I was asked at a supper club once: Why don’t we have a “Healthy Menu” for a Supper Club. The answer is we could and we should. We have quite a few friends and family members that have become vegans. I have cooked with and for them and we have had some really amazing meals. Unfortunately, “Healthy Menus” are not all that appealing to a broad group of Supper Clubbers. The truth is that most of us try to eat healthy all week long and we like to splurge a little at a dinner party.
Like it or not, “Healthy” is still a tough sell. Kraft has invested heavily in “healthy” businesses over the years. Good friends of mine ran the “Back to Nature” business for Kraft and the experience was not good. Consumers say they want to eat healthy, but invariably there hasn’t been a large enough volume to drive the growth and margins that large corporations must deliver. But this can change.
I am sure that some readers will disagree with me, thinking that I am a relic of the big bad food processors. I truly hope that we can all eat healthier and what a lot of smaller companies are trying to do is very good. Unfortunately, there is a huge risk in local, organic and natural products. There is a huge food safety risk in products from small companies that make “local/organic/natural” products. “Food Processors” have kill steps in there processes to control pathogens. These kill steps, critical control points and good manufacturing practices provide a level of safety that many smaller companies don’t have.
This irony came home to me while visiting my cousins on Maui. They are vegans and own an organic farm near Hana. They looked at me as working for the evil empire with fear that Kraft is killing the American consumer with processed foods. I saw how they made their tropical fruit frozen smoothies that they sold at their farm stand and I was scared silly. I ran a coconut company in the Philippines so I know too much about bad bacteria in tropical environments. I saw them making their fruit pops in an open air kitchen. In the yard next to the kitchen was Mable the Mule. Mules will do what mules will do. The do attracts flies. Flies can carry bad bacteria. This irony was all too real.
The backlash that Chipotle went through last year is just a small example. Chipotle was trying to do what the American consumers says they wants by sourcing ingredients from smaller local suppliers. Those suppliers didn’t have kill steps or necessary critical control points in their processes. This led to the E. coli contamination and people getting sick. The way Chipotle has addressed the issue should be applauded. They just have to back off their local/organic/natural claims.
But I digress. And yes I will write a “Healthy Menu” for a Supper Club. And yes there are several fantastic vegan recipes in my book – Impromptu Friday Nights – A Guide to Supper Clubs due out from Morgan James Publishing January 30, 2018.