Young Woman Standing Before a Dynamic Digital Screen, Immersed in Internet Visualization. Internet Cyberspace with Web Content, Icons, Animated Stream of Online Applications and Entertainment

Everything Is Fake Now — And It’s Worse Than You Think

Artificial Intelligence

Fake accounts

Food

Fraud

illegal immigrants

Matt Walsh

Music

Opinion

scams

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
March Madness and baseball Opening Day may be blotting out the sun for sports fans, but for followers of televised competitive cooking, the next couple of months are the NCAA Tournament, the World Series, the BCS Championship, and the Super Bowl rolled into one, wrapped, covered in a mother sauce, and served on a platter to a panel of judges. Though I watch every cooking competition available, and always have, lately I’ve been trying to understand why. It’s not that they’re inspiring me to cook. They’re barely even inspiring me to eat.
The main event, as always, is the new season of &#8220;Top Chef.&#8221; But you also have a &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; knockoff, &#8220;America’s Culinary Cup,&#8221; hosted by former &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; doyenne Padma Lakshmi; &#8220;Next Level Chef,&#8221; Gordon Ramsay’s quarterly competition offering; and Guy Fieri’s &#8220;Tournament of Champions.&#8221; And that doesn’t include more quotidian feeder offerings such as Fieri’s &#8220;Flavortown Food Fight&#8221; and &#8220;Chopped.&#8221; Shows are eliminating chefs so quickly that culinary schools can’t produce enough replacements. 
&#8220;Top Chef,&#8221; now hosted by former winner Kristen Kish, has barely deviated from the formula. You put a group of accomplished but not famous chefs through a series of challenges, knock them out one by one, and let the survivor enter the pantheon. The show emerged around the same time as programs such as &#8220;Project: Runway&#8221; and &#8220;America’s Next Top Model,&#8221; and at this point, it is as much a part of the pop landscape as &#8220;Wheel of Fortune.&#8221; It’s reliable, comforting bourgeois entertainment. Becoming Top Chef means something. But what, exactly?
This is the question I find myself asking when I watch &#8220;Tournament of Champions.&#8221; Unlike the relatively buttoned-up &#8220;Top Chef,&#8221; which drives its contestants around in luxury SUVs and puts them up in nice hotel suites, &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; is a melée that doesn’t hide its Hollywood backlot underpinnings. Fieri presides over a bracket-style competition for 32 chefs (including 16 who need to win in order even to qualify for the main competition). There is a spinning wheel called The Randomizer that determines what the chefs will cook, how they will cook, and for how long. Then a panel of judges, many of them former &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; winners, taste and judge the dishes.
Fieri, in his typical hype-man style, touts &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; as the ultimate culinary competition. And there’s something to be said for the fact that nowhere else can you see Ming Tsai, longtime host of PBS’s &#8220;Simply Ming,&#8221; competing against (and losing to) Aarti Sequeria, host of the Food Network’s &#8220;Aarti Party.&#8221; But if you watch a lot of food competition shows — and I do — you start to see patterns. Some of the people competing in &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; are undoubtedly among the best chefs in America. However, many of them are just simply good chefs who are good on TV and who the Food Network has on retainer to compete and judge. 
Many of them are former &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; contestants, even &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; winners. This is the route available to them. The ones at the top are just building their brand. For others, this is literally, to borrow a term from &#8220;Top Chef,&#8221; their “Last Chance Kitchen.” One frequent &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; challenger lost her restaurant in the Lahaina Fire. Others admit to going through messy divorces. Another one, a number-three-seed, bounced from this year’s tournament early and was shot 11 times last year in a robbery. For some chefs, it’s a chance to go mano a mano, but for others, &#8220;Tournament of Champions&#8221; feels vaguely like a cooking-themed version of the old-timey game show &#8220;Queen For A Day,&#8221; where housewives traded sob stories for audience sympathy and prizes. 
The Gordon Ramsay shows, such as &#8220;Hell’s Kitchen,&#8221; &#8220;MasterChef,&#8221; and the currently-airing &#8220;Next Level Chef,&#8221; exist to promote Ramsay, whose visage presides over the Las Vegas Strip like some knife-wielding God. His contestants are mainly home chefs and TikTok food influencers who are literally leaping onto a rising-and-falling platform for the chance to grab ingredients so they can cook a “next level burger” or whatever. By comparison with the more elite cooking shows, Ramsay offers big cash prizes and actual jobs. But when you see &#8220;MasterChef&#8221; or &#8220;Next Level Chef&#8221; winners try to break into the Guy Fieri universe, they generally get clobbered. It’s a long way to the top if you want to cook and roll.
The Padma Lakshmi-run &#8220;America’s Culinary Cup&#8221; is the latest and strangest entry into the food TV competition wars. Lakshmi stepped away from &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; in 2023 to focus on her production company and because, she said, she was eating too much. Yet on an episode I saw this month, she watched 12 chefs butcher a side of beef and then sampled a dozen beef dishes. 
&#8220;America’s Culinary Cup&#8221; is essentially &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; with slightly different rules, and also a million-dollar first prize. There are some high-end contestants, but the &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; field is equally impressive. Strangely, the &#8220;America’s Culinary Cup&#8221; contestant with the highest Q rating is Buddha Lo, who has a Michelin Star and also won &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; twice, yet here he is again, cooking for our entertainment. The show has high production values, and is OK, but it’s also airing exactly concurrently with &#8220;Top Chef,&#8221; reminding us that it’s not &#8220;Top Chef.&#8221;
One of Lakshmi’s regular judges is Michael Cimarusti, executive chef and co-owner of Los Angeles’s Providence seafood restaurant, where my wife and I once ate an anniversary meal that was so expensive we still feel guilt about it more than a decade later. This, to me, is the main problem with cooking competitions. They’re not relatable to the average person or to the home chef. 
At the dawn of the &#8220;Top Chef&#8221; era, you could find a lot of cooking instruction for normal people on food TV. Rachael Ray, whose whole reason for being was teaching people to cook on a budget, had millions of viewers. Now she hosts a podcast. When my wife Regina and I are looking for cooking tips, we have to find episodes of PBS’s &#8220;America’s Test Kitchen&#8221; on the Roku Channel, and many of them are 15 years old. 
A couple of weeks ago, Regina and I went to a lecture by British-Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi. He prepared simple dishes in a packed auditorium while also answering audience questions, and he showed us videos of himself preparing other, equally simple dishes, providing a QR code so we could all download all the recipes. 
Since then, we’ve cooked four Ottolenghi dinners from the downloads and also from the signed cookbook that we bought. We had many of the recipe items in our well-stocked pantry and fridge, but they were pretty basic: herbs and spices, canned beans, olive oil, and lemons. For the rest, we had to go to the store, but we spent maybe $50. Out of that, we got 10 meals, maybe more, and everything was perfectly delicious.
In contrast, I’ve never once cooked a single dish inspired by a cooking competition. I love these types of shows, and I’ll watch pretty much every iteration, but I also recognize that they’re kind of useless, self-absorbed, and snotty, even when Guy Fieri, the least snotty man alive, hosts them. To paraphrase Marie Antoinette: Watch them make cake.
***
Neal Pollack, &#8220;the greatest living American writer,&#8221; is the author of 12 semi-bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction and is a three-time &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; champion.

