Food Product of the Week! Vitamin Water "Puffery"

Grocery stores are saturated with food products. Food products are made to resemble real food, but aren't real food. Every Friday I'll feature one of these products.

To win Food Product of the Week, a food product must not only be artificial, but exhibit a particular pointlessness, either for its health value, money value, or convenience value. Added bonus if it embodies or promotes some massive misconception in our understanding of nutrition. 

Last week a judge ruled that the labeling on the popular sports drink Vitaminwater is misleading to consumers who are trying to maintain a healthy diet.  The Center for Science in the Public Interest brought a class action lawsuit against the makers of Vitaminwater (that would be Coke) for placing misleading health claims on its bottles.  Health claims like "hydrate responsibly" and "vitamins + water = all you need."  In reality, Steve Gardner, CSPI litigation director said, the 33 grams of sugar and "crystalline fructose" in Vitaminwater basically amounts to "non-carbonated soda."  Judge Gleeson agreed, making the road clear for the case to go to trial, unless perhaps Coke agrees to change the name/labeling of this product.  Personally, I think they should go with Crystalline Fructose.

Here's more from Gardener: 

For too long, Coca-Cola has been exploiting Americans’ desire to eat and drink more healthfully by deceiving them into thinking that vitaminwater can actually prevent disease,” said CSPI litigation director Steve Gardner. “In fact, vitaminwater is no more than non-carbonated soda, providing unnecessary added sugar and contributing to weight gain, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases. We look forward to representing all Americans whom Coke has deceived.” 

So what's the big difference between Vitaminwater's claims and some of the other claims we've seen on Food Product of the Week?  Is this opening any floodgates for food products to begin advertising a little more honestly?  The question earns Vitaminwater the prize of this week's Food Product of the Week.

Read more here and here.

Nation's Oldest Running Farm Put on Market in New Hampshire

Sad.

A very different story than what you usually hear about local agriculture--that it's booming and everything is great.  The article makes me wonder why the farm couldn't make it.  Peter Schworm links it to sprawling development and the loss of farmland in New England and in the US as a whole.  But if the city was building up around the farm, why didn't that mean more customers?  Will Tuttle, the farmer, mentions large corporations like Wal Mart and Target who outcompeted him, despite the new trend in local food and farm to plate.  Makes sense.

The article doesn't mention two things: growing methods and method of sales. Often I've known conventional farmers to be strained economically because of added inputs.  Also, farmers can sometimes get into dire straights when large food companies step in and establish a wholesale relationship--usually the farmer ends up turning little to no profit for a lot of extra work.

Anyway, I don't want to speculate too much.  I'm just curious because I'm fashioning my own farming business model. Hopefully Tuttle Farm continues producing in some form.

The Tomatoes are Dead Party

They say all good things must come to an end, or in this case, all insanely productive things must come to an end.  Our 71 beds of tomatoes gave JBG a good harvest, to say the least.  Maybe a little too good.  For about two months, all the small staff did in the barn at Johnson's was wash, sort, and pack tomatoes.  Standing around a vegetable washing machine with a spinny sorting table can sort of make you nauseous at 6am.  And doing it from 6am to 4pm is pretty much worse than anything I can think of.  Jon, a relatively new intern, described it as "sort of like the assembly line in a Chinese widget factory."  The stress broke a few of the interns, in fact, and we lost a couple. Everyone at Johnson's currently has large bags under their eyes.

But as of last Friday, the tomatoes are gone for the rest of the summer.  Travis, aptly, is currently planning a 'Tomatoes are Dead' party.  The consistently high heat of August is too much for the tomatoes, and we're currently ripping up tomato stakes and cutting twine over at River Road. They will make a comeback in the fall, but we've planted a much more reasonable 23 beds.

The Austin growing season may be year-round, but that doesn't mean it's not dynamic.  Certain times of the year are much more plentiful than others.  The bounty we saw at the beginning of this season is now going to give way to a more steady, mundane harvest.  As the heat gets high and the plants kick into survival mode, they won't be growing and producing as much as they were last month.  August mirrors February here in Texas--not much grows and the fields look the same week to week.

We're planting a fall succession now so that when the weather cools again, we will be ready for a large fall harvest.  And by then, we'll have some greens--kale, collards, swiss chard--which I have missed dearly. I'm noticing that I'm always ready for the change in seasons.  Just as the weather shifts is when I'm getting a little bored with whatever the harvest is loading me up with.  Maybe that's all in the natural rhythm of things.  Or maybe I'm just glad to get away from the vegetable spinny machine.