Tag: food

Wisconsin Could Make It Impossible for Cottage Food Producers To Make a Living

Since 2017, Wisconsinites have been legally allowed to sell a number of home-baked goods to the general public, free to make as much money as their products can garner. But a new bill being considered by the Wisconsin Legislature could change that, essentially making it impossible for so-called cottage food producers to make a living.

Assembly Bill 897 would increase “the sales threshold from $5,000 to $20,000” for homemade food products, according to a state analysis of the bill. That might seem like an improvement, but “the current sales cap applies only to canned goods,” notes Jobea Murray, board president of the Wisconsin Cottage Food Association. “All other cottage food products are currently unlimited in their sales.” (A bill being considered by the Senate would impose a slightly higher annual cap of $25,000.)

If enacted, A.B. 897 would create one of the strictest cottage food regimes in the country. The states that have a sales cap usually have a limit that’s “high enough for home-based producers to earn a living wage,” says Suranjan Sen, an attorney at the Institute for Justice (I.J.), a libertarian public interest law firm. “Florida’s cap, for example, is $250,000 annually.”

A $20,000 annual sales cap “would make Wisconsin’s the most restrictive cap in the nation,” he continues.

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US tourist shocked when he was asked to sign ‘release form’ after ordering hamburger cooked medium at Toronto Hilton

Is there anything more disconcerting than being asked to sign a waiver before tucking into a hamburger?

An American visitor to Toronto shocked hundreds of Reddit users last week by sharing that he was asked to sign a waiver when he ordered a medium-cooked hamburger at a Hilton hotel restaurant.

“I ordered my burger medium and the waiter took it with no question or comment,” he wrote in a post captioned “Toronto burger came with a release form.”

“She brought it and it looked great! When I had my first bite she brought me a release form and said we always make our burgers well done, but since you wanted it medium … you should sign this.”

The poster said that upon the special “medium” request, the waiter informed the man that the only burger option was well done and requested them to sign the form.

The form stated it would clear the hotel restaurant against any claims for damages related to any foodborne illnesses arising from the medium-cooked burger.

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Sickening Profits — The Global Food System’s Poisoned Food and Toxic Wealth

The modern food system is being shaped by the capitalist imperative for profit. Aside from losing their land to global investors and big agribusiness concerns, people are being sickened by corporations and a system that thrives on the promotion of ‘junk’ (ultra-processed) food laced with harmful chemicals and cultivated with the use of toxic agrochemicals.

It’s a highly profitable situation for investment firms like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity and Capital Group and the food and agribusiness conglomerates they invest in. But BlackRock and others are not just heavily invested in the food industry. They also profit from illnesses and diseases resulting from the food system by having stakes in the pharmaceuticals sector as well. For them, it’s a win-win situation.

Lobbying by agrifood corporations and their well-placed, well-funded front groups ensures this situation prevails. They continue to capture policy-making and regulatory space at international and national levels and promote the (false) narrative that without their products the world would starve.

They are now also pushing a fake-green, ecomodernist agenda and rolling out their new proprietary technologies in order to further entrench their grip on a global food system that produces poor food, illness, environmental degradation, dependency and dispossession.

The prevailing globalised agrifood model is built on unjust trade policies, the leveraging of sovereign debt to benefit powerful interests, population displacement and land dispossession. It fuels export-oriented commodity monocropping and regional food insecurity.

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From Peas to Prosperity: Researchers Discover the Diet that Shaped the Oldest Cities

You are what you eat! A team of researchers from Kiel University has delved into the nutritional aspects of Trypillia mega-sites in the forest steppe northwest of the Black Sea—today the territory of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. These mega-sites emerged approximately 6,000-years ago and were the largest settlements globally during this period, covering areas of up to 320 hectares. The Neolithic settlements during this period had farmers cultivating a diet of primarily beans, grains and peas, the research shows.

The study is part of the latest investigations into Trypillia societies, which boasted populations of around 15,000 people. They’re regarded as the oldest ‘cities’ in Europe, predating even the urbanization of Mesopotamia.

