Free Republic

OMAHA, Neb. -- Work at all of the Kellogg Company's U.S. cereal plants came to a halt Tuesday as roughly 1,400 workers went on strike, but it wasn't immediately clear how much the supply of Frosted Flakes or any of the company's other iconic brands would be disrupted. The strike includes plants in Omaha, Nebraska Battle Creek, Michigan; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee.... ...The company insists that its offer is fair and would increase wages and benefits for its employees that it said made an average of $120,000 a year last year. "We are disappointed by the union’s decision to...

The government should ban high-sugar cereals such as Coco Pops and other foods that are contributing to an obesity epidemic among British children, the shadow health secretary has urged. Regulations limiting the amount of sugar, salt and fat in processed foods should be considered if the food industry does not take action itself, according to Labour’s Andy Burnham, who has begun a consultation on how to tackle obesity. Burnham highlighted the case of breakfast cereals, saying many aimed at children are more than one-third sugar by weight. …

FTC Defends Proposed Child-Food Marketing Rules Critics Say Could Kill 'Tony the Tiger' Friday, July 01, 2011 By Fred Lucas (CNSNews.com) – The Federal Trade Commission is defending its proposals to change food and beverage marketing to children ages 2-17, which industry and legal critics say would lead to the end of iconic commercial characters such Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam and create free speech issues. The proposed “voluntary” guidelines for marketing food resulted from the Interagency Working Group made up of representatives of the FTC, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S....

This week, state Sen. Michael Rubio will introduce legislation that would prohibit food stamps from being used to purchase "junk food" or prepared meals at fast-food restaurants. "The question is what should we be using taxpayer funds to purchase," the Bakersfield Democrat said Tuesday. "In my opinion, we should be focusing on what people need, not what they want." Those needs include foods found in the traditional food pyramid, he said, including breads and cereals, meats, beans, nuts, dairy products and other protein sources, and lots of fruits and vegetables. Rubio's idea is not yet an official Senate bill. But...

Sugar in Cereals May Not Be Such a Bad Thing After All There has been lots of hoopla lately about the sugar in breakfast cereals. Kellogg recently announced that it would put an upper limit on sugar for cereals and all the foods it markets to children. General Mills announced some time ago that at least half the grain in all its cereals would be whole grain. Breakfast cereal is also an object of heavy scrutiny by all manner of health experts and consumer watchdogs, and that's a good thing. Kids eat lots of breakfast cereal. They also drink lots...

Amber Waves Of Grain And Other Cereals Crucial To Humans on Mars Washington - Oct 24, 2003 Mars came nearer to Earth this year than it has in more than 50,000 years, but a new technology could bring it closer still. Scientists have developed a fully sustainable disposal system to deal with waste on long-range space flights using a simple byproduct of wheat. Wheat grass, an inedible part of the wheat plant, can be used to reclaim pollutants produced from burning waste on a spaceship, according to researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and NASA. The wheat grass itself...