewarded with $2 savings and an extra bun."

"Wendy's has a Jr. cheeseburger for $1 but a double stack is $2.10. So I buy two Jr. cheeseburgers and make my own double stack. Cheaper plus you get two pieces of cheese instead of one."

"Same thing at BK, they charge a $1 to add a patty to a single cheeseburger (to turn the 5 for 4 into a double bacon cheese). Instead I get a whole second burger and add it myself because you get an extra piece of cheese/lettuce/tomato."

What you see isn't always what you get

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It can be hard to resist the temptation of fast food when we're constantly inundated with advertisements featuring perfectly made burgers. You know the ones - gooey melted cheese, the ripest tomato, the crispiest bacon. But the letdown is immediate when what you get in real life looks nothing like the picture promised, and unfortunately, that's probably never going to change.

Consumer Reports checked out seven fast food restaurants (including Subway, who was subsequently crowned "worst offender") to see how the pictures on the menus compared to what they actually ordered. For the most part they were - unsurprisingly - disappointed in the results. So if this is a universally recognized problem, why can't we expect a change? Isn't it false advertising?

Elizabeth Lordan, a press spokeswoman for the Federal Trade Commission, told CR that "truth-in-advertising laws do apply when restaurants show menu items in print and television ads... But the FTC hasn't pursued any cases alleging that food ads are deceptive based on photos," she said "That isn't surprising. The commission is unlikely to take law-enforcement actions in cases where consumers can easily evaluate the product, it's inexpensive, and it's frequently purchased." Sounds like we're all better off adjusting our expectations.

The food might be past its expiration date

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There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who drink the milk after the "best by" date, and those who throw it away on that day even if the milk still smells just fine. If you fall into the latter group, the practice described by this former Subway employee on Reddit will make you cringe.

"I used to work at Subway. My manager at the time was really conscious of food costs... to a fault. Most commonly was changing the expiration dates of food so it wouldn't have to be thrown out," they explained. "This may not be a huge deal for a couple days, but food would last a couple WEEKS. He would also take lettuce in a pan and put it back into the bag. Finally, he kept frozen (unbaked) bread for over a year. It was so old that the yeast had died, causing the bread to not rise..."

Even if some of us are a little cavalier with the food in our own fridges, we would all like to assume that we're getting not expired food when we eat out. Not cool, Subway manager.

You might be paying for toppings you don't get

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Once upon a time McDonald's had two Quarter Pounder options on their menu - one with cheese, and one without. The cheesy option justifiably cost more than the naked burger, as is the practice on most restaurant menus. But at some point, Mickey D's removed that cheeseless option, and your only recourse now is to order a Quarter Pounder without cheese, while still paying 30 - 90 cents for those fine slices of American that you don't actually get.

A lawsuit was brought against McDonald's over this very practice, claiming that "customers have been forced, and continue to be overcharged for these products, by being forced to pay for two slices of cheese, which they do not want, order, or receive, to be able to purchase their desired product."

The company blames this overcharge on their desire to satisfy customers - which seems a bit counter-intuitive - telling USA Today, "The advertised Quarter Pounder burger comes with cheese. We try to accommodate our customers' requests by allowing them to customize their orders, such as a Quarter Pounder with no cheese."

The obvious question is, why can't a bazillion dollar company take the 30 cent hit, instead of passing it onto the customer?

The food might not be as fresh as you think

As fast food joints are making a push to serve better food, we often see phrases like "freshly made" describing the fare. While we all know not to expect a farm to table experience when we hit the drive-thru, those words must account for something, right? Maybe not...

According to these former employees who spilled the tea on Reddit, a lot of that "made fresh" food is more like "frozen, then reheated" food.

"I worked at a Tim Hortons... The 'Always Fresh' stuff is kind of bull s**t. Everything is frozen, and re-heated when they need to be served," said one Redditor. "The doughnuts, the eggs in the breakfast sandwich, and any baked good was all frozen, put in the oven and then served."

Another dished, "Worked at Panera for four years. 1. All soups came in frozen and we just heated them up in plastic bags, this goes for the mac and cheese as well and many of the pastries, cookies, etc. 2. Our bakers only put things in the oven, the dough was mixed else where and shipped to the store. 3. Homestyle lemonade? Tap water and mix. Fresh Squeezed OJ? Poured from a carton to a cup. Iced Green Tea? Tap water and mix."

Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean the food is bad, but it can be a bit deceptive if you go in thinking you're getting a meal that's been prepared in-house that day.

The "healthy" menu items may be misleading

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Fast food salads are made of lettuce, and since lettuce is good for us, salads are the best option at a fast food place, right? Wrong. These "healthy" menu items can be seriously misleading.

According to a 2009 study, it turns out - because brains are super weird, apparently - that the mere presence of these menu items can make you feel better about your fast food choices, even if those choices are ultimately a greasy burger, greasy fries, and a large chocolate shake. The phenomenon is called "vicarious goal fulfillment," and just seeing those leafy green options "satisfies your goal to eat healthy." Sounds like the perfect diet plan, doesn't it?

Another misconception is that these "healthier" options really are healthy, and - spoiler alert - they're not. How many times have we been warned that fast food salads can have more calories, fat, or sugar than a double bacon burger? Fordham University Assistant Professor Beth Vallen, one of the study's authors, explains, "It always drives the question of healthier versus healthy. [Burger King's] Satisfries, for example, are healthier than normal french fries. But they're not healthy."

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Sneaky Ways Fast Food Restaurants Are Scamming You

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Shutterstock In this day and age, we're always on the lookout for scams. Our inboxes are filled with an endless stream of phony emails requesting banking information and passwords. Our telephones ring off the hook with calls from would-be con artists pretending to be the IRS.

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When the city council of Santa Fe, New Mexico, placed a measure on the local ballot to tax sugary drinks earlier this year, the soda industry responded quickly, pouring $1.3 million into the anti-tax campaign. To cover their bases, industry lobbyists also pursued a back-up plan: they backed a bill in the state legislature to strip local governments of the power to levy such taxes.

In the end, the state language was added to another bill that sailed through the New Mexico House before dying in a Senate committee, shortly before Santa Fe voters defeated the local soda tax. But as a growing number of cities consider and increasingly pass soda taxes and other measures designed to combat obesity and promote healthy eating, the food industry has turned to a strategy used extensively by the tobacco and gun lobbies.

The strategy, known as preemption, uses state laws to take away the right of cities to enact various kinds of regulations, reserving that power to the state. The tobacco industry used preemption to block or weaken local ordinances that ban smoking in public spaces. The firearms industry used it to beat back local efforts to control gun sales.

Now, lobbyists for numerous industries, including soda makers and fast-food chains, are pushing state laws that block municipal governments from adopting local controls. Aiding the effort is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group backed by corporations and conservative foundations, which brings together state lawmakers and industry lobbyists to draft and disseminate model legislation.

At least nine states have passed nutrition-related preemption laws, according to Grassroots Change, a nonprofit group that monitors state preemption efforts. Others have adopted measures that keep cities from requiring employers to provide paid sick leave or nullifying laws that protect gay or transgender people from discrimination.

The federal government can also preempt state and local law. In recent years, Congress has passed several bills with preemption provisions, including a revision of the key 40-year-old federal act regulating chemicals, a law requiring restaurants to display nutrition information, and another relating to disclosure of the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food products. These laws also limit states and cities from regulating the same products, though each does so in different ways.

In 2011, the National Academy of Medicine urged in a report that federal and state legislators avoid wording preemptive laws "in a way that hinders public health action." But a growing number of state legislatures are ignoring that plea.

A 2011 Arizona law bars local governments from regulating restaurant giveaways of toys and prizes like those given to children eating McDonalds Happy Meals or at the Chuck E. Cheese pizza chain.

Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Utah ban regulations requiring restaurants to publicly display nutritional information.

Mississippi and Ohio bar both these types of regulations and Wisconsin prohibits cities from restricting food or drink sales based on size, caloric content or nutritional value.

In New Mexico, the soda tax preemption language was added at the last minute to a 300-page substitute bill addressing a variety of tax issues, said William Fulginiti, executive director of the New Mexico Municipal League, an association representing cities, which opposed the preemption as an infringement on the rights of local communities.

"It was done quickly. I don't think they were even aware of what was in the bill," Fulginiti said of House members who passed the substitute tax measure. Fulginiti said the original bill had been supported by The Coca-Cola Co. and that a Coke lobbyist had visited him to push for the bill.

Sarah Maestas Barnes, the New Mexico legislator who introduced the original preemption measure, received a $1,000 campaign contribution last year from Admiral Beverage Corp., which manufactures and distributes Pepsi and other drinks. Barnes didn't return several phone calls and emails seeking comment.

One of the most sweeping laws, passed last year in Kansas, includes a preemption for almost every industry. It prevents cities from banning restaurant toy giveaways, keeps them from requiring display of nutrition information and blocks them from restricting the "growing or raising of livestock or grain, vegetables, fruits or other crops."

The same Kansas bill also bars cities from setting their own minimum wage rules, requiring developers to pay prevailing wage in construction projects, or mandating that employers provide sick leave. And for good measure, it also bars residential rent control.

Kevin Walker, a lobbyist for the American Heart Association, thought the bill was a bad idea and would intrude on efforts to promote healthier eating in a state that had the seventh highest obesity rate in the country. Other public health groups including the American Cancer Society, KC Healthy Kids and Oral Health of Kansas also opposed the bill.

The Chamber of Commerce, Kansas Beverage Association and Kansas Corn Growers Association supported it, as did Americans for Prosperity, a conservative, free-market advocacy group. Deputy director Rodger Woods argued that, without the bill, the state's 700 local and county governments could all pass different rules, leading to a "balkanized series of different food-sales requirements."

In fact, no city in Kansas had passed or even proposed a soda tax, nutrition-labeling regulation or ban on Happy Meals, according to Walker. "Nobody was talking about it," he said. "Legislation to preempt these activities looked like a solution in search of a problem."

As proponents shopped the bill around, they cast it as "the anti-Bloomberg bill," the enemy of nanny-state advocates like former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Walker. To rural Kansas Republicans, he said, Bloomberg was the perfect villain, "a big city mayor, Big Brother telling you what you can do and buy."

Bloomberg, of course, had famously gotten his city to ban smoking in restaurants, eliminate the use of trans fats, require restaurants to post calorie counts and limit the size of sodas, a policy later overturned in court.

Walker suspected the bill might be the work of ALEC, a business-backed group with a roster of corporate members and some 2,000 state legislators. He knew it was being pushed by ALEC member Gene Suellentrop, a state lawmaker who owns a chain of pizza restaurants, as well as Senate President Susan Wagle and then-House Speaker Ray Merrick, both members of ALEC's board of directors.

Sure enough, ALEC's website included model legislation dubbed the "Food and Nutrition Act," with many provisions nearly identical to the Kansas legislation. The group, whose members include corporations and some 2,000 state legislators, holds annual retreats that bring together lawmakers and industry lobbyists. In a brochure, ALEC boasted that its model bills are introduced about 1,000 times in every legislative cycle and pass 17 percent of the time.

The Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo and Kraft Foods were all members of ALEC until 2011. (They quit under pressure in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin killing as civil rights group targeted ALEC for its support of "stand-your-ground" laws like one in Florida.)

The American Beverage Association, the trade association for the soda industry also has been an ALEC member, according to the Center for Media and Democracy, a corporate watchdog group that has done extensive research on ALEC. (The Center's executive director, Lisa Graves, is a member of the board of directors of US Right to Know.) Among ALEC's funders are foundations endowed by Charles and David Koch, Peter Coors and other right-wing industrialists.

Michael Taylor, a lobbyist for Wyandotte County, which includes Kansas City, said he found the Kansas bill to be so overreaching that he "went on a rant" at a legislative hearing. In his testimony, he told the lawmakers that his county doesn't require nutrition labeling and has no plan to do so.

"So why are we dealing with this bill?" he asked. "It's because it comes from the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization that often seeks solutions to problems which don't exist, at least in Kansas."

Taylor noted that the concept of local control "is a mainstay of the Kansas constitution" and a purported principle of ALEC. Yet, he said, "ALEC model policies are about monolithic, top-down, centralized, big brother laws which attempt to impose the views of its big money corporate members on every county, city and citizen in America. That's hardly small government, limited government, or local control."

Despite the opposition from Taylor and public health groups, the Kansas bill passed overwhelmingly and became effective July 1, 2016.

State preemption as a concerted strategy "was essentially invented by the tobacco industry in the mid 1980s," says Mark Pertschuk, an attorney and public health advocate who directs Grassroots Change. In the 80s, he said, activists were winning passage of no-public-smoking ordinances in a growing number of cities, including in Florida.

But in 1985, the tobacco industry was able to water down a proposed statewide "Clean Indoor Air Act" in Florida and insert preemption language that kept local governments from passing stricter measures. Local public health groups thought they had won a victory and invited Stanton Glantz, a famed tobacco researcher at the University of California San Francisco, to attend the signing ceremony for the new law.

Glantz read the text of the new law on the airplane and realized his Florida allies had been fooled. "They got snookered," he said. "They didn't understand that a bad piece of legislation was worse than nothing."

After their success in Florida, the tobacco industry pursued a "50-state strategy," Pertschuk said, trying to get similar preemption laws passed in statehouses around the country. By the end of the 1990s, more than 20 states had passed them, he said.

This effort was outlined by Philip Morris executive Tina Walls, who called statewide preemption "the solution" at a 1994 internal strategy meeting. "By introducing preemptive statewide legislation we can shift the battle away from the community level back to the state legislature, where we are on stronger ground," she said.

The National Rifle Association began pushing for statewide preemption laws after a couple of North Carolina cities, Durham and Chapel Hill, passed local gun-control measures. In 1995, the state legislature passed a bill declaring "that the entire field of regulation of firearms is preempted from regulation by local governments." Today, 45 states have laws that partly or completely keep cities from enacting gun controls, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. A dozen states still have laws preempting local control over smoking in public places, according to Grassroots Change.

Preemption at the federal level is also a potent weapon against state and local regulation. Last year, Congress reformed the Toxic Substances Control Act for the first time since it was passed 40 years ago. While the new law gives the Environmental Protection Agency jurisdiction over thousands of chemicals originally exempted from its review, it also largely prevents state and local governments from passing their own new controls.

In the area of nutrition, public health advocates have been pushing for years to require restaurant chains to provide calorie counts and other nutrition information on their menus. A few cities, including New York, Seattle and San Francisco, passed local regulations. Public health groups also sought national legislation. Their efforts finally succeeded when menu-labeling requirements were built into the Affordable Care Act, which passed and became law in March 2010. What followed next was delay and confusion.

The Food and Drug Administration was tasked with gathering public input and developing rules implementing the law. That process took several years as industry groups sought to weaken the rules and delay implementation. Finally, the rules were set to go into effect on May 5, seven years after the law had passed. Instead, on May 4 - the day before the rules were to take effect - the FDA published a notice that it was delaying the rule and inviting a new round of public comments.

The delay creates more confusion about what cities can and cannot do. New York has decided to go ahead and implement its own local regulations that closely match the federal law. Seattle, one of the first cities in the country to require chain restaurants to post information about the nutritional content of meals, is now in limbo.

Hilary Karasz, a spokesperson for the King County Health Department, said the county, which includes Seattle, stopped enforcing the local rules several years ago after the national law was passed. Now, she says, "we are waiting to see how it all settles out."

On June 7, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the National Consumers League, two Washington-based nonprofit groups, announced they were suing the FDA in federal court for again delaying enforcement of the seven-year-old restaurant menu labeling law.

Dr. William Paul, the health director for metropolitan Nashville, has been trying to address this issue for years. In 2008, Nashville, like most cities, was contending with exploding rates of obesity and diabetes from people consuming too much fat, sugar and calories and getting too little exercise. He proposed a regulation that would make Nashville the first city in the south to require chain restaurants to display calorie counts on their menus so patrons would know what they were getting.

"We wanted to make it easier for people to eat healthier," Paul said. "Menu labeling was one strategy to let families make choices for themselves about what they were going to eat."

The board held public hearings, conducted polls that showed strong support for the measure, and passed the measure 4-1. But before it had even passed, legislation was introduced in the state legislature stripping local health boards of the authority to pass such a measure. Two months later, the measure passed and Nashville's menu-labeling regulation was dead.

The debate did at least provoke conversation and raise some awareness about the important of people thinking about what they eat and drink, says Paul. But it also taught him another lesson.

"Industry has a lot of power and they're willing to use it," he said. "And they don't always have the health and safety of consumers as their main driver."

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Soda And Fast Food Lobbyists Push State Preemption Laws To Prevent Local Regulation

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When the city council of Santa Fe, New Mexico, placed a measure on the local ballot to tax sugary drinks earlier this year, the soda industry responded quickly, pouring $1.3 million into the anti-tax campaign. To cover their bases, industry lobbyists also pursued a back-up plan: they backed a bill in the state legislature to strip local governments of the power to levy such taxes.

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Newsela | Report shows that teens are drinking less soda, but more sports drinks

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Who Killed the American Diet : Fred Zimmerman at TEDxGunnHighSchool 2013

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NEW YORK -- Beginning a day of protests that organizers say will spread to 50 cities and 1,000 stores across the country, a crowd of chanting workers gathered Thursday morning at a McDonald's in midtown Manhattan to call for higher wages and the chance to join a union.

About 500 people, including workers, activists, religious leaders, news crews and local politicians, gathered outside the McDonald's on Fifth Avenue. The protesters chanted "Si Se Puede" ("Yes, We Can") and "Hey, hey, ho, ho $7.25 has got to go," holding signs saying "On Strike: Can't Survive on $7.25," referring to the federal minimum wage.

The protesters plan to spread out to other stores throughout New York during the day. Protests are also expected in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., and other cities.
PROTEST QUIZ: The numbers behind the friction
Meanwhile, the Employment Policies Institute, a Washington-based think tank, has placed a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal with a picture of a robot making what looks like pancakes. It explains that restaurants have to reduce their costs of service to keep prices low, which might mean switching to robots if wages get too high.

"Why Robots Could Soon Replace Fast Food Workers Demanding a Higher Minimum Wage," the ad reads.

The fast-food protests began in New York on Nov. 29. There have been three protests in New York since then, and they have spread to Chicago and other cities. Thursday's protest is to mark the first for fast-food workers in Los Angeles and other cities.

"This is our fourth strike in New York, and now we have 50 cities striking with us," said Tyeisha Batts, 27, one of the protesters, who has worked in fast food for six years. "I'm ready for a change."

The protests come as more workers in blue- and white-collar jobs begin to agitate for better working conditions. But the fast-food protests are unique because they are not targeting one employer or company, but a whole industry. In Chicago, for instance, workers are expected to strike at Wendy's, Subway and McDonald's outlets. In New York, they're to be at Wendy's, McDonald's and Burger King.

Derrick Langley, 27, stood in front of the chanting crowds, pointing to scars on his arms that he said came from cleaning the grill in the KFC restaurant where he works; he also has a second-degree burn on his right foot, he said.
'UNREALISTIC'? Experts face off on $15 wage
"They don't seem to care," he said about his employers. "It's horrible how they manage us, how they talk to us, how they treat us. They don't respect us as human."

The fast-food industry used to employ mostly younger people just trying to make some extra money as they went through school. Now, workers are older and depend on the work to feed families. Analysis by the Economic Policies Institute shows that the average age of minimum-wage workers is now 35, and that 88% are 20 and older.

"This morning, I'm out here taking a stand for all the fast-food workers around the world," Langley said. "If you're not going to stand up for yourselves, we will."
ALSO: Fast-food workers again protest for higher wages Workers, buoyed by election results, are taking a stand As employers push efficiency, the daily grind wears down workers

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National fast-food wage protests kick off in New York

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NEW YORK -- Beginning a day of protests that organizers say will spread to 50 cities and 1,000 stores across the country, a crowd of chanting workers gathered Thursday morning at a McDonald's in midtown Manhattan to call for higher wages and the chance to join a union.

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Scott Olson/Getty Images

Panera Bread has definitely been at the forefront of the "fast casual" movement. It started as a small brick-and-mortar cookie store in Boston in 1980 (that went on to join forces with Au Bon Pain and St. Louis Brad Company), and now has over 2,300 bakery-cafes across the U.S. and Canada. The brand has always promoted itself as having healthier, customizable options, and its recent emphasis has been on guaranteeing only "clean foods," which according to the restaurant chain's website translates to "no artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavors and no colors from artificial sources."

But does "clean" always equate to "fresh?" In the case of Panera, not necessarily. It's understandable that a company serving a uniform set of menu items on this grand of a scale has to get crafty with efficient mass production. In other words, some use of a freezer is inevitable - just because the completed sandwich they serve isn't thawed, that doesn't meant the ingredients they used to make it weren't. Here's a rundown of the foods served at Panera that might not be as fresh as you thought they were.

Bread dough

While it is true that the crew at Panera does bake their bread on site, the dough isn't actually made from scratch at that same dine-in location. Prepared dough actually arrives every day via truck from a source close to the restaurant, and it may or may not be frozen.

According to a former employee who spoke to Refinery 29 about her experience slinging sandwiches at the chain, frozen dough came "from a town about an hour away" from the Panera where she worked (though the editors did note that some Panera policies and practices have changed since then). Similar claims were made by a Redditor claiming to be a former Panera manager for the chain, who confirmed the dough came already prepared. "Dough is sent fresh nightly from a regional facility and baked fresh every night for the next day," they said.

Maybe it's frozen, maybe it's not, but assuming the dough is frozen as soon as it's kneaded to perfection, that's about as fresh as you can get for bread at a restaurant like this... just still not completely fresh.

