Ruth Reichl praises Toronto, government-subsidized chocolate milk, the great seafood shim-sham

Ruth Reichl praises Toronto, government-subsidized chocolate milk, the great seafood shim-sham

Ruth Reichl goes Hogtown wild (Photo by Brigitte-Lacomb)

• The defunct Gourmet magazine was thinking of putting out a Toronto-themed issue, former editor Ruth Reichl says, following the success of their Montreal issue—their most popular issue ever. In this interview with the Globe, Reichl discusses her admiration for Toronto’s “amazing” food scene, along with the state of the magazine industry and her disappointment with Gourmet’s end. [Globe and Mail]

• There’s something fishy going on with Canadian seafood. A nationwide investigation has found that fish sold to customers are frequently misidentified and mislabelled. Of 500 samples, about a quarter of the fish were not what they were purported to be. In one case, sashimi-grade tuna (which is subject to stringent preparation methods) was replaced with cheaper skipjack tuna. [Toronto Star]

• Really, most McDonald’s food is weird, but the strangeness of it all really sinks in when looking at foreign versions of the menus. The blog Dark Roasted Blend compiles some of their favourite Mickey D items from around the world, including a samurai pork burger from Thailand (never mind that samurai are Japanese), rice burgers from Singapore, seaweed-flavoured fries from Japan and the repugnant-looking McSpaghetti, from the Philippines. [Dark Roasted Blend]

• A debate is underway as parents and educators from P.E.I. suggest that chocolate milk be subsidized in schools (as regular milk is in the province). Nutritionists say chocolate milk is just as healthy as regular milk—though a bit more sugary—and proponents say children are more likely to drink it, but CBC readers are divided. Some are of the avoid-refined-sugar-at-all-costs school, while one septuagenarian reader nearly ends the debate by attributing his stellar health to drinking chocolate milk when he was young. [CBC]

• Australian researchers have found that not all fad diets are equal when it comes to emotional well-being. A study of 106 obese people found that those put on a low-fat diet were less angry, depressed and confused after a year than those on an Atkins-style low-carb diet. Researchers hypothesized that carbohydrate withdrawal may have been to blame for the happiness discrepancy. Individuals from both groups lost around 30 pounds on average. [Bloomberg]