Salmon Farming in Alaska: 'Are You Insane?'

Raising the idea of salmon farms in Alaska, Gov. Dunleavy swims against a tide of skeptics

Amid the hubbub of President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Alaska summit last week, Gov. Mike Dunleavy, posting on social media, posed a provocative question.

“Alaska is a leader in fresh caught wild salmon. We could also be a leader in the farmed salmon industry. Why not do both instead of importing farmed salmon from Scotland?,” he wrote, sharing an article about the value of fish farming in Scotland, where Atlantic salmon are raised in net pens in the ocean. “This would be a great opportunity for Alaska.”

The answer from scientists, wild salmon advocates, restaurant people and regular salmon-eating Alaskans has come swiftly, full of alarm and often along the lines of one of the early commenters on his post, who wrote, “Are you insane?”

Love for wild salmon cuts through partisan politics. No food is more important to the state’s culture, diet, identity and economy. As such, Alaskans don’t look kindly on farmed fish. It’s tough to find it in stores and few, if any, restaurants serve it. Farming salmon and other finfish has been banned since 1990 over concerns about environmental threats to wild stocks and economic competition. But Dunleavy, who has become increasingly interested in Alaska’s food security since the pandemic, is curious about bringing in fish farms.

Last legislative session, his office introduced a bill that would authorize land-based farming of non-salmon species like trout or tilapia. That bill faced an avalanche of opposition in committee. But his recent post went further, signaling a shift feared by fisheries advocates, from a narrow focus on land-based farms to a broader look at farming salmon, the vast majority of which happens in net pens in the ocean. (...)

Dunleavy didn’t have a specific plan for how salmon in Alaska might be farmed, he said. Land-based salmon farming, something some environmental groups support, is being tried in a few markets but can be cost-prohibitive. There are concerns over open-net pens that need to be addressed, he said, as well as concerns about what species of salmon might be raised.

Salmon is the second-most popular seafood in the country, just behind shrimp, and roughly 75% to 80% of the salmon Americans eat is farmed Atlantic salmon. Atlantic salmon in the wild have almost disappeared due to overfishing and they cannot be fished commercially. Alaska provides the lion’s share of the wild salmon in the country’s fish markets. But in the world, Dunleavy pointed out, Russia provides the largest share of salmon. Farming fish might be a way for Alaska, and the U.S., to occupy a larger position in that marketplace, he said.

“What I’ve said is, basically, is the discussion worthwhile that Alaska has today, in 2025, to visit the idea of Alaska being part of that game of a new sector?” he said.

At-sea fish farming has gotten cleaner in recent decades, thanks to advances in technology and feeding practices that minimize the impacts of effluent, said Caitlyn Czajkowski, executive director of the National Aquaculture Association, a Florida-based aquaculture trade association.

“There’s a lot of things about the ocean that we know now that we didn’t know 20 years ago,” she said.

Some non-salmon operations also now farm fish that are genetically sterile, so that if they escape, they can’t mix with local populations. That technology is still under development for salmon, however. There are a number of places that used to have commercial salmon fisheries in the Atlantic region, including Maine, Canada and a number of European countries that now farm Atlantic salmon. There isn’t another place, like Alaska, where salmon farming is happening in tandem with a robust wild salmon fishery, Czajkowski said.

At Crush Bistro, a high-end restaurant in downtown Anchorage bustling with tourists this week, Rob DeLucia, owner and general manager, said he was dumbfounded by the governor’s post. Guests come into the restaurant every night and say they came to Alaska for two reasons: to see Denali and to eat wild fish, he said.

“It is crystal clear when you get a piece of salmon at a restaurant in Alaska, that thing was swimming around in the last couple of days out in the wild blue ocean, and now we’re going to have guests be like, ‘Well, is this farmed or is this wild?’” he asked.

Atlantic farmed salmon, from a culinary standpoint, is inferior in taste and texture, he said. It made no sense to promote it.

“(Dunleavy) should have his Alaskan card revoked,” DeLucia said.

by Julia O'Malley, Anchorage Daily News | Read more:
Image: Pens for farmed salmon sit off the shore of Tasmania, Australia in 2023. (AP Photo/Matthew Newton)
[ed. Not insane, just a Republican. If he really cared about salmon, gold medal branding, supporting Alaskan communities, he'd be dead set against something like this (and other self-inflicted threats, like a proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay). He isn't. See also: Help wanted. Job opening with good pay, free housing, free parking, 4-year contract:]

***

Help Wanted: Unique opportunity to lead the largest state in the country, with more miles of coastline, taller mountains, more fish and game, more dreams and less reality than those other 49 pipsqueaks.
Dynamic, credible decision maker with strong personality needed to lead the second-youngest state in the nation into the future, albeit without enough money to meet all its needs.

It’s a fixer-upper job; the current employee has let a lot of things go bad, never learned to get along with co-workers, and hasn’t been working all that hard. Which means the next person has loads of opportunity to make a difference. The bar is low, but the need is high.

Applicants have plenty of time to study and do their homework; the job opens up next year.

Job candidates can use that time to think about how they will bring together disagreeable factions, confront decades-old problems, pay attention to the work at home and less attention to national media, all while winning the hearts and minds of the public — and the support of their colleagues in elected office.

Most importantly, job applicants need to tell the truth about realistic plans. The state has suffered too long with leadership that believes in crystal balls, while public services have fallen behind the eight ball.

The job pays $176,000 a year and includes free housing in a historic home in the state capital city, easy walking distance to the office that comes with a remodeled conference room, a full kitchen and reserved parking.

It’s a four-year job, which should be enough time for the right person to make a difference.

Applications are now being accepted for the job of governor of Alaska. The deadline to apply is June 1 next year. The first cut will come in the Aug. 18 primary election, with the final decision in the Nov. 4 general election.

Already, eight Republicans and one Democrat have applied for the job. By the time applications close, the list likely will exceed a baker’s dozen.

Candidates may be judged by the public on how well they can answer questions about state finances, state tax policies, school funding, social services, law enforcement, housing and the other basics of life, like water and sewage services.

The best candidates will be the ones who truly understand why a state with $82 billion in savings can seem so broke; who can explain why nonresidents who come here to work go home every two weeks without paying any taxes; why some corporations doing business in Alaska pay taxes and others don’t; why the state can’t seem to process Medicaid and food stamp applications on time; why the ferry system has shrunk and rusted away; why some cities pay for police services while others sponge off the state troopers; and why child care and children’s services come up short in the budget.

Don’t apply if you don’t want to deal honestly with the problems, and if you don’t have specific positions and proposals to share. This is not a job for vague answers, wishful thinking and fields of dreams. Remote work not allowed.

via: here/here

Greek Lemon Potatoes

For the dreamiest roasted potatoes — with creamy insides and very crispy outsides — follow this classic Greek method of roasting peeled potatoes in equal parts olive oil, lemon juice and chicken stock. The potatoes soak up the flavorful liquid, allowing the insides to remain tender while the outsides crisp in the oven’s high heat. You can follow the same method for russet potatoes, though the final result will be less moist.

Ingredients

Yield: 6 servings

½cup chicken broth or water
½cup olive oil
½cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 3 to 4 large lemons)
1tablespoon kosher salt
3pounds large Yukon Gold potatoes (about 6), peeled then halved lengthwise and crosswise
1tablespoon dried oregano (optional)
Flaky salt and black pepper, for serving

Preparation

Step 1
Heat the oven to 450 degrees. On a rimmed sheet pan, combine the chicken broth, olive oil, lemon juice and kosher salt. Toss the potatoes in the liquid to coat, then arrange the potatoes in an even layer, cut-sides down. Sprinkle the oregano over the potatoes, if using.

