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--Olive Garden's struggles continue to weigh down Darden's earnings --Darden says Olive Garden didn't change with the times coming out of recession --Expects lower commodity inflation, more cost savings initiatives in second half of FY12 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Darden Restaurants Inc.'s DRI -.00% fiscal second-quarter earnings fell 28% on continued woes at the casual-dining company's Olive Garden restaurant chain. Over the past year, Darden, which also owns Red Lobster and Longhorn Steakhouse, has struggled to garner momentum for Olive Garden, its largest chain, chalking up the sales and traffic declines to promotional misfires and increased competition.

A first-aid kit found on a 2,000-year-old shipwreck has provided a remarkable insight into the medicines concocted by ancient physicians to cure sailors of dysentery and other ailments. A wooden chest discovered on board the vessel contained pills made of ground-up vegetables, herbs and plants such as celery, onions, carrots, cabbage, alfalfa and chestnuts – all ingredients referred to in classical medical texts. The tablets, which were so well sealed that they miraculously survived being under water for more than two millennia, also contain extracts of parsley, nasturtium, radish, yarrow and hibiscus. They were found in 136 tin-lined wooden vials...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Nordic customs officials have arrested a truck driver after he tried to illegally import 28 tons of Chinese garlic into the European Union. The driver was intercepted last month as he drove the pungent truckload from Norway, which is outside the EU and where garlic is exempt from customs' duties, into Sweden, where garlic is subject to a 9.6 percent EU-wide duty. Smuggling of cheaply produced Chinese garlic into the EU is on the rise, with around 1,200 tons brought into the 27-nation bloc via Norway since 2009, according to the European Anti-Fraud Office, known as OLAF.

Researchers are warning that popular herbs and supplements, including St. John’s wort and even garlic and ginger, do not mix well with common heart drugs and can also be dangerous for patients taking statins, blood thinners and blood pressure medications. St. John’s wort raises blood pressure and heart rate, and garlic and ginger increase the risk of bleeding in patients on blood thinners, the researchers said. Even grapefruit juice can be risky, increasing the effects of calcium-channel blockers and statins, they said. “This is not new research, but there is a trend toward more and more use of these compounds,...

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa's former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who gained notoriety for her dogged promotion of lemons, garlic and olive oil to treat AIDS, has died. She was 69. The ruling African National Congress said Tshabalala-Msimang died in a Johannesburg hospital Wednesday from complications related to a 2007 liver transplant. Media outlets said she was possibly undergoing tests for a possible second transplant when she died. Tshabalala-Msimang's disastrous HIV policies during her nine years in office made her the most unpopular government minister in post-apartheid South Africa. She was ridiculed locally and internationally and nicknamed "Dr. Beetroot" — another...

Thanks to a belief in its flu-repellent powers, garlic traders are on course to get stinking rich this year http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/forget-gold-and-silver-invest-in-garlic-1828755.html

Moldovan soldiers has been issued with an extra ration of onions and garlic to ward off swine flu, the defence ministry's chief doctor said Thursday. "We have introduced an extra 25 grams (one ounce) of onion and 15 grams of garlic in their daily ration," Sergiu Vasilita told AFP. So far, 24 soldiers have completed treatment for swine flu, while 19 are in hospital with acute respiratory infections, he said.

BELGRADE, Serbia — Belgrade's open-air markets were a welter of busy customers on Friday, pushing and shoving to buy one item — garlic. In Serbia, garlic has long been regarded as a good luck charm and a guard against many ailments. As far as the public is concerned, that includes the swine flu pandemic, which recently has spread in Serbia and triggered near panic among the local population. That is now evident in Belgrade's produce markets, where the price of garlic has shot up, thanks to a sudden increase in demand. The smell of the little white cloves also has...

Pack your breath mints. The 31st annual Garlic Fest has kicked off in Gilroy which will be home this weekend to 10 tons of garlic beef, 4 tons of garlic pasta, another 4 of garlic calamari, a couple tons of garlic scampi, loads of garlic frog legs, several slices of garlic watermelon, tubs of garlic ice cream and loaves upon loaves of garlic bread. Tens of thousands of people are expected to show up at Christmas Hill park to take in the aroma that will be wafting throughout the town. We're not kidding. You can smell the garlic as you...

I can't find any garlic powder that is not produced in China, whether it's a name brand, or generic brand. I'm willing to order it. Has anyone found any that is not produced in China?

A drug based on a chemical found in garlic can treat diabetes types I and II when taken as a tablet, a study in the new Royal Society of Chemistry journal Metallomics say. When Hiromu Sakurai and colleagues from the Suzuka University of Medical Science, Japan, gave the drug orally to type I diabetic mice, they found it reduced blood glucose levels. The drug is based on vanadium and allixin, a compound found in garlic, and its action described in an Advance Article from Metallomics available free online from today. The first issue of the new journal will be published...

Disfigured fruits and vegetables could be allowed in stores after most European Union members voted to loosen restrictions on produce, officials say. Misshapen bananas and cucumbers could be in stores by next year if reforms on produce rules are carried out, The Telegraph reported Thursday. The Telegraph said produce standards are so strict, many edible foods are discarded by farmers. European agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said she thinks some regulations should also be thrown out for onions, garlic, cauliflower and spinach. In this era of high prices and growing demand, it makes no sense to throw (misshapen fruit and...

How Gilroy turned a potent Italian bulb into a culinary staple and the country's biggest and smelliest food festivalTHIRTY YEARS AGO, a group of American food writers trooped into a packing shed at Gilroy's Christopher Ranch off Highway 101. Greeted by the pungent aroma of millions of garlic cloves being processed in the building, the journalists sat down for a garlic-laced lunch that included scampi, calamari, pasta and pepper steak. Together with the Fresh Garlic Producers Association, an industry trade group, Christopher Ranch founder and former president Don Christopher hosted the journalists to showcase Gilroy garlic. Gilroy was then the...

Times are getting tough for the DUmmies. As PJ revealed in this DUmmie FUnnies EDITION, the cost of their organically grown cruelty free vegan food is becoming prohibitive. But that is just food. Belts can be tightened. The rising cost of gas has effected the cost of everything that has to be transported, including dope, and getting high is something DUmmies cannot, WILL not do without. So it is time to improvise, as we can see in this DUmmie THREAD titled "Can you smoke garlic." Now on to watch the DUmmies desperately try to catch a cool buzz on...

Garlic combats arsenic poisoning 14 January 2008 NewScientist.com news service Keya Chaudhuri, Indian Institute of Chemical Biology Information on arsenic in drinking water, WHO Arsenic in Bangladesh, British Geological Survey Garlic may provide some relief for millions of Bangladeshis and Indians whose drinking water is contaminated with arsenic. Keya Chaudhuri of the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology in Kolkata, and her colleagues gave rats daily doses of arsenic in their water, in levels equivalent to those found in groundwater in Bangladesh and West Bengal. Rats which were also fed garlic extracts had 40 per cent less arsenic in their blood...

Sick! Chinese Restaurant Cited For Garlic Stomping Nanuet Worker Photographed Wallowing In Bowl Of Garlic With His Shoes On (CBS) NANUET, N.Y. A Rockland County Chinese food restaurant is in hot water after it was discovered that an employee apparently used a suspicious and far-from-delicious method to crush the garlic used in the kitchen. An official from the county's Department of Health tells CBS 2 that the Great China Buffet in Nanuet was investigated after there it received a complaint that the garlic there is not only saut?d and steamed, but allegedly stomped. Literally. John Stoughton, the senior public health...

That savory, aromatic, delicious garlic that you lavish on your fries, steak and everything else? There's plenty of that. But garlic farmers in the self-proclaimed Garlic Capital of the World? They're almost extinct. As the Gilroy Garlic Festival kicks off today, only three growers in Santa Clara County have survived the disease, land-use pressure and brutal economics of the industry. Louie Bonino is one of them. But Bonino, whose LJB Farms has grown garlic in San Martin for more than 30 years, isn't sure he can hold out much longer. "It's not very profitable anymore in agriculture here in South...

