See, I sort of feel as if we’re just getting started. After taking over G&G two months ago, my goal was to make the site more accessible. Previous editor Derrick Schneider did a great job at keeping on top of the food production news, but my personal goal was to try and lure readers from other parts of WellFed over to G&G to help spread the word and the knowledge as to where our food really comes from.

In that respect, I genuinely feel as if I’ve failed in my goal, because writing for G&G still feels very much as if we’re “preaching to the choir”. I’ve discovered that the “30-minute meal” crowd really don’t want to know where their food comes from, and that’s so incredibly disheartening to me that it makes me want to cry. I know it’s easier to just think of “meat” as that pinkish stuff wrapped in plastic and styrofoam, or to expect strawberries to be on the supermarket shelves straight through the year, but our collective desire for fast and easy is killing the planet and it’s killing us.

If I could, I’d force every person to walk through the killing floor of an abattoir, clean out the cages of a 10,000-head chicken barn, and spend a day picking tomatoes in a field recently doused with pesticide – just so they’d know what it was like. Until we all wake up and spend some time seriously thinking about how our food ends up on our plates, we’re all guilty of countless deaths, unending pollution, and the worst possible sin for a true foodie – of eating really, really terrible food.

So as my parting request, what I’d like to ask of all you diehard G&G readers is this – let’s spread the word. Maybe that old “tell two friends” system could be put to work somehow, because the people who most need the information we’re trying to share at G&G are the people least likely to read the site in the first place. Likewise for the many, many books written over the past few years that share the same message. If we want the world to stop eating junk food and factory-farmed meat, and GM corn, and pesticide-doused lettuce, we’ve got to make our voices heard.

Got a blog? Write about the issue and post a link in the comments here. Better yet, write a letter and send it to your government representatives, your local newspapers and to the many companies that create the foods that are destroying our health and our environment. Cruise past the drive-through and try a local vegetarian restaurant instead. Put your money where your mouth is (literally) and stop buying processed foods, factory-farmed meat, out-of-season produce shipped thousands of miles, and all foods marketed specifically to kids.

Think, ask questions, know where your food comes from beyond the shelves of the A&P, and refuse anything that appears unethical. Do whatever you can to make a difference.

And finally, if you want to know more about food production issues, the following is just a tiny list of suggested reading to get you started. If you’ve got titles I have overlooked, please feel free to add them in the comments.

Don’t Eat This Book - Morgan Spurlock
Fast Food Nation – Eric Schlosser
Beyond Beef – Jeremy Rifkin
The Way We Eat – Why Our Food Matters – Peter Singer and Jim Mason
What to Eat – Marion Nestle
Food Politics – Marion Nestle
The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan
The End of Food – Thomas Palwick
Last Chance to Eat – Gina Mallet
Hope’s Edge – Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe
Feeding the Future – ed. Andrew Heintzman
Stolen Harvest – The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply – Vandana Shiva
The Food Revolution – How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Heal the World – John Robbins
Diet For A New America – John Robbins
Don’t Drink Your Milk!: New Frightening Medical Facts About the World’s Most Overrated Nutrient - Frank A. Oski

Also, if you haven’t already, check out the September 11th issue of the Nation. The cover headline “Wake Up America! Pay Attention to What You Eat!” pretty much says it all.

Do you lie awake at night wondering where your food comes from? Do you toss and turn over the real meaning of organic, or whether your meat eats grass or grain? Are you easily distracted by the idea that the US government pays farmers to grow corn that nobody needs? Then you might just be suffering from the Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Following four different meals back to their very beginnings along four separate and distinct food chains (industrial, organic industrial, organic sustainable and hunting and foraging) author Michael Pollan explores where our food comes from and how our choices are affecting our health and our environment. Anyone who isn’t yet convinced that just about everything to do with our food systems is political needs to sit down and read this book.

