What Have I Been Up To? (rambling)

Hello to anyone who still visits this blog or stumbled onto this blog!

Noticed that I haven't made a post in over a year, so let's do a quick catch up. I hope to get back into writing a bit more, but I don't eat out as much as I used to, and those food posts really were the main driver of the blog.

I've cycled through a few hobbies over the last 5 years.

At one point I was watching every new season of anime (averaging 6+ shows per season, 4 seasons a year), but I've cut down to about 2-3 per season now. This season I'm watching Hinamatsuri (I started with the manga, it's fantastic) and Uma Musume (I'm really not into idol shows or [insert fetish/animal] girls, but I have fond memories of the racehorses named, and PA Works has managed to turn a throwaway game adaptation into a decent anime)

In 2015 I discovered the fighting game community, and have been watching the majors regularly on Twitch. The scene is getting more and more exposure, with the last two EVO main events being broadcast on ESPN2. A huge tournament (Combo Breaker) just passed, and there's two more major events in the near future (CEO in July and EVO in August) that I'm looking forward to watching. I'm just a stream monster and don't actually play the games, and currently I enjoy watching King of Fighters, NRS games (Mortal Kombat and Injustice), DragonBallFighterZ, and occasionally some Street Fighter V.

I no longer work in Manhattan, so I find myself less often in the city. This has also meant that I've eaten out less, but I do plan on picking that back up a bit, especially for nice fine dining restaurants, and maybe that will get me more motivated to post reviews again. In fact, there will be a food post on Le Coq Rico accompanying this post!

I've also gotten back into watching wrestling (WWE). I grew up watching it, although I was never a huge fan. I remember watching it in college during the height of the attitude era. But I find the product much more compelling now, especially the in-ring product. While it's not a competitive sport, the athleticism on display is often astounding, and much more entertaining than watching Stephen Curry jack threes. I'm a WWE Network subscriber and watch every PayPerView now. They also have some decent original programming.

I still play very little bridge, although I've been getting a bit of an itch to get back into it more. It's difficult since you still have to find a good partner. However, more recently I have been getting back into playing poker. I was always an online player back in the day, but I've recently found live poker cash games (low stakes, no pressure) to be quite enjoyable. Between playing poker and the occasional stint at the table games, a few of the local casinos have been sending me comped room offers, so I expect to be playing even more in the near future.

Speaking of comps, I was invited to the VIP Grand Opening of Resorts World Catskills. They threw a welcome party and had Jerry Seinfeld as their opening weekend headliner. Here are some pics from the welcome party

They even had celebrities, and apparently I missed Neil Patrick Harris. But I did catch LT and Phil Simms telling gambling stories while smoking cigars out on the balcony, so that was cool. Jerry Seinfeld was enjoyable. I really liked his opening act, Mario Joyner. Jerry mixed in some old guy curmudgeonly complaining in with observational stuff, all in that whiny voice of his. His energy was really good. Overall a good show and the place was packed. In the end, Jerry Seinfeld will always be a New York legend and fans still flock to him.

Catch Up (Entertainment, Food, Gambling, Sport, Rambling)

It's been a while since I last wrote a post, so I figured I'd give an update on what I've been doing.

New Hobbies

Watching fighting games
Even though I don't play any of them, I do find them very entertaining to watch, especially the high level contests. So lately I've not only caught up on past matches through Youtube, I'll actually watch live streaming on Twitch as well. This all culminated in me watching the live stream of an entire weekend's worth of EVO, which is the biggest fighting game tournament in the world, held every year in Las Vegas. It was a ridiculous display of skill and drama, packed with excitement, and honestly more entertaining for me than the NBA finals. My favorite games to watch are Ultra Street Fighter IV (where the biggest prize money is) and Mortal Kombat X (which is only a few months old but has a huge following). I really think the fighting game scene is going to blow up big time, and some would say it already has considering there were 250k concurrent live viewers at the championship's peak, even though the prize pools were below $100k, compared to League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients which boast multi-million dollar prize pools.

Daily fantasy sports
I've always played a good deal of daily fantasy sports, but the past month or so I've really been into the day-to-day grind of the MLB season. I'm mostly trying to develop a model for it and plan to play strictly off the model. It hasn't been going well financially, but it's still pretty fun. It's kind of developed into a daily routine now where I download some data into Google Docs, then read it into R to do my analysis. The model has shown a lot of promise, but it hasn't won consistently, so I'm thinking of moving on to NFL analysis very soon in anticipation of the new season starting.

Older Hobbies

Food
I haven't really been out to many restaurants. I haven't really exercised in the past half year due to a calf injury, and have ballooned in weight so I'm trying to get back in shape starting with my diet. I did have an excellent dinner at EMP a while back, but none of the main "story" dishes were new so I didn't write up the meal. I also had a couple of stellar meals at 15 East, but as beloved chef Masato Shimizu is leaving the country, there's no hurry to write a post on it as the reader won't be able to enjoy the experience as well.

Poker
I'd been playing in a couple of regular home games, but now that summer is here, everyone's enjoying the outdoors instead. I also haven't followed the poker scene at all, except for coming across a couple of WSOP headlines.

Bridge
I've kept up with bridge even less, to the extent that I didn't even know when and where this summer's nationals were being held. I continue to play in the interclub bridge league, but that's been on hiatus for the summer and won't resume till September.

TV/Anime
My DVR continues to be full, and I still watch a good amount of anime (3-5 per season last few seasons), but it feels like there's just too much entertainment media (much of it good) out there nowadays. And I don't even have a Netflix subscription!

So that's a pretty good snapshot of how things have been. I believe that I will have a couple of food posts up soon when I get around to it, and this NFL season perhaps I'll start writing some daily fantasy posts instead of the previous gambling posts. Enjoy the summer, everyone!

I'm Still Here (rambling)

Sorry I've been MIA, but just wanted to let you know that I'm still here and that I do plan to write posts more consistently at some point. I swear this is not an April Fools joke! :)

At the very least I should have a post for the NBA playoffs coming up and my (now not-so-recent) meal at Cosme, one of the hottest restaurants in NYC.

Happy 2015! (rambling, gambling)

I'm baaaack!

2014 was a very trying year for me, but I'm back and very much looking forward to 2015. It's unclear if I will write more, but I will try my best. In the meantime, I've changed the poll on the right sidebar to ask what you would like to see more of on this blog, so please vote!

I did say I'd be back before the NFL playoffs (just barely), so for this weekend's games, I like the under 37.5 in Carolina, and the Colts -3.5 in Indy. Good luck everyone, and have a happy new year!

On Hiatus

Hi, readers!

I haven't been posting that regularly to begin with, but posts rate to be even more scarce for the rest of this year at least. Unfortunately, I tore my calf for the second time in three years while playing basketball a couple weeks ago, and blogging is way down on the list of current priorities. But I hope to be back up and writing soon, in time for the NFL playoffs at least.

For the foodies, happy eating!
For the game enthusiasts, good luck!

Another Year for the Blog (rambling)

As we enter 2014, I look back and feel that I had a pretty good year with the blog. I set out a goal to write a post every week, and I was pretty successful for the most part, with 70 total posts. There were a couple of slow months (March and August) when I only wrote 3 posts for the month, but I never felt like there was a really long break between posts. The majority of blog posts that I wrote were about food and sports, but I'll be looking to add a little more variety in 2014.

Before finally moving on to 2014 (although we're already a week in), let's look back at 2013.

Food
I've been very fortunate when it comes to food throughout my life, and 2013 was another great gustatory year, even as I lost 30 pounds. Some meals really stood out to me, and I added a new feature on the blog with "My Favorite Recent Meals" to showcase them. My favorite meal of the year was my first meal of two at Eleven Madison Park, which was so epic I had to split it into two blog posts (part 1 and 2).

Sports/Gambling
I started a new feature called NFL Underdog '13, where I focused on picking just one underdog each week during the 2013-2014 NFL season. I thought it was pretty successful (final results: 10-7ATS, 6-11SU +25), and I'm looking forward to doing it again next season. It's also given me some ideas for new features for this year's NBA and MLB seasons, so I might end up writing much more about sports this coming year.

Entertainment
This has been a great year for television, with great shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Dr. Who, and The Walking Dead being a part of mainstream pop culture. I continue to watch a lot of TV, but haven't really blogged about it this past year. I did blog a couple of anime recommendations, as I've really gotten into anime this past year. There are some really great stories being told in that medium, and I would like to share some more of them with readers.

I wish everyone a great 2014 and I'm looking forward to writing and sharing even more!

