less fat, less crime

Back in January, when Jack in the Box was getting the third degree over its drunken patrons, the fast-food chain insisted that its fatty burgers weren't to blame for the brutality taking place at the Richmond District location.

Maybe that's true -- it's nothing in the ingredients. However, it might just be the grease. Here's what we can tell you after perusing the local police blotter: Given the option, San Francisco drunks would take a Sourdough Jack over a footlong cold cut combo any boozy night of the year.

As the RichmondSFblog points out, Subway sandwiches on Geary Boulevard is trying to get its permit to operate all night after its hours were curtailed during the Jack in the Box fiasco last November. Tonight, Subway will go before the city's Entertainment Commission to request a 24-hour permit again -- and, surprisingly, it seems the sandwich chain has the support of local police.

According to the Richmond Police station, Subway was rather tame when it was serving up sandwiches 24 hours a day before its hours were cut, and cops "did not have any problems at that location after hours," Officer Tobius Moore said in an e-mail.

That's because all the problem patrons were probably too busy downing burgers and beating up on each other over at Jack in the Box down the street.
 
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What better way to teach people how to not waste food than to throw a party and give them all free food?

In case you haven't already heard, tonight Food Shift, a local group that wants to tech us how to stop wasting food, is hosting a silent disco party, where you can dance, eat, and learn how to stop ordering more food than you can consume. The group is asking for a $3 donation, all of which will go toward education and other resources to fight food waste and hunger.

According to Food Shift, 50 percent of all food produced in the United States is wasted, which squanders water, depletes soil, wastes fossil fuels, and increases our carbon footprint. 
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You are what you eat

The only thing worse than being no. 2 is coming in second place to our frenemy, New York City. Alas, San Francisco has fallen one place short of being no. 1 when it comes to healthy eating. But no reason to wallow in a pint of Ben & Jerry's just yet; we're still way healthier than your cousins in Nebraska.

According to a new high-tech study, San Franciscans have some of the healthiest and greenest diets in the nation. Massive Health, a San Francisco-based startup, analyzed real-world, real-life eating data via its app, The Eatery, over the past five months. What it found was that San Francisco ranked as the second healthiest city in the U.S., thanks to our love for lettuce and all things green.

According to the study, San Francisco scored a 67.6 percent overall health rating, with Los Angeles trailing behind. Instead of taking late-night trips to McDonald's, we opted to eat veggies. In the last five months, we ate 4.4 times more brussels sprouts than the rest of the nation, and we snacked on 3.4 times more cashews compared to everyone else. 

Our favorite food? Caesar salad, which incidentally is insanely fattening since it's doused with cheese and oil-and-egg dressing.

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If Supervisor Eric Mar has accomplished anything while in office, it's successfully making himself the butt of every Happy Meal joke out there. And just when you thought there were no more Mar/plastic toy jokes to be had, the District 1 supervisor makes headlines after chasing away a local stripper truck from his neighborhood.

Apparently, Mar's intuition was spot-on. Not only does the driver of this nefarious stripper mobile prefer pole dancers to politics, but he (or she) also enjoys a Happy Meal or two -- and that makes him (or her) a bad person.

RichmondSF blog delighted readers with this image, tweeted by Erik H.

Erik H via Twitter

We always knew Mar was one french fry short of a Happy Meal

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Dismissed with prejudice. Robble robble.

As San Francisco -- and its elected leaders -- discovered, it will require more than the legislative branch of government to vanquish the specter of the McDonald's Happy Meal. It turns out it'll take more than the judicial branch, too.

A San Francisco judge has shot down a lawsuit filed by a frustrated mother who claimed the Golden Arches was engaged "in the unfair, unlawful, deceptive and fraudulent practice of promoting and advertising McDonald's Happy Meal products to very young California children, using the inducement of various toys."

Judge Richard Kramer didn't see it that way, on Wednesday dismissing Monet Parham's class-action suit with prejudice. Per the court, California parents can still be cajoled into buying Happy Meals for their toy-obsessed young ones.

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The system of determining whether or not you owe sales tax on your food purchases does not involve magic eight balls or 20-sided die. No, it's much more haphazard than that.

This week's cover story analyzes the methodology behind the way the state assesses taxes on food -- and the logic and ramifications of it.

But for a special treat -- which may even be tax exempt if it qualifies for the hot bakery goods exemption! -- try out this amazing flowchart, which simulates the process of determining whether you'll be shelling out sales tax or not.

Bon appétit!

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Jim Herd, SFCitizen.Com

A reason to visit Daly City?

​The other day we reported that San Francisco's Subway restaurants have killed the hypnotically advertised $5 footlong deal, ostensibly in reaction to our city's minimum wage jumping to $10.24 -- the nation's highest.

This move has not yet induced San Francisco voters -- who approved our minimum wage ordinance -- to beckon skyward and bellow "What have we done?" It has also not induced a stampede of San Franciscans to head south of the border to satiate their desire for oversized, underpriced sandwich fare.

Calls to a handful of Peninsula Subway outlets revealed that they were not overwhelmed by footlong-clamoring clientele; they had time to field our query, after all.

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For the record, street food is probably healthier than school cafeterias

​A  few weeks ago foodies across the city, including Supervisor Scott Wiener, were shaking in their boots that food trucks would be banished from existence. A new bill was circulating the assembly, which would have barred any food truck from parking within 1,500 feet of schools.

And in San Francisco, a dense city of 49 square miles, that would basically leave food trucks no other option but to take their business across the bay. But it seems the power does still lie within the people -- at least when it comes to food.

As our sister blog, SFoodie, notes today, Assemblyman Bill Monning (D-Carmel) quashed his own silly bill after too many mobile-food vendors made too much noise about the pending legislation.

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Jim Herd, SFCitizen.Com

Telling them the commercial jingle is stuck in your head won't get you a $5 footlong in the city

​It seems you can have the nation's highest minimum wage and a $5 footlong -- but you can't have them both.

San Francisco Subway patrons hoping to gorge themselves on too much of a mediocre sandwich are being greeted by signs like the one above noting that "due to higher cost of doing business in San Francisco" obtaining a $5 footlong will require a trip over a bridge, through a tunnel, or onto the Peninsula.

Unless you like tuna -- that's the $5 footlong of the month, and that's all you can get in this city for five measly dollars.

Calls to Subway's corporate headquarters have not yet been returned. But half a dozen San Francisco Subway workers said this recent move was explained to them as a reaction to San Francisco's minimum wage ordinance. Per the will of the voters, minimum wage is calculated each year based on the "August-to-August change in the Consumer Price Index." On Jan. 1 of this year, it jumped from $9.92 to $10.24, apparently pushing Subway execs to revoke our county's cheap sandwich privileges. As the minimum wage rises higher, perhaps Subway will be forced to scrap Jared Fogle for parts.

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Man v. Food, the outer Mission edition

​Dave MP is new to San Francisco but it hasn't taken him much time to note the stretch of Mission between Cortland and Cesar Chavez is sadly underrated, especially in the food department. As Bernalwood points out today, Dave MP has pledged to chomp his way through the strip, investig-eating the overlooked restaurants of the outer Mission just along the border of Bernal Heights.

For every restaurant he dines at, he will post a review of his meal on Chowhound, the food-lover discussion board. He's asking for locals to advise him where to go, and come along as his dinner companion if they wish. He's dubbing this project the La Lengua Chronicles.

Check out his list of restaurants to dine at and you'll see that Dave MP, as he is refereed to on his Chowhound profile,  is not afraid to try anything-- not even foreign foods from Lebanon, Honduras, and Cambodia.

This sounds more like the Mission's version of Man v. Food.

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