Vegetable

• On average Americans spend 37 minutes prepping and cleaning up for meals every day, with 90 % of consumers turning to premade sauces and marinades for easy meals.
• "Our new line of Simmer Sauces strikes the perfect balance of effortlessness and creativity," says Miguel Leal, Co-Founder and CEO of SOMOS.
• All of SOMOS' Simmer Sauces are fully cooked and the team recommends that they be added to browned meat or cooked veggies, then simmered on low heat for five minutes.
• SOMOS' line of Simmer Sauces arrives on shelves in over 500 stores, and the brand surpassed 11,000 total retail doors after recently launching in Walmart, Target, and Publix.

• At a time of rising food costs and growing food insecurity, a large percentage of food grown for consumption never reaches our tables.
• This desire for cosmetically appealing food also extends to consumers, as we often prefer picture-perfect produce.

Showing ugly produce some love

• A prominent example in the United States is Misfits Market, which launched in 2018.
• By buying misshapen and ugly produce and reselling it at discount prices in subscription boxes, Misfits Market has grown into a billion-dollar business.
• Despite such encouraging efforts, there’s still a lot of work to do on changing attitudes and behaviours to alleviate waste.

Steps towards change

• RESCUER stands for the steps in the process of learning, action and change undertaken by students, and combines passive and active modes of learning.
• We first engaged students with resources — “passive” forms of learning through lectures and curated readings on food waste, irregularly shaped produce and sustainable practices.
• Throughout the process, students developed a greater cognizance of food waste, and these issues became more readily and consistently resonant when shopping.

Student comments

• Well, students emerged with a much deeper understanding of food waste and an increase in responsible attitudes and behaviours.
• This increase in responsibility is evident in the comments from students about RESCUER, including:
  “I am cognizant of the negative effects that food abnormalities have on the environment due to food waste issues.
• On that account, I will surely change some of my habits to match my perceived identity.
• It revealed that students’ awareness, understanding and actions related to sustainability were all improved after having completed the exercise.

Educators can change attitudes

• Overall, we’ve seen our RESCUER framework cultivate a shift towards responsible consumption, and it also situates marketing education within a sustainability narrative.
• Ours is an example of how educators can play a crucial role in changing attitudes and actions, and in equipping future professionals with tools to tackle the challenges of sustainability.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• One day, she explained that she adds apple cider vinegar to improve my health.
• Apple cider vinegar is a natural product made of fermented apple juice that has gone sour.
• I decided to turn medical sleuth and investigate whether apple cider vinegar is as good for health as it sounds.

Claim: disinfectant properties

• But does apple cider vinegar’s decontaminant qualities translate to the human gut?
• Our stomachs produce acid, which acts as a natural barrier to infection, so how can adding more acid help?

Claim: weight loss and management of type 2 diabetes

• There are plenty of anecdotal claims that apple cider vinegar can aid weight loss, supported by limited evidence from several small studies.
• Apple cider vinegar is thought to cause weight loss through its effect on delay of gastric emptying.
• Reduced calorific intake will lead to weight loss – but how are the metabolic effects on blood glucose and lipids mediated?
• In type 2 diabetes there is a reduction in sensitivity to insulin which in turn leads to a reduced uptake of glucose by cells.

Claim: reduces risk of heart disease

• Raised blood lipids are a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction and stroke.
• Well, I’m afraid there’s no scientific evidence that vinegar consumption of any kind reduces cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in those with or without diabetes.

Claim: cancer treatment and prevention

• One of the more outrageous claims of benefits of daily apple cider vinegar consumption is that it may prevent or treat cancer.
• A frequently quoted case-control study from China found that an increased consumption of vinegar was associated with a reduced incidence of oesophageal cancer.

Stephen Hughes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• SmartyPants Vitamins unveiled the latest digestive health offering for kids ages 4+ today – an all-new Kids Fiber & Veggies gummy supplement specifically formulated to support regular digestion*.
• “By introducing Kids Fiber & Veggies, SmartyPants is working to close the kids fiber gap with each serving containing the same amount of fiber as 3 cups of kale***.”
  Like all SmartyPants products, Kids Fiber & Veggies are certified clean by Clean Label Project® which means it’s third party tested for 200+ contaminants and chemicals, as well as free of the US 9 major allergens, gluten-free, gelatin-free, and vegan.
• “At SmartyPants, we’re always looking towards our next innovation and with the digestive health category becoming increasingly more important with consumers, there couldn’t be a better time to launch Kids Fiber & Veggies,” SmartyPants Vitamins Chief Revenue Officer Jeff Wong said.
• SmartyPants Kids Fiber & Veggies is now available on Amazon at an MSRP of $17.99.