The Business of Food with Steve Alexander

For Baja Foods CEO Art Velasquez, the thought of seeing his company’s Mexican dinners in the frozen food aisles of Costco stores didn’t cross his mind. “It was never anything on my radar to try to do,” he tells WGN’s Steve Alexander. For nearly 25 years, the Southside Chicago company has been making enchiladas, burritos, tamales, and more that were under other brands’ labels. It didn’t have its own retail brand, so it created one around its executive chef, Chef Gustavo, after a networking opportunity at a San Diego trade show led to a pitch to the San Diego region Costco stores. That started a year-long process which, after some ups and downs, led to the Baja Foods brand being stocked in 109 Costco stores across the 14-state Midwest region. Huge. In the audio clip below, Velasquez tells Alexander about the experience, and the hope that a good showing in the Midwest will convince other regions nationwide to add Baja Foods products.

If you spend a lot of time in urban traffic jams and you are putting on unwanted pounds, a new study says the two may be connected. In the audio clip below, author Becca Taylor, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, tells WGN’s Steve Alexander that traffic delays significantly increase visits to fast food restaurants, leading to unhealthier eating for millions each year. The study used data from Los Angeles freeways, but she says it extrapolates well to Chicago and other traffic-jammed cities. “Unexpected traffic delays beyond the usual congestion led to a 1% increase in fast food visits. That might not sound like a lot, but it’s equivalent to 1.2 million more fast food visits per year in LA County alone.” 

Taylor and her co-authors say the link between traffic and unhealthy food choices is just one more reason policymakers around the country and the globe should prioritize infrastructure reforms to ease congestion. “Our results contribute to the literature suggesting time constraints are really important to the food choices people make. Any policies aimed at loosening time constraints — and traffic is essentially lost time — could help battle unhealthy eating,” Taylor said. “That could mean improvements in infrastructure to mitigate traffic congestion, expanding public transport availability, and potentially increasing work from home opportunities.”

Meanwhile, she says packing healthy snacks to keep in the car could keep you from pulling off the highway for fast food when you hear on WGN that the drive home is going to be much longer than usual.

The study, “Slow traffic, fast food: The effects of time lost on food store choice,” is published in the Journal of Urban Economics [DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2025.103737]. Authors in addition to Taylor include Panka Bencsik of Vanderbilt University, Lester Lusher of the University of Pittsburgh and IZA.

If egg prices have you clucking, you may be thinking about building a coop in your backyard and raising your own hens. Before you buy the lumber and chicken wire, take a listen to what Brooke Bestwina of The Feed Store in Summit, Illinois, tells WGN’s Steve Alexander about what’s involved in being a backyard chicken farmer. One quick tip: You can’t just buy a laying hen and start getting eggs right away!

Here’s the transcript of the conversation with Brooke Bestwina of The Feed Store:

Steve: People who have had it with the cost of eggs are thinking they can beat the system and buy some chickens and put them in the backyard and raise their own. They’re not alone are they? 

Brooke: Yes, a lot of people think the same thing, and we’ve seen a lot of people wanting to find out where their food is coming from in the last few years as well, not just wanting to get their own eggs .

Steve: I suppose some of the questions prospective chicken farmers have include: How much will this cost? How long will it take before I get my baby chicks to grow up and start laying eggs? 

Brooke: That’s correct. When we receive chicks from the hatchery they’re about one or two days old, and are shipped through the mail. They will not start laying till about six months of age, depending on the breed of chicken, and it’s not going to be cheap. You’re really not gonna supplement your groceries, reduce your egg bill, by raising backyard chickens, depending, of course, on how many chickens you raise. You do have to house them, feed them, take care of them, so the labor and the cost involved are not quite worth it, you know, depending on how expensive eggs get! 

Steve: So you can’t just by a hen and get eggs on day one?

Brooke: No, correct. I mean, you can maybe find adult chickens, but any we get in are ones that would be surrendered. We don’t buy adult chickens. I think, personally, raising them up from babies is better. But you’re not just gonna go out and grab a hen and she’s gonna lay, you know, 10 eggs a day.

Steve: OK, well that brings up another question: Once my babies start laying, how many eggs will I get per day? 

Brooke: That depends on the breed, as well, so different chickens lay at different times, and all different colors of eggs as well as different scheduled for laying. So you may get a chicken that can lay one egg per day and that’s probably the most you’re going to get from a breed like an Isa Brown or White Leghorn. Otherwise, if you want colorful eggs, those hens are gonna lay a little bit less, maybe 150 eggs per year up to about 200 eggs per year 

Steve: The math is looking worse. And there’s another issue that’s entered the equation: the bird flu.

