Food and drink

Unite Union is taking on McDonalds, apparently over what they call “stolen wages and stolen breaks”.

Unite claims $2.5m “Stolen Wages, Stolen Breaks” against McDonald’s

Unite are submitting an employment authority case against McDonald’s today for unpaid breaks that the union estimates has resulted in unpaid wages of $2.5 million.

“We have wage and time records from two stores (one a McCopco store and one a franchisee) for the last four months that confirm a consistent pattern of not paying for lost lunch breaks – as they are required to do under the collective agreement,” said Unite National Director Mike Treen.  Read more »

So, as per usual, TVNZ managed to dredge up a Budget whinger on last night’s news.

Carissa Graham already has six kids with twins on the way.

Here they all are on the couch, eating potato chips.

This whinger and bludger should learn to shut her legs before breeding anymore. The source of her poverty is her ability to flip it up willy-nilly.  Read more »

Once again it looks like the masses will suffer because the few can’t stop stuffing food into their gobs. They should tax fat bastards not food.

Biscuits could be made smaller under plans to cut obesity rates by reducing the amount of fat in the nation’s diet.

Ministers are set to demand that food manufacturers, cafes and supermarkets reduce the portion size of items high in saturated fat, such as biscuits, doughnuts, milky coffees and cakes.

Under the plans, seen by The Telegraph, customers could be encouraged to buy low-fat options by restricting the availability of less healthy food in restaurants and shops.

When ready meals and snacks are being manufactured, saturated fat would also be replaced with healthier ingredients, where possible, under the deal.  Read more »

Not sure if this is the right way to go, but it is only bourbon whiskey and not scotch so only Americans are harmed. Still, isn’t it amazing what we can dream up?

When it comes to bourbon, Tom Lix doesn’t believe in age discrimination. Most bourbons might age in the barrel for eight to 12 years or more, but Lix figures his are ready to drink in less than a week.

Lix makes Cleveland Whiskey, a new brand of bourbon that exemplifies two major trends in American whiskey-making today: the desire to speed up the process and the effort to establish a local identity.  Read more »

A guy in the US has kept a McDonalds hamburger for 14 years…and it still looks tasty (well as tasty as a maccas burger can look).

A US man has shown off a 14-year-old McDonald’s hamburger that looks the same as the day he bought it.

David Whipple, from Utah, had originally planned to keep the burger for two months in order to show friends how its preservatives would maintain its appearance.

But, after accidentally leaving the product in his pocket for two years, Mr Whipple decided to keep the burger for even longer to see how long it could continue looking normal.  Read more »

Fascinating video about making potato chips.

Years ago when I was working for a data warehousing company one of our customers in Australia made potato chips. The 3 months I spent specing the requirements was really fascinating. They do all the things that you see in this video.

You may wonder though about the weighing of the truck. This is partly to determine water content of the potatoes. If it has been raining then the potatoes are much heavier. Potatoes with a loads of water in them make poor chips. But they are resourceful…where do you think kettle fries came from? That’s right…they cut them thicker and cook them longer and market it to you as a new type of chip…just so they can use the potatoes with higher water content.  Read more »

What are Stuff and Labour trying to say? Hospital patients will be eating like any bloke left to his own devices by the missus for a couple of days?

Patients could be fed week-old food under Government plans for hospitals, leaked documents have revealed.

A report obtained by TV3 News yesterday showed food would be made in two hubs, in Christchurch and Auckland, and then transported to hospitals across the country, saving $10 million.

Some of the food could be chilled for up to a week before being served.  Read more »

I blogged about the prospect of guinea pig as a low cost meat. Now others are looking into it.

Guinea pig meat is healthy and on top of that greener than other meats.

Guinea pigs on the grill

You may best know the guinea pig as a nervous little pet that lives in a cage and eats alfalfa pellets.

Now, the rodents are increasingly showing up on plates in the United States.

South American restaurants on both coasts seem to be pushing the trend, answering to demand mostly from Andean expats for what is considered a fine and valuable food in Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. Middle-class foodies with a taste for exotic delicacies are also ordering, photographing and blogging about guinea pig. The animals — called cuyes in Spanish — are usually cooked whole, often grilled, sometimes deep fried. Many diners eat every last morsel, literally from head to toe.  Read more »

This Innocent smoothie has as much sugar as 3.5 Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Donuts

Water salesman Tony Falkenstein is on a crusade to…well…sell more of his water coolers…but he is dressing it up as a wanting people to wean themselves off unhealthy fluids and fight obesity. He has proposed a sugar tax in the fight against obesity…but the reality is his only solution is for people to buy his water coolers, which is bizarre in a city like Auckland that has good water reticulation.

Nonetheless the usual suspects are calling for a sugar tax…well here is why such a tax will never work.

A single serving of so-called healthy fruit juice has been found to contain the same amount of  sugar as three-and-a-half doughnuts or 13 hobnob biscuits.

Exclusive research for Mailonline has revealed that a single 250ml serving of white grape juice contained the same amount of sugar as four Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts.

Until recently, we thought the ‘bad’ drinks were those such as Coke and Pepsi, while orange juice was an easy way to get one of our ‘five a day’.

But the goalposts have shifted. More and more experts are warning that sugary drinks in any form are largely to blame for our ballooning waistlines.  Read more »

The last ad that Carl’s Jr tried was banned…this is the latest burger and ad which features Heidi Klum and I’ll bet some wowser tries to ban that too.

Read more »