November 1, 2005
New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/
What Is Organic? Powerful Players Want a Say
By MELANIE WARNER
Customers at McDonald's restaurants in New England are about to get
something a little different when they order coffee. Through a deal with
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Newman's Own, McDonald's will soon be serving a coffee that
comes from organic beans and is certified Fair Trade
because it meets higher standards in the treatment of coffee workers.
The move, while still a test in a limited region, reflects a much
broader trend: The growing interest among large food companies in offering
organic foods along with their standard products. General Mills markets the Cascadian Farms and Muir
Glen brands; Kraft owns Back to Nature and Boca Foods, which makes soy burgers. Within the last
few years, Dean Foods, the dairy giant, has acquired Horizon Organic and White Wave, maker of Silk
organic soymilk. Groupe Danone, the French dairy company, owns Stonyfield Farm.
Wal-Mart wants in, too. "We are particularly excited about organic
food, the fastest-growing category in all of food," Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's
chief executive, said at a recent shareholder meeting. "It's a great example
of how Wal-Mart can appeal to a wider range of customers."
But as organic food enters the mainstream, evolving from an idealistic subculture rooted in images of
granola and Birkenstocks, a bitter debate has ensued over what exactly the word "organic" should
mean. And now Congress is jumping into the controversy.
With sales of roughly $12 billion, organic food remains a niche market
within the $500 billion food industry. But the sector's growing appeal to
consumers has fueled a 20 percent annual growth rate in recent years, making
it highly attractive to food giants looking for gains in a slow-moving business.
At General Mills, the Cascadian Farms and Muir Glen brands increased
sales by 21 percent in the last year, according to the research firm
Information Resources Inc., while the company's overall business was up just 1.6 percent.
Consumer groups and some organic pioneers say they are concerned that
the movement - a response to the practices of corporate food production that
promotes a natural chemical-free approach to farming - will become watered
down unless firm standards are maintained.
The debate has been under way for several years. But last week, Senate
and House Republicans on the Agriculture appropriations subcommittee inserted
a last-minute provision into the department's fiscal 2006 budget specifying
that certain artificial ingredients could be used in organic food.
The Organic Trade Association, an industry lobbying group that proposed
the amendment and spent several months pushing for its adoption, says that
the measure will encourage the continued growth of organic food.
Some advocacy groups, however, say the amendment will weaken federal
organic food standards, first established under a 1990 law. Ronnie Cummins,
national director of the Organic Consumers Association, calls the initiative
a "sneak attack engineered by the likes of Kraft, Dean Foods and Smucker's."
One of the lobbyists for Altria, Kraft's majority owner, Abigail Blunt
- the wife of Representative Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, who recently
became interim House majority leader after Tom DeLay of Texas resigned from
the post - has been working on the issue, the company says.
Dean Foods' subsidiary Horizon Organic and the J. M. Smucker Company,
the owner of Knudsen and Santa Cruz Organic juices, said they supported the
work by the Organic Trade Association, which represents both large and small
companies in the business, but did no lobbying on their own.
The amendment injects Congress directly into the debate over whether certain artificial ingredients
and industrial chemicals should be allowed in products labeled organic. In a lawsuit ruled upon in
January, Arthur Harvey, an organic blueberry farmer, argued that no synthetics at all should be in food
bearing the "U.S.D.A. Organic" seal. A federal judge agreed, sending shivers down the spine of many
organic food manufacturers.
Katherine DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association, said that the amendment was
intended to protect the industry from the Harvey ruling and will not change the status quo. If applied,
the judge's ruling would have forced many manufacturers to stop using the U.S.D.A. Organic seal and
instead relabel products to state, for instance, "cookies made with organic flour" or "frozen lasagna
made with organic tomatoes."
Many in the organic industry say they are willing to allow some use of
synthetics in organic food. Since 2002, the National Organic Standards Board,
a 15-member panel of advisers appointed by the Agriculture Department, has
served as the gatekeeper for such substances. In that time, 38 have been
approved, many of them relatively harmless ingredients like baking powder,> pectin, ascorbic acid and
carbon dioxide.
But Joseph Mendelson, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, a liberal advocacy group, says that
the proposed legislation will open the door to a range of other chemicals and artificial materials,
including a large category of so-called food contact substances - things like boiler additives,
disinfectants and lubricants with unpronounceable names.