Step 2
Roast the potatoes, flipping halfway through, until fork-tender, dark brown and crispy on top, 55 to 60 minutes. (If the potatoes are cooked through but not as crispy as you’d like, run them under the broiler for a few minutes.) Sprinkle with flaky salt and black pepper as desired.

by Ali Slagle, NY Times |  Read more:

Image: Andrew Purcell for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne
[ed. Different and looks easy enough (my kind of recipe).]

My Father’s Instant Mashed Potatoes

My dad only actually enjoys about ten foods, nine of them beige. His bread? White. His pizza? Cheese. His meat? Turkey breast. And his side dish? Mashed potatoes.

As a child I hated mashed potatoes, despite his evangelization of them. I too was a picky eater growing up, but I would occasionally attempt to see what he saw in his beloved spuds. Whenever I tried a bite, the texture disgusted me: a gritty gruel of salty flakes coated with the oleic pall of margarine. The flavor reminded me of stale Pringles. I checked back once every couple years, but was repulsed by them every time.

I lobbied my parents for pasta or frozen tater tots or any other side I actually liked. Family dinners were often dichotomous, the same protein supplemented by two different carbs. “You are not my son,” my father would joke as he continued to put away his potato slop. “Maybe you’re not my father,” I’d shoot back when he shunned the rest of the family’s rice pilaf. Our starch preferences seemed irreconcilable.

As I entered my teen years, my palate expanded. After I’d tried and enjoyed brussels sprouts and sushi and escargot, my hatred of one of the most basic and inoffensive of all foods seemed silly. One day at a nice restaurant, I decided to give mashed potatoes one more try.

Upon taking my first bite, I realized three things:

1) Mashed potatoes are good.

2) Whatever my dad had been eating at home was not mashed potatoes.

3) My world is built on lies.

Mashed Potatoes are Good

Potatoes were domesticated several millennia ago at the dawn of agriculture in the rugged highlands near Lake Titicaca in modern-day Peru. Their origins lie in a wild family of tiny, bitter, pockmarked solanum roots, so full of glycoalkaloids that when foraged they had to be eaten alongside clay to soak up their toxins. From this paltry stock of nightshades, archaic peoples of the Andes gradually husbanded generous, nutritious, mild tubers that would remain the staple of the region’s foodways through several successive civilizations.

Andean peoples found all sorts of ways to prepare their potatoes. The most immediate method was to boil them into stews, soups, or mashes with local flavoring agents - herbs, salt, chilis. Earthenware ovens called huatias were used to bake them. With even more time, they could be fermented into tocosh, an edible paste with antibacterial properties.

To get the spuds to really last, though, they were subjected to a natural freeze-drying method that produced shrivelled potato pellets called chuño. Repeatedly frozen by bitter mountain nights, baked in the sun, and stomped on to remove water, chuño remains shelf stable for up to a decade and can be rehydrated into a spongy, earthy, slightly less nutritious potato-like object.

The ability to produce chuño on the Altiplano is thought to have contributed to the Incan empire’s military dominance of the region, since despite its generally unappealing gustatory properties it’s perfect for keeping troops fed on long marches. Chuño also allowed Incan civilization to stockpile surpluses against lean years and trade potatoes as commodities over great distances. It wasn’t the best way to eat a potato you harvested today, but it was the only way to turn a potato you have today into a potato you’ll have two years from now. That had immense value. (...)

Whatever My Dad Had Been Eating at Home Was NOT Mashed Potatoes

The chuño-chomping Incans were not the last military to rely on dehydrated potatoes for sustenance. In World War II, the US Army experimented with various forms of potato dehydration to help stretch supply lines. The easiest way to get a uniform potato commodity into the hands of G.I.s was to pulverize the potatoes into granules, dehydrate them, and then plan on bringing them back to life with boiling water in an imitation of “mashed potatoes”.

The result was an affront. The potatoes were swimming in their own gluten, released during the granule-making process, which when mixed with imprecise water ratios made for a slop that was somehow both gluey and soupy. Immediately after the war, French’s (now best known for mustard) tried to introduce “instant mashed potatoes” as a consumer product category. America’s veterans were not having it. They didn’t want to be reminded of the awful slurry they’d had on the front.

The commercial fortunes of instant mashed potatoes began to turn around a decade later, however, when food scientists in the US and Canada converged on methods for producing dehydrated potato flakes rather than granules. The flakes had substantial advantages. They didn’t get as glutinous when reconstituted. Their geometry made them easier to dry quickly, on the order of minutes or even seconds. Using a multi-step process called the “Philadelphia Cook”, they could lock in a more natural flavor. When prepared on the stove with butter and milk, they were supposed to turn out almost as good as the real thing without any onerous prep work on the part of the consumer.

This raises the question, though, of why food scientists kept working on improving instant mashed potatoes a decade after they were no longer required for the war effort. If you’re no longer constrained by having to stick it to the Axis, why not return to Glasse-style maſhed potatoes in all circumstances?

This is a pattern that recurs frequently in reading about American foodways of the 20th century: choices and innovations made under extreme duress in the World War II economy didn’t fade away when the duress subsided. Instead they echoed back into American life a few years later, despite the lean conditions that birthed them being replaced by extreme abundance.

Why did America start eating like it was on a total war footing again when my parents’ generation was young? There are a lot of overlapping explanations. Here are a few: (...)

My World is Built on Lies

In researching whether the ancient Andean peoples really did boil and mash potatoes, I came across this post which sheds light on the issues I have with my father’s instant mashed potatoes beyond their phenomenal unpleasantness when eaten. (...)

At this point in the review you might say, “what’s the big deal? It’s just mashed potatoes. Chill out.” Which, fair enough - if it were just mashed potatoes then 2500 words on them might be excessive. But the pattern I’ve described is far from unique to pureed tubers.

Consider an abstracted version of the saga of my father’s instant mashed potatoes. It has a few steps:

Humanity develops a Thing from ingredients that exist in the world.

Seeking efficiency at scale, an industry chops the ingredients of the Thing into teeny tiny bits.

Using an artificial emulsifier, the bits are bound back together into an aesthetically deficient but more convenient slurry that resembles the Thing.

Because it contains traces of the ingredients of the original Thing, this IMPish admixture is sold to us as if it were the original Thing.

Pared back to this level of abstraction, a surprising amount of stuff starts to seem like my father’s instant mashed potatoes.

The other foods in this category are obvious - McNuggets reconstituted out of pink slime, American cheese product, instant coffee, deli ham, Pringles minted from the very same potato flakes that go into IMPs. We’ve even developed a whole new health scare over them: “Ultra processed foods” are as demonized now as butter and whole milk were when my parents were young.

Expand the pattern to the built environment. Pressboard, particle board, and other reconstituted material composites likely make up a majority of new furniture sold in the US. These are an IMPish imitation of actual wood furniture. Take care while assembling not to ding your brittle sheetrock walls, an IMPish upgrade over lath and plaster. Often these interiors live inside an apartment building clad in a mish-mash of random ornament, anti-massing regulations demanding an IMPish simulation of a varied city block.

Intellectual goods can be IMPish. Reader’s Digest, sports “best-of” VHSes, textbooks stuffed with decontextualized excerpts, YouTube compilations, ChiveTV, listicles, social media feeds consisting of screenshots of other social media, Now That’s What I Call Music!, an entire ecosystem of actual cultural objects broken down into bits and clumped back together.

Corporate structures can be IMPish. When I visit a medical office it’s usually a confusing tangle of overlapping practitioners and practices operating out of the same physical address, an IMPish imitation of the archetypal doctor with a shingle in town. Similar quagmires abound when dealing with insurance, or contractors, or financial services.