Coffee cake and cupcakes

If you're a cake purist and want it from a bakery that's serving up a masterpiece they've created from the initial creaming of butter and sugar to the presenting of the iced final product on a platter for your gawking, you might not find what you need at Panera. Cakes, whether it's of the coffee variety or the traditional what-you-picture-when-you-picture-cake form, are not made in-house at the bakery-cafe.

An alleged Panera employee shared on a Reddit thread, "Cupcakes and coffee cake are definitely just thawed..." So the worker is confirming that not only are these items not made on-site but, they're also not even baked on-site. Unlike the bread, which goes from dough to bread in the restaurant's ovens, the coffee cakes and cupcakes are just thawed from a frozen state. Not sure if freezing cake batter in order to cook it somewhere else is even a thing, but if it is, Panera isn't doing it, so you might want to get your fresh cupcake fix elsewhere.

Soup

No matter what Panera soup is your favorite, it's safe to say that it has 100 percent been frozen prior to your consumption. In a Reddit AMA started by a supposed ex-Panera worker, the soup's un-fresh status was confirmed when the Redditor said, "The soups are made at a factory/plant/etc, flash-frozen, shipped to us, and we thaw it out in what's called a thermalizer, essentially a soup-thawer." In the another thread, a Panera insider claiming to be a former manager at the chain claimed, "Everything except the bread and produce is basically precooked. They have a company that makes the soups and then they get sent frozen." And yet another former employee who spoke to Refinery 29 described the restaurant's soup protocol as, "Soup arrived in giant bricks that were heated in a hot water bath in the back of the house."

Brick or no brick, the soup at Panera is pretty legit so even if they're not whipping it up from scratch in a giant pot in the back prior to serving, it doesn't seem to affect the taste too much.

Oatmeal

Oatmeal is usually a safe bet from a fast-casual chain if you're looking for a grab-and-go breakfast that's pretty hard to screw up. The Panera oatmeal might not be the best choice, however. Just like several other items on the menu, it arrives at the restaurant pre-cooked and frozen. For what it's worth though, the nuts and strawberries you can add to the oatmeal are indeed fresh.

The oatmeal's lack of freshness might be more obvious than the company realizes. A TripAdvisor reviewer who didn't take too kindly to their order of Panera's steel cut oatmeal wrote, "The oatmeal was basically a clump, dry mess. Never in my life had I ever had something like this from ANY restaurant claiming to offer oatmeal. I mean, come on. Even Starbuck's and Peet's Coffee can get this right. I'd try something other than oatmeal for breakfast at this place." Is the practice of freezing, defrosting, and then reheating affecting the quality and taste of Panera's oatmeal that much? When a recipe contains little more than oats and water, it's hard to imagine another culprit.

Pretty much all the other baked goods

Welp, things are definitely not looking very fresh on the pastry and baked goods front at Panera. Another former employee spilled some secrets to MyRecipes in 2017 and revealed that pretty much any baked good that isn't bread or a bagel is simply thawed or reheated at the restaurant, not made or baked there. The Panera crew alum said, "Panera Bread likes to tout how their products are all freshly baked by trained staff. In reality, a large amount of the bakery products come in frozen and are tossed in the oven when needed... the majority of goods in the bakery case were created elsewhere, shipped in a freezer, and reheated."

The name of the restaurant is Panera Bread, not Panera Bakery, so maybe we should cut them some slack on the ol' no-pastries-made-from-scratch front. Does the fact that their cookie dough is made elsewhere make their cookies any less delicious? Not in our book.

Some salad toppings and sandwich meats

In a thread complaining about how overpriced Panera is, a Redditor saying they'd previously been a manager at the chain jumped in to defend their former employer, saying, "Panera is overpriced for sure, but their foods have no preservatives and are definitely higher quality than any other fast foods..." The former worker went on to specify exactly which ingredients come frozen - and it's actually ones you might have as part of your salad fixings or on your sandwich. The Redditor wrote, "Some foods come frozen, but are high quality in terms of ingredient sourcing... toasted turkey, steak, edamame, corn, etc."

While the meat in the sandwiches might have been previously frozen, it's worth noting that the sandwiches are still always made fresh. Another alleged former Panera worker chimed in on the thread to validate that, writing, "... all hot sandwiches at Panera are assembled to order and then pressed on a panini grill."

And as for salads, much of the produce, such as avocado, romaine, kale, and spring greens, comes in fresh daily, so that's comforting. But is it even possible to freeze lettuce? If it was, Panera just might try it.

Feta cheese

Speaking of salad toppings, there is one in particular that you might want to steer clear of at Panera. Feta cheese is apparently not the chain's strong suit. A proclaimed former Panera worker started an AMA thread on Reddit and had this to say when someone asked about what to never order: "Anything with feta. I have accidentally served multiple customers moldy feta because I thought a piece of gorgonzola just slipped its way in... and then another piece... and then... the bottom of the pan is blue/green!" Say no more, this was enough to convince us to always ask them to hold the feta when we're ordering at Panera.

Thankfully the menu items are all customizable, and the risk of moldy cheese is definitely a reason to take advantage of that flexibility. Frozen instead of fresh is one thing, but mold is about as far from fresh as it gets.

Mac and cheese

Panera serves up some legit mac and cheese variations but to be clear, those variations are prepared by an off-site chef and not in the actual restaurant where you dine or take out your cheese-laden carbs. In a Reddit thread AMA started by someone who says they're a current Panera worker, we learned the skinny on the cheesy mac: "The mac and cheese for example comes into the store premade and frozen in a bag and it is heated either in boiling water or the microwave if need be." And a former Panera employee who spoke to Refinery 29 also confirmed that the mac and cheese shows up frozen in "individually portioned bags."

Okay, so the savory pasta side dish here isn't made in the kitchen behind the counter where you order. But what is this, Italy? Considering that this is a country that buys cheap macaroni and cheese in a box with dry noodles and powdered cheese, is Panera's mac and cheese not being made fresh in their kitchens really that big of a deal? We think not.

Lemonade and green tea

When thinking about what is and isn't fresh at a restaurant, you don't tend to factor in beverages. Panera may make you think twice about that, though. A contributor to MyRecipes who used to work at Panera explained, "You might end up disturbingly close to sipping mold if you order lemonade or green tea from one of the circulating drink dispensers (usually kept behind the counter). While the drink station's soda machine and tea dispensers are cleaned nightly, the lemonade and green tea dispensers are cleaned maybe monthly. This being the case, black mold builds up between the dispensing tube and the cooling system." Double yuck.

The former employee went on to say that while the mold might not technically be touching the liquid you drink, its proximity to the actual beverage is still extremely icky and questionable. Lesson learned - definitely be mindful of ordering your beverage from the drink machines behind the counter if you want to ensure it's fresh (AKA "not moldy") fare.

The eggs are legit though

It's worth pointing out, despite a lengthy list of menu items that maybe aren't as fresh as you think, Panera does have one item that is perhaps a restaurant novelty when you're talking about freshness. It does not mess around when it comes to eggs. In fact, it "petitioned the FDA to establish a clear definition for the term 'egg'" when it's listed on a menu. According to a 2018 press release from the restaurant chain, "Panera's standard sandwiches feature '100 percent real eggs,' which at Panera, means freshly prepared, cracked shell eggs and/or egg whites with no additives."

The reason Panera is so uppity about its eggs is because it researched other top restaurant chains and discovered that several were claiming to serve fresh eggs when in reality the "eggs" in their products had "at least five ingredients, often more." We salute Panera's mission to #RespectTheEgg (their hashtag, not ours), and definitely give them props for calling out other places for their faux egg concoctions. Now when will they start labeling menu items as "previously frozen"?

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Food At Panera That Isn't As Fresh As You Think

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When you visit Panera, do you expect all their bread, baked goods, soup, mac and cheese, and other menu items to be freshly prepared? Do you expect drink machines to be free of mold? If the answer is yes, you'll want to learn which foods Panera is serving up that aren't nearly as fresh as you think.

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If You Eat Fast Food, THIS Happens To Your Body

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Credit Credit iStock

The sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to play down the link between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as the culprit instead, newly released historical documents show.

The internal sugar industry documents, recently discovered by a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, and published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, suggest that five decades of research into the role of nutrition and heart disease, including many of today's dietary recommendations, may have been largely shaped by the sugar industry.

"They were able to derail the discussion about sugar for decades," said Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at U.C.S.F. and an author of the JAMA Internal Medicine paper.

The documents show that a trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 in today's dollars to publish a 1967 review of research on sugar, fat and heart disease. The studies used in the review were handpicked by the sugar group, and the article, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, minimized the link between sugar and heart health and cast aspersions on the role of saturated fat.

Even though the influence-peddling revealed in the documents dates back nearly 50 years, more recent reports show that the food industry has continued to influence nutrition science.

Last year, an article in The New York Times revealed that Coca-Cola, the world's largest producer of sugary beverages, had provided millions of dollars in funding to researchers who sought to play down the link between sugary drinks and obesity. In June, The Associated Press reported that candy makers were funding studies that claimed that children who eat candy tend to weigh less than those who do not.

The Harvard scientists and the sugar executives with whom they collaborated are no longer alive. One of the scientists who was paid by the sugar industry was D. Mark Hegsted, who went on to become the head of nutrition at the United States Department of Agriculture, where in 1977 he helped draft the forerunner to the federal government's dietary guidelines. Another was Dr. Fredrick J. Stare, the chairman of Harvard's nutrition department.

In a statement responding to the JAMA journal report, the Sugar Association said that the 1967 review was published at a time when medical journals did not typically require researchers to disclose funding sources. The New England Journal of Medicine did not begin to require financial disclosures until 1984.

The industry "should have exercised greater transparency in all of its research activities," the Sugar Association statement said. Even so, it defended industry-funded research as playing an important and informative role in scientific debate. It said that several decades of research had concluded that sugar "does not have a unique role in heart disease."

The revelations are important because the debate about the relative harms of sugar and saturated fat continues today, Dr. Glantz said. For many decades, health officials encouraged Americans to reduce their fat intake, which led many people to consume low-fat, high-sugar foods that some experts now blame for fueling the obesity crisis.

"It was a very smart thing the sugar industry did, because review papers, especially if you get them published in a very prominent journal, tend to shape the overall scientific discussion," he said.

Dr. Hegsted used his research to influence the government's dietary recommendations, which emphasized saturated fat as a driver of heart disease while largely characterizing sugar as empty calories linked to tooth decay. Today, the saturated fat warnings remain a cornerstone of the government's dietary guidelines, though in recent years the American Heart Association, the World Health Organization and other health authorities have also begun to warn that too much added sugar may increase cardiovascular disease risk.

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, wrote an editorial accompanying the new paper in which she said the documents provided "compelling evidence" that the sugar industry had initiated research "expressly to exonerate sugar as a major risk factor for coronary heart disease."