Most of these substances would not end up in finished products in
detectable amounts. But many in the organic community say that these tools of
mainstream food processing do not belong in organic production.
"We don't want organic food manufacturers having carte blanche use of
the same kind of synthetics that conventional food processors use, especially
when it involves things that do not appear on the ingredient panels," said
James A. Riddle, chairman of the National Organic Standards Board. "I think
people choose to buy organic food because they don't use all those things."
Ms. DiMatteo contends that the Organic Trade Association is not trying
to loosen organic standards or take authority away from the standards board.
At the same time, Charles Sweat, chief operating officer at Earthbound Farm, the country's largest
grower of organic produce, said he was concerned with the section of the spending bill that gives the
Agriculture Department authority to grant temporary exemptions to allow conventionally grown
ingredients like corn, soybean oil or tomatoes in organic food when organic versions are not
"commercially available."
"We see this as opening up a Pandora's box," Mr. Sweat said. "Any company that can't compete
because something is too expensive could go to the secretary and claim they need an exemption."
George Simeon, chief executive of Organic Valley, a cooperative of
mostly small organic dairy farmers, wrestled with the high cost of organic production a little over a year
ago when Wal-Mart asked for a 20 percent price cut. For three years, Organic Valley had been
Wal-Mart's primary supplier of organic milk.
"Wal-Mart allows you to really build market share," Mr. Simeon said. "But we're about our values and
being able to sustain our farmers. If a customer wants to stretch us to the point where we're not able to
deliver our mission, then we have to find different markets."
Mr. Simeon told Wal-Mart to get a new supplier.
Dean Foods' Horizon Organic was better equipped to satisfy Wal-Mart's
demands. Horizon gets about 20 percent of its production from a 4,000-cow
organic dairy in Paul, Idaho, which is small in comparison with many
conventional dairy farms but huge by organic standards.
Mark Kastel, senior farm policy analyst at Cornucopia, a group
representing small dairy farmers, contends that Horizon is able to run such a
large farm because it dilutes organic principles. Earlier this year, his group filed a petition arguing that
the Idaho farm crams too many cows into a confined area, where most of them do not graze on pasture
but instead consume a high-grain diet.
"These factory farms are trying to cut corners," Mr. Kastel said. "When
you feed more calorie-dense grains, you get more milk."
Horizon, which also buys milk from 305 family farms, says it is making
changes and will divide its Idaho operation into two separate farms so that
there will be three to five cows for each acre of pasture. "We want to meet the regulations," said Kelly
O'Shea, Horizon's director of government and industry relations, "and see integrity in the organic
standards."
The National Organic Standards Board has been trying to persuade the
Agriculture Department to clarify its vague rule that to produce organic
milk, dairy cows, besides receiving only organic feed and avoiding growth
hormones and antibiotics, must have "access to pasture." It wants to require
that milk labeled organic come from cows that get at least 30 percent of
their diet from pasture grass for a minimum of 120 days a year.
Mr. Kastel of Cornucopia estimates that roughly 30 percent of the organic milk sold in the United
States comes from cows that are not on pasture, most of them from two large dairies run by Aurora
Organic Dairy, an offshoot of what was once the country's largest conventional dairy company.
Organic milk is the most popular organic product and sells for up to twice the price of regular milk.
On a recent visit to Aurora's farm in Platteville, Colo., at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, thousands of
Holsteins were seen confined to grassless, dirt-lined pens and eating from a long trough filled with 55
percent hay and 45 percent grains, mostly corn and soybeans.
Of the 5,200 cows on the farm, just a few hundred - those between milking cycles or near the end of
their lactation - were sitting or grazing on small patches of pasture.
Aurora executives say that despite the lack of pasture, their cows are
"very healthy and happy." The 10 million gallons of milk the farm produces
each year are supplied mainly to supermarkets and sold under store brands
like Safeway Select, Kirkland at Costco and Archer Farms at Target.
Mark Retzloff, president of Aurora Organic, said he did not agree with
the National Organic Standards Board's proposed pasture rule, but added that
he was planning to add 550 acres of grazing land to the farm. The company is also building a new dairy
in a layout that Mr. Retzloff said would be conducive to putting thousands of cows on pasture and still
milking them three times a day.