Brooke: So it’s been around for a couple years and it really hasn’t impacted us personally so much here at The Feed Store. It isn’t as big an issue for backyard flocks which may be less susceptible to migratory fowl. Keeping them out of contact with wild birds is the most important thing right now, which is kinda hard to do unless you have them completely sealed up in a coop. A lot of these birds are free range and things like that, and the risk is greater if there’s a pond or other body of water nearby. In the surrounding area here, there is a lot going on right now, we’re losing birds left and right. If the flu turns up at a hatchery or farm, they have to cull all the birds. There was an uptick of it in the area near one of the hatcheries we buy chicks from, so there may be a quarantine on some birds for 21 days, but it hasn’t affected us so far. We have chicks for sale today, but I can’t say what the future holds. 

Steve: I’m not trying to talk to anybody out of being going into the backyard chicken business but they should go in knowing all of the facts.

Brooke: Exactly, because it is something that people do get enjoyment out of. Watching them is better than watching TV! Many people consider them their best friends and they even name them. We named ours and know that they can be very, very fulfilling pets. 

Steve: Did you name any of them Steve? 

Brooke: (laughs) I do not have a Steve out there, but maybe I’ll consider that next time. 

Steve: (laughs) I guess it would have to be Stephanie. 

Brooke: If it’s a girl, but I have two roosters outside as well, so… 

Steve: Oh, well there you go. Cock-a-doodle-do! But back to the topic: Sum up your advice to people considering backyard chickens, please. 

Brooke: I wouldn’t discourage anybody from raising backyard chickens right now, even with the bird flu. They have to be inside for a month or two when they are babies anyway, so you’re going to get some bonding time in there to start with. But just remember these are animals, so things can happen to them. They can get sick. They can break legs. They can have heart attacks. But I wouldn’t dissuade anybody from doing backyard chickens. They make wonderful pets and we’ll give folks a lot of information if they come in to The Feed Store to help you keep your birds healthy and happy. 

Steve: And where do they find you? 

Brooke: We’re at 5408 S. Harlem Avenue, one block off of I-55 on Harlem Avenue in Summit, Illinois 

Steve: And, it’s important to check with your city or village.

Brooke: Yes, I would definitely check with your local ordinance at your local village. They’ll let you know right away if it’s legal. That’s important, because you don’t wanna get attached to these birds and then have to get rid of them. 

TikTok is full of videos from people preaching the virtues of juice cleanses. Three-day cleanses seem to be the most popular, but there are people hawking 10-day and even 30-day cleanses. Don’t do it, says  Dr. Melinda Ring, director of the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine physician. In the audio clip below, she tells WGN’s Steve Alexander about a study she and her team conducted questioning whether a three-day pressed juice cleanse is beneficial. The short answer is “no.” It may be doing the opposite. The study, recently published in Nutrients, found that “a vegetable and fruit juice-only diet — even for just three days — can trigger shifts in gut and oral bacteria linked to inflammation and cognitive decline.” Dr. Ring goes further to say juice cleanses are not for children, and she discourages using juice boxes as a primary drink for the kids. The apple is better than apple juice.

The university added this information:

How was the study conducted?

Northwestern scientists studied three groups of healthy adults. One group consumed only juice, another had juice with whole foods and a third ate only whole plant-based foods. Scientists collected saliva, cheek swabs and stool samples before, during and after the diets to analyze bacterial changes using gene-sequencing techniques.

What the scientists found

The juice-only group showed the most significant increase in bacteria associated with inflammation and gut permeability, while the plant-based whole food group saw more favorable microbial changes. The juice plus food group had some bacterial shifts but less severe than the juice-only group. These findings suggest that juicing without fiber may disrupt the microbiome, potentially leading to long-term health consequences.

“Most people think of juicing as a healthy cleanse, but this study offers a reality check,” said senior author Dr. Melinda Ring, director of the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine physician. 

“Consuming large amounts of juice with little fiber may lead to microbiome imbalances that could have negative consequences, such as inflammation and reduced gut health,” Ring said.

Why fiber matters

Juicing strips away much of the fiber in whole fruits and vegetables, which feeds beneficial bacteria that produce anti-inflammatory compounds such as butyrate. Without fiber, sugar-loving bacteria can multiply. The high sugar content in juice further fuels these harmful bacteria, disrupting the gut and oral microbiome. The study also suggests that reduced fiber intake may impact metabolism, immunity and even mental health.

The oral microbiome responds quickly

Unlike the gut microbiota, which remained relatively stable, the oral microbiome showed dramatic changes during the juice-only diet. Scientists found a reduction in beneficial Firmicutes bacteria and an increase in Proteobacteria, a bacterial group associated with inflammation. 

“This highlights how quickly dietary choices can influence health-related bacterial populations,” said Ring. “The oral microbiome appears to be a rapid barometer of dietary impact.”

Next steps

The findings underscore the need for more research on how juice and other diets impact the microbiome, especially in children, who often consume juice as a fruit substitute.

“The nutritional composition of juice diets — specifically their sugar and carbohydrate levels — plays a key role in shaping microbial dynamics in both the gut and oral cavity and should be carefully considered,” said first author Maria Luisa Savo Sardaro, a research associate in the Amato Lab at the department of anthropology at Northwestern University and a professor of food microbiology at San Raffaele University in Rome.This study also highlights the importance of prioritizing fiber in dietary guidelines and food production. For now, Ring says, “If you love juicing, consider blending instead to keep the fiber intact, or pair juices with whole foods to balance the impact on your microbiome.”

With the high cost of eggs, perhaps you’ve cut down some on how many you buy. In the audio clip below, Rebecca Lupesco, Marketing Director for Duke’s Mayonnaise, tells WGN’s Steve Alexander that business is good, Duke’s is selling more mayo than ever after it expanded to all 50 states, and is buying more eggs than ever, but not at the price you’re paying in the store. Duke’s Mayo is made with eggs, soybean oil, and vinegar, which is great on sandwiches but not so much when five gallons of it is dumped on your head.

Part of Duke’s effort to expand its brand is the sponsorship of a college football bowl game in Charlotte, NC, called, appropriately, the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. And the winning coach is treated (?) to a post-game bath of mayonnaise. She says the first three winning coaches seemed to accept it as a necessary evil of winning, keeping their hats on, but the 2024-25 winning coach, P.J. Fleck of Minnesota’s Golden Gophers, was all in, ripping off his cap and embracing the mayo.

While the USDA is forecasting overall food-at-home prices in 2025 to be 1.3 percent higher–well below the overall inflation rate and below the 20-year average for food of 2.6%, egg prices are forecast to be another 20.3% higher this year.

Oof!

There are four main reasons, according to Marc Dresner of the American Egg Board:

But, as Dresner says in the audio clip below with WGN’s Steve Alexander, don’t blame the farmers. They have nothing to do with the higher egg prices, and having to destroy their flocks because of the bird flu exacts a heavy toll, both financial and emotional.

Everything was going great for Erica Bethe Levin as the holidays approached. A Lincoln Park mother of two, a founder and CEO of a rapidly expanding company making food for toddlers and babies, life was busy and stress-filled, but good. There was just one thing: what she calls, “the final five to ten pounds almost every woman I know tries to lose her entire life.” So, she decided to try Ozempic. In the audio clip below, she tells WGN’s Steve Alexander how she wound up in the hospital, “lucky to be alive” according to doctors and nurses, because, as is the case with many people, she did not obtain her Ozempic from a physician who could have warned her about what would happen when she combined it with her migraine medication. Well-known in the Chicago food business community, she posted an essay on LinkedIn about ordeal, which you can read below.

On LinkedIn, Erica Bethe Levin wrote this about her Ozempic experience:

“I’ve always scoffed at the whole “you have to put your oxygen mask on first” trope. If the worst were to happen, those masks are going on my kids. Period. I can’t even fathom a situation where that wouldn’t be the case, but I UNDERSTAND the philosophy.

That being said, I haven’t been taking enough care of myself. I start my day with work (hours before the kids get up), school drop-off, work, afternoon activities, work, “feeding time at the zoo” (dinner with two kids), mom-time, more work if I don’t fall asleep reading books to the kids. There were never enough hours in the day for even a 30-minute yoga practice. So my curiosity, and dare I say – vanity? – got the best of me, and I decided to start Ozempic to lose the final 5/10 pounds that almost every single woman I know tries to lose her. entire. life. (The unique pressure women experience in ALL things, including physicality, is a very serious problem that deserves another post.)

I opted for easy. Well, it was anything but. Ozempic + gamechanging new migraine meds (gifting me a new lease on life!) + stress that’s been oozing out of me for 20-ish years = a near death experience. As much as I wish this was my theatre major histrionics talking, it’s not. Six nurses and 2 doctors told me I was lucky to be alive after my blood sugar dropped to 20 and my heart rate to 40. If I had passed out – inevitable if my dad and husband hadn’t rushed home when I called them incoherently trying to explain how I felt – I would have gone into a diabetic coma.

