New Laws To Stop Reports of BAD Food
This is absolutely frightening. We know there are consequences for ignoring humane rules for our meat and food processing. We KNOW the absolute dangers of Mad-Cow Disease; I will never be able to donate blood because I was exposed to the possibility of Mad Cow in the 1980’s. How on earth are we allowing our legislators to pass these BAD laws???
Ag-Gag Laws Help Agribusiness Hide Health Risks in Your Food
By M. Joy Hayes, Ph.D., The Motley Fool
Posted 5:00AM 02/14/13
In 2008, an undercover investigation led by the Humane Society led to the largest beef recall in history — removing meat that may have been tainted with mad cow disease from school cafeterias around the country.
Now there’s a business-backed movement afoot seeking to prohibit investigations like these.
The so-called “ag-gag” laws are designed to prevent anyone other than regulators or law enforcement officers from investigating dangerous or illegal agricultural practices that lead to mad cow disease, salmonella or Listeria poisoning, and other food-borne illnesses.
Ag-gag laws have been proposed by politicians in Arkansas, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Wyoming. And Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah already have such laws in place.
Why should this concern consumers? Due to funding limitations, regulators are only able to inspect a small percentage of the food we consume. As a result, we rely a great deal on journalists and activists to conduct additional investigations that prevent dangerous food from making it to market.
“Downer” Cows Dragged to Slaughter and Served to Children
We don’t have to look far to see how laws discouraging undercover investigation can limit consumer access to food safety information.
The 2008 massive beef recall came about from a Humane Society undercover investigation that provided a video of “downer” cows — animals too weak or sick to walk — being dragged to slaughter at Hallmark Meat, a supplier to the National School Lunch Program. This led to a recall because a cow’s inability to stand or walk is a possible indicator of mad cow disease.
Last year, activist group Compassion Over Killing released disturbing video footage from another National School Lunch Program supplier, Central Valley Meat. It shows cows, before slaughter, covered in feces, writhing on the ground in blood, and projectile-vomiting from the stress of being repeatedly struck by a bolt gun (a weapon that pierces the skull to stun or “euthanize” the animals).
Before the footage was released, Central Valley Meat also served as a supplier for McDonald’s (