Free Republic

According to a stunning new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearly a third of all food produced in the United States gets wasted. We are probably the most wasteful society in the history of the planet, and we are also one of the most gluttonous. More than 35 percent of all Americans are considered to be officially "obese" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Unfortunately, this era of gluttony and taking food for granted will soon be coming to an end. Thanks to crippling drought in key growing areas and other extremely bizarre weather patterns, a...

What's in a name? It's an age-old question Juliet once asked Romeo in Shakespeare's famed play.Today, it's a serious question between the U.S. and the European Union, which has said it wants U.S. food makers to stop using European names.But depending on what food you're talking about, a name could be a lot, says Kyle Cherek, the producer and host of a TV show called Wisconsin Foodie.Cherek argues that certain products are so unique that only one country or region should be allowed to lay claim. So, for example, he says only onions from Vidalia, Ga., should be called American...

First lady Michelle Obama has vowed to help “confused and bewildered” moms wandering aimlessly in the aisles of America’s grocery stores. The help won’t come in lower prices, but in redesigned nutrition labels that will bold calories and “added sugar” and will more accurately describe serving sizes, according to CNS News. “As consumers and as parents, we have a right to understand what’s in the food we’re feeding our families,” Obama said Thursday in a press conference at the White House. “Because that’s really the only way that we can make informed choices — by having clear, accurate information.” Fresh...

If you polled a large group of international eaters on what makes the perfect meatball, chances are you’d get more impassioned answers than you ever imagined. Whatever meatball criteria you held sacred before posing this query will undoubtedly be called into question, as you’ll have hordes of enthusiasts riled up trying to convince you that their take on the savory morsels deserves permanent placement at the pinnacle of mythical Meatball Mountain.

Why can't I buy all-beef sausage patties, any more? It seems that none of the grocery stores are selling them.

Looks like Miami's new sister city is none other than Pawnee, Ind. Yesterday, the 305 was home to Parks and Recreation IRL, as Amy Poehler and Michelle Obama took the stage at the NFL/YET Center at Gwen Cherry Park to announce some new additions to the first-lady's "Let's Move" kids' health initiative. Miamians with their affinity for all things pork could certainly stand to take a cue from both Obama's efforts and from the enthusiasm of Leslie Knope, who's bound and determined to get Pawneeans to ditch 64-ounce sodas and paunch burgers. Together, the duo waxed rhapsodic about healthy...

<p>People line up to buy food at a supermarket in San Cristobal, about 410 miles (660 km) southwest of Caracas, Feb. 27, 2014. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Pope Francis called Wednesday for an end to violence in Venezuela that has killed at least 13 people and urged politicians to take the lead in calming the nation's worst unrest in a decade.</p>

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. This thread is non-political, 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 one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. There is no telling where it will go and... that...

First lady Michelle Obama has shown this week she’s got the muscle to make big things happen. She’s been no stranger to advocacy efforts that back her husband’s policy goals, from encouraging Americans to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act to nudging major corporations to hire military spouses. But the first lady and her office had largely avoided playing a major role in the process of crafting federal policy — focusing on partnerships with foundations and corporations, rather than on regulations and interagency coordination. Until now. On Tuesday, she and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack unveiled new...

by Susan Frommer | Top Right NewsKindness and consideration is something to be admired especially when helping firefighters who have spent hours in subzero weather battling a local fire.  So when McDonald’s Manager Heather Levia saw a way to help them by donating food and paying for it out of her own pocket for them, being fired never occurred to her.  But that is exactly what followed for the New York former manager at an Olean, NY McDonalds, according to Fox 44. Total disbelief is one of the motions that had to have come across the young woman’s face when her...

Spanish researchers have developed a gourmet sausage made from baby poop. Yes, baby poop. More specifically, they’ve used a strain of bacteria derived from infant feces. Writing in the journal Meat Science, the scientists described how they took 43 fecal samples from infant diapers provided by parent and midwife volunteers. Using three strains of probiotic bacteria they isolated from the dirty diapers, the investigators cooked up several batches of pork that resembled a type of fermented Mediterranean sausage known as feut. Experts said it is not nearly as revolting as it sounds.

Obamacare – It’s a Tax There’s no escaping it. Restaurant chains in Florida are adding an Obamacare surcharge on customers’ bills.So now you can see how much of your purchase is going to fund the Democrats’ Un-Affordable Care Act. CNN Money reported: Several restaurants in a Florida chain are asking customers to help foot the bill for Obamacare. Diners at eight Gator’s Dockside casual eateries are finding a 1% Affordable Care Act surcharge on their tabs, which comes to 15 cents on a typical $15 lunch tab. Signs on the door and at tables alert diners to the fee, which...

Choosing healthier foods at the grocery store may soon be a little easier. The Food and Drug Administration is proposing several changes to the nutrition labels you see on packaged foods and beverages. If approved, the new labels would place a bigger emphasis on total calories, added sugars and certain nutrients, such as Vitamin D and potassium. The FDA is also proposing changes to serving size requirements in an effort to more accurately reflect what people usually eat or drink. For example, if you buy a 20-ounce soda, you're probably not going to stop drinking at the 8-ounce mark. The...

Thanks to the first lady, Will Ferrell is going to stop eating only candy on Sundays and entire honey baked hams. To celebrate the fourth anniversary of Let’s Move, Michelle Obama’s initiative to end the childhood obesity epidemic, the pair hosted a “focus group” with a bunch of kids, quizzing them about what foods, music and celebrities appeal to them, in a humorous Web video posted to Let’s Move’s YouTube account.

The Obama administration laid out new restrictions on the marketing of junk food and sugary drinks in schools on Tuesday. The new rules from the White House and the Department of Agriculture prohibit advertisements for unhealthy foods on school campuses during the school day, including sugary drinks that account for 90 percent of such ads in school. An ad for regular Coca-Cola, for example, would be banned from appearing on a scoreboard at a high school football game, though ads for Diet Coke and Dasani water, owned by the same company, would be allowed. Junk food ads like a Coca-Cola...

It's happening in Ukraine, Venezuela, Thailand, Bosnia, Syria, and beyond. Revolutions, unrest, and riots are sweeping the globe. The near-simultaneous eruption of violent protest can seem random and chaotic; inevitable symptoms of an unstable world. But there's at least one common thread between the disparate nations, cultures, and people in conflict, one element that has demonstrably proven to make these uprisings more likely: high global food prices. Just over a year ago, complex systems theorists at the New England Complex Systems Institute warned us that if food prices continued to climb, so too would the likelihood that there would be...

Here Are The Countries That Spend The Most On Food Matthew BoeslerFeb. 24, 2014, 8:28 PM Renaissance Macro Research, Congressional Research Service This chart plots the share of household income in a given country spent on food against the level of household income in that country. Neil Dutta, head of U.S. economics at Renaissance Macro, warns that rising food prices may serve as an additional economic headwind to some of the emerging markets in the top-left region of the chart (India, China, Indonesia, and Nigeria, to name a few). "Food prices are climbing for a range of items including cattle,...

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. This thread is non-political, 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 one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. There is no telling where it will go and... that...

Whole Foods, one of the largest health-conscious grocery stores in America, maintains a list of “Unacceptable Ingredients for Food.” The store's blacklist is 78 ingredients long and contains many well-known villains in the eyes of health-conscious eaters—aspartame, MSG, and high fructose corn syrup, to name a few. Though Whole Foods has grown over the years—it currently boasts more than 300 locations nationwide—it's still a small operation in comparison to Walmart, which runs more than 3,000 food-selling supercenters in the U.S., making it the largest grocery store in the country and indeed the world. Walmart does not ban any of the...

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is asking the Obama administration to scale back draft regulations under ObamaCare that would force restaurants to post nutritional information on their menus. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is close to finalizing a rule requiring calorie labels on vending machines and at restaurants and “similar retail food establishments.” Proposed in 2011, the regulations stem from the Affordable Care Act and are designed to combat obesity by helping consumers make healthier choices.But the group of 24 lawmakers said the draft regulations, which apply to restaurants with 20 or more locations, go beyond Congress’ intent and...