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RUSH: This is from Rayford, North Carolina. Carolina Journal. I'm gonna read it to you exactly as it printed out here: "A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious. The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice did not meet US Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day." Again, let me read this to you again: "The...

Welcome to the 10th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or ten- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe. (All 2011 FReeper Recipes are on my profile page as an Online Cookbook Thread Link)

First Lady Michelle Obama got rock-star treatment Friday night as she visited a Central Florida family on a tour celebrating the second anniversary of her Let's Move! diet-and-exercise campaign. Neighbors of the Halls family, who hosted Obama at their home, lined up to catch a glimpse of the first lady. Cheers erupted from the crowd as Obama left about 8:15 p.m. and waved before being whisked away in a waiting sport utility vehicle. (snip) In the next leg of her Orlando-area tour, Obama will speak Saturday morning at Northland, A Church Distributed in Longwood with representatives of religious groups from...

Hold the mystery meat: Military mess halls soon will be serving more fruits, vegetables and low-fat dishes under the first program in 20 years to improve nutrition standards across the armed services. First lady Michelle Obama and Pentagon officials announced the effort Thursday during a visit to Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas, where the military has been experimenting with ways to improve the quality and variety of foods served on base. The first lady toured a gleaming cafeteria line, then announced the program in a dining hall filled with service members whose plates were overflowing with salad greens,...

When the economy hit the skids a few years ago, we responded with tactics that have gotten us through previous recessions: We stopped eating out and traveling as much, curbed our discretionary spending and chose generic items for basics like groceries. But then something strange happened: We began to prefer many of those store brands. Increasingly, we’re willing to pay even more for them. What’s going on here? According to the Wall Street Journal, stores have raised the prices of private-label nonperishable food by 5.3%, compared to a 1.9% increase for goods made by national brands. Store-brand versions of perishable...

TV’s smartest chef, Alton Brown, is ending his blockbuster show after more than a decade. More than 250 episodes later, Brown has achieved his goal of tutoring the masses, introducing terms like “hygroscopic,” “Maillard reaction,” and “polyphenol oxidase” into the vocabulary of the average home cook. He was the first TV food personality to get cerebral about groceries, helping viewers get to know the properties of ingredients and how best to manipulate them for maximum taste. (What other chef would use Tinkertoys to explain sugar crystallization?) Brown and his wife, DeAnna, built the Good Eats empire from scratch, shooting the...

On the second anniversary of the campaign to fight childhood obesity, reflecting on how smart it was to target school lunch and food deserts. On the occasion of the two-year anniversary of Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign, it's time to reflect again on what the campaign means for the White House, for childhood obesity, and for the food movement. A year later, I summarized some of the campaign's accomplishments. From the beginning, I've been impressed with its smart choice of targets: to reduce childhood obesity by improving school food and inner city access to healthy foods. I'm reminded of the...

Vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients in our foods, we expect. But information? According to recent research from China’s Nanjing University, when people eat rice, tiny sequences of microRNA from the plant-based food can survive the body’s digestive process and end up absorbed in human tissue where — and here’s the reason why we need to know about this study — plant microRNA may actually affect how our cells behave and function. In the study, Exogenous plant MIR168a specifically targets mammalian LDLRAP1: evidence of cross-kingdom regulation by microRNA, published in the Journal Cell Research, the genetic material from rice showed up...

Sitting here now smoking a pork shoulder...not exactly a NY dish, but I'm in MD now and have Virginians coming, so they get it. Son-in-law bringing Boston Baked Beans for the Pats symbol; also, my beautiful wife making pizza appetizers using sliced-in-half pita bread and fontina cheese. Veggies and dip, chips and dip (crab dip for MD), mac and cheese coming, potato salad and cole slaw for pulled pork. Also, Kosher hot dogs for friend who won't eat the pork...plus sauerkraut and fried onions to go with the dogs.We are all Giants fans...so GO BLUE! We always have LaBatt's Blue...

Welcome to the 9th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or nine- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe. (All 2011 FReeper Recipes are on my profile page as an Online Cookbook Thread Link)

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Jamie Oliver has won an apparent victory by persuading McDonald’s to remove a form of ‘reclaimed meat’ from its burgers. It’s a victory built on ignorant scaremongering. News from America, where McDonald’s has responded to a segment in Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution by removing an ingredient called ‘finely textured lean beef trimmings’ from its burgers. This luxurious-sounding product is in fact another form of ‘reclaimed meat’, where meat processors try to get every last bit of meat from an animal’s carcass. In the segment, Oliver shows a group of parents and children a cow and explains the value of each...