Once you see the instant mashed potato antipattern it’s hard to stop. The isomorphisms are everywhere.

The gig economy makes IMPish jobs. Swiping apps produce IMPish flirting. Meta-studies are IMPish science. Ted Talks are IMPish symposia. Malls are IMPish shopping districts. Subdivisions are IMPish neighborhoods. Cruises are IMPish international travel, chopped into 14 hour chunks and emulsified with an ocean liner.

The internet scrapes together IMPish communities. We’re not atomized; we’re flaked.

 
by Anonymous, Astral Codex Ten |  Read more:

Image: Chuño via

90% of Frozen Raspberries Grown in the U.S. Come From This WA Town

LYNDEN, Whatcom County — Even if you’ve never been to Lynden, there’s a good chance you’ve eaten the raspberries grown here. They’re just not the ones you find in the plastic clamshell in the produce section.

Labeled generically as “U.S.-grown raspberries,” you’ll find them all over the grocery store: in the frozen triple berry blend and the raspberry lemon muffins at Costco. In Tillamook’s Washington raspberry yogurt, Smuckers’ raspberry jam and Rubicon’s vegan raspberry cupcakes. Raspberry Uncrustables, raspberry crumbles in the smoothies at Jamba Juice … you get the point.

Farms in Lynden — a town of roughly 16,000 people about 5 miles south of the Canadian border — grow 90% of the frozen red raspberries that are grown and harvested in the United States each year. Since 2015, these berries have generated more than $1 billion in sales, according to the Washington Red Raspberry Commission.

From June to early August every summer, across 54 farms, roughly 50 million pounds of red raspberries are mechanically harvested and processed in Lynden. Most berries get flash-frozen whole in tunnels, minutes from where they’re picked, and packaged into familiar foods like the ones above. You’ve probably got a few in your house right now. (...)

The process is fascinating. The only wrinkle? Raspberries — although delicious, and even when they get flash-frozen right away — are a pain to grow.

“They’re finicky,” said Markwell Farms owner Mark Van Mersbergen, running his hands over a deep-green raspberry cane last month, halfway through the picking season. “They have to have it their way, and if they get a curveball thrown at them, it’s tough to adjust.”

by Jackie Varriano, Seattle Times | Read more:
Images: Nick Wagner/Esri (Mark Nowlin)/The Seattle Times

[ed. 90%!]

Silence on SNAP

Poverty and hunger will rise as a result of the Trump administration’s unprecedented cuts to the US federal “food stamps” program, according to experts. Low-income workers who rely on the aid are braced for dire consequences.

Katie Giede, a single mother and waitress in Conyers, Georgia, is one of the 42 million Americans who use the supplemental nutrition assistance program (Snap). Even with the maximum benefit permitted, she struggles to afford food for her and her child.

She makes $3 an hour plus tips at the fast-food chain Waffle House, where she has worked for 11 years. The company deducts meals from workers’ pay check per shift, regardless of whether they eat one or not.

“Our pay is already so little that we’re struggling with everything,” Giede told the Guardian. “Single mothers like myself are reliant upon the benefits like Snap and Medicaid. So when you go and you cut that as well, now you have mothers out here that are not only worried at night because they already can’t afford housing or a vehicle, but we’re also worried what is our kid is going to eat? Because we no longer have help.”

Giede said she received $450 a month for her and her child. She said working too many hours or receiving too much income was a constant concern, due to eligibility cut-offs.

According to an analysis by the Urban Institute, at the end of 2024, even the maximum Snap benefit would not cover the cost of a modestly priced meal in 99% of all counties in the US.

“I dread that trip to the grocery store every week, because you have to sit down and you really have to budget,” said Giede. “Every time you go, you’re having to make the choice between something that’s healthy or something that’s cheaper, just so you can get enough to last all week.

“There are so many people in this country that rely on these benefits, and with these cuts, half of the people that are surviving right now off of this are going to lose their benefits. That’s not even just people not eating a little bit. They’re already not eating enough, so we’re going to lose lives over this. It’s those of us at the bottom that are really feeling it.”

Waffle House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” set the stage for significant cuts to Snap by shifting higher administrative costs to each state, expanding work reporting requirements and imposing restrictions on non-citizen eligibility.

Many lower-wage workers have grown more reliant on Snap in recent years. US food prices rose by 23.6% between 2020 and 2024, according to official data. While inflation has since moderated, grocery costs remain high.

As a result of the latest Snap changes, states will be responsible for 75% of administrative costs of handling the program from 2027, up from 50% cost-sharing with the federal government, which is likely to strain state budgets.

From 2028, for the first time states will be forced to pick up some of the multibillion-dollar bill for Snap benefits. The state of New York, for example, faces a budget impact of about $1.2bn, according to the Food Research and Action Center (Frac), a non-profit advocacy group.

While such shifting costs have raised fears that states will cut back Snap support, expanded work requirements have sparked concern that few people will be eligible. Analysis by the Urban Institute found about 22.3 million US families are set to lose some or all of their Snap benefits.

“This is a very targeted, well-thought-out plan of dismantling the Snap program that federal policy makers won’t take responsibility for, because it is the states, it is the governors who will have to cut resources for Snap, who will have to cut the program in order to say we can’t operate this because of what’s happening at the federal level,” said Gina Plata-Nino, Snap deputy director at the Frac.

“Snap is a very important ecosystem at the local level, at the state level and the federal level, because billions of dollars go into states, and this federal money supports local economies,” she added. “All of these proposals threaten this very delicate balance.”

The White House deferred comment to the office of management and budget, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

States across the US are braced for stark consequences. “We’re going to have worse hunger and ultimately, worse poverty,” said Seth DiStefano, policy outreach director at the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. “There are entire regions of West Virginia where there aren’t 20 hours a week [expanded Snap work requirement] of anything to apply for. What do you tell those families?

“We’re talking families with kids now that are going to be subjected to these harsh work reporting requirements. We’re talking folks in their 60s, literally in communities where there are no jobs, none, and ripping away the one outlet to their basic needs that’s available to them.”

Among the employers with the most workers reliant on Snap is Walmart, the largest private employer in the US, as much of its workforce receives only part-time hours.

Christina Gahagan, 66, has worked at Walmart for a decade in western New York at several stores. She is currently based at a store in Geneseo, New York.

“I would say at least 50% of the people in my store rely on food stamps to make ends meet for their families,” said Gahagan. “They’re always trying to figure out where the best deals are, coupon clipping at lunch and reading circulars to see who’s got the best deal on whatever, just to make their money stretch.” (...)

“Walmart is the largest employer in the US. We rival Amazon almost dollar for dollar in what we do. You would think a company like that could shell out a little bit more money per hour for associates in the store across the board, so that there aren’t people who are having to depend so heavily on public assistance.”

Walmart did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

by Michael Sainato, The Guardian | Read more:
Image:Richard Levine/Alamy
[ed. No one wants to comment on a new bureaucracy to process and administer oversight requirements? Jobs! Remember who did this the next time you vote.]

Why Jolly Ranchers Are Banned in the UK but Not the US

On June 11, the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued an alert declaring several candies manufactured by The Hershey Company “unsafe to eat.” Four products from the flagship Jolly Rancher brand—Hard Candy, “Misfits” Gummies, Hard Candy Fruity 2 in 1, and Berry Gummies—contain mineral oil hydrocarbons, banned from food in the UK.

