UPDATE 12-16-10: Yoxi announced that the team from San Francisco, called the Yudon Project, won the competition.
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12-14-10:
Given our country's obesity problem and fascination with foods like french fries and pizza, I was heartened to read about a national competition to reinvent fast food. Yoxi, a new "creative competition and social game" site that invites users to create solutions to social issues, asked people to make fast food healthful and delicious. And, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, a local team is in the finals with its pad Thai wrap - a dish they created because "it is affordable, easy to prepare and portable, and it has 'that added crave factor.'"
Online voting ends tonight, and the winning group, which will receive $5,000, will be announced tomorrow. Yoxi's goal is to see "great ideas brought to the real world," and I'm curious whether that will happen here. (I, for one, would welcome a healthier-fast-food place in my neighborhood!)
Previously: Can restaurant chefs help curb obesity rates in America? and Study shows U.S. obesity rates will expand over next 40 years