This year will mark another push for aggressive food regulation at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On tap, salt regulations and industrywide regulations dictating which foods can be advertised on television. In October 2011, the FDA announced in the Federal Register that it would begin accepting comments on “approaches to reducing sodium consumption.” The announcement cited 2005 medical studies’ findings that excess sodium consumption is a contributory factor in the development of hypertension. Yet studies conducted subsequent to that 2005 study came to different conclusions. For instance, in 2006, the American Journal of Medicine published a study of 78...

Disgust is one of our most basic emotions—the only one that we have to learn—and nothing triggers it more reliably than the strange food of othersDisgust is one of our most basic emotions—the only one that we have to learn—and nothing triggers it more reliably than the strange food of others In the last several years there has been an explosion of research on disgust. Disgust is one of the six basic emotions—along with joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear—but it is the only one that has to be learned, which suggests something about its complexity. Most children get their...

Welcome to the 8th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or eight- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe. (All 2011 FReeper Recipes are on my profile page as an Online Cookbook Thread Link)

A fear-inducing advertisement, posted around New York City, warning that too much sugary soda will give you diabetes and cause you to lose limbs has come under scrutiny because the amputee in the poster lost his leg due to Photoshop, not diabetes. The poster, a product of Michael Bloomberg’s health crusade in the city, depicts an obese man with a missing leg and warns that growing portions, specifically of soda, can cause type 2 diabetes and subsequent amputations. “The portion sizes that are marketed are often much more than humans need,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley in a statement...

On January 25, 2012, The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released the new version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM), the first major update since 1990. See the new map, detailed state specific PHZMs, as well as PHZMs for Australia, Canada, China, Europe, and Japan...

First Lady Michelle Obama received a warm welcome from the students and teachers at an elementary school Wednesday where she promoted new tougher nutrition standards for school meals. The students clapped and cheered as Mrs. Obama entered the cafeteria at Parklawn Elementary School in Alexandria, Va. The first lady, who was was joined by celebrity chef Rachael Ray and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, picked up food from the lunch line before sitting with the kids and teachers. Obama and Vilsack unveiled the updated nutrition standards for school meals required by the 2010 school nutrition bill.

They say there is mounting research that it is the type of oil used, and whether or not it has been used before, that really matters. The latest study, published in the British Medical Journal, found no association between the frequency of fried food consumption in Spain - where olive and sunflower oils are mostly used - and the incidence of serious heart disease.

Devastating fungus has already stripped shrubbery in Europe and New Zealand. Shrubs may be trembling by doorsteps across North America as an aggressive fungus disease of boxwood invades the continent. Boxwood blight, caused by a Cylindrocladium fungus, was unknown to science before 2000 but has now spread through Europe and New Zealand. In October, U.S. authorities confirmed that the blight had jumped continents, with infections confirmed in North Carolina and Connecticut. By mid-January, with growers and pathologists on alert, the fungus had turned up in at least five more states — Virginia, Maryland, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Oregon — and...

Welcome to the 7th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or seven- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe. (All 2011 FReeper Recipes are on my profile page as an Online Cookbook Thread Link)

A complete planting guide for potatoes including state specific varieties, planting dates, days to harvest, nutrition facts, fertilizing, watering, insect and disease information.

Kraft Foods plans to cut 1,600 positions in the U.S. and Canada this year as it prepares to split into two companies, the Northfield-based packaged food giant announced Tuesday. Representing 3.4 percent of Kraft's North American 46,500 employees, the positions are primarily in sales, corporate and its business units, as the company plans to close three corporate offices.

A Los Angeles woman was arrested after she offered sexual favors in exchange for chicken McNuggets, Burbank police said. Khadijah Baseer of Los Angeles reportedly opened customers’ car doors in the drive-thru of McDonald’s on the 1700 block of Olive Avenue about 11 p.m. Wednesday, asking for free chicken McNuggets in exchange for sexual favors, Officer Joshua Kendrick said. A man told police Baseer approached him but he refused the offer. Baseer was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of prostitution.

Welcome to the 6th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or five- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe. (All 2011 FReeper Recipes are on my profile page as an Online Cookbook Thread Link)

Ray and Cathy Sgambati — who did $1 million in business last year — have set up shop just steps from the Packers’ Lambeau Field, and they’ve festooned their eatery, called Sgambati’s New York Pizza, with Giants gear. COMPLETE GIANTS COVERAGE PIE-ONEERS: Giants fans Ray and Cathy Sgambati serve up a pie yesterday at Green Bay’s only “New York” pizzeria. NY Post: Charles Wenzelberg PIE-ONEERS: Giants fans Ray and Cathy Sgambati serve up a pie yesterday at Green Bay’s only “New York” pizzeria. see more videos The couple has been getting razzed by Packers fans in the run-up to this...

Welcome to the 5th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or five- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe. (All 2011 FReeper Recipes are on my profile page as an Online Cookbook Thread Link)

A Punch To The Mouth – Food Price Volatility Hits The World January 5, 2012Gregory McDonaldPerfect Storms 2011 was an abysmal year for the global insurance industry, which had to cover yet another enormous increase in damages from natural disasters. Unknown to most casual observers is the fact that during the past few decades the frequency of weather-related disasters (floods, fires, storms) has been growing at a much faster pace than geological disasters (such as earthquakes). This spread between the two types of insurable losses has moved so strongly that it prompted Munich Re to note in a late 2010...

Every once in a while, I can’t resist indulging in a sleeve of hot, crispy McDonald’s French fries. Not even Michelle Obama can resist the attractive allure of the crispy spuds. However, that doesn’t stop her from trying to curb the desires of her fellow Americans. I can only assume that the First Lady’s stint in office will long be characterized by her perpetual battle against America’s increasing waistline. Her attempt to halt the increasing health concerns of overweight Americans is certainly a noble cause, but her methods (unsurprisingly) are not always acceptable within the confines of a classical liberal...

I’m a huge fan of documentaries, especially those about food, health, and the physiology of the human body. I’ve recently been suggested by a number of users to check out “Fat Head,” a documentary by Tom Naughton made in response to “Super Size Me” by Morgan Spurlock. As noted multiple times by Naughton, the purpose of the film is committed to proving that everything you think you know about food is, well, probably a load of bologna. A Couple Great Points Naughton drives home a couple good points about people’s perception on food. First, he brings out some good...

Ten years ago, science writer Gary Taubes exercised an hour a day. He avoided fat in his diet, never even using milk in his oatmeal. But he kept gaining weight. As an experiment, the self-described carnivore tried the high-protein, low-carbohydrate Atkins diet - eating bacon and eggs for breakfast, pepperoni with melted mozzarella for lunch, and a steak for dinner - and lost 20 pounds in six weeks. Since then, Taubes, an award-winning journalist and best-selling author, has stuck with the diet and spent countless hours collecting evidence to prove that it's not how much we eat but what we...

Welcome to the 4th installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or three- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe.

El Mercado salad? $2.34. A cup of white chicken chili? $1.55. Portland diners could get used to this. For a special lunch on what for many Portlanders will be their first workday of 2012, four city restaurants are pricing their menu items according to their calorie counts. At a penny per calorie, the Jan. 3 promotion will cut some plate prices by more than half at Sebago Brewing Co., DiMillo’s On The Water, El Rayo Taqueria and Spartan Grill.

The New York Times has declared down home Southern cooking undignified in a story that heaped praise on a new generation of Southern chefs while denigrating fried chicken, Cracker Barrel restaurants and the Queen of Southern Food — Paula Deen. The food snobs at the Times attacked Miss Paula in the second sentence of their lengthy diatribe – calling her a “so-called queen of Southern food, who cooks with canned fruit and Crisco.” The Times bemoaned the “hayseed image” of Southern cooking while praising “a new generation of chefs who have pushed Southern cooking into the vanguard of world cuisine.”...

Children who have a poor emotional relationship with their mother are more than twice as likely to become obese, research claims. A study found toddlers who struggle with their mothers are at higher risk of being grossly overweight by the time they are 15. Those who had the worst emotional relationship were almost two-and-half times more likely to be obese at 15 than those with a strong bond. Meanwhile, only 13 per cent who had close bonds in their formative years became obese. U.S. researchers studied nearly 1,000 toddlers and their mothers at play then rated how strong the bond...

Food memories are vivid. What you ate as a kid can whisk you right back to that lost time in your life — but for my mother's parents, Martha and Jerry Schneider, one special food memory eludes them. My grandparents spent most of their lives in Mexico City but now live in Los Angeles. After many years of living in Mexico City, one particular recollection still stands out: the best Jewish food they had ever tasted was cooked by a couple in downtown Mexico City on a street called Justo Sierra. Although Mexico City was home, their families were from...

If you're one of the many families that has a Christmas Eve eating tradition please give us your best. Personally my wifes family had one when we got married....Oyster stew and rice with raisins, it was vile! Thankfully I got her off that and for 20 years we've had Super Jumbo Atlantic wild caught Shrimp and Jumbo Stone Crab claws MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM gooooooood. Please post what you'll be having

Welcome to the 3rd installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or three- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe.

First lady Michelle Obama took daughters Malia and Sasha to MA'O Organic Farms in Hawaii for a pizza party this week, where they were joined by Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives Sam Kass, and Honolulu chef Ed Kenney, a board member at MA'O — which supplied a healthy heap of fresh veggies used by Kenney and Kass as they cooked pizzas for the First Family in a fire oven. The first lady met Kenney when she first visited MA'O back in November for a tour of the farm and a round table with the her "Let's Move!" initiative....

What to have after your holiday meal.. SPAM Mints... Yummo. A holiday gift for the person who has everything? If you don't know what to have after your holiday meal - how about a SPAM mint? " ...Each tin of SPAM Mints looks like a real tin of SPAM. Inside you'll find..meat-shaped, cinnamon-flavored mints. "

A graphic interpretation of recent changes to the US dietary guidelines shows that the average American adheres to the national food guide MyPlate just seven days out of the year. Using its National Eating Trends statistics, which have been tracking the eating and drinking habits of US consumers for 30 years, market research company the NPD Group found that only two percent of Americans’ diets -- equal to about seven days a year -- come close to the US Department of Agriculture’s new dietary guidelines launched this summer....

The United States is poised to announce a significant donation of food aid to North Korea this week, the first definite accomplishment after months of diplomatic contacts behind the scenes. An agreement by North Korea to suspend its uranium enrichment programme will most likely follow within days. Discussions have been taking place since summer in New York, Geneva and Beijing. They have already yielded agreements by North Korea to suspend nuclear and ballistic missile testing, readmit international nuclear inspectors expelled in 2009, and resume a dialogue between North and South Korea, according to US diplomats.

I've been looking on the web for a good vendor or vendors of food for long term storage. I'd like some feedback from you fellow FReepers as to your experience with the various companies out there....

Welcome to the 2nd installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or two- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe.

( Summary) Magnesium balances calcium and its functions within the human body. It is believed that the adult human body contains approximately 1200 grams of calcium, with approximately 99% of it in the skeleton, and approximately 1% (about 12 grams) in extracellular fluids, intracellular structures, and cell membranes. This approximately 1% plays an essential role, in conjunction with magnesium, in the functions of nerve conduction, muscle contraction, blood clotting, and membrane permeability. It is believed that serum calcium concentration is maintained by several hormones, including estrogen and testosterone. It is known that dietary protein enhances calcium absorption, and dietary phosphorus...

Little upsets pro-life people more than learning that things they consider innocent are actually tainted with the shedding of innocent blood. This long list of guilt-ridden products includes childhood vaccines, wrinkle creams and even your favorite soft drinks and chewing gum The problem is, it’s hard to keep it all straight even if you are trying to avoid putting products in you that are obtained through the death of a baby. Fortunately, Children of God for Life has produced an easy reference guide—a one page list of fetal call products. CLICK HERE FOR A PDF DOWNLOAD OF FETAL CELL PRODUCTS....

Brisket, a staple of the Hanukkah meal, too often ends up tough, tasteless and gray. But turning this culinary catastrophe into a winner is quite simple. When guests at my restaurant try my version of brisket, they are amazed that it is the same cut of meat that they grew up "not eating!" To make this recipe, it helps to have a smoker, but it isn't necessary. All you need is patience (it takes a long time to cook) and to buy the right cut of meat...

While we were celebrating Thanksgiving, Obama quietly signed legislation on November 18, which removed the ban on horse slaughter and allowing it for human consumption. Why did he change his position on banning the horse slaughter? As we know, President Obama made a campaign promise in 2008 to permanently ban horse slaughter and exports of horses for human consumption. Furthermore, in certain States, the U.S. Federal Government set aside millions of acres of public lands for the indigenous wild horses, or Mustangs. Read more... http://www.naturalremediesmatter.wordpress.com

NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – A phallic fatwa is making the rounds on the internet. The religious decree bans Muslim women from handling bananas or cucumbers because their phallic shape may lead to thoughts of sex. The directive first appeared in the Muslim publication el-Senousa, according to FOX News.

Welcome to the 1st installment of the FReeper Weekly Recipe Thread 2012. Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or two- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites! Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe.