Redesigning the nutrition label

Recently I submitted an entry to the redesign the nutrition label contest.  The objective is to make a nutrition label that is actually useful and informative to people - either using the existing label as a layout base or re-creating your own completely.  Never mind my super design skills from the Paint application - it's the thought that counts.

The nutrition label is easily glossed over by many, however, if done properly it could have a real impact on health and obesity in America.  People don't know what they're putting in their bodies.  They don't know how much is a reasonable amount, and they don't know where their food comes from.  And that's a big problem.  As Michael Pollan said in his book In Defense of Food, it's ironic that America is the country the most obsessed with health and nutrition and vitamins as we are the most obese.  I'm not a calorie counter (though I understand the calorie count has a role to play in the nutrition label) and I'm definitely not concerned about the amount of butter in my diet (how I love butter).  But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about what I'm putting in my body.  I love food and I prefer to eat real food, that has names I understand, varied, fat and all, in moderation.  There's no science behind my diet but I'm a healthy normal sized person.

When it comes to packaged foods I'm skeptical.  Unfortunately it's come to a point where I don't trust my food packaging: I don't trust the health claims and I don't trust that the nutrition label is really helping me or my family, who don't always pay attention to it as much, make better decisions for our health. I want to make a nutrition label that has accessible information for people who can't make sense of the numbers and which also enlightens us on hot topics in food production.

Knowledge is power. If we systematically print more information (via the nutrition label, front of package labeling, etc.) in a way that's meant to be understood, it will manifest in consumers' decisions and could change the demands in the food industry. Nutrition labels currently muddle controversial information that could affect product sales (i.e. where did your food come from?  Is this an unhealthy amount of salt/fat?  Is it genetically modified?). You have a right to know the details about what goes into your body. It's your body.  Below is a breakdown of changes I made to the nutrition label.  I included some great ideas I saw out on the inter-web coupled with a few of my own:

• High/med/low color coded traffic circles next to the Calories/Fat/Salt/Sugars visually show consumers, who don't necessarily understand the numbers, how much of a good or bad thing is in their food. (Taken from the UK FOP labeling).
• Standardized serving size (100g) – so consumers can compare different foods to each other more easily.
• % of whole grains is about shattering the marketing ploys to convince consumers that their food is better for them than it actually is. What percentage of grains are whole grains?
• What percentage of vitamins and minerals are natural and what percentage is fortified? Getting your vitamins and minerals through natural foods (i.e. raisins in your cereal, fruit or vegetables baked into your bread...) will absorb differently in your body and likely have greater health benefits than a powder added to your cereal mix. While consumers have the right to choose any product they please, I think it is important they become aware of this distinction.
• Allergy information prominently displayed.
• Hot topic check-boxes at the bottom make consumers aware of what their food is and isn't, decreasing confusion. They might have a stronger opinion about many of these boxes if they knew each and every time what they were consuming.
• Easier to understand ingredient list that I poached from a scientist in an article I read. (A great idea is a great idea...). It shows consumers in words they understand what they're eating, and the percentage by weight in the food (a vast improvement). It also divides the ingredients into major ingredients and minor ingredients.

Food is and always will be an important conscious part of my life. I hope that this project redesigning the nutrition label will widen the discourse on what consumers need to know to make informed healthy choices. As we can see with the growing organic market consumers do care about what they're putting in their bodies. We need to embrace the changing demand and give consumers what they want: accurate information they can easily understand.

  

Tips for tedious work

People often romanticize working at a Michelin starred restaurant. How exciting to be in the hustle and bustle of the kitchen, working with your hands all day on your passion, and eating! However, what I actually do all day is hardly glamorous.  In fact it can be monotonous and dull.  With one friend in particular we joke about how different our lives are. She is giving seminars on unplanned pregnancies while I am picking the stems off of baby spinach, followed by slicing, dicing, peeling, shaving, picking, cutting, tearing, chopping, washing, and more. As a prep girl starting at the bottom, sometimes getting through it can be a battle. In my few months as prep girl I've developed some coping techniques. All cooks, even those from home, should heed this advice and make your kitchens (and therefore your lives) more efficient (and delicious).  Do more with less time!

Tips for tedious work:

1. Most important – do it as quickly as you can (aka move your hands faster). It will suck much less if you finish sooner.
2. Try not to tense up your hands – stretch them out when need be.
3. Arrange your work space so that your hands are moving around as little as possible.
4. Work into and out of something.  Commonly I use containers: One for the produce in it's original form, a scrap container so you don't make a mess, and a container for the finished product. Place them side by side or front to back, however makes sense. (The container system may vary.  Depending on the volume and product small piles may work as well.  Always keep your piles very separate.)
5. Keep your work space clean and organized.  A dry or damp towel can help with this. 
6. Don't let the menial job distract you from the end quality. It still has to be pretty, mostly.
7. Get comfortable with your pairing knife, peeler, chef knife, mandolin, or tool of choice. (Or maybe you just need your hands!).
8. Not necessary – but some music or NPR in the background certainly takes the edge off.

Going out to eat, brown bag in hand

Photo courtesy of google images.

When eating at a friend's house it is polite to contribute and show appreciation by bringing a bottle of wine or the like.  As a cook eating out at a friend's restaurant the custom sticks:  Bring the kitchen (your hosts) beer (and they will be kind to you...).