I spent days in the hospital, no one understanding why I would “do this to myself” (this rhetoric made my sky-high “mom guilt” way worse). After returning home and taking a doctor-mandated week off, my entire family got hit with the flu and my parents with COVID. It’s been a rough month for the Kanes, BUT…..it sure has shed light on what we’re going to be doing more of in 2024: time together, physical activity (not watching the kids play tennis or hike, but actively joining them), sit-down dinners, books, me-time (yoga, or my new favorite way of killing two birds with one stone: conference calls on walks), less unnecessary stress, iPhone attachment, and more un-missed therapy appointments.

All of this to say…we do need those oxygen masks first. And if that looks like a book before bed instead of another article on industry trends, or a simple morning yoga flow, then that’s it. We need to stop putting pressure on ourselves to be perfect, to always be on-time, to “have it all.” We have more than we realize, maybe even “all” of it, and if we’re not here to enjoy it, what’s the point?

My family has forgiven me; I haven’t quite yet. But I’m working on it as part of my new commitment to physical and mental health. 2024 is about sustainability. In life, love and work. If I can’t sustain my own health, then I can’t sustain anything else. I wish sustainability for all of you. And, in case no one has told you recently….you’re perfect the way you are.”

At age nine, Heather Van Vorous was playing in the yard when she doubled over with tummy pain and passed out. Her parents rushed her to the pediatrician, who couldn’t find anything wrong with her and told her to quit whining. In the audio clip below, Heather tells WGN’s Steve Alexander how that moment led to her becoming, decades later, the CEO of Heather’s Tummy Care. Scroll down for the text of some of Steve’s interview with Heather, and a promo code if you’re interested in a discount on her products.

My name is Heather Van Vorous. I am the founder and CEO of Heather’s Tummy Care and the author of two books about dealing with the disorder.

Steve:

What are the names of the books? 

Heather:

Eating for IBS and The First Year IBS 

Steve:

How did how did you get into the peppermint tea business?

Heather:

The company was founded to help people manage the symptoms of IBS, and the peppermint tummy tea is the direct hit for heading off things like pain, spasms, cramps, urgency, bloating, and gas. And I basically fell into the business because I’ve been a patient. I’ve had IBS since I was a child, about nine years old, and was not really given any help for that at all, and wasn’t diagnosed for a very long time as well. In the end, when I figured out what would help me and realized that it would help other people as well, that expanded into emails to people way back in the ‘90s that became books and finally to a website that became the Heather’s Tummy Care company dedicated to helping people manage IBS and live successfully and happily by being able to manage the disorder. Peppermint Tummy Tea is a key part of that, particularly if people are prone to the pain and spasm side of IBS. By huge coincidence, the best peppermint in the world actually grows in my own backyard—or just across the mountains from where I live in Seattle—in eastern Washington. We have the Columbia River Valley with its volcanic soil and the right climate that produces the highest menthol and other volatile oil levels of peppermint in the world, so that makes it particularly helpful and effective for the symptoms. 

Steve:

What’s your personal story with IBS?

Heather:

Well, it was unfortunate. I was nine years old when I had my first attack and I was a happy, healthy little kid playing on a beautiful summer day in the neighbor’s garden and all of a sudden was doubled over in pain so severe I couldn’t breathe, actually blacked out from it. I thought I was dying. My pediatrician couldn’t find any reason for it and basically told me to stop whining. From that point on, I continued to suffer, and it was really more than another 10 years before I even had a rough diagnosis, and even then I didn’t have help. Even once I had a diagnosis, it was just sort of “Here you go, now good luck. Hope you can figure out a way to live with it.” It took another 10 years for me to figure that out what I could eat and what I couldn’t and what would set it off and what were my safe foods and trigger foods. So I decided to try to help other people who suffer and not just give information but give them the products to help and physically manage the symptoms 

Steve:

Tell me about what your company is like now. 

Heather: 

Oh my goodness! What started as a little operation out of a one-bedroom apartment in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood where we had to haul things up three flights of stairs and the boxes filled the bedroom has turned into a 25,000 square-foot certified organic manufacturing facility that is robot-driven, highly automated it looks like Willy Wonka’s factory in here. It’s crazy. So yeah, I turned literally something that started as an email list to people 25 years ago and became a little website into this. 

Steve: 

This is a common disorder. What are your thoughts on why so many people suffer?

Heather: 

It’s such a common chronic disorder, so often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed or people just live with it. But I know about one and five Americans are walking around with IBS. A lot of people out there need help. They don’t really know the underlying cause at this point. Some people seem to be born with it and some people have an insult to the gut and they can point to what triggered it, such as food poisoning abdominal surgery. Some people just developed one day out of the blue, but it’s very common and it’s a disorder. It’s not a disease. It’s defined by its symptoms. It’s not just a garbage can disorder that you should be dumped into if they can’t figure out what’s wrong with you. But they don’t really know the underlying pathology details at this point, there’s a lot of research still to be done 

Steve:

And you were dealing with your symptoms, basically using trial and error determining what you could have and what you could not have or what made you feel better and why didn’t? 

Heather:

Yes, a great deal of years of trial and error, often times a painful learning experience and then just a lot of reading and research on my own to try to figure out what was going on with me and particularly what the tie was with foods. Why were certain food making me sick, why were other foods my safety net, things I knew would help me? Trying to understand, underlying nutritional reasons for that, and that became my goal, realizing over the years, there were very clear logical biological reasons why certain foods would trigger symptoms and other ones would help prevent them and that took me down the road into things like soluble versus insoluble fiber: One is a stabilizing force, and one is a possible likely trigger in the G.I. track. Stimulants, for a lot of people with IBS, irritate like caffeine or coffee, artificial sweeteners, soda pop, carbonation, a lot of things that people with IBS need to eliminate to regulate the gut. You’re trying to keep motility stable, rhythmic, calm. You’re trying to gently force your gut into normal motility, and that became my goal with what I was eating every day. How do I eat things that keep my gut functional, normal, stable and how do I avoid the things that disrupt that, and then how do I take that information and eat really well and have really good food and recipes? I’m someone who lives to eat so I gotta have good food, but I don’t want it to make me sick. And that was my jumping off point and it took like I said about 10 years for me to put all that together for myself and thinking the whole time I was the only person in the world with this, having no idea there were other people out there going through the same struggle. 

Steve:

There’s so much more information on your website about ways people can calm their guts and you do stress the importance of not trying to self-diagnose IBS.

Heather:

No, it can not be self-diagnosed. Medical tests must rule out other illnesses. But symptoms can be self-managed.

Steve:

How did you find out there were other people suffering? 

Heather: 

That was a total surprise, yeah, very early on in the late 90s. There were some support group websites that popped up for people with IBS, and at that point I had figured things out for myself and had a recipe collection and knew what things I could buy that would help me or hurt me, so I just started posting that on the sites and saying, you know, email me and I’ll tell you what helps me. I don’t know if I’ll help you. I hope it will but here’s the guidelines and here’s what you know you should eat and what you should need and how you should eat as well because that affects your gut not just what you eat. And people wrote back with questions. The email grew to a 200-page plain text file and started crashing people’s email servers, so I had to put it up as a website and send people a link, and the website literally grew into the books. I had such a huge response from people who had not figured it out for themselves and had no idea that this information was out there. I was learning in return that there were so many other people out there with the same problems I had, and they weren’t being given this information from any other source. And that frustrated me and upset me and eventually came to enrage me, and that was when I became determined to get this information out there and then to get the products out there for people, as well, so that they have some concrete help can help real help in their hands that they could put in their guts that would make them feel better. 

Steve:

What are some of the products other than the peppermint tea?  

Heather:

Yes, peppermint is actually my personal favorite and it really is, I think the best peppermint tea in the world, very high oil and things like menthol in it which physically help relax the gut, calm down pain, spasms, cramps. We also carry a high volatile oil fennel, which is a great carminative for people who have the bloating and gas side of things or who have heartburn and can’t always use peppermint, so fennel is their safety net. Anybody who is helped by things like high oil peppermint and fennel probably is going to get even more success with the peppermint oil capsules that we have. Those are the super-duper tummy taming version of your tummy teas, much more potent, but you have to use them as a preventative, always on an empty stomach. They will work better to head off pain, spasms, cramps, bloating, gas, so those are things you’d use on an empty stomach before you eat last thing at night before you go to bed to head off morning problems. 

Steve:  

What about people suffering from the things most of us don’t want to talk about: diarrhea and constipation?

Heather:

Those are the folks who have to use something like the Tummy Fiber. That’s a pure, soluble fiber if you want a prebiotic, slow fermenting soluble fiber that will regulate bowel motility from either extreme. That’s something that’s key for just about everybody with IBS trying to stop the diarrhea the constipation to keep us from flipping from one to the other and getting that motility under control. That’s where something like our Tummy Fiber, which is a certified organic Acacia senegal that’s quite special and is a perfect fit for people with digestive in orders like IBS. Sometimes people need one thing more than another. Sometimes they have to throw everything against the wall. It’s really up to the person and their specific symptoms. 

Steve: 

It seems like sufferers will have to give up a lot, if not most, of the foods they really enjoy.

Heather:

That’s another frustration, but there are a lot of substitutions you can make so you’re not feeling deprived, ways to minimize trigger foods, and ways to make adjustments, up your soluble fiber to keep your gut calm in the face of the trigger. I always like to tell people, don’t think you have to give up all your favorite food, you might just have to modify them a little, but you can certainly work around that. You don’t have to live a life of boring or bland or depressing foods at all, and you don’t have to eat weird meals and make the rest of your family eat them, too. 

