Dining and Opining

After some recent bloodwork, my doctor told me that I was a little low on iron (broken down into component parts, I was a little low on red blood cells, hemoglobin, and hematocrit). In order to prevent further anemia, she encouraged me to increase my iron consumption, and perhaps to take an iron supplement. Because I'm a vegetarian, it's a bit harder to get high levels of iron, so I've been researching good whole food sources (and am happy to write more about that in a separate post if folks are interested!). Among the recommendations I found, many sources pointed to eating Cream of Wheat for breakfast, perhaps with blackstrap molasses and dried apricots (both high sources of iron in their own right) mixed in. I grew up eating what we called, in Russian, mannaya kasha , which is traditionally a semolina flour porridge. But we ate what was available in small town Arkansas: Malt-o-Meal, or its equivalent Cream of Wheat. This was a favorite soothing dish, especially when ...

This is fascinating. McDonald's Canada made a video showing its food stylists at work: What's even more compelling for me than the actual styling is what this reveals about McDonald's search for transparency. They want consumers to be able to see where there food comes from--just enough so they can trust that they're not being overly manipulated. But it makes me wonder, what kind of styling did it take to produce this video itself? That is, what is behind the scenes of this behind-the-scenes video? And it also made me remember this video of another burger being prepared for its moment in the spotlight, that I've used for teaching before: Is it possible that any of these techniques are also being used in the McDonald's promo, and we just don't see them? The comments for the first video on youtube have been disabled, so we don't get to read the voices of any actual consumers, but I wonder what effect this kind of advertising will have on M...