The offending substances are mineral oil aromatic hydrocarbons (MOAH) and mineral oil saturated hydrocarbons (MOSH). Both are derived from crude oil and are often used in confectionery to reduce stickiness and enhance the candy’s shine. “Consuming mineral oil regularly and over time could pose a risk to your health,” says Tina Potter, head of incidents at the FSA. “If you’ve eaten them, there is no need for concern, but don’t eat any more.”

Nevertheless, the FSA has branded the consumption of these sweets a “toxicological concern.” MOSH have been found to accumulate in the tissue of certain species of lab rat, causing adverse effects in the liver. But MOAH are more concerning—the UK’s FSA, alongside the European Union, considers some of these compounds to be genotoxic carcinogens—substances that can cause cancer by altering cells’ genetic material. (...)

Enforcement will likely take time. But in the US, MOAH remain permitted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “The key takeaway from all of this is [that] mineral oil is allowed and deemed safe for use in food in the US,” says Todd Scott, senior manager of communications at The Hershey Company. “Mineral oil is not an ingredient in the recipe. We use it as a processing aid to keep the candy from sticking to the mold.”

MOAH are just one of a number of chemical compounds banned by the UK and EU that are deemed safe for Americans. Much of the discrepancy lies in the FDA’s “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) loophole. In the US, any new food additive is subject to premarket review and approval by the FDA—unless the substance is generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having been adequately shown to be safe under the conditions of its intended use.

These assessments, however, are often completed in private labs and sometimes even by the manufacturer of the chemicals themselves—and manufacturers aren’t required by law to submit their GRAS determination or supporting data to the FDA. The assessments don’t require third-party experts, either. In a 2023 study of 403 GRAS notices filed by the FDA between 2015 and 2020, an average of 30 percent relied on the opinion of a manufacturer’s in-house employee.

Adopted in 1958, the GRAS exemption was intended to cover the use of commonplace ingredients, explains Jensen Jose, regulatory counsel for the nonprofit watchdog Center for Science in the Public Interest, based in Washington, DC. “It was so you wouldn’t require a new piece of legislation every time you added salt to a sandwich.”

However, as the food industry’s appetite for additives grew over the following decades, the GRAS rule came to cover a widening array of ingredients—with the manufacturers of these additives left effectively to govern themselves. “The hope is that they conduct scientific studies of their own,” says Jennifer Pomeranz, a public health lawyer and associate professor at New York University’s School of Global Public Health. “But legally speaking, no one’s checking.” In theory, Pomeranz says, “a company can add a new ingredient and not even list its chemical compound on the packet.”

The result is that a host of additives, recognized as safe under FDA regulations, are banned by other governments over safety fears. “Compounds are added to food for shelf life, aesthetics, and convenience,” says Lindsay Malone, a registered dietitian nutritionist and instructor in the Department of Nutrition at the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. “Even down to how easily food comes out of the plastic container.”

Compounds that carry health risks line the shelves of US grocery stores, consumed by Americans every day. Take butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), for example, a preservative that has been linked to hormone disruption. It’s often found in cereals, dried snacks, and packaged cake mixes. Meanwhile a packet of chewing gum, potato chips, or processed meat may include butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), a probable carcinogen. Both are exempt from FDA regulations through the GRAS loophole.

In isolation, compounds like BHT, BHA, and MOAH aren’t necessarily dangerous. Public health advocates are more concerned about their cumulative effect—a lifetime of eating common, addictive, harmful compounds. 

by Alex Christian, Wired |  Read more:

Image: Washington Post/Getty

[ed. Clear as mud. I like JRs, and the stated risks seem fairly low. It's almost impossible to find hard candies anymore (check out your local shelves). Everything's soft, gummy, chewy, or sour. Ack.]

via:

GLP-1s Are Quietly Killing Your Cravings (and Maybe Your Bad Habits Too)

What happens when you can actually watch sugar cravings disappear from someone's brain? — You've probably heard people talking about 'food noise’. It’s that persistent, nagging voice in your head that keeps whispering about donuts, pizza, or cookies.

For many struggling with obesity, this chronic craving for sugar and fat feels like a voice you just can't mute.

But when people begin taking GLP-1 medications, it's as though someone finally found the volume knob and dialled it down to zero. The experience is something like an instantaneous liberation, so surreal and dramatic it almost feels like magic.

Recently, a good friend described starting tirzepatide this way:

"Bro, my food noise just vanished. Gone. Poof. I finally had the freedom to think about other things. And my shopping basket changed overnight. I actually wanted leafy greens and sweet potato. Sweet potato! Do you know how crazy that is?”

Stories like my friend's are piling up everywhere. So what's actually happening inside the brain when food noise just... stops?

When the brain says no

We've known for a while that GLP-1 meds like semaglutide dial down cravings, but now we've got visual proof of it actually happening in the brain.

A groundbreaking randomized controlled trial just published in Nature Medicine, used functional MRI (fMRI) scans to watch people's brains in real-time as they looked at images of high calorie, high sugar foods (think pizza, cakes, burgers etc) while taking tirzepatide, liraglutide, or a placebo.

Average brain activity shown on scans at the start of the study (baseline) and after three weeks of treatment (week 3). Bright colours (red and yellow) indicate higher brain activation in areas linked to cravings and reward when participants viewed images of high-fat, high-sugar foods.

Average brain activity shown on scans at the start of the study (baseline) and after three weeks of treatment (week 3). Bright colours (red and yellow) indicate higher brain activation in areas linked to cravings and reward when participants viewed images of high-fat, high-sugar foods.

After just three weeks on tirzepatide, the brain regions that light up when we see junk food went quiet. The areas responsible for cravings and reward anticipation (like the cingulate gyrus and medial frontal gyrus) showed roughly 170 % to 220 % less activation than they did on placebo, meaning these brain regions actually went into suppression. (...)

You’d think a drug like this would just crush hunger everywhere, like a sledgehammer smashing through a wall. Nope. Tirzepatide works more like an elite sniper perched on a rooftop, laser focused and zeroing in on your strongest cravings for high calorie, high sugary crap and picking them off with precision.

Amazingly, it leaves your appetite for fresh salads, crisp veggies, and sweet raspberries untouched.

Cravings for healthier foods (fruits and vegetables) remained virtually unchanged

The $1.2 Billion Question

Now, let’s zoom out for a second. What happens if millions of us suddenly lose that intense urge for soda, chips, or those wonderful chocolate chip cookies from subway (my fave)?

Agricultural economist Brian E. Roe calculated that even moderate levels of adoption of GLP-1s, say 10% among overweight people and 20% among those with obesity, would lead to a 3% drop in total calorie demand in the U.S.

That translates to around 20 billion fewer calories eaten daily and $1.2 billion less spent each week on food and drinks.

In other words, companies like Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, and Nestlé, who’ve built sprawling empires by tapping directly into the very cravings we've just seen silenced on MRI, may soon face an existential threat.

Some innovative companies, however, have already started adapting.

Smoothie King sensed the winds shifting first, cleverly rolling out high-protein, GLP-1-friendly shakes to capture the health-aware consumer.

Expect other fast-moving brands to dive headfirst into a wave of products customized specifically for people freed from the constant grip of food cravings.

The rest will need to pivot quickly or risk fading into oblivion.

GLP-1s as Impulse Dampeners

But tirzepatide might be doing something even more profound than silencing food noise. The same study suggests it's actually rewiring impulse control in the brain itself.

The researchers measured impulsiveness using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, a validated psychological tool that captures everyday impulsive tendencies like “acting without thinking” or “struggling to resist urges.”

After 3-6 weeks of tirzepatide treatment, participants reported feeling significantly less impulsive than those who received the placebo.

They reported feeling calmer, more in control, and far less prone to snap decisions or irresistible urges.