Steve:

What’s the science behind your products? 

Heather:

Everything is based on managing symptoms because there’s no cure at this point for IBS, for the underlying pathology, but you can manage the motility of your gut with dietary management and adding things like Tummy Care products. The gut peppermint is a powerful antispasmodic, a smooth muscle relaxant. It really affects both the brain and the gut in terms of pain and there’s a wealth of clinical studies on this. Peppermint capsules have actually been called the drug of choice for IBS, even though they’re obviously not a drug at all, There’s great scientific research behind soluble fiber as a motility regulator, and behind peppermint and peppermint oil as an antispasmodic painkiller. Then the fennel tummy tea as a carminative to help reduce bloating and gas has really good research on it. 

Steve:

Regarding fiber, we’re always hearing we need to get more fiber in our diets. But you say that depends on the type of fiber?

Heather:

You want to be focused on soluble fiber, being careful with insoluble fiber. It’s very well researched as a G.I. stimulant, whether you have IBS or not. It’s going to set off your digestion, speed it up and if you have IBS, maybe cause spasms and cramps you. Mitigate that so it’s a combination of different things that you want to target to your symptoms. You want to focus on regulating that motility and I would add you only want to use things that are going to be helpful and gentle and coax you along. You never wanna try to beat it into submission with IBS. There’s nothing that you can detoxify or get rid of with IBS that’s going to force your bowels to behave. You have to be kind and gentle to it. 

Steve:

Well, I guess that rules out the colon cleanses and other detoxs that people often try. Diarrhea and constipation are chronic problems for a lot of people.

Heather: 

People really struggle to get those under control and there is no good way to do that overnight or in a few days, you can absolutely do it with your Tummy Fiber, but it might take several weeks, even several months, as you gradually work up your dose. That’s where you gotta start heading down the road in the right direction and just keep going. You’ll see improvements along the way, but that is a frustration: there’s no such thing as overnight relief for that with IBS. There’s no magic pill. 

Steve:

Is IBS hereditary?

Heather:

There is a genetic component. It does tend to run in families. Researchers don’t have anything black and white like genetic testing for it and it’s not perhaps 100% genetic they know they can be an environmental component for sure the people who have the insult to the gut that set up IBS may not have a genetic aspect at all, so it’s kind of combination. You may have a genetic accessibility. It might take an environmental trigger to set that off. There’s still so much research to be done 

Steve:

What is some of the feedback you’ve gotten from people? 

Heather: 

Oh, phenomenal! I am brought to tears a lot of times by the letters people send me — day in and day out, stacks and stacks, notebooks full of letters. They’re so grateful to have someone who can give them helpful guidance and dietary information and there’s a diet cheat sheet that people can download for free. People have told me how the products have changed their lives, like I can’t even tell you how many people have told me that they were housebound and now they’re not; they couldn’t work and now they can; they couldn’t go to school and now they can; people who have children with IBS that are really struggling. I hear from nurses, teachers, I hear from cops, I hear from truck drivers about how much of a drastic difference it has made for them to have products they can turn to that actually work and give them their lives back and that’s not an exaggeration. You really you can lose your life to IBS and the tummy care is a way to get it back. 

Steve: There’s so much more information on your website about ways people can calm their guts and I understand you have a treat for WGN listeners.

Heather:

Yes, we can offer a promo code for your listeners only and give them a discounted price. We have a lifetime happiness guarantee as well. They are here: https://www.heatherstummycare.com/p/suplmts_pmintcaps/tummy-tamers-peppermint-oil-caps-2-bottles/?discountcode=THANKSSTEVE

If you’re in the camp that Thanksgiving is for turkey, but Christmas is for prime rib, a Chicago restaurant pro is here to give us tips on how to make your home-roasted rib just as succulent and flavorful as the ones served at restaurants. Marc Lupino is Chief Executive Chef at Chicago’s Steak 48. Here’s a conversation he had with WGN Radio’s Steve Alexander, excerpts of which can be heard in the audio clip at the bottom.

Steve Alexander: Thanks for joining us Marc. Let’s begin at the grocery store. What kind of roast do we look for? 

Marc Lupino: It depends on how many people you are serving, that’s going to be the first thing. If I’m gonna have a bone-in rib, I’m going to go a pound per person. You’re going to lose a little bit of weight when it comes to the bone and you’re going to have a tiny bit of shrinkage cooking it, but not too much — most of the stuff that’s coming out is fat and you’re going to use that for au jus or gravy anyway. On a boneless rib, I say 14 ounces per person, so if you just use that pound-per-person, you’ll be in the right range. If you want to have leftovers, then get a full rib. A full rib will be 12 bones. If you want to get a smaller one they sell half ribs. I was in the grocery store not too long ago and I saw ones with three ribs.