Such tensions are likely to remain whatever the new legislation allows. Sheryl O'Laughlin, chief
executive of Clif Bar, which makes organic energy bars, says that while the difficulty of operating
organically and finding natural ingredients often ends up raising production costs, it is also what gives
the category its purity and its appeal.
"The organic industry," Ms. O'Laughlin said, "has got to put pressure
on itself to find alternative solutions."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
* * * * * * * *
[Here is a further reference to Roy Blunt, via the Chicago Tribune.
Abby and Roy were previously embroiled in controversy when just after attaining his leadership post ,
Roy slipped a special provision into the Homeland Security bill that directly benefitted Phillip Morris.
Abby and Roy were personally involved at the time, but not yet married. The outcry was so severe,
even from Republicans, that the provision benefitting PM was later removed.]
Craving the cookie
By Jeremy Manier, Patricia Callahan and Delroy Alexander, Tribune staff reporters , August 21, 2005
Chapter 1
The Oreo seems so innocent--two dark, chocolate wafers held together by a dab of sweet, white
filling. It is an icon of Americana, a throwback to the days of cookies, milk and childhood.
In recent years, though, the treat has become a symbol of another sort. To some it is a
nutritional time bomb, emblematic of the junk food fueling America's obesity crisis, particularly among
children. It is the kind of sugary snack that research suggests can trigger the same brain impulses as
addictive narcotics.
The Oreo, of course, is only one of the many indulgent treats that now make up nearly a quarter of
the calories American children consume. It didn't create America's dangerously expanding
waistline, nor did Kraft. M&Ms, Doritos, Coke--all play a role in this national gorge that threatens to
undermine life expectancy.
"The rise of obesity in America is a complex story of many factors," said David S. Johnson,
Kraft's North America chief, "including diet, exercise, lifestyles, social behavior and attitudes,
community development, and government policy. It is decidedly not the story of any particular food
product." But the fact that Kraft, the nation's largest foodmaker, sees itself as a leader in addressing
obesity makes the Oreo a fitting guide to explore the issue. The Northfield-based company wields
enormous clout in the grocery aisles, and its marquee cookie has evolved into a commercial juggernaut.
The Oreo's primary ingredients--sugar, flour and fat--are at the center of current dietary debates. And
the company's quandary is one most foodmakers face: How can Kraft serve shareholders and
employees, ensuring that its more fattening brands thrive while still responding to consumer concerns
that it is feeding the obesity epidemic?
Earlier this year, the company became the first among its industry peers to stop advertising its
most indulgent fare to kids. "We want to be part of the solution in addressing this important
public health issue," Johnson said. The ferocity of the debate over the American diet, though, suggests
the scrutiny of foodmakers won't diminish soon. Trial lawyers who won billions in settlements from
tobacco companies believe they could do it again if they could prove foodmakers hid any addictive
qualities of their foods.
Kraft said it does not conduct research "aimed at creating consumer dependency upon any of our
products." At the same time, internal memos show the company has a history of sharing
brain-research expertise with scientists from its corporate sibling, cigarette-maker Philip Morris.
Navigating these difficult issues is crucial to the future of Kraft. With hundreds of millions of
dollars in profits at stake, the company is pitching an ever-increasing mix of Oreo products, from
a lower-calorie version to one of Kraft's most fattening Oreos yet, a chocolate-covered spin-off.
The approach mirrors the contradictions buried in the national mind-set: Americans express worries
about their health but still want to indulge their guilty pleasures. Perhaps that is because the allure of
junk food never changes. "When we eat that pie at the end of a Thanksgiving meal, it has nothing to do
with hunger," said Allen Levine, an obesity researcher at the University of Minnesota. "It has everything
to do with the reward our brains get."
Chapter 2: The primal pull of sweets
Studies on Oreos and other snack foods suggest that the same brain chemicals that create the rush
of narcotics also keep people coming back for sugary treats. The controversy over the American diet in
recent years has centered on how much obese consumers are stuffing into their mouths. But the root
of our overeating lies not in our stomachs, but in our brains. Moments after a person eats an Oreo or
any other sweet, the brain's pleasure centers release opiatelike compounds--chemical cousins of
morphine. The result bears similarities to addiction, though many researchers say it is more like turning
on a built-in craving.
