Welcome to Off-Menu, where we’ll be rounding up all the food news and food-adjacent internet ephemera that delighted, fascinated, or infuriated us this morning.
News
- I understand why “[i]n an attempt to win Torontonians over with the concept, Taco Bell Canada is creating a billboard that will dispense an unlimited supply of nacho cheese.” Namely: To get people like me to write about it. But they’re really losing me on the what and the how. Possibly there are some foods which could be municipally distributed in a sanitary and appetizing way but straight cheese sauce does not seem like one of them. Also of note: it’s currently 23 degrees in Toronto. Does anyone know at what temperature fluid artificial cheese flavoring suspended in orange goo freezes?
- A federal judge ruled that Iowa’s ag-gag laws—the set of rules that make it illegal to film or photograph anything that happens on factory farms and slaughterhouses—were in violation of the First Amendment. Lying about your identity was deemed to be protected by the First Amendment, which means activists and journalists will be able to document conditions inside those facilities by going undercover. This could prove to be a major precedent for overturning ag-gag laws in the seven other states that have them, and could make passing them in the 13 others currently debating them a challenge. Plus, it’s a win for transparency and should ensure better animal welfare.
- Thank you for asking but, no, Justin Trudeau would not push Donald Trump off a cliff in exchange for a beer. Maybe he’s more of a wine guy.
- Grub Street looked into why Instagram-famous recipes are so impossible to resist? And the answer is that we’re all just copying each other. But to be honest, I hadn’t actually seen this chickpea stew anywhere. Looks good, though.
Videos by VICE
Not News
- Alabama’s cult-figure coach Nick Saban really loves eating Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies. Or at least, he alluded to that once, and, because college football is basically a religion, “Fans now bring him oatmeal snacks. Recruits have them waiting when he comes to their living rooms. Television networks have made commercials about them.” Frankly, in the pantheon of Strange Sports Men’s Stranger Eating Habits, this hardly registers. For example, Vikings GM Rick Spielman apparently eats “fried egg, bacon and peanut butter on a wheat round” for breakfast every single morning (PEANUT BUTTER) and that’s not even what people took away from that profile.
Something (Not Actually) Nice
Has Kevin Hart Ever Seen an Onion? MUNCHIES Investigates.
Buy This Bucket
Remember these? Put these out at your party, and I guarantee it’ll be a good time.
