The ABCs of Restaurant Rating

On September 14th, USC's student newspaper, Daily Trojan, published an article that left bad tastes in many students' mouths (if the cafeteria foods themselves didn't already):

"EVK Receives 'B' After Health Inspection"

EVK, otherwise known as Everyone's Kitchen, is one of the main cafeterias on the USC campus where students can gorge on buffet-styled, Freshman-15 inducing eatables in attempt to get their overpriced meal plans' worths. 

This article is alarming to students especially since Chanos, the well known post-boozing, late night Mexican drive-through hut located at the end of the Greek Row on Figueroa street has a health inspection rating of "A". Although most students are unfamiliar with the Los Angeles Health Department's restaurant rating criteria, they still make some judgement of the restaurants based on relativity. We can blame the education system for instilling in us the belief that A is better than B. And if you get a C, you can go home and expect to get your cell phone taken away for the next 2 weeks. 

Premature conclusion: It is safer to eat at Chanos than EVK. 

I'm not trying to defend EVK, for it has caused me many nights of upset stomach Freshman year. The point I'm trying to make here is that when it comes to restaurant ratings, the letters do not tell the whole story. 

Health departments inspect restaurants using scorecards. Restaurants are graded based on different criteria, including food temperature, food source, food protection, facility design, and personal hygiene. Each violation within the criteria is worth a different amount of points. Therefore, restaurants want to keep their scores as low as possible, because a low score indicates fewer violations. 

For the restaurant letter grading system, restaurants that receives 13 points or less will score an A, 14-27 points will score a B, 28 points or more will score a C with high likelihood of getting shut down. 

Although the letter may tell diners how many violation a restaurant has, it doesn't say what these violations are. Personally, I would much rather go to a restaurant that fails to provide toilet paper in the bathrooms and has inadequate lighting than a restaurant where rats roam freely in the kitchen.. But based on the scorecard, these 2 restaurants may receive the same letter grade. 

So the letters that Los Angeles restaurants (possibly to be adopted by other cities soon, such as NYC) either proudly or ashamedly display in their windows only partially signal the restaurants' wellness. For more restaurant reviews that are posted by real restaurant patrons and not government officials, customers can check out websites like Yelp and Zagat. These websites can provide restaurant information that the ABCs don't. 

Oh ya, and if it helps EVK diners feel any better, EVK's rating was raised to an A after a second health inspection last week. 

But that doesn't necessarily mean the cooks wash their hands after they use the bathrooms. 

From Meat Dress to Jerky Dress

As if the image of Lady Gaga's meat dress itself wasn't memorable enough...

Yesterday, the infamous meat dress's designer, Franc Fernandez announced that the meat dress will go through a process where it becomes a sort of "jerky and will be archived". This is after he confirmed that the dress is indeed made of real meat...50 lbs of it.

Is this preservation necessary? I think people have a hard time trying to dismiss the image of a steak-draped Gaga as it is.

In his comments, Fernandez also clarified that the meat dress "shouldn't be worn again".

Sorry to all the fabulous fashionistas out there. Unfortunately, you can't go fighting over the dress of flesh. Guess you'll have to wait until next season's collection comes out.

What's In a Name?

In a post I published earlier this month, I publicly declared my hatred towards high fructose corn syrup and explained how this malicious ingredient ultimately ended my long-term friendship with Special K cereals. 

I'm happy and proud to see that more and more consumers are acknowledging the dangers of high fructose corn syrup and requesting their foods to be made without the ingredient. Consumption of corn-derived sweeteners plummeted by 20% over the past decade. Big name food companies, like Starbucks and Kraft, are ceasing the use of high fructose corn syrup in their food productions already; more companies are starting to follow the lead.

But just as consumers are becoming more sweetener-conscious, the food industry fights back. 

This past week, the Corn Refiners Association filed a petition with the FDA to officially change the name "high fructose corn syrup" to "corn sugar". 

Sure, "corn syrup" may sound healthier, but it is still glucose converted into fructose through enzymatic processing! It is still unnatural! It is still bad for you! 

If approved, the name change would only mislead and confuse consumers. 

The Corn Refiners Association wants to take advantage of the fact that shoppers (who actually take the time to read the labels) often judge the healthiness of an ingredient or product by the sound of its name. Although a good strategy, it doesn't work 100% of the time. Check out some ingredients that sound healthy, but are not, and some ingredients that sound scary, but are harmless.