"I think it's appalling," she said. "You just never see examples that are this blatant."

Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, said that academic conflict-of-interest rules had changed significantly since the 1960s, but that the industry papers were a reminder of "why research should be supported by public funding rather than depending on industry funding."

Dr. Willett said the researchers had limited data to assess the relative risks of sugar and fat. "Given the data that we have today, we have shown the refined carbohydrates and especially sugar-sweetened beverages are risk factors for cardiovascular disease, but that the type of dietary fat is also very important," he said.

The JAMA Internal Medicine paper relied on thousands of pages of correspondence and other documents that Cristin E. Kearns, a postdoctoral fellow at U.C.S.F., discovered in archives at Harvard, the University of Illinois and other libraries.

The documents show that in 1964, John Hickson, a top sugar industry executive, discussed a plan with others in the industry to shift public opinion "through our research and information and legislative programs."

At the time, studies had begun pointing to a relationship between high-sugar diets and the country's high rates of heart disease. At the same time, other scientists, including the prominent Minnesota physiologist Ancel Keys, were investigating a competing theory that it was saturated fat and dietary cholesterol that posed the biggest risk for heart disease.

Mr. Hickson proposed countering the alarming findings on sugar with industry-funded research. "Then we can publish the data and refute our detractors," he wrote.

In 1965, Mr. Hickson enlisted the Harvard researchers to write a review that would debunk the anti-sugar studies. He paid them a total of $6,500, the equivalent of $49,000 today. Mr. Hickson selected the papers for them to review and made it clear he wanted the result to favor sugar.

Harvard's Dr. Hegsted reassured the sugar executives. "We are well aware of your particular interest," he wrote, "and will cover this as well as we can."

As they worked on their review, the Harvard researchers shared and discussed early drafts with Mr. Hickson, who responded that he was pleased with what they were writing. The Harvard scientists had dismissed the data on sugar as weak and given far more credence to the data implicating saturated fat.

"Let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind, and we look forward to its appearance in print," Mr. Hickson wrote.

After the review was published, the debate about sugar and heart disease died down, while low-fat diets gained the endorsement of many health authorities, Dr. Glantz said.

"By today's standards, they behaved very badly," he said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Sugar Backers Paid to Shift Blame to Fat. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

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The sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to play down the link between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as the culprit instead, newly released historical documents show.

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The maker of Snickers, M&Ms, and Skittles has built a global conglomerate on sugar. The privately held Mars Incorporated let it be known earlier this year that it hopes to double its $35 billion annual revenue over the next decade, reportedly through expansion in pet food and other areas. But for now, confectionery treats are a main business, which could be why the company spent more than $2 million, in 2018 and early 2019, lobbying Congress around the federal government's nutrition advice, among other food policy issues. Of course, it's also possible Mars has a more socially responsible motive, which I'll get to in a minute.

Why the food industry cares about the Dietary Guidelines...

In general, processed food and beverage companies have an intense interest in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the nation's leading set of science-based nutrition recommendations. This federal dietary advice is revised every five years to reflect the best available science, and it informs healthy eating decisions for consumers and, most significantly, guides federal nutrition programs that serve millions of children, parents, seniors, and veterans every day.

The process to develop the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans is now underway. And while this is a rigorous process that tends to produce strong and relatively consistent guidelines ( with some exceptions), that doesn't stop the food industry from trying to influence them through various channels.

...and what companies hope the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines won't say.

The disclosure forms lobbyists are legally required to file with the House and Senate every quarter provide a window into who is seeking to influence the Dietary Guidelines. But without being behind the closed doors of those meetings, we have to imagine what kinds of advice Big Food companies and their lobbyists would rather we didn't hear from the federal government's nutrition experts. Here's some of the science-based recommendations I suspect many of Big Food's lobbyists don't want included in the next iteration of the Dietary Guidelines:

Eat processed meat rarely. According to new UCS analysis of processed meat intake and colorectal cancer risk, that could mean something like half a hot dog per week-or for those of us who don't eat hot dogs in increments, no more than one every other week. But such moderation wouldn't be good for big meat processors and their lobby groups, including the Livestock Marketing Association, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the National Chicken Council, the National Pork Producers Council, Smithfield Foods, the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, and the United States Cattlemen's Association. Those groups collectively spent $4.5 million lobbying Congress on issues including the Dietary Guidelines during the two-year process of updating them for 2015. So far this cycle, the main processed meat player appears to be Hormel Foods Corporation, maker of the inimitable Spam canned meat, which has already plunked down $740,000 on such lobbying between January 2018 and March 2019.

Drink less soda. By our analysis, the government should consider lowering the Dietary Guidelines added sugar limit to reflect adults' average calorie needs, and provide age-specific recommendations for kids. One good way to help people cut back on sugar and reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes, among other conditions? Continue to recommend that people drink less soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages. But soda makers Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, along with their industry lobby group (the American Beverage Association, or ABA), spent a combined $23.8 million on related lobbying in 2014-2015. Since the beginning of 2018, the ABA has shouldered the burden, racking up $1.68 million in lobbying expenses, joined by Red Bull North America at $320,000.

For infants, breastfeeding is best. For the first time, the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines will include recommendations specifically for infants and toddlers. Clear, science-based advice to breastfeed whenever possible would be a problem for leading infant formula-maker Nestlé S.A. (also the world's largest food company). Known for its long, troubling history pushing formula on new moms, the company reorganized its infant nutrition business in 2017, listing the area as a priority for growth. Since the beginning of 2018, Nestlé has spent $1.58 million, at least in part, presumably, to ensure that growth isn't hampered by the Dietary Guidelines.

So why are they lobbying Congress?

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)-and specifically, the secretaries of those federal departments-set the Dietary Guidelines, appointing a Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) to review the science and present them evidence-based recommendations. (Here's a backgrounder on the process.)

Yet as that process was ongoing five years ago, food and beverage companies and trade associations were lobbying Congress aggressively. Quarterly disclosure forms filed by such groups during 2014-2015 show more than $77 million in lobbying activities directed at Congress, on issues including the Dietary Guidelines. (Note that it's impossible to say exactly how much of that lobbying effort was specific to the guidelines, as lobbyists lump various issues on each quarterly disclosure form filed with Congress. But it's the best indicator we've got.)

There's a reason companies and industry groups expend time and money lobbying Congress, even when legislators aren't officially the decisionmakers-because once in a while it works. Take the Dietary Guidelines sustainability debate in 2015. Then, the DGAC took a forward-looking approach, spelling out the sizeable environmental side benefits that healthy, plant-based eating can have, and recommending that the final Dietary Guidelines include that advice. Of course, that didn't sit well with the meat lobby, and after they gave Congress an earful...sure enough, those recommendations disappeared.

(An intriguing development: After Congress essentially barred the prior administration from considering sustainability issues as part of the Dietary Guidelines, the topic list the agencies prepared for its new expert DGAC doesn't include those issues, and DGAC members have been instructed that it's not part of their charge. Still, some Big Food companies- including Mars and Nestle-are, surprisingly, advocating for consideration of the environmental impacts of our dietary choices once again. UCS is all for that, of course, as we said back in 2015, and it will be interesting to see where it goes.)

Who else is Big Food lobbying?

Of course, the food industry's lobbying surely isn't limited to Congress. It's just that their visits to Capitol Hill are the only ones we can document easily, with publicly available, if imperfect, data as indicated above. It's a reasonable assumption that many of these companies are lobbying Trump administration officials directly about the Dietary Guidelines, even though we don't have documents to prove it. And these industries surely have a ready ear in the USDA and HHS secretaries. I think it's fair to say that big corporations and industry groups of all kinds have no bigger friend than the Trump administration. Whether coal companies, oil companies, big automakers, pesticide makers, or big poultry conglomerates, this administration has rewarded them all, giving each more or less exactly what it has asked for.

Now to be clear, past industry lobbying hasn't been able to substantially subvert the Dietary Guidelines, which have mostly remained strong and science based. But with the current administration, I'm more concerned. After all, former food industry lobbyists are now staffing the USDA through a revolving door that only sped up with the Trump administration. As USDA staff geared up for the Dietary Guidelines update early in the administration, they were led by former snack food and corn syrup lobbyist Kailee Tkacz (now the chief of staff to the USDA deputy secretary).

For the record, Tkacz herself lobbied on the Dietary Guidelines on behalf of global snack foods trade association SNAC International back in 2014-15 (SNAC spent $340,000 then). Now, her successors are making the rounds in Congress-SNAC has invested $440,000 just since the beginning of 2018.

What happens now?

As of now, it isn't clear whether food industry lobbying-whether in the halls of Congress or directly with the Trump administration-will undermine the next Dietary Guidelines. For the moment, the scientific review is in the hands of the 20 experts on the DGAC, which will hold a series of public meetings (the next one on July 11-12) before presenting its recommendations to the USDA and HHS secretaries around the middle of 2020. What the agencies choose to include-or leave out-when they translate these scientific recommendations to a set of final guidelines by the end of 2020 may tell us if and how industry made its mark.

In the intervening months, it will be up to us, as eaters and taxpayers, to tell the administration they must resist industry lobbying, publish guidelines that prioritize public health, and invest in strategies to address systemic barriers to healthier diets. For more information, see our new report, Delivering on the Dietary Guidelines, and stay tuned for a comment guide you can use to weigh in.

Posted in: Food and Agriculture Tags: added sugar, Big Food, Dietary Guidelines 2020-2025, Dietary Guidelines for Americans, food industry, infant formula, lobbying, processed meat, USDA

Support from UCS members make work like this possible. Will you join us? Help UCS advance independent science for a healthy environment and a safer world.

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"Big Food" Companies Spend Big Money in Hopes of Shaping the Dietary Guidelines for Americans

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The maker of Snickers, M&Ms, and Skittles has built a global conglomerate on sugar. The privately held Mars Incorporated let it be known earlier this year that it hopes to double its $35 billion annual revenue over the next decade, reportedly through expansion in pet food and other areas.

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Common American Foods That Are Banned In Other Countries

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Be honest: how much do you really think about the companies you're buying fast food from? Have you ever wondered about the cleanliness of your local McDonalds, about who's picking all those fruit and vegetables (and how much they're getting paid), or about what happens to your garbage after your throw it out?

Are you really getting what you think you're getting? Are the profits they're making off you going to good use? When you make choices and purchases because you think you're doing the right and the responsible thing... would you want to know if it's not so clear cut?

Fast food companies are like any other big corporation - there are some skeletons in those closets. Sure, no one is perfect and success often comes at a price, but considering customers are the ones paying, you should be aware of just what you're supporting and what secrets these fast food favorites have tried to keep safe behind closed doors.

Most fast food coffee cups aren't recycled

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Sometimes, you just need a hot cup of coffee to get you through the rest of the day, and you might not think much of swinging through a drive-thru and grabbing one. But here's the thing - in 2018, the BBC estimated that 99.75 percent of those coffee cups don't get recycled.

