Thanksgiving in 2014

                                  
Since its inception, Thanksgiving has been about sharing food, family and diplomacy; pass the stuffing, not the stereotypes. But lately, a new feud is brewing...a food fight. Do you see meat in the classic cornucopia image displayed above? Neither do I.
But I like meat. I'm not crazy about turkey actually, but ham, lamb, beef, chicken, I do eat all of those. And of course, I'll eat turkey tomorrow.
But what about my sister who is vegetarian (this week)? Or my dad who is adamantly attached to creamed corn even though we tell him it's not very healthy and terrible for his arteries?
Can we all still enjoy Thanksgiving together? Will food become a taboo subject at the dinner table like politics and religion?
I say, NO! Have a healthy serving of debate, disagreement and diversity this season, try a few new recipes, respectfully preserve some traditional ones, and just keep it coming til you run out of pie (and wine and beer, I would imagine). All that arguing will help burn off some of these excessive calories we've all decided to ingest anyway. Enjoy!
Some helpful suggestions:

Homemade cranberry sauce

homemade creamed corn,

pumpkin pie or

BPA free cans of cranberry sauce, corn and pumpkin

Vegan recipe suggestions for sides/turkey alternative

Safety tips for turkey

Happy Thanksgiving.


Maya Missaghi, William Mitchell College of Law
Photo credit: http://www.123rf.com/stock-photo/cornucopia.html

Vegans in FAVOR of engineered food? Pass the "mayo"

In an ironic twist, a small San Francisco start-up, Hampton Creek, is standing up for engineered mayo and giant corporation Unilever is pushing for the real deal.

As outlined in the L.A. Times, the dispute is about eggs: is that what makes mayonnaise genuine? Unilever is arguing that Hampton Creek is guilty of false advertising since its product "Just Mayo" does not contain any eggs. Ironically, this is the point of the product, since it is meant to be a vegan substitute for egg-based and therefore animal based mayonnaise. 

Hampton Creek CEO Josh Tetrick's position is that he's not disagreeing with the importance of eggs, but says he is absolved of any false advertising claims because his product is simply called "mayo" not "mayonnaise", thereby alerting his customers to the fact that this spread is different to old-fashioned, formal mayonnaise. 

The FDA's definition of mayonnaise does make eggs and integral part of the equation. But is it really deceptive to call a product "mayo" if your target audience is people looking for alternative solutions to traditional recipes? What do they need to call it, "I can't believe it's not mayo"?

Everyone is waiting with bated breath to see how this turns out. Meanwhile, Hampton Creek is getting free advertising and product placements all over the place. Good for them,

Maya Missaghi, William Mitchell College of Law

photo credit: Richard Levine/Corbis; Courtesy of Hampton Creek

Sodas taxed in Berkeley, and yet another reason to move to Hawaii

Tuesday's votes have established that although a soda tax was defeated in San Francisco, it's standing its ground across the bay in Berkeley, One food writer who lives in Berkeley and supports the tax does wonder if it'll have the desired effect of reducing the amount of soda people drink. But it's exciting to see it happening somewhere besides West Virginia. Let's see what happens.

In other news, the Hawaii islands of Maui and Molokai have voted in a moratorium on the use of genetically modified or engineered crops. This means that any genetic modification and engineering operations in the county have to stop until an environmental and public health study is conducted and finds the proposed practice involving GMO's to be safe and harmless. This has big consequences in Hawaii as many large companies love the tropical climate and have been growing crops abundantly there.