Fresh Produce Discussion Blog

Created by The Packer's National Editor Tom Karst

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Kroger to offer free cell phone minutes as incentive - BizJournals

Interesting incentive......it just might work


Kroger to offer free airtime as shopper incentive

Kroger Co. announced Tuesday a loyalty program that offers free wireless airtime as an incentive to shoppers.

The Free Minutes rewards program offers consumers free airtime on Kroger’s i-wireless service. The program was launched to compete with Walmart’s Straight Talk wireless service. Unlike Kroger’s i-wireless, Walmart does not own Straight Talk and is not offering incentives to shoppers.

Free Minutes rewards customers who spend $100 at Kroger stores with 20 minutes of free airtime on the i-wireless service. Shoppers are limited to 1,500 minutes a month. If the customer has an Unlimited Talk or Unlimited Talk and Text plan ($40 and $50 respectively), the customer saves $1 off of the monthly service fee for every $100 they spend on qualifying items.

The Free Minutes plan is an extension of a similar plan launched previously, exclusively in Cincinnati, in June. The Free Minutes program is being launched nationwide, and eliminates the limitations on the Unlimited plans. Where there used to be a cap on how much consumers could save on their Unlimited plans, it is now possible for customers who spend $4,000 or $5,000 a month shopping at Kroger to get their Unlimited Talk and Unlimited Talk and Text plans, respectively, free.

Kroger is the first retailer to offer wireless airtime as a loyalty incentive to customers, according to Jennifer Kues, director of communications for i-wireless.

Kroger (NYSE: KR), headquartered in Cincinnati, operates more than 2,400 supermarkets and multi-department stores in 31 states.

Tipping point for whites pushed back

White Americans' majority to end by mid-century

WASHINGTON — The estimated time when whites will no longer make up the majority of Americans has been pushed back eight years — to 2050 — because the recession and stricter immigration policies have slowed the flow of foreigners into the U.S.

Census Bureau figures released Wednesday update last year's prediction that white children would become a minority in 2023 and the overall white population would follow in 2042. The earlier estimate did not take into account a drop in the number of people moving into the U.S. because of the economic crisis and the immigration policies imposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The 2050 estimate is one of four projections released that is based on rates for births and deaths and a scenario in which immigration continues its more recent, slower pace of adding nearly 1 million new foreigners each year. Demographers said that scenario offers the best look for now at the future demographic makeup based on current conditions, rather than other models which assume higher rates of immigration.

The United States has 308 million people today; two-thirds are non-Hispanic whites.

The total population should climb to 399 million by 2050, under the new projection, with whites making up 49.9 percent of the population. Blacks will make up 12.2 percent, virtually unchanged from today. Hispanics, currently 15 percent of the population, will rise to 28 percent in 2050.

Asians are expected to increase from 4.4 percent of the population to 6 percent.

The point when minority children become the majority is expected to have a similar delay of roughly eight years, moving from 2023 to 2031.

The population 85 and older is projected to more than triple by 2050, to 18.6 million.

The actual shift in demographics will be influenced by a host of factors that can't be accurately forecast — the pace of the economic recovery, cultural changes, natural or manmade disasters, as well as an overhaul of immigration law, which may be debated in Congress as early as next year.

As a result, the Census Bureau said the projections should be used mostly as a guide.

The agency also released numbers showing projections based on "high" rates of immigration — more likely if more-flexible government policies and a booming U.S. economy attract large numbers of foreigners — as well as "low" immigration, a possible scenario if U.S. policies don't change much while the economy substantially improves.

_With high immigration, the minority "tipping point" is moved up to 2040, two years earlier than the previous estimate. At that time, Asians would have a much larger share, at 8 percent, since their population growth is more dependent on immigration than birth rates.

_With low immigration, the "tipping point" arrives by 2045.

Under a purely theoretical "zero immigration" scenario in which the U.S. effectively does not take in any immigrants, whites would remain the majority in 2050, making up a solid 58 percent of the U.S. population. In such a case, the share of Hispanics would increase to 21 percent because of high fertility rates and a younger population.

Under a "zero immigration" model, the 65 and older population also grows substantially faster, comprising nearly 1 in 4 Americans.

"These projections show that immigration will serve to replenish our labor force as baby boomers age into retirement and make our population younger without overburdening our schools and other community resources," said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution.
On the Net:

* Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov

Recipes for healthy teens- NYT

Recipes for healthy teens- NYT

By JANE E. BRODY
Published: December 14, 2009


It seems the more we learn and talk about the importance of eating healthfully, the worse our eating habits and their consequences become. This is especially true among adolescents, who hold the nation’s progress and future health care costs in their fast-food-laden hands.

In the last two decades, the number of overweight American teenagers has tripled. Fourteen percent are now at risk of developing heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes, and an additional 14 percent may soon join this overweight and undernourished crowd. With their overreliance on fat- and sugar-laden processed foods and a diet deficient in nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables, many American teenagers are walking time bombs for ill health.

There is no better time than now to change this trajectory and get the nation’s youngsters on a more wholesome track. And there may be no better way to start than by consulting a new book, “Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs,” (Bloomsbury), by the award-winning chef Rozanne Gold in collaboration with a nutritionist, Helen Kimmel.

In creating the book with five budding teenage cooks, Ms. Gold, who lives in Brooklyn, took to heart the mantra of Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and public health at New York University, who has written many books on wholesome food choices: “I’ve long argued that the best way to get people to eat more healthfully is to teach kids to cook.”

Reaching Youths Directly

Most advice to get youngsters to eat better is directed at parents. That may be appropriate for children 12 and under. But teenagers often tune out parental advice and usually spend too much time outside the home, cavorting with their peers and eating on the run, to be strongly influenced by what Mom and Dad eat.

Far better to instill a desire to eat more healthfully, as Ms. Gold did with her young helpers. One of them, Ian Kimmel, Ms. Kimmel’s son, 16, of Linwood, N.J., said he learned so much about fruits and vegetables and “how easy and fun cooking can be” that he started Kids Cook 4 a Cause. So far, more than 400 youngsters, 9 to 17, have taken the organization’s cooking classes, which rely heavily on recipes from the book. All profits are donated to children’s charities.

In emphasizing fresh food, devoid of processed ingredients, Ms. Gold strives to train young taste buds to enjoy foods without drowning their natural goodness in nutrient-deficient greasy, sweet calories. At the same time, her recipes feature locally grown, farm-fresh ingredients that speak to a more sustainable environmental future.

Ms. Gold insists that she is not an ideologue out to eliminate all fast food, chips or sodas from every young person’s diet. “Food should be celebrated, not demonized,” she said in an interview. “It’s time to get away from the idea of good food versus bad food and instead focus on fresh food.”

As I learned with my own children, who are now 40 and have the same trim waistlines they had in high school, the best approach is to make no food forbidden but to stock the home larder with the kinds of foods you want your children to eat — and to eat them yourself.

That meant fresh vegetables in nearly every supper, a fruit bowl on the table and fresh fruit salad in the fridge, along with skim milk, water and fruit juices, but no soda. Daily treats were homemade quick breads and muffins, which the boys sometimes helped me prepare, made with fruits and vegetables and significantly less fat and sugar than commercial baked goods.

My young grandsons will soon be treated to Ms. Gold’s Very Moist Zucchini-Banana Cake made with olive oil, raw sugar and golden raisins. And I expect them to do some of the work. Schools that still include nutrition in the curriculum have found that when children become familiar with wholesome foods and help to prepare them, they are much more inclined to eat them and to encourage their preparation at home as well.

A recipe I can’t wait to sample is Ms. Gold’s Avocado Mayonnaise, made with buttermilk and providing only 25 calories a tablespoon instead of the 100 calories in regular mayo. Many of the book’s recipes, including macaroni and cheese made with red pepper sauce, feature vegetable purées in place of cream and butter. And, Ms. Gold said, all passed the teenage taste tests with flying colors.

Some Favorite Dishes

Rosie Nelson, 17, of New York, was especially enamored of the Steamed Broccoli with Cauliflower-Cheddar Sauce. Ms. Gold’s 13-year-old daughter, Shayna, diced yellow and orange bell peppers and plum tomatoes to moisten the dish she developed, Juicy Chicken With Roasted Spaghetti Squash.

I applaud the decision not to provide nutrient and calorie information for the recipes. People don’t — and, in my view, shouldn’t, unless they have a disease like diabetes — eat by number, but rather by concept. By eating the right kinds of foods and not too much of anything, the calories and nutrients take care of themselves.

There is no better proof, perhaps, than the experience of another of Ms. Gold’s teenage cooks, Danielle Hartog, 15, of Westport, Conn., who is a vegetarian. Danielle, who lost 23 pounds in seven months using recipes in the book, said in an interview, “Once I started eating healthy and feeling healthy, I started exercising every day and experienced a huge boost in confidence.”

“It’s hard not to be motivated,” she added. “It’s easy cooking, fun, healthy, and any teen could do it by themselves.” Once a devotee of pesto pasta — “two portions after school” — she was surprised to find that her favorite recipe is the Very Fresh Vegetable Soup.

Another virtue of Ms. Gold’s recipes is that they supply ample amounts of nutrients that are deficient in the diets of most American teenagers: vitamin A and folic acid, fiber, iron and calcium. Many skip meals (especially breakfast, the meal that boosts metabolism, mood and learning) and rely heavily on high-calorie snacks and fast foods to quell hunger pangs, then turn to unhealthy fad diets to control their weight.

In May 2005, the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, founded the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to combat the youthful obesity epidemic and inspire “tweens and teens to take charge of their health” through healthy eating and physical activity. More than two million youngsters have since joined this effort through after-school venues, faith-based programs and youth clubs.

I can only hope that many of the participants will try Ms. Gold’s recipes, or at least adopt their principles and adapt them to their own circumstances. They, their families, local farmers and the environment would all benefit, with no loss of dining pleasure.