Like similar books published recently, such as What to Eat by Marion Nestle and The Way We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason, the Omnivore’s Dilemma is predisposed to favouring organic sustainable eating over the other options. Pollan explores a typical fast food meal to show exactly how much our diet depends on corn, right down to the beef in our burgers. Looking as closely at the factory farm complex as he is allowed (Pollan could not gain permission to enter an abattoir and be present on the killing floor during processing) , he is still able to paint a stark and often frightening picture of the standard industrial diet, particularly as it relates to the use of vital resources:

I don’t have a sufficiently vivid imagination to look at my steer and see a barrel of oil, but petroleum is one of the most important ingredients in the production of modern meat, and the Persian Gulf is surely a link in the food chain that passes through this (or any) feedlot. Steer 534 started his life part of a food chain that derived all of its energy from the sun, which nourished the grasses that nourished him and his mother. When 534 moved from ranch to feedlot, from grass to corn, he joined an industrial food chain powered by fossil fuel – and therefore defended by the U.S. military, another never-counted cost of cheap food.

Organics find a bit more favour, but Pollan’s harsh words for the organic supermarket stylings of chains like Wholefoods have sparked a very public argument between himself and Wholefoods founder John MacKey. The argument probably isn’t over, as the organic certification standards keep changing and more and more industrial producers and sellers opt in, the growth in farms that produce organic food on a huge industrial scale will continue to grow.

Pollan offers his highest praise for the organic sustainable meal. He spends some time on Polyface Farm in Virginia with farmer Joel Salatin. Under the premise of constant rotation and symbiotic relationships, Salatin raises beef, pigs and chickens, often using the waste of one to improve the next. For instance, during the winter, the cows are kept in a barn where their waste is allowed to build up, layered with straw and handfuls of corn. The corn ferments and in the spring when the cows are put out to pasture, the pigs root through the cow dung in search of the corn, stirring it up and quickly turning it to compost for the pasture. In the fields, the cows are moved frequently and chickens are put in the fields after them. The chickens dig through the cow patties for bugs and grubs, breaking up the cow patties and adding their own nitrogen-rich waste to the mix, which in turn fertilizes the grass so it can grow again and the cows can come back to start the process all over again.

Pollan takes part in the weekly chicken slaughter at Polyface and remarks on the fact that customers drive an hour or more to pick up their organic, sustainably-raised chickens as Salatin refuses to sell to stores, retailing only through a few Farmer’s Market, with most of his sales going to local restaurants. This is my one issue with the premise of Salatin’s set-up and with the general philosophy of “buying local”. How much fuel is wasted as each of those customers (many based an hour or more away in Washington DC, some even half a day’s drive) travel all the way to Polyface for one chicken? The same is true of CSA set-ups that require customers to pick up their weekly produce. If at least part of the goal is to help the environment, then many of these farms should figure out a way to do a weekly delivery to a central pick-up point rather than expect customers to drive a hundred miles or more for a chicken or a box of zucchini.

With his final meal being one of hunting, gathering and foraging, Pollan sits down at a steakhouse with a book by animal rights activist Peter Singer and tries, in his own book, to justify his habit of meat eating. With the hunting portion of his project close at hand, he tries desperately to come up with a few good reasons for what he plans to do.

To be honest, this is the point at which Pollan lost me. He at least has enough sense to be embarrassed by the “man versus beast” prose that he inserts into these chapters, and enough good sense to be thoroughly squicked by the fact that he has not only killed a wild pig but that pig is full of (can you believe it??) blood and guts, but the arguments he offers to try and refute Singer’s claims (and for the record, I’m not a huge fan of Singer’s – the guy can be a bit extreme in his opinions), which he refers to as “The Vegetarian’s Dilemma” seems a little like drawing at straws. And while he makes a point that reflects my own philosophy of vegetarianism. “ What’s wrong with eating animals is the practice, not the principle”, he still seems a tad too desperate about being parted from his beloved steak.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a tough book to handle in many ways. There is far more to what we eat than brightly coloured packaging and cello-wrap, and most of it isn’t pretty. There is a huge political machine in place that influences our decisions at the supermarket and at the table, and Pollan wants us all to be able to see past the smoke and mirrors to know where our food really comes from. We can only hope that the philosophy of slow food, lovingly prepared and humanly and sustainably raised will eventually trickle down to the “meals in 30 minutes” crowd who keep the industrial food system (both traditional and organic) in business.

In the UK, Fearnley-Whittingstall is most well known for his River Cottage series. Starting in 1999, he left London for the wilds of the Dorset countryside, where he rented a small cottage and lived close to the land. He gardened, raised pigs, hunted rabbits and trapped eels in the nearby river. With the locals offering assistance in their various specialties which ranged from jam-making to meat-curing to sheep-shearing, Fearnley-Whittingstall learned firsthand about life in the country. He enjoyed it so much he returned to shoot four years worth of the show, and finally bought a large farm for himself and his family nearby.

What is unique and very important about the series and the process is that, in an era when small farms are being bought out by giant corporations, Fearnley-Whittingstall has returned to the land with the notion of creating a sustainable farm. Both in the television series, the accompanying books, and in the very extensive website, he espouses eating locally and organically. And especially, seasonally.

I believe passionately that those who shop and cook in harmony with the seasons will get immeasurably more pleasure and satisfaction from their food than those who don’t. I’ve also observed, with mounting alarm, that our sense of seasonality is under threat. The supermarkets must take the lion’s share of the blame. For the most part, they seem not merely uninterested in seasonality but often keen to suppress it. They source produce throughout the world that homogenises their product range into a year-long display of cosy familiarity. Of necessity, the seasons still exert some influence on their stocking policy. Yet they will do everything possible to disguise this fact when presenting produce to their customers. They fear that seasonally driven marketing will result in inconsistent spending. They don’t want their customers to think seasonally, because they believe seasonality is not profitable.

The River Cottage website offers a wealth of information on eating seasonally and sustainably, including a list of what’s currently in season (in the UK, of course), seasonal recipes, info about events and competitions in the Dorset area, as well as a collection of Fearnley-Whittingstall’s essays on food production.

You can also shop on the River Cottage site, which offers all of the River Cottage books, DVDS (VAT format only, unfortunately), or vouchers to River Cottage events. Their line of seasonal products which includes the amusing “pig in a box” (“everything but the oink!), as well as a selection of soups, oils, and even stinging nettle beer are available through various UK retailers and farm markets.

The television series revels in the wonders of good food, from scallops fresh from the sea (caught by divers, not trawlers which cause environmental damage), to stinging nettle gnocchi, real mince pies, Hugh’s famous “bunny burgers”, local hard cider, and of course, the sausage and hams made from the River Cottage pigs, you get the feeling that this is truly what food is all about, not the chemical-ridden junk from the middle aisles of the fluorescent-lit supermarkets.

For anyone truly interested in where their food comes from, both the River Cottage series, as well as the website and cookbooks, are amazing resources. With a philosophy of seasonal, sustainable organic food where all parts of the plants and animals are used, Fearnley-Whittingstall is both a throwback to a more simple time, and shockingly progressive. By setting his own high standards, to the point of growing and raising his own food, he proves that we don’t have to be trapped by the chain supermarkets and giant food corporations.

First up this week is the news that there are now officially more overweight and obese people in the world than undernourished. With total figures topping 1 billion obese compared to 800 million undernourished, concern is being raised about how the “burden of obesity” is shifting from the rich to the poor in both western and majority world countries. And according to the CBC, obesity in the western world is starting even younger, with obesity levels in infants on the rise. This issue is on the radar in Australia, where childhood obesity rates have now overtaken adults and where experts are calling for a price cut to fresh fruits and vegetables to encourage people, and especially children, away from junk food.

Quite a different story from that told at the World AIDS conference taking place this week in Toronto, where recommendations have been made to make food and nutritional support part of the essential package of care for people affected by HIV.

A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that coffee may be beneficial to health, as it is full of anti-oxidants, and reduces the risk of diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver and heart disease. If you take (soy) cream in your coffee, you might want to take heed of the recent actions at WholeFoods where the housebrand 365 Everyday Value Soy Cream Chocolate and 365 Everyday Value Soy Cream Vanilla have been recalled because they are believed to be tainted with milk proteins. Bad news for folks with milk allergies who rely on soy products.