Statistics are staggering: according to CNN, Starbucks alone went through a whopping 3.85 billion paper cups just in 2017. That's an insane amount of garbage, and even though some chains - like Starbucks and some McDonald's - made the seemingly responsible move of replacing their plastic straws, they're still spitting out a ton of garbage in the form of non-recyclable cups. (Here's another fun fact: those paper straws? It turns out, says the BBC, they're not recyclable, either - they're too thick.)

It's not like they haven't tried, though. It turns out that it's difficult to make a paper cup that will not only hold up to a hot beverage without falling apart or changing the way it tastes, but also be affordable enough to produce in mass quantities. But what about those cups that have the recycle symbol on them? It's true that they are technically recyclable, but most facilities don't have the capability of separating the paper from the plastic lining. And that means most end up in landfills, which is exactly what we don't want.

Panera Bread's food isn't as fresh as you think

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Sometimes, you're just not feeling like a burger that's been sitting under the warmer for an indeterminate amount of time. You might opt to head to Panera Bread for something a little fresher and a little more "homemade," but it turns out that there's a lot at Panera that's not as fresh as you think.

When two former employees spilled the beans to Refinery29 in 2017, they admitted that almost no cooking was done on-site. Soup, mac and cheese, and oatmeal arrived pre-cooked and frozen, and were then heated up in hot water baths. Bread dough arrived frozen, but, they say, they did make their own croutons.

Do some more digging, and you'll find troubling tales told by employees. Those cupcakes and the coffee cake, they say, comes frozen and is thawed at the store... along with pretty much all of those delicious-looking pastries in the bakery counter. Many salad and sandwich toppings come in frozen as well (although employees do stress they're high-quality).

Still other employees say that the green tea and lemonade dispensers might be putting out a product that's showing some signs of age (i.e., mold), too, because they're usually not cleaned as often as some of the other machines. It's all food for thought.

McDonald's fries still aren't vegetarian

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If you're trying to cut meat and meat products out of your diet, grabbing a large fry from McDonald's might seem the way to go. But, unless you're in India, you should know they're not actually vegetarian.

In 2002, McDonald's settled a massive lawsuit, says CBS News. They were sued for mislabeling hash browns and fries as vegetarian, when they were, in fact, prepared with an oil flavored with essence of beef. For a country with a large Hindu population, that was a huge deal. McDonald's issued an apology and $10 million in charitable donations, and they were also sued in the US for the same issue. However, McDonald's responded to the US lawsuit by saying that they never actually claimed their fries were vegetarian in the States, and according to ThoughtCo, they still weren't vegetarian as of 2019.

Way back in ye olde times, McDonald's fries were cooked in lard - which is definitely an animal product. When they switched to vegetable oil, there were a ton of complaints about the taste of the fries. Beef flavor was added to get the same taste fries had before the switch, but that also means that if you're serious about going vegetarian, skip McDonald's fries.

Taco Bell stole that adorable (but offensive) chihuahua

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Ah, Taco Bell - everyone's favorite late-night guilty pleasure. Remember that adorably feisty chihuahua that was their mascot for a long time? Whatever happened to him, anyway?

He was the subject of a massive lawsuit.

The creators of the ad campaign, Joseph Shields and Thomas Rinks, sued for breach of contract after, they claimed, Taco Bell took their idea for the ad campaign and ran with it. According to BusinessWire, the pair developed the concept of "Psycho Chihuahua," then pitched advertising ideas and commercials to Taco Bell. Taco Bell, in turn, broke off contact but still used the character.

They won the lawsuit, after a jury deliberated for just a few hours. Taco Bell was ordered to pay them $30 million, but that wasn't the end of the story. Taco Bell hit back, countersuing with a claim that it was the ad agency's responsibility, not theirs. According to The Seattle Times, it backfired - they were ordered to pay another $12 million in interest on the judgement.

There's a reason fast food restaurants have to call it "soft serve"

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Stop at Dairy Queen, and you'll notice that there's no actual ice cream on the menu - it's called "soft serve." The same term is used at McDonald's and many other fast food chains, so what gives?

It turns out that determining whether or not something is actually ice cream is surprisingly complicated. According to FDA regulations, a product has to contain at least 10 percent milkfat (which is also sometimes called butterfat) in order to earn the right to be called ice cream. Dairy Queen, for example, uses a product that has just 5 percent milkfat for their Blizzards, cones, and sundaes. Strangely, while that means you're not technically getting ice cream, you're getting a product that could be considered "reduced-fat" by those same guidelines... which seems like something they would want to market, but choose to ignore instead.

McDonald's says the same thing about their soft serve, and it's more formally known as different things. It was once called "ice milk", which is now an obsolete designation in the US. "Soft serve" definitely sounds better.

Not everyone thinks Starbucks is Fair Trade-friendly

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Starbucks has touted itself as being Fair Trade-friendly and as supporting the farmers who are actually growing all the coffee we know, love, and couldn't get through a day without. But in 2006, they had a massive falling out with the charity Oxfam. According to The Guardian, Oxfam went as far as to accuse the chain of blocking farmers' attempts at trademarking their coffee beans.

And it's a big deal - by trademarking their coffee, farmers would have more leverage when it came to bargaining with buyers and suppliers. Oxfam director of campaigns Phil Bloomer had harsh words for Starbucks, saying, "Starbucks ... has tied the hands of Ethiopian farmers who produce world-famous coffees, but who are prevented from taking full advantage of this to help work themselves out of poverty."

Starbucks eventually went on to recognize the legitimacy of the names, which the World Intellectual Property Organization says were eventually trademarked... after a dispute that made Starbucks look very, very bad.

Chick-fil-A continued donations to controversial charities

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Chick-fil-A is certainly no stranger to controversy, and in 2007 CEO Dan Cathy took a very vocal stance against gay marriage. He said (via Vox), that the country was "inviting God's judgement on our nation when we shake our fist at him and we say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage." The outrage resulted in an apology from the company promising that they would leave the debate, but that wasn't the whole story.

People were also upset that the Cathy family's charitable organization was donating a ton of money to anti-LGBTQ organizations, including places like Exodus International. At the time, the group was promoting the practice of conversion therapy.

Chick-fil-A also promised to stop donating to anti-gay organizations. But they've continued to do it: financial documents reveal that they've donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (which forbid employees from partaking in "homosexual acts"), the Salvation Army (which has been accused of discrimination), and the Paul Anderson Youth Home (which preaches that gay marriage is a sin).

Chick-fil-A's official rebuttal claims they're only supporting summer camps and gift-giving during the holidays and donations are made without a political agenda. But not everyone is convinced, and naysayers claim that supporting the projects of an organization is to also support their values and teachings.

KFC's secret recipe

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KFC has marketed their 11 herbs and spices recipe as top secret for years, they've teased a big reveal only to back out at the last second, and according to Today, they've even sued people who have stumbled across the recipe. But in 2016, a Chicago Tribune reporter talking to Colonel Sanders' nephew, Joe Ledington, may have stumbled across the real thing and blown the long-standing secret recipe wide open.

The reporter was being shown a family scrapbook when they came across the will of Sanders' second wife. On the back was a list of ingredients. Eleven ingredients, to be precise, and Ledington confirmed that they were, indeed, "the original herbs and spices that were supposed to be so secretive."

What are they? It read: "⅔ Ts salt, ½ Ts thyme, ½ Ts basil, ⅓ Ts oregano, 1 Ts celery salt, 1 Ts black pepper, 1 Ts dried mustard, 4 Ts paprika, 2 Ts garlic salt, 1 Ts ground ginger, 3 Ts white pepper.

It was the last one that was super important, Ledington said, because at the time Sanders was developing his recipes, white pepper wasn't a common ingredient. KFC didn't deny or confirm it was authentic, but not only is the evidence pretty good, but when the Tribune tried to make it, they said it was as close as they'd ever gotten - after they added MSG, which is definitely one of the current ingredients. Secret recipe: yay or nay?

The big problems with McDonald's machines

Scott Olson/Getty Images

People complain on social media. A lot. Sometimes, they have something good to complain about, like the amount of time McDonald's milkshake and McFlurry machines are down. In 2017, The Wall Street Journal decided to get to the bottom of it, and found that not only do the machines require a four-hour-long cleaning cycle to get rid of bacteria that builds up in the system, but getting the machine ready for the cycle is a time-consuming, 11-step process.

Some employees and owners claim the machines don't work that well to begin with, and repairing them is insanely expensive. So, if they're that complicated, do they actually get cleaned as often as they should be? Some employees say "no", including one Louisiana worker who was fired after posting photos of a filthy, moldy drip tray from one machine (via the Huffington Post). It should be noted that, according to McDonald's, that part of the machine does not come into contact with food.

Other employees have said the same about other McDonald's machines. One Redditor claimed customers should never order a McCafe beverage, because the machines are rarely cleaned properly. In all fairness, other employees chimed in and claimed they spent up to 45 minutes a night cleaning their McCafe machine, so it's highly likely this one is down to each individual franchisee. Are you feeling lucky?

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The Biggest Secrets Fast Food Restaurants Tried To Hide

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Fast food companies are like any other big corporation - they have secrets. Sure, no one is perfect and success comes at a price, but considering customers are the ones paying, you should be aware of just what you're supporting and what secrets these fast food favorites have tried to keep safe.

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23 Secrets Fast Food Employees Don't Want You to Know About Your Food

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We've been inside the box, and what we found is scary. Here are the biggest fast food secrets these chain restaurants don't want you to know.

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If you're on a diet or are at least trying to eat healthier, you probably don't frequent fast-food restaurants throughout the day. A typical fast-food menu isn't full of healthy and nutritious items. However, a few fast-food chains recently began to add lighter options to menus, due in part to a requirement that they post calorie counts on menus.

Along with more nutritious items, many restaurants are offering smaller portions. We have seen the under-400 or under-500-calorie menus at locations like Applebee's and Chili's, but many fast-food restaurants are jumping on the bandwagon as well. McDonald's announced it will offer an egg white version of its Egg McMuffin breakfast sandwich, and Burger King will add a turkey burger to its menu.

But according to market research, consumers rarely order off the healthy menu, and restaurant chains would appear to be adding healthy options to make consumers think the restaurant is a healthier option than it really is. Basically, it's a marketing strategy to bring customers to the restaurant. And the restaurants make money from consumers no matter what menu item is ordered.

In a recent Huffington Post article, Darren Tristiano of Technomic, a market research firm, said consumers choose flavor over nutrition when deciding what to eat. In fact, according to the research, only 1 to 2 percent of burger orders are veggie burgers, yet many chains have added these types of items to their menus.

When you weigh the options of having a grilled chicken sandwich with either a burger or fried chicken sandwich at a fast-food chain, how often will you choose the option lower in fat and calories? We appreciate the healthier options, but they usually don't change our decisions.

