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Wow! Have you seen this video yet? I guess to save our planet we all must be vegetarian. How crazy is it going to get?

To Amy Hobbs Harris, a dozen jars of strawberry preserves are worth $391 — the amount she estimates she'll save in a year by canning the fruit herself. Not that she normally would spend that much on jam. But the savings add up once she factors in other uses — giving them away as gifts, for example, or stirring the preserves into plain yogurt instead of buying pricier flavored cups. Harris, 33, of Tipp City, Ohio, started canning for the first time last summer, putting her a bit ahead of a trend seen around the country: as food prices rise...

Two lanes of southbound U.S. Highway 101 in Sunnyvale reopened at about 9:15 a.m., following a crash in which a big rig transporting vodka overturned and spilled the product onto the roadway, city spokesman John Pilger said. The big rig overturned shortly before 8 a.m. at North Mathilda Avenue, spilling vodka and fuel and temporarily closing all southbound lanes. Emergency personnel have extricated the driver of the big rig, but Pilger did not know the driver's condition. The left two lanes on the southbound side have reopened, but authorities are advising commuters to take alternate routes if possible, as traffic...

Giant clams two feet long might have helped feed prehistoric humans as they first migrated out of Africa, new research reveals. < > Fossil evidence that the researchers uncovered suggests the stocks of these giant clams began crashing some 125,000 years ago, during the last interval between glacial periods. During that time, scientists think modern humans first emerged out of Africa, Richter said. < >

Villagers Blame Environmentalists For Reptiles' Mood; Ban on Goat SacrificeAt least once a week, an unwelcome intruder crawls under a clapboard wall and, forked tongue darting, lumbers its way into Syarif Maulana's classroom. "Then, everyone screams, there is no more school, and we all run away very fast," says the 10-year-old boy. "We are very afraid." The intruder, a Komodo dragon, is the world's largest lizard, an ancient, fierce carnivore found only on a handful of remote islands in eastern Indonesia. Reaching 10 feet in length, the dragons feed on buffaloes, deer and an occasional human. Just a year ago,...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research strongly suggests that a mix of preventative agents, such as those found in concentrated black raspberries, may more effectively inhibit cancer development than single agents aimed at shutting down a particular gene. Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center examined the effect of freeze-dried black raspberries on genes altered by a chemical carcinogen in an animal model of esophageal cancer. The carcinogen affected the activity of some 2,200 genes in the animals’ esophagus in only one week, but 460 of those genes were restored to normal activity in animals that consumed freeze-dried black...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Fuelled only by used cooking fat, eight teams completed a 2,500-mile car rally from London to Athens on Wednesday in a bid to promote awareness of cheap and environmentally-friendly bio-fuels. The "Grease to Greece" race, the brainchild of 34-year-old Londoner Andy Pag, took the teams on a 10-day mission across Europe in which they begged oil to fuel their cars from restaurants, motorway cafes and fast-food joints along the way. < > An experienced eco-traveler, Pag drove to the desert town of Timbuktu in Mali last year using a truck powered by waste chocolate. His next scheme...

THE faces over at the Wine Spectator are redder than a bottle of fine Bordeaux this week, after the highly respected magazine gave a prestigious award to a restaurant that never existed. Wine connoisseur and watchdog Robin Goldstein, curious as to how the mag selected the world's best wine restaurants, submitted an application for an "Award of Excellence" for a phony eatery he called "Osteria L'Intrepido" with a Milan address. He set up a fake Web site, created a menu of "somewhat bumbling nouvelle-Italian recipes," and invented a high-priced wine list that included "some of the lowest-scoring Italian wines in...

BERLIN (AFP) - Giving up meat could drastically reduce your carbon footprint, with meat-eaters' diets responsible for almost twice the emissions of those of vegetarians, a German study said on Tuesday. A diet with meat is responsible for producing in a year the same amount of greenhouse gases as driving a mid-sized car 4,758 kilometres (2,956 miles), the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IOeW) said. But the food a vegetarian consumes in 12 months is responsible for generating the same emissions as driving 2,427 kilometres, the IOeW said in a study commissioned by independent consumer protection group Foodwatch. The calculations...

Elevated cholesterol levels return to normal or near normal levels over time in four out of 10 children with uncontrollable epilepsy treated with the high-fat ketogenic diet, according to results of a Johns Hopkins Children's Center study reported in the Journal of Child Neurology. The study appears online ahead of print at http://jcn.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/23/7/758. In the four-year study, the Hopkins Children's team followed 121 epileptic children with intractable seizures on the high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet designed to control such seizures. While most children developed high cholesterol after starting the diet, cholesterol gradually improved in nearly half of them, returning to normal...

A three-metre (10-foot) python has killed a student zookeeper who let the snake out of its enclosure in Venezuela while working a night shift at the zoo. Horrified employees at the Caracas zoo discovered the Burmese Python as it tried to swallow its victim's head. "The young man underestimated the animal's instinct,"

A PYTHON has killed a student zookeper at the weekend and was caught trying to swallow the man's body when horrified coworkers arrived, Venezuela's El Universal newspaper reports. The other employees of the Caracas zoo had to beat the 3m-long Burmese Python to make it release the body of 29-year-old Erick Arrieta, whose head it was swallowing. < > "The young man underestimated the animal's instinct," said the director general of the Parque del Este zoo, Javier Hernandez.

Freddie the tortoise was pretty much screwed, and by that I mean he had seven wood screws lodged in his guts along with a staple, shards of glass, stones and a hunk of caulk. He needed surgery — stat! — and a transfusion. But where would doctors find other African spurred tortoises willing to stick their necks out and donate life-saving blood? If there were a reptilian version of “ER,” this episode would earn whatever coldblooded vertebrates had instead of an Emmy. Freddie is now 15 inches long with a bumpy shell the color of a pizza left in the...

Cats with a fondness for gourmet meals are threatening fish supplies, an Australian scientist says. Deakin University scientist Dr Giovanni Turchini has discovered an estimated 2.48 million tonnes of forage fish - a limited biological resource - is consumed by the global cat food industry each year. "That such a large amount of fish is used for the pet food industry is real eye-opener," Dr Turchini said. "What is also interesting is that, in Australia, pet cats are eating an estimated 13.7 kilograms of fish a year which far exceeds the Australian average (human) per capita fish and seafood consumption...

A 36-year-old Boulder man is recovering after a pit bull bit his ear off near the Boulder Creek Path, according to police. Witnesses told officers that Edward Valdez was being aggressive with a friend’s 4-year-old female dog, Freya, when the attack occurred at about 7:05 p.m. Tuesday in the 1000 block of Canyon Blvd., just west of Boulder High School, said police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley. Valdez was wrestling with the dog before being bitten, witnesses told police. “A couple of people said he was pulling the dog by its ears and head-butting the animal,” Huntley said. “After a short period...

... Jessica Simpson's... the new spokesperson for Stampede Light Plus.... ... she's more than the face of the brand — Jess is part owner of the brew... ... the beer is for people who "choose to look after themselves"... "As an entrepreneur, I am always looking for ways to diversify my portfolio with good ideas and good people," Jessica said of the deal."Yes, I work out and take care of myself, but I also like a cold beer once in a while."

PHILADELPHIA — Childhood ear infections may not just put hearing at risk. Kids who get them may develop a strong affinity for fatty foods and could be predisposed to obesity, surveys now suggest. Researchers suspect that infections of the middle ear may alter the sense of taste by damaging a nerve that carries sensations from the tongue to the brain.

She says she was just trying to put her baby to sleep, but a mother's method got her arrested at the state fair. The sheriff's department in Jefferson County says Kathryn Bowen bought a cup of wine at the horse show at Freedom Hall, but Bowen apparently didn't intend to drink it, or drink all of it. Two police officers were watching nearby. "The deputy and the corrections officer observed her remove the bottle from a bag, uncap the bottle, place the contents of the glass into the bottle and then handed it to the baby who then proceeded to...

State wildlife officials are now saying the European wild boar that was spotted near Detroit Lakes was actually a pot-bellied pig that likely escaped. Department of Natural Resources wildlife manager Tom Kucera says a landowner shot the pig Tuesday morning after it had harassed her horses. Kucera says the pig weighed about 80 pounds and likely had been someone's pet.

You better eat your . . . Frosted Flakes? Olympic legend Michael Phelps will appear on boxes of the Kellogg's brand sugar cereal, drawing sharp criticism from health experts worried about the message he'll be sending to children across America. "I would not consider Frosted Flakes the food of an Olympian," said nutritionist Rebecca Solomon of Mount Sinai Medical Center. "I would rather see him promoting Fiber One. I would rather see him promoting oatmeal. I would even rather see him promoting Cheerios." The announcement yesterday that Phelps, 23, winner of a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics,...

PARKLAND, Wash. -- A man dressed in woman’s underwear and exposing himself drove up to a Parkland espresso stand three times before one of the baristas threw a cup of boiling water at him, said the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office. Jamae Feddock, a bikini clad barista at Java Girls, said she first thought the man dressed in women’s underwear and exposing himself was a sick joke, until the man came back several times. The first time he came to the window Feddock said he was wearing a white bra and white panties and touching himself inappropriately. Then he came back...

For the first time, scientists have proven that "beer goggles" are real — other people really do look more attractive to us if we have been drinking. Surprisingly, the beer goggles effect was not limited to just the opposite sex among the ostensibly straight volunteers recruited for the study — they also rated people from their own sex as more attractive. Scientists in England gave 84 heterosexual college students chilled lime-flavored drinks that were either non-alcoholic or given a dose of vodka equivalent in alcohol to a large glass of wine or a pint-and-a-half of beer. After 15 minutes, the...

A few days ago, I did a post about the beer brand, Honey Amber Rose. In my opinion, its lack of real success is attributable to its selling campaign. Beer is a funny product; it has to be the friend of all, not some, and it can’t afford to alienate its core. I might be wrong (and it wouldn’t be the first time), but in my original post, I layed out why the brand inevitably has problems. It’s a chick beer in a man’s world.

Days before a conference on water quality began in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., last week, residents say a strange fish with two mouths was found at the nearby lake. The deformed fish, which residents say children had caught off the dock at Lake Athabasca, has since been turned over to park wardens at Wood Buffalo National Park. Some residents, including officials from the Mikisew Cree First Nation, took photographs of the fish over the weekend. It was found just days before the Keepers of the Water conference began Friday in Fort Chipewyan. The conference wrapped up on Sunday. The event brought...

ROME (Reuters) - About 60 newly hatched sea turtles lost their way during their ritual passage to the sea and marched into an Italian restaurant instead, a conservation worker said on Monday. The baby turtles -- which ended up under the tables of startled diners at the beachside restaurant -- were probably thrown off track and lured by the eatery's bright lights, said Antonio Colucci, who was called to help rescue the group.

Did anyone catch the latest episode of "Cooking in the Danger Zone" last night? The host visited a commercial dog farm in South Korea that raises dogs for slaughter. He also visited several street vendors that sold dog as well as a popular restaurant specializing in everything from basic dog stew to spicy dog penis. The episode showed a dof being butchered in the kitchen and cut up for stew, and the BBC host said during his visit to the dog farm that the animals there were treated better than hogs in Great Britain. So, why has dog never caught...

Springfield, IL (AHN) - This year's just-ended Illinois State Fair and New York's Dutchess County Fair that opens Tuesday are among state and county fairs going on around the country this month with a focus on becoming greener.Illinois State Fair officials gave out a green vendor award this year to a donut stand that switched from petroleum-based Styrofoam to serve its food on to renewable paper products. Last year fair officials there began setting up recycling bins for plastic bottles, but critics say they are still scarcer than trash cans and hard to find at this year's fair. Fairs have...

I need advice in establishing a Celebrity chef or television chef ping list. There is an existing food ping list though I'm not sure how active it is. This would not be a place for the exchange of recipes though if that were to happen I wouldn't have an issue with it. The main purpose would be the diversion from more serious matters to discuss television food personalities and news of interest to "foodies": Rachel Ray, Anthony Bourdain, Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, Jacques Pépin, Paula Deen and so on.

Coffee drinkers throughout Milwaukee are being served less brew for their buck, as some area coffee chains skimp on filling cups to their advertised size. Caribou Coffee fared the worst among area chains, cutting several ounces from every drink ordered by Public Investigator. That amounted to nearly 50 cents' worth of coffee shorted from some cups. Starbucks offers the most honest cup of joe in town but on average still fell short of the advertised amount. Here's a practical tip for coffee buyers who spend as much as $4 for their caffeine fix: If you want to get what you...

Burger King Corp. said Tuesday it had parted ways with an employee who was recorded taking a soapy bath in a utility sink in one of its restaurants in a video that ended up on his MySpace page.

I want to lose some weight and have been working-out on an "Elliptical" trainer (I think it is called) for a couple months. I do 3.5 miles in 30 minutes per day, and I work up a good sweat. I burn 300 - 350 calories. My diet is crappy. I eat when I can and when I reduce intake I feel nutrionally starved. I then go for fats and carbs. Thus the following questions to those that are willing to answer: How much do you exercise per day (or week)? What type of diet (eating style, foods, calorie intake) do...

"For a long time, humans were pretty dumb, doing little but make 'the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years,' says Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai. Then, 150,000 years ago, our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials. We started creating art and maybe even religion. To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, researchers examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years.

Say what you will about Rachael Ray, but the jaunty chef-next-door knows how to build a brand. She began winning audiences with catch phrases like "EVOO" (for extra-virgin olive oil) on her first Food Network show, 30 Minute Meals, in 2001. Today, she has four Food Network programs, including Tasty Travels and $40 a Day. Her nationally syndicated, Oprah-backed talk show, Rachael Ray, is averaging 2.6 million viewers this season, and her Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine has 1.5 million readers. She endorses Dunkin' Donuts too--all to the tune of $18 million a year. More established chefs also know...

A hotel manager paid about £14 for each grape in the 1 1/2 pound bunch of Ruby Romans, a newly developed variety. "We believe the price was probably a record high," said Hirofumi Isu, a local agriculture official. "They're delicious — sweet but fresh at the same time, very well balanced." The tomato-colored grapes made their debut at an auction in Japan's northwestern Ishikawa prefecture, where they have been under development since 1994 in a state-led project. The bunch that fetched the top price had about 35 grapes, each slightly smaller than a pingpong ball, Isu said. The average price...

In the interest of being fair & balanced (cough, cough), here’s a link to what some brewers in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota area will be brewing up for the Republican conventioneers. Contrary to reports, there will be no McClain’s Older Than Dirt aged barleywine available.

It's a restaurant in Taiwan with a modern decor and a full-on toilet theme. The thorough implementation includes toilet chairs, urinal sconces, and even commode shaped serving pieces. Probably not the best place to bring a child in potty training... Toilet Bowl Taipei Metro, Hsinpu Station, Exit 1 (02) 8253-7767 YouTube - Toilet Bowl , Taiwan

Pictures of a simple fish smoker setup for the high country Above: A wooden tripod made from dead sticks holds up the freshly caught and cleaned fish, while a small stainless bowel (This one is from an old ladle) sits on the camp-stove to hold the hickory chips (which can be purchased at most grocery stores). A small stainless wire runs through the fish, and hooks onto the tripod to suspend them. Above: Now over the whole works is put one of these oven-proof plastic bags also from the grocery store or the like (in the ziploc/glad bag section, probably)...

WELLINGTON (AFP) - It used to be a national joke that New Zealand had 20 times more sheep than people. But figures released on Saturday show sheep numbers are dwindling and there are now only eight of the woolly animals per head of the country's population. < > "Lambchops will be harder to find," he said.

Ah, the science behind "Global Warming." Powered by moonbeams, unicorns, and now? Rainbows.

Australian scientists have come up with a unique way to combat climate change: eat kangaroos and save the world. A study claims that farming and consuming more kangaroos instead of cattle and sheep will reduce carbon gas emissions. According to the scientific journal Conservation Letters, the Australian icon produces far less methane than sheep and cattle. Methane is one of the worst causes of greenhouse gas and in Australia alone sheep and cattle produce 11 per cent of the nation’s total emissions. Kangaroos, on the other hand, produce relatively small amounts of the gas because they are not ruminants; as...

Former "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" actress Eliza Dushku has upset animal rights activists after she revealed she hunts elk and deer. The actress proudly showed off her bow and arrow skills on late-night talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on Wednesday and boasted about killing a deer in Oklahoma last Christmas. She also revealed she was hunting for elk in Colorado when she landed her role in the upcoming TV series "Dollhouse." Realizing the studio audience had turned on her over her Bambi-killing antics, Dushku joked, "My mother called me herself and said, 'You're a liberal from New England, what the...

Tremayne Durham People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is asking a state prison superintendent to no longer allow "fried chicken" killer Tremayne Durham to eat meat, saying he "should be prevented from contributing to any more suffering and death - including the kind associated with eating meat and dairy products."PETA sent a letter this morning to Nancy Howton, the superintendent of Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, where Durham will be processed over the next several weeks before being assigned to another prison.Durham, who killed Gresham man Adam Calbreath over his frustration with a deal to buy an...

[snip] The curious incident happened in Columbus Park... The park itself is one of the more intriguing gathering spots in Manhattan. All day, elderly Chinese men play a Chinese version of chess as crowds gather to watch. There are other clusters of Chinese women playing card games. Little English is spoken. [snip] It was among this crowd that a burly white man in a blue shirt sat down. He threw some crumbs on the ground in front of him and almost immediately, a flock of pigeons was at his feet. Then, with a quick thrust of his right arm, he...

Police didn't have a hard time finding three teenage burglary suspects who allegedly broke into a St. Paul recreation center last week. All they had to do was follow a trail of Cheetos. A witness told police that she saw Michael Bady, 18, Jesse Fairly, 19, and a 17-year-old boy drop a bag of chips as they ran from the Arlington Recreation Center to a nearby residence around 1 a.m. on July 29. Police checked the rec center and found that glass on a vending machine had been smashed. The machine's contents were missing, according to a criminal complaint filed...

Max, the sweet-toothed boy, 3, who walked a mile at 3am to buy chocolate Last updated at 19:04pm on 07.08.08      Adventurer: Max McGrath, dressed in pyjamas and oversized shoes, headed off for a sweet hunt... at 3am   When three-year-old Max McGrath had an urge for a chocolate egg in the middle of the night, nothing was going to stop him from satisfying his craving.At 3am the sweet-toothed toddler climbed out of bed, slipped on his brother's shoes and armed himself with his pocket money and a front door key, before heading out on a mile-long walk...

Texas style BBQ, for all to enjoy. Step by step pics included, start to finish.

A handsome new book by Amy Goldman jump-started memories of my family saving seeds from our beloved yellow oxheart tomatoes through fall and winter for spring planting. This was our heirloom tomato, although we did not think of it as such. In reading Miss Goldman's "The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table" (Bloomsbury), I learned that one woman, who was involved with preserving a strain her ancestors had brought when they emigrated from Germany, still puts sugar on her sliced tomatoes. I remember my grandmother doing this, although she also added a few drops of vinegar on the slices of...

I apologize for posting this question in News/Activism - but this is the most widely read category in Free Republic and I want some opinions. I have a recipe for oatmeal brown bread. It's really good. It's a very hearty tasting wheat bread that uses oatmeal as well. In the recipe, it calls for using lard. Is it possible for me to use Crisco as a substitute - or might that affect the taste of the bread? Thanks for your advice!

Okay, Food Network has picked its next "star", and I'm probably one of many who was disappointed. None of the contestants were firing all on 8 cylinders, but Aaron? I just don't get it. I've read a few

Hotness has got a new definition, courtesy a curry called 'Satan's Ashes', which requires its makers and staff to wear masks and rubber gloves to handle it. Touted as the hottest in the world, the dish contains the Naga Morich chilli, which measures 953,721 on the Scoville heat scale. If this was not hot enough, the dish also contains the Bhut Jolokia, which has been registered at a sweat-inducing 1,001,304. And to get a spoonful of this sadistic dish, one has to visit Cumbria, where it is prepared, reports News of the World. Now, Ged Fowler, of the Chilli Pepper...