CBC Marketplace - Made in Canada [General]

2007 Oct 24
CBC Marketplace was rather interesting tonight.

www.cbc.ca

Just an FYI for anyone who's interested in where their food comes from...

2007 Oct 24
Ha! I was just about to post exactly what you did. Very interesting indeed.

Marketplace is a fantastic show.

2007 Oct 26
I saw that episode... very eye opening! I don't tend to buy a lot of processed foods, but now I am even less likely to do so - especially anything that contains fish or shellfish.

2007 Nov 13
I just finished watching another captivating episode of Marketplace talking about the astronomic calories/fat/sodium content of restaurant meals. They focus on the big "Tuesday night supper" chains: www.cbc.ca

Their complaint is that these chains serve menu items that have many more calories than fast food restaurants yet it's difficult and sometimes impossible to get nutritional info from them. You can get nutritional info from all fast food chains except Quiznos.

I didn't find the numbers too surprising, mostly because I once heard that a big Thanksgiving dinner pig-out feast is around 4000-5000 calories. I know that when I feel really stuffed after a restaurant meal, I probably had somewhere between 2000 and 4000 calories. That's why I don't eat out every day. :-)

2007 Nov 14
What the heck are "Tuesday night supper chains"?

2007 Nov 14
^ chain restaurants like Kelsey's or Milestones et al

2007 Nov 14
The video doesn't play for me. Neither Firefox 2.0 nor IE 6

Stupid CBC. Time to bitch to my buddy who runs their servers ;-)

2007 Nov 14
Oh, I just LOOOVVVEEEE this quote from someone at that link :

"I am in the process of trying to lose weight and this is the exact reason why all my other attempts have not worked."

Yeah, right. It doesn't have anything at all to do with your own willpower - it's all the fault of the restaurants and the fact they don't post their nutritional info.

Holy moly, some people ...

2007 Nov 14
"Tuesday night supper chains" was in reference to Chris Knight's article referenced here: ottawafoodies.com

"Tuesday night dining" is the term he used for those family convenience meals at big box chains. It was a good one. :-)

2007 Dec 28
Some good progress, likely in response to the Marketplace coverage:

From www.cbc.ca :

"The company that owns Swiss Chalet, Milestones, Montana's, Kelsey's and Harvey's is reducing trans fats in the new year.
...
The company said its restaurants will begin using non-hydrogenated margarines and oils. They will also have revised menus by New Year's Day with detailed nutritional information about the food served."

2007 Dec 28
I dunno about this whole "trans fat" craze - it seems to be the latest bandwagon everyone wants to jump on to pretend they are eating healthy food. If you are eating at any of those places to begin with, all bets are off anyway. Why quibble about trans-fats? I could well be wrong, but wasn't Montana's one of the ones recently found to server dishes with your entire daily caloric count or something like that? I'd be more worried about that than trans fats.

2008 Jan 6
"If you are eating at any of those places to begin with, all bets are off anyway. Why quibble about trans-fats?"

Yeah, I pretty much agree with that right there. "Restaurant" X is most likely sandwiched between the local Futureshop and the Men's Big and Tall, or WalMart. If you just bought a size 48" pant and an equally large TV, it would seem as though cutting down on one's trans-fats wouldn't be top priority.

2008 Jan 6
To be clear, it was the detailed nutritional info that interested me in that story. The CBC Marketplace story was about how people don't realize that these big chain meals are often 2000+ calories. Trans fat is no more fattening than any other fat -- it just causes more health problems.

Of course, non-chain restaurants can serve up equally caloric meals. It's just that since they are independently owned they are harder to control and have a smaller customer base.