In India, they’re still concerned about pesticide levels in popular soft drink products, but now a US official has warned that doing so will be bad for the Indian economy. Or is the concern really because it will it actually be bad for western stockholders?

Frankly, they’ve got more important things to worry about in India as a ban on the export of lentils has destabilized the price of this very important food item (lentils are the main source of protein for Indian vegetarians), causing the price to shoot up almost 200% in some areas.

And finally, the square watermelon is headed for Great Britain. Long popular in Japan, the square watermelon, which won’t roll around in your fridge, likely won’t hit the markets in North America, as growers don’t believe we’re willing to pay the premium price for an item that is otherwise exactly the same as the round version.

The supermarket can be an intimidating place if you’re trying to eat healthy. Figuring out good food choices can require an advanced education in math, science and possibly even advertising. It’s enough to send one running to the pastry aisle to drown your sorrows in a bag of donuts. But wait – do you know what’s in those donuts? Marion Nestle does.

What to Eat is an aisle by aisle synopsis of the good, the bad and the ugly of your average supermarket. And although I might be accused of spoiling the plot, I’ve gotta tell you, most of it is bad and ugly. Nestle explains everything you need to know about every category of item in the grocery store; from eggs to bottled water, from produce to packaged cereals. She explains how to read a label, how to calculate serving sizes, and how to talk to the staff at your supermarket to get the information the labels don’t tell you – such as the origin of fresh fish or produce.

Weighing in at a hefty 524 pages (before appendices, endnotes, bibliography or index), What to Eat is best read in small increments, as the subject matter is overwhelming and often confusing - food marketers tend to prefer it that way so you’ll just give up trying to figure out a serving and will eat the whole bag/box/package. Each chapter (or aisle, if you will) contains so much information that you’ll wish the book came in a downloadable format that could be loaded onto a Blackberry for easier access while shopping.

Nestle is sometimes vague on her studied opinion of certain foods, however, which can make the book a bit frustrating. Like most nutritionists, she advises that most foods are fine in small “moderate” amounts, but never really tells us what moderate is.

It’s also important to remember that while Nestle’s opinion is an extremely well-respected one, it is still just one opinion with dissenting voices (and not just those of food marketers) to be heard on each subject. For instance, in the section on bottled waters, she advises readers to pick brands with added fluoride to protect their children’s teeth, however general consensus on the fluoride issue is to avoid excess fluoride, as Americans, particularly children, already get too much.

Nestle is particularly critical of marketing aimed at children. In the chapter titled “Food For Kids”, she disabuses us of the idea that kids should have their own food, just for them. She states the obvious truth that many of us ignore, “If you offer healthy foods, your children will have the chance to eat them. If you offer junk foods to your children, they will eat junk foods.” She looks at how brand loyalty in children is anchored at an early age, and how companies rely on the “pester factor” to sell junky, sugary products that parents would prefer to avoid.

She offers a list of tips to help parents deal with marketing efforts aimed at children:

- don’t take tots grocery shopping or let them near one of those training carts
- if you must take them, set spending limits in advance (one parent that I know sets that limit at $1)
- don’t buy food products with cartoons or games on them
- don’t buy any packaged cereal or snack labeled as “fun”
- don’t buy food because they are vitamin-enriched
- count the sugars (a tablespoon is 15 grams)

And if you are really serious about what your kids eat, stick to the periphery and
- don’t set foot in the centre aisles

She is especially scornful of the techniques used to sell kids on the idea of “kid food” as opposed to adult food:

This “kids are only supposed to eat kids’ food” strategy also explains the invention of blue-colored french fries from Ore-Ida/Heinz and, not coincidentally, purple and green ketchups (also from Heinz) to put on them. In the same genre Kraft/Altria makes macaroni with blue cheese sauce; its box displays the popular cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, licensed by Nickeledeon, the commercial television channel aimed at children. Such products are sold as harmless amusements – and that may well be the manufacturers’ intention – but their overall effect is to teach kids not to like or refuse to try the “adult” foods their families are eating. When you hear parents say, “My kid only eats [this particular product] and won’t eat anything else,” you are witnessing targeted food marketing at its most effective.

