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Dish named for China’s capital has its origins in Nanjing, hundreds of kilometres to the south.Beijing: Where does Peking Duck come from? It is a trick question: the dish named for China’s capital has its origins in Nanjing, hundreds of kilometres to the south. The tidbit is one of the revelations in a museum opened earlier this month to mark the 150th anniversary of the Quanjude restaurant, now the seven-storey flagship of a chain with franchises as far away as Australia. Statues of roasters, photos of officials dining and menus going back 100 years trace the duck’s route from humble...

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced this week the Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Tax (SWEET Act), which aims to institute a tax of one cent per teaspoon—4.2 grams—of sugar, high fructose corn syrup or caloric sweetener. The measure (HB 5279), introduced Wednesday says, “A 20-ounce bottle of soda contains about 16 teaspoons of sugars. Yet, the American Heart Association recommends that Americans consume no more than six to nine teaspoons of sugar per day.” Even though the manufacturers of the sweet drinks are targeted to pay the tax, the text of the bill itself notes that the goal is to reduce public consumption...

Move over, organic milk. Health-conscious consumers are increasingly choosing a new bovine beverage: Grass-fed milk. Derived from cows fed mostly grass—not corn or soy—the pricey beverage is capturing a growing market share among consumers, The Wall Street Journal reports. […] Branded “Grassmilk,” it has cream on top and is lightly pasteurized with heat. A half-gallon sells for close to $6, more than a dollar more than the average price of organic milk and more than double the price of traditional milk. …

Butter and jam usually conjures up images of warm toast, but on an Indianapolis highway today it meant a huge slippery mess that closed part of busy highway during the morning rush hour. A dairy truck crashed overnight on Interstate 465 and spilled over 45,000 pounds of butter, margarine and whipped cream. "Our preliminary conclusion is that the truck driver fell asleep while driving, hit a barrier, and crashed at around 3:30 a.m.," Capt. David Dursten, spokesman for the Indiana State Police told ABC News. The semi split in half, spilling tubes

With the sun beating down on the strange and exotic-looking meats on sale — some dripping blood, some heavily smoked and impossible to identify — the sights and sounds at this London market are straight out of Africa. Skinned goat carcasses dangle overhead, blackened cow heads and lamb brains are lined up in trays, while baskets tucked in darker corners brim with yellowing strips of cured flesh. Nearby, women hawk spices, cassava and yams, as men in shacks offer cheap airline tickets to Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon, as well as cash transfers back to family members still living on the...

If you don't eat chili peppers or hot curry much you may want to reassess that given new research that claims the peppers and curry can play a role in reducing the risk of colorectal and bowel tumors, as well as extend a person's lifespan by 30 percent. The study claims the active ingredient in chili peppers, called dietary capsaicin, decreases the cancer risk as it triggers chronic activation of an ion channel called TRPV1, which is a sensory neuron that protects the intestine against acidity and spicy chemicals. In essence adding chili peppers and hot curries to the diet...

A Winston-Salem restaurant is giving customers a 15 percent discount if they pray in public. Mary’s Gourmet Diner in Winston-Salem gives the discount for anyone who takes the time to appreciate their food before digging in. Although the restaurant has been offering the special for four years, a recent Facebook post featuring a receipt with the discount has gone viral, highlighting the practice. …

In honour of this joyous occasion, which fittingly falls a day after Dry July ends, here are 10 awesome facts about beer. The oldest beer ad was found on a clay tablet, dated 4000BC It was adorned with an ample-bosomed woman holding two golden goblets and inscribed with the caption, “Drink Elba Beer — the beer with the heart of a lion!” Never clink glasses when drinking in Hungary. Instead make eye contact, raise your glass up to eye level and say ‘Egeszsegere!’ (Hungarian for ‘Cheers!’) Cenosillicaphobia is the fear of an empty beer glass The first recorded drink driving...

Elephants, giraffes and bears in the East Bay are dining on bruised bananas and jacked-up jackfruit after a big-rig truck overturnedThe elephants, giraffes and bears at the Oakland Zoo got to nosh on African jackfruit and bananas Wednesday thanks to a overturned big rig that dumped 60,000 pounds of fruit in Livermore near the Altamont Pass earlier in the week. Truck Dumps 60K Pounds of Bananas in Livermore "The elephants loved it," Brian Deering, president of the nonprofit F.A.I.R. Foundation, told NBC Bay Area. He masterminded the transfer – taking the lightly squished fruit from the side of Interstate Highway...

