Tag: food

NYC Gets a Free Grocery Store, but It’s a Slap in the Face for Mamdani

New York City got its first free grocery store on Thursday, and yet it does more to discredit self-proclaimed democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani than do him any favors. The store wasn’t launched by the city but by Polymarket, a private prediction market where users bet on world events. More than 400 New Yorkers lined up for free groceries, praising the store as a much-needed relief during challenging financial times.

“Times are hard. Things are very expensive, so this helps,” Tori Hall, who was second in line outside the store, said. “It goes a long way.”

The Polymarket “free” grocery store opened Thursday and will operate as a five-day pop-up through Sunday, with the final day dedicated to donations. They added in a statement that the company had donated $1 million to the Food Bank for NYC “to help fight food insecurity across all five boroughs.” 

The initiative follows a similar stunt earlier this month by Kalshi, another prediction-market platform, which offered New Yorkers $50 in free groceries.

Mamdani responded to the latter stunt, posting a headline on X that read: “Heartbreaking: The worst person you know just made a great point.”

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U.S. Military Meals Contain Toxic Cocktail of Glyphosate, Veterinary Drugs and Heavy Metals

Independent laboratory testing commissioned by Moms Across America, with the support of Children’s Health Defense Military Chapter and Centner Academy, revealed Wednesday that U.S. military food, including Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs) and other rationed and cafeteria items are contaminated with a mixture of toxic pesticides, banned veterinary drugs, beta-agonists and steroids used widely in U.S. beef and pork production for growth promotion, heavy metals and glyphosate at levels that pose serious threats to human health.

Each year, more than 1.5 billion U.S. military meals and 37 million Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) are served to active-duty service members, making the U.S. military one of the most powerful purchasers and influencers in both the U.S. and global food supply.

The health, readiness and security of U.S. troops depend on these meals to support physical performance, cognitive function and long-term well-being.

The U.S. military seems to be lagging behind in the area of clean and safe food, as in 2014, the Chinese army ordered all military supply stations to only allow the purchase of non-genetically modified organism (GMO) grain and food oil due to health safety concerns over GMOs and their associated pesticides, which have now been shown to be contaminating U.S. military food supplies.

“We applaud President Trump’s commitment to increasing the budget of the military to ensure Americans are safe and creating the most powerful military in the world,” said Zen Honeycutt, founding executive director of Moms Across America.

“As our nation’s Commander in Chief, we call on him to be a true hero by ensuring our global power by providing the safest and healthiest meals of any military in the world. We are calling for American troops to have American food — regeneratively raised, organic meat and non-toxic, organic and nutrient-dense produce,” Honeycutt concluded.

The independent laboratory testing included 40 samples in total, with 16 samples from six military base cafeterias and 24 MREs being tested for toxic chemicals and nutrients. The samples contained ingredients such as wheat, GMO corn, GMO soy and meat.

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Beyond MREs: The U.S. Army Is Testing 3D-Printed Food for the Battlefield

The future of military rations may move beyond the iconic plastic-sealed MREs, replaced by meals printed layer by layer, tailored to each Soldier’s needs, and prepared on demand near the battlefield.

A new study conducted by researchers at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) suggests that while many Soldiers initially recoil at the idea of eating 3D-printed food, hands-on exposure and tasting experiences can rapidly shift attitudes—potentially paving the way for a new era of personalized military nutrition.

Set to be published in the June 2026 edition of Future Foods, the research offers one of the first direct looks at how U.S. Army personnel actually perceive food made through additive manufacturing.

The findings are significant not only for military logistics but also for the broader future of food technology, where customized nutrition, reduced supply burdens, and decentralized production are becoming strategic priorities.

Beyond the novelty of 3D-printed food is the reality that modern warfare increasingly demands mobility, endurance, and sustained cognitive performance under extreme conditions. Feeding Soldiers efficiently—without weighing them down—remains a persistent logistical challenge. The Pentagon believes that 3D-printed food rations could help solve that problem.

