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This fall, for the first time in four years, meat will be back on the menu at New York Citys legendary Eleven Madison Park restaurant. Its a notable about-face for chef Daniel Humm, who had famously eliminated all animal products from his menuand evangelized a new way forward for fine diningwhen the restaurant reemerged after the pandemic. Humm had something of an environmental awakening during Eleven Madison Parks pandemic closure. He realized, he said at the time, that he couldnt go back to business as usual. It was a calculus all sorts of businesses were making. Business as usual had gotten us into the pandemic mess in the first place, and when the world shut down to contain COVID, we saw glimpses of a possible different future: emissions dropped, smog cleared, animals rewilded our landscapes. For Eleven Madison Park, turning away from business as usual meant minding the planets resourceswhich meant no more animal products. Compared to plant-based foods, meat and dairy require more land, use more water, and produce more emissions. Daniel Humm [Photo: Celine Grouard for Fast Company] So Humm, whod earned a reputationand three Michelin starsfor his fine-dining cuisine, struck dishes like butter-poached lobster and lavender-roasted duck from his menu. The world didnt need them, he said. Instead, it needed innovation in the form of a $300-per-person vegan fine-dining menu. He was highlighting a truth: The current food system isnt sustainable. But it turned out Eleven Madison Parks plant-based makeover wasnt sustainable either, at least for its business. Private bookings, a key revenue stream, dropped. Wine sales, which are closely tied to meat sales, also plummeted. In announcing his reintroduction of meat, Humm explained to the New York Times that the plant-based change had essentially excluded guests. Calling a plant-based menu exclusionary is a fallacy, of course. Everyone can eat vegan food. Plant-based cuisines span cultures and date back centuries, and countless dishes around the world are accidentally plant-based. But the return of duck to Eleven Madison Park is just the latest sign that the plant-based worldand the publics desire for bold action for the climateis in retreat. As the ideological fervor for saving the planet dimsand proves less marketablebusinesses that once made a virtue out of their plant-based efforts are trying new tactics. [Photo: Sweetgreen] Sweetgreen’s steak and Impossible’s hybrid burger The same year that Eleven Madison Park went vegan, salad-chain Sweetgreen set a goal to be carbon neutral by 2027. Then last year it added steak to its menu. Beef is one of the worst climate offenders in terms of proteins, but its also a great way to expand your customer base and boost sales, according to CEO Jonathan Neman, who told investors last year that consumer surveys revealed a lot of fast casual customers [who] won’t go somewhere unless there is a meat option. (Even with the addition of steak, Sweetgreen is struggling: Same-store sales dropped 7.6% last quarter, and the company is projecting negative same-store sales for the full year.) Meanwhile, Impossible, one of the key players in the buzzy plant-based craze that saw a sales boom between 2017 and 2020, was once on a mission to eradicate meat entirely. Plant-based products are going to completely replace the animal-based products in the food world within the next 15 years, founder Patrick Brown told CNBC in 2020, announcing a deal with Starbucks to carry the Impossible breakfast sandwich. [Photo: Impossible Foods] Today, Impossible CEO Peter McGuinness appears to be reconsidering the brand’s position as a plant-based alternative. He recently told the Wall Street Journal that he may try to tempt flexitarians by creating a hybrid burger thats half real beef, half plant-based. Ethan Brown, CEO of Beyond (formerly Beyond Meat), still very much believes in the power and purpose of plant-based proteins, but even he has read the room and altered his businesss approach. Beyond once tried to compete with meat head-to-head, wanting its products right in supermarket meat cases. Now, its dropped Meat from its name and leaned into whole ingredients like lentils and fava beans. Proselytizing for plant-based diets has always been something of an uphill battle. A 2023 study found that putting a vegan label on a menu item made people less likely to order that dish than when it was unlabeled. For a while, though, it was a fight that many businesses were eager to take on, and thought they could win. They were confident that purpose and profit could exist side by side; they were passionate about leaving the planet better than they found it. And they were sure customers would follow suit. In 2019, Beyond had a much-hyped IPO, its stock surging 163% the day of its market debut. Overall plant-based meat sales hit $1.3 billion in 2020, up 46% from 2019. That was then. Today Beyonds shares have fallen from their high of $239 in 2019 to around $9. U.S. plant-based sales have been slumping, down about 7% on a per-pound metric since 2022. The whole game has gotten tougher, amid the rise of MAHAs obsession with natural foods and its praise of a carnivorous diet of beef and butter over plant-based proteins engineered in a lab. Even whole milk is back after an oat milk mania. [Photo: Beyond] The return of business as usual In general, climate-friendly behaviors have all taken a turn for the worse. Five years after the pandemic, weve returned to business as usual, and then some. The Trump administration has rolled back landmark climate wins within the Inflation Reduction Act, cut billions of dollars for clean energy, expended some of the worst-polluting coal power plants from toxic pollution limits, and so on. Its not surprising, then, that Eleven Madison Park chose this moment to reintroduce meat. It seemed unlikely from the start that the fine-dining establishment, with its reputation for consistent reinvention, would be vegan forever. Add on the harsh reviews it received for its plant-based dishes and a new reality in which having a purpose doesnt have the same (if any) marketing value, and the change seems inevitable. But Humm is still bringing his plant-based focus into this new future: Eleven Madison Park will offer two menus, one vegan and one with dishes where meat can be added on. Humm hopes this lets him reach even more people with his vegetable dishes, those for whom eating meat is so core to their identity that they wont even want to walk into a vegan restaurantlet alone spend $300 on a meal there. Still, its disappointing to see the concession. Where has Humms zeal for a new food system gone? He told the New York Times he was inspired by seeing a shepherd slaughter a goat in Greece, an action done with reverence, and for which nothing goes to waste. But thats not how the vast majority of people, let alone Americans, consume their meatand it wont ever be a replacement for our current food system. Globally, meat accounts for nearly 60% of the greenhouse gas emissions from food productiontwice that of plant-based foods. Climate experts have said that shifting people toward plant-based diets would significantly help mitigate climate change. Humm says Eleven Madison Park is now offering diners a choice. By doing so, hes made one, too: to relax his world-saving mission in order to expand his reach. Hes not alone. The retreat of conscious capitalismin plant-based dining and beyondhas left us in a liminal space, surrounded by companies that are half mission, half meat.
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E-Commerce
Learning to drive may be a major rite of passage for American teenagers, but its also the leading cause of stress eating for their parentsand for good reason. Compared to drivers who are 20 years old or older, teenagers crash rates per mile driven are nearly four times as high. If youve ever met a teenager, this can hardly come as a surprise. Kids that age lack experience, are convinced of their own immortality, and tend to make impulsive and risky decisions. Unsurprisingly, those are the exact same reasons why teens pay the most for auto insurance premiums of any age cohort. The good news is that you can reduce auto insurance costs for teen drivers using strategies that also help keep them safe. Heres what you need to know about affording your teens car insuranceand keeping your worry to a minimum. Let driving and grades be the carrot-and-stick Teen drivers who maintain good grades are statistically less likely to get into car crashes than those with low GPAs. While this statistical phenomenon is a correlation rather than a causationthe school Valedictorian is just as capable of driving like a boneheaded speed demon as the 6th-year seniorit can benefit parents in two ways. The first benefit is that students with high GPAs can generally expect to receive a good student discount on their auto insurance premiums. Insurance companies certainly understand the good grade statistics (even if theyre just correlations) and they want to encourage the punctilious, Type-A teens to get experience and confidence behind the wheel. Many insurers offer discounts anywhere from 15% up to 25% to teen drivers with B averages or above. This also gives parents a way to encourage unmotivated students. Considering the level of savings on offer (depending on your insurer), it seems reasonable to make adding your teen to your auto insurance conditional on them bringing up their GPA to the discount qualification level. Many a slacker will improve their grades in exchange for the freedom of the open road in Moms 2018 Kia Carnival. Let safety be your guide Though you cant encase a teen in bubble wrap, making sure they drive a safe vehicle may be the next best thing. Not only will that give you peace of mind, but it may also save you money. Insurance companies commonly offer discounts to customers who drive cars with certain safety features, including the kinds of features most helpful to newbie drivers, such as: Backup and side cameras Lane departure detection Blind spot detection Anti-lock braking Automatic emergency braking systems Before you assume only brand new or expensive cars will have these kinds of discount-worthy safety features, check out this list of safe cars for teens created by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Consumer Reports. Many of the vehicles on the IIHS list, which includes both new and used cars at prices ranging from $5,000 to $20,000, have the kind of safety features that insurers offer discounts for. Let someone else teach them defensive driving Many insurance companies offer discounts to customers who have successfully completed a defensive driving course, including new teenage drivers. But even if theres no price break on offer from your insurer, its still a good idea to enroll your kid in one of these kinds of classes, preferably one that includes classroom and driving instruction. There are several reasons why this can be helpful. First, these classes help train drivers to recognize and anticipate situations that could lead to collisions. With a focus on the drivers own behavior and judgment, your teen will learn how to make better decisions on the road and recognize the signs of potential problems and how to avoid them. Though it may not lower your insurance premium immediately, it will get your kid in the habit of safe driving now, which will lead to lower insurance costs over time. Secondly, its a lot easier for your child to learn these skills from someone other than you. Not only do you vividly remember when your kid got a Cheeto lodged in her nose, but youre also quite aware of the fact that shes operating a two-ton death trap on roads populated entirely by maniacs. Allowing a professional instructor (who has probably seen it all) guide your teen through the process of learning situational awareness on the road is much less likely to end in a shouting match, tears, or anyone threatening to live with Aunt Sophie. Let the insurer be Big Brother Its admittedly a bit creepy, but most insurance companies these days provide telematics monitoring programs that can potentially reduce your premium. When you sign up for one of these auto insurance Panopticons, your insurer provides you with an app or a plug-in device for your car that will automatically measure specific risky driving behavior, such as phone use while driving, sudden braking, speeding, or your teen trying to corner your 2012 Odyssey like its on rails. These programs are designed to lower premiums for safe drivers, but they can also provide parents important information about how their teens are behaving behind the wheel. Signing up for a telematics insurance program can encourage your young driver to make good choicesor else lose their privileges. Practice your deep breathing Reducing the cost of car insurance for your teen driver is a solvable problemand happily, its one that coincides with helping to keep your kid safer on the road. Encouraging your kid to hit the books, making sure theyre driving a safe car, enrolling your child in a defensive driving course, and signing up for a telematics monitoring program will all potentially help lower your premiumsand your blood pressure.
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E-Commerce
In Taco Bell restaurants across the nation, a new electric purple beverage is now available on tap. Its called Mountain Dew Baja Midnight, and one sip would probably send a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) supporter into a cold faint. Baja Midnight is the first permanent menu expansion in 20 years of Taco Bells iconic collaboration with Mountain Dew, Baja Blast. The new beverage rolled out nationwide on August 14th in both liquid and frozen forms. According to a press release, Baja Midnight is designed specifically with younger generations and modern flavors in mind. As Gen Z has become increasingly obsessed with colorful beverage creations like bubble tea, functional soda, and energy drinks, restaurants like Starbucks, Dunkin, and McDonalds have all rushed to meet the demand. For Taco Bells part, the company is currently experimenting with a beverage-only spin-off called Live Más Café. In a June news release, Taco Bell announced plans to open 30 new Live Más Café locations this year, aiming to grow its beverage sales to $5 billion in the next five years. One glance at Baja Midnights ingredient list is enough to know that this goal stands in direct opposition with the core tenets of the MAHA movement, the initiative and PAC championed by Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [Photo: Taco Bell] Where MAHA stands on soda Generally, the MAHA PAC has aligned itself with the goals of reducing corporate influence in public health and environmental policy decisions, and eliminating harmful chemicals from food, water, and air. RFK Jr. has also repeatedly voiced his opposition to fluoride in drinking water and vaccine mandates. When it comes to soda, RFK Jr. has proposed a ban on eight widely used synthetic food dyes that are common in major soda brands, including Yellow 5 and Red 40, both of which are already restricted in Europe. In response to the potential ban, companies including Heinz and General Mills have promised to remove said dyes from their product lines in a matter of years. Alongside President Trump, RFK Jr. has also called for soda brands to replace high fructose corn syrup with cane sugara move that seemingly caused Coca-Cola to announce it would roll out a cane sugar soda in the U.S. this fall. Taco Bell, meanwhile, is going full steam ahead with both of these ingredient categoriesand nothing encapsulates that more than Baja Midnight. [Photo: courtesy of the author] I tried Baja Midnight. It was terrible To see what Taco Bells hype around this new soda was all about, I headed to my local Taco Bell to give it a try. For the sake of a fair comparison, I grabbed both a Baja Midnight and a regular Baja Blast. Classic Baja Blast is a bright teal color, achieved using Yellow 5 and Blue 1 food dye. Its second ingredient is high fructose corn syrup after only carbonated water, clocking in at 44 grams of sugar in a 12 fluid ounce serving, which is equivalent to 89% of the average persons daily sugar intake. A serving of Baja Midnight contains the same amount of sugar, although its dark purple hue requires both Red 40 and Blue 1. Per Taco Bells official descriptions, Baja Blast is a tropical lime soda, and Baja Midnight adds a refreshing blast of passion fruit flavor to the classic drink. Consistent with that description, my Baja Blast had a fruity flavor with a definite citrus note. Baja Midnight was something else entirely. Im no stranger to an artificially flavored beverage, but there is something seriously weird with this purple liquid. Right off the bat, it has none of Baja Blasts refreshing citrus flavor, but it also doesnt taste like anything else that Ive ever tried beforeit could be passion fruit, but if you told me it was every soda in the fountain mixed together, I would be equally willing to believe that. Somehow it tasted like artificial sweetener, though Im fairly certain I got the full 44 grams of sugar. The whole experience ended with a deeply unpleasant aftertaste of bubblegum. Health risks aside, I would recommend steering clear of Baja Midnight. If you need to get your anti-MAHA beverage kicks, stick with the timeless Baja Blast.
Category:
E-Commerce
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