DES MOINES, Iowa — The “Taste of Iowa” menu for Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s dinner in Des Moines on Wednesday night didn’t go down well with nutritionists. They said the bacon-lettuce-and-tomato bites and potatoes stuffed with white cheddar, for instance, were dietary perils high in calories, sodium and saturated fat.
“It’s a celebration of Iowa foods, but this menu is over the top in terms of calories and the amount of food,” said Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group. “There’s very little chance you’re going to walk out without eating all your day’s calories in one meal.”
The menu featured two meat entrees — bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin with cider and green peppercorns, and Angus beef tenderloin with a demi glaze and onion ring. Xi and his fellow guests had a choice of three desserts: a crème apple-pie cupcake topped with Iowa maple-syrup frosting, blue cheese drizzled with Iowa honey and a mini Iowa sweet-corn cheesecake.
At least there were a few vegetables, Wootan said. The edamame and corn salad paired the Asian-prepared soybean with the largest U.S. crop. Xi stayed with an Iowa family in 1985 as part of a delegation to study corn technology.
Pork tenderloin was a wise choice because it’s the leanest cut, Wootan said.
“But why are they wrapping it in bacon?” she said. “Wrapping it in bacon is counterproductive. Bacon and other processed meat are the fifth-leading source of saturated fats.”
The meal featured staples familiar to the 3 million residents of Iowa, where young women compete in January to wear the Iowa Pork Queen crown. The runner-up becomes the Iowa Pork Princess. At any one time, there are 19 million hogs in Iowa, according to the state Pork Producers Association.
The dinner featured food grown and raised in a state where residents are more likely than most Americans to be obese and overweight — and to eat fewer fruits and vegetables, according to the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The pork on the menu got a robust defense from Jim Thompson, director of producer relations at Eden Pork in Des Moines. The company produces about 14,500 pigs a year, with each taken to a local slaughter plant in Des Moines and hand inspected.
“This is an opportunity for us to open up new markets,” Thompson said. “It’s great to get our name out as the supplier of pork for this occasion. We produce a high-quality product.”
