How closely do you pay attention to the companies that make the products you and your family eat every day? Many of the most popular brands of packaged food and beverage items in the U.S. are owned by the same few dozen multinational companies, some of whom own several competing brands. It’s time to test your knowledge of which big companies are filling your pantry. [More]
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The Consumerist Quiz: Can You Match Popular Food Brands With Their Corporate Parents?
March 21, 2014
KFC Australia Puts Tortilla Chips On Sandwich, Popcorn Chicken On Nachos
By 3.19.14
Over at KFC Australia, they seem to be a little confused about how nachos work. Not that Americans have any special claim to snack food logic, but at least our fast food outlets haven’t done anything completely wacky like throwing popcorn chicken on nachos, or tortilla chips on a sandwich. [More]
FDA’s New Nutrition Label Emphasizes Calories, Serving Size, Added Sugars
By 2.27.14
Earlier today, the FDA finally got around to unveiling the first major change to food nutrition labels in two decades. The new-look label contains mostly the same information as the current version, but with the addition of “added sugars” data, the loss of “calories from fat,” and more emphasis on total calories per serving and servings per container. [More]
Food Industry Volunteers To Self-Regulate GMO Labeling By Doing It If They Feel Like It
By 2.7.14
Do you have any idea if the ingredients in that sandwich you just made for lunch were genetically modified? Probably not: there’s no federal rule requiring labeling of GMO ingredients one way or the other. Now, a group of food industry organizations is calling on Congress to take action about GMO labeling… but the request isn’t quite what it seems. [More]
New From Cadbury: Milk Chocolate Bar With Wasp
By 1.28.14
How does a wasp end up embedded in a chocolate bar? Cadbury isn’t sure, and neither is the person who allegedly found the insect in his snack. [More]
Coming Soon: Vending Machine Calorie Counts
By 12.30.13
The Affordable Care Act doesn’t just mean highly entertaining conversations over dessert amongst your relatives this holiday season. There’s one new requirement that’s been sort of overshadowed by health insurance exchanges and electronic medical records: companies that own more than 20 vending machines will have to post calorie counts for the items they sell. [More]
A Whole Bunch Of Stuff To Make With Your Inevitable Thanksgiving Leftovers
By 11.27.13
Unless you are celebrating Thanksgiving with a group of ravenous piranhas, you’ll likely have food left over from your Turkey Day feast. Sure, you can spend the next week making delicious turkey and stuffing sandwiches, but there’s a lot of variety to be had from those ingredients stored in plastic containers in your fridge. [More]
5 Tips To Save Your Food From Getting Gross
By 10.9.13
The kitchen can turn from a bastion of culinary hopes and dreams bursting to the seams with fresh food into a sad wasteland of ruined recipes and deflated expectations if you don’t eat your groceries quickly enough. But there’s no need to resign yourself to that fate, friends. You can save your food if you know how. [More]
Does Looking At Photos Of Food On Instagram Make You Less Hungry?
By 10.8.13
Scrolling through your friends’ Instagram photos can prompt eye rolls (More feet? Really? No one wants to see you standing, we all have that ability) sighs of jealousy at far-flung locations and perhaps a vicarious rumble in the stomach at the sight of yet another picture of a friend’s food. But all those foodie photos could actually be doing the opposite in the long run, essentially spoiling your appetite. [More]
Use-By Date Confusion Is Making Us Waste Millions Of Pounds Of Food Every Year
By 9.20.13
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Use-by dates and expiration dates aren’t strict mandates designed to save you from the brink of gastrointestinal hell, they’re more like guidelines. A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council and Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic says American are chucking millions of pounds of perfectly good food in the midst of expiration date confusion. That’s quite a waste. [More]
Chobani Declares ‘Voluntary Recall’ Of Exploding Moldy Yogurts
By 9.5.13 — Updated: 9.7.13
Chobani’s recall of mold-contaminated yogurts has been promoted to a voluntary recall. “Over 95% of the units in question have already been identified and removed from retailer shelves,” claims the company. [More]
Chobani Pulls Gross Yogurts Off Store Shelves, Not A Recall
By 9.3.13 — Updated: 9.5.13
Have your Chobani yogurts tasted kind of weird recently? You aren’t alone. Yogurt lovers all over the country have reported oddness that ranges from “that tastes a little off” to “AAAAH WHY IS MY YOGURT CUP BULGING?!” After receiving (and deleting) a lot of complaints on their Facebook page, the company quietly pulled affected batches from stores, but there’s no official recall on. [More]
August Food And Drug Recall Roundup – Ginger Lead Candies And Drug-Packed Supplements
By 8.20.13 — Updated: 8.21.13
Our monthly Recall Roundups have grown so expansive that we’ve had to separate them into two separate roundups: one for consumer goods, and one for consumables. [More]
Airport Eatery Says It’ll Totally Switch To Vendor That Doesn’t Top Bread With Maggots
By 8.8.13
Never mind locally-sourced, fresh-from-the-farm ingredients — is it too much to ask that an airport sandwich not have maggots in it? An eatery at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta says it’s going to switch vendors after a customer claimed to have been sold food with a side order of maggots. [More]
June Food And Drug Recall Roundup – Sulfites, Plastic Fragments, And Salmonella
By 6.18.13
Our monthly Recall Roundups have grown so expansive that we’ve had to separate them into two separate roundups: one for consumer goods, and one for consumables. In this edition of the Food and Drug roundup, dangers lurk everywhere, from coconut candy bars to sugary cereals. [More]
Jack In The Box Introduces Breakfast Sandwich Between Two Waffles
By 6.14.13
Sure, McDonald’s hasn’t gone into 24-hour breakfast mode yet, but that doesn’t mean that you have to suffer without new and exciting breakfast food mashups. Jack In The Box introduced some new items this week, and among them is a breakfast sausage, ham, and bacon sandwich with waffles for buns. Waffles. For Buns. [More]
Acid Whey: The Less Delicious Byproduct Of The Greek Yogurt Boom
By 5.24.13
Greek yogurt is a delicious dairy product that’s produced by taking regular yogurt and straining it to a delicious, protein-rich thickness. The thing is, though, all of that straining means that you’re straining something out of the yogurt. That something is more than water: it’s post-fermentation liquid called acid whey. For every three or four ounces of milk that enter a yogurt plant, one ounce of acid whey leaves. They can’t dump it in sewage systems or waterways, and at least one manufacturer actually pays local farmers to take the liquid whey away and do something with it. [More]
Tired Of Food Photography? Try Meta-Food Photography
By 4.15.13
Tired of seeing pictures online that people have snapped of their food? Maybe there’s a better way. The blog Pictures of Hipsters Taking Pictures of Food offers a much deeper socioeconomic and culinary context for meal snaps. Also, it makes fun of people. [Tumblr] [More]