There is clearly no separation of church and plate at Mary's Gourmet Diner in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The pious ("pie"-us?) proof has been delivered unto the social media masses in the form of a picture of a receipt from the restaurant, showing a 15% discount applied for "Praying in Public." The tab belonged to Jordan Smith, who had traveled to Winston-Salem for a business trip and stopped for breakfast at Mary's with two colleagues Wednesday morning. She tells HLN the group "prayed over our meal and the waitress came over at the end of the meal and said, 'Just so...

Elizabeth Daly, now 21, and her friend had their car swarmed by state agents after their case of water was mistaken for beer Daly had initially sought $40million in damages for a tremor in her right hand, intense anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems The young women had been shopping at a local Virginia grocery store one night in April 2013 for a charity fundraiser the next day A college student in Virginia reached a $212,500 settlement on Wednesday following her arrest last year when state agents had mistaken a case of water for beer. Attorney General Mark R....

Chocolate. Whatever your preferred form or flavor is, the love of it is something that feels universal, shared between us. We come together over dinner for it, celebrate birthdays and holidays with it. The industry that produces chocolate crisscrosses the entire world. But for the cocoa bean farmers from M'batto, Ivory Coast, seen in the video above, that connection didn't come full circle until Selay Marius Kouassi, guest correspondent for Metropolis TV, visited and offered them a taste of their first chocolate bar. Ivory Coast, a small country on the west coast of Africa, is the world's leading producer of...

LIVE THE WAGE: Politicians can’t seem to figure out how to live on $77 a week – could you? In an effort to gain sympathy for raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, numerous politicians accepted a challenge to “Live the Wage.” To no one’s surprise, they couldn’t do it. They were going to live for a week on $77 because that’s all that the challenge sponsors say a full-time worker earning minimum wage makes, after average taxes and housing expenses are deducted, of course. But then, they weren’t supposed to be able to get by on that...

Since Florida’s frontier days when cattlemen drove their herds through the state’s vast fields and forests, ranchers and native panthers have been natural enemies. The ranchers seek to nurture and protect their calves, while the panthers see them as prey. Human development won the battle, driving the large, tawny, cats to the brink of extinction before successful efforts to restore them began decades ago. But with Florida’s panther population recovering, some farmers complain the protected 6-to-7-foot long predators are once again killing their calves. …

Cargill plans to close a Milwaukee beef-processing plant which employs about 600 people on Friday due to a shortage of cattle. A Midwest drought in 2011 and 2012 hurt cattle levels, said Cargill spokesman Mike Martin. Now, many herders are breeding the cattle they have and not selling them. U.S. beef cattle herd is at its lowest level since 1951, Cargill said. …

Three reporters for a food safety publication have been subpoenaed in the $1.2 billion defamation lawsuit against ABC related to the network’s coverage of a meat product derided as “pink slime.” […] Beef Products Inc. sued ABC in 2012 alleging that its reports led to plant closures and layoffs because it misled consumers into believing the product was unsafe. …

Corporate America can learn a lot from a chicken burrito. As many companies struggle to boost prices without alienating consumers, they may want to study Mexican-food chain Chipotle, which has managed to do both. Companies including Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc (CMG.N), Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and PepsiCo (PEP.N) have shown they're able to take advantage of quality, trendiness, and, in the case of Pepsi's snack foods, market dominance, to maintain high prices or even raise them faster than the inflation rate, now at about 2.1 percent in the U.S. Chipotle raised chicken-dish prices by 5 percent this year after leaving them...

A fish factory worker survived spending more than four days trapped inside an industrial freezer, licking ice to keep himself alive. Mai Thanh Sang feared he was going to die when he was buried under bags of fish fillets after shelving units collapsed as he and three colleagues cleaned the -22C storeroom. Thoughts of his wife and baby helped the 23-year-old keep his spirits up while rescue workers spent 103 hours trying to find him. When they reached him, Mr Sang was suffering from the worst case of frostbite doctors at Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam,...

One of the world's largest food companies says it's about to take a big bite out of global warming. General Mills, maker of Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Wheaties, said Monday that it will set a target to limit air pollution throughout its entire supply chain next summer. This marks the first time the food giant has pledged to measurably rein in greenhouse-gas emissions from its agricultural suppliers of ingredients like soy and sugarcane. Environmental watchdogs say the effort is significant. According to Oxfam, air pollution created by the agricultural industry makes up a quarter of total greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide....

The nation’s food stamp program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), provided a record $74.6 billion in benefits to needy Americans in Fiscal Year 2012—paying out $2 billion too much, according to the annual quality control report for FY 2012, the most recent year for which data is available. And only in Washington could that $2 billion in overpayments be viewed as a good thing. […] The data show the payment error rate has declined over time, from 5.64% in FY 2007; 5.01% in FY 2008; 4.36% in FY 2009; 3.81% in FY 2010; 3.80% in FY...