Steve: Do you prefer bone-in or boneless?

Marc: My personal preference would be to get bone-in, but it’s important that when you look at the bottom of it, you want to be able to separate those bones by bending them. If I can’t separate the bones by bending them, that means that they left the chine bone, which is part of the spine, on it and you’re not going to be able to cut through it with a knife and you won’t be able to go bone-for-bone when you’re ready to serve it. I always like to see that separated and if it isn’t, a lot of times the butcher in the grocery store or wherever we will take that piece of chine bone off for you.

Steve: What about that layer of fat on the roast? How much should there be?

Marc: That’s the fat cap. You don’t want a lot of it, like two inches, because you’re going to trim that off anyway, so no use paying for it. A half-inch fat cap, maybe a little less, on the top part of the roast is pretty much perfect.

Steve: And what cuts are we looking for at the store?

Marc: Most places are going to label them a rib roast of some kind. Standing rib, boneless or bone-in rib roast, those are pretty much the names you’re going to see. 

Steve: I know it’s called “prime” rib, which refers to the grade, but can you save a little money without sacrificing taste by going with a lesser grade?

Marc: I’m looking for the best quality prime rib I can find, but that’s me personally. The one thing about cooking the roast slowly is that it breaks down the meat and gives it a more palatable, soft texture. You can go with a “select” graded roast and it’s still going to come out great. “Prime” will come out that much better, but I’d say stay within your price range, and, at the same time, keep that pound-per-person in mind.

Steve: OK, we’ve got the roast at home. What’s next?

Marc: Let’s being with the rub. I like a salt-based dry rub. This is the best way to get a nice crust on the outside of it. It’s also the best way to get a nice seasoning on it which will also help with the drippings to make to a fantastic au jus or gravy at the end. I have a proprietary rub that I would use, but at the core is salt. Coarse salt, coarse pepper, granulated garlic, granulated onion, paprika, maybe a little bit of light cayenne is perfect. If you like, a little bit of ground rosemary or ground thyme will work, too, but I definitely would go very easy on those because they tend to take over the flavor. That salt and pepper crust is going to be the main focus that you want to have. And I go very liberal with it. I’m not talking about pouring cups of it on there, but I want to really feel it, I want to rub this rib roast down on all sides and make sure it’s all covered perfectly. Then, put it on a rack in the roasting pan, and put it in the fridge, uncovered, and let it dry for at least four hours maybe overnight. The refrigerator is going to pull a lot of moisture out of it.

Steve: Using a rack is important?

Marc: Yes. That’ll lift it up. The roasting rack is a key to getting that rib cooked perfectly all the way around, nice and evenly. If you just put it on a sheet pan, it isn’t going to come out as well..

Steve: OK, the roast has been in the fridge all night. It’s showtime! What’s next?

Marc: On the day you’re serving it, pull it out of the fridge and let it sit out at room temperature for at least an hour. You’ll be taking some of the cook time off of it when you do that. Turn the oven on to 400° and get it nice and hot. Let it heat up for a good 30 minutes. Before you put it in the oven, pour a half cup of water in the bottom of the pan so when your juices are dripping off of the rib, the fat and everything, it doesn’t burn. It’ll actually make a nice base for your gravy in there. Then, I throw the roast in there, still on the rack in the roasting pan, putting it in the middle of the oven. After about 30 minutes, you’re going to see a nice browning on the outside. Turn the oven down to 200°, maybe 225° depending on your time, but at 200 ° it’s going to take you about 20 minutes per pound to get it to where you want it. For me, that’s 115° in the center. Unless your family likes to eat well done, or medium well, you wanna pull it at 115°. Set its on the counter, take a piece of aluminum foil and tent it over the top, and leave it alone for 30 to 45 minutes. That allows all the juice to get absorbed back into the muscles. If you just take the roast directly out of the oven at that temperature and start slicing it, all the juice is going to end up on your cutting board and be wasted.

Steve: What does the roast look like at 115° when you slice it? I like mine kind of pink.

Marc: It’ll be medium rare in the center, and the outer edges will be probably medium to medium well. Remember that once you pull it from the oven and tent it with aluminum foil, it’s going to cook up. The temperature will jump 10° easy, maybe even 15° so you wanna pull it out at 115°. Otherwise, you’ll have an overcooked rib. In my family, I like medium rare, my wife likes medium, and my mother-in-law likes medium well so when I pull it out at 115° it’s always perfect. 

Steve: You make everybody happy! 