Contrary to popular belief, these "healthy" menu items are not a significant reduction in calories from the original ones. In fact, the new turkey burger from Burger King has 530 calories, whereas a regular Whopper sandwich has 630 calories and a regular cheeseburger has 280 calories. It doesn't seem like the "healthy" turkey burger is comparatively better than a regular burger.

Knowing that a restaurant offers healthier items places the thought in consumers' minds that it's a healthier place to eat than other restaurants. But when it comes time to order, we rarely order off the "healthy" side of the menu -- and if we do, it's not that much healthier anyway.
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Healthy Fast-Food Menu Items Can Lure and Deceive Consumers

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If you're on a diet or are at least trying to eat healthier, you probably don't frequent fast-food restaurants throughout the day. A typical fast-food menu isn't full of healthy and nutritious items. However, a few fast-food chains recently began to add lighter options to menus, due in part to...

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How bad eating habits are killing Americans

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Newsela | Looks do matter! Chains create foods that photograph well on social media

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McDonald's will soon banish cheeseburgers and chocolate milk from its Happy Meal menu in an effort to cut down on the calories, sodium, saturated fat and sugar that kids consume at its restaurants.

Diners can still ask specifically for cheeseburgers or chocolate milk with the kid's meal, but the fast-food company said that not listing them will reduce how often they're ordered. Since it removed soda from the Happy Meal menu four years ago, orders for it with Happy Meals have fallen 14 percent, the company said.

The Happy Meal has long been a target of health advocates and parents who link it to childhood obesity. McDonald's has made many tweaks over the years, including cutting the size of its fries and adding fruit. Most recently, it swapped out its apple juice for one that has less sugar.

It's been especially important as the company tries to shake its junk-food image, since McDonald's is known for getting more business from families with children relative to its traditional rivals, such as Burger King and Wendy's. The Happy Meal is a key part of that.

The latest changes will occur in the United States by June.

McDonald's said Thursday that it wants all its Happy Meal options to have 600 calories or fewer and have less than 650 milligrams of sodium. It also wants less than 10 percent of the meal's calories to come from saturated fat and added sugar.

The cheeseburger and chocolate milk didn't meet those new standards, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said. It is, however, working to cut sugar from the chocolate milk and believes it'll be back on the Happy Meal menu eventually - but doesn't know when that will happen.

There will be other tweaks: the six-piece chicken nugget Happy Meal will now come with a kids-sized fries instead of a small, lowering calories and sodium from the fries by half. And bottled water will be added as an option to the Happy Meal menu, but will cost extra. Currently, the Happy Meal menu lists milk, chocolate milk and apple juice. Soda does not cost extra.

For international restaurants, McDonald's said that at least half of the Happy Meal options available must meet its new nutritional guidelines. The company said some are adding new menu items to comply, like in Italy, where a grilled chicken sandwich was added to the Happy Meal menu.

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McDonald's slims down the Happy Meals by banishing cheeseburgers and chocolate milk

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McDonald's will soon banish cheeseburgers and chocolate milk from its Happy Meal menu in an effort to cut down on the calories, sodium, saturated fat and sugar that kids consume at its restaurants. Diners can still ask specifically for cheeseburgers or chocolate milk with the kid's meal, but the fast-food company said that not listing them will reduce how often they're ordered.

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Here’s how the American diet has changed in the last 52 years

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AUSTIN, Texas - Getting children to eat their vegetables can seem like an insurmountable task, but nutrition researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have found one way: school gardens and lessons on using what's grown in them.

Researchers worked with 16 elementary schools across Central Texas to install vegetable gardens and teach classes to students and parents about nutrition and cooking. In a study recently published in the International Journal for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, the team describes specifically targeting schools with a high percentage of students on the free and reduced-price lunch program to understand how nutrition programs affect low-income groups. Each school was studied for one academic year.

The study found that students who participated in the gardening, nutrition and cooking classes ate, on average, a half serving more vegetables per day than they did before the program.

"A lot of the families in these schools live with food insecurity. They live in food deserts and face a higher risk of childhood obesity and related health issues," said Jaimie Davis, associate professor of nutritional sciences at UT Austin and the lead author of the paper. "Teaching kids where their food comes from, how to grow it, how to prepare it - that's key to changing eating behaviors over the long term."

In addition to tracking what the children ate, the study looked at weight, body mass index and blood pressure. During the nine months of the study, there were no statistically significant changes in those measures of health. The study involved more than 3,000 students in the third through fifth grades.

Although a half serving increase in vegetable consumption per day may seem like a small change, it's extremely encouraging to Davis and her colleagues.

"Behavior changes can be difficult to achieve, especially long term," Davis said. "Changes to health parameters like blood pressure may take longer to manifest. Getting children to eat more vegetables can potentially set them up for long-term success."

Previous studies have shown that increased fruit and vegetable consumption can promote health and lower the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. More fruits and vegetables may play a role in reduced obesity in adults, but the effects have not been well studied in children.

"We have been able to introduce children to a wide variety of vegetables that they've never had access to," Davis said. "Parents I talk with ask, 'How did you get my kid to eat kale?' But when they grow the kale from seed and learn how to prepare it in olive oil and bake it into kale chips, they love it."

Adriana Pérez, Brian Fischer, Deanna M. Hoelscher and Alexandra E. van den Berg of the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living at the UT Health Science Center at Houston; Fiona M. Asigbee, Matthew J. Landry, Sarvenaz Vandyousefi, Reem Ghaddar, Amy Hoover, Matthew Jeans and Katie Nikah of The University of Texas at Austin; Stephen J. Pont of the Department of Pediatrics at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin; and Daphne Richards of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, Travis County also contributed to the research.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Whole Kids Foundation, Home Depot, and Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation gave funding for garden construction and enhancements.

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School Gardens Linked With Kids Eating More Vegetables - UT News

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AUSTIN, Texas - Getting children to eat their vegetables can seem like an insurmountable task, but nutrition researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have found one way: school gardens and lessons on using what's grown in them.

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Obesity Gaining Ground around the world 

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Obesity Gaining Ground around the world 

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Healthful snacks for kids keep hunger at bay while providing rich nutrition for growing, active bodies. Examples include yogurt, fruits, and raw vegetables.

Opting for healthful snacks can provide a variety of benefits, such as boosting the overal intake of nutrition if a child is not consuming enough vitamins in their main meals.

Below, find snack ideas for school, parties, car trips, the movie theater, and every day.

A 2019 study found that healthful snacks can boost the overall quality of a child's diet. These snacks are rich in nutrients and contain little fat, sugar, or salt.

Fruits and vegetables, for example, are nutrient-dense foods that can make excellent quick, convenient snacks. A child might snack on:

carrot sticks

celery sticks

cucumber slices

cherry tomatoes

Other healthful snacks might include:

protein from peanut butter, chickpeas, or edamame

unsweetened dairy products such as milk, cheese, cottage cheese, or yogurt

whole grain foods such as whole grain crackers, whole wheat bread, or air-popped popcorn

Snacks to avoid include processed foods. A 2015 study found that processed snacks contribute to childhood obesity, as they contain high amounts of added sugar and salt and are low in nutrients and fiber.

Examples of unhealthful snacks include:

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) report that most children need to eat every 3-4 hours to meet their energy needs. This means that aside from three meals a day, younger children need at least two snacks, and older children need at least one.

Snacks for school should not need to be refrigerated. They might be:

fruits with sturdy peels, such as oranges, apples, bananas, grapes, and plums

vegetables, such as baby carrots and cherry tomatoes

whole grain crackers

whole grain granola bars that are low in sugar

roasted chickpeas

Some convenient options might be:

whole grain crackers with cheese

applesauce

celery sticks filled with almond butter

apple slices topped with peanut butter

baked whole grain tortilla chips with salsa

parfaits with layers of low-fat yogurt, fruit chunks, and whole grain cereal

The AND recommend that children eat at the table as much as possible, instead of in front of the television. More generally, research investigating snacking patterns in kids discovered that an increase in screen time was linked with a lower-quality food intake.

The AND recommend:

homemade pita bread with hummus

melon slices in fun shapes

whole grain tortilla chips with guacamole, salsa, or bean dip

trail mix, which might contain nuts, dried fruit, and whole grain cereal

a tray of different-colored fruits and vegetables with hummus or a yogurt dip

On a trip without a cooler in the car, a person might offer snacks suitable for school, such as:

easy-peel fruits

whole-grain crackers

carrot sticks

If a person has a cooler, they might also pack:

low-fat string cheese

yogurt

hummus to eat with whole grain crackers or vegetables

The Department of Health and Human Services recommend:

Smoothies: Blend milk or a milk alternative and yogurt with berries and bananas or other fruit.

Quesadillas: Melt low-fat cheese over black beans on a whole grain tortilla, and fold the tortilla in half.

Mini pizzas: Top half of a whole wheat English muffin with pasta sauce, chopped vegetables, and low-fat cheese. Warm it in the oven.

Ants on a log: Fill celery sticks with peanut butter, and top it with raisins.

Popcorn trail mix: Mix air-popped popcorn with healthful trail mix.

Healthful snacks are nutrient-dense, and some examples include chopped fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grain bread or crackers, and unsweetened dairy products.

Snacks to avoid high in sugar, salt, and fat. Examples include processed foods, such as packaged cookies and chips.

When life allows for a little planning, a child can have healthful snacks even at parties, on trips, and at the movies.

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What are some healthy and delicious snacks for kids?

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Healthful snacks for kids keep hunger at bay while providing rich nutrition for growing, active bodies. Examples include yogurt, fruits, and raw vegetables. Opting for healthful snacks can provide a variety of benefits, such as boosting the overal intake of nutrition if a child is not consuming enough vitamins in their main meals.

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Federal law specifies school nutrition standards, but there is no national standard on how much time kids get to eat lunch. (iStock)

The scene was the same every day at Deb Shell's house in Berkeley, Calif. She would send her three children to elementary school with packed lunches, and they would come home with their lunch bags almost completely full. Shell started talking to other parents and learned that the Berkeley Unified School District had cut lunchtime at some schools to add additional instructional minutes to the classroom. Many kids were going through the day hungry.

When Shell and other parents went to observe lunch, they saw that the problem was even worse for students who had to stand in line for their meals. The students are supposed to have 20 minutes to eat, but they often have only 15, Shell said. "We heard the [ending] lunch bell ring, and there were still 18 kids outside who hadn't been served," she said. "They got their food and dumped it right in the trash and were dismissed for recess. It was heart-wrenching to watch elementary-aged kids not eat and infuriating to see the food wasted."

In June, Shell started a petition on Change.org to get lunchtime extended at her kids' school. Since then, she has collected more than 1,300 signatures.

Berkeley is one of the only school districts in the country to institute a comprehensive garden and cooking program, thanks in part to the advocacy efforts of food activist and chef Alice Waters. But in a district where students grow their own "weedos," a wrap made of herbs and vegetables, many of them do not have time to eat them.

