Free Republic

The President’s wife is telling us how to eat. This is a scary thought. ALG’s Rebecca DiFede has decided that we simply must put the Team Obama Spotlight on Michelle Obama.

Today, a top national restaurant chain partnered with First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move childhood anti-obesity campaign. Last year, that same company received a waiver exempting it from some of the most stringent mandates of ObamaCare. Michelle Obama visited an Olive Garden restaurant in Hyattsville, Maryland today as Darden Restaurants announced that it would reduce the amount of calories and sodium in its menu by 20% over the next decade. Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Longhorn Steakhouse, Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze, and Seasons 52, received a waiver from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on October...

The First Lady has scored another victory in the battle of the bulge. The CEO of Darden Restaurants, which owns eatery chains Olive Garden and Red Lobster as well as LongHorn Steakhouse and Capital Grille, said on Thursday the company will work to reduce fat and sodium by 10% over the course of the next five years and 20% over the next decade.

Washington DC, Dec. 09, 2005 (CNA) - Intervening in the heated debate about the mention of Christmas on the public square, Concerned Women for America (CWA) presented a first Christmas list showing which businesses are honouring the Reason for the Season (the birth of Jesus), which ones are not, and which have mixed records. It first lists the corporation ‘Nice’ or friendly to the Original Christmas tradition.  This year Macy's joins the NICE list because it has returned the explicit mention of Christmas and Merry Christmas to its stores and its ads. L.L. Bean, on the other hand, just barely...

An animal rights group wants the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach to gut its cafeteria menu of fish and seafood, arguing that "serving fish at an aquarium is like serving poodle burgers at a dog show." Like Lilo in the animated "Lilo and Stitch," who refused to make a tuna sandwich for her friend, Pudge, a fish, because it would be "an abomination," the head of the Fish Empathy Project for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said serving fish at an aquarium just isn't right. "An institution with a mission that includes teaching people to respect...

DES MOINES, Iowa (Dow Jones/AP) - Darden Restaurants Inc. (DRI) said Thursday its Red Lobster chain will cut back on all-you-can-eat promotions, which "spiked traffic but hurt margins." Chairman and Chief Executive Joe R. Lee also said that while Darden expects "some immediate benefits" from lower overhead at its languishing casual-dining seafood operation, turning the seafood operation around "will take time." As for a new president for Red Lobster, Lee told investors and analysts on a conference call Thursday that "we plan to make a decision within the next few months ... . We have a short list now," of...

DES MOINES, Iowa (Dow Jones/AP) - Darden Restaurants Inc. Wednesday said it had replaced the head of Red Lobster, its biggest chain, after an all-you-can-eat crab promotion went awry. Darden President and Chief Operating Officer Dick Rivera will succeed Edna Morris as president of Red Lobster. Morris, who had been in that job just 18 months, left to pursue other interests, the company said. Darden executives said Red Lobster management had badly miscalculated how many times customers would refill their plates after paying $20 for an "endless" crab entree. Meanwhile, crab prices were going up, sending the profit margin crashing....