Dangerous Ingredients that Sound Healthy:

• fruit juice concentrate - sugar's "healthier" alias
• soybean oil - high in omega-6 fats, the bad kind of fat
• palm oil - 1/2 saturated fat
• wheat flour - unless it is whole wheat flour, it is just a synonym for white or all purpose flour

Harmless Ingredients that Sound Scary:

• inulin - natural, soluble fiber
• ascorbic acid - another name for Vitamin C
• xanthan gum - a thickener fermented from glucose
• maltodextrin - natural form of starch

Don't let the ingredient names mislead you.

High fructose corn syrup - you can run, you can hide, but you can't change the fact that you are still corn-derived and chemically created. 

Nice try. 

Didn't your mother teach you not to play (dress-up) with your food?

Lady Gaga was nominated for 13 awards for this year's MTV Video Music Awards; she took home 8 of them last Sunday. 

While her artistic talents brought pop music to a whole new level since her breakout single, "Just Dance", hit the #1 spot on Billboard in January 2009, her fashion and style choices have always been questioned by...well...everyone. 

Just when we thought she could not possibly come up with anything more outrageous than her Kermit the Frog outfit, Lady Gaga managed to shock us yet again when she accepted her Video of the Year award on Sunday in a meat dress. The meat dress, properly accessorized with meat shoes, a meat hat, and a meat purse (what else?), was made by Franc Fernandez and reportedly costs only $100. It doesn't matter what the critics say, at least she's sensitive of the economic recession. 

But the mystery remains...is the dress made of real meat? Neither Fernandez nor Nicola Formichetti, Lady Gaga's stylist (Lady Gaga has a stylist?), will comment. 

Real meat or not, PETA is already on the case like, for a lack of better words, flies on meat. Maggot and E-Coli infestations are the two concerns PETA has, which means that PETA must not be disturbed by how the dress looks...

I admire Lady Gaga. But I also think that the only time raw meat should come in contact with human skin is in the kitchen. And I surely hope that nothing that belongs on a dinner plate starts to replace cotton and silk any day soon - laundry days just wouldn't be the same. 

How do you feel about Lady Gaga's meat dress? Vote here. 

The Less Glamorous Side of Modeling

New York Fashion Week kicked off last Thursday.

I have always been interested in fashion. To me, fashion is an art form that expresses who we are inside on the outside; it is a form of freedom of speech. However, when I flip though fashion magazines or watch runway shows, I always end up admiring the models just as much, if not more, than the clothes they flaunt. Often times, this admiration turns into slight jealousy of their perfectly proportioned bodies. 

But for a lot of models, those bodies are results of some dangerous and unhealthy behaviors.

It is a tough world when you are 5'10", weigh 120 lbs, and are being told you are fat, especially if your job depends on your looks. This is the very tough, but real, world that fashion models live in. Since not everyone is born with size zero genes, many models have found ways to survive the intensely competitive industry through eating disorders. As of 2007, 40% of fashion models suffered from some form of eating disorder, and the harsh reality is that this number is on the rise. 

In 2006, 21-year old Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston died from complications of anorexia. At 5'8", she weighted just 88 lbs.

But unfortunately, due to Hollywood and this image-obsessed society we live in, eating disorders are no longer associated only with fashion models. 24 MILLION Americans suffer from eating disorders today. 

I believe the most effective way to reduce this number is education. Men and women need to be educated about the risks associated with the different kinds of eating disorders. Healthy body images need to be promoted through the media. And those who have unfortunately already fallen victim need to know that there are support groups that will help them through the recovery process. 

On that note, I would like to give a big shout out to OneStopPlus, a plus-size retailing company. OneStopPlus is the company that is responsible for the FIRST EVER plus-size fashion show during the New York Fashion Week. The show will take place on September 16th. 

Would You Eat Here?

Before diners even enter a restaurant where they can smell the aroma, taste the spices, hear the sizzles, or see the plate arrangements, the first impressions they form of the restaurant come from the name of the restaurant. It could represent a theme, a cuisine, a location, a person's name, or just a play on words. No matter what the purpose is, the name of a restaurant has significant marketing importance; it becomes the brand of the restaurant. 

As I am sure this is also true for a lot of people, different restaurants elicit different feelings for me. And these feelings can be brought forth just from the names of the restaurants.

Olive Garden - homey, comfortable

In n Out - quick, easy

Morton's Steakhouse - classy, special

Toast - fun, girl's night out

So what were these restaurant owners thinking when they chose names for the restaurants listed below? These names make me feel anything BUT the desire to eat. Please check out some of the worst restaurant names in America listed in random order:

1. The Dead Fish in Crockett, CA -  proudly serving seafood, prime ribs, and so much more

2. Fuddruckers, national hamburger chain - also known as "Fudds"

3. Rat's Restaurant in Hamilton, NJ - named after the rat in "The Wind in the Willows"

4. Pu Pu Hot Pot in Massachusetts - Chinese restaurant, free delivery

5. Crapitto's Cucina Italiana in Houston, TX - "Crapitto's, where friends become family"

6. Toe Bang in Los Angeles, CA - really "banging" Korean food

7. Dirty Dick's Crab House in Panama City, FL - "The only thing (which is actually misspelled as 'think' on the website) we are serious about is our seafood."

8. Heart Attack Grill in Arizona - over 350 lbs eat for free

9. Mother Cluckers in New Orleans, LA - wings, wings, wings

10. Buttyboys, national chain - corporate deliveries, event catering, and franchises

What are some deterrent restaurant names you have heard of? 

Betrayal

I love cereal. I could eat cereal for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner and have no complaints. Just like peanut butter and jelly, tomato and basil, the combination of the crunch of the flakes and the silkiness of the (soy)milk is yet another perfect marriage made in food heaven. A bonus is that we get to use spoons to eat cereal. In my opinion, spoons are highly underrated. They are much more efficient than forks or chopsticks. But, that is topic to be saved for another conversation...

Ever since Freshman year of college, I had been eating Special K cereal. It became a ritual. Red Berries, Cinnamon Pecans, Chocolate Delight, and Vanilla Almond were my best friends that I woke up to every morning. I even gave Special K a shout out in my Welcome post. But all that changed last week when I picked up my box of Special K and read the ingredients list on the side panel for the first time. 

Whole Grain Wheat, Soy Protein Isolate, Sugar, Salt, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Malt Flavor...

Being the health nut that I am, I avoid highly processed foods and chemically modified ingredients, such as high fructose corn syrup, at all costs. I just could not believe that high fructose corn syrup had been disguised in my daily breakfast for the past three years! I was in denial; Special K was supposed to be "healthy". Those four words stared back at me; I felt betrayed by the product that I once loved. 

So now I am searching for a new, delicious, and healthy cereal to satisfy my morning hungers. This time, I will take precaution to carefully read the ingredients list before purchase in order to prevent another heartbreak.

Any recommendations?

My Beef with Jamba Juice

Ahhh. Refreshed is always my initial reaction after the first sip out of my Jamba Juice cup on a hot summer day. Then immediately, guilt sets in. I feel guilty drinking Jamba Juice smoothies. This is not because my smoothie in hand is unhealthy (although one of Jamba Juice's products did make the top 20 Worst Foods in America list), nor is it overpriced; I feel guilty because I feel like I am hurting the environment and my body with every sip.

Jamba Juice, the famous chain of smoothie restaurants with over 700 locations nationwide, boasts of its "natural" and "healthy" ingredients. Their "fresh" products include fruit smoothies, fruit juices, teas, and baked goods. Do not get me wrong; they are de-li-cious. My real beef with Jamba Juice is not what they serve, but how they serve them: in Styrofoam cups. If you are environmentally conscious or health conscious AT ALL, you should know that there is NOTHING "natural", "healthy", or "fresh" about Styrofoam. 

Styrofoam is not biodegradable, which means that it is filing up our landfills and stays there for a LONG time since it does not erode quickly. With no where else to go, the garbage emits toxins into the atmosphere and water. 

Styrofoam is also harmful for our health. The main building block of Styrofoam is styrene, which is a toxic chemical compound that has been linked to irritation of the eyes, skin, and upper respiratory tract in humans. When used to contain food, the toxins can leach out into the food, then down our stomachs. 

So how would you like a shot of styrene with your Banana Berry smoothie? Jamba Juice, please consider paper cups or biodegradable plastic cups as alternatives to your current toxin-transmitters. Thank you.

If you are a Jamba Juice lover who is also concerned about its Styrofoam usage, please check out the Love the Juice, Hate the Cup Campaign, already with hundreds of supporters.