"It's becoming a stressful, almost traumatic experience when kids go into the lunchroom," said Angela McKee-Brown, director of education for the Edible Schoolyard Project, a nonprofit founded by Waters that works with more than 5,500 garden and education programs worldwide. "When you think about it, the cafeteria is the one place that kids of all backgrounds and abilities get to be in community with each other."

Berkeley students spend a good deal of time learning where food comes from, but lunch appears to be teaching them more about fast food - or at least quickly consumed food - than anything else. "We're investing all this time and resources about the beautiful nature of food, and you go into the cafeteria and you're constrained by time," McKee-Brown said.

Superintendent Brent Stephens declined to comment on the lunch issues in the district, other than to say that administrators plan to work this fall to understand what can be done to improve the experience for students. Bonnie Christensen, the district's director of nutrition services, confirmed that food is being wasted since the district added instructional minutes and shortened some schools' lunch periods.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 was a signature initiative of former first lady Michelle Obama, and the program made school lunches healthier than the corn dogs and tater tots of a generation ago. School meals must be lower in fat and salt, contain lean protein, and offer fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Lunches also have requirements about the minimum and maximum number of calories, but there is no national standard on how much time kids get to eat that meal. Instead, it is left to the discretion of local districts.

But the length of the school lunch period is a key factor in how much nutrition children actually get, said Juliana Cohen, assistant professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Merrimack College. Her research shows that students who get less than 20 minutes for lunch consume significantly less of their meal than children who have more time. At Berkeley, getting through the line takes so long that some students have just four minutes to eat their entire lunch.

Often, the time restrictions hit the neediest kids hardest, Cohen said. "Low-income children rely on school meals for half their daily energy intake," she said.

The Trump administration's recent proposal to cut 3 million people from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would probably make it even more difficult for poor children to get enough food, Cohen said. "With vulnerable children potentially losing SNAP benefits, they will likely need to rely even more on school meals," she said. "It is even more important that these children have sufficient time to eat."

The SNAP cuts could also mean that 500,000 kids could lose automatic eligibility for free lunches, House Democrats have warned.

Parents who can afford it sometimes spare their children long waits in lunch lines by packing food for them. But brown-bag lunches are often filled with more snacks and junk food than what is offered by meal programs, Cohen said. And research shows that children who eat healthier foods learn better and have fewer disciplinary issues, she said.

Last year, the federal government spent $13.8 billion on free, reduced-price and full price lunches, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA does not regulate the time for lunch, but spokesman Jack Currie said that "the regulations do encourage local entities to set meal periods that provide adequate time for both the meal to be served and for students to consume meals, to increase the adequacy of student intakes and minimize plate waste."

For now, it is up to districts to set how much time students get for lunch. Parents who are pushing for longer lunch periods often hear that there just are not enough minutes in the day, said Christine Davis, founder of Arizonans for Recess and School Wellness.

Each state has its own requirements for the number of hours kids need to be in school. But rigid schedules that minimize recess and lunchtime often happen because of the pressure of district-chosen curriculums aimed at raising test scores, Davis said.

"In my experience, schools will declare the [curriculum] recommendations are mandates and claim there is no time for lunch," she said.

Many nutritionists, doctors and parents want a federal standard for lunch periods in place. The American Academy of Pediatrics is pushing for at least 20 minutes of seated eating time, not including the time it takes for students to wash their hands, walk to the cafeteria and get their food, said Robert Murray, a spokesman for the APA. There is no way for kids to get enough nutrition for the day in less than 20 minutes, and it's the children who most need the food that are really hurting, Murray said. "It's really important for these kids to eat the whole meal."

Too-short meal times teach children to wolf down their food, potentially creating lifelong bad habits, he added. Kids who are being rushed at lunch are not just missing out on important calories, but also aren't learning about how fun it can be to sit and share a meal, Murray said. "Lunchtime is really about the social enjoyment of being with their friends," he said. "Hopefully kids learn sharing and exploring new foods."

Amy Ulrich, a parent in Bellevue, Wash., successfully lobbied her local district to increase lunchtime from 20 to 25 minutes a few years ago.

She submitted a resolution to the National Parent Teacher Association, which she hopes will address school lunchtime at its June 2020 convention. "The PTA exists as a child welfare organization, and they should have a position on it," Ulrich said.

The backing of the national PTA, she said, would help parents push for better standards at the local level. "Oddly enough," she said, "something so simple as school lunch is one of the hardest things to change in schools."

Amy Ettinger is the author of Sweet Spot: An Ice Cream Binge Across America (Dutton, 2017).

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Lunchtime is so short in some public schools, students are going hungry

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The scene was the same every day at Deb Shell's house in Berkeley, Calif. She would send her three children to elementary school with packed lunches, and they would come home with their lunch bags almost completely full.

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Newsela | What's "healthy"? Food makers try to comply with new U.S. definition

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Food manufacturers are trying to comply with new U.S. requirements so they can advertise their products as being "healthy."

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Newsela | Hold on to your honey buns: American vending machines are getting healthier

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The vending machine industry is responding to people's desire for healthier food choices.

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adolescence: A transitional stage of physical and psychological development that begins at the onset of puberty, typically between the ages of 11 and 13, and ends with adulthood.

adolescent: Someone in that transitional stage of physical and psychological development that begins at the onset of puberty, typically between the ages of 11 and 13, and ends with adulthood.

anxiety: A nervous reaction to events causing excessive uneasiness and apprehension. People with anxiety may even develop panic attacks.

behavior: The way something, often a person or other organism, acts towards others, or conducts itself.

bipolar disorder: Also known as manic-depressive illness, this mental illness causes individuals to experience periodic swings in mood, energy and activity levels. In one phase, someone may feel intense joy and actively engage in lots of activities and interactions with other people. Later (sometimes only a day or two later), the individual can enter a period of intense depression. Now the patient is sad, may have no interest in seeing or talking to others and may want to just lay low, indoors and alone. This disease tends to run in families, suggesting there may be a genetic vulnerability. Fortunately, there are a number of treatments for this disease.

calorie: The amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. It is typically used as a measurement of the energy contained in some defined amount of food. The exception: when referring to the energy in food, the convention is to call a kilocalorie, or 1,000 of these calories, a "calorie." Here, a food calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise 1 kilogram of water 1 degree C.

cell: The smallest structural and functional unit of an organism. Typically too small to see with the unaided eye, it consists of a watery fluid surrounded by a membrane or wall.

chemical: A substance formed from two or more atoms that unite (bond) in a fixed proportion and structure. For example, water is a chemical made when two hydrogen atoms bond to one oxygen atom. Its chemical formula is H ₂ O.

depression: (in medicine) A mental illness characterized by persistent sadness and apathy. Although these feelings can be triggered by events, such as the death of a loved one or the move to a new city, that isn't typically considered an "illness" - unless the symptoms are prolonged and harm an individual's ability to perform normal daily tasks (such as working, sleeping or interacting with others). People suffering from depression often feel they lack the energy needed to get anything done. They may have difficulty concentrating on things or showing an interest in normal events. Many times, these feelings seem to be triggered by nothing; they can appear out of nowhere.

develop: To emerge or to make come into being, either naturally or through human intervention, such as by manufacturing. (in biology) To grow as an organism from conception through adulthood, often undergoing changes in chemistry, size, mental maturity, size or sometimes even shape.

diet: The foods and liquids ingested by an animal to provide the nutrition it needs to grow and maintain health. (verb) To adopt a specific food-intake plan for the purpose of controlling body weight.

disorder: (in medicine) A condition where the body does not work appropriately, leading to what might be viewed as an illness. This term can sometimes be used interchangeably with disease.

dopamine: A neurotransmitter, this chemical helps transmit signals in the brain.

environment: The sum of all of the things that exist around some organism or the process and the condition those things create. Environment may refer to the weather and ecosystem in which some animal lives, or, perhaps, the temperature and humidity (or even the placement of things in the vicinity of an item of interest).

factor: Something that plays a role in a particular condition or event; a contributor.

fat: A natural oily or greasy substance occurring in plants and in animal bodies, especially when deposited as a layer under the skin or around certain organs. Fat's primary role is as an energy reserve. Fat also is a vital nutrient, though it can be harmful if consumed in excessive amounts.

gauge: (v. to gauge) The act of measuring or estimating the size of something.

impulsive: (n. impulsivity) Quick to act; not willing to wait. Not waiting for deliberation or a weighing of consequences.

impulsivity: To react to some event or suggestion without regard to the potential long-term consequences of this decision.

inflammation: (adj. inflammatory) The body's response to cellular injury and obesity; it often involves swelling, redness, heat and pain. It also is an underlying feature responsible for the development and aggravation of many diseases, especially heart disease and diabetes.

information: (as opposed to data) Facts provided or trends learned about something or someone, often as a result of studying data.

link: A connection between two people or things.

mature: (verb) To develop toward - or into - a more complex and full-grown form of something, be it a living thing, a technology or an idea.

membrane: A barrier which blocks the passage (or flow through) of some materials depending on their size or other features. Membranes are an integral part of filtration systems. Many serve that same function as the outer covering of cells or organs of a body.

mental health: A term for someone's emotional, psychological and social well-being. It refers to how people behave on their own and how they interact with others. It includes how people make choices, handle stress and manage fear or anxiety. Poor mental health can be triggered by disease or merely reflect a short-term response to life's challenges. It can occur in people of any age, from babies to the elderly.

molecule: An electrically neutral group of atoms that represents the smallest possible amount of a chemical compound. Molecules can be made of single types of atoms or of different types. For example, the oxygen in the air is made of two oxygen atoms (O ₂), but water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H ₂ O).

navigate: To find one's way through a landscape using visual cues, sensory information (like scents), magnetic information (like an internal compass) or other techniques.

nutrient: A vitamin, mineral, fat, carbohydrate or protein that a plant, animal or other organism requires as part of its food in order to survive.

nutrition: (adj. nutritious) The healthful components (nutrients) in the diet - such as proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals - that the body uses to grow and to fuel its processes. A scientist who works in this field is known as a nutritionist.

organ: (in biology) Various parts of an organism that perform one or more particular functions. For instance, an ovary is an organ that makes eggs, the brain is an organ that makes sense of nerve signals and a plant's roots are organs that take in nutrients and moisture.

physical: (adj.) A term for things that exist in the real world, as opposed to in memories or the imagination. It can also refer to properties of materials that are due to their size and non-chemical interactions (such as when one block slams with force into another).

placebo: A substance that has no therapeutic effect, used as a control in testing new drugs.

prefrontal cortex: A region containing some of the brain's gray matter. Located behind the forehead, it plays a role in making decisions and other complex mental activities, in emotions and in behaviors.

processed foods: Foods purchased from a grocery story that are substantially different from the raw materials that went into them. Examples include most foods that come in cans, bottles, boxes or bags. Examples include breakfast cereals, frozen pizzas, canned tuna, jars of spaghetti sauce and dill pickles.

protein: A compound made from one or more long chains of amino acids. Proteins are an essential part of all living organisms. They form the basis of living cells, muscle and tissues; they also do the work inside of cells. Among the better-known, stand-alone proteins are the hemoglobin (in blood) and the antibodies (also in blood) that attempt to fight infections. Medicines frequently work by latching onto proteins.

psychiatry: (adj. psychiatric) A field of medicine where doctors study and treat diseases of the human mind. Treatments may consist of talking therapies, prescription drugs or both. People who work in this field are known as psychiatrists.

random: Something that occurs haphazardly or without reason, based on no intention or purpose.

receptor: (in biology) A molecule in cells that serves as a docking station for another molecule. That second molecule can turn on some special activity by the cell.

reward system: (Also reward center) A region of the brain that processes the pleasant reactions we get when we get smiles, gifts, pleasurable stimuli (including food) or compliments.

risk: The chance or mathematical likelihood that some bad thing might happen. For instance, exposure to radiation poses a risk of cancer. Or the hazard - or peril - itself. (For instance: Among cancer risks that the people faced were radiation and drinking water tainted with arsenic.)

schizophrenia: A serious brain disorder that can lead to hallucinations, delusions and other uncontrolled behaviors.

supplement: (in nutrition) Something taken in pill or liquid form - often a vitamin or mineral - to improve the diet. For instance, it may provide more of some nutrient that is believed to benefit health. It may also provide some substance to the diet that is claimed to promote health.

working memory: The ability to hold something in the mind for a short period of time and to adapt it for use, such as hearing a sequence of numbers, then reciting them backwards.

