Free Republic

This year’s apple season has been so fruitful that distributors in Norway are running short on storage space. Meteorologists have linked climate change to the quickly-ripening fruits, NRK reports. Orchards in the western area of Hardanger told the broadcaster that this year’s apple season had been unusually short and intense, with a much shorter window than usual for harvesting. Large quantities of apples are now ready for transport to distributors and trees have been cleared of fruit, according to the report. “It has been a good season. The quality is also good. We can see that in both the color...

A worker cuts black granite to make a countertop. Though granite, marble and "engineered stone" all can produce harmful silica dust when cut, ground or polished, the artificial stone typically contains much more silica, says a CDC researcher tracking cases of silicosis. ================================================================ Artificial stone used to make kitchen and bathroom countertops has been linked to cases of death and irreversible lung injury in workers who cut, grind and polish this increasingly popular material. The fear is that thousands of workers in the United States who create countertops out of what's known as "engineered stone" may be inhaling dangerous amounts...

It’s the year 2038. The word “flavor” has fallen into disuse. Sugar is the new cigarettes, and we have managed to replace salt with healthy plants.
 We live in a society in which we eat fruit grown using genetics. We drink synthetic wine, scramble eggs that do not come from chickens, grill meat that was not taken from animals, and roast fish that never saw the sea. Was this what we had in mind when we started seeking transparency, traceability, and sustainability of our food system many years ago in the early aughts? About a decade ago, we lived through...

A vegan who says she was served a pork sausage roll that she thought was meat-free claims she has been “traumatized for life.” Sharleen Ndungu, 20, said she began having heart palpitations immediately after being informed that the roll contained meat. And then, she said, she began to cry. “I haven’t had meat in two years,” Ndungu said, according to Metro UK. “My belly started hurting and my heart started going crazy. I was panicking because that only happens when I consume meat — this doesn’t happen when I have other food. I’m traumatized for life now — I’m never...

I’ve had a request from Freeper MomwithHope to post this month on ‘Hearty Fall Fare’ - and even though it’s still hot here in DC, with Wednesday threatening record-breaking temperatures, the leaves are falling and the trees are beginning to morph into their Autumn glory. We can smell Fall. One of my first posts to FR, before I officially began this cooking thread, was about Virginia Peanut Soup. I can still remember how surprised I was on tasting it - while there was little in the soup other than peanuts, it was so rich and the flavor so unexpected. I...

Domino's Pizza is offering $20 an hour for a one-day job: Chief Garlic Bread Taster. Photo by distel2610/Pixabay.com ================================================================== Sept. 27 (UPI) -- The Australian wing of Domino's Pizza posted a job opening for a $20 an hour position that might be worth the trip Down Under: Chief Garlic Bread Tester. Domino's posted a job opening on LinkedIn seeking a Chief Garlic Bread Taster to spend one day making $20 an hour giving feedback on garlic bread and other Domino's menu items. The posting says the ideal candidate has a "minimum of 5 years' experience in garlic bread consumption," "has...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is non-political respite, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the...

A tractor-trailer hauling 38,000 pounds of raw Tyson chicken caught fire early Friday morning on Interstate 40, blocking all the interstate's westbound lanes for a time, according to the Ozark Fire Department. Fire Chief Nick Trotter said the driver was able to disconnect the tractor from the trailer and was not injured. No other injuries were reported either. The department responded to the call just after 3 a.m. near exit 37 on westbound I-40 in Franklin County, Trotter said. The driver told firefighters he had seen sparks coming from the back of the trailer and then the tires caught fire.

Systemic racism in the world of agriculture is being fought on a daily basis with an eye toward returning people of color to roles in operating farms and getting more nutritious foods to low-income communities. "The amount of farmland controlled by African Americans has consistently declined from a high point around the turn of the 20th century," Amani Olugbala, raptivist, spoken word artist and abolitionist, said Thursday night during "Farming While Black: Uprooting Racism, Seeding Sovereignty" in the Sanctuary of Epsilon Spires in the First Baptist Church in Brattleboro. "Right now, the folks who own the land are overwhelmingly white....

DoorDash has confirmed a data breach. The food delivery company said in a blog post Thursday that 4.9 million customers, delivery workers and merchants had their information stolen by hackers. The breach happened on May 4, the company said, but added that customers who joined after April 5, 2018 are not affected by the breach. It’s not clear why it took almost five months for DoorDash to detect the breach. DoorDash spokesperson Mattie Magdovitz blamed the breach on “a third-party service provider,” but the third-party was not named. “We immediately launched an investigation and outside security experts were engaged to...

he CDC is advising hunters to wear protective equipment while field-dressing deer as a result of the findings. Hunters in Michigan who submit deer heads which test positive for the bacterium could be at higher risk according to the agency. FOX 17 News spoke with TWRA Wildlife Veterinarian Dan Grove who says there has not been a confirmed case of TB in deer in the state but overall, the basic safety advice issued by the CDC is sound. "The advice is sound in general" Grove says. "If it looks like there is an abscess in a piece of meat then...

PITTSBURGH - Pittsburgh Public Schools are investigating after possible marijuana-laced desserts were discovered at a high school. Channel 11 has learned marijuana may have been baked into what appeared to be brownies and Rice Krispies Treats at Taylor Allderdice High School. The discovery was made on the same day Gov. Tom Wolf announces his support for legalizing marijuana for adults over the age of 18.

With bugs, algae and other resource-efficient foods we could feed one million people on Mars within a century of arriving there. Scientists even invented a martian diet. Cannon and colleagues modeled the food needs of a human population on Mars that grows to one million over about a hundred Earth years through a combination of immigration and reproduction. Though the settlement would need to import a lot of food at the start, it could transition to an entirely Martian-grown diet in about a century with the right food choices, they found. The major limiting factor is space — or rather,...

Never have we been so connected and informed. We have at our fingertips a world of knowledge covering every possible field. We can easily communicate with others all over the world at little cost. We should have advanced immensely in speaking with others. Everything should be in place for long stimulating conversations about every possible topic. Or so it would seem. However, we are not talking to others. Worse yet, it appears many people don’t even know how to speak to one another. We are all wired up and have nothing to say. Many have lost the art of conversation....

Krispy Kreme is celebrating National Coffee Day with a doughnut and offer you won't find anywhere else. For this week only, 9/23-9/29, you can have your coffee and eat it too with our newest creation: the Original Filled, Coffee Kreme Doughnut.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — The U.S. Air Force is testing an improved,vegan version of the classic Cold War throwback weapon napalm, according to Air Force officials. The new weapon is expected to be able to burn the enemies of the United States to death while assuaging serious moral and environmental concerns. “Napalm is just a mix of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical,” said Louie Fleischer, a supervisory technical support specialist with the 96th Test Wing. “Historically, we’ve used animal-based gels. But now that the Department of Defense systemically rejects the commodity status of animals, we are...

Steak and potatoes, creamed spinach, a stiff drink: the menu at your average steakhouse hasn’t changed for over 100 years. Americans flock to these palaces of meat, whether they’re upscale chains or a neighborhood spot whose décor hasn’t changed since the Reagan administration. Despite some falls in consumption in recent years due to price increases and health concerns, steak is still a very big deal in America. This week we’ll take a look at the steakhouse, an American institution. Our modern steakhouse has two direct ancestors, the beefsteak banquet and the chophouse. Both arose, interestingly enough, in mid-19th century New...

'I would be surprised if they didn't double that in the not-too-distant future' Chick-fil-A is the left's most-hated fast-food chain. Progressives routinely boycott the chain for being "anti-gay" despite never turning away LGBT customers. New data reveals the LGBT boycotts have actually been ineffective – in fact, the chain's sales have more than doubled in the wake of the protests.

How is it that ever since the government began telling us what to eat, we have gotten fatter and sicker? In 1977, when the government first set dietary guidelines, the average American male weighed 170 pounds. He now weighs 197. It’s not any better for women —145 to 170. And you don’t need an academic study to know the same thing is happening to kids. Just look around. The weight gain has real-life consequences: the percentage of Americans diagnosed with type 2 diabetes—a condition that can lead to severe medical issues—has risen from 2% in 1977 to over 9% in...

It seems like one of these stories comes across our collective news feeds every few months. A restaurant or a nightclub posts a dress code somewhere on the premises. Someone spots the dress code and takes a picture of it, then posts it to Twitter or Facebook and talks about how racist it is. An extreme outpouring of conspicuous wokeness ensues. The establishment either apologizes or says “sorry not sorry.” The answer doesn’t really matter since the wokeness will just be ratcheted up. If the answer is sorry, sorry isn’t good enough. If they don’t say sorry, well, they should...