You know how you get all excited every time you go to the grocery store and there's someone serving up those free samples. That's about to be ruined forever. That's because one guy plead guilty to putting his jizz in a yogurt sample he served to a woman.
From morning booze at Starbucks to drive-thru booze at Sonic to just being a sad guy drinking booze at Burger King, we are living in a Golden Age of "being able to buy booze at fast food joints rather than being forced to buy booze at the gas station across the street and sneak it into the fast food place in a Big Gulp cup." But will this Golden Age persist?
Snacking on Doritos is typically discouraged at funerals, as the loud crunch of the popular junk food tends to drown out heartfelt eulogies and generally detract from the somber mood of the occasion. But this will not be the case at Arch West's funeral, the former Frito-Lay marketing executive credited with first pitching the company with the idea of producing a seasoned, mass-market tortilla chip back in 1961. (He did not invent the tortilla chip itself, mind you — credit for that goes to Rebecca Carranza, who accidentally created them after she inherited a malfunctioning tortilla machine in Los Angeles in the late 1940s.)
Americans are not the sort of slobs who are satisfied with simply consuming a drab, tasteless burger in a hobo-infested fast food restaurant hastily rebranded as a "cafe." Americans are the sort of slobs who want their burgers fast—but casual. Americans want a slightly wider selection of toppings available on their burgers, and they want to consume those burgers in a very slightly more attractive setting than a Burger King bathroom. Americans demand this!
Are you a pretty savvy and health conscious person who maintains a slim and attractive physique along with the body of a much younger human by dining solely on "all natural" foodstuffs? Congrats, good for you. You are dumb.
On September 11, a Muslim man going by the name "Tarek G." on Yelp ordered a burger from the Houston restaurant Petrol Station and received it in a "Happy September 11" box complete with an airplane crashing into one of the Twin Towers. Now that's personalized customer service.
Jade Sanders and Lamont Thomas, a vegan couple from Atlanta, had their murder convictions—and life sentences—upheld in court today. Their crime: Allowing their six-week-old son Crown Shakur to die of malnourishment after feeding him a diet of soy milk and apple juice.
Just last year it seemed almost inevitable that genetically engineered Frankenfish would soon be readily available to American consumers. But some lawmakers, like Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, are a little creeped out by the idea and are holding up FDA approval. Murkowski told the AP that the idea of eating Frankenfish "kind of gives me the heebie jeebies."
Restaurateurs, meet your new overlord, Marissa Mayer. The Google honcho, fashionista and foodie just announced that the search giant has acquired the Zagat Guides, giving diners everywhere hope for reviews that suck slightly less than those on Yelp.
Food conglomerate ConAgra, maker of all remaining food, hired the PR firm Ketchum for a fun promotional stunt: it would invite a bunch of food bloggers to a fancy dinner at an Italian restaurant, then reveal that they'd actually been served frozen ConAgra food-like products instead of real food. Mirth and delight would ensue! Alas, ConAgra and Ketchum should have watched the old Chris Farley skit more closely.
Organizers of the State Fair of Texas have just announced the winners of the Big Tex Choice Awards—the annual cooking deep-frying contest for fair concessionaires—and for the "most creative" dish they chose Fried Bubblegum. Which doesn't have any gum in it. Creative! Also: what?
Remember the KFC Double Down? Sure you do. It was that terrible and probably delicious monstrosity that replaced bread with fried chicken and your arteries with chaos. Well, welcome to 2011, where the Double Down is a thing of the past. Denny's has launched their new, "Let's Get Cheesy" menu, and nary a calorie was spared. Eight of the nine items on the menu have more calories than the Double Down and all can be ordered with "extra ooze." Two oozes on the side, please.
You'd think a professional chef who is also a cannibal would be into some ambitious human meat food, right? Nope! A 21-year-old Russian cook and (now-jailed) cannibal settled for some boring old meatballs and sausages.
Beefcake brothers create beef cake cafe! Hotties to hawk hamburgers in Hingham. Mark and Donnie Wahlberg recently secured the trademarked name Wahlburgers, which is what they plan to call their 4300-square-foot restaurant in Boston's Hingham Shipyard, where they already have an Italian restaurant called Alma Nove. Well done. [Boston Herald, Wahlberg brothers at a Lakers game via Splash]
Preaching fit! Ninja warriors! Muscle cream! Bulletproof skin! Bite counters! Vanity benefits! Meditation strength! Novak Djokovic! And the stunning origin of the TRX workout trend! It's your Monday Fitness Watch, where we watch fitness—bitingly!
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 23 million Americans live in "food deserts," low-income areas without "ready access" to grocery stores. This, however, is not why Americans are so fat, according to a University of North Carolina study of long-term eating habits and summarized in The Week:
