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Want to know the new four-letter word?  It's " meat ." As Janet Fang reports at smartplanet.com, that word just doesn't "do it for us anymore." Whether you attribute the new revulsion to "pink slime," "horsemeat" or other disgusting terms recently used for meat, Taco Bell is now disposing of the word in favor of "protein." Yes, protein.  That's kind of like calling Hershey's, "chocolate."  We're getting all fancy, it seems, with all kinds of food. Fang notes that the USDA recently allowed recently allowed the pork industry to now call pork butt, "Boston roast."  Huh? But it's been coming for some time.  She points out in her article that a recent survey found that: A little under 50 percent of conversations about meat over the last six months were negative, often including words like “bad,” “concerns,” and “problem.” Only 6 percent of conversations about protein were negative, with ...

I've always heard it said that good things come in small packages (maybe because I'm barely 5'2), but now advertisers and packagers are learning the same thing. According to a story at the Wall Street Journal today, companies, who know people snack all day, are making it easier to do just that by introducing "new packaging that encourages consumers to eat their food anytime they have an urge to nibble, what some executives have dubbed 'hand-to-mouth' eating," Sarah Nassauer writes. Small amounts of food could drive you to eat more, according to the story. And now companies are making it easier to eat, well, just anywhere.  Nassauer reports that Hershey, maker of Kisses and Reese's Pieces, found that "individual wrappers on bite-size candy were getting in the way of people eating candy in certain settings, like in the car."  So they did something that's proven deadly to me -- removed the wrappers, chopped the candy into bite-size piece...