Free Republic

Because of the importance of the US market, chocolate manufacturers in Switzerland are submitting to Uncle Sam’s intrusion in their factories but they are not happy about it. “The fact that a foreign authority is involved in our Swiss businesses is unseemly,” Daniel Bloch, of Chocolats Camille Bloch, told Handelszeitung, the German-language business journal. The newspaper has discovered that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to inspect 21 chocolate factories and 18 dairies in Switzerland. The move is part of the implementation of America’s Food Safety Modernization Act, new legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama last...

(Updated) The war on milk has shifted fronts. First it was sugar-laden chocolate milk, which parents and school administrators battled in recent years to remove from school-lunch menus. Now, it’s plain old moo that’s under fire. On Thursday, a national doctors group petitioned the U.S. government to remove milk as a required food group from the National School Lunch Program, the federally assisted program that has provided lunch to millions of public school kids since 1946. The doctors’ reasoning: milk doesn’t help protect kids’ bones. The promotion of milk to help build strong bones in kids is, “in effect, the...

California’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act will be on November’s ballot as Proposition 37, according to proposition numbers released late yesterday by the California Secretary of State’s office. The Right to Know measure calls for labeling genetically engineered foods and, if passed, would be the first law in the United States requiring labeling of a wide range of genetically engineered foods. “Prop 37 is about our fundamental right to know what’s in the food we eat and feed our children,” said Stacy Malkan, a spokesperson for the California Right to Know campaign. “Given the broad support in the...

Rising temperatures caused by climate change may lead to reduced milk production among cows in the southern United States, a new study suggests. University of Washington researchers analyzed climate and dairy industry data and concluded that the effects of climate change on milk production by Holstein cows through 2080 will vary across the United States due to major regional differences in humidity and swings between day and night temperatures. The study concluded that "regions that are currently experiencing the greatest losses [in milk production] are also the most susceptible: They are projected to be impacted the most by climate change."...

The Supreme Court justices’ stance on President Obama’s Medicaid expansion provision could be good news for states that want to lower their drinking ages from the federally mandated 21. ... The Supreme Court ruled that threatening to take away a state’s Medicaid funding unless the state does what the federal government wants is “unconstitutionally coercive” and declared it invalid. Because any given part of a Supreme Court decision can set a precedent for future laws and can even invalidate an established law if it is challenged using the Supreme Court’s new argument, the Medicaid decision could affect the National Minimum...

Animal herders living in what was a grassy part of North Africa's Sahara Desert around 7,000 years ago had a taste for cattle milk, or perhaps milk products such as butter. Researchers have identified a chemical signature of dairy fats on the inside surfaces of pottery from that time. Dairy products played a big part in the diets of these ancient Africans, even though they did not live in farming villages as the earliest European milk users did, reports a team led by biogeochemists Julie Dunne and Richard Evershed, both of the University of Bristol in England. Dairying may have...

The wacky and wonderful world of San Francisco politics once again went viral, this time after the City Insider and other local publications reported on Supervisor John Avalos’ remarks that he summoned the ghost of former Supervisor Harvey Milk to find out how the slain gay civil rights leaders would feel about having a U.S. Navy vessel named after him. During the City Hall debate Tuesday, supervisors said they conferred with Milk’s nephew, friends, former colleagues and compatriots, gay rights activists, the anti-war contingent and others on the issue; the affable Avalos, known around City Hall for his humor, said...

A San Francisco supervisor says he consulted a Ouija board before city leaders voted on whether to recommend naming a Navy ship after slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk. Supervisor John Avalos tells the San Francisco Chronicle (http://bit.ly/KnVnbu ) that he believes he made contact with Milk's spirit and that Milk spelled out letters indicating: "Good riddance to don't ask, don't tell." Te Board of Supervisors approved the non-binding resolution Tuesday on a 9-2 vote. Milk was a city supervisor and former naval officer. He was fatally shot in 1978 by Dan White. Supporters say the naming would honor the...

San Francisco wouldn’t be San Francisco if not for robust political debate, even over a seemingly feel-good request to the U.S. Secretary of the Navy to name a ship after gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk, the assassinated city supervisor who served as a Navy officer during the Korean War. Critics of the idea, led by Supervisor Christina Olague and a contingent from the San Francisco gay Democrat club named in Milk’s honor, don’t think he would have wanted his name associated with a military ship. Milk was “against the Vietnam War and war in general,” Olague said of Milk,...

