• Nescafé may earn the cosmetics industry’s envy this year with its new collagen-infused cup ’o joe. The edible beauty product, part of the company’s new Body Partner brand, has hit Asian markets with notable success. Drinking oneself young might not be all Nescafé would have us believe. The New York Times found one expert who claims the product improves skin no better than a chicken wing. [New York Times]

• Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: sodium, labelling laws and the local food movement will be the hottest food stories in 2010. The National Post is making these predictions, since the Sodium Working Group will release its findings on salt consumption this year, and Ontario’s Bill 156 (making it mandatory for chain restaurants to publish calorie counts) might actually make it out of committee. Also, the assumption that local is better is now raising brows among a growing number of experts who wonder if the philosophy is a good fit for a northern country. Sounds like 2009 all over again. [National Post]

• A dash of lament may be added to hickory-flavoured teas in the coming months. A deficit of as much as 130 million kilograms of the ingredient could widen a global tea shortage, raising costs for such major marketing companies as Tata Tea Ltd., owner of Tetley, and Unilever Plc. [Bloomberg]

• Toronto restaurateur Teeradach (Neil) Pramauntanyatath, owner of the Danforth’s Bangkok Spoon, may have expanded his franchise in search of kinder clientele. Of his new Bangkok Spoon DeLuxe, based in Dundas, Ontario, he says, “The people are so nice here, compared to Toronto.” [Hamilton Spectator]

• Sundays are “pigging-out days,” says 90-pound Torontonian model Daniyka Smith, whose borderline-newsworthy food rules rest on conspicuously thin evidence. “It’s not about how much weight you are,” she adds, “it’s about how toned you are.” Other dubious morsels of dietary wisdom include the following: “If you’re starving, you’re going to faint,” and “A lot of girls I know starve themselves and are [as a result] depressed.” The moral of the story appears to be that if one doesn’t lighten up about calorie counting, one could get embarrassed in the Edmonton Sun. [Edmonton Sun]