Such work supports the controversial notion that our eating habits stem from brute physiology as
well as free choice. "This is a very ancient motivation," said Ann Kelley, a professor of psychiatry and
neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin. "Even bacteria will swim toward sugar."
That primal appeal of sugary, fatty foods has profoundly shaped the outsize American diet. Strip
away the decades of marketing and ingredient tinkering, and all sweet snacks have a similar way of
catering to our most primitive appetites. Even lab rats had a ravenous taste for Oreos in a late 1980s
experiment Levine ran at the University of Minnesota. They poked the cookies, sniffed them, ate them
to excess. Many even tore apart the two dark wafers and licked away the creamy filling.
That was just what a human would do, thought Levine.
Around 1980, scientists began uncovering how rich, sweet tastes make the brain go wild.
Researchers in many laboratories found that giving rats morphine made them eat more fatty and
sugary food. Later experiments would show that injecting opiates directly into one of the brain's main
pleasure centers, the nucleus accumbens, prompted rats to eat up to six times as much sweetened lard
as they normally would.
Reversing the binges was simple. Scientists gave the rats opiate-blocking drugs such as naloxone,
used in people to counteract heroin overdoses. Blocking the brain's ability to use opiates dulled the
appeal of fat and sugar, while giving opiates magnified food's rewards. That led to a startling
conclusion: The same sort of opiates that create the high of drugs such as heroin also shape how the
brain gets pleasure from food, especially those high in fat and sugar. Eating-related pleasure seemed
to come from chemicals known as endogenous opioids, produced within the brain itself.
Putting rats on a fat binge was one thing. The challenge was to see whether sweet snacks had
similar opiatelike effects in humans. In the 1990s, Adam Drewnowski, now director of the University of
Washington's nutritional science program, led a University of Michigan study showing that Oreos and
other sweet snacks act on the same brain pleasure centers that respond to addictive drugs.
Drewnowski said he got the idea from a line in the 1986 Bob Hoskins' movie "Mona Lisa," in which a
heroin junkie talks of craving ice cream. The notion that sweet taste could quench an addict's
longing sounded right to Drewnowski's colleagues, Dean Krahn and Blake Gosnell, who had studied
opiates in rat brains with Levine at Minnesota.
The pattern they had found in rats also applied to people. Bulimia patients in the 1995 study who
were injected with opiate blockers ate less of the sugary foods they liked to binge on--including
Oreos, Snickers, M&Ms and chocolate chip cookies, Drewnowski said. Such work didn't show that
snacks were addictive; the effect in Drewnowski's study was strong only for binge eaters. But it proved
that the allure of such food goes beyond being tasty.
Other scientists found that blocking opiates in the brain changed even healthy people's basic
perceptions of sugar. "They said they could taste that it was sweet, but it wasn't quite as interesting,"
said Levine, who led some of the research. In a brain-scan study last year, scientists found that the
thought and sight of ice cream set off the same neurological pleasure centers in healthy subjects as
the images of crack pipes did for drug addicts.
Food companies and many nutritionists note that such research doesn't negate the need for
consumers to take responsibility for what they eat. Oreo fans agree, saying they choose the cookie
simply because it has a taste they can't find anywhere else. "They're obviously not a health food, and
they don't market themselves as such," said Ryan MacMichael, 29, an Internet specialist from northern
Virginia who said he eats about four Oreos a day. Yet MacMichael and other consumers compared the
cookie's appeal to that of a drug. "It's some kind of rush that once you get a taste of it, it's hard to not
eat it," he said.
Harder for some than for others. Just as many people can stop at one glass of wine and others
become alcoholics, genetics and family dining habits make certain individuals more vulnerable to
overeating, according to new research. "I think what's going to be coming out is that food is like
alcohol," said Marcia Pelchat, who studies food cravings at Monell Chemical Senses Center in
Philadelphia. "There are some people, who for genetic or environmental reasons, can't handle it very
well. But the vast majority of people aren't like that."
Most biologists believe the tendency to put on fat in times of plenty helped humans thousands of
years ago, when famine was a constant threat. Sweets were so rare and alluring that Australian
aborigines would tie small leaves to bees and chase their flight to the honey-filled hive.
Now that overindulgence is easy, that biological heritage has become a millstone. Americans today
have greater access to calorie-rich, intensely craved foods than any people in history, putting
willpower to the test.
