DailyDirt: Colorful Burgers Because Why Not?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Summer is here, and maybe you've already fired up the grill and cooked some burgers in the backyard. But why settle for plain old regular burgers when you could cook your own kinda disgusting-looking ones that are novelties in Asia? (You might need a little squid ink and bamboo charcoal.) Or you could visit Japan and just buy a strangely colored burger from Burger King or McDonald's. Too bad Heinz doesn't make goofy-colored ketchup anymore.

• Burger King Japan is going to sell bright red burgers in two varieties: Aka ("red") Samurai Chicken burgers and Aka Samurai Beef burgers. The red buns and red cheese will come from added tomato powder, and the ketchup will just be ketchup -- or red hot sauce made from miso and hot pepper. [url]
• Burger King also has an all black burger in Japan. It comes with black buns, black cheese and a black sauce -- not just black buns like the Darth Vader ("Dark Vador") burger offered by French fast food chain Quick a few years ago. The Kuro ("black") Pearl burger and Kuro Diamond burgers were first introduced in 2012 and have been offered in limited quantities ever since. [url]
• McDonald's Japan also sold a black burger it called the 'Squid Ink Burger' for a limited time around Halloween. It wasn't actually that black, though, and the cheese was just normal. McD's sold 'black and white' burgers in China in 2012, but unsurprisingly these burgers aren't permanent menu items. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: black burger, burgers, colors, darth vader, flavor, food, ketchup, natural coloring, squid ink, taste
Companies: burger king, mcdonalds, quick

DailyDirt: The Legal Definition Of What You're Eating...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are some bizarre legal definitions for common foods. For example, we've seen that the definition of a sandwich was under dispute because a burrito place was encroaching on a sandwich shop in a shopping mall food court. That case decided that a burrito was not a sandwich, but food experts don't all agree on that point. Here are a few other cases of defining some foods legally and not with your gut.

• Unilever is suing a vegan "mayo" company because it doesn't use eggs in its product. The startup Hampton Creek may be benefiting from some publicity here, and its "Just Mayo" mayonnaise-like spread will likely sell more now. In the end, though, both Unilever and Hampton Creek (and any other condiment makers) may need to be more explicit about ingredients and make a clear distinction between mayo and mayo dressing. [url]
• In 1893, the Supreme Court decided that, under customs law, a tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit. A fruit importer was trying to get tomatoes into the US without having to pay the 10% import tax, so against biological definitions, the court ruled that vegetables were "usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats ... and not, like fruits generally, as dessert" -- and tomatoes were therefore a vegetable in everyday experience. [url]
• In 1981, the US Department of Agriculture had 90 days to come up with new standards for subsidized school lunch programs. The resulting new rules almost considered ketchup to be a vegetable, but the ketchup-counts-as-a-veggie policy was not adopted. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: condiments, food, ketchup, mayo, mayonnaise, sandwich, tomato
Companies: hampton creek foods, unilever, usda

DailyDirt: You Say Ketchup, I Say Catsup...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Ketchup actually started out as a fish sauce and somehow evolved into the much more widely-consumed condiment we know today. Early recipes of ketchup contained sodium benzoate -- which was banned in the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. That ban led to other formulations which contained vinegar as a preservative and used ripe tomatoes. Here are just a few more fascinating factoids about this tangy, thixotropic, tomato-based foodstuff.

• MIT researchers have developed LiquiGlide -- a non-stick coating that could let people get every last drop of ketchup out of a bottle easily. Anticipation is no longer making me wait.... [url]
• Malcom Gladwell is famous for (among other things) his talk on spaghetti sauces and the discovery that customers want a spectrum of choices when it comes to spaghetti sauces. But ketchup seems to be the exception to the rule because there's just a single dominant brand -- and there are far fewer than 57 varieties of it. [url]
• Should ketchup count as a vegetable in school lunches? The tomato sauce on pizza may not count as a vegetable serving according to mothers and the USDA, but it might for some politicians. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: catsup, condiment, food, ketchup, liquiglide, malcolm gladwell, pizza, sauce, sodium benzoate, tomato

DailyDirt: Nicer Packaging For The Stuff We Eat

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Food packaging technology has come a long way from tin cans and glass containers. Packaging material is thinner and lighter and keeps food fresher for longer. And now that some plastics can be more easily recycled or composted, there are nifty new containers that could be slightly more environmentally friendly. Maybe food packaging hasn't been perfected just yet, but here are some interesting examples of progress in food distribution.

• It took three years to develop a successor to the ubiquitous ketchup packet. Maybe they should have also designed ketchup dispensers for mini-vans that just attach to the back of the headrests. [url]
• Someday kids won't know what a cereal box is -- because cereal will come in bags? And while cereal makers are trying to improve their packaging, how about making those bags compostable, too? [url]
• Compostable packaging is supposed to degrade. This seems like a job for Mythbusters, but it would take some patience to verify that a SunChips bag actually decomposes over 13 weeks. [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: cereal, compostable, food, ketchup, packaging
Companies: heinz, sunchips