This is important when you consider that impulsivity is the engine behind pretty much every self-destructive habit out there. Whether you're talking binge-drinking, gambling, chain-smoking or falling into the black hole of substance abuse.

If GLP-1 meds can dial down the noisy circuits in our brains screaming 'just do it!', we might be staring down the barrel of an entirely new way of treating addiction and it’s devastating consequences.

Just imagine a world (to borrow from John Lennon) with fewer overdose headlines, calmer Friday nights in emergency rooms, shrinking gambling debts, maybe even drops in domestic violence and incarceration rates.

Researchers are taking this seriously.

Major clinical trials already underway are testing whether GLP-1 meds might quiet the destructive impulses behind addiction itself. If they're right, we're looking at something much bigger (and far more important) than just weight loss.

by Ashwin Sharma, MD, GLP-1 Digest |  Read more:

Image: GPT/GLP-1 Digest Illustration; Nature Medicine

[ed. See also: How GLP-1s Are Breaking Life Insurance; and, Why are GLP1 drugs good for everything?]

Everyone Should Order These 25 Italian Dishes At Least Once

 

Everyone Should Order These 25 Italian Dishes At Least Once (Daily Meal)
Images:Framarzo/Shutterstock; Io Giloso/Facebook
[ed. Endorsed by Frank Bruni, former food critic for the NY Times.]

The Burn Identity

Luxury white charcoal

Today I want to explore maybe Japan’s greatest invention. A luxury good that has remained luxurious, long after its creation. I’m talking about Binchotan charcoal.

Binchotan beginnings

If I was to tell you that this image above is this highly valued luxury good, I’m sure you would believe me. It may be a tough item to differentiate from almost any other burning item, particularly another charcoal bucket.

Binchotan is a very specific form of charcoal. Often known as white charcoal, this would actually be a good present if found in a Christmas stocking. Yes, it’s the world’s most expensive charcoal. This is not the same as the being the world’s smallest giant or other contradictory statements. This product is bespoke.

Made from Japanese Oak, normally Ubame, the process of creating binchotan is more drawn out than simply heating wood. It all goes back to old Bicchuya Chozaemon (備中屋長左衛門), now better known as Bincho (備長). Back in the 1600s, he discovered a secret. A way to make charcoal (normally black), as a white product.

His town of Tanabe, Wakayama became famous nationwide as the only place to find this product. As Bincho’s Tan (Japanese for coal), became even more popular, the surrounding cities and towns started adopting these methods/ stealing these secrets. Over centuries the methods of creating luxury coal have become more apparent and widespread. Yet the technical expertise and regional Ubame wood has meant that Wakayama still holds the title for where you want your best quality Binchotan. To be clear, it is still called binchotan even if it doesn’t comes from the Wakayama region of Japan, but you can look for sparkling charcoal elsewhere.

Burn Book

The following instructions for how to make this charcoal are based off a very detailed Japanese manufacturer on Youtube- found here for the full process in Japanese.

1. Find your tree.
This is easier said than done; the Ubame Oak grows in very hilly areas only, and in particular microclimates.

2. Cut the tree and bring wood to factory.
Again, easier said than done. The bringing of said tree is done by hand due to the aforementioned hilly terrain.

3. Into the kiln.
This is maybe the same said as done. The kiln is a specially made kiln that is very big and built for precise heating at a gradual pace. The hard part in this step is probably either sourcing or building a specific Binchotan kiln.

4. Light it on fire.
This is another difficult step which starts to make the high price seem downright reasonable. You first need to layer the wood properly so all of it is neat and consistently heated. Then also add in less dense wood to the kiln that burns quicker. Then time to seal it with brick, not before ensuring there are 4 tiny airflow/steam holes on the top and bottom. Then wait 9 hours.

5. Light it on fire again.
You previously just had burnt wood. Now you need to make charcoal. So a lower temperature heat, just burning for 6 or 7 days.

6 Seiren time
Step 5 got you the charcoal. Here is where the actual Binchotan technique comes in. This seems to be the most delicate step in a series of ever escalating delicate steps. The craftsmen will need to open up more holes to slowly increase the airflow. Yet the speed needs to be very carefully balanced, otherwise you just get dodgy charcoal and not Binchotan. Keep doing this 'until 1000 Celsius (i.e., only 24-48 hours for this step).

7. Cover it up
After all that, you need to keep your charcoal in a charcoal-y form. This means you can’t just be waiting for it to cool down and removing it (like most other charcoal manufacturing methods) since you’d be left with ash. Instead, you need to remove the Binchotan while it’s hot and cover it with sand and ash to keep the product at a gradual cool. After about 10 days, you’ll have your coal!

The Heat Is On

You may be forgiven in thinking that our old friend Bincho had spent too much time in the kiln, as this seems overly arduous for any amount of charcoal. Yet the demand has continued to grow ever since that fateful 17th Century day. To be honest, for most of its history, Binchotan was quietly burning along. Of course Japanese grillers, especially the yakitori and unagi restaurants, saw the benefits.

They saw the selling point of it basically being better across every metric you’d measure coal by. It burns hotter. Longer. Cleaner. While standard lump charcoal or briquettes last at most an hour or two, Binchotan is expected to burn 5 hours straight. Yet it is the even burning and smokeless heat that keeps the chefs coming back.

Not just coming back, but telling their friends.

The 2000s saw the chefs in those New York, London, and Paris restaurants that no one can afford, seeking authentic and pure Japanese materials in every aspect of cooking. They began importing Binchotan for their high-end robatayaki and yakitori grills. Binchotan found itself showing up in Michelin-starred kitchens, where chefs now treated it like a premium ingredient, not just a fuel source.

The chefs started boasting about them on their countless podcasts. Who talks about charcoal otherwise? That’s what makes Binchotan special. It transformed from a nearly invisible product to something chefs name-drop on menus.

by Leon, Hidden Japan |  Read more:
Image: Food and Wine

U.S. Bottled Water Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report

U.S. Bottled Water Market Size & Trends

The U.S. bottled water market size was estimated at USD 47.42 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.7% from 2025 to 2030. This can be attributed to increasing health and wellness trends among consumers, the rising need for convenience and accessibility, and robust production innovation. The growing demand and consumption of bottled water can largely be attributed to increasing health consciousness among consumers. With rising awareness about the harmful effects of sugary beverages, such as sodas and juices, people are shifting towards healthier hydration options.

Bottled water is viewed as a simple and effective way to stay hydrated without the added sugars, calories, or artificial ingredients associated with other drinks. As more individuals prioritize wellness and hydration in their daily lives, bottled water has become a go-to choice, especially for those with active and health-conscious lifestyles.

Convenience also plays a crucial role in the rising demand for bottled water. It offers unmatched portability, making it easy for consumers to stay hydrated while on the go. Bottled water is readily available in grocery stores, convenience shops, and vending machines, which enhances its appeal as a staple beverage choice. This accessibility has solidified bottled water's position as one of the most popular beverage categories in the country.

Marketing strategies have further contributed to the growth of the bottled water industry. Companies have successfully created strong brand loyalty through campaigns that emphasize the purity and safety of bottled water compared to tap water. In some regions, concerns about tap water quality have bolstered consumer preference for bottled options, positioning them as a reliable source of hydration. Innovations in product offerings have also played a significant role in market expansion. The emergence of functional bottled waters-enhanced with vitamins, minerals, or flavor infusions-has attracted health-oriented consumers looking for added benefits beyond basic hydration. This segment is expected to grow substantially in the coming years, driven by consumer demand for beverages that provide health advantages. In addition, advancements in eco-friendly packaging are addressing environmental concerns while appealing to sustainability-minded consumers.