"There's an illusion that you have complete control over how much you weigh--in contrast to how
tall you are, or what color your eyes are, or all the other things we have to accept," said Jeffrey
Friedman, a researcher on the genetics of obesity at New York's Rockefeller University.
"The notion that there might be a biological system that evades our conscious control is not
attractive to a lot of people."
Chapter 3: Kraft's taste for brain research
To understand food's effects, Kraft studies the brain. At times the company has shared expertise
with nicotine researchers. The implications of brain science are of great interest to food companies
such as Kraft. The company has turned to experts such as Princeton University psychologist Bart
Hoebel, who said that about three years ago he presented to Kraft scientists his work suggesting that
sugar can have addictive properties.
One of Kraft's top research executives, James Andrade, received his doctorate in neuroscience at
Howard University studying obesity and how opiate-blocking drugs affect rats that overindulge.
In his 1986 dissertation, Andrade concluded that future research should seek to pinpoint "opiate
receptors which might mediate the hunger drive." At Kraft in the early 1990s, Andrade helped organize
meetings between brain scientists at the food company and their peers studying nicotine at a corporate
sibling, Philip Morris.
Documents made public through litigation against the tobacco industry show that in March 1991, the
Philip Morris scientist who led studies on nicotine's impact on the brain met with neuroscientists at
Kraft's sprawling research center in Glenview. The scientist, Frank Gullotta, discussed with Andrade
and others "the possibility of collaborative studies in areas that would be of mutual interest" to Kraft
and Philip Morris, according to a Philip Morris memo describing the visit.
Gullotta, whose nicotine studies used electrodes attached to the scalp of human subjects, compared
techniques with Kraft neuroscientist Pamela Scott-Johnson. She was using a "Brain Wave computer
system" on rats to see how nerves that transmit tastes responded to fat and fat substitutes, the memo
said. In an interview, Scott-Johnson said her work at Kraft focused on only the biology of flavor
perception. "We never had discussions about addiction," said Scott-Johnson, now chair of the
psychology department at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
Andrade and other Kraft scientists continued to take part in meetings with Philip Morris
researchers, leading to a 1998 memo that suggested applying their combined expertise in brain science
and flavor perception to develop products. The "possible business implications" of such work
included ways to shape people's perception of hunger and fullness, known as satiety. The memo stated
that applications could include "food/drinks whose aroma/flavor are engineered to influence satiety,
drinkability, perceived freshness, mood, behavior, purchase intent, etc."
Andrade declined to comment, referring questions to Kraft. Company spokeswoman Nancy Daigler
said Kraft "has conducted extensive research into literally thousands of aspects of food science,
especially regarding which flavors and smells are appealing to consumers. Clearly, our brains play a
role in our sensory experiences, so some of our research necessarily relates to the brain.
"However, we do not conduct or fund any research aimed at creating consumer dependency upon any
of our products."
As trial lawyers work to paint food companies with the same brush as cigarette-makers, Kraft has
put veterans of the tobacco wars in crucial positions. It recently made Mark Berlind the company's
chief public relations strategist and a top corporate officer. Before landing the post, the attorney was a
registered federal lobbyist promoting the tobacco interests of Altria Group, which owns 85 percent of
Kraft and all of Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes. (Berlind said lobbying "never comprised
even close to a majority of my job responsibilities at Altria.")
Kraft said employees have moved between Altria and Kraft "to share and build talent." In the last year,
Kraft also has beefed up its efforts in Washington, taking one of Altria's top tobacco lobbyists--Abigail
Blunt, wife of House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). She was one of five Altria tobacco lobbyists who
lobbied Congress last year on the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, according to
federal disclosure records. Better known as the cheeseburger bill, the legislation would shield food
companies from lawsuits brought by people who blamed corporations for their obesity.
A 2003 hearing on the bill before the House Judiciary Committee devolved into a dispute over
claims that some foods could be addictive. Nutrition activists who testified included one who had
decried cheese as "morphine on a cracker." Meanwhile, a lobbyist funded by major food companies
(though not Kraft) charged that research on the addictive qualities of food came from discredited
scientists whose work didn't pass the test of peer review.