My copy of What to Eat currently sports a dog-eared one-and-a-half stacks of small blue post-it note pages, most covered in scribbled ideas for future reference, marking topics that I want to learn more about, write about or do more research on. I could probably double or triple my post-it count if I read the book a second time.

Even if I don’t agree with every point Nestle makes, and even if I think she’s occasionally a bit too non-committal for a world-famous nutritionist whose written a book on traversing the supermarket aisle (or maybe I’m just expecting too much to assume the woman has a hard and fast opinion on every single product), What to Eat may still be the most important book written on food and nutrition in this decade. Anyone who reads it cannot help but look at the wide shiny aisles of their local food emporium differently, and that’s the very first step we all need to take to ensure we’re eating food that is beneficial to both us and the environment.

Earlier this week, the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi-based environmental group, announced that soft drinks produced by Coca-Cola and Pepsi (which, combined, share 80% of the Indian soft drink market) were contaminated with pesticides to a level 24 times higher than the limits set by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Six separate Indian states had banned the beverages either partially or outright as of August 13th.

Both manufacturers have rejected the findings, questioning the credibility of the tests and arguing that the problem is in the contaminated groundwater used in the products, not in their manufacturing process. While Coca-Cola remains steadfast in rejecting the claims, news agencies are reporting that Pepsi seems willing to work to a stricter set of standards set up by the CSE. Coke and Pepsi have each mounted a PR campaign to calm consumers, pointing out that the pesticide levels in their products are below levels in other foodstuffs such as eggs, tea, dairy products and grains.

According to Voice of America News:

The Indian Supreme Court has demanded that the companies reveal their recipe, so that allegations of high pesticide levels can be verified with further tests.

But consumer groups say the campaign against the soft drinks ignores the bigger picture. They say many Indian foods and beverages have high levels of pesticides because intensive use of chemicals by farmers has contaminated the groundwater. They are asking the government to focus on the wider issue of pesticide proliferation.

The head of the Mumbai-based Consumer Guidance Society of India, A.R. Shenoy, is calling for stricter implementation of safety standards in all food products, not only soft drinks.

The CSE has asked Coke to reveal the results of internal tests in which the manufacturer claims the pesticide levels are far below the Indian government’s standards and come in line with the more stringent levels set by the European Union.

Soft drink sales in India have dropped nearly 15% since the ban was put in place although this figure is still less than the hit the cola manufacturers took when similar allegations were leveled and dismissed in 2003. Meanwhile local manufacturers are taking advantage of the absence of Coke and Pepsi to market local beverages such as tender coconut water in prime tourist destinations.

But what about when it comes to the ingredient list? “Natural” flavours and colours don’t necessarily mean that they’ve come naturally from the product at hand, and synthetic colors haven’t necessarily been cooked up in a lab – strawberry candies don’t contain any actual strawberries. But what makes those candy strawberries red?

Bugs. Pretty little red bugs. C’mon. Bugs are natural. Although on ingredients lists, you’ll often find cochineal extract listed simply as “synthetic color”, the product itself is made from dried female cochineal beetles, a tiny insect that lives on cactus plants in Central and South America.

If you’ve inhaled the occasional fly, this might not worry you so much, but for vegetarians and people with allergies, eating bugs is a big deal. Problem is, cochineal extract (sometimes listed correctly, often listed as “carmine” or simply “artificial color” or “synthetic color”) shows up in some rather interesting products – I’ll be reconsidering my morning glass of pink grapefruit juice now that I know it’s made pink not by the actual grapefruit, but by the inclusion of bug juice. Yoplait strawberry yogurt, Good & Plenty candy, red popsicles… yep, all made with bugs.

The US Food and Drug Administration has received complaints about the lack of appropriate labelling with regards to cochineal extract, and food activists hope to have the law changed by the end of the year so the ingredients are labelled more clearly. While allergic reactions to cochineal extract are rare, they do occur, particularly in factory workers who are regularly exposed to the product.