A notable factor propelling the growth of the bottled water industry is robust production innovation. This involves the introduction of enhanced manufacturing processes and the development of new product variants to meet diverse consumer demands and preferences. Innovations in packaging, such as eco-friendly materials and convenient designs, along with advancements in water purification and flavor infusion technologies, have significantly contributed to making bottled water more attractive to consumers. These innovative efforts not only aim to improve product quality and sustainability but also seek to differentiate offerings in a highly competitive market, thus driving consumer interest and market growth. (...)

Product Insights

Purified water accounted for a revenue share of 40.4% in 2024 in the U.S. market. Purified bottled water offers a convenient, portable hydration option, especially for people on the go, making it easy to access clean water anytime and anywhere. The increasing focus on personal health and wellness has led to a growing preference for purified water, which is perceived as a cleaner, more beneficial option compared to tap or other types of bottled water. Health-conscious consumers view purified water as free of impurities like chemicals, heavy metals, and bacteria, aligning with their desire for healthier hydration choices. (...)

As consumers seek healthier beverage alternatives, the demand for bottled water in on-trade settings continues to rise. For instance, in July 2024, Chipotle introduced a new lineup of ready-to-drink beverages available at all of its U.S. restaurants. This includes Open Water, which is canned water in aluminum bottles. (...)

Packaging Insights

PET bottled water accounted for a revenue share of 80.1% in 2024, owing to its significant advantages in convenience, recyclability, and lightweight nature compared to other packaging materials. The widespread preference for PET bottles among consumers stems from their ease of transport and use, alongside a growing awareness and concern for environmental sustainability. PET bottles, being fully recyclable, align with increasing global initiatives towards reducing plastic waste and promoting circular economies. Furthermore, the lightweight characteristics of PET bottles reduce transportation costs and carbon footprint, making them a favored choice among manufacturers and consumers alike, thus driving their market growth. [ed. ...and disposal]

In October 2023, Coca-Cola India launched its first 100% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle, specifically for its Kinley packaged drinking water brand. This initiative marks a significant step towards promoting sustainability and plastic circularity in the country. The company introduced these bottles as part of its broader commitment to environmental responsibility and aims to reduce its carbon footprint.

The canned bottled water segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.0% from 2025 to 2030. This can be primarily attributed to increasing consumer awareness towards environmental sustainability. It can offer an eco-friendlier alternative to plastic bottles due to their higher recyclability rate and efficiency in transportation, which contributes to lower carbon emissions. In addition, the convenience and durability of cans appeal to active and on-the-go lifestyles, making them a popular choice among consumers. As a result, both beverage companies and consumers are shifting towards canned water, driving significant growth in this market segment. For instance, in April 2024, Coca-Cola’s Smartwater brand unveiled 12-ounce aluminum cans with a new design, marking the first instance of vapor-distilled water being offered in this packaging format. The cans feature both Smartwater Original and SmartWater Alkaline with Antioxidant, catering to consumer preferences for convenient and environmentally friendly options. (...)

Key U.S. Bottled Water Companies:

• Adidas AG
• Nestlé
• PepsiCo
• The Coca-Cola Company
• DANONE
• Primo Water Corporation
• FIJI Water Company LLC
• Gerolsteiner Brunnen GmbH & Co. KG
• VOSS WATER
• Nongfu Spring
• National Beverage Corp.
• Keurig Dr Pepper Inc.
• Recent Developments

In July 2024, Source, a company based in Scottsdale, Arizona, unveiled a groundbreaking method to tackle the water crisis by generating canned water using air and sunlight. This initiative is part of the increasing trend towards sustainable technologies that aim to resolve environmental challenges while ensuring access to vital resources. The product will be branded as Sky Wtr and is designed to offer an off-grid solution for producing drinking water. Source intends to launch this water for public sale across the U.S. in major retail outlets around August or September 2024. The canned drinking water will be packaged in recyclable aluminum cans and bottles.

by Grandview Research |  Read more:

Image: Grandview Research

[ed. What is wrong with people. Rhetorical question of course, too many answers.]

How To Explain Lab-Grown Meat Simply

Winston Churchill once wrote that in the future, “we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.” Churchill was arguably predicting and describing lab-grown meat (or cultivated or cultured meat, as the burgeoning industry and activists are trying to rebrand it). Almost a century after Churchill made his prediction, it’s almost here. Over the last decade, the science of lab-grown meat has made striking advancements, and has the potential to fundamentally change how humans eat and produce food.

But if you’re not a scientist, it can be difficult to know how to understand or explain lab-grown meat. Here are the basics, and a few common misconceptions about cultivated meat, debunked.

Why Is Lab-Grown Meat Better for Animals and the Environment?

The Short Answer:

Lab-grown meat offers a potential way to feed our appetite for meat without inflicting so much damage on animals and the environment. If it’s able to be produced cheaply at scale — still a big “if” at this point — it’s a product that could eventually eliminate factory farming, methane from cows and other pollution, save water and limit deforestation.

The Longer Answer:

Make no mistake: most humans these days like eating meat. Between 1961 and 2020, the average person’s yearly meat consumption almost doubled, according to Our World In Data, from around 50 pounds to 92 pounds. In the United States, the average person eats a staggering 280 pounds of meat per year.

But there are a number of serious environmental and ethical issues with the meat industry as it currently exists, and lab-grown meat was created in hopes of overcoming them.

Perhaps the most obvious is the pain and suffering inflicted on animals in order to produce meat. The list is too long to recount in full here, but in factory farms, where approximately 99 percent of livestock is raised, most of the animals are mutilated, dismembered and separated from their parents as a matter of procedure. They are crammed into confined spaces barely bigger than their bodies, forced to live in their own feces and slaughtered in gruesome ways without anesthetic.

Over 100 billion animals die in factory farms every year. For many, that’s reason enough to transition away from eating meat. But it’s not the only reason.

The meat industry also takes a staggering toll on the environment. Livestock production accounts for around 14 percent of all greenhouse gasses and 37 percent of all methane emissions, according to the United Nations. The meat industry is the driving force behind deforestation around the world, most notably in the Amazon, and industrially grown feed crops are responsible for decades of topsoil erosion, a serious problem that has the potential to cause catastrophic food shortages within decades.

How Exactly Is Lab-Grown Meat Made?

The Short Answer:

Lab-grown meat is made by extracting a single cell from an animal and placing it into a solution with nutrients that cause the cell to multiply and develop into muscle tissue. Once enough tissue has been formed, it’s removed and shaped into a nugget, burger or other meat product.

The Longer Answer:

Unlike plant-based meat replacements, lab-grown meat is actual, bona fide meat. What sets it apart from traditional meat is that you don’t have to slaughter billions of animals to get it.

The process begins by extracting a single stem cell from a living animal — a cow, for instance. Stem cells are unspecialized, which means that they have the ability to develop into any other type of cell (muscle, fat, etc.). That single stem cell is then placed into a broth with nutrients and proteins that cause the cell to develop and multiply; this process is called culturing, and the nutrient broth is commonly referred to as growth medium. The stem cell and growth medium are collectively placed in a bioreactor that creates the necessary atmospheric and temperature conditions for growth.

That’s the gist of the process, but there are some more nuances and complications that are important to note. For instance, although growing muscle tissue is sufficient to recreate a chicken nugget or ground beef (often made with some plant-based ingredients in the mix), some companies also want to recreate meat products that have structure and visible fat in them — a cut of steak, for instance. To accomplish this, they place the stem cells into a different growth medium that allows some of the cells to grow into muscle and others to become fat, a process known as co-differentiation.

