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The Southern California farm that grew the green onions that were first linked to and then cleared in last year’s E. coli outbreak has filed a libel lawsuit against Taco Bell Corp. Boskovich Farms, Inc. filed the lawsuit last week in Orange County Superior Court, alleging the Yum! Brands Inc. (YUM) unit continued to link its green onions to the December outbreak that sickened more than 70 people in the Northeast despite knowing the produce was not contaminated. “Taco Bell engaged in an irresponsible and intentional crusade to save its own brand at the expense of an innocent supplier,“ Thomas...

For all of our hardworking Minnesota Guard Soldiers in Iraq, a tasty treat in now being prepared by the "Serving Our Troops Organization." 11,500, 12 ounce Mancini's steaks will be shipped from Saint Paul to Kuwait City for a special dinner. Thursday, restaurant owner John Mancini made a video providing a crucial ingredient, cooking instructions. The big meal is set for April 15.

A cruel fate awaits these horses at the Kaufman slaughterhouse. Warning: This video contains disturbing images of the slaughter of Horses[It's images hard to ease from your mind so beware.] From the Alamo to the open range, the horse is permanently woven into the fabric of Texas. A cruel fate awaits these horses at the Kaufman slaughterhouse. But this symbol of the west is being slaughtered by the thousands here in Texas, only to end up on the dinner tables of Europe. Next week, Congress could change that and for residents of one Texas town it can’t be soon enough....

BOSTON (Reuters) - When it comes to food, Boston is best known for baked beans and clam chowder. But this week, state legislators have engaged in robust debate on Marshmallow Fluff -- a locally made, sugary spread. State Sen. Jarrett Barrios started the tempest in a lunch box when he learned that his son's Cambridge grammar school cafeteria offered Fluff-and-peanut butter sandwiches daily. In a nation where child obesity rates have more than doubled in the past 25 years, Barrios fretted that was not a healthy option. Monday he proposed a law that would allow schools to serve the "Fluffernutters"...

You don't have to travel the globe anymore to taste some of the healthiest foods in the world, but we can certainly learn a lot from other cultures when it comes to getting some nutritional powerhouses. If you haven't been much for adventure dining, here are 5 to try: 1) Olive Oil. This gets rave reviews from Spain to help lower bad cholesterol. 2) Yogurt. This gets a push from Greece for it's bacteria-fighting cultures. 3) Soy. Soy products are popular in Japan to help your heart. 4) Beans and Lentils. These are staple foods from India and they are...

KETCHUM, Idaho -- A wolf that killed a young elk near Stanley in central Idaho and settled down to try to eat its meal drew a crowd of human spectators - including a longtime wolf advocate and a longtime wolf foe. Jane Somerville of Stanley saw the chase and kill last Thursday by the Salmon River near the junction of Highways 75 and 21. "He pretty much went right for the neck and got it down on the ground," Somerville told the Idaho Mountain Express. "It was over very quickly." Alerted by cell phones, people began arriving along the river...

It's dark in Ireland. Black opaque. Especially so in the pubs. No, this isn't a comment on the economy or the psychology of the Irish. It's a comment on Irish beer -- stout, to be specific -- the black ale that personifies Irish beer throughout the world. Venture into any Irish pub and you'll be hard-pressed not to find at least one tap offering the national beer, which, to be exact, is an ale. This factoid separates Ireland from the rest of the world, where most beer drinkers quaff golden, fizzy lagers. Ireland wasn't always a stout-drinking nation. In 1759,...

More wine drinkers are waking up to the fact that the West Coast goes beyond California. Washington state winemakers, for example, now bask in rave reviews from critics and increased attention from consumers, particularly for their reds. "What's exciting for us is the quality of the wine, the Bordeaux-style cabs and merlot and also the syrah," said Mike Baker, manager of the Wine Discount Center in Chicago. Ironically, and here is another telling sign of the popularity of these wines, visiting Washingtonians are the biggest customers for Washington state syrahs at Fox & Obel, the Streeterville, Ill., market. Seems the...

Barbecue sauces have a uniquely Southern and Western U.S. history. Most experts agree that the practice of adding sauce and spices to meat and fish began early in our history, with Native Americans teaching the art to early European settlers. The natives probably developed the process as part of an attempt to keep meats and fish from spoiling quickly. Salt played a major role in those early barbecue sauces, and salt is a well-known preservative in the meat curing process. Because the nations first European arrivals lived on the East Coast of America, that part of the country is credited...

Japanese beer maker Asahi plans to give away 5000 personal bartending bots, each of which can store up to six cans of beer in a refrigerated compartment within its belly. At the push of a button the simple robots will open a can and pour the chilled contents into a glass for a thirsty owner. To win one of the beer-bots, in a promotion for the company's new low malt beer, contestants must collect 36 tokens found on the specially marked beers. But the competition, starting in February, is only open to those in Japan. Some robotics experts see...

