Jezebel: Food Fight

To Fight Obesity, School Bans Lunches From Home

Margaret Hartmann — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 11:40:00 EDT

A Chicago school has banned bag lunches because theoretically, school lunch is healthier than what parents pack for their children. Naturally, parents are up in arms over the accusation that the school is better at feeding their children than they are. More »

F.D.A. May Add Warning Labels To Foods With Artificial Colorings

Margaret Hartmann — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:06:00 EDT

There's a possibility that brightly-colored staples of the American child's diet, including Jell-O, Froot Loops, and Pop-Tarts will now come with a warning. The New York Times reports that the F.D.A. has asked a panel to review evidence on the link between artificial colorings and health problems in children. More »

We're All Guilty Of Demonizing Of Fat

Dodai Stewart — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:45:00 EDT

In the wake of years of low-fat and non-fat diet news and advertising, we're living in a culture that has oversimplified the complex equations of nutrition into fat=bad. As Harriet Brown writes for Psychology today: More »

Are Jamba Juice Smoothies Glorified Junk Food?

Margaret Hartmann — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:04:00 EST

Inspired by the recent revelation that McDonald's has managed to make oatmeal unhealthy, Mother Jones is going after the Jamba Juice smoothie. Ashley Bates complains that the chain has ruined the blended concoction, which she makes at home with fruit, ice, and skim milk. She writes: More »

Government's Groundbreaking Dietary Recommendation: "Eat Less"

Margaret Hartmann — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:30:00 EST

The USDA released new dietary guidelines today, and for the first time it suggests Americans should eat less. Yes, the government is finally standing up to the food lobby and declaring we should consume less of its delicious, fatty wares! More »

The "Chew And Screw" Is On The Rise

Sadie Stein — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:40:00 EST

The recession has given rise to a weird trend: otherwise-respectable adults skipping out on the check at nice restaurants. More »

Bizarre Man Ends Bizarre 60-Day Potato Diet

Margaret Hartmann — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 13:10:00 EST

For the past 60 days, Washington State Potato Commission head Chris Voight ate only potatoes to protest the government banning or limiting the vegetable in some programs. Voight lost 21 pounds and lowered his cholesterol, but the restrictions remain. More »

And This Is How You Prepare For A Giant Food Fight

Katie Luscombe — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 17:42:00 EDT

[London, November 2: Taking the cafeteria nightmare 400x higher, this one is aiming to recreate the Spanish "Tomatina" food throwing contest. Image via Getty.]

Woman Downs 181 Buffalo Wings To Win Eating Contest

Margaret Hartmann — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:55:00 EDT

On Sunday Sonya Thomas ate 181 chicken wings in 12 minutes, winning the National Buffalo Wing Festival's eating contest and beating top professional eater Joey Chestnut. "Joey's so strong," says the festival's founder, "But Sonya's so fast with the hand." More »

The "Foodie" Is No More

Sadie Stein — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:18:00 EDT

"Foodie" — which is sometimes used to describe anyone with a passing interest in eating quality nutrients — has become a bad word. More »

Sloppy Romance At The World's Biggest Tomato Fight

Margaret Hartmann — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:46:00 EDT

[Bunol, Spain, August 25. Revellers cuddle in tomato pulp during La Tomatina festival. More than 45,000 people participated in this year's festival, throwing over 100 tons of rotten and over-ripe tomatoes. Image via Getty.]

The New Pornography: Competitive Eating?

Katy Kelleher — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:00:00 EDT

In a post titled "The depravity of Major League Eating," William Saletan makes the argument that competitive eating - cramming 68 hot dogs down one's throat in a matter of minutes - is somehow like porn. But it's not. More »

Famous Foodie Has A Problem With "Feminists"

Sadie Stein — Thu, 27 May 2010 17:00:00 EDT

Michael Pollan is a bona fide food celebrity, and rightly so: much of America's changing attitudes towards food is due to his peruasive and intelligent writing. But what's his deal with those pesky "feminists?" More »

Cook's Illustrated: The Last Bulwark Of Civilization

Sadie Stein — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:00:00 EDT

Cook's Illustrated: The Last Bulwark Of Civilization" alt="Click here to read Cook's Illustrated: The Last Bulwark Of Civilization" src="http://cache.jezebel.com/assets/images/39/2010/05/cooks_illustrated.jpg"/>

We have few authority figures we can look up to anymore. Politicians are up to their eyes in love-children and corruption. Priests reel from accusations of child-tampering. What's left? Cook's Illustrated, a bastion of goodness in a naughty world. More »