By focusing on the extremes, both sides ignored the recent wave of discoveries about the brain's
reward system--all of it in peer-reviewed, respected journals--that has transformed ideas about why
people are drawn to fattening foods. Drewnowski, the scientist who helped thrust the Oreo into the
annals of brain research, was alarmed by the debate in Congress. "All we can say is the pleasure
response to food probably does involve some opiate response," he said. "Are these foods addictive? I
would not say so on that basis."
Consumers such as Karen Brown, a Colorado hairdresser and fitness instructor, are all too familiar
with the powerful pull of junk food. Brown, a mother of four, said she used to eat an entire large
package of Oreos in a day. She still calls them her "trigger food." "They made me feel good," Brown
said. "But the satisfaction was very short-lived." About eight years ago, Brown lost 70 pounds by
carefully cutting calories in her diet and exercising regularly. Once or twice a year, though, she'll have
one Oreo. "I've used my control," she says. She tells herself, "Easy does it. Just one."
Chapter 4: Wrestling with the `A' word
Consumers sense that food has addictive qualities even if the specter of litigation makes
scientists reluctant to say so. Denise Gross knew she shouldn't be eating more Oreos. She's
overweight and loves the cookies too much. Yet once more she found herself standing in a South Loop
snack aisle on a sunny afternoon, about to buy Double Stuf Oreos for herself and her three kids.
"They're almost addictive," Gross said, a description she and other cookie fans volunteered
without prompting.
Gross' urge raises a question scientists still have not resolved: What should we call such craving
for food if not addiction? Some experts have no reservations describing food as one more potentially
addictive substance. "I think you can properly regard food addiction as somewhat similar to drug
addiction," said Tung Fong, director of metabolic diseases research at drugmaker Merck & Co. "If you
can help people to at least reduce their craving levels, you'll contribute a lot to solving the obesity
epidemic."
Gene-Jack Wang, a researcher at the government's Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, gets
nervous at the mere question of whether food might be addictive. "If I say that, people kill me,"
Wang said jokingly. But in an e-mail response sent later, Wang was more forceful about the link. He
wrote that although everyone must take responsibility for their own health, "Some people can't help
themselves ... Their overeating behaviors are just like the compulsive drug-using behavior of the drug
addicts."
One incentive to avoid the "a" word is the risk of being dragged into lawsuits against the food
industry, said Levine of the University of Minnesota. "The reason there's a tap dance [about
addiction] is the litigious aspect," Levine said. "It's very dangerous to bring up."
That risk has influenced the language that Kraft's executives use to talk about addiction
research. Kraft is mindful of the mistake of tobacco executives who in 1994 told Congress nicotine was
not addictive--a claim contradicted by tobacco company documents that cost the industry hundreds of
billions in nationwide liability lawsuits. Kraft public relations executive Berlind said the company's
approach is to stay neutral on the question of whether food can be addictive.
"I don't think we consider it our role to dispute that or endorse it or anything," Berlind said of
the research on food and addiction.
Johnson, Kraft's North America chief, said issues of food and addiction "pose novel policy
questions for public health officials and policymakers." The specter of food lawsuits isn't far-fetched.
The families of two obese New York children sued McDonald's in 2002. The suit, the most prominent to
date, initially was dismissed, in part because the judge ruled that the plaintiffs offered insufficient
evidence that the chain's food caused their weight problems. But earlier this year, an appellate court
reinstated part of the case, clearing the way for a discovery process that will allow the plaintiffs to
demand previously secret company documents.
John Banzhaf III, a George Washington University law professor who helped plot the tobacco
industry's legal defeats in the 1990s, believes lawsuits against food companies could work. Plaintiffs,
he said, have to show that food companies used deceptive practices or hid any addictivelike effects of
their products.
Whatever the legal outcome, precisely how to define the compulsion for some foods may be beside
the point. While it is possible for addicts to go cold turkey from cocaine or other addictive drugs,
no one can avoid fattening foods altogether. Overcoming the ancient lure of sugar and fat may require
not just responsibility but personal transformation. It's the ordinary daring of a woman testing her will
under a supermarket's fluorescent lights, wondering why the shiny blue package on the shelf has to
wind up in her shopping cart again today. "Unfortunately they are doing their thing on me," Gross said
as she eyed the rows of cookies. "I have to learn to say no to Oreos."
Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune