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Donald Trump's Favorite Food; the GMO Salmon Debate Continues

Five things you need to know today.

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Dean Hochman/Flickr

Happy first day of December. While you were slacking off at work yesterday and shopping Cyber Monday deals, a group of Michelin-starred French chefs were hard at work preparing dinner for 150 world leaders at the COP21 climate change summit in Paris. What does one serve at a banquet attended by the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Chinese president Xi Jinping? The menu included "modern Freneuse turnip soup with scallops cooked in floral steam", "free-range poultry from Licques, stuffed celery preserve with truffles and parsleyed creamed spinach," and for dessert, a traditional Paris Brest cake with stewed citrus fruit and a "light praline cream."

Other must-know news for Tuesday: Donald Trump is really into legumes, the New York Times weighs in on the GMO labeling debate, and the FDA is being pressured to redefine "healthy." Meanwhile, tickets to chef Albert Adrià's 2016 London pop-up are going fast, and the Keurig of home-brewing has crowdfunded an insane amount of money.

1

What Is Donald Trump's Favorite Food?

What fuels everyone's favorite Oompah Loompah-esque, hard-talking politician? If you thought Donald Trump survived on a steady diet of caviar and fossil fuels, think again. According to this supercut from Jimmy Kimmel Live, the Republican presidential candiate is really, really into peanuts. Or perhaps he's got a soft spot for Charles Schultz's iconic cartoon strip, Peanuts? The world may never know.

2

Consumers Ought to Be Informed About GMOs, Says New York Times

Salmon

The FDA recently gave genetically modified salmon the thumbs-up for human consumption, claiming that AquAdvantage — which has been engineered to grow to market size much more quickly — is just as safe to eat as regular fish. The agency also says it won't require the GMO salmon to be labelled as such, claiming that it's materially the same as its more natural counterparts and therefore shouldn't require label disclosure. This isn't sitting too well with many environmental and food safety groups — or the New York Times, which published an op-ed yesterday proclaiming that "Consumers deserve to know what they are eating."

Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

3

FDA Pressured to Define the Term 'Healthy'

Cap'n Crunch

Fruit and nut bar slinger KIND is petitioning the FDA to redefine what, exactly, "healthy" means when it comes to food. KIND points out that under the current — and severely outdated — nutrition labeling guidelines, foods like sugary breakfast cereal and low-fat Pop Tarts are eligible to be called "healthy," while items loaded with healthy fats such as avocado and salmon are not. Meanwhile, as scores of restaurants and food manufacturers hop on the no-artificial-ingredients bandwagon, the FDA is seeking input from consumers on how the labeling term "all-natural" ought to be defined.

Image credit: Barb Watson/Flickr

4

Tickets to Albert Adrià's London Pop-Up Are Selling Like Hotcakes

Albert Adria

Albert Adrià — brother to El Bulli creator Ferran, pastry chef extraordinaire, and co-creator of a culinary amusement park in Barcelona that includes the acclaimed tapas restaurant Tickets — is headed to London in February for a 50-day pop-up. If you've got hopes of getting your paws on a few of the £150 (about $225) tickets, you'd best move fast; unsurprisingly, they're apparently selling very quickly.

Image credit: Moises Torne

5

The Keurig of Home-Brewing Raises More Than $1M on Kickstarter

PicoBrew

People are going nuts for Pico, the appliance that will enable beer lovers to brew beer on demand using pre-packaged pods à la the ever-popular Keurig coffee system. The Kickstarter has now raised over $1.3 million, and PicoBrew has added even more brewer partners including Abita. The machine will be capable of producing five-liter mini-kegs of fresh beer in around two hours; the Kickstarter, which is now finished, allowed contributors to secure a Pico for $559.

Image credit: PicoBrew