THE competition to create a "sugar-coated" name to inspire people to eat kangaroo meat has a winner -"australus". Run by the Sydney-based magazine Food Companion International, the competition attracted 2700 suggestions from 41 nations. Only entries from people working in the food industry were eligible. Finalists included "kangarly", "maroo", "krou", "maleen", "kuja", "roujoe", "rooviande", "jurru", "ozru" and "marsu". Also submitted were "kangasaurus", "marsupan", "jumpmeat" and "MOM" (meat of marsupials). As Greg Richardson, of Pacific Palisades in California, explained of his entry: "There is nothing more comforting than a mother. In order to make kangaroo meat sound more comforting to potential...

In Vitro Meat By RAIZEL ROBIN Published: December 11, 2005 In July, scientists at the University of Maryland announced the development of bioengineering techniques that could be used to mass-produce a new food for public consumption: meat that is grown in incubators. The process works by taking stem cells from a biopsy of a live animal (or a piece of flesh from a slaughtered animal) and putting them in a three-dimensional growth medium - a sort of scaffolding made of proteins. [snip] Scientists at NASA and at several Dutch universities have been developing the technology since 2001, and in a...

Debonair John Steed - bowler hat, red carnation - and his sidekick, Emma Peel, were The Avengers, whose camp, cool adventures helped define Sixties television. But how many viewers have stopped to ask exactly what was being avenged? The long-forgotten answer will be revealed later this year thanks to the rediscovery of The Avengers' first-ever episode, which was believed to have been lost for good. Entitled Hot Snow, it was broadcast live by ITV in 1961 in an era when there was little technology - or appetite - to record shows for posterity. But after years of painstaking research, the...

Take one shot of reality, add two shots of panic and a mixer of self-loathing, and you have the licensing law debate. 'Late-night drinking: the backlash' read a front-page strapline of The Times (London) on 24 August, promoting a two-page news piece on the likely fallout from the new licensing laws in England and Wales, which come into effect on 24 November. The Times reports that local councils have been 'swamped' by last-minute applications for new licenses to sell alcohol, which will give little opportunity for the public to object; that four pubs in the centre of Sevenoaks, Kent, will...

I've been receiving lotsa spam lately. But one of the junk mails I had to investigate. It wanted me to vote for my favorite candy bar. I must admit that I seldom purchase them now that I'm officially middle aged. But as a kid, spending $2 on candy and staying up late to watch Nightmare Theater on friday nights was the highlight of my week! So I figured many freepers have similar pleasant recollections. So here's the best of the best: Top 7 Candy Bars of All Time 7. Cadbury Milk Chocolate with nuts. The Brits do some things right!...

Weather Channel adopts breezier feel Aim to win new viewers, keep the old Scott Leith - Staff Yes, the Weather Channel can actually get squarer. But that's just the new logo. Beginning Monday, the Atlanta-based king of cable weather will unveil a boxy logo to replace its existing symbol, a well-known but dated badge that has barely changed since the network was founded in 1982. Channel devotees will notice more substantial chages as the year goes on. The Weather Channel, known for years by its staid style and endearingly nerdy approach, is moving to the next step in its evolution...

A Carroll County mother is accusing one of the teachers at her son's elementary school of having inappropriate physical contact with her son, having him lick the teacher's toes in exchange for candy. The mother says she discovered what happened on Friday, when she saw a note, bearing the teacher's name in the signature, written in her 10-year-old son’s school yearbook. “I saw a note from a teacher, saying, ‘Good luck next year. Don't lick anyone else's toes. You're silly. Love, Mrs. Kilpatrick,’” said Denise Strozier, the student’s mother. “So, I'm, like, okay. What is this about licking somebody's toes?”...

Women's involvement in sports has radically increased over the past 30 years. There are more women's hockey, basketball, and soccer teams than ever before. This rise in participation has dramatically improved the level of competition and calibre of female athletics. This does not stop me, however, from hearing little boys chide each other for "throwing like girls" in schoolyards nation-wide. Resistance against women in athletics still exists. Female athletes not only tackle questions regarding their athletic ability, but also their femininity. Competitive female athletes often develop muscular physiques to meet the demands of their sport. How do female athletes tackle...

Daily News editor-in-chief Michael "Cookie Monster" Cooke indulged a kinky "fetish" for women's footwear by assigning stories about his obsession while he was editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, according to a columnist who worked for him. Fashion writer Jennifer Hunter revealed in the Sun-Times last week that Cooke's preoccupation with sexy shoes was the talk of the newsroom. "One reason I am convinced that pointy shoes are a male plot to demean women is that a former male editor at the Sun-Times had a fetish for women's footwear," Hunter wrote in the Chicago paper. "He thought they were intensely sexy...

The first thing that struck me walking through Moran Market in southern Seoul was how they kept animals for the slaughter. Yellow-coloured dogs were lying side-by-side without any room to move or stretch. Dogs, chickens, goats, turkeys and ducks where lined up in cages, ready for the next shopper searching for fresh meat. The smells were varied – on the one side it smelled like Old MacDonald's farm, while on the other side it smelled like barbecued meat. I didn't witness any active cruelty being inflicted on the animals. The shopkeepers had obviously had bad experiences with foreigners and it...