In the meantime, it’s hard for the average consumer to know what contains cochineal beetles and what doesn’t. A reasonable rule of thumb is to assume that any and all candies and junk food probably contain synthetic dyes. When it comes to foods otherwise considered healthy such as that yogurt or grapefruit juice, you’ve got to read the labels and watch for flags like “synthetic color”, “artificial color”, or the term carmine. Also beware of the term “natural color”, because it doesn’t necessarily mean that the color comes from the ingredients in the product.

But there it is… Under the brand name “Fries and Things” (which provokes one to wonder exactly what else will fit into a French fry holder), a company called K-Enterprises Inc. of Danville, Ind, has created “a plastic shell in the shape of a standard fast-food French fry container, with a round nub at its bottom allowing it to fit in a car cupholder”.

I can’t help but wonder, though – does anyone really need fries that badly (and that quickly) that they need to eat and drive at the same time? Isn’t that dangerous? Isn’t reaching over for a handful of fries and ketchup just as distracting as a cellphone? Or am I, a dedicated walker and public transit rider who doesn’t even have a driver’s license, just a little bit naive to the ways of the motoring world?

Turns out, the trend towards cupholder cuisine has been around for years, and as car companies have changed their design to accommodate more food, devices such as the Fries and Things holder seem to be the wave of the future.

Various media outlets offer a range of opinions on the product, with some proclaiming this to be the greatest invention ever, while other are a bit more sceptical. Count me in the sceptical tally. I mean, I get that it’s supposed to be “fast” food, but there’s just something uncivilized about a salty, greasy steering wheel (or eating while driving, for that matter). And having a way to keep packages of fries secure while driving is only likely to encourage people to buy more of the things – good for fast food restaurants – not so good for the customer’s arteries.

It fits into a standard cup holder, giving a driver easy access to all the trans fats she or he desires. And between trips to your favorite grease pit, Fries & Things can hold sunglasses, pens, a heart monitor or other necessities. – Chicago Tribune

I don’t suppose any of the folks forking over the $2.99US for one of these thingamajigs is intending to use theirs for holding carrot and celery sticks, huh?

Are you drinking stale coffee? 99% of North Americans are. According to the Merchants of Green Coffee, a truly fresh cup of coffee must be served within 5 days of roasting, within 3 hours of grinding and within 15 minutes of brewing. The key to ensuring this formula is obviously to roast your own.

My first encounter with the Merchants of Green Coffee came at an organic food fair. Set up in the middle of a downtown Toronto park, they were handing out free cups of the most delicious coffee I had ever tasted.

At that point (2002), organic, fair trade coffee was still hard to find in Canada, and the only green beans the average consumer ever came across was in the built-in display case at one of the local coffee chains where they were used as an example, but were not for sale.

My husband and I took a pamphlet and a few weeks later, made our way to the retail store. There, a very wired young man showed us how to roast our coffee beans in a counter-top roaster, and then brewed those same beans for us to drink. We were hooked.

While our brewmaster proceeded to run through the same routine for another customer (thus explaining his coffee jitters – he drank a cup with each customer) we wandered around the shop. Bags of beans from around the world were on display, as well as examples of the set-up used to air-dry certain types of beans. A cozy area of sofas and tables offered a place to sit down and learn more about fair trade and green coffee.

The Merchants have a three-fold philosophy to explain their business.

First, fresh coffee:

The best cup of coffee is a fresh cup of coffee made from high quality beans. Fresh roasted coffee is a naturally sweet tasting beverage with distinctive regional tastes and flavours. It is pure enjoyment for coffee lovers. It is also the economic driver of our business and our reason for being!

Fair Trade:

It seems only natural to us that in order to ensure a consistent supply of high quality coffees, one develop good relationships with, and pay fair prices to, coffee farmers. Paying fair prices lets farmers re-invest profit back into farms and communities to improve quality of life. Fair trade also means equal opportunity and pay, doing business with the highest level of transparency and an equitable exchange with nature.

And Green Business:

Coffee grows best at high elevations on natural biodiverse farms where nature provides the ingredients - fertile soils, rain, sun, warmth and protection - not us. A combination of traditional agricultural methods with new tools and technologies make it possible, and profitable, for farmers to grow coffee sustainably. Being a green business or consumer is making a choice to buy smart, reduce, recycle, and reuse.