2026 South Beach Wine & Food Festival

Food TV Competitions Are Bigger Than Ever, But What They’re Really Offering Has Changed

Upstream

In 2001, Joseph Edgar Foreman, better known as Afroman, burst onto the scene with the now classic song “Because I Got High,” the title track to his second album. Though he’d been honing his craft since middle school, that song introduced him to the masses. Since that time, he’s released 17 more albums, though “Because I Got High” remains his most famous. 
His most infamous album, however, is 2022’s “Lemon Pound Cake,” which was a direct salvo against the police officers who raided his home on suspicion of drug trafficking and kidnapping, two crimes which he did not commit. That didn’t stop officers from seizing $5,000 in cash — $400 of which was never returned — and causing $20,000 in damages to his home. Afroman, whose first song was a <a href="https://yourtahoeguide.com/2023/01/afroman-when-rap-comedy-meet/">diss track</a>, wasn’t inclined to stay quiet about that injustice. 
Instead, he turned <a href="https://x.com/CountDankulaTV/status/2034623015346987494">the saga</a> into the 2022 album. On it, he called the officers out by name. He used footage of them from his CCTV cameras for the videos. He implied that their wives were cheating on them, one with him. He called one fat and said he was eying the lemon pound cake on his counter during the raid. He was relentless, which is unsurprising given he <a href="https://yourtahoeguide.com/2023/01/afroman-when-rap-comedy-meet/">once said</a>, “A skunk has its spray. If you mess with me, I rap about your ass. It works. It’s funny.” The officers, though, were not amused, hitting the entertainer with a defamation suit in 2023. 
Afroman, though, remained undeterred and on March 19, 2026, he was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-afroman-legal-saga-is-the-most-interesting-thing-on-the-internet-today?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Lynden+Blake&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=The+Afroman+Legal+Saga+Is+The+Most+Interesting+Thing+On+The+Internet+Today">found innocent of all charges</a>, saying, “We did it America. We did it, freedom of speech.” He forgot to add freedom from unlawful search and seizure. For a man who rose to prominence by rapping about how getting high was sapping his motivation, this unlikely hero proved doggedly fierce when it came to fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. 
As a nation, we should be thankful for Afroman. Most would not go to the lengths, would not risk the financial implications of failure, would not go scorched earth over $20,400 and a ruined day. But not Afroman. He still believes in the Constitution, in freedom of speech, and in the importance of good and trustworthy police to the community. 
Moreover, he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cR-WiGKZtg">rampaged</a> with style. For the final day in court, he wore a suit and tie with an American flag pattern. He <a href="https://x.com/CountDankulaTV/status/2034623015346987494">afromaxxed</a>. His only witness was the ex-wife of an officer whom Afroman claimed to have slept with prior to the divorce. When the officer was asked if he knew for sure that Afroman was not having relations with his wife, the officer responded, “I don’t know,” thereby undermining his own defamation suit. 
<div id="attachment_1063119" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1063119" class="size-large wp-image-1063119" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1176036605-864x576.jpg" alt="LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 20: Afroman attends the 2019 Daytime Beauty Awards at The Taglyan Complex on September 20, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic )" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1176036605-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1176036605-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1176036605-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1176036605.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic/Getty Images</div>
In short, Afroman tapped into the rugged pioneer spirit that helped build this nation and showed that, even in 2026, great men can still achieve great things if they put their minds to it. Lesser men would have folded, afraid of the millions in damages the officers were suing for. They would have worried about the risks of tangling with local law enforcement. They would have sucked up the $20,400 they lost and moved on with their lives. And for many, that’s okay.
We can’t all risk everything to fight injustice. Not everyone has the sort of career and flexibility that affords us the opportunity to stand up for basic rights and dignity. As such, we need heroes out there fighting for us. But not all heroes wear capes. Some wear <a href="https://local12.com/resources/media2/16x9/1920/1320/center/90/df93163e-1d50-46e9-803a-1f2eaf88fcbb-CH12AFROMANINTERVIEW_frame_7352.jpeg">fur coats</a> over their American flag suit.
Thank you, Afroman, for your service, for your tenacity, for your humor, for your style, and for taking a stand for all of us. Though your troubles may have been related to the fact that you sometimes get high, you didn’t sit on the couch eating cookies and complaining about &#8220;the man.&#8221; Instead, you took the sage advice of another entertainer and hero, one Ric Flair, and said, “To be the man, you gotta beat the man.” 
Afroman, you beat the man and, in the process, you not only won, but we as a nation also won. Your victory is our victory. Your fight is an inspiration for anyone facing injustice, whether young or old. May your success inspire us all to be as resilient when faced with the specter of a boot pounding down on our cake, forever.
* * *
Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/47LCsh6lIWl7w1hJk7yhQc">Cookin’ Up a Story</a> podcast. You can also follow him on X: @rcromwell4
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Saturday Night Live – Season 48