At its freshest and best, garlic not only is a zestful seasoning but it's a healthy food, as well. It's our biggest vegetable import from China. At the White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia, chef Andrew Brown is using tender young garlic scapes from Green Meadow Farm in Gap while anticipating the July harvest of regular, red and elephant bulbs from Overbrook Herb Farm in Lansdale. The garlic used by chef Frank Maragos at Foti's, in Culpeper, Va., comes from nearby Campi di Sogni Farm, where owner Juliana De Santis grows about 30 kinds. But most of us buy garlic at...

Garlic 'may cut cow flatulence' Pull the udder one - cows can produce 500 litres of gas a day Scientists in Wales tackling the impact flatulent cows and sheep have on global warming may have an answer - putting garlic in their food.Experts claim cows are responsible for about 3% of Britain's greenhouse gases. But initial results from the start of the three-year study show that feed containing garlic could cut the amount of gas produced by up to 50%. The Aberystwyth research team is testing if this taints milk or meat - and gives the animals bad breath....

...Most of us buy garlic at a supermarket. We don't know what kind it is, how fresh it is or where it's grown. But there's a good chance it comes from China, which produces 75 percent of the world's supply... Garlic is the United States' biggest fresh-vegetable import from China, which sent us 138 million pounds of it worth more than $70 million last year. We also get small amounts from Mexico, Argentina and about 15 other countries. We eat a lot of garlic -- about three pounds per person a year. Although most of our fresh garlic comes from...

GILROY -- Fifty-eight roosters are dead and six men are facing cockfighting charges after Santa Clara County sheriff's deputies raided a cockfight in Gilroy Saturday afternoon. The six suspects -- Vidal Mendoza, 61; Loi Dat, 42; Jagapreet Heerey, 38; Raymundo Romero, 44; Rafael Hernandez, 43; and Reynaldo Vargas, 28 -- face misdemeanor charges, including being present at a cockfight, possessing cockfighting implements and possessing cockfighting birds, Sgt. Ed Wise said. They were cited and released at the scene. The man who allegedly hosted the party is still being investigated and also could face charges, Wise said. The case has not...

Garlic May Not Lower CholesterolStudy Shows No Improvement In Cholesterol Levels From Raw Garlic Or Garlic Supplements (WebMD) Garlic may not improve the cholesterol profiles of people with moderately high levels of "bad" cholesterol, a new study shows. The researchers tested raw garlic and two different garlic supplements on nearly 200 adults with moderately high levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol. After six months, the patients showed no improvements in their average cholesterol or other blood fats (lipids), no matter what kind of garlic they had consumed. "Garlic supplements or dietary garlic in reasonable doses are unlikely to produce lipid benefits"...

Veterinarian researchers find that garlic used to ward off cattle ticks also improves taste of beef Nurit Palter Published: 11.06.06, 14:09 Soon there'll be no need to season your steak as cows will be fed garlic flavored hay. The Veterinarian Institute at the Agricultural Ministry recently conducted comprehensive research into the food being fed to cattle raised for meat. Contrary to the black and white milk cows, cattle grown for beef spend most of their time pasturing outdoors and are often infected with ticks. Research conducted by Dr Varda Shkapf, an expert on parasites at the veterinarian institute, found that...

It seems not just unlikely, but utterly preposterous. The French have run out of garlic. Not, it should be made clear, the white stuff commonly seen in shops and supermarkets. British cooks may think they are being Gallic by using garlic but the product most often found in kitchens comes from China or Argentina, imported in bulk and kept in cold stores. The supply of violet garlic from France has come to a halt for British importer Brian Page But violet garlic, esteemed by the gourmand and grown only in one small part of France, cannot be obtained for love...

Garlic is one of our oldest herbs on record. Anyone can grow garlic without having to hover over it, hoping that it produces. That’s far more than I can say about some other seasoning plants I have tried. Gardeners who can’t raise garlic can’t raise dust. There are many varieties of garlic and some grow better in a cool climate than a warm one, but you can bet there’s one or more suited for every area. In addition to cultivated garlic, Nature has provided us with a number of wild varieties free for the gathering. There’s no excuse for being...

Jenny's Flu Soup Here is my recipe for a great Anti-Viral Soup. It is chock full of garlic, nutrients, and all the ingredients needed to quickly nourish and cleanse the body if it becomes ravaged by a flu virus. Start with Two full bulbs of garlic...

A local animal feed manufacturer shipped a feed additive that may be effective in treating bird flu to Indonesia last week amid growing international concern over the spread of the virus. ``A veterinarian at an Indonesian zoo asked us to send our animal feed additive, which contains the bacteria leuconostoc citreum, a type of lactobacillus found in kimchi,’’ said Lee Jong-Dae, president of Celltech International. ``We shipped some 800 kilograms of the additive last week.’’ Lee added that if it is proven effective in treating chickens, ducks and other birds infected with bird flu virus there, the company will sign...

In a quarter-century, the Gilroy Garlic Festival grew from a regional gathering into an event with an international reputation. Now it's billed as one of the best-run festivals of its kind anywhere. But this year, it encountered some unusual hurdles. First, organizers discovered the festival would be competing for patrons with a Grand Prix auto race making its debut in San Jose on the same weekend. Then in June, the staff and volunteers had to deal with the loss of Richard ``Dick'' Nicholls, the festival association's longtime executive director and the man credited with helping make the garlic festival what...

BAGHDAD — After the US military insisted that Fox News remove former talk show host, Geraldo Rivera, from the battlefield for giving away US troop locations and movements, Geraldo has landed a job with the Al Jazeerah news agency. "Talk about an overreaction by the Pentagon," said Geraldo. "All I did was draw a map in the sand and compromise the lives of the members of the 101st Airborne, the brave 'Screaming Eagles' made famous by Steven Spielberg in Band of Brothers. Now if I'd been a reporter in Normandy, I could have helped the Germans and made the invasion...

LONDON (AP) -- London transport authorities promised Friday to remove posters warning against eating on the subway that left a bad taste in the mouths of Italian diplomats. The offending advertisement depicted a man on a subway train surrounded by salami, strings of sausages and Parma hams, above the words "Please don't eat smelly food." Guido Cerboni, economic affairs chief at the Italian embassy in London, said the poster was "offensive and harmful to Italian products."

By Lenore Skenazy M EN, you are going to thank me for this column. Women, too. Because in the course of researching the latest perfume trends — as any serious journalist must — I learned from a bona fide scientific institute the three smells that most turn women off. Ready? Cherries. Barbecued meat. And cologne. "All acted to inhibit female sexual arousal," reports Dr. Alan Hirsch, director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dr. Hirsch! For, while the number of men rubbing themselves with cherries or spare ribs is...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Dracula is not the only creature repelled by garlic -- snails and slugs are also put off by the pungent herb. And now British scientists have produced a special garlic extract that may just be the answer to gardeners' prayers. "It works well in repelling and killing snails," Dr Gordon Port, of Newcastle University in northern England, said on Friday. Using garlic to kill snails and slugs is not new. Monks for example grew it in gardens to keep pests away. But Port and his colleagues have...

Life, Garlic, and the Pursuit of Healthiness By Gailon TotherohCBN News Health & Science ReporterGarlic can reduce cholesterol as much as 12 percent. For a person with cholesterol at 230, that could mean a decrease to a near normal level of 202 CBN.com – Garlic and similar vegetables may be the reason Chinese men have so little prostate cancer, according to a new study from the National Cancer Institute. Yet there are many contradictory reports on whether garlic supplements have health benefits. Certainly history is full of garlic's medicinal use. And the latest research developments indicate garlic's active ingredient may...