The research and study is led by the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1266 at Kiel University (CAU), was published in Proceedings of Natural Academy of Sciences. It was spearheaded by archaeologist Professor Johannes Müller, in collaboration with researchers from Ukraine and Moldova.

The food supply system supporting these settlements has been a source of numerous inquiries among researchers. Previously, it was understood that many small Neolithic settlements relied on subsistence farming for sustenance.

“The provisioning of the residents of the mega-sites was based on extremely sophisticated food and pasture management,” says Kiel paleoecologist Dr. Frank Schlütz, one of the authors of the study.

The modern tales of Popeye, the sailor, and his legendary strength derived from spinach are well-known to almost everyone. However, modern science has revealed that the nutritional value of spinach was overestimated. In stark contrast, peas emerge as a highly beneficial component of human nutrition due to their rich protein content. Surprisingly, the significance of peas has been greatly undervalued by scientific understanding, according to a press release by Kiel University.

Isotopic analysis provides a valuable tool for understanding the practices of maintaining domestic animals, the fertilization methods employed in cultivating crops, and the role played by plants and animals in the dietary habits of ancient societies thousands of years ago.

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Human Bones Were Ground into Flour to Make Bread in 16th Century France

In human history, there are some tales so bizarre they surpass the wildest fiction. One such story, rooted in the grim realities of 16th century France, reveals a desperate and macabre solution to famine: the grinding of human bones into ‘flour’ for bread-making.

The background to this strange episode is set during the tumultuous Wars of Religion in France. In 1590, the city of Paris, controlled by the Catholic League, found itself under siege by the French Royal Army led by Henry of Navarre, later Henry IV of France. The siege aimed to starve the city into submission, a tactic that led to desperate measures.

In these dire times, Pierre de L’Estoile, a clerk-in-chief of the French Parliament, recorded a chilling decision made by Parisians. As food supplies dwindled, an assembly proposed a horrifying solution: to grind the bones from the Cemetery of the Innocents’ charnel house into flour and bake bread from it. Driven by extreme hunger, the plan was executed, but with tragic outcomes. L’Estoile notes that those who ate this ‘bone bread’ met their death, not from starvation, but from the very solution they hoped would save them.

Why did those who ate the ‘bone bread’ die? This question has puzzled historians and scientists alike. Some speculate that toxic substances like arsenic, or psychological trauma from consuming human remains, contributed to the deaths. However, a more likely explanation lies in the nutritional inadequacy and inorganic nature of human bones.

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ITALY DEALS A BLOW TO WEF AND BILL GATES’ AGENDA WITH HISTORIC BAN ON CULTIVATED MEAT

Italy has just delivered a devastating blow to the controversial agenda of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and billionaire magnate Bill Gates for global food control, with the historic approval of a ban on the production and sale of cultivated meat. The Chamber of Deputies voted 159 in favor, 53 against, and 34 abstentions in support of the bill presented by Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida.

The legislation, representing a significant turning point, prohibits the production and market introduction of foods and feeds derived from cellular cultures or tissues of vertebrate animals. Italy thus positions itself as the first country in Europe to adopt such a radical measure.

The debate in the Chamber was heated, with the Democratic Party choosing to abstain, while the 5 Star Movement and Forward with Hope voted against the measure. The decision has sparked mixed reactions, but it is undeniable that this move puts a brake on Gates’ ambitions in the food sector.

The tech magnate had recently heavily invested in the research and development of cultivated meat, arguing that it represented the sustainable future of food production. However, Italy has now clearly voiced its opposition, rejecting Gates’ vision and thwarting his attempt to dominate the global food market.

Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida defended the measure, stating that the decision aims to protect the identity and quality of Italian food products, preserving the country’s culinary tradition. “We will not allow our traditional meat to be replaced by artificial products and cellular cultures,” declared Lollobrigida.

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Bloomberg Pushes Climate Doom As Reason Why You Must Eat Bugs

The US is one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural products. Still, the corporate press continues to promote ‘climate change’ disinformation (read: here) to accelerate the normalization of insects and lab-grown meat into the food supply.

Bloomberg is the latest corporate media to use fear to sell what might be a World Economic Forum agenda of introducing bugs and lab-grown meat into the food supply: 

“You may see lab-grown meat and insects on the menu in future decades, as the world grapples with challenges to food security posed by climate change and conflict.” 

Bloomberg’s Keira Wright was covering Sydney’s South by South West festival earlier this month, when she said panelists were talking about lab-grown meat, edible insects, and vertical farming. 

Wright continued with more climate doom in the article: 

“Climate change has made weather more volatile and hotter in many parts of the world, damaging corn crops in the US, slashing wheat crop forecasts in Australia and even accelerating the spread of deadly pests in China.” 

However, did anyone tell Wright, the editors, or maybe even billionaire Mike Bloomberg about the inconvenient truth of 1,600 international scientists who said in August, “There is no climate emergency.” 

Meanwhile, Bezos’ The Washington Post recently advised Americans to eat ants and crickets. 

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Government-Run Grocery Store Is Predictably Losing Money

Chicago’s city government is infamously corrupt and unable to provide basic services like education and public safety consistently, but Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing for the city to also try running a grocery store.

It wouldn’t be the first government-run grocery store—and not even the first one in the United States. For some context about what Chicago is planning, The Wall Street Journal dispatched a reporter to check out the municipal-owned grocery store in Erie, Kansas, which opened in 2021.

How’s it going there? Uh, not great.

“Erie Market, which the city took over in 2021, is losing money almost every month amid stiff competition from a Walmart 15 miles away and a Dollar General across the street,” reports the Journal‘s Joe Barrett. Erie Market posted just a single profitable month during 2022 and lost $132,000.

Maybe Erie’s erstwhile government grocers didn’t realize that—unlike with other government services—grocery stores are subject to competition. Bummer.

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Take Nutrition Studies With a Grain of Salt

Comb through enough nutrition research, and you can find a study confirming or rebutting nearly every belief you may hold about how specific nutrients affect your health. “Meat Increases Heart Risks, Latest Study Concludes,” reported The New York Times in 2020. A year earlier, the Times ran this headline: “Eat Less Red Meat, Scientists Said. Now Some Believe That Was Bad Advice.”

Pick a different food group and find a similar contradiction. “Moderate Drinking Has No Health Benefits, Analysis of Decades of Research Finds,” reported the Times in April 2023. Two months later, Forbes declared: “Light And Moderate Drinking Could Improve Long-Term Heart Health Study Finds—Here’s Why.”

These headlines were not misrepresentations. Nutritional epidemiology is, by and large, what Stanford University biostatistician John Ioannidis calls a “null field”: one where there is nothing genuine to be discovered and no genuinely effective treatments exist.

“I think almost all nutrition studies that pertain to the effects of single nutrients on mortality, cancer, and other major health outcomes are null or almost null,” says Ioannidis. “Even the genuine effects seem to have very small magnitude in the best [and] least biased studies.”

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How Seed Oils Were Demonized

The controversy over polyunsaturated seed oils is in some respects the mirror image of the fight over saturated fats in meat, milk, and eggs. Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are essential fatty acids. They are “essential” since they must be provided by foods because they cannot be synthesized in the body yet are necessary for health. Both act as structural components in cellular membranes and modulate inflammatory responses.

The three main omega-3 fatty acids are alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The principal sources of omega-3 fatty acids are oily fish, flaxseed oil, and nuts like walnuts. The chief omega-6 fatty acid is linoleic acid. The prime sources of linoleic acid in modern diets are seed oils including soybean, corn, cottonseed, sunflower, canola, safflower, rice bran, and grapeseed oils. The use of these oils has increased in modern diets, and they have been dubbed by some self-proclaimed health and wellness gurus as the “hateful eight.”

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