Afroman’s Victory Is America’s Victory

Afroman

Police

Social Issues

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
The rise of Ozempic is as much a story of American ingenuity as it is of our culture’s posture toward its food. For every excess pound Americans gain, the pharmaceutical industry is just a few steps behind, developing band-aid after band-aid for our crisis of chronic disease. Yet while our alarm bells only recently began sounding over the obesity epidemic and its cascade of related health issues, the roots of our disordered relationship with food run decades deeper, back to the <a href="https://www.zerohedge.com/political/convenience-culture-crisis-how-second-wave-feminism-helped-make-america-sick">second wave</a> of feminism and the rise of a convenience-driven culture that ushered in mass dependence on ultra-processed foods. This deeper crisis is not one we can medicate ourselves out of: We are a nation that has deliberately forgotten how to feed itself.
Feeding America well is less about nostalgia than stopping a tangible, observable public health and environmental crisis. By now, data regarding our obesity, hypertension, and related deaths, diseases, and disorders saturates popular discourse almost too deeply to bear repeating, but the fact that our poor health has become a cliché doesn’t make it any less true. Much of this crisis, unsurprisingly, begins in the kitchen. The “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/15/garden/new-lost-generation-the-cooking-illiterate.html">cooking illiterate</a>,” a term coined by the New York Times, is reproducing faster than ever, with younger generations decreasingly likely to know how to cook. <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/food/do-millennials-really-not-know-how-to-cook-with-technology-they-dont-really-have-to">More than a quarter of millennials</a> say they couldn’t make a cake from a box mix, and <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/food/do-millennials-really-not-know-how-to-cook-with-technology-they-dont-really-have-to">under a third of 18-to-29-year-olds</a> say they feel “confident” in the kitchen. It isn’t an issue of free time, either; <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/america-addicted-food-delivery-takeout-plastics-coronavirus_n_5ed013eec5b64f10cb090b29">the COVID-19 lockdowns led to a spike in DoorDash and Uber Eats</a>, not a renaissance of home cooking.
Our obsession with convenience culture is not a coincidence. Rather, it’s the direct result of devaluing work such as homemaking, caregiving, and food preparation, traditionally women’s work, as lesser forms of work. This shift then combined with rising dual-income households to create a cultural and logistical void in domestic food production as households’ mothers entered the workforce. Industrial food companies were all too quick to rush into that void, seeking markets for post-WWII manufacturing capacity. Corporate interests aligned all too conveniently with the “you can have it all” ethos, promoting shelf-stable, processed foods as “freedom” from and “progress” beyond the home. This cultural transformation was hardly intentional; in many ways, it was barely even a conscious one. Nevertheless, markets picked up on our demonstrated preferences, and our homemade food was replaced by manufactured supplements that quickly became substitutes.
Industry replaced the family kitchen, filling a vacuum with promises that were too good to be true. Additives and preservatives were marketed as “science,” frozen and boxed meals were sold as “liberation,” and the rise of the microwavable dinners framed speed as ingenuity. Generational skills eroded as cooking, gardening, and food knowledge were outsourced, and food quality plummeted as additives, preservatives, artificial ingredients, refined seed oils, and industrial-scale commodity crops became dietary staples. Systems once centered around nourishment came to serve America’s new favorite god: efficiency.
With our food sequestered away in boxes and plastic, cobwebs began to grow around tables where we soon forgot how to commune. Feeding ourselves became a necessary evil rather than an excuse to socialize, exacerbating <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/16643">America’s declining social capital</a> along with its biomarkers. Rates of metabolic disease climbed along with the number of ingredients in our staple foods and our <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/youre-eating-out-of-season-and-its-costing-you-more-than-you-think">distance</a> — physical and cognitive — from our foods’ origins. Today, <a href="https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/children-struggle-to-name-common-vegetables-survey-shows-ctxv3z3kg?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqccnk_ELKc_OqByRR6uQ4YjzfobSGBhOu1floda0nEiqjZQMeW7GkMjReIAtDg%3D&amp;gaa_ts=6938c117&amp;gaa_sig=Y0jubow8RBDTeD5iIV-dOChvetUmJaIwJepvhCVvLAtwF0h5Ak-jYAqVLkYec1YGKuNXw48aCzhmDBdEbOSXjA%3D%3D">less than a third of children aged 7-11</a> can identify a beet or a zucchini, though few kids have the same struggle recognizing logos for McDonald’s or M&amp;M’s. The decline in familiarity with food may have begun with the decline in farming and cooking, but it has accelerated over just a few generations to a full-fledged outsourcing of our culinary and nutritional autonomy.
The consequences of our predicament are difficult to overstate. Our country is now unsuccessfully battling parallel rises in childhood chronic disease, allergies, autoimmune disorders, and metabolic illness, and our decline in food literacy means that children who don’t know where food comes from can’t learn from their equally clueless parents. While the biotech industry may be able to patch up some of our health issues, it cannot heal a sick culture. Our loss of connection to food is also an atrophy of cultural rituals, among them shared meals, family identity, and an intergenerational knowledge transfer we cannot rebuild with an injectable, pill, or patch. All of this is underscored by our deteriorating relationship with the land we call home, as industrial food production has increased our land degradation, reliance on synthetic inputs, and biodiversity loss, reinforcing a cycle where the cheapest calories are the least nutritious and most environmentally damaging.
Making America healthy again will require rewiring the broken systems that have made her sick. We need to fix the regulatory frameworks that make it easier to produce processed food at scale than to support small farms, diversified agriculture, or nutrient-rich perishables. We need to address the permitting barriers currently hindering regional food processing, regenerative farm expansion, and the infrastructure needed for local food systems. Most of all, we need to accept that a healthy America requires aligning food policy with human health and environmental integrity — not just agricultural output — and we need to write agricultural policy that reflects that. Ultimately, success would look like an inversion of the industrial food supply chain that prioritizes export capacity and shelf-stability over nutrient density and ecological health.
And yet policy alone cannot save us. The real work begins in the home, with the deeply pro-human and pro-family pursuits of reclaiming shared meals and rebuilding a relationship with what we eat. Promoting food literacy, normalizing cooking as a basic life skill, and restoring the dignity of the farm and the kitchen are all efforts that will need to begin from the ground up, not an executive order or a farm bill. Restoring agency over the food that sustains our bodies and communities is a project that will take several generations and, if we’re successful, save several more.
America cannot be healthy again until families, communities, and institutions reclaim the ability to produce, prepare, and understand real food. We’re mistaken to believe that the fallout we’re enduring is merely biological, and equally mistaken to believe its solutions are merely political. Our country’s health is a project capable of nourishing a nation starving socially, culturally, and environmentally, if we choose to pursue it. Restoring it promises both the work and the reward of a lifetime.
***
Danielle Butcher Franz is CEO of the American Conservation Coalition. As a founding member of ACC, Danielle has dedicated her career to building bridges between traditional conservative values and environmental advocacy.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

GettyImages-1974650688

The Weight Loss Shot Is Rising, But What Happened To The American Family Table?

