Illinois might fail in keeping sandwich giant Jimmy John's headquarters in the state, thanks to state tax increases. NBC Chicago reports that company founder Jimmy John Liautaud has already moved from the company's home base in Champaign, Illinois, to Florida because the state increased individual income tax from three percent to five percent. Because state corporate incometaxes increased from 7.3 percent to 9.5 percent, Liautaud's threatening to move the whole company, too, unless the state apologizes. "I'm not a greedy American pig. I'm a hard working, bread-baking, meat-slicing delivery guy who happens to be immensely successful."
Wal-Mart's making a corporate-wide move towards healthier store brands. According to the New York Times, Wal-Mart will make an official announcement today regarding their new five-year plan to reduce sodium, trans fats, and added sugar to many of their Great Value brand foods. The plan came from talks with First Lady Michelle Obama, who will be at the official announcement. This is the first company to receive Mrs. Obama's support in their efforts to improve the nutritional quality of food. The initiative will also push other companies, like Kraft, to follow Wal-Mart's lead in making processed foods healthier, lowering costs on fresh produce and eliminating the price margin between whole-grain and refined products.
The Canadian diet of one hundred years ago probably wouldn't meet the new health standards. Brave Globe and Mail reporter Wency Leung spent a week living by one of Michael Pollan's food rules: "don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." She gathered century-old Canadian recipes and lived on them for a week, which left her full of rendered meat fat and cream, pining for fresh apples, and feeling oddly blah despite the richness of her diet.