“Initially, Soldiers showed skepticism and reluctance towards use of the technology,” the researchers behind the recent study note. “However, after 3DFP technology was explained and 3D-printed prototypes were provided, Soldiers’ acceptance increased considerably.”

The Army-led research team conducted focus groups and tasting sessions with 17 U.S. Army Combat Medics to examine their reactions before and after encountering 3D-printed food prototypes.

Initially, most participants were skeptical, associating printed food with artificial, overly processed products or bland “calorie blocks.” However, attitudes evolved as Soldiers learned more about the technology and sampled 3D-printed food themselves.

One Soldier summed up a key concern voiced early in discussions, saying 3D food printing “takes the identity out of food,” explaining that “When you’re eating chicken, you see that it’s chicken. But if it’s just a brick, it almost makes the feeding process monotonous.”

Essentially, soldiers echoed a broader public sentiment: when food no longer resembles its original ingredients, the experience becomes less satisfying and more tedious.

This reaction captures a central challenge to technologically engineered meals. Food is not just fuel. It is cultural, emotional, and psychological. This can be especially true in high-stress operational environments that warfighters face.

The Army’s interest in 3D printing food stems from long-standing logistical realities. Traditional Meals Ready-to-Eat (MREs) are durable and calorie-dense, but they are also heavy and standardized. A Soldier on a week-long mission without resupply might carry more than 30 pounds of food alone, often prompting troops to cut rations and risk undernutrition.

Additionally, standard rations cannot easily account for individual differences. Soldiers vary in metabolic demands, mission intensity, climate exposure, and dietary preferences. Many end up modifying or discarding parts of their meals, a practice known informally as “field stripping,” to get something closer to what they actually need.

However, 3D printed food offers an alternative. Meals can be produced near the point of need, customized nutritionally and structurally for each Soldier. Instead of shipping finished meals across the globe, raw ingredients or shelf-stable printing materials could be transported and transformed into tailored meals in the field.

That possibility makes understanding acceptance critical. Technology is useless if Soldiers refuse to eat what it produces.

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The Most Socialist System in America Is the One Feeding Us—and It’s Failing

merica loves to debate socialism. We argue about universal healthcare, guaranteed income, student loan forgiveness, and government dependency. We pride ourselves on our rugged independence and belief in free markets. We warn that socialism destroys innovation, freedom, and personal responsibility. But here’s the uncomfortable truth most Americans never stop to consider: the most centrally planned, government-dependent, subsidy-driven system in the United States isn’t medicine, housing, or energy—it’s food.

Our food system is not a free market. It is not capitalism in any recognizable form. It is a government-engineered economy propped up by taxpayer dollars at every stage, directed by regulation, shaped by corporate interests, and leaving both consumers and farmers dependent, unhealthy, and without real alternatives.

Each year, more than $40 billion of taxpayer money is used to subsidize commodity crops like corn, soy, wheat, and cotton. Crop insurance—also paid for largely by the public—is essentially another subsidy, and without it, most large commodity farms wouldn’t survive. But the subsidies don’t stop at growing. Once harvested, those subsidized crops become corn syrup, seed oils, stabilizers, livestock feed, artificial ingredients, ultraprocessed food additives, and ethanol—fuel grown on prime farmland and heavily subsidized again under the banner of environmental benefit.

Then the same Farm Bill that subsidizes growing and processing also subsidizes purchasing those foods through SNAP benefits. And when the predictable metabolic outcomes emerge—obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease, autoimmune disorders—the government subsidizes the healthcare required to manage the consequences. So the loop looks like this: we subsidize growing the ingredients. We subsidize the industry turning those ingredients into processed food. We subsidize the public buying those products. And then we subsidize the medical care required to treat the disease that food causes. That isn’t a food economy. It is a taxpayer-funded dependency system.

People like to imagine that subsidies make farming cushy. Nothing could be further from reality. Even with subsidies, 85 percent of US farmers work a second job just to stay on their land and feed their families. They are subsidizing the food system with unpaid labor simply to keep feeding the country. I once watched a dairy farmer who had just won the lottery. When asked what he planned to do with the money, he shrugged and said, “I’ll keep farming until it runs out.”

He wasn’t joking—he was describing reality. Ask a farmer where they see themselves in five years and many go silent. Some get emotional. Some laugh because it’s safer than crying. I know that feeling: the pit in your stomach, the exhaustion, the prayer for a path forward.

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Powdered whole milk may be culprit in botulism outbreak that sickened dozens of babies

Powdered whole milk used to make ByHeart infant formula could be the source of contamination that led to an outbreak of botulism that sickened dozens of babies.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the details on Friday.

Powdered whole milk may be culprit in botulism outbreak

What we know:

Testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that bacteria in an unopened can of formula matched a sample from a sick baby — and it also matched contamination detected in samples of organic whole milk powder used to make ByHeart formula and collected and tested by the company, officials said. 

FDA testing also found contamination in a sample of whole milk powder supplied to ByHeart — and it matched the germ in a finished sample of the company’s formula.

What they’re saying:

A ByHeart official said the finding helps shed light on what has become a “watershed moment” for the company.

“We are focused on the root cause and our responsibility to act on what we’ve learned to help create a safer future for ByHeart and infant formula,” said Dr. Devon Kuehn, ByHeart’s chief scientific and medical officer.

What we don’t know:

While these results advance the agency’s understanding of the outbreak, the FDA said the findings are not conclusive, and the investigation continues “to determine the source of the contamination.”

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Davos Elites Push Lab-Grown ‘Meat’ Despite Massive Backlash

As the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again initiative ramps up its assault on processed poisons and added sugars, Davos elites are scrambling to defend their synthetic food agenda. From lab-grown “meat” to artificial additives, the WEF crowd insists their tech-driven “solutions” will save the planet, even as public resistance mounts and states impose bans on cultivated cell products.

This clash highlights the divide between policies prioritizing nutrient-dense, farm-fresh eats and the globalist push for factory-farmed fakes and lab grown substances riddled with unknown risks.

WEF Insider Touts Lab-Grown Meat as ‘Way Forward’ Amid Ecological Claims

In a discussion on food innovation, Davos participant Andrea Illy championed tech foods like cultivated meat, dismissing cultural resistance as outdated, despite acknowledging massive consumer backlash.

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We’re Losing the Human Touch in Food

Food, which generally originates with a farmer, gardener, or orchardist, is fast losing its hands-on persona and increasingly gaining a mechanical, chemical platform.

Over the last decade, the United States has lost about 28,000 farms annually. While some of the loss is due to urbanization, most of the land remains farmland, either managed by other farmers or simply abandoned. While there are 1.3 million farmers over age 65, only 300,000 are 35 or younger. In 2022, the average American farmer was 58—years older than the average age in other vibrant economic sectors.

The American business landscape is largely anti-people. The current rush to artificial intelligence reflects how eagerly most businesses seek to eliminate people. The farming sector illustrates this trend better than most.

Between 1960 and 2019, the percentage of disposable personal income spent on food dropped from 17 percent to 9.5 percent. Meanwhile, health care spending rose from about 9 percent in 1980, to 18 percent today. Could the two possibly be related? One more data point: In the last 80 years, the farmgate share of the retail food dollar fell from around 40 percent to just 15.9 percent in 2023.

Farming is out of sight and out of mind for most people. Food appears on grocery store shelves. It’s treated as a pit stop between life’s more important activities. Fortunately, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement is beginning to shine a spotlight on food, including revised and more truthful dietary guidelines.

For decades, American agriculture policy and practice have replaced farm labor with machines, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. This raises the question: Is food a living thing, or simply an inanimate pile of protoplasmic matter to be manipulated like wheel bearings or bottle caps?

As technological sophistication pulls our culture away from its biologically vibrant roots, it jeopardizes our functional microbiomes. Yes, that’s a packed sentence. You might need to reread it—slowly. The point is, our internal systems are more aligned with the ancient world than with Star Trek. Do we really want machines, chemicals, and drugs to be the medium in which our food is grown?