The merchants source certified Fair Trade, Organic, Shade Grown and/or Bird-Friendly, and/or 100% Sustainable beans. They have created a sustainable coffee certification and are the only company to source sustainable beans from Costa Rica.

Their extensive website offers information on everything from the history of coffee to how to brew the perfect cup. They have an online catalogue of different beans from around the world – divided by continent – which they can ship anywhere. There are also a variety of subscription programs available so you can have coffee automatically delivered to your door each month.

We left that day with a countertop roaster and two pounds of green beans, and after four years of roasting our own coffee, we could never go back to store-bought. The roasting process is easy and fun (watching the beans brown and pop remains a fascination for me), and having super-fresh home-roasted coffee on hand has spoiled us for coffee anywhere else. Knowing that it is organic, fair-trade and sustainable is just cream.

Merchants of Green Coffee are located at
2 Matilda Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
M4M 1L9

Visit their website at:
http://www.merchantsofgreencoffee.com/

But here’s the deal. Cereal companies are corporations. They have a duty to their stockholders to expand their market share every quarter. Which means cereal companies have to come up with new and innovative ways to get all of us to eat more cereal. In recent years, someone clued in to the fact that cereal is comfort food for many people, and started marketing it as a tasty snack designed to replace the chips, pretzels and ice cream we used to eat.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? After all, cereal is good for you.

Not so fast. Because most pre-packaged, pre-sweetened cereal is no better than eating a pile of cookies or a slice of cake. According to nutritionist Marion Nestle in her latest book What to Eat:

Breakfast cereals are supposed to be good for you, and the relatively unprocessed ones still are, but most are now so thoroughly processed and sugared and filled with additives that they might as well be cookies.

Most cereals are low in fibre, and high in sugar, sodium and artificial colors, flavors and preservatives. Oh, yeah, and calories. Maybe not quite so many calories as a big bowl of ice cream, but if you’re eating cereal three or four times a day, especially if you’re eating it as a snack, you might find those comfy pyjama pants getting a little snug.

MIT researcher Judith Wurtman said people often crave cereal when they are feeling depressed or anxious. Wurtman discovered that when people stop eating carbohydrates, their brains stop regulating serotonin, a chemical in the brain involved in elevating mood and suppressing appetite.

The need to make more serotonin is felt, and it’s felt in the form of a craving for carbohydrates,” said Wurtman.

The problem, she said, is that some cravers eat cereal without paying attention to how much they have consumed, leading to weight gain.

The recent trend in cereal restaurants now has people eating cereal not just at home, but at school and at the office. The underground shopping PATH in downtown Toronto boasts a restaurant called The Cereal Bar (similar in concept to the Cereality chain) and at all times of day, well-suited executives can be seen heading to their offices carrying little bowls of cereal and containers of milk. It all seems a little bit odd, doesn’t it? After all, those crazy frosted sugar-coated cereals are meant for kids. Aren’t they?

There are some theories that the sweet colorful cereal is appealing to adults because of our tendency to want to stay kids forever. Rejuveniles have spurred the current food trend towards fancy cupcakes, and may well be behind the resurgence of the bowl of cereal, as food companies play on our desire for something fun and bright and exciting, as well as our longing for the comfort food of our childhood.

Health experts advise that cereals should be chosen for their nutritional value, and most of the cereals being purchased from fast-food cereal restaurants lean towards the colored, frosted varieties. The inner cheapskate in me balks at the trend as well. If someone really wants to eat cereal at the office, how hard can it be to buy a box or two at the supermarket and then fill a tupperware container before heading out for the day? Last I checked, milk of all varieties comes in small cartons, or tetrapaks, and can also be brought from home if necessary.

In some ways, I find the cereal restaurant trend even more insidious than standard fast food (speaking of which – how long will it be before at least one of the fast-food chains jumps on the cereal bandwagon?). Burger chains pull at a lot of emotional strings to get us to associate their food with good memories, but for most adults, cereal has a built-in allure all of its own. That’s good news for cereal manufacturers and cereal restaurants, but not such great news for consumers wallets - or their waistlines.