Feminism

Critics of the War Department&#8217;s purchase of steak and lobster have largely fallen silent in the face of overwhelming evidence that this is standard practice for troops about to deploy. But while they were going, they were loud — and they were all Democrats.
 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blasted War Secretary Pete Hegseth on social media and accused him of wasting taxpayer money on luxuries such as “fruit baskets, Herman Miller recliners, ice cream machines, Alaskan king crabs, and a Steinway &amp; Sons grand piano.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Hegseth spent $93 billion in one month – roughly the cost of extending the ACA tax credits for THREE YEARS.
But instead of lowering American’s healthcare costs, Hegseth used millions of taxpayer dollars on fruit baskets, Herman Miller recliners, ice cream machines, Alaskan… <a href="https://t.co/bdCHRWip3P">https://t.co/bdCHRWip3P</a>
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/2031497646892872011?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
California Governor Gavin Newsom similarly circulated a <a href="https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/2031441496801529864">viral post</a> accusing the Pentagon of blowing through $93 billion in spending during a single month.
By now, countless commentators have pointed out that there&#8217;s nothing unusual about serving steak and lobster to troops on the verge of deploying. Military leaders have <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/284118/food_connects_us_nutrition_community_important_for_service_members">frequently emphasized</a> that small comforts can have an outsized impact on morale, particularly for troops stationed overseas or serving in stressful environments. And, according to a recent analysis from government watchdog group <a href="https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/pentagon-should-focus-on-defense">Open the Books,</a> the War Department purchased much of its steak and lobster towards the end of the last fiscal year, when federal agencies often accelerate purchases before budgets reset.
Faced with all this evidence, critics have been eating crow. But perhaps they should also eat fungus.
In 2024, the Biden Defense Department awarded nearly $1.5 million to The Better Meat Company, a California firm that develops alternative protein products using fungal roots grown in bioreactors. The company’s process feeds water and nutrients to the fungus in a fermentation tank, producing a gray semi-solid material that can be processed into protein ingredients.
Pentagon officials at the time insisted the project was not intended to place synthetic meat substitutes in soldiers’ Meals Ready-to-Eat (MREs). Instead, a Pentagon spokesman said the funding supported a facility for producing shelf-stable protein ingredients that could help sustain troops deployed around the world.
“Where was the outrage when the Biden administration wanted to force-feed franken-meat to America’s military heroes?&#8221; Jack Hubbard, executive director of the watchdog Center for the Environment and Welfare, said. &#8220;&#8216;Ick&#8217; factor aside, there are no long-term health studies on the effects of lab-grown meat. Our armed forces deserve better.”
Hegseth has made combating the Biden administration&#8217;s woke policies central to his mission at the helm of the War Department, saying that doing so boosts morale and makes the country safer.
“We became the woke department. But not anymore,” Hegseth said during a 2025 <a href="https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4318689/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-addresses-general-and-flag-officers-at-quantico-v/">address</a> to generals and flag officers. “This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics.”
Hegseth added that the effort included eliminating programs he said distracted from the military’s core mission.
“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions,” he said. “As I&#8217;ve said before and will say again, we are done with that sh*t. I&#8217;ve made it my mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal.”

US-IRAN-CONFLICT-DEFENSE

FLASHBACK: Dems Outraged Over Surf And Turf For Troops Were OK Feeding Them Fungus

Chuck Schumer

Department of War

Pentagon

Politics

U.S. Military

When one thinks of Whole Foods, one might think of its selection of cheeses and organic yet processed offerings. Perhaps one thinks of the pizza and all-natural deodorants and lotions. Maybe one thinks of the patchouli that struggles to mask the aroma that comes with all-natural deodorants. (If so, you’re <a href="https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/grocery/search?k=patchouli">out of luck</a>, though parent company Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=patchouli&amp;crid=3K7552CU37UUZ&amp;sprefix=patchouli%2Caps%2C236&amp;ref=nb_sb_noss_1">has you covered</a>.) 
What you most likely do not think of, though, is jail. This is a mistake for, unlike patchouli, when it comes to being detained, Whole Foods is <a href="https://www.curbed.com/article/whole-foods-theft-shoplifting-wealthy-new-yorkers.html">there for you</a>. 
When talking about Walmart or Target, theft is a given. If your local supercenter switches back and forth from self-checkout to human checkers, theft — or shrink, as it’s known in the retail world — is the real reason. It’s just so easy to bag a few items that didn’t get scanned.
Shrink is one of the prices of doing business. Its presence is factored into budgets, both in expected amount and the cost of hiring people to thwart it. General employees are instructed to ignore it thanks to America’s surplus of lawyers. Instead, as is done in Whole Foods, you deploy specialists to combat the problem. 
This isn’t new. Back in the mid ‘90s, when I worked at Hastings Books, Music, and Video, which for the younger readers was one of the various places people could go to buy books and music and rent videos before streaming was a thing, we knew our most prolific shoplifters. We could never catch them in the act, though, so they were free to steal with impunity. We didn’t have a Mike, as the Fort Greene Whole Foods does, but we had a Toni. Toni, a former state trooper, never caught them either. It didn’t help that they were certain traveling people who only came through periodically.
There were also teenagers who couldn’t afford the latest from Wu-Tang Clan. They were sporadic and small potatoes, though, unlike those who preferred to steal CDs that they would later sell back to us a few months later when they swung back through the area. Most importantly, all of them knew they were stealing. There was no rationalization.
For those who end up in Whole Foods jail, it’s all rationalization. It’s not that they can’t necessarily afford “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlqB8jARITw">Bonestorm</a>,” it’s that, like punching someone in the dark, they view shoplifting as a victimless crime. This isn’t exactly shocking coming from a collective that thinks Bernie Sanders is correct about <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/thinkprogress-attacks-sanders-for-changing-rhetoric-on-millionaires-after-he-becomes-one/">millionaires — make that billionaires</a>, doesn’t understand that assets aren’t necessarily walking around money, and just really needs a sushi tray before therapy. 
The therapist, presumably, does not get stiffed, though this piece in <a href="https://www.curbed.com/article/whole-foods-theft-shoplifting-wealthy-new-yorkers.html">Curbed</a> on Whole Foods jail doesn’t specify. (Journalism is dead.):
<blockquote>For years, she had thought of the California rolls, brownies, and protein shakes she stole as a kind of artist’s subsidy while she got her own practice off the ground. But on this particular day, her luck had run out. Astrid was late for therapy and hadn’t eaten, so she stopped in for a quick lunch. As usual, she began her meal in-store, moving toward the door with confidence, while ripping open a sushi tray. Soy-sauce packet between her teeth, one foot out the door, she felt a hand on her arm.</blockquote>
As with all the people mentioned in the piece, Astrid is a pseudonym. Her story is amazing. California rolls, brownies, and protein shakes are not exactly sustenance foods. She could have stolen bananas, which I am not condoning, even as some extoll <a href="https://x.com/jarvis_best/status/2032115230428577809">the benefits of shoplifting</a>, which are super healthy and also low cost, but no, Astrid had to go elite. This also gets to the other problems with this attitude.
First, shrink is really <a href="https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/2031855465626476651">detrimental to business</a>. In the early days of Walmart, founder Sam Walton gathered a group of store associates around him early one morning. He had a coffee can with $1 in pennies in it. He starts taking pennies out for overhead, utilities, merchandise, payroll, and the other obvious costs of doing business. When he was done with those, only four pennies remained. He then took two of those, explaining that those two cents represented shrink, meaning that despite starting with a dollar, profits only equaled two cents.
Walmart famously operates on razor-thin profit margins, usually in the 2-3% range, though. What about Whole Foods? Surely hippie Walmart is pulling <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-aapl-net-profit-margin-021910677.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAISnplhmtBjdDa40Y2mOHblKTAuhqObCSV4ECnIsB-TqrZz-KPPz5N_-oqrQl61gnqA0SfK787vzWrLnfc2KS_jnv-WQ0DVsKNWhXIF_X1PQDVzzCaaxnzJE_y1PCIVidLFanX4fAjJQz6FR21OTPNURAqIoy-yXr3ngGRNqhTxd">Apple-esque numbers</a>, right? Wrong! Whole Foods is operating on … razor-thin profit margins comparable to Walmart. Stealing eye cream, sushi trays, tuna rolls, soft French cheeses, steaks, and the like means the company has to pass its increased costs onto paying customers. In other words, if you see something, say something.
The other, and to my mind larger, problem with hipster heists is there is a much better solution, especially for those who are presumably concerned about food waste, climate change, and inequality: dumpster diving.
And look, I get it, dumpster diving isn’t as sexy as committing crime, but it is victimless. You don’t even have to call it dumpster diving. Just become a <a href="https://freegan.info/">freegan</a> and really lean into “strategies for sustainable living beyond capitalism.” Commit, people! It may even provide your life with enough meaning to get you out of therapy.
Will you have to learn to live with bread that’s maybe a little stale, not that I’ve ever had a prototypical freegan give me such a loaf, or strawberries that are a little mushy. Toast the bread. Enjoy fruit when it’s at its sweetest. Wonder why you didn’t go dumpster diving with and learn from your anti-capitalist acquaintance who’s now building a <a href="https://www.vastspace.com/">private for-profit space station</a>.
You can start tonight. And it won’t even require you to give up Whole Foods, though I’d steer clear of the sushi if I were you. The cover of darkness may be required to become a successful freegan, but if you fly too close to the sashimi, you’re going to feel that punch to your stomach.
* * *
Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/47LCsh6lIWl7w1hJk7yhQc">Cookin&#8217; Up a Story</a> podcast. You can also follow him on X: @rcromwell4
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Whole lotta trouble

