Hive to Honey

As dozens of new licensed and unlicensed mobile vendors vie for spaces at San Francisco’s parks and sidewalks, and customers line up for their food, the city is coming to grips with the street food phenomenon.
Officials are concerned that unlicensed vendors are operating without health department inspections, and brick-and-mortar restaurants and shops complain that street [...]

“There is a selection issue,” Matsa explains. “People who eat at restaurants more often might be doing so because they’re hungry for larger meals.” Thus, big eaters eat more no matter where they are, whether at home or dining out.
Although people do eat more when they eat in restaurants, Matsa and Anderson found that diners [...]

Commercial lasagne produced with reduced salt levels and salt substitutes scored higher on consumer tests than the ‘normal’ salt version, says a new study from Ireland.
Salt reductions of up to 29 per cent were achieved by Irish scientists without affecting the overall taste and saltiness of the finished product, while formulation with salt substitutes like [...]

We knew it was coming, but today the Health Department announced the details of its National Salt Reduction Initiative. The program will ask food producers to voluntarily cut their sodium output 20 to 25 percent by 2014. Some big-name companies have signed on (PepsiCo plans to reduce the salt in Lay’s potato chips 25 percent [...]

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in an effort to reduce the amount of sodium used in restaurant and prepared foods, is debuting its long-awaited National Salt Reduction Initiative today.
The goal of the program, which is voluntary and not mandated like menu labeling, is to cut the levels of sodium in [...]

“Calorie posting causes consumers to not only substitute products within stores, but also to substitute across stores,” the authors said. “Consumers who were routinely purchasing coffee and donuts at Dunkin Donuts may have switched to buying coffee at Starbucks when confronted with the calorie content of donuts.”
Business Week

What’s more, researchers found, menus that give added information — namely, the number of calories the average adult should get in a day — could prove even more effective at curbing appetites.
The findings, reported in the American Journal of Public Health, give some weight to the growing movement to require restaurant chains to place calorie [...]

U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says Americans have “serious challenges” with sodium and sugar and a U.S.D.A. pilot project in the new year will try to find a way to steer shoppers to more nutritious food.
Vilsack toured a Hy-Vee near the Des Moines airport this morning to see a new system which rates the nutritional [...]

The Council of Better Business Bureaus’ Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) will expand its “core principles” starting Jan. 1, according to Elaine Kolish, BBB VP and CFBAI director.
Kolish made the announcement during the FTC’s forum this week on food marketing and childhood obesity.
The principles will now require that participating food and restaurant companies [...]

In kicking off the Federal Trade Commission’s Dec. 15 public hearing on food marketing and childhood obesity, FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz called on the food industry to “supersize” its efforts and “boldly reinvent the food marketplace.”
Media Post