Sampler Platter: Hardee's in Pakistan, bacon flights in Palm Springs, stolen bees in Matamata

Bee thieves, suggestions for food that should be thrown at celebrity chefs and all sorts of pre-Turkey Day food news.

-- Thieves steal more than a million bees from New Zealand beekeeper. NZHerald.com
-- Ten celebrity chefs and the foods that should be thrown at them. Westworld
-- CKE Restaurants opens first Hardee's in Pakistan. Associated Press
-- White House menu for state dinner for Prime Minister Singh. ABC News
-- Xiao long bao at Tampa Garden in Reseda. Stuffy Cheaks
-- People learn to cook from restaurant chefs so they can save money by cooking at home. Chicago Tribune
-- Even vegetarians hate Tofurkey. CNN
-- It's time for the annual Butterball hotline horror stories. Chicago Sun-Times
-- Eating LA digs Cheeky's in Palm Springs with its flight of four kinds of bacon and pumpernickel waffle.

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Hardee's in Lahore, Pakistan. Credit: Business Wire

Today only: Free flatbread lunch at Jamba Juice (and some fine print)

Today, your meal could be on Jamba Juice. The chain's giving away free food as part of a promotion for its California Flatbreads, which come in four flavors: Tomo Artichoko, Smokehouse Chicken, MediterraneYum and Four Cheesy.

So what's the catch? First, not all outlets are participating -- just the ones that offer flatbreads -- so you might want to look up your local Jamba Juice here and check before you head out. Second: Only the first 150 people will get the freebie. Third: The giveaway won't start until 2 p.m. and runs until 5.

But still ... it's hard to beat the price tag: Free.

Another highlight: The flatbreads are all less than 330 calories, with no preservatives, no artificial flavors, no trans fats and, if you care about such things, no high fructose corn syrup.

Have you tried the flatbreads? Which flavor do you suggest? I think I need to round up three friends and try them all.

-- Rene Lynch

Photo: Smokehouse Chicken flatbread. Credit: Jamba Juice

Sampler Platter: Ludo pops up in Culver City, hummus wars, albino carrots, chili cornbread sandwich

The Hummus War drags on while Amelie Mauresmo sips a 1982 Lafite Rothschild and albino carrots plot a return to store shelves.

--Los Angeles magazine, which features real L.A. waitresses in November's fashion spread, says chef Ludovic Lefebvre will do a pop-up restaurant in Culver City come December.
--Regional cuisine war simmers as Lebanon retakes from Israel the coveted world record for largest plate of hummus. Yahoo! News
--All McDonald's in Iceland to close after krona collapse. Bloomberg
--Chili cornbread sandwich gains national fame. Marshall News Messenger
--After centuries away, albino carrots return to store shelves. Daily Mail
--Slate explores the world of hardcore couponing.
--The culinary adventures of chef Celestino Drago. LAist
--French tennis star Amélie Mauresmo shares her passion for collecting wine. Wine Spectator
--"Corndog on a PLane," art that delivers what it promises. Finally. Etsy
--Half of Britons injured by their biscuits (i.e. cookies) on coffee break. Telegraph

--Elina Shatkin

--Photo: Lebanese chefs joyfully react after breaking a Guinness World Record by making a bowl of hummus weighing more than 2,056 kilograms. Credit: Hussein Malla / AP

Sampler Platter: promo Whopper has 7 patties, sparkling wine vs. champagne, urban chickening

Urban chickens and urban food critics lead this end-of-the-week roundup of food news.

--Burger King's Windows 7 Whopper has 7 patties, 2,120 calories. Japanator
--The Atlantic explores six Australian foods worth trying and the role of food critics in the Internet age.
--Carpinteria hot dog vendor relishes his sales-tax victory. Los Angeles Times
--Sparkling wine is just as good as champagne (when it's well made). Consumerist
--The perils of urban chickening. New York Times
--David Lazarus asks: Is Smart Choices misleading? Los Angeles Times

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Bill Connell, 55, stands in front of his Surf Dog stand in Carpinteria. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Sampler Platter: Cupcake car, Godfather vodka, KISS M&M'S, Kanye West on chicken

Ridiculous branded products (from vodka to candy), risky foods and fast food chains that are trying new tricks and treats... All this and more in today's food news roundup.