Wes Jackson, co-founder of The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, has long advocated for a healthy “eyes-to-acres” ratio. He suggests that when fewer people interact with the land and the growing of food, both land stewardship and food integrity suffer.

Per-person agricultural output—the number of people one farmer feeds—has increased dramatically over the past century. Cyrus McCormick’s invention of the reaper in the 1830s launched the agricultural industrial revolution, enabling farmers to produce far more than ever before. Replacing the scythe with the reaper was revolutionary.

While technology brought many agricultural efficiencies, without ecological ethics, it may have gone too far. The introduction of subtherapeutic antibiotics in chicken waterers enabled the rise of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). With feed augers, water pumps, and massive barns, individual farmer output soared. And along came super bugs, C. diff, MRSA, avian influenza, polluted water, and fecal-stench air in surrounding neighborhoods.

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US Ends Aid to Somalia After Locals Torch and Loot Warehouse Filled with 76 Tons of US-Donated Food

Such a grateful country!
They really appreciate all of the US taxpayer donated food sent their way.

The United States ended taxpayer-funded food aid to Somalia after local officials torched and looted the stockpiles of food stored in a local warehouse.

There is even video of the mass looting!

The US State Department released a statement after the warehouse was destroyed.

This is the same country that is shipped suitcases of US dollars each week.

It appears the Somalians in Africa are not very appreciated for the US assistance.

It’s about time the US focused their foreign aid in a different direction.

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Pesticides Derived From World War II Nerve Agents — Still Sprayed on Fruits and Vegetables — Found in Pregnant Women

A study in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health finds peak concentrations of organophosphate pesticide (OP) metabolites in the urine of pregnant mothers 6-12 hours after consuming contaminated fruits and vegetables.

“High detection rates were observed for dimethylthiophosphate (DMTP, 96%), dimethylphosphate (DMP, 94%), diethylphosphate (DEP, 89%), and diethylthiophosphate (DETP, 77%) among 431 urine samples taken from 25 pregnant women, over two 24-hr periods, early in pregnancy,” the researchers reported.

The levels of metabolites within the urine correlate to the consumption of foods treated with organophosphate pesticides, highlighting the importance of adopting an organic diet — particularly for pregnant individuals and their children.

“In 2009-2010, 80 pregnant women were recruited from Ottawa, Canada for the Plastics and Personal-care Product use in Pregnancy (P4) Study,” the authors said.

“A subset (n = 25) collected multiple spot urines (up to 10 each; total n = 431) over two 24-h periods in early pregnancy — one weekday and weekend day — while logging their food consumption beginning 24 h prior to the first urine void and continuing through the following 24-h urine collection period.”

This is the first study looking at the variability of organophosphate metabolites within 24 hours in maternal urine, giving insight into “the primary sources of exposure and the temporal variability in a population of Canadian pregnant participants.”

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Woke Council VP Turns City Into Sanctuary Grocery Service for Illegal Aliens

A St. Paul city official is facing intense criticism after publicly encouraging residents to assist illegal aliens in avoiding federal immigration enforcement, including by delivering groceries, escorting workers, and reporting the movements of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

St. Paul City Council Vice President Hwa Jeong Kim posted a video to social media urging residents to resist ICE activity in the city following an increase in federal enforcement operations.

The video, which was shared on Kim’s Instagram account and later circulated widely across other platforms, prompted swift backlash from critics who accused the council member of promoting interference with federal law enforcement.

In the video, Kim claimed that federal immigration agents had already taken several individuals into custody earlier in the day.

“It’s not even noon, and ICE has already kidnapped five of my neighbors. I’ve responded to one where we believe a whole family was taken with children,” Kim said.

Kim went on to assert that the presence of federal agents in Minnesota had surpassed that of local law enforcement.

“There are more federal agents in Minnesota than we have of the St. Paul and Minneapolis police combined. And yet, there are neighbors that are showing up in incredible ways like standing in front of known targeted businesses helping escort workers home,” she continued.

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