Marc: Yeah, the end cuts are always going to be just a little bit more done and the center is going to be the rarest, and there’s something for just about everybody.

Steve: Got it. OK, what about the au jus, or gravy?

Marc: With the pan drippings, you’re going to want to whisk it up with a little bit of butter and flour, make it a roux, and that’s going to make exactly what you want. The salt rub, the fat drippings, it’s an all encompassing flavor. You can thicken it to your taste. If you want it to be thinner more of like au jus, you would add just a tiny bit of water to it. If you want a gravy, then I’d make a roux which is equal parts flour and butter, whisk it up and put the pan back on the burner until I get it the right consistency.

Steve: What about side dishes?

Marc: Mashed potatoes. That’s just something I always do because you make the little volcano in the center and you have some gravy on there, that’s always great in my family. Brussel sprouts with some bacon are great. I’ll just take some brussels sprouts, halve them up, add raw bacon with some butter in the pan, and cook it all together with a little bit of chicken stock until all the chicken stock is burned out of it. Season with salt and pepper. Very simple always really good. Sweet potatoes are always fantastic, bake some ahead of time, and with a little bit of mascarpone and then add some egg into it and salt and pepper and bake it off. It’s almost comes out like a sweet potato soufflé. Real, real easy, and you can top it with some maple syrup. Yorkshire pudding or popovers or rolls whatever your family is really into are always good; biscuits work really well too. I always feel like I need to have some kind of roll with it too. It just seems to complete the dish.

I try to do a veg, a starch, and then a starch that’s on the sweeter side, so whether it be a sweet potato or let’s say I was going to do a green beans with sweet Thai chili sauce or something along those lines that’s going to add a little bit of sweetness to it and kind of round out the flavor so it’s not all just beef and gravy. Break it up and give your palate everything it needs. 

Steve: Mushrooms? 

Marc: Definitely. I usually try to mix three different types of mushrooms so they have different textures because mushrooms can be very one dimensional. At the grocery store you can find portobello mushrooms, button mushrooms, shiitake or whatever they have and throw them together. Cut them the same size they have a tendency to cook the same rate so you can sauté them all together with a little bit of olive oil and garlic and some fresh thyme and they come out super. A simple side, for sure 

Steve: Man, I, my stomach is growling and my mouth is watering. I’m ready to go. 

Marc: Haha, I know what you mean. We were going to do steaks and lobster tails this year, but after talking with you, I think I’m going to make a prime rib also. And that’s something else to bring up. I rarely make just one thing. Prime rib is great but, for me, I’m going to put some seafood with it. Maybe I’ll do some salmon or lobster tails or definitely some sautéed shrimp They always go well with everything else I like to have a bunch of proteins sides are good but I’m more of a fan of having a bunch of proteins on the plate and available especially if we have a lot of people that are coming over. You get a little something I’m on your plate. A little bit of everything seafood for me pears really well with it and usually I’ll do a shellfish. Salmon is always always good just because it’s a it’s one of those great fish where you can buy a whole side and cook it and some of this rare and some of it well done it kind of is that same range of you know you could please a lot of people that like things different ways. 

Steve: Wow… so what time did you want me to come over? 

Marc: Haha… we’ll be eating around 3 o’clock.

Steve: Do you serve prime rib at Steak 48? 

Marc: We do not, except for certain parties.

Steve: Why is that? 

Marc: Demand. It’s kind of fallen off in popularity. Prime rib used to be a big thing, in fact Lawry’s built a chain based on prime rib, but they’ve started to disappear, including the one in River North. There are a couple left in Los Angeles, but prime rib houses nationwide are disappearing.

Steve: It’s still popular for holidays. 

Marc: Absolutely, that’s why every grocery store you’re in till the end of the year is going to have a deal on some sort of rib roast. 

While farmers, mostly men, get well-deserved and needed attention when it comes to studies about mental health, farm spouses deserve some recognition, too. They are dealing with their own stressors as they are often the ones doing the heavy lifting, both physical and emotional, when it comes to keeping the farm home and family going. Anna Scheyett, lead author of a University of Georgia study and a professor in UGA’s School of Social Work, spoke with many farm spouses–all women in her sample–and heard about the many roles women fill on the farm. In the audio clip below, Professor Scheyett tells WGN’s Steve Alexander about the many ways farm spouses contribute: taking care of the home and children and the books, working on the farm, working off the farm, being a buffer between family drama and exhausted, grumpy farmers, and more.

Scheyett said. “If we don’t support these families, we’re in big trouble as a country because we won’t be able to generate our food.” She says the women in her study weren’t looking for pity, but a little recognition would be nice. As one farm spouse told her, “It’s a great life if you can stand it.” You can read more about the study here.