Your Salad Dressing Ingredients. Safe or Scary?
Oil and vinegar based salad dressings are some of the most common types of dressings. Simple and classic, this flavorful combination has been used since Ancient Greek and Roman times as a way to season and dress vegetables and greens. Despite their relative ease to make, bottled salad dressings have become increasingly popular since their introduction in the 1940s. But what salad […]
What’s In Your Biscuit?
It’s probably not that surprising that biscuits aren’t the healthiest food around. Even traditional, homemade recipes feature white flour and plenty of fat—sometimes even fake fats like shortening. But what happens when you mix Big Food and a big biscuit? Unfortunately it’s a real dietary disaster! And while food companies continue to try to market their biscuits as “fresh” or “homemade,” […]
Kick the Can … Swanson Vegetable Broth
So many delicious foods begin with a flavorful broth. But are all broths created equal? Not really, and this is especially true in the world of vegetable broths. Swanson, a brand owned by the Campbell Soup Company, is the market leader when in comes to all different kinds of soup broths including vegetable. But if you haven’t looked […]
The Evolution of Cheese: Real Progress or Profits At All Cost?
“What is cheese?” Seems like a pretty easy question, right? Unfortunately it may be much more difficult to answer than you might think since over the years a lot of changes have happened to what’s called cheese. Although the exact origins of cheese are unknown, the process is believed to date back more than 4,000 years ago. Like […]
Frozen Sauced Vegetables: Friend or Foe?
When I worked at General Mills I had the chance to do some channel marketing for the Green Giant brand. This involved coming up with retailer-specific plans for how to grow the brand at customers like Wal-Mart or Costco. What always amazed me, though, was how the ingredient label of even vegetables could be so complicated! Although […]
Recipe: Crazy Good Cranberry Orange Quick Bread
Over the years Cranberry Quick Bread has become a festive, holiday classic. In fact when I ran Pillsbury’s dessert and baking mix business, Cranberry Quick Bread sales were so important that they were a big part of making our profit goals in November and December. And part of the marketing strategy behind these mixes was to portray them as […]
Recipe: Refrigerator Whole Wheat Rolls
Have you ever seen that holiday commercial where two brothers “fight” over the last crescent roll. If they only knew what was in those rolls their fights might end for good. Although the exact ingredients may vary slightly by manufacturer, here’s a run down of what’s in the average can of refrigerated crescent rolls:
Recipe: Rosemary & Herb Whole Wheat Stuffing
If there’s anything that brings back my childhood memories of preparing Thanksgiving it’s stuffing. When I was a little kid I’d help my mom put together our family’s homemade stuffing. As a child of the 70’s, though, our stuffing recipe was filled with white bread and then later bags of Pepperidge Farm Stuffing mix. Unfortunately these […]
Another Big Food Head Fake
Last month Californians lost their fight to label GMOs with the defeat of Prop. 37. Thanks in large part to Big Food and Ag companies spending over $46 million on misleading and blatantly false advertising, consumers will remain in the dark about what’s really in their food. But false and misleading advertising is nothing new […]
Take a Stand Against GMOs
For far too long Big Food has been lying to us. Despite over 1 million people signing a petition AND the vast majority of Americans supporting informational labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Big Food continues to fight to hide GMOs in our food. I’ve had enough of it, and I’m taking a stand. Please, join me! […]