As I prepared to come in and eat with my family where I work, the AM sous explained to me the beer etiquette I should follow.  Despite the fact that this practice seemed mildly inappropriate (to walk into a nice restaurant with beer in hand), I know it's typical based on what the other cooks have said and done: The garde-manger cook coming in to eat with a massive bottle of beer in a brown bag, and the PM sous complaining that her friend's restaurant didn't send anything extra even though she brought a six-pack.  To keep with tradition I wanted to go out and get a little something for my team.  As it happened there was not much time between when I got off work and the reservation so I informed the staff I'd bring them beer the following work day instead.  I think I must be the most awkward beer-giver of all time (partly because of my tardiness and partly because I'm not much of a drinker and an aura of young innocence surrounds me).  But the staff was cool and in the end I felt like I played my part.  In return they treated us with such warmth and generosity that the beer fizzled in comparison.  They're pretty cool like that.

Cherry pie with no fancy equipment

Yesterday I went to the Lagunitas beer circus in Petaluma for my friend Natalie's birthday.  On the way we stopped at a roadside fruit stand for a snack: super sweet delicious cherries.  Earlier today with the remaining cherries I decided to make a pie.  Waste not want not as my dad would say; it would be such a shame to let them go bad.  This pie satisfied every craving and pushed me into a massive pie coma.  Needless to say I'll sleep well tonight.

Cherry filling:
enough cherries to fill a pie, pitted
1/2 vanilla bean, insides scraped
2 TB corn starch
(optional sugar to taste if your cherries are not sweet enough)

Pie Crust:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
6-8 TB ice water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar

Here is the part where I feel like Suzie homemaker.  I don't have a robocoup or a cuisinart to make the pie crust so I had to find a way to mix it by hand with really cold butter (cold butter and pie dough is key to a flaky crust).  I did research on the internet and came across some good advice:  Stick the butter in the freezer till hard (about an hour) and when ready to make the crust grate the butter on a cheese-grater.  Mix the grated butter in with the dry (flour salt sugar) by hand, clumping it with your fingers.  Add the ice water 2 TB at a time mixing inbetween with your hands.  It's ready when it all sticks together when clumped with your hands.  Knead it a little so it becomes one solid mass, don't worry if there are chunks of butter it will make the crust flaky.  Divide in 2 and put in the fridge for at least an hour to chill.  An hour later roll out half the dough 1/8 in thick and conform it to your pie dish.  I stick the empty pie dish with dough in the freezer while I work on the next step.

Put the pitted cherries in a sauce pan, heat on low till some of juice comes out.  Mix that juice with a little warm water, the cornstarch, and the insides of half a vanilla bean and pour all into your pie crust (taken out of the freezer).  Roll out the other half of the dough, place on top of your pie, smush the edges together, trim excess dough and crimp with a fork.  Brush egg on the top and sprinkle with sugar (for a nice golden crust).  Bake at 375 for 50 minutes.


**If you do have fancy equipment you can pulse the cold butter and dry together till course and then add the ice water 1 TB at a time until it comes together.

Impromptu chicken braise with white wine and preserved lemon

Feel free to not forget your chicken in the oven and remember to turn it over occasionally.

I have a lot of chicken and I have to cook it before it goes bad: Ready, go!

Last week the sous-chef taught me how to break down a chicken and subsequently he and I went to Sur La Table and picked out my first boning knife, Wusthof Ikon.  At the moment we have a fair amount of chickens to break down for a small restaurant.  We get shipments in two to three times a week, using them for a daily chicken stock and for one of the main entrées on the menu -  chicken cooked sous-vide and then deep fried.  I can't wait to expand my role as kitchen prep to occasional butcher and to continue honing my skills.  Butchery is definitely one of those must-have skills to succeed in the industry and it simultaneously makes you feel a little bit hardcore.  Though today, after buying three whole chickens at the market primed to practice what I'd been shown - I realized that I couldn't find the wishbone and I had forgotten how to dislocate the shoulder.  Nevertheless I managed  to get the breast, legs, and thighs off the chicken with a small to medium amount of waste.  Nothing quite like the bare carcass the sous-chef demonstrated to me, but I assume it will only get better from here.  All this practice is leaving me with quite a bit of chicken on my hands.  Tonight I pan fried some shnitzl, a childhood favorite, and threw an impromptu braise together for the dark meat which turned out prettttty tasty and was quite simple.  Feel free to try this at home and add anything that might make it tastier - vary up the citrus, add another spice, etc.

Ingredients:
dark meat
1/4 preserved lemon, roughly chopped
a couple cups of chicken stock
a miniature bottle of white wine
1/4 onion
1 bay leaf
a shake of chili flakes
3 cloves garlic, whole
s+p

Sear the chicken skin side down in a pan until the skin is golden and a little crisp; turn over and sear the other side a little less.  Remove the chicken and put it in a casserole.  Add the onions to the chicken grease left in the pan to sweat.  Add salt, pepper, garlic, preserved lemon, and a shake of chili flakes and sautée a little.  Deglaze the pan with white wine and add the chicken stock.  Pour the liquid and onions over the chicken to just cover or almost cover it.  Add the bay leaf and bake around 325 for 4 hours or so, turning the chicken occasionally.