HEARTWARMING AND JOYFUL

President Joe Biden started the week in disastrous fashion, losing some face with the Virginia governor's election results, inability of Democrats to pass the two budget bills and lackluster appearance at COP26 in Glasgow.  More than 100,000 marched in the host city.  Angry at mostly old and white males who have been unable for decades to fashion any kind of meaningful climate agreement, this more youthful and female crowd was there to make that point, led by Greta Thunberg.  Terrific and necessary, but I don't think it will do much to spur real action.

Returning to Biden, all of a sudden at the end of a long Friday night for the U.S. House of Representatives, the $1 trillion bi-partisan infrastructure bill passed.  The Senate had long ago also okayed the measure, so now he is organizing a signing session this week involving important Republicans.

Meanwhile, the $1.85 trillion social welfare and environmental package, now up to 2135 pages long, is still being massaged, mostly by Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.  This bill will someday soon pass through a process called reconciliation, which only needs Veep Kamala Harris to break the tie...if every Democrat can be convinced in the Senate.

Here are five items from OZY, an 8-year old American minority-run media and entertainment company headquartered in Mountain View, California.  It suffered through a scandal last month, but appears to have recovered.  While still faced with issues, there could be a future takeover by Japanese advertising giant Dentsu.

1 - A Safer Replacement

A sugar substitute called Supplant, a name that now seems inevitable, is here. Made of plant waste material, it was invented in Cambridge, England, and funded by Silicon Valley with $24 million in seed money. It is ostensibly better for you than other sugar substitutes and better than sugar by far, the founders say. You can perform your own taste test, but Supplant has already gotten approval from the European Union’s notoriously strict version of the FDA — for use as a sweetener and as a probiotic with tangible health benefits.

Here is a review of sugar substitutes, but Supplant is not mentioned because it is too new, first on the market this summer.  They are in partnership with chef Thomas Keller of French Laundry.

2 - The Colonel’s Wild History

KFC is almost as recognizable as McDonald’s, and the history behind the fast-food giant is just as wacky. The real Colonel Sanders became famous for his chicken while running a service station with his mistress (later his second wife) and would one day sell his fried chicken empire for $2 million. Another little-known fact? He has an FBI file due to his fondness for writing to J. Edgar Hoover. Tune into a forthcoming episode of The Food That Built America to learn how the colonel’s mythology is just as enigmatic as the spice blend that KFC uses on its finger-lickin’ chicken.

Boy did he have a tough life.  Born in 1890, he passed away in 1980 when KFC had 18,000 locations in 118 countries.  Today, 24,000.  McDonald's has 39,198, Burger King 17,796 and Popeyes 3,451.  I lived in Louisiana when the first one opened in 1972.  Sanders was in the U.S. Army with a falsified young age and got kicked out, but later in life received a ceremonial commission as a colonel in Kentucky, and again in 1949.

3 - Aunt Jemima Tells All

When Quaker Oats announced during last summer’s racial justice protests that it would rebrand Aunt Jemima, historian Sherry Williams worried that the real woman who inspired the brand, Nancy Green, would be forgotten, and with her, the contributions of powerful Black women. Williams discovered that Green, who was born into slavery before moving to Chicago to work for a prominent white family, came up with a pancake recipe that so impressed her employer that the Aunt Jemima Manufacturing Company eventually caught wind of it. The company hired Green to represent the Aunt Jemima pancake mix at the 1893 World’s Fair and tour the country promoting the product until her death at age 89. While the image of Aunt Jemima slapped on syrup bottles was based on a racist caricature from minstrel shows, the real woman behind the label — who also founded the oldest Baptist church in Chicago, according to Williams — deserves a place in the history books.

4 - Coca-Cola’s Controversial Roots

It took a chemical genius/opium addict to devise one of the world’s most popular beverages. And it took a pharmacist/promoter to get the globe hooked … though the fact that the original recipe contained coca leaf (the key ingredient in cocaine) didn’t hurt. The incredible true story of troubled chemist John Pemberton, who didn’t live to see his invention conquer the globe, and master salesman Asa Candler is a tale for the ages. Drink up. Listen to The Food That Built America.

5 - Crusading Brothers

In the late 1800s, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and his brother, Will, ran a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, helping a number of patients who suffered from gastrointestinal problems caused by a poor diet. Their solution was a healthy breakfast: a flaky whole-grain cereal. Will, the more business-savvy brother, insisted they add sweeteners to the recipe and sell it to the public as a light breakfast treat. John, however, wanted to keep the focus on digestive health, and he refused. So Will started his own company, and Kellogg’s Corn Flakes took off — causing a lifelong rift between the brothers. Listen to The Food That Built America.

I end today with heartwarming and joyful videos:

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