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Warning! Junk foods can harm a teen's brain

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The adolescent brain has a hard time resisting junk food. But high-fat, high-sugar diets can interfere with learning and pose risks to mental health.

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(Reuters Health) - Television advertising in the U.S. for candy, fast food, sugary drinks and other unhealthy treats continues to target mostly black and Hispanic youth, according to a new report that suggests this contributes to health disparities.

Overall spending on TV ads by restaurant, food and drink companies declined from $11.4 billion in 2013 to $10.9 billion in 2017, the report found. Even though TV viewing by children and teens also declined during this period, young people in the U.S. continued to view approximately 10 food-related TV ads per day in 2017.

And spending on ads aimed at black children and teens surged 53 percent to $333 million by the final year of the study. Black children saw an average of 16.4 ads a day in 2017, and black teens typically saw 17.1 ads each day.

Hispanic youth, meanwhile, viewed two more ads per day on Spanish-language TV in 2017 than they did at the beginning of the study, in addition to seeing ads in English.

"Food companies almost exclusively advertise junk food - especially fast food, candy, sugary drinks and unhealthy snacks - and these products are disproportionately advertised to black and Hispanic youth," said lead report author Jennifer Harris of the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at the University of Connecticut in Hartford.

This contributes to health disparities like a greater long-term risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease among children of color in the U.S. in large part because kids have a hard time resisting junk food they see advertised on TV, Harris said.

"It's a common misperception that you can teach kids to defend against the effects of advertising for unhealthy foods," Harris said by email.

"In our discussions with kids, they know these products are unhealthy and they know fruits and vegetables would be a better snack," she added. "But teenagers are not developmentally mature enough to resist short-term rewards (e.g., candy, chips, fast food, sugary snacks) in the interest of long-term benefits, like good health in 20 years."

The report analyzed advertising by 32 major restaurant, food and beverage companies that spent at least $100 million on food advertising to children and teens in 2017.

That year, spending on ads for healthy products like water, nuts, fruits and 100 percent fruit juice totaled only $195 million, or about 3 percent of spending. Companies devoted only 1 percent of ad spending on black-targeted TV to healthy products, and didn't promote these items at all on Spanish-language TV.

Black children and teens viewed 70 percent more food ads than white youth in 2013, and they saw 86 more ads than white children and teens by 2017.

The study wasn't designed to prove whether advertising directly impacted children's health or eating habits.

But constant exposure to ads for unhealthy foods and drinks can shape children's norms and expectations about what foods are okay to eat on regular basis, said Jennifer Emond, a researcher at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, who wasn't involved in the study.

"Unfortunately, the foods and drinks most heavily targeted to children of color are high in sugar, salt and/or fat like sugary drinks, candy and fast food," Emond said by email. "And these foods should not be consumed on a regular basis."

To help blunt the effect of these promotions, parents should speak to kids about tricks the ads might use to convince kids to crave unhealthy foods and drinks, and also discuss healthy eating habits, said Dr. Megan Pesch, of the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor.

"It's important that children learn which foods can help their bodies grow strong and stay healthy, while not making junk foods seem like forbidden fruit," Pesch, who wasn't involved in the study, said by email.

SOURCE: bit.ly/2FlcHTe Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, online January 15, 2019.

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Junk food ads disproportionately target black and Hispanic kids: report

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(Reuters Health) - Television advertising in the U.S. for candy, fast food, sugary drinks and other unhealthy treats continues to target mostly black and Hispanic youth, according to a new report that suggests this contributes to health disparities.

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Newsela | How to deal with stress-eating for comfort in a time of anxiety

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During stressful times, emotional eating of lots of food with little nutritional value can weaken your immune system - and worsen your mood.

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Boxes of General Mills breakfast cereals, sporting the Box Tops for Education logo. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News)

For 43 years, schoolkids and their parents have clipped the labels from cookie bags and cracker boxes as part of a popular rewards program called Labels for Education.

Through this and similar programs - think Tyson's Project A+ or General Mills' Box Tops for Education - schools get cash and supplies in exchange for clipped labels from participating food items.

But these programs, most of which are wildly popular at U.S. schools, may have major downsides for students. Critics say they are designed to sell junk food to children too young to make good health decisions.

Just this month, as Labels for Education wound down - a result of declining participation, said its parent company, Campbell's - public health advocates cheered the end of a program widely beloved by teachers, schools and parents. It included snack foods, such as cookies and crackers, that many health advocates say should be discouraged.

"It's just another form of junk-food marketing to kids," said Colin Schwartz, a senior nutrition policy associate at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of several groups that has celebrated the demise of Labels for Education. "We're glad to see Campbell's ending its program, and we're calling on other companies to take the same step."

Besides Campbell's, two other companies dominate school rewards: General Mills and, to a far lesser extent, Tyson. Each company awards schools a set amount of money - roughly 5 to 38 cents - for each purchase code or label collected from participating products.

Those products carry a distinctive logo on the front of the box or bag. Schools publicize that logo to parents via conferences and meetings, as well as through materials sent home with their kids.

Many schools also promote rewards programs directly to students, holding contests and constructing bulletin boards to encourage them to bring more labels in. Once the labels are collected, schools exchange them for cash or supplies, ranging from pencils and markers to playground equipment.

The average payout is modest - $750 per school per year, in the case of General Mills - but that can go a long way at some schools, program participants say.

At Glover Community Learning Center, a small, low-income elementary school in Akron, Ohio, money from Box Tops and Labels for Education has bought jump ropes, gym balls, pencil sharpeners, paintbrushes, markers and an insulated water cooler.

"We're a small school, and these programs are a big help," said Kia Strickling, the president of the school's parent-teacher association. "The alternative is teachers buying basic supplies out of their own pockets."

Critics don't object to schools getting much-needed funds. But they do protest the nutritional quality of the foods in rewards programs and schools' role in promoting them, which potentially undermines nutrition education and could boost kids' lifelong taste for unhealthy foods.

Campbell's, which also owns brands such as SpaghettiOs and Pepperidge Farm, has slapped the Labels for Education logo on frozen desserts and queso dip. Tyson's Project A+ includes salty chicken nuggets.

When it comes to Box Tops, by far the most popular of the programs, a recent study by researchers at Harvard University's Chan School of Public Health and MassGeneral Hospital for Children found that two-thirds of the products bearing the Box Tops label do not meet federal nutrition requirements for sale in schools.

"The vast majority of these products can't be sold in schools, so they shouldn't be advertised in schools," Schwartz said.

Food companies point out that their rewards labels appear on healthier foods, too, such as vegetable soups and juices, in the case of Campbell's, or yogurt and Cheerios, in the case of General Mills.

And they argue that, even if the labels sometimes appear on unhealthy foods, the program is designed to appeal to the parents making shopping decisions, not their school-age children. All three companies have strict policies on marketing to kids.

"The [Labels for Education] program's marketing is directed to adult coordinators and parents, not to kids," Campbell's said in a statement.

"Box Tops for Education is NOT a brand marketing program," echoed General Mills spokeswoman Mollie Wulff in an email. "It is a fundraising program for parents and a way for General Mills to support local communities and schools."

But for critics, this is another point of contention: Children are often highly involved in rewards programs, they say, and schools often advertise the programs directly to them.

At Strickling's school in Akron, the PTA holds contests to see which classroom can collect the most labels and awards a pizza party to the winner.

That type of in-school promotion can cause children to develop positive associations with both the labels and the products they appear on, said Jennifer Harris, a researcher at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. Those associations can be difficult to overwrite once they are established.

"There's a reason companies want to get kids when they're really young," said Harris. "When aimed at children, whose minds are still developing, marketing can create lifelong preferences and habits that contribute to obesity and other conditions."

Critics have proposed excluding from the rewards programs any product that doesn't meet the Department of Agriculture's minimum nutrition guidelines for in-school sales. Schools could also work harder to cut students out of rewards programs by promoting them directly, and only, to parents, critics said.

Many public health advocates would like to see schools withdraw from these programs entirely. But that is unlikely, said Faith Boninger, a researcher at the University of Colorado's National Education Policy Center, because many schools have grown accustomed to the payouts to supplement decreased public funds. With the exception of Campbell's Labels for Education, rewards programs remain highly popular.

"There are no good solutions for schools," said Boninger, who opposes the programs. "Schools don't have the money they need, which is why they resort to these food company handouts."

At the Glover school in Akron, Strickling says she thinks "good solutions" are indeed running out. Funding has dwindled for art and gym classes at the school, she said, a result of districtwide budget cuts.

The end of Labels for Education was a blow. Now Strickling is doubling down on General Mills' Box Tops for Education, with a wary eye on the public health advocates calling for the program to end.

She doesn't think rewards programs market to children.

"I really disagree with that," she said. "Parents have to choose healthy snacks. If I buy Froot Loops when Nature Valley has the label - you can't blame the school or the company for that."

How to fix the American diet, according to the man who coined the term 'junk food'

Food-makers are taking salt and sugar out of food. But they're adding fat.

Study: Black children are exposed to junk-food ads way more than white kids are

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Analysis | A popular school fundraiser is just 'junk-food marketing to kids,' experts say

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For 43 years, schoolkids and their parents have clipped the labels from cookie bags and cracker boxes as part of a popular rewards program called Labels for Education. Through this and similar programs - think Tyson's Project A+ or General Mills' Box Tops for Education - schools get cash and supplies in exchange for clipped labels from participating food items. But these programs, most of which are wildly popular at U.S.