Jessica Seinfeld Cookbook Lawsuit Dismissed

Sadie Stein — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:20:00 EDT

Missy Chase Lapine, who claimed Jessica Seinfeld's best-selling Deceptively Delicious was a rip-off of Lapine's Sneaky Chef cookbook, has lost round 2: the Second Circuit Court of Appeal threw out Lapine's lawsuit yesterday. [NYDN] More »

Iron Chefs: Cooks Compete For The Future

Sadie Stein — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:40:00 EDT

"Yesterday new battlelines were drawn as domestic goddess Nigella Lawson launched her iPhone app, putting her in direct competition with Jamie Oliver. Gordon Ramsay has also thrown his toque in the ring." [Guardian] More »

The Girl Of Sandwich

Anna Holmes — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:40:00 EDT

Okay ladies: It's your turn now. [BuzzFeed] More »

Unsolved Mysteries: How Can The Obamas Eat Burgers, Still Be Healthy?

Anna North — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:30:00 EDT

NY Times Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd and others in the media are all abuzz over the Obamas' mysterious and possibly subversive decision to eat both burgers and healthy foods. More »

'80s Sexual Harassment Video Asks: "Is It Or Isn't It?"

Margaret Hartmann — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:20:00 EDT

The video at left is an excerpt from an '80s sexual harassment training video titled "food fight." We hoped it would explain whether throwing a pie in a coworker's face is considered harassment or not, but the boss complementing his employee's cucumber handling is an amusingly cheesy alternative. [Vintage Ads] More »

Go Ask Alice To Taker Her Arugula And Shove It (Say Critics)

Sadie Stein — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:40:00 EDT

Today on the HuffPo, Victoria Namkung tells everybody to leave poor Alice Waters alone! More »

Emeril Lagasse Sends Elderly Woman Fresh Pot

Margaret Hartmann — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:20:00 EST

Update: after an elderly woman scared off robbers with her Emeril Lagasse brand pot, police seized it as evidence. Now, the chef says he's sending her a whole new set of his signature cookware. [AP] More »

It's The Holidays: Time To Talk About Obesity

Anna North — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:30:00 EST

Holiday weight gain may be mostly a myth, but holiday stories about weight gain are oh-so-real. Today, even a little excess weight will kill you, but you have your city planner to blame. More »

Sarah Haskins Has A Problem With Marketing Family Meals To Moms

Dodai Stewart — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:40:00 EDT

Our new favorite, wonderfully funny critic, Sarah Haskins, is at it again. Her new video, Target Women: Feeding Your F—-ing Family dissects and pokes fun at commercials for brands like Manwich, Crock-Pot, Tyson Chicken Breast and El Pollo Loco — in which women are encouraged to keep their kids and husband happy with food. Sarah would rather order takeout Pad Thai, making her a woman after our own stomachs. The clip, after the jump. More »

The Sneaky Chef author Missy Chase Lapine,...

Jennifer — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:45:00 EST

The Sneaky Chef author Missy Chase Lapine, hot on the heels of having just sued Jessica Seinfeld over the striking similarities between her own book and Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious, has just inked a deal to do yet another installation in her series. Lapine's latest book is to feature even more ways to hide fruits and vegetables in your children's food. Seriously, how many tomes does this warrant? How many ways could there possibly be to trick your kids? When we were kids there was only one way to eat veggies: Steamed plain, fresh on our plates, and with lots of hemming and hawing. [Publisher's Weekly] More »

Jessica Seinfeld Could Have Been A Whole Lot More "Deceptive" About Her Plagiarism!

Moe — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:00:00 EST

So remember Jerry Seinfeld's wife Jessica? It seems like forever ago that she published that book about how you can get kids to eat pretty much anything if you figure out how to disguise them in the midst of more appealing foods, like with pot and brownies. And indeed, it's been on the best-seller list for an eternal-esque twelve weeks. (Isn't that like, practically a year?) But if you jog that memory you may recall that somewhere between being interviewed by the New York Times and showering Oprah Winfrey with enough $600 pairs of shoes to outfit a small drag queen militia, some other cookbook writer inferred Jessica had "plagiarized" her earlier work from an eerily similar competing title The Sneaky Chef, authored by one Missy Chase Lapine. Well, today Missy finally filed the lawsuit accusing Seinfeld of copying her "revolutionary" (her words, not ours!) book's "original expression, philosophy, premise, approach, explanations, discussions, reflections, organization, methodology and overall look and feel." And shit looks pretty damn damning! So what the hell took so long? More »

Jessica Seinfeld was on the The View today,...

Jennifer — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:30:00 EST

Jessica Seinfeld was on the The View today, and in between bites of "deceptively delicious" food, Barbara Walters asked Seinfeld to elaborate a little on the scandal surrounding her cookbook Deceptively Delicious. Jessica Seinfeld: "I can understand why [Missy Chase Lapine, author of The Sneaky Chef] would've been upset. When you have a huge success, people tend to look for the cracks, anything that would break you down a little bit... She did a book with a similar topic earlier, and it must have been hard for her to see how quickly my book took off... Never as a person would I do something like what I was accused of doing [plagarism]. I mean, I really didn't need to do this book." Barbara Walters: "Well, this isn't exactly a family that would have needed this to feed themselves." Jessica Seinfeld: "Well, yeah". [The View] More »

Rachael Ray Foolishly Attempts Smackdown With Martha Stewart

Jennifer — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:30:00 EST

Do not fuck with Martha Stewart. Post-prison Martha will cut you. Or at least make your soufflé fall on purpose. If we were Rachael Ray, we'd start hiding out now. Ray, the annoyingly chirpy maker of 30-minute meals and head of her own Martha-esque media empire (Magazine? Check. Talk show? Check. Cook books? Check), has poached the publisher of Stewart's Everyday Food to assume that same title at her namesake mag, Everyday with Rachael Ray. They are both fools: Do. Not. Cross. Martha. We now have images of Martha going all witches from Macbeth, standing over a cauldron, casting spells on the both of them. Also, what was former Martha-er, soon to be Ray-er Anne Balaban thinking? Isn't going from working for Martha to working for Ray like going from working for Valentino corporate to stocking sweaters at Old Navy? More »

If You Care About The Seinfelds, You're In Luck

Jennifer — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:30:00 EST

Is it time to feel bad for Jessica Seinfeld? We don't know why she was the subject of a story in yesterday's New York Times, and whether or not she cheated on her first husband with Jerry and whether or not she lied about this when it first happened eight years ago. Hiding spinach in brownies is stupid and giving Oprah Winfrey 21 pairs of Louboutins when Oprah has more money than God and the Seinfelds have almost as much money as Oprah is disgusting and gratuitous. But why is it news that when Jessica married Jerry eight years ago, she basically left her newlywed first husband (Eric Nederlander) to run away with Jerry, thus making it seem like she and Jerry had started up while she was still with Nederlander? Do you even care? More »

Writer Mimi Sheraton (the first female chief...

Jennifer — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:45:00 EDT

Writer Mimi Sheraton (the first female chief food critic at The New York Times) has taken on Jessica Seinfeld's bestselling book Deceptively Delicious. Says Sheraton of the controversy on the similarities between Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious and Missy Chase Lapine's The Sneaky Chef: "I say: a plague on both their houses. Both propose a culinary scheme that is, basically, totally stupid, to say nothing of dishonest... With the dangerous rise of childhood obesity and diabetes, do we really want to encourage the eating of sugars and starches... As to the nutritional worth of such cooked and recooked vegetables, in miniscule amounts, [NYU nutrition expert Dr. Marion Nestle] first chuckled wildly and then answered, 'All you can do is laugh.'" Welcome to the club! [Slate] More »

Jessica Seinfeld's "I Never Read That Book" Defense Smells A Little Fishy

Anna Holmes — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:30:00 EDT

What a difference a weekend makes. Missy Chase Lapine, the author whose April 2007 book The Sneaky Chef may or may not have influenced Jessica Seinfeld's instant bestseller Deceptively Delicious, has gone from feeling "uncomfortable" about the uncanny similarities between the two titles to "concerned and troubled." And Ms. Lapine evidently embarked on a little comparison shopping in the days since she and her publisher told both the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal that they were unwilling to "accuse anyone of anything." "There are at least 15 of my recipes that ended up in her book," this morning's USA Today quotes Ms. Lapine as saying, adding that intent is difficult to prove with regards to recipe-theft: "If you change one ingredient, you're safe." More »

Jessica Seinfeld's "Deceptively Delicious": Kinda Deceptive, Not So Delicious

Jennifer — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 14:00:00 EDT

We were wary when we first saw Jessica "Mrs. Jerry" Seinfeld on Oprah last week, heralding the benefits of steaming and pureeing the shit out of vegetables and then "hiding" them in kid-friendly foods so that kids will stop throwing temper tantrums at the dinner table and actually eat their vegetables. Because if you steam and puree the shit out of a vegetable, does it have any nutritious value left in it? Especially when it's hidden in a brownie? We turned to Sarah Sliwa, a graduate student at Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and all-around sassy chick, to help us unravel Seinfeld's "deception" and its potential for any and all deliciousness.