Whole Foods Has Its Own ‘Jail’ For Shoplifters — Just Ask The Sushi Thief

shoplifting

Walmart

Whole Foods

After years of ignoring — and often enabling — fraud, waste, and abuse, many Democrat officials and left-wing pundits have finally found what they consider to be a financial “scandal” worth caring about: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s end-of-fiscal-year spending included just over $20 million in ribeye steaks, lobster tails, and crab legs.
Assuming these expenses must have been for lavish nonsense, Democrats from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to California Governor Gavin Newsom sprang to social media, mocking Hegseth, heaping scorn on the Trump administration, and promising a full-scale congressional investigation.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
In addition to billions of taxpayer dollars being burned in this war in Iran, reports are showing that Sec. Pete Hegseth blew $93 billion in federal DOD funding at the end of last year on:
$3.5 billion for cable TV 
$225 million for furniture 
$15.1 million for ribeye steaks 
$6.9…
— Rep. Melanie Stansbury (@Rep_Stansbury) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rep_Stansbury/status/2031500011700367429?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @Rep_Stansbury/X.com
None of them stopped to ask why the Department of War might spend this money on “surf and turf.” Longtime Democrat consultant Paul Begala, former chief strategist for Bill Clinton, even insisted in a ridiculous cable news display that Secretary Hegseth was eating all the steak and lobster himself.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
CNN&#8217;s Paul Begala falsely claims Pete Hegseth purchased ribeye steaks and lobster tails for himself, not the troops.
Scott Jennings, &#8220;Internet do something.&#8221;
Here are the receipts: <a href="https://t.co/VZ6j4j2sn2">pic.twitter.com/VZ6j4j2sn2</a>
— Thomas Hern (@ThomasMHern) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThomasMHern/status/2031911892109721777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @ThomasMHern/X.com
In their desperation to dunk on the Trump administration, Democrats humiliated themselves, insulted America’s servicemen, and reminded the general public of previous “waste, fraud, and abuse” they had endorsed, hid, and protected themselves – while illustrating just how little they understand the American military.
A <a href="https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/pentagon-should-focus-on-defense">March 9 opinion piece</a> by Open the Books, a government spending and campaign finance watchdog group, criticized spending reports from the Department of War near the end of September 2025 — near the end of the fiscal year — which listed several purchases in the millions of dollars for fine foods, technology, and furniture. These included $2 million on Alaskan king crabs, $6.9 million on lobster tails, $15.1 million on ribeye steaks, $1 million on salmon, and several hundreds of thousands of dollars on desserts.
To the average American, this is meant to sound bizarre and corrupt. Are generals, admirals, and Pentagon bureaucrats feasting on surf-and-turf nightly? That’s what Open the Books’ report, subsequent legacy media meltdowns, and Democrat officials’ craven pearl clutching is intending to convey. Just look at Newsom’s “Press Office” account on X, picturing AI slop of Hegseth reclining amid piles of lobster tail.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
HEGSETH BLOWING $93 BILLION OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS IN 1 MONTH !! <a href="https://t.co/L8GmyWQ2bt">pic.twitter.com/L8GmyWQ2bt</a>
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) <a href="https://twitter.com/GovPressOffice/status/2031441496801529864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @GovPressOffice/X.com
Even the libertarians got in on the lie, with Reason’s Eric Boehm <a href="https://reason.com/2026/03/11/war-rations/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=reason_brand&amp;utm_content=autoshare&amp;utm_term=post">fabricating a thumbnail</a> showing the Secretary of War at a table with a bright red lobster in front of him using Midjourney AI.
Far-left outlets like The New Republic attempted to whip this assertion into a frenzy, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/207555/pete-hegseth-billions-dollars-fruit-basket-stands-chairs-crab">claiming</a> “a good chunk of the budget wasn’t used for anything that could be considered a pertinent military expense,” thereby implying soldiers are left with MREs while the brass enjoys Hunger Games-in-the-Capital-style feasting.
But if this was all true, it wouldn’t just be liberal Karens and Democrat officials shouting about it — it would include the voices of angry former servicemen, veterans outraged over such frivolous spending.
It didn’t, because they know this is all a lie.
Serving surf-and-turf to troops — <a href="https://x.com/EODHappyCaptain/status/2031519972447465799?s=20">lobster tail</a>, <a href="https://x.com/infantrydort/status/2031495562072060271?s=20">crab legs</a>, ribeye steaks — right before deployment or after a stressful mission is a tried and true tradition of the United States military, not to mention a few American civilian and military contracting groups, too. With many units, <a href="https://x.com/MostlyPeaceful/status/2031800839455613332?s=20">surf-and-turf Fridays</a> are a common and well-deserved expense for our men and women in uniform.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
To all the idiots criticizing the pentagon for surf and turf here’s a story for you <a href="https://t.co/ZsC7JYI4dI">pic.twitter.com/ZsC7JYI4dI</a>
— Joey Jones (@Johnny_Joey) <a href="https://twitter.com/Johnny_Joey/status/2032120815781564850?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
It has long been an inside joke, a meme among America’s troops, to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNi_o4uy1WZ/?hl=en">beware being served the surf-and-turf</a> before a long briefing with battalion staff. Similar memes, videos, and jokes have long <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFjEAlNuq82/">celebrated camaraderie</a> over surf-and-turf following a large operation.
And this is just what our nation’s veterans ruthlessly mocked Democrats with all over social media.
The lack of self-respect in most of this reporting is simply pathetic. Eric’s Reason was comfortable enough with the deliberately misleading assertion to AI generate a picture for it (strange we couldn’t get photo after photo from Getty Images or Reuters of Hegseth chowing down on lobster tail, considering how much of it he apparently devours!), but had to cover his tracks later in the article.
All of this consternation about government spending is part of Democrats’ absurd pivot away from all the waste and fraud in the welfare programs they have favored for years. Where was their objection to the USAID revelations showing the millions upon millions the Biden administration had spent on transgender theater in South America, “Iraqi Sesame Street” for the Middle East, or spreading atheism in Nepal? Where was <a href="https://x.com/MollyJongFast/status/2031402915731034131?s=20">Molly Jong Fast’s criticism</a> of Pete Buttigieg spending almost $7.5 billion on just eight charging stations at random interstate rest stops?
All of the sudden, I’m supposed to be outraged because Hegseth’s Department of War spent money on giving our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, guardians, and coastguardsmen a decent meal? Do these weeping masses of outrage buying ice cream machines not remember that the United States had multiple Navy craft dedicated to delivering ice cream to our troops during the Second World War?
When billions in grants go to NGOs, fraudulent programs, and silly social adventures, the Department of War can afford to spend a drop in the bucket to give our troops a decent meal, replace old phones, computers, and furniture, or (God forbid) replace a piano.
Our troops deserve better than a nothingburger. Give them a good steak and some lobster. They deserve it.
* * *
Tony Kinnett is the host of The Tony Kinnett Cast at The Daily Signal. Connect with him on X: <a href="http://twitter.com/thetonus">@TheTonus</a>
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Soldier in tactical gloves holding canned MRE food.

Surf-And-Turfgate: Democrats Melt Down Over Steak And Lobster For Our Heroes

Defense Spending

Democrats

Pete Hegseth

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Dating back to the first Thanksgiving, Americans have formed community around the shared enjoyment of food. While ours is not the only country that does so, Americans’ traditional enjoyment of the potluck is in many ways characteristically democratic — the medley of tastes and textures shared at a potluck speaks to a national character that is less concerned with aesthetic refinement and a hefty price tag than with full bellies and good conversation.
If you are unfortunate enough to never have enjoyed a hearty potluck — unlikely if you were raised as an evangelical, particularly Baptist — it’s important that you envision the most opulent hodgepodge of sides and mains and desserts you have ever seen. The dishes are as diverse in tastiness as the loving hands that prepared them are diverse in personality and life story. Some people bring a bag of chips and salsa. Others bring their grandmother’s famous chili. Still others bring the dishes that will be wiped clean before second-rounders jostle their way to the front of the line with Costco-sized paper plates in hand.
Dessert comes in two courses: first, the cookie you teeter on the edge of your mountain of dinner food, and second, the more serious dessert helping. It&#8217;s the one you grab after throwing out your paper plate and making your way back to the potluck line after allowing a polite pause following everyone’s first helping. Every Sunday that a church hosts a potluck, no electrical outlet is left unused as the church’s mothers line the halls with steaming crockpots of barbecue meatballs and seven-layer Mexican dip. The intriguing medley of smells makes its way to your nose just as the final hymn’s refrain is sung.
The seminal 2000 book &#8220;Bowling Alone&#8221; by Robert D. Putnam could easily have a companion volume titled &#8220;Eating Alone.&#8221; For many Americans, even many who live with spouses and children, food is eaten over phones or across from TVs. The attention of the eater is split between screened entertainment and the food itself, rather than his own family and the food itself. Faced with a culture where enjoyment of food is no longer a social activity, individuals, particularly mothers and homemakers, are less likely to spend time cooking a meal that is consumed with such casual dismissal. From this, the culture of Uber Eats and single-serve microwave dinners has taken hold, further cementing our lonesome culture of eating. The American potluck bucks the trend of eating alone.
In a world where social gatherings, when they do occur, are built around the coming Instagram post about the event, the idea of setting up white folding tables and mismatched crockpots for your friends to eat a delicious meal that has no common theme may seem out of place. And it is. We are starved for socialization, but the perfection thrust upon us by curated lives on Instagram can make it seem like only people who have their lives, homes, and cookbooks in order can socialize around food that isn’t bought at a restaurant.
But the American potluck allows you to socialize with a large crowd in a low-pressure environment. You can contribute to the gathering without the entire planning and execution of the event falling on you. With the potluck, your only task is to bring one dish, a dish you would probably have cooked anyway if you had stayed home (assuming you weren’t planning to order in again). Maybe your house really is way too tiny to host, and your cooking skills really are too lacking to draw a crowd. Even so, the potluck lets you form community around food while only contributing a cheese, salami, and cracker platter from the grocery store.
For those who can cook, or who are interested in learning how, the potluck fosters community around home-cooked food. It is different in this way from a group of friends who make a habit of trying the best Thai restaurants the city has to offer every Thursday night. It’s not that this might not be a great way in itself to avoid a culture of lonely eating, but it is too expensive for most and unrealistic for families with young children. The democratic genius of the American potluck lies in the fact that every income level, family size, and age can enjoy what it has to offer with equal vigor.
What’s more, the potluck fosters a community of recipe-sharing, a phenomenon that is dying out with older generations of parents. There is something far more personal and friendship-inducing about asking Mrs. Johnson for the recipe for her au gratin potatoes than asking her for the name of the restaurant you saw her at on Instagram. Recipe-sharing expands our abilities as cooks while encouraging a community that offers distinct food options that we have created ourselves in our own home kitchens.
Churches are perhaps the most obvious place where potlucks can and should happen. But any group can host a potluck. The host need only provide some plastic cutlery and paper plates, instructing each guest to bring enough to feed his or her family and a few more. If you have never enjoyed a potluck, let me be the first to assure you that it is the most low-risk yet high-reward way to begin investing in real relationships that build lasting communities in a uniquely American way.
***
Sarah Wilder is a wife and mom living on a small homestead in Michigan. She is a cultural commentator and a writer, and her work is regularly published in outlets such as Chronicles Magazine, 1819 News, and American Mind.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

GettyImages-2165942839

Grandma’s Favorite After-Church Tradition Might Be The Cure For America’s Loneliness

Church

Friends

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued a response to Democrat Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, who was defending New England favorite Dunkin&#8217; from the ire of MAHA.
The exchange came after Kennedy Jr. took aim at Dunkin&#8217; during a rally last week at Brazos Hall in Austin, Texas.
“We’re going to ask Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks, ‘Show us the safety data that show that it’s OK for a teenage girl to drink an iced coffee with 115 grams of sugar in it,&#8217;” RFK Jr. said at the time. “I don’t think they’re going to be able to do it.”
“No one is taking away your Dunkin&#8217;. But isn&#8217;t it reasonable to ask whether a drink loaded with 180 grams of sugar is safe?” RFK Jr. wrote in response to Healey’s tweet, which included an illustration of a Dunkin’ beverage cup and text beneath it saying, “Come and take it.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
No one is taking away your Dunkin&#8217;. But isn&#8217;t it reasonable to ask whether a drink loaded with 180 grams of sugar is safe? <a href="https://t.co/nV6KLOBf94">https://t.co/nV6KLOBf94</a>
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecKennedy/status/2029648656005996907?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 5, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
His position was further clarified after the rally.
“Secretary Kennedy also announced the closure of the GRAS (generally recognized as safe) loophole, requiring any new food ingredient to provide proof of safety,” MAHA Action, a Kennedy-aligned nonprofit, said in a statement <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hhs-secretary-kennedy-announces-nutrition-requirements-for-medical-licensing-baby-formula-safety-standards-at-austin-rally-for-real-food-302701305.html">posted</a> on Monday. 
“Companies including Dunkin&#8217; Donuts and Starbucks will be required to produce safety data they were supposed to have maintained. The reforms aim to ensure American foods follow the highest safety and nutritional standards globally.”
RFK Jr. railed against the GRAS loophole during a “60 Minutes” appearance last month.
“That loophole was hijacked by the industry, and it was used to add thousands upon thousands of new ingredients into our food supply,” Kennedy said at the time. “In Europe there’s only 400 legal ingredients. This agency does not know how many ingredients there are in American food.”
“There is…no way for any American to know if a product is safe if it is ultra processed,” he added.

Dunkin

RFK Jr. Takes Not So Sweet Dig At Democratic Governor In Dunkin’ Donuts Fight

Health

MAHA

Massachusetts

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Several fast food chain execs have jumped into the fray, mocking the viral video of McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski awkwardly promoting the new Big Arch burger.
Pete Suerken, president of Wendy’s, shared a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/wendys-international_peteknows-activity-7434960151893200896-gMPz">video</a> on Wednesday featuring him trying one of the restaurant’s iconic Baconator burgers. Suerken stepped up to the grill and slapped down the patties, flipped them over, and reiterated the fast food chain’s motto that their burgers were “fresh, never frozen.” 
He also trolled a popular McDonald’s complaint about the soft serve machines always being broken. Suerken portioned out a Frosty and said, “Is this set up today? Oh, wait, our machines are always working.” 
The exec sat down to enjoy a Baconator with a Frosty and some fries. He recorded himself taking a large bite and saying, “This is exactly what a good hamburger should be.” Next, Suerken dipped his fries in his Frosty.
It wasn’t just Wendy’s getting in on the joke. Burger King posted a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@burgerking/video/7612805160967884063?lang=en">video</a> to its official TikTok page on Monday, showing company president Tom Curtis taking a big bite of the chain&#8217;s famous Whopper burger.
“Only one thing missing — a napkin,” he said after chowing down. Burger King wrote in the caption, “Thought we’d replay this.”
The controversy is going worldwide. The North Vancouver–based company A&amp;W Canada also released a video of popular company spokesperson Allen Lulu dressed in an outfit similar to what Kempczinski wore in the original McDonald’s video. 
<blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVcep2AkQ2U/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14">
<div style="padding: 16px;">
&nbsp;
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"></div>
</div>
&nbsp;
<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVcep2AkQ2U/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by A&amp;W Canada (@awcanada)</a>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
Lulu did a parody of the original, holding up an A&amp;W Teen Burger and jokingly calling it a “burger product” and remarking on the “unique bread some would call a bun” and “lettuce, which is green.” He also noted the “pickles,” which he described as making the burger “taste pickly.”
He also took a huge bite of the burger before inviting Kempczinski to join him for lunch. “Just you, me, and a couple of Teen Burgers,” he says in the clip.
The original McDonald’s video was posted to Kempczinski’s Instagram last month, but <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-mcdonalds-ceo-struggles-through-new-big-arch-burger-goes-viral">went viral </a>only recently. In it, the fast food CEO uses awkward language to describe the new menu offering, calling it a “product” repeatedly before taking a nibble he described as a “big bite.”
Viewers said it appeared Kempczinski was inauthentic and didn’t really care for the food at all. “What’s the opposite of genuine and authentic?” one popular Instagram comment said.
“This man does not like that ‘product,’” another person agreed.

Big Arch fail

Wendy’s, Burger King Pile On After McDonald’s CEO’s Big Arch Taste Test Fail

BURGER WARS: Wendy's, Burger King Roast McDonald's CEO's Big Arch Taste Test Fail

Burger King

Fast-Food

McDonald’s

viral video

Wendy's

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Buzzwords such as &#8220;all natural,&#8221; &#8220;farm fresh,&#8221; &#8220;superfood,&#8221; and &#8220;probiotic&#8221; have flooded supermarket shelves for years. The labels are pastoral. The fonts are earthy. But marketing has a way of borrowing the language of tradition without restoring its substance.
Health bloggers will tell you to shop the perimeter of the grocery store to select the best options. And yet the same consistently available fruit, vegetables, dairy, meat, cheese, and bread are there around every turn of the cart. Strawberries in February. Tomatoes in January. Blueberries without a season.
What if we weren’t meant to eat strawberries and tomatoes in February? What if late winter, especially in colder regions, was designed for cruciferous and root vegetables such as beets and broccoli, along with fall harvests that store well and sustain?
Instead of chasing superfoods imported from thousands of miles away, seasonal eating invites you to eat what grows abundantly where you live. Reduced time from harvest to plate often means greater nutrient retention and bioavailability. You get your fill of what’s thriving; then you let it go until it returns. Nature, it turns out, already built the meal plan.
Leafy greens and citrus dominate winter harvests for a reason. Greens provide vitamin K and minerals such as calcium. Citrus is rich in vitamin C. Together, they support immune function and assist the body’s ability to utilize vitamin D during months with less sun exposure. In summer, fruit ripens heavy and sweet, offering hydration and quick glucose fuel when activity levels rise and heat increases sweat loss. Fall brings storable foods such as squash, potatoes, apples, and roots, dense starches that sustain as temperatures drop.
Buy what’s in season first. Build meals around abundance instead of preference. From there, proximity becomes the goal. Farmers markets are often the easiest entry point, offering direct access to growers who can tell you when stone fruit peaks and when the broccoli will fade. Then you can go further, joining Community Supported Agriculture programs or herd shares for dairy, splitting beef shares, or ordering bulk dry goods through wholesale cooperatives such as Azure Standard to reduce reliance on conventional distribution chains. Seasonal eating becomes less about finding the right label and more about knowing who grew your food and when it was harvested.
Here’s how I do it. When tomatoes are vibrant and lining farmers market tables in July, I eat them daily — until I don’t want to look at another tomato slice for the next year. Beyond their peak summer flavor, tomatoes are one of the rare foods that actually become more beneficial when cooked. Heat breaks down their cell walls, making lycopene, a powerful antioxidant, more bioavailable, meaning the body can absorb it more efficiently. While some vitamin C is lost in the process, simmering tomatoes into sauce, especially with olive oil or meat, enhances the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients, reflecting a glimpse of wisdom behind traditional cooking methods.
So I find a farmer who sells inexpensive cases and host a sauce-making party with a few friends. We simmer, can, and stack the pantry shelves. In winter, lasagnas, tomato soups, and homemade ketchup, bbq, and enchilada sauces curb any craving for a fresh tomato my family might have. I also dehydrate several jars of sun-dried tomatoes for nights when we want a cast-iron skillet of &#8220;marry me chicken.&#8221;
When blackberries peak, I freeze trays of them for smoothies in January. If corn is cheap and sweet in late summer, I blanch and freeze it for winter soups. Basil becomes pesto, and peppers are blistered and frozen for winter fajitas.
Jams and jellies are beautiful, but be mindful of unnecessary sugar. Preservation is about smoothing the transition between seasons, especially during the hungry gap cold regions experience in late winter when fresh harvests are scarce, and stored crops carry the table.
Meat ties the rhythm together year-round. While produce shifts dramatically, animal protein provides steady nourishment. In colder months, especially, many people naturally gravitate toward higher-fat cuts and slow-cooked dishes, meals that feel grounding and warm. Seeking out local beef from nearby ranchers deepens that connection. When you buy a quarter or half animal, you learn to cook differently. You utilize more nose-to-tail cuts, from roasts and short ribs to bones for broth, allowing nothing to go to waste. 
Here’s what’s on my table this week. I love to start with warm marinated olives. Gently heat extra virgin olive oil with garlic, citrus peels, herbs, and crushed red pepper flakes. Add green olives, cover, and remove from heat. Serve with sourdough for dipping. For a side, I&#8217;ll have citrus kale salad. Massage chopped kale with olive oil, salt, and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Add orange slices and fennel fronds or dill. Finish with toasted nuts and shaved Parmesan or feta. Then there&#8217;s the main course, slow-cooked braised beef roast with sheet pan root vegetables: carrots, beets, turnips, and potatoes tossed with fresh herbs, chopped garlic, and a spoonful of your fat of choice, roasted until tender.
I learned many of these cooking skills from my grandmother. In 2018, after years of practicing them quietly at home, I began teaching preserving and homesteading classes to others. People were tired of chasing labels, trying to navigate what was good. They wanted tools, not trends. We aren’t sitting on the porch shucking peas and corn with our families anymore. But maybe it’s time we bring some of that back.
Seasonal eating won’t make you immune to illness. But it does something quieter and arguably more important. It restores awareness. You begin to notice when asparagus arrives. You anticipate zucchini season. You miss melons in winter, and that absence makes their return sweeter. When we accept that not every fruit belongs in every month, we relearn something modern culture has flattened. We trade convenience for connection to our food and the seasons that were shaping it long before we ever touched a cart.
***
Lindsey Hickman is a lifestyle writer covering the intersection of news, health, faith, and modern life, focused on the human stories behind today’s headlines.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Caucasian woman slicing a Butternut Squash on a wooden cutting board.

You’re Eating Out Of Season — And It’s Costing You More Than You Think

Nature

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski has gone viral on social media after a video of him tasting the new Big Arch burger started circulating online.
Viewers made comments about the fast food chain exec’s awkward demeanor and wording, saying it was clear that he hated the “product” and didn’t really want to eat it.
“I love this product, it is so good. I’m going to do a tasting right now, but I’m going to eat this for my lunch, just so you know,” Kempczinski says in the video, which was shared to drum up interest in the new addition to the McDonald’s menu.
<blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUTZ_ilDl41/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14">
<div style="padding: 16px;">
&nbsp;
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div>
<div style="padding-top: 8px;">
<div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div>
</div>
<div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;">
<div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 8px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-left: auto;">
<div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div>
<div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"></div>
<div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"></div>
</div>
&nbsp;
<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUTZ_ilDl41/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Chris Kempczinski (@chrisk_mcd)</a>
</div>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
He explained how the burger has “two quarter-pound patties, a delicious Big Arch sauce, and of course, some lettuce, along with crispy onions and pickles.”
Kempczinski awkwardly approached the burger, noting that he “didn’t even know how to attack it,” before taking a hesitant bite, which he described as being bigger than it actually was.
“Mmm, that is so good, that’s a big bite for a Big Arch,” the CEO said, showing the camera the tiny nibble he took out of the massive burger.
Social media commenters didn’t hold back with their mockery.
“What’s the opposite of genuine and authentic?” one popular Instagram comment said.
“That was the smallest first bite I’ve ever seen,” another person agreed.
“This man does not like that ‘product,’” another person wrote.
“Watching the McDonald&#8217;s CEO tentatively nibble on the Big Arch like it&#8217;s a radioactive artifact from the dollar menu, calling it &#8216;product&#8217; instead of food, is the most unintentionally hilarious endorsement fail since New Coke,” one X commenter <a href="https://x.com/RoyalMelanite/status/2028020316644249747">added</a>.
The video was posted to Kempczinski’s Instagram last month, but didn’t go viral until now, just days before the Big Arch is set to debut on McDonald’s menus nationwide on Tuesday, March 3. This fact led to some fans wondering if the awkward video and its promotion is nothing more than a way to get attention for the new fast food menu offering.

Menu