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During the great recession here have been ups and downs, ins and outs, tons of tears and very little rejoicing. At some point we've all been on the wrong side of a trade, seen the damage of broad company layoffs, had our 401k's destroyed, or have harbored deep ill feelings towards at least one (or more) government announcements. At times such as these the emotions connected with our dire and depressing circumstances can become overwhelming. So rather than being held down by circumstances that we cannot possibly control, what can we do about it? When considering this and the oppressive...

The sport of competitive eating was given a shocking reminder yesterday that gorging oneself with a daunting amounts of greasy food in an extremely short period of time may have negative effects on health. A Taiwanese graduate student vying for the "Big Stomach King" contest at Dayeh University died on Tuesday just before he could claim the winning title. The 23-year-old had chowed himself ahead of 30 other teams by consuming two buns filled with rice and cheese and helping himself to some of his teammates food as well. He was on course to win the annual campus event when...

Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide 'renewable petroleum'. “Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to – especially the ones coming out of business school – this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.........”

Experts believe they could one day be marketed as a healthy alternative to fatty snacks. In most of Europe, bug-eating is largely restricted to the belated realisation that there has been an unwelcome addition to the salad. It is common elsewhere, however, with some 1,700 species of bug eaten in 113 countries. In Taiwan, stir-fried crickets or sauteed caterpillars are delicacies. A plate of maguey worms - larvae of a giant butterfly - sells for £12.50 in smart Mexican restaurants. Sago grubs wrapped in banana leaves go down well in Papua New Guinea, as does dragonfly in Bali. In many...

Pop Eye’s fried chicken fast food humor.

A 53-year-old man in Saanich, B.C., managed to drive to safety after a grizzly bear mauled his head and tossed him to the ground in the woods near Bella Coola, about 700 kilometres north of Vancouver. The attack took place on May 3 when Brent Case was on a surveying job along the rugged Central Coast area. "He came up from behind me and started gnawing at the back of my head. It just started ripping the scalp off the head," Case told CBC News on Friday. "The pain was so excruciating that I don't know why I didn't yell...

Save water to avoid eating you neighbour By Chris Turney Last Updated: 1:01pm BST 02/05/2008 It's easy to get hung up on the tag 'global warming'. There's no doubt it's a useful catchphrase for describing the challenges we face, but there's always the risk that our predicament is just seen as warming. Temperature is of course an important facet of the climate, but it's not our only concern. Downpours in the future are likely to vary around the world and throughout the year. The combined effect of changing rainfall and increasing temperature will mean that some regions will get wetter,...

NEW ORLEANS - Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti looked down at the litter of empty oyster shells in front of him and savored the sweet taste of victory. For Crazy Legs Conti, the bitter taste of defeat could be washed away only by beer. The Acme World Oyster Eating championship belt — leather, with a silver dish featuring an oyster on the half-shell — hung on Bertoletti's skinny hips. The 22-year-old Chicago resident took the title Saturday by slurping 35 dozen of the big bivalves in eight minutes. "I could probably do a couple dozen more, especially if they were charbroiled,"...

This is an animated bullfrog video that depicts a moment in ones life. I believe this video is very funny but in the past others have disagreed. This one minute video is for all who like to eat.

PITTSBURGH - To the list of simple childhood pleasures whose safety has been questioned, add this: eating snow. A recent study found that snow — even in relatively pristine spots like Montana and the Yukon — contains large amounts of bacteria. Parents who warn their kids not to eat dirty snow (especially the yellow variety) are left wondering whether to stop them from tasting the new-fallen stuff, too, because of Pseudomonas syringae, bacteria that can cause diseases in bean and tomato plants. But experts say there's no need to banish snow-eating along with dodgeball, unchaperoned trick-or-treating and riding a bike...

Doctoral student makes discovery on Neanderthal eating habits by Michael Moffett Hatchet Reporter Issue date: 2/7/08 A doctoral student studying hominid paleobiology has pioneered a method for analyzing reindeer bones from around 65,000 to 12,000 years ago, an accomplishment that allows scientists to further understand the eating habits of early humans. Early humans flocked to reindeer meat when the temperature dropped, J. Tyler Faith discovered. "We see a steady increase in the abundance of reindeer, associated with declines in summer temperature," Faith said. Faith analyzed bones from the Grotte XVI archaeological site in southern France in order to better understand...

'Flesh-eating' MRSA threatens Britain By Caroline Gammell and Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles Last Updated: 5:49pm GMT 15/01/2008 A potentially deadly and highly drug resistant strain of MRSA has developed which can lead to a flesh-eating form of pneumonia, researchers have warned. The USA300 strain is spreading outside hospitals into the general population Spreading rapidly among gay men in several major US cities, the bug can cause boils as large as tennis balls, blood poisoning or a necrotising condition which eats away at a person's lungs. The type of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) was identified in gay men in...

Rice contributes to healthier eating PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- People who eat rice have more nutritious diets that are lower in saturated fat and sugar than the diets of non-rice eaters, a U.S. study found. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey on blood pressure, blood lipids and risk for metabolic syndrome from 1999 to 2004, the researchers found nearly 26 percent of consumers reported eating rice during the 24-hour period. Among adults ages 19 to 50, individuals who eat rice -- white or brown -- consume: less total fat, saturated fat and added sugars; higher...

(KAAL) - Students at the University of Minnesota are preparing to go on a hunger strike in support of union workers. They'll stop eating Monday, if the University doesn't meet their demands and change its offer to the striking union workers. The group says hundreds of students have committed to the protest. One student is protesting the protesters. The student's English professor is holding class in an off-campus church because she refuses to cross the picket line. But he's refusing to attend class off campus, so he sits alone in his assigned classroom on campus. "We do pay a lot...

Cannibal tribe apologises for eating Methodists By Nick Squires in Sydney Last Updated: 3:29pm BST 16/08/2007 A tribe in Papua New Guinea has apologised for killing and eating four 19th century missionaries under the command of a doughty British clergyman. Sorcery and witchcraft are still common in some Papuan tribes The four Fijian missionaries were on a proselytising mission on the island of New Britain when they were massacred by Tolai tribesmen in 1878. They were murdered on the orders of a local warrior chief, Taleli, and were then cooked and eaten. The Fijians - a minister and three teachers...

Deep in the Congolese jungle is a band of apes that, according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. Local hunters speak of massive creatures that seem to be some sort of hybrid between a chimp and a gorilla. Their location at the centre of one of the bloodiest conflicts on the planet, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has meant that the mystery apes have been little studied by western scientists. Reaching the region means negotiating the shifting fortunes of warring rebel factions, and the heart of the animals' range...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Paris Hilton has not eaten or slept since arriving at the medical ward of a Los Angeles jail and is being given psychoactive drugs, celebrity Web site TMZ.com reported on Saturday, citing law enforcement sources. The socialite and hotel heiress was ordered back to jail on Friday after a judge overruled a sheriff's decision to place her under house arrest for psychological problems after she had spent three days of an expected three-week term behind bars. The 26-year-old "has been crying a lot, praying" and is "extremely withdrawn," TMZ reported. Hilton was visited by her psychiatrist,...

Howie Carr live thread. It's the first full day of spring and at 2:17 pm EDT, it's now 29 degrees, and there's a four foot tall pile of snow in front of my apartment house in Beverly.

As you get ready to feast and feed on the biggest beer drinking, chip munching and guacamole slurping day of the year Sunday, I’ll be with my Vietnamese family hoping for the best.They have it in their minds to make a big batch of Thang Co.Thang Co is basically noodles and horse meat and the hottest, spiciest sauce you can lay your hands on. Thang Co has three wonderful advantages: First, it makes you feel hot. In fact, NhanDan (The Communist Party’s leading newspaper in Vietnam, translates like “Peoples News”) recommends Thang Co to warm you up during a cold...

Yes, the automat. No, not the Horn & Hardart Automat that appeared on the dining scene at the turn of the last century and finally closed the last of its 180 restaurants in New York in 1991. This is a brand-new concept. A hip new automat that dispenses comfort food "25 hours a day" in New York City's East Village. This I had to see. And taste. Now an automat, for those you who were not in New York from 1912 to 1991, is a wonderful system where all kinds of food -- hot food, cold food, desserts, and main...

The only flaw in France, a wise man once said, is the people who live there. This is harsh, and unkind to hundreds, maybe thousands of nice Frenchmen, but the men elected to govern France invariably succeed in living up to Marianne's speckled reputation.

    Perfect Diet? Eat Everything Fat, Carbs, Protein Must Balance, Dietitian Says Shiloh Woolman, Staff Writer Put down the diet book that touts a carb-free, protein-rich diet and tells you all fat is your mortal enemy. Get ready to learn the mystery to permanent weight loss.  Eating everything is the magic bullet, experts say. Variety is the key to not only a good-looking exterior, but a healthy body that can fight disease, according to Ann C. Grandjean, director of Omaha's Center for Human Nutrition, Inc. Grandjean suggests three golden rules for eating: balance, variety and correct servings. Mindful...

Eric Julien, a former French military air traffic controller and senior airport manager, has completed a study of the comet 73P Schwassmann- Wachmann and declared that a fragment is highly likely to impact the Earth on or around May 25, 2006. Comet Schwassman-Wachmann follows a five-year orbit that crosses the solar system's ecliptic plane. It has followed its five year orbit intact for centuries; but, in 1995, mysteriously fragmented. According to Julien, this is the same year that a crop circle appeared showing the inner solar system with the Earth missing from its orbit. He argues the "Missing Earth" crop...

Fitness guru Richard Simmons, who has been offering guidance to the out-of-shape masses on his Sirius Satellite radio program of late, reveals, "Now we're going to turn it into a television show. Right now everyone is offering me certain things, but I know the show I want to do." As in his radio gig, he'll respond to people who write to him about their weight -- and life -- problems. Simmons' ebullience is on hold when he soberly discusses the epidemic of obesity in America. "Bottom line, I think, is the fact that people have low self-worth right now. People...

January 24, 2006 Way Over the Topby John Hindenraker  One Joel Stein, a person we've never heard of, committed an embarrassing faux pas in the pages of the antique-media Los Angeles Times, which our good friends Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin have dissected. Hugh interviewed this poor dumb liberal on the radio, and Michelle has the transcript. Avert your eyes; it's not pretty. This guy is below the intellectual level of the average American 8th-grader. HH: Let me ask you a tough question, Joel, because this is the toughest one. J.P. Blecksmith was a young Marine lieutenant, graduated from...

This is considered breaking news only for Turkey day! NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A day before millions of Americans sit down to eat traditional Thanksgiving dinners, a Virginia woman grabbed the world turkey-eating title on Wednesday by gobbling down a whole roast bird in 12 minutes. Sonya Thomas, 37, who weighs just 105 pounds (47.5 kg), beat seven men in the annual Thanksgiving Invitational: a race to eat a 10-pound (4.5-kg) turkey. The smallest in the field, Thomas put her victory down to "swallowing fast." "It was very dry and the skin was very dry," said Thomas, holding her trophy,...

For over two weeks, Americans have been viewing scenes of chaos and carnage, as the French children of North African immigrants have rampaged through French towns with sticks, rocks, and Molotov cocktails. Aside from a frisson of well-deserved schadenfreude, what does this upheaval tell us? As many pundits have suggested, maybe the French don’t understand multiculturalism. As the kids would say nowadays, "Duh." What other country actually has an agency to preserve the purity of language, like the Academie Francaise? Or a Culture Ministry that issues edicts banning the use of the “foreign” word “e-mail” in French government emails. To...

A hunger eating up the world China's insatiable demand for proteins as well as oil is turning Brazil into the takeaway for the workforce of the world. In the second part of our series, we reveal how the soya trade is creating a gold rush which is deforesting the Amazon Jonathan Watts in Santarem, the Amazon Thursday November 10, 2005 The Guardian (UK) A smoky haze blurs the frontier between the world's mightiest forest and its biggest threat: the humble soya bean. The four-month burning season in the Amazon is when the giant trees felled to make space for crops...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Eating fish at least once a week slows the toll aging takes on the brain, while obesity at midlife doubles the risk of dementia, a pair of studies concluded on Monday. Omega-3 fatty acids contained in fish have been shown to boost brain functioning as well as cutting the risk of stroke, and eating fish regularly appears to protect the brain as people age, the six-year study of Chicago residents said. "The rate of (mental) decline was reduced by 10 percent to 13 percent per year among persons who consumed one or more fish meals per week...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Starving -- officially known as caloric restriction -- may make worms and mice live up to 50 percent longer but it will not help humans live super-long lives, two biologists argued on Sunday. They said their mathematical model showed that a lifetime of low-calorie dieting would only extend human life span by about 7 percent, unlike smaller animals, whose life spans are affected more by the effects of starvation. This is because restricting calories only indirectly affects life span, said John Phelan of the University of California Los Angeles and Michael Rose of the University of California...

THE FACTS Think of all the hours Americans will spend beside pools and lingering on beaches this summer, counting the minutes since their last meal to avoid violating a fundamental rule of swimming: never get into the water on a full stomach. The only problem, according to experts, is that the warning is yet another old wives' tale that should be laid to rest. The theory is that the process of digestion increases blood flow to the stomach - away from the muscles needed for swimming - and leads to cramps, which increase the risk of drowning. Dr. Roshini Rajapaksa,...

X-Rays Of Strange Items In Kids' Stomachs Amaze Doctors   POSTED: 12:08 am EDT May 11, 2005 UPDATED: 1:11 am EDT May 11, 2005   Hospital X-rays showing open safety pins, forks, batteries and in one instance, a magnetic toy that reconnected in a child's stomach, often amaze doctors over what children are able to swallow, according to a Local 6 News report.   Doctors find a fork inside the stomach of a sick child.      Local 6 News reported that emergency room physicians "often see it all" when it comes to unusual items in children's stomachs. The...

New Orleans - Sam Uglesich grew up among mariners and fishermen off the coast of Croatia on rocky Dugi Otok, whose name means "long island," surrounded by the azure waters of the Adriatic. Twice he set out for the United States. The first time, he jumped ship in New York, but was caught and sent home. The second time, he made his break in New Orleans, then as now a more permissive city, and got away with it. Naturally enough, he opened a seafood restaurant in his adopted city, specializing in the local shrimp, soft-shell crabs, lake trout and oysters....

You don’t need to be a physician, a nutritionist, or even have a fancy degree to understand why humans eat meat. Just check the teeth in your mouth. There are 20 of them devoted to eating meat, but only 12 for fruit and vegetables. If you are inclined to examine the human body further, you will discover, as Dr. Max Ernest Jutte, MD, pointed out in 1936, "the stomach is a carnivorous organ designed primarily to digest lean meat, and that the small intestine, pancreas, and liver are mainly herbivorous and designed to digest vegetables, fruits, fats, and farinaceous (starch)...

MINNEAPOLIS -- Florida's got the South Beach diet. Now Minnesota's got the "Northwoods Diet." That's what University of Minnesota professor David Bernlohr came up with as the solution when he noticed his waistline expanding. After all, he's an obesity researcher. Bernlohr said he'd fallen into the traditional American habits of skipping breakfast, eating too much and eating too late at night. So he put himself on his own diet -- what he jokingly dubbed the "Northwoods Diet," poking fun at the fad diet industry and the popular South Beach diet.

Here are the 2004 Media Web awards Commentary: Media failed to rise to the occasion -- again By Jon Friedman, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Dec. 10, 2004 NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - After the furor over former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair marred the media industry in 2003, it seemed unlikely that my profession's image could look even worse this year. But never underestimate us. When the reporting sins of USA Today's Jack Kelley (GCI: news, chart, profile) surfaced several months ago, he had clearly topped Blair and another miscreant named Stephen Glass. The bean counters had their...

<p>The French military is one the best in the world!! Look at the Ivory Coast! The French military should not be under estimated by Americans who think the are the only power in the world!</p>

Hey Gang..I have been having SOME fun with these clueless morons over here. Been trollin' and brain beatin' 'em to death. It's about 6 on 1 right now. Really funny, they'll all post at once, then nothing for about 45 minutes, then all post at once again. :) :O) P

ATLANTA -- A widely reported government study that said obesity is about to overtake smoking as the No. 1 cause of death in the United States contained statistical errors and may have overstated the problem, health officials acknowledged today. The government is working on a rare correction to the study. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in March in a study co-authored by its director, Dr. Julie Gerberding, that a poor diet and physical inactivity were responsible for 400,000 deaths in 2000, a 33 percent jump from 1990. However, the CDC admitted today that it made an error...

The United Kingdom's Political Cartoon Society selected a cartoon published by The Independent in January depicting a naked Ariel Sharon biting off the bloodied head of a Palestinian child as helicopter warships hovered overhead blasting out "Vote Sharon" from loudspeakers as its "Cartoon of the Year." In his acceptance speech, cartoonist Dave Brown thanked the Israeli Embassy in London for its angry reaction to the cartoon, which he said had contributed greatly to its publicity.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Americans are eating more cheese than ever - more than 30 pounds a person per year - and they're eating a wider variety as well, according to a national survey released Tuesday by the California Milk Advisory Board. In 2003, Americans ate a record 8.8 billion pounds of cheese - that's two and a half pounds a month for every man, woman and child. Most of the demand is being fed by the domestic suppliers, and California's mega-dairies are growing so fast that analysts expect the state to overtake Wisconsin in cheese production within two years....

Letter from a recent NK visitor by Rebecca MacKinnon @ 07:28 PM in Economic policy, Engagement After chatting up the waitresses at Shinuiju Hotel over dinner they eagerly agreed to allow us to take our pictures with them. About 6 waitresses and 4 foreigners - we snuggled tightly (they were the more aggressive) and said "cheese" together - with the girl on my left grabbing my arm together to make "peace" signs for the camera. In response to the recent discussion about the nature & extent of recent changes in North Korea, Shanghai-based Canadian businessman Randal Eastman has sent an...

What are FReepers fixing to eat during these hot August days? I try to have something substantial without heating up the kitchen. We have only a charcoal grill and concluded a few weeks back that it's too much work to use very often -- no doubt those w/ gas grills are using them regularly as they aren't as much trouble.

WASHINGTON, July 12 - The Department of Agriculture announced plans on Monday to revisit the Food Guide Pyramid, an icon that was developed to help Americans use dietary guidelines to eat healthfully. Introduced 12 years ago, after almost $1 million was spent debating the shape of what was supposed to be the government's primary nutrition education device, the pyramid has not accomplished its goal, the department acknowledges. "We've got to reverse some trends," Eric Hentges, executive director of the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion at the Agriculture Department, said. "We've got to connect with individuals. We've got to be...

If you thought you felt stuffed late in your Fourth of July barbecue, consider the holiday dinner of Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi. He ate 53 1/2 hot dogs Sunday. The half a dog was because he had only 12 minutes in which to devour. “I could have eaten a lot more,” he said. This is an accomplishment that earned him recognition on the fourth page of the last section in papers such as this one. But he was hailed hourly on ESPN’s Sportscenter, a network that, coincidentally, televised Nathan’s hot-dog-eating contest live. Let’s see. Play boccie ball in the back...

PARIS - Fewer than 50 percent of French people think France has a moral debt to the United States 60 years after the Allied D-Day landings, according to an opinion poll published on Saturday. The poll of 1,000 people on May 25 and 26 showed 48 percent of respondents thought France, which was liberated by U.S. and other Allied forces during World War Two, had a moral debt to the United States. Fifty percent thought it did not. The poll was published by Le Parisien newspaper hours before U.S. President George W. Bush was due to arrive in France for...

Puppy chews on corpse of owner By SIMONE WEICHSELBAUM & JENNIFER JENKINS weichss@phillynews.com A black Labrador Retriever puppy chewed on his owner's dead body for days before a relative discovered the corpse and rescued the animal yesterday. Police believe George Burhart, 75, died of natural causes earlier in the week, and his rambunctious 8-month-old pup, Shadow, gnawed on the body because he was hungry and could not conceive that his master was dead. "It's just a shame, he looked like a nice dog," said Jessica MacMillan, 16, who saw Shadow yesterday afternoon after Burhart's brother found his sibling's body and...

In light of the Madrid bombing, France has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide”. The only two higher levels In France are “Surrender” and “Collaborate”. A little bit of humor to lighten things up.

The French Government, taking a page from our own DHS has established internal threat levels. Unlike the US the French only have four such levels. They are, from low to high, "RUN,""HIDE,""SURRENDER"and finally "COLLABORATE." On Saturday, in light of the Madrid bombing, France has raised its terror alert level from "RUN" to "HIDE." Semper Fi