Free Republic

Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the new Surgeon General and Secretary of the Department of Health for the state of Florida, denounced coronavirus hysteria on Tuesday, alleging it uses fear to rob people of their personal autonomy. [cut] After stepping up to the podium, Ladopo declared that the Sunshine State is “done with fear.” “We’re done with fear. It’s been something that’s been, unfortunately, a centerpiece of health policy in the United States ever since the beginning of the pandemic, and it’s over here — expiration date is done,” he said. In the same speech, Ladopo touted the importance of vaccines while...

New research has found that fruit and vegetable consumption and exercise can increase levels of happiness. While the link between lifestyle and wellbeing has been previously documented and often used in public health campaigns to encourage healthier diets and exercise, new findings published by the Journal of Happiness Studies show that there is also a positive causation from lifestyle to life satisfaction. This research is the first of its kind to unravel the causation of how happiness, the consumption of fruit and vegetables and exercising are related, rather than generalizing a correlation. The researchers used an instrumental variable approach to...

NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES/CHICAGO - From apple packing houses in Washington state to farm workers in Florida and a California county known as “the world’s salad bowl,” outbreaks of the novel coronavirus are emerging at U.S. fruit and vegetable farms and packing plants. A rising number of sick farm and packing house workers comes after thousands of meat plant employees contracted the virus and could lead to more labor shortages and a fresh wave of disruption to U.S. food production. The Trump administration said last month it may extend an executive order to keep meat plants operating to fruit and vegetable...

Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor. What do you confess to the plants in your life?

Kale, that popular green of the health conscious, has joined the ignoble list of 12 fruits and vegetables with the most pesticide residues, according to the Environmental Working Group. The last time kale was on the list was in 2009 when it was ranked eighth. Strawberries and spinach took the top two spots again this year, respectively, followed by kale. Since 2004, the group -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan environmental organization -- has annually ranked pesticide contamination in popular fruits and vegetables for its Shopper's Guide, noting those with the highest and lowest concentration of pesticides after being washed or peeled....

Studies of ancient preserved plant remains from a medieval archaeological site in the Pamir Mountains of Uzbekistan have shown that fruits, such as apples, peaches, apricots, and melons, were cultivated in the foothills of Inner Asia. The archaeobotanical study, conducted by Robert Spengler of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, is among the first systematic analyses of medieval agricultural crops in the heart of the ancient Silk Road. Spengler identified a rich assemblage of fruit and nut crops, showing that many of the crops we are all familiar with today were cultivated along the ancient trade...

It’s been a bad season for veracity (witness our recent political campaigns!): Unfounded claims abound. Product pitches assault us with no tether to reality. Science is misappropriated for commercial gain.One example of such things: fruit and veggie pills that claim they can take the place of the whole foods you’re not including enough of in your diet.Don’t get me wrong: I think there’s value in certain plant-derived nutrient supplements. Before it sounds like I’m dismissing an entire group of products, you should know that there are a few categories where these substitutes for fresh produce can have benefits.For instance, there...

"Decreasing sodium intake is a well-established way to lower blood pressure," McDonough says, "but evidence suggests that increasing dietary potassium may have an equally important effect on hypertension." Hypertension is a global health issue that affects more than one billion people worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that hypertension is responsible for at least 51 percent of deaths due to stroke and 45 percent of deaths due to heart disease. McDonough explored the link between blood pressure and dietary sodium, potassium and the sodium-potassium ratio in a review article published in the April 2017 issue of the American Journal of...

Food scientists at Cornell University have produced a strain of broccoli that thrives in hot environments, which may make it possible for states with stiflingly hot summers to grow the vegetable. California, where cool coastal fog is perfect for growing standard broccoli, currently produces more than 90 percent of the broccoli grown in the United States. If California were to disappear, what would the American diet be like? Expensive and grainy. California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95...

The ACC officially has a new location for its football championship game. The conference announced Thursday morning that the game will move to Orlando’s Camping World Stadium. The move comes two weeks after the conference, following an NCAA decision, decided to move all of its championships outside of the state of North Carolina because of House Bill 2 (HB2), a state law that requires transgender people to use public bathrooms that match the gender on their birth certificates instead of the gender with which they identify.

Colombia is the finest nation on Earth when it comes to eating fruit. The country boasts mountains, jungles, deserts, and coasts, providing an environment conducive to growing any fruit you can imagine and plenty more you can’t, from sweet to sour to savory, and everything in between. Adventurous travelers quickly find their diets full of diverse flavors and their stool full of fiber in this gastronomic and gastrointestinal paradise. Of course, the tropical standards like mango, papaya, banana, avocado, and pineapple are available in multitudes, for a fraction of the price that they cost imported. That alone would be enough...

According to the government's new dietary guidelines, Americans need to cut sugar, salt and fat from their diets and eat more fruits and vegetables. To do this, people should choose a variety of nutrient-dense foods - things with lots of nutrients but comparatively few calories - in all food groups. ...

Giraffe was on the menu in Pompeii's standard restaurants, says a new research into a non-elite section of the ancient Roman city buried by Mount Vesuvius' eruption in 79 A.D. The study, which will be presented on Jan. 4 at the Archaeological Institute of America and American Philological Association Joint Annual Meeting in Chicago, draws on a multi-year excavation in a forgotten area inside one of the busiest gates of Pompeii, the Porta Stabia. Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, said his team has spent more than a decade researching the life of the middle and...

I mentioned two days ago the decision of schools to ban birthday cupcakes. Michelle Obama is essentially fighting with students to get them to change what they eat. But what is missing from this story is the proper context. The fact is that our bad eating habits are getting encouraged by taxpayer money. In fact, the government arguably changed our dietary habits to their present behavior. The Foundation for Economic Education came out with an article yesterday about dealing with “food deserts.”

Anyone who’s paying attention knows it’s a very good idea to eat green, leafy vegetables and colorful citrus fruits. Over time, research has shown their association with reducing cancer and chronic disease. In fact, most of us know that we should be consuming multiple helpings of these foods each day. (Here is a handy calculator from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that helps you figure out how much you need.) But which vegetables are best? Fads come and go as quickly as that kale in your fridge. One day it’s broccoli, the next cabbage. And how do you...

Researchers at the Medical College of Qingdao University in Qingdao, China, saw a 32% decrease of stroke risk with every 200 grams of fruit consumed each day, and an 11% decrease for every 200 g of vegetables eaten daily. High fruit and vegetable intake can lower blood pressure and improve microvascular function, the researchers said in the study, which was published in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke.

Full title: First Lady: ‘Imagine’ an America Where Kids Beg for ‘More Fruits, Vegetables’ – ‘It is Possible To Create This World!' (CNSNews.com) – First Lady Michelle Obama said she can “imagine” an America where businesses promote the “healthiest options” so children will be “begging and pleading” for fruits and vegetables, adding that “it is possible to create” such a world. “I mean, just think for a minute what this country could look like,” Mrs. Obama said at the Partnership for a Healthier America Summit on Friday at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “Imagine walking into any grocery store...

A Brief Treatise on the Fruits of the Holy SpiritBy: Msgr. Charles Pope There was a wonderful excursus on the Church as the Body of Christ in the Sunday readings. Would that we might better appreciate the diversity of gifts in the Church today instead of being fearful or dismissive of gifts that we appreciate less. As a pastor, I have come to appreciate that people find their way to God in many and diverse ways and that when the Church permits diversity we ought respectfully rejoice in even in the ways we do not personally prefer.I want to...

Updated at 8 p.m. ET: NEW YORK - A suspected terrorist parked a van packed with what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb next to the Federal Reserve building in Lower Manhattan and tried to detonate it Wednesday morning before he was arrested in a terror sting operation, authorities said. The suspect, 21-year-old Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, is a Bangladeshi national who came to the U.S. on a student visa in January for the specific purpose of launching a terror attack here, authorities said. He allegedly told an undercover agent last month that he hoped the attack would disrupt...

Students in California public schools may not be leading the nation in their knowledge of the “three R’s,” but they are well on their way to being experts in deviant lifestyles. Under a law signed last year by Gov. Jerry Brown (D), all public schools in the state are now required to promote homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality, and same-sex “marriage” at every grade level, including kindergarten — and to do so without parental consent or even notification. Known as the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act, the law adds “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender [LGBT] Americans” to the list...