Additionally, there are several different ways of shaping muscle tissue into the final meat product. For highly processed foods like chicken nuggets or hot dogs, it can be sufficient to simply mold the muscle tissue into the shape of the product in question. For meat products with more complex textures and compositions, such as steak, a 3-D printer is often used instead, as this allows manufacturers to specify and fine-tune the compositional properties of the meat. (...)

Does Lab-Grown Meat Hurt Animals?

The Short Answer:

The initial development of lab-grown meat often utilizes something called Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS), which requires the slaughter of a cow. Companies are aggressively searching for cruelty-free alternatives to this, and some have already removed it from their process entirely.

The Longer Answer:

While lab-grown meat is the best shot we have of eliminating the suffering of animals in factory farms, there remains the thorny issue of fetal bovine serum (FBS). One of the most important parts of the lab-grown meat process is finding the right ingredients for the growth medium in which the cells are cultured. The broth needs to have the precise mixture of vitamins, sugars, proteins and nutrients needed to culture the cells into meat, and it just so happens that one of the most efficient ingredients to help accomplish this is FBS.

by Seth Millstein, Sentient Food |  Read more:

Image: uncredited

The Most Widespread Global Restaurant Chains

via:
[ed. See also: Mixue Ice Cream & Tea (Wikipedia). Chinese.]

Tariffs Are Coming for Your Asian Grocery Store

Tariffs Are Coming for Your Chili Crisp

What will happen to the Chinese grocery store?

Image: The Atlantic. Sources: nilsz/Getty; west/Getty; numismarty/Getty

[ed. Hadn't thought about specialty mom and pops, but yeah... Asian stores in general are about to get a lot more expensive. See also: Temu halts shipping direct from China as de minimis tariff loophole is cut off (CNBC)]

"Chinese grocery stores are under pressure in more ways than one: Not only do they stock lots of products that are now subject to steep tariffs, but they already tend to run on thin margins. “Small, independent grocery stores—especially those catering to ethnic communities—are particularly vulnerable,” David Ortega, a food-economics professor at Michigan State University, told me. If Trump’s full slate of tariffs goes into effect in a few months, the pain won’t stop at Chinese grocers. Vietnam is facing some of the steepest proposed tariff hikes."   (The Atlantic)

The Price of Eggs

Or, death of a chicken

The chicken was unwell. She no longer ran to the summons of the leftovers pail to scratch at the compost heap with the other hens. Morning found her in a corner of the henhouse facing the wall, with only an unfamiliar smell for company. I am neither a farmer nor a veterinarian, but even a man unschooled in country ways knows the odor that announces that Death has removed his hat and entered the room.

In a few days, the bird would be dead. I would be her executioner. And I feel a need to relate the events that preceded the death, not because the fowl and I were overmuch close (we were not), nor to assuage a guilt (though there is always blame to hand around after such things), but because as E. B. White wrote of his own barnyard loss, she suffered in a suffering world. And pain deserves to be marked, even when it wears the confetti of farce, and though the only thing we have left to offer afterward is words, useless as they are.

I’d been away from the house on that March day, two months previous, when a message had come from my neighbor: A friend had been visiting him, he wrote. The friend had a dog, and the dog had found its way through the hole in my fence. It had returned to its owner carrying my small Rhode Island Red in its jaws: the first of the casualties. I returned home to find russet feathers strewn under the lilacs and hawthorn—more in some places, a few in others—as clues to the progression of the crime. In the weeks afterward, the cedar waxwings used these feathers to pad their nests.

It was difficult to know where to place my anger. True, the dog had trespassed. But the neighbor was contrite. And I had known about the hole in the fence for weeks. Winter squats heavily around the few acres I call Poverty Flats, though, and the list of spring repairs was long, and I am slow and generally loath to deal with any repair that requires use of any tool more sophisticated than a hammer, to say nothing of fence tighteners and in-line straighteners. Now the chicken had paid for human laxity on all sides, and for a dog being a dog.

There was an inexorableness to the event. My few western acres sit between mountain ranges where the land opens like a lap, a brief pause in geography that permits domesticity and also lays the table for the creatures that would dine upon it. Between the red-tailed hawks perched on the electrical wires that lope beside the county road and the coyotes that sing on the hill, the life expectancy of a chicken is not long here. One hopes for life, but expects death.

So the red hen was gone. I found a second injured bird cowering beneath a pyracantha. She did not resist when I picked her up. The dog had delivered a solid bite to her rear. On such occasions, one is made aware of how much of a chicken isn’t chicken at all, but instead simply feathers and air: an illusion of poultry. Without her tail and covert feathers, which the dog had removed in toto, the bird now resembled only the front end of her former self. Friends who heard about the attack inquired how many hens remained. I replied truthfully, “Four and a half.”

The chickens had arrived the previous spring, unasked for, like most of life’s obligations. The teenaged daughters of a friend had pronounced my empty henhouse forlorn and returned the next week with a cardboard box containing a half dozen chicks. I kept them in the house beneath a heat lamp, unnamed until certain they would survive, like pioneer children. When you live in the country, as I do, it is easy to acquire animals. Friends that see you own land assume you wish to fill it, an empty field to their eyes seeming an injury to Protestant industry. Over the years, my desire not to offend their generosity has nearly led to ownership of several dogs, three or four geese, and a barn full of mousing cats. There had been talk of a horse to stand in the overgrown paddock, and a few sheep to keep the horse company. In this way, a single man at middle age who lacks resolution soon becomes a bachelor farmer without having bought a single head of livestock.

At the feed store in town, I sought advice about the chicks. It is one of those stores that used to be common in rural places but is rare nowadays—dimly lit, a dog sleeping in the aisle, the pale smell of dry goods in the unmoving air. On the sidewalk, a sign displays a new joke every few days. I asked Katrina behind the counter what young chickens like to eat. She nodded over her shoulder at the bags of chick starter in the rear.

“Any of ’em roosters?” she said.

“How can you know?” I asked. Through the window, the sign read: i wonder if tacos ever think about me.

“Hard to tell at first,” Katrina said. “I had that problem once. Turned out I had two.” She let the gravity of this dilemma percolate, then she leaned over the counter. “Took ’em out for a midnight walk.” She nodded in the slow way of a conspirator.

Once the chicks had grown into awkward pullets (all of them females, as it turned out), I gave them names, which real farmers never do. The red (RIP) was Hen-rietta. The two Easter Eggers I called Roger Featherer and Lilly Pullet-zer. A mottled Araucana with a puff of gray feathers beneath her chin was Janice, the Bearded Lady. And the pair of identical Buff Orpingtons I called Muffy and Buffy. The injured one now in my arms, bloody and stunned, was Muffy. Though as with any one-year-old twin, who could be certain?

Muffy had been a handsome bird. Along with her sister, she was the largest of the flock, squash-colored, with the classically curved back of the breed, a white feather-duster rump and a modest but proud sail of a comb. Both were consistent layers of large brown eggs. Muffy was particularly fond of shade and languor, and she spent warm spring days beneath the lilacs wallowing in dust baths where she suffocated mites.

Each morning, though, upon hearing the screen door slam, which signaled the arrival of the bucket of table scraps, composure abandoned her. She appeared at a sprint with the other hens, her large body yawing from drumstick to drumstick like a chunky child who chases the ice cream truck. After feasting, Muffy roosted for hours atop an overturned stock tank in the yard and watched the horses graze in the neighbor’s field. Orpingtons are poor flyers, and she was no exception. She gravely considered even the shortest drop back to earth before undertaking. Once airborne, she had the glide path of a watermelon.

Sometimes, in the course of other chores, I bent low to examine a hen’s comb for pox. When I did so, the bird in question froze and crouched and allowed herself to be inspected. I scooped her up and carried her in the crook of an arm around the yard and spoke soothingly to her. I told myself the hens also enjoyed these encounters and that this signaled a growing bond between man and bird—even if upon being set down once more, the hen always gave herself a thorough shake, like St. Paul dusting off his sandals at the city limits of Antioch.

“Your hens consider you the rooster,” said Daren, a rancher and man of wood-plank Norwegian practicality. “They crouch because they think you’re going to mount them.” This information cast these interactions with the chickens in a more tawdry light and made me reach for them less often. After that, our relationship became strictly mercantile: If I had nothing to offer, they scattered at my approach. Any move by me toward the shed where the bin of black oil sunflower seeds were stored, however, and they followed close on my heels. In return, they laid more eggs than I could eat. In summer when insects were their chief diet—ants being plentiful, and grasshoppers in August—their yolks took on the color of a sunset and tasted good enough that I presented them as gifts to friends in the city.

Muffy had been a handsome bird. Along with her sister, she was the largest of the flock, squash-colored, with the classically curved back of the breed, a white feather-duster rump and a modest but proud sail of a comb.

***

But let us return to the day of the incident: now I had an injured bird to deal with. And it is hard not to have some feeling for whom one provides daily care, even if that care goes unacknowledged. (I imagine this is what it is like to have a teenager in the house.) 

Friends had been invited to the house for the evening, and though events had left a stain on the day and I no longer felt in the mood for company, the excuse of a dead chicken seemed a poor one. We sat on the patio in the cooling dusk, the injured Muffy at our feet. Craig, a friend, lifted the bird, turned her rear-first, and considered her cloaca for a long time, as if he expected tomorrow’s winning lottery numbers to appear.

“Not gonna make it,” he announced finally, and he reached into his pocket for the jackknife that resided there. “I can take care of her for you.” Craig spends his days riding on the valley’s rural ambulance service, and the quickness with which he was willing to dispatch a life unnerved me. Instead, I followed the advice of Sarah, Daren’s wife and a sometimes doula. She advised an indoor convalescence, with regular cleaning of the wound.

Here I must confess that my sympathy for the chicken was not unpolluted. I am at best a reluctant landowner, more in love with the views the land provides than the unceasing work required to steward even my smallest curve of earth. I don’t find the work ennobling. During chores, my eyes always wander to the horizon. I want things to go easy. The hen’s struggle had disrupted the quiet ticking of the place. Her injury had breached the unspoken contract between us, upon which my laissez-faire philosophy depended. I was newer to life in the country, then, and didn’t understand that a barnyard isn’t a place but a series of unforeseen emergencies—irrigation leaks and downed fences and sudden illnesses. Something, living or not, is always breaking. Life is a daily war against entropy.

That night I prepared a small crate for in the house, lining its floor with yesterday’s news about inflation and Israel. I swabbed the backside of the traumatized hen with antiseptic and placed her inside. Then animal and man sat down and waited. For several days, very little happened. I hadn’t known that a chicken could experience shock. Sarah took a turn, cleaning her with care. The hen slowly began to recover. Two weeks after the attack, on a caressing day in April when the lilacs were in bud, I carried the box outside and lifted the injured chicken onto the soft warm grass for her to eat.

The other hens attacked. The sight of Muffy’s wound, and her bare skin, sent them into a frenzy. The Easter Eggers pursued her with particular ruthlessness. Already they had forgotten their flock-mate. Muffy cowered beneath the mock orange beside the front door. A second attempt at integration the next morning failed again. A man will reconsider the choices he has made while running down vindictive poultry at dawn, the hem of his bathrobe sodden with dew.

“They’ll bully her until they reestablish the pecking order,” said Katrina at the feed store, to which I had retreated. Outside, the sign mocked my incompetence: i want to grow my own food, but i can’t find bacon seeds. “Put her in the coop at night when it’s dark and they can’t see her,” she said. “That will help reintroduce her back to the flock.

“But that’s not your only problem,” she said. “Chickens will peck at the sight of blood. You need to cover it up.” She chinned toward the rear of the store. The bottle of Rooster Booster Pick-No-More was small, expensive, its liquid purple and thick like sap. It was a toss-up who was less content, the squawking bird whose tender rear had to be finger-painted to aubergine each morning, or the reluctant painter who applied the salve. The chicken and I were bound together now.

by Christopher Soloman, Orion |  Read more:

Image: the author

Why Did DoorDash Win?

The business school version of why DoorDash won is that they had the right strategy. They launched in the right markets, acquired the right restaurants, and designed the marketplace the right way.

The Silicon Valley hustle culture version is that they out-executed everyone else. They just shipped faster until they had better selection, a better product, and more reliable delivery.

The financial markets version is that they got lucky. Grubhub and Uber were both public and playing with a hand tied behind their back during the most pivotal moment in the fight.

The reality is that you can’t understand what happened without all three perspectives. Increasingly, success in every competitive market will require the right strategy, rapid execution, and good luck.

Strategy

Strategy turns on a few big decisions. For DoorDash, three of them really mattered.

The first was recognizing that owning delivery was the key to unlocking supply. Most restaurants can’t support the economics of running their own delivery fleet, so the Grubhub model of just routing orders to restaurants was bound to hit a wall.

DoorDash was the only company that launched with the business model that everyone now uses. The initial idea for Uber Eats was to load cars with fresh meals made at scale so they could be delivered as fast as possible. Postmates started with packages, not food.

DoorDash recognized the importance of logistics from the start. (...)

The second big decision was seemingly at odds with the first. Rule #1 of building a logistics business is to increase network density and thus driver utilization. This led everyone else to major city centers.

But DoorDash realized the suburbs were a better place to start. There, the alternatives to delivery were much worse, customers were more affluent, and average order values were higher. Customers immediately understood the value prop and spent enough to make delivery economics work.

Most importantly, no one else was in the suburbs yet. (...)

To win in a market, you can’t just be the market leader. You have to be the market leader by a lot. This creates a flywheel in which you have much more demand, which allows you to bring on more supply, which in turn compounds your demand advantage. Every market in food delivery was ultimately hard fought, but DoorDash’s initial wedge in the suburbs gave them an advantage no one else had.

Finally, DoorDash recognized that the most important thing was a wide selection of restaurants, even if that meant sacrificing other things that customers cared about, like delivery speed and price.

They realized that as long as they could deliver in about 40 minutes, there were limited gains from being faster. Uber tried to optimize for faster delivery, which led to the wrong decisions, including launching with the wrong business model in the first place.

DoorDash was also willing to initially make the service more expensive for consumers, which allowed them to give commission breaks to important restaurants to convince them to join. Uber instead wanted a flat customer fee, which required them to play hardball with restaurants. Later, DoorDash did begin to win on price (in particular through DashPass and lower markups on food items), but only once they had great selection.

Execution

DoorDash had the right strategy, and still almost failed.

They exploded out of the gate, raising a Series A from Sequoia in 2014. Legendary investor John Doerr effectively came out of retirement to lead their Series B in 2015 at a $600M valuation.

But then the music stopped. They were burning cash fast, and Tony couldn’t find a lead for their next round for six months. In 2016, Sequoia ultimately had to step in and lead their Series C at a $700M post-money valuation—a down round. By the end of 2017, they were almost out of money again and had to do a $60M bridge round just to keep the company alive.

Uber and Grubhub had much deeper pockets during this time. DoorDash only survived through incredible speed of execution.

by Dan Hockenmaier, Dan Hock's Essays | Read more:
Image: DonHock.com/Bloomberg/McKinsey/public financials