Filner calls for Navy to name ship for Harvey Milk SAN DIEGO - Rep. Bob Filner has called on the Navy to name a ship after slain gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk, who served as a Navy officer in the early 1950s. In a letter to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Filner said naming a ship after Milk "would be a great tribute to Milk's support for equality and in keeping with effort(s) to promote equality in our military after the recent repeal of the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy." Milk served as a diving officer...

NORTHFIELD, Ill. (CBS St. Louis) — Kraft Foods is attempting to clean up the mess made by the accidental release of a controversial Oreo advertisement that features a breastfeeding baby. The ad shows a baby feeding from an uncensored breast and holding an Oreo cookie in its hand. “Milk’s favorite cookie,” it reads at the bottom. A spokesperson from Kraft told CBS St. Louis that the ad was not intended for mass public consumption. “We’d like to clarify that Kraft Foods did not create this visual,” a spokesperson said in a statement via e-mail. “In fact, this visual was created...

Raw milk and raw milk products are 150 times more likely than their pasteurized counterparts to sicken those who consume them, according to a 13-year review published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday. States that permit raw milk sales also have more than twice as many illness outbreaks as states where raw milk is not sold. The CDC study, published online in Emerging Infectious Diseases, reviewed dairy-related outbreaks between 1993 and 2006 in all 50 states, during which time the authors counted 121 dairy-related illness outbreaks resulting in 4,413 illnesses, 239 hospitalizations and three deaths. Despite...

The FDA has won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh, raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington region, after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines, and he told his customers he'll shut his farm down altogether. The decision has enraged Mr. Allgyer's supporters, some of whom have been buying from him for six years and who say the government is interfering with their parental rights to feed their children. But the Food and Drug Administration, which launched a full investigation complete with a 5...

Congressman Joe Walsh (IL-8) recently introduced the ‘Dairy Deregulation Act’ to phase out the government's milk price setting regime, called the "Federal Milk Marketing Orders (FMMO)". This program was established in pre-refrigeration 1937 to guarantee that there were no shortages of milk across the country. Today 74 years later, milk is the only major agricultural product with government-mandated prices that differ according to product use. Walsh stated: “Most taxpayers are unaware that they are paying for their milk twice. Currently American families are taxed to pay for a federal program that directly increases the cost of their milk. This is...

...dairy farmers across the country are pushing to overhaul federal dairy policy in a way they say would save the government money while preventing [price busts that caused them to lose money last year] from happening again. ...dairy farmers want to retire the current price-support program, saying it doesn't keep prices of milk high enough to cover the surging cost of corn they feed their cows. Instead, farmers want federal subsidy checks tied to declines in their profit margin. The catch: The idea would likely raise the prices that consumers pay for milk and other dairy products. To keep the...

Do you believe that you have the right to eat and drink what you choose? You may have another guess coming if the state and federal governments and the leftist puppet courts get their tyrannical way. WorldNetDaily has long been on the forefront in covering the ongoing assault on our freedoms by the enemies within our government and other places of power. They have also extensively covered the war on raw milk. With all the despicable, unconstitutional garbage we have seen out of the Obama administration, this may seem like a trivial issue to some, but it actually speaks to...

There was a time when having sex with a woman meant a wedding ring, a court ship or at the very least, dinner. But social psychologists say those days are quickly coming to an end as women become more promiscuous, Yahoo Shine reports. -snip- Other things that are said to have contributed to these changes include gender equality, birth control and internet porn.

Jen and Keith Gorney have chosen to serve their children raw milk from a local farmer. They've also chosen to send two of their kids to an Eden Prairie daycare for half day sessions. They didn't realize those choices would work against each other. The Gorneys learned that USDA guidelines require centers that serve meals to serve pasteurized milk with those meals. The Gorneys wanted to bring water to serve as a substitute but that is not allowed. They understand the daycare has no choice. If they do not follow guidelines they could lose their state license.

In response to a request from the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, the judge issued a clarification of his decision last week regarding his assessment of the constitutionality of food rights. SNIP As if to show how pissed he was at being questioned, he said his decision translates further that "no, Plaintiffs to not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd; "no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;" And in a kind of exclamation point, he added this to his list of no-nos: "no,...

Those raw milk proponents advocating "teach, teach, teach" may want to enroll Wisconsin Judge Patrick J. Fiedler in their first class--in the kindergarten section. In response to a request from the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, the judge issued a clarification of his decision last week regarding his assessment of the constitutionality of food rights. The judge expanded on his original statement that such constitutional issues are "wholly without merit." He explained that the FTCLDF arguments were "extremely underdeveloped." As an example, he said the plaintiffs' use of the Roe v Wade abortion rights case as a precedent does "not explain...