Once again, we chew on the latest freaky food news.
• Frap rap
The drink has returned to its mystic dreamland by now, but last week Starbucks' latest creation caused quite the stir, so to speak. The limited-time-only pink Unicorn Frapuccino Blended Creme drink (description: "Magical flavors start off sweet and fruity transforming to pleasantly sour. Swirl it to reveal a color-changing spectacle of purple and pink.")
Of course I had to have one because my sense of "Oh no!" is always surpassed by my "FOMO."
The trippy elixir tasted like Spree candies -- licked by My Little Pony dolls before they liquefied -- and topped with a happy little cloud (whipped cream) and dusted with "pink and blue fairy powders."
What I sampled certainly was indeed magical. It made $5.49 (well, $16.48 -- I bought a round of three grande drinks; I needed corroborators), not to mention twice the daily dietary allotment of sugar (59 grams?!) disappear just like that!
• IKEA's idea
Retailer IKEA is considering opening stand-alone restaurants. After all, a whopping 30 percent of customers of the Swedish store -- selling inexpensive assembly-required furniture (the nearest location to Little Rock opened in the fall just east of Memphis in Cordova, Tenn.) -- visit just for the food.
Of course, to eat at such an IKEA restaurant, you'll have to put your meatballs, chair and table together yourself.
• Goop scoop
Gwyneth Paltrow's overly precious lifestyle site Goop recently released a guide of acceptable convenience food choices (mostly salads free of dressing, croutons, cheese and appeal) from places such as Starbucks, Wendy's, Chipotle and Subway: "While here at goop, we do our best to keep things clean and healthy, we're also realists who know that sometimes ... we're going to eat fast food."
Reading between Goop's lines (goop.com/the-goop-fast-food-guide/) when considering fast food, their advice is just leave ... fast!
• Just kid-ing
A Dartmouth-led study in Public Health Nutrition concludes that the more children are exposed to targeted fast-food television commercials, the more fast food they eat.
Lead author Madeline Dalton, speaking about this susceptibility, was quoted as saying: "Most parents won't be surprised by the study's findings since they probably know this from observing their own children ...."
Um, what was that? After "Madeline," all I could think of was a croque monsieur and chocolate croissant at fast-casual La Madeleine's French Bakery & Cafe.
• Garbage goods
"The hot new trend in food is literal garbage" was the headline on a story from The Washington Post last week. (It was printed in the Sunday Business section on page 7G.) The story began:
Flour milled from discarded coffee fruit. Chips made from juice pulp. Vodka distilled from strawberries that nobody seems to want. At one point not so long ago, such waste-based products were novelties for the Whole Foods set. But in the past three years, there's been an explosion in the number of start-ups making products from food waste, according to a new industry census by the nonprofit coalition ReFED.
Talk about junk food.
Cook up an email:
jchristman@arkansasonline.com
What's in a Dame is a weekly report from the woman 'hood. You can hear Jennifer on Little Rock's KURB-FM, B98.5 (B98.com), from 5:30-9 a.m. Monday through Friday.
Style on 04/25/2017