Free Republic

Mayonnaise is one of those pantry staples we can't seem to live without, whether we're slathering it on sandwiches or using it in deviled eggs. But with so many brands on the market—and just as many opinions about them—it begs the question: Is there truly a noticeable difference between mayo brands? For many celebrity chefs and home cooks, the answer is a resounding "yes." In our blind taste test of eight store-bought mayo brands, four stood out: Hellmann's, Duke's, Kewpie, and Sir Kensington's. Among these, Hellmann's and Duke's emerged as favorites for home cooks. When we asked five professional chefs...

The Heart Attack Grill, the over-the-top Las Vegas restaurant known for its calorie-loaded "Bypass Burgers" and hospital-themed servers, announced this week it will close its Sin City doors. The restaurant was founded by Jon Basso in Chandler, Arizona, in 2005. It relocated to downtown Las Vegas in 2011. It's most known for its unapologetically indulgent menu — including massive burgers, fries cooked in pure lard, even unfiltered cigarettes.

Georgina Owen, 21, of Saffron Walden in Essex, had been following a plant-based diet since 2016 'stemming from her environmental concerns', but was suffering from a B12 deficiency in the latter months of her life. Miss Owen told her family she had 'forgotten' to take her supplements but had bought an 'organic' Methyl-cobalamin B12 spray from Canada to top herself up. But a coroner's court heard that post-mortem blood tests showed she was B12 deficient Miss Owen's family reported that in the recent period before her death she had [been] dwelling on the state of the world and her place...

Iconic burger chain Carl’s Jr. is under increasing financial pressure from both California’s cost of doing business, $20 minimum wage rules and public safety issues that employees allege are spilling into the workplace. Carl’s Jr. has 588 stores in California as of 2025, but that number declined by 25 from 2023, when it had 613 stores in the state, according to internal franchise documents. Last month, a major franchisee filed for bankruptcy, affecting 11% of operations across the state. The doomed franchisee, Friendly Franchisees Corporation, last month explicitly blamed the state’s relatively new $20 minimum fast-food wage touted by the...

Muslim passengers being deported from Ireland to Pakistan were insensitively served pork sausages as part of a breakfast during their chartered flight. A Government-appointed human rights monitor branded the meal choice "inappropriate" aboard the journey from Dublin to Islamabad transporting 24 men to the Muslim-majority nation. The monitor's assessment noted "the quality of food was a low standard" and criticised the decision to include pork products for individuals travelling to an Islamic country – naturally defying the dietary practices of the religion. Before the flight – which cost Irish taxpayers €473,000 – the men were detained overnight across three separate...

Organ meats sit on the butcher’s shelf at a fraction of the price of premium steaks, yet most Americans walk right past them. Liver, heart, and kidneys deliver more vitamins and minerals per dollar than almost anything else in the grocery store, but cultural squeamishness and decades of convenience marketing have rendered them nearly invisible on American tables. Even as the Make America Healthy Again movement highlights these nutrient powerhouses, the rejection persists — a telling symptom of how far we have drifted from sensible, stewardship-minded eating. Beef liver, often called nature’s multivitamin, provides extraordinary levels of vitamin B12, vitamin...

With current events stirring up global energy prices, corn ethanol is again being dressed up as if it is a domestic energy source and agent of energy security. The truth is that corn ethanol is an energy sump, and that it takes more fossil fuel energy to make a gallon of corn ethanol than a gallon of gasoline. It is time to face this unpleasant truth and the other perverse outcomes achieved by twenty years of misguided policy. In 2005 and 2007, Congress passed the Energy Policy and Energy Independence and Security Acts that together created the Renewable Fuel Standard...

Though it’s a watered-down version of the long-discussed PRIME Act authored by the Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, the House has passed an important measure to start returning the regulation of intrastate food production to state and local authority. In practice, the return of meat production to local control will be a victory for producers and consumers, restoring flexibility and real community markets. But first, go back to 1942, when the farmer Roscoe Filburn grew wheat on his Ohio farm that he only intended to use on his own property. Penalized for violating the federal Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, Filburn...

A stomach-churning viral video appears to show a McDonald’s employee shoveling french fries in her mouth and then putting them back in a box, possibly to serve to customers — and police are investigating. “So you want french fries today, right?” the woman says to the camera, before placing the fries in her mouth while a co-worker laughs behind her in the kitchen of the East Main Street McDonald’s in Southbridge, Mass., according to the disgusting video obtained by Boston 25 News. The employee then puts the fries back in the box, the vile video shows. “That’s disgusting, are you...

When Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping sit down to a lavish state banquet in Beijing on Thursday, one Chinese cuisine is likely to feature on the menu: Huaiyang food, from the region surrounding Shanghai, known for its mild and subtle flavours, refined knife-work and emphasis on seasonal dishes... "One of the key strengths of Huaiyang cuisine is its broad appeal. Its flavours are widely acceptable and accessible to most people ... including international guests," said Shi Qiang, executive chef at Gui Hua Lou, an upscale Huaiyang cuisine restaurant in Shanghai... China even created a chicken dish named after US...

As if humanity needed another reason to embrace its early morning (or evening) espresso, scientists have just discovered a way that coffee potentially boosts health and longevity – and caffeine only plays a minor role. Instead, coffee seems to exert its purported anti-aging properties primarily through plant-derived compounds found in fruits, vegetables, and herbs. After all, the coffee bean from which all macchiatos manifest is itself from a fruit. Accordingly, it has been observed that coffee drinkers live longer and exhibit lower incidences of chronic and age-related disorders, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and dementia. But many past studies have been...

Garlic has been praised for centuries as one of those humble kitchen staples that seems to do more than simply flavor food. It shows up in family recipes, old home remedies, and now, increasingly, scientific studies looking at how natural compounds may affect the body as it ages. A new study suggests one particular compound found in aged garlic extract may have a surprising relationship with muscle health — and the path may run through fat cells. The research, summarized by StudyFinds and published in Cell Metabolism, focuses on a sulfur-containing compound called S-1-propenyl-L-cysteine, or S1PC. In laboratory and animal...

An eco-warrior politician has sparked outrage in Denmark after she defended guidelines limiting residents of government-run nursing homes to just 2.8 ounces of beef a week — which is less than one Big Mac. Birgitte Kehler Holst of the left-wing green Danish party The Alternative was also accused of saying old people in nursing homes should be “punished” by restricting their meat intake in comments made in a meeting of Copenhagen’s City Council on April 30. She was speaking against plans to exclude nursing home residents from guidelines in the Danish capital that restrict meals at government-run sites to just...

Potato-linked financial contracts have risen over 700% in a few weeks, despite a current oversupply in Europe, due to speculative trading surrounding the volatile environment caused by the Iran war. Potato contracts for difference (CFDs), which track the benchmark market for the commodity, have seen prices soar roughly 705% in less than a month. Since 21 April, the cost per hundred kilograms has risen from approximately €2.11 to a staggering €18.50. However, this price is in fact still very low compared to where the potato market was in the last two years. This is due to the underlying physical market...

Dark earth, the strange patches of black soil rich in nutrients that cause plants to grow at accelerated rates, while also capturing unusually high amounts of carbon from the air, is one of the Amazon rainforest’s greatest mysteries. Since these patches of dark earth were first discovered by European colonizers in the 1880s, debate has raged over their origins, with ideas ranging from the natural to the artificial. Variants of this dark, nutrient-rich soil have been found in a range of locations around the world, and are most often associated with the accumulation of materials in soil after long periods...

The price didn’t just go up. The product went down. This is shrinkflation on steroids. The cost increased. The value didn’t. BRIEFING Grant here. Shrinkflation is everywhere nowadays. It's actually becoming so common that we seem to just almost be throwing up our hands and accepting it. Well, for the most part.... Because this latest video showing what an absolute rip-off the classic McDonald's sundae has become has people pretty darn heated. Let’s break it down. A popular X video shows a woman holding her obnoxiously tiny McDonald’s hot fudge sundae. I mean, it's comically small. It looks like something...

Central California farmers are expected to gain up to $9 million in federal aid to help remove 420,000 clingstone peach trees following the closure of Del Monte Foods’ canneries earlier this year. Del Monte permanently closed its Modesto and Hughson canneries in April after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last July. The factory closures left hundreds of workers without a job while also leaving farmers in dire straits as they navigated what to do with their crops. In March, the Sacramento Bee reported that many Central California farmers had their 20-year contracts to grow peaches with Del Monte canceled while...

The neighborhood where NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is planning to build a government owned grocery store already has almost 50 markets within walking distance, raising further questions about his far left pipe dreams. Is the new store even necessary? Mamdani probably does not care about that. This is merely a campaign promise and he likely sees it as something on which he has to deliver. What is often not discussed is the competition this government owned store is going to create for all of these other privately owned stores. Ask any business owner, and they will tell you it is...

Butter is having a moment. No longer just a bit player in baking or a back-of-fridge standby, it’s taking center stage — whipped into sculptural boards, swirled into pastas, slathered generously on crusty bread. And yet, most of us still toss the same familiar yellow box into our grocery carts week after week. What actually makes a butter “better,” and which store-bought slabs are worth the splurge? To find out, we talked to chefs, cheesemongers and cookbook authors obsessed with butter — not just for the flavor, but for the science and soul behind it. We asked about butter for...

(Photo credit: Exclusive Image for Unsplash+) Research Shows That Avoiding Eggs Entirely Linked To 22% Higher Risk Of Memory-Stealing Disease In A Nutshell People who ate eggs regularly had lower Alzheimer’s diagnosis rates over 15 years. The lowest risk appeared in those eating eggs five or more times per week. Eggs provide nutrients linked to brain health, including choline and vitamin B12. The study shows a connection, not proof that eggs prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Eggs have spent decades bouncing between dietary hero and villain, praised for their protein one year and vilified for their cholesterol the next. A new study...