My View on the Four Kinds of Tasting Menus (food)

I used to be a much bigger fan of tasting menus than I am now. In recent years, I've leaned toward ordering the prix fixe and a la carte instead at many top tier restaurants such as Jean Georges, Daniel, Le Bernardin, and Marea. When you save up for a splurge at a fine dining restaurant, it's natural to want to be able to get as much out of the experience as possible. But the truth is that many chefs don't design dishes to be part of a tasting menu, and many tasting menus are mere afterthoughts.

To me there are really 4 kinds of tasting menus.
1. The ones at tasting menu only restaurants. Examples from the best restaurants in NYC include Eleven Madison Park, The Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and Per Se. They do it right because that's the only thing they focus on. The menu is planned and well crafted.
2. Seasonal tasting menus featuring dishes that are not on the regular menu. They may not be the sole focus, but there's enough attention dedicated to them and it usually highlights additional ambition and care on the part of the chef. Examples of fine restaurants offering these kinds of tasting menus in NYC include Jean Georges, Kyo Ya, Tocqueville, Gramercy Tavern, Louro, and many others.
3. A selection of signature dishes from over the course of the restaurant's lifetime. These will often come from successful, ambitious restaurants that are continuously innovating but have dishes that regulars just continue to ask for. Examples include the vault at WD-50, the signature tasting menu at Jean Georges, and the 25th anniversary tasting menu at Alain Ducasse restaurants.
4. Tasting menus slapped together from items already on the menu. Usually used to appease people who can't decide or for people who may not be able to frequent the restaurant often and so want to "taste" as much as possible in one sitting.
5. There's also in fact a fifth kind, which is the fake tasting menu. Many restaurants take a 3 or 4 course prix fixe and call it a tasting menu to attract diners.

The 4th kind of tasting menu is the one that I see most often in restaurants nowadays, and is the one that I have the most problem with. Often, the restaurant will try to disguise these tasting menus as the 3rd kind of tasting menu, saying that these are the standout dishes on the menu. But if they are in fact so much better, what's the point of the other items on the menu? In the words of Marco Pierre White, "When I go to a restaurant, I want a starter, a main, and a pudding. If I like the food, I'll come back and try the rest of the menu."

More often than not, the choices on those tasting menus are not in fact the best, but rather the safest to market to indecisive eaters and easiest to divide into smaller tasting menu sized portions. If you are likely to know what you like by looking at a menu, my recommendation is to order it a la carte or as part of a prix fixe. Sometimes people won't be as adventurous and choose as boldly as certain items on some tasting menus. But if you trust the quality of the restaurant (there's so much research out there that can be done nowadays), that shouldn't be a problem. And if you have a huge appetite like I do, you can just add dishes a la carte. Why only have a menu of two-bite tastes of dishes that were designed to be bigger?

I'm not against tasting menus. It's just that they're not all created equal. You can't just go into a restaurant, order the tasting menu, and assume that the chef has specially put together a menu of his best stuff. A lot of times, especially if the tasting menu is composed entirely of dishes from the regular menu, you're not getting the best, most exciting things that are coming out of the kitchen.

Rant: TMobile and Other Wireless Carriers (economics/politics, rambling)

This is about my experience last week as I went to my local TMobile store to add $ to my prepaid cell phone. But more than that, I found out about an industry-wide practice that I think is just wrong and should be corrected.

It all started when the previous prepaid plan I bought had expired. I didn't know it at the time because the only notification I got was one text message. Since I never use the phone for texting, it never occurred to me to open it. While at the store, it didn't help that the salesperson didn't really know what any of the plans/rates were, and kept having to ask the store manager in the back. When she finally pulled up my account on her screen, she said that it showed I was on a 10cent/min plan. Since I don't use this second cell phone very often, I decided to only add $15 worth.

So the transaction is done and then I get a text message notifying me of my balance. Except it lists only 52 minutes for my $15. So the salesperson calls in to customer service, and it turns out that unless you buy the $100/1000 minute plan, the rates are higher. The salesperson didn't seem to be able to do anything about it, and as my voice got louder with frustration, the manager came out from the back.

The solution seemed simple enough to me. I wanted a refund. If I had gotten the correct quote, I probably would have made a different decision, and I clearly deserved the opportunity to make an informed decision. Except that the manager's reply was, "Prepaid transactions cannot be refunded. Every major carrier has this same policy." WHAT!? This wasn't a simple case of buyer's remorse. I informed him that this was their fault since they gave me the wrong quote. To which he REPEATED, "Prepaid transactions cannot be refunded. Every major carrier has this same policy."

At this point, I really was yelling because this was so inane. "Do you think Consumer Affairs cares about your policy? Your salesperson gave me the wrong quote. Call customer service, there has to be someone higher ranking who can fix this." Defeatedly, the store manager calls in to the customer service rep, who gives me 150 minutes for my $15. While I accepted this solution because I didn't want to bother with it anymore, in my mind, this was still wrong. How is it that I still had no choice in the matter? The manager didn't tell me what he was doing until it was done, but what if it's not what I wanted? What if I just wanted to get my money back and take my business elsewhere? How is that not an option?

To sum up all the things I thought were wrong about the encounter:

1. Lack of customer service. It's bad enough that the store manager didn't actually train his employees to be up-to-date on the things they offered, but at least the salesperson tried. The manager should have realized they made a mistake and actively tried to resolve it, instead of quoting "policy" and trying to get away with it until he couldn't.

2. Which leads to a bigger problem with corporations in general. It's all about "getting away with what they can", as opposed to developing real, beneficial relationships with their clients. This happens more often than not, and is shielded by, "Everyone else does it."

3. Which was the exact excuse the store manager used. "Every major carrier has this same policy." How is this even an acceptable industry-wide practice? How can something that (I assume) can be easily reversed in the computer system not have a refund policy of some sort? How does the FTC allow this? Or worse, was the store manager just bullshtting me?

HBO Game of Thrones The Exhibition, NYC (tv, entertainment, rambling)

Game of Thrones: The Exhibition made the second stop of its five-city international tour in New York City over Easter weekend. Lines ranged from 1/3 to 1/2 an avenue block long.

In NYC, HBO partnered with Time Warner Cable, allowing special access to Time Warner Cable customers. While I'm very happy Time Warner Cable helped me avoid the long line, they didn't exactly do a great job of handling the logistics. On the first day of the exhibition, time warner cable customers were allowed to just go right into the exhibit. Soon, they realized there were too many people, and began scheduling specific times for TWC customers to enter the exhibit. Only they never told anyone that you now had to register, and many disappointed people were turned away. Not only that, you could only register a spot on the scheduled list ahead of time in person, which meant that you had to take two trips there to get in. Ok, enough ranting about Time Warner Cable for now.


The story begins in the North, and that is where we will begin as well. The left pic features costumes from Winterfell while the right pic features costumes from The Wall. The costumes really are quite stunning in terms of the extraordinary amount of detail, and how they were able to bring the books to life through them. However, I assume that the actors all had lots of thermal underwear on underneath as these did not seem to be warm enough outfits for the cold tundra that was captured on film.


Next up are costumes from King's Landing. The Tyrion outfit looked a lot taller than I would have thought, especially next to Jaime Lannister's armor. I looked it up and it turns out Peter Dinklage is 4'5", taller than I originally thought, while Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is indeed an impressive 6'2". The one item that caught my eye immediately however, was Cersei's outfit. I did not know she was so slender and couldn't imagine her fitting into how thin that looked. Lena Headey must have an amazing figure.


With a little more meat on her bones, but no less attractive, is Emilia Clarke. The actress plays Daenerys Targaryen, more popularly known as just Khaleesi. In the Targaryen section of the exhibit, they had her costumes as well as the actual-sized prop of one of her dragons. Actual-sized with respect to the third season. It appears those things grow pretty quickly!


Also on display were fairly detailed maps. Maps are super important for the fantasy reader in being able to visualize the novel. I think the map on the left was actually used by one of the characters on the show for war strategy planning.


Also of importance to fans of fantasy, whether through books, tv, movies, or RPG games, are the weapons. The main disappointment here was Robert Baratheon's war hammer (leftmost on the right pic). I thought it would be this humongous smashing weapon. Before he got fat from all the eating and drinking and whoring, Robert Baratheon was supposed to be a powerful and intimidating goliath with this war hammer.


There were also a range of other props, or artifacts. Again, the attention to detail is marvelous, including the letter that Eddard Stark wrote to Stannis Baratheon informing him that he's the rightful heir.


My favorite props from the exhibit, however, included the stuff from Qarth in the left pic as well as the prop in the right pic. The intricacies stand out, as Qarth was supposed to be a great trading city of vast wealth. Have you found the prop in the right pic yet? It's Ned Stark's chopped off head!

There were two interactive experiences at the exhibition that fans could participate in. One was to get a picture taken sitting atop the Iron Throne. The other was to play this game where you pretended to be archers in the Battle of the Blackwater, wielding huge bows. It was actually pretty interesting, except that (another logistical failure?) the person in charge of the line to play didn't make it clear that you were supposed to be aiming for the green stuff (to spread the wildfire) and not trying to actually hit the ships. Or maybe they were just expecting the real diehard fans to know.

Anyway, it's a fun exhibit and a great way to showcase all that went into this amazing show.

Sports Ramblings from the Weekend (sport, gambling, rambling)

March Madness is in full swing, but we'll get to that.

First, Tiger Woods is the number 1 golfer in the world again. How is this not bigger news? This is already his 3rd win of the year, matching his 2012 total. Is the old Tiger back? Or is he even better? At this stage of his career, he will only be judged by how many more majors he wins. Even so, it's refreshing to see a top player return to dominant form in his sport without any steroid overhang.

The next biggest thing in sports that caught my eye was that Ed Reed will no longer be a Baltimore Raven. He was also super classy about it, putting out a full-page salute to Ravens fans in the Baltimore Sun. So after winning the Superbowl, the Ravens have managed to completely dismantle their championship team while grossly overpaying Joe Flacco. They were lucky Dumervil fell into their lap or else it would've been a complete disaster. I certainly don't foresee another deep playoff run, and I'm beginning to wonder how competitive they will actually be. Then again, Baltimore fans aren't allowed to complain, according to Bill Simmons who once wrote that teams should get a five-year grace period after winning a championship.

But the real big sporting event of the weekend was the start of the NCAAB tournament. History was made as Florida Gulf Coast University became the first 15th seed to make it into the Sweet Sixteen, playing their entertaining, carefree, high-flying style of basketball. Another historic moment came when my alma mater, Harvard, had their first tournament win ever. Go Crimson! There were in total quite a few big upsets this opening round, and I'm glad that I got to cheer them on without worrying that they were going to bust my bracket. I get that for most people, the March Madness bracket and fantasy sports are ways that they can gamble a little on sports without feeling guilty. But for those who actually enjoy basketball and gamble on sports with any regular frequency, I wonder if filling out brackets would actually detract from enjoying the tournament.

Recent Interesting Articles About Food Part 2 (food, rambling, economics/politics, entertainment, tv)

There were a couple of very interesting articles about food in mainstream media recently. I wanted to share them with everyone because they are thoughtful, interesting reads. I'm also going to offer up my opinions on certain points discussed in the articles because this is Rambling$ and Gambling$ after all and I haven't done any rambling in a while.

This second article is from Grantland on the state of food TV. For Part 1 click here.

It was no longer enough to...instruct. The new goal was to entertain.

Another example of this way of mixing instructing/entertaining that has proven successful is Jim Cramer on CNBC. I think it says more about the way people consume media than about food TV itself.

And so the TV part of the equation began to outweigh the food. Legit cooks...went out the door.

While this is true, the Food Network did spin off the Cooking Channel. There may be no more new episodes of "Good Eats", but you can find reruns, along with new shows that still actually teach cooking, on the Cooking Channel. While I might agree with the conclusion, I don't think it's fair to focus exclusively on the one Food Network channel.

Bourdain was...a thoroughly undistinguished line cook lifer

I'm pretty sure this is just plain wrong. I did read Kitchen Confidential, and I remember he was already executive chef when he wrote it. This just sounds like what someone who watches too much Top Chef would say. They think all real chefs are these endlessly creative artist types. Every real restaurant kitchen has line cooks, and actually running a successful kitchen is a legitimate big deal, especially for a place that did as many covers as Les Halles.

Look, it's perfectly fine for Bourdain to cash in

Yes it is, although my belief is that this happened well before The Taste. The last couple of seasons of No Reservations and The Layover show focused way more on already-known critical darlings than the earlier seasons.

Slumming alongside Bourdain as judges/mentors are Ludo Lefebvre, an actually gifted French chef....

I actually did not like Ludo when he first appeared on Top Chef Masters. I thought he was playing a character. But I think he's rediscovered his passion for food and has won me over, especially with his appearance on the Burgundy episode of No Reservations. I do watch The Taste (it's an easy show to have on in the background), and he's the only guy on there whose taste I trust even a bit. I think Bourdain's taste buds have been killed off by the all the alcohol he's drank over the years.

Bourdain's Rolodex is put to good use, too, as a dazzling assortment of legitimate geniuses, from Gabrielle Hamilton to David Kinch....

Those are some nice names, but did you know that "Master Chef", the Fox show about HOME COOKS, once featured Guy Savoy, Alain Ducasse, and Daniel Boulud as judges? That's a combined 33 Michelin stars. (Recent review of Boulud's restaurant Daniel here)

The main takeaway here is that amateurism just isn't all that interesting.

That to me was the best part of the article and my main takeaway as well. Unfortunately, he then loses me when he heaps praise onto Chopped and Top Chef. While the contestants on Top Chef do tend to be stronger as a whole than other shows, let's not get too carried away. There's a reason that every fcking season someone gets reprimanded for not seasoning their food. As for Chopped, I'm just not a fan of the whole food challenge thing. It goes back to this focus on chefs as artists, and forgets about chefs running a restaurant and feeding people. Even though Fox focuses too much on the whole cursing Gordon Ramsay schtick, both Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares do illustrate what it's like to run a kitchen professionally. The BBC versions of these programs, where the Ramsay character is dialed down a bunch, are very watchable.

Again, I think this article speaks more to how people (Americans in general) consume TV media than specifically to the state of food TV.

Recent Interesting Articles About Food Part 1 (food, rambling, economics/politics)

There were a couple of very interesting articles about food in the mainstream media recently. I wanted to share them with everyone because they are thoughtful, interesting reads. I'm also going to offer up my opinions on certain points discussed in the articles because this is Rambling$ and Gambling$ after all and I haven't done any rambling in a while.

The first article comes from the New York Times and is adapted from an upcoming book about the snack food industry. It's a long read but well worth it. For part 2 click here.

He drew a connection to the last thing in the world the C.E.O.’s wanted linked to their products: cigarettes.

I thought this was very interesting. But to me, it also adds a new question. Is it the food making part of the company that's at fault for making such unhealthy things or is it the advertising part that's at fault for selling them? At least with tobacco there's no delusion of a life-sustaining product whereas food is sustenance, no matter how much of it is chemically created.

“Don’t talk to me about nutrition,” he reportedly said, taking on the voice of the typical consumer. “Talk to me about taste, and if this stuff tastes better, don’t run around trying to sell stuff that doesn’t taste good.”

But that's the crux of the problem. Does this stuff actually "taste" good? Or does it just make you feel good? There's a distinct difference but the food companies would have you believe it's the same. By focusing on making things addictive, what they're doing is making you feel good. For something to taste good, you need to be able to discern tastes, and I'm not sure the target demographic is very good at that.

He fundamentally changed the way the food industry thinks about making you happy

Again, the focus is on making people happy. And people do, in fact, play a role in this. Culturally, I think it is a very American belief that more/bigger = better. So the companies, all major corporations, not just the food industry, give them exactly that.

Lunchables were born. The trays flew off the grocery-store shelves.

My mom was a full time housewife and a great cook, but I still had my share of these during my childhood. I remember bringing one of these with me every day to summer camp. This is on a bit of a tangent, but one of the fundamental things that people are willing to spend money for is convenience. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is a big difference between "I am too busy to cook" and "I am too lazy to cook". I think that many of society's problems come from the fact that people as a whole have gotten lazier, and that laziness is continually reinforced by the people looking to make money off it.

Discover what consumers want to buy and give it to them with both barrels. Sell more, keep your job!

Once again, from both the consumer and producer side, we are taught more is better. Actually, not just taught. We are conditioned to think more is better to keep our jobs.

So when Finnish authorities moved to address the problem, they went right after the manufacturers.

That will never happen in the US. I have no delusions about that.

Their tools included a $40,000 device that simulated a chewing mouth to test and perfect the chips....

One of the great takeaways from this article is the realization of how much thought goes into every aspect of what seems to be a simple everyday product.

Imagine this...A potato chip that tastes great and qualifies for the Clinton-A.H.A. alliance for schools

This is another part of the problem. When we do have regulations and guidelines, a huge amount of money is spent trying to backdoor an existing product into qualifying, as opposed to creating new, better products. The most well known example being the "ketchup is a vegetable" controversy.

In Coke’s headquarters in Atlanta, the biggest consumers were referred to as “heavy users.”

Because, frankly, if you buy it, they don't care if you drink it or shoot it up your butt. Reminds me of an episode of ABC's Shark Tank, where a jewelry designer is looking for an investment and the "shark" says, "So what happens if I invest in you and then you get hit by a bus when you leave here?" Investors want corporations to have easily replaceable units and many corporations view their customers in the same way.

Coca-Cola strove to outsell every other thing people drank, including milk and water.

That's just downright scary.