What is the abomination of McDonald's "oatmeal"?

This is the bowl of oatmeal shown on the McDonalds website page - a page that has its own jaunty "oatmeal" tune.

Why do we care that McDonalds has introduced "oatmeal" with more calories than their hamburger and with more sugar than a Snickers bar? I put "oatmeal" in quotes because, according to Mark Bittman's How to Make Oatmeal: Wrong, the product should be described as "oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen."

As of Saturday, the article has lived in the top 10 emailed list for The New York Times since it was published on Tuesday, February 22. Apparently, a lot of people care.

My question is why? Are they preaching to the choir? Or do people actually think in this day and age there is anything healthy about walking through the fabled double arches?

Whether it be SuperSize Me, Eric Schlosser's #1 bestseller Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, or a simple read through McDonalds menu ingredients online. We all know McDonalds is not healthy, yet stories continue to be written, emailed, and commented on - detailing the exact nature of the unhealthiness.

Conrad's "the fascination of the abomination" comes to mind, our inability to look away from a train wreck. However, the true abomination is this. Everyone knows McDonalds is unhealthy and people go there because they have no choice. They have no choice, because as Michel Nischan of the Wholesome Wave Foundation put it at the TEDx food conferece, "they can't afford" real food.

According to the Fair Food Network, 92% of all Detroit food stamp retailers offer no fresh fruits and vegetables. For an urban food desert like Detroit, and for the rural food deserts in Iowa, the dried fruit in McDonalds "oatmeal" might be the closest a child gets to biting into an apple. That is the real abomination, and worth talking about.

Here is the article on annarbor.com.

Muscovy Duck is unlike any "duck" you have ever eaten

David Beemer, of OmniUnum Farm, decided he wanted more control over his food supply. In lieu of purchasing Michigan peat and compost, Beemer decided to raise poultry for their manure, a nutrient-rich and accessible fertilizer. Beemer choose Muscovy ducks as his poultry of choice after being served it at Paul Bocuse’s restaurant in Lyons, France. “I asked for something that I could not get in this country… He brought me Magret - and I ate it. They asked me what I thought it was and I said, “that was probably the best veal I have ever had.” And they said, “This is Muscovy Duck.”

Beemer has partnered with Antoinette Benjamin, of Food for all Seasons Catering, because “she is the only one I have found who knows how to cook them. I am a good example - I overcooked the last one. I just didn’t have time to follow the directions she gave me.”

Endemic in an animal designed to perch in trees not wade in water, Muscovy ducks have about 18% fat as opposed to Pekin duck with 29% fat. This fat difference and the less significant oil gland in the Muscovy alters the flavor of what our taste buds recognize as "duck" and can complicate cooking Muscovy for those not familiar with the meat.

According to Benjamin, trained by renowned French chef Madeleine Kamman, “cooking Magret is a matter of technique. So if you look up cooking duck breast, it is different with the Muscovy. Just because of the fat.”

Recently, I was able to try Muscovy courtesy of ici Urban Bistro in Washington DC. The consensus at the table was that the meat was “absolutely fabulous” and unlike anything anyone had eaten before - a bold, unique flavor arising from a texture that crumbled like veal, unlike poultry’s striation.

I was also able to see firsthand the difficulty of cooking Muscovy. When the breast slices arrived to the table they were medium rare and succulent. By the time we finished eating the meat (20 minutes later?) the slices were cooked through from the residual heat. The flavor was still there but the texture was dry and unappealing.

Beemer's partnership with Antoinette Benjamin is an opportunity for those of us curious to taste more of this unique fowl. As Benjamin says, “Magret is the BEST for the Muschovy - I mean it is JUST AMAZING. I mean as I said, I don’t think that people - most people wouldn’t know, like David, what they are eating. They wouldn’t know it was duck breast.”

Beemer and Benjamin are planning to hold a Muscovy dinner in the Spring. If you are interested, contact David Beemer at OmniUnum Farm or Antoinette Benjamin at Food for all Seasons.

Free-range lobster: Food buzzwords rendered meaningless

Certain buzzwords in the food world are almost a requirement in certain circles: organic, local, cage-free, grass-fed, and free-range jump into my mind.

There is also a general consensus these terms are being diluted past the original intention as more people latch onto them as passwords connoting meaning to the consumer concerned about eating responsibility when, in fact, the word denotes nothing.

Let us take them in order: organic. I was not there at the beginning of the organic labeling discussions but I feel many people hear organic food and they feel the vegetables have received “healthier” pesticides or none at all. That is not true.

I learned in my Master Gardener Class that certain botanical pesticides have as much or more toxicity than their synthetic equivalent. Organically labeled vegetables can still be coated with pesticides and grown in monoculture plots. However, organic does mean the plant is neither irradiated nor genetically modified. Whether “organic” is better for you enzymatically or nutritionally is an issue of current debate.

Local

I spoke to Martin Ruhlig, of Ruhlig’s Produce, this year at the HomeGrown Summit. He shared a story about his relative who was part of a major grocery chain’s “buy local” campaign. The trucks picked up the produce in Michigan and drove it to the distribution hub in Ohio - where it was mixed with all of the other “local” produce and reassigned to their stores within range. What does ocal really mean?

Cage-free

Cage-free poultry does not mean the birds are roaming across the prairie digging bugs and running around. Cage-free just means they are not kept in a cage. It does not say how much room the girls have. It does not address that chickens crammed together have their beaks burned off so they are unable to harm each other in the cramped conditions. The process is called debeaking or beak trimming. I found a truly disturbing slideshow of conditions in a “cage-free” facility, click here for it.

Grass-fed

Hearing that term does not mean the animal has been munching on pastures for its entire life either. In fact, it could mean that the animal ate grass for a week or a couple of months before putting the animal on feed to fatten it up quickly and save money.

Free-range

Again, it does not necessarily mean animals roaming on pastures. The USDA regulation states the animals must be “allowed access to the outside.” A door opened for 30 minutes a day, perhaps. A door opened does not mean animals are walking through it to see the sun.

All of this brings me to my free-range lobster story.

A few years ago, I was at a restaurant in New England, looking at the menu with the server standing over the table.

I look up and address her, “Tell me where your meat comes from.”

“It is from a local farm, organic, free-range. They found a really old breed and it is a small herd.”

“OK, good to know.”

I pause, and still scanning the menu, say to my tablemates - “The lobster looks good.”

The server jumps in. “Oh yes, the lobster is free-range.”

I turn to her, trying not to laugh. “Really, free-range lobster, that is great.”

As people eat more consciously they rely on words to tell them information about the food. Unfortunately, many of those words do not mean what we think they do. We are being co-opted by words that sound healthy, free and humane. The vocabulary has been co-opted as legalese for a distasteful reality.

Here is the link to the article on annarbor.com