-- Squabbles between street vendors are becoming more frequent at the corner of Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and Soto Street. The Eastsider LA
-- Five of the Top 10 riskiest FDA-regulated foods are vegetables and fruits. Booster Shots
-- Despite the down economy, food festivals are booming. Wall Street Journal
-- Chef Robert Danhi (brother of Grilled Cheese Truck founder Dave Danhi) leads tasting tours through Little Saigon, a.k.a. Westminster. Brand X
-- Burger King to overhaul all its restaurants in an attempt to compete with more upscale fast casual eateries. AdAge
-- Taco Bell tests cupcakes and smoothies. Fast Food Maven
-- Neiman Marcus' newest item: a $25,000 cupcake car. Slashgear
-- Godfather Vodka opens door to Oscar-winning branded booze. Movieline
-- Kanye West on chicken: I eat it because I'm black. The Boombox
-- KISS band members to be immortalized as M&M'S. KISS Army News
-- No more free cookies at Harvard faculty meetings. Oh, the humanity! New York Times

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Ground lamb skewers at the Anatolian Culture and Cuisine Festival held in April in Costa Mesa. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Sampler Platter: Baja Fresh to franchise Calbi BBQ truck, 1,500-calorie Craz-E Burger, world's largest cupcake

Angry dairy farmers dousing police officers in milk, a franchised nouveau food truck and fake restaurant receipts top today's food news roundup.

-- Baja Fresh has acquired the Calbi BBQ truck and will franchise the concept. Nation's Restaurant News
-- Fresh & Easy is expected to end the year with a loss. Fast Food Maven
-- 1,316-pound Guinness World Record cupcake is unveiled at a breast cancer benefit. Breitbart
-- Farmers spray police officers with milk -- from live cows! -- at a protest against falling milk prices in Brussels. New York Times
-- Need to generate a fake restaurant receipt for your expense report? Expense-a-Steak will do it for you. Wall Street Journal
-- Meet the 1,500-calorie Craz-E Burger: beef patty, bacon and cheese on a Krispy Kreme doughnut. New York Daily News
-- Although banning fast-food eateries probably won't reduce obesity rates, some people love the soda tax idea. Los Angeles Times
-- Can an anthropomorphized pickle with skinny legs, high-top sneakers and a baseball cap make frozen pickle-juice popsicles seem cool? Bob's Pickle Pops
-- Can a 20-minute Web-only "rock opera" featuring the exploits of fake rocker White Gold get people to drink milk? Los Angeles Times
-- Six tips to get you the most out of dineLA 's Restaurant Week. LAist
-- The Obamas spend their 17th wedding anniversary at Blue Duck Tavern. Positively Barack

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: A farmer sprays riot police with milk from a cow's udder during a demonstration in front of European Union headquarters in Brussels. Dairy farmers drove hundreds of tractors into the center of Belgium's capital on Monday in the hope of pushing farm ministers into backing more funds to help them survive the milk price crisis. Credit: Yves Logghe / Associated Press

Calorie information might not influence fast food choices

Posting calorie information on menus is often cited as an important tool in fighting obesity, but a study published today shows that at least in its initial stages, it doesn't have as big an effect as many health officials had hoped.

California chain restaurants must provide calorie information in a readily accessible place for consumers and, starting in 2011, will have to post the data on menus.  Some restaurants are already doing that.

Such information on menus may increase awareness of calorie content, but it has less of an effect on the number of calories people purchase, according to New York University researchers in a study published today by the journal Health Affairs.

Their data are from New York City, where a mandatory posting ordinance for chain restaurants went into effect last year. The study's authors looked at purchases made by adults at fast-food restaurants two weeks before and one month after mandatory calorie labeling went into effect in July 2008. They focused on lower-income, predominantly black and Latino communities in New York.

Here's what they found:

• The percentage of people who noticed calorie information increased significantly after the regulation was implemented, from 16% to 54%.
• Nearly 28% of the post-labeling sample who saw the calorie information said it influenced their choice. Of those, almost 90% said they bought fewer calories in response.
• There were significant increases in the percentage of people who utilized the information (2.5% to 15%) and the percentage who said it made them purchase fewer calories (1.9% to 13%).
• While a significant number of those surveyed said calorie labeling influences their food choices, there were no significant differences in the mean number of calories individuals purchased before and after the regulation was implemented.

According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Eating Research program, which helped fund  the study, eating behavior is notoriously resistant to change.

The foundation said that "simply displaying information about the caloric value of various food options may fail to translate into attitudinal, motivational, or -- most importantly -- behavioral changes in line with choosing healthier food options. Menu labels may need to be coupled with additional policy approaches in order to have a significant impact on eating behaviors."

The report came out on the same day a study in Health Affairs questioned whether a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles is effective in fighting obesity.  Read The Times report here.

Full versions of both studies can be found here.

-- Jerry Hirsch

Photo: A New York Taco Bell posts calories on a menu board.  Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Sampler Platter: Esquire names Bazaar as Restaurant of the Year, McDonald's to open at the Louvre, Doughboys reveals new exterior

Fast food comes to France's fanciest museum; news on Doughboys and the Gold Room; and all sorts of food-crime news in today's food news roundup.

-- The Bazaar by José Andrés is named Restaurant of the Year by Esquire. Rivera makes the magazine's Best New Restaurants of 2009 list. And RH and West Side Tavern are included on Esquire's list of Another 15 Places Not to Miss. Eating Las Vegas
--McDonald's to open at the Louvre. Los Angeles Times
-- An E. Coli-laced hamburger patty that paralyzed a woman exposes flaws in the food safety system, especially ground beef production. New York Times
-- Doughboys reveals its new exterior. Blackburn + Sweetzer
-- Echo Park's Gold Room gets polished up. The Eastsider LA
-- More on the Capitol City sports bar, which we peeked into a few weeks ago. Los Angeles Times
-- New York City public schools limit bake sales. Gothamist
-- Insanity hot sauce fells British columnist. Times Online
-- Pasadena, Texas, woman eats ex-hubby's goldfish after a fight over jewelry. Houston Chronicle
-- Man gets 18 months in prison for hot dog theft. Telegram
-- Fourty-four tons of rotting kosher bison meat stink up South Dakota town. Yahoo! News
-- Curry festival spices up London. CNN

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Tobias Hatfield poses by his bison herd on his ranch outside Williams, Ore. Credit: Bob Pennell / Mail Tribune / Associated Press

Chef Rocco DiSpirito pitches frozen food to a tough room at BlogHer food conference

Rocco DiSpirito just might be the bravest man alive.

The celebu-chef -- who did not appear to be carrying any firearms or other form of self-protection -- sauntered into the middle of several hundred hooting, hollering, amped-up-on-coffee food bloggers, and attempted to sell them on frozen food. That's right, he was pitching Bertolli's new line of frozen foods to a group of (mostly) women who spend their spare time crafting recipes, cooking, and photographing, blogging, reading and commenting about all manner of food, glorious food.

I told you he was brave.

Rocco was one of the bold-faced names on hand for BlogHer Food '09, the first BlogHer conference  dedicated solely to food bloggers. About 300 people were in attendance for the sold-out Sept. 26 event at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco. It was so successful that discussions are already underway for a second food-dedicated conference, said Lisa Stone, co-founder and chief executive of BlogHer, an online community hub for more than 22,000 female bloggers on a variety of topics including politics, news, technology, family and, obviously, food.

Burger King to give NASCAR's Tony Stewart a polygraph test about his Whopper love

In today's paper the very prolific Dan Neil writes about a new Burger King ad campaign that Neil points out goes a long way toward shattering one of advertising's most effective illusions. That would be that when a celebrity endorses a product, he or she is probably lying about loving it.

In the ad, which will be broadcast live during an Oct. 20 webcast, NASCAR driver Tony Stewart will be hooked up to a polygraph machine and asked, "Does Tony really love Burger King's Whopper sandwich?" Neil goes on to point out that folks in front of the TV don't actually believe that Sarah Jessica Parker uses Garnier, or that Paris Hilton loves Carl's Jr. The list goes on and on. If Stewart passes his Whopper-love test, that might have to change.

And it probably won't be hard for him to pass a polygraph test. Stewart looks like a guy who really does eat a Whopper every now and again. That said, I'll probably still be suspicious if he passes. Who knows if the machine being used in the webcast really is a polygraph machine? And maybe Stewart is actually on a macrobiotic diet. You really can't believe anything you see on TV.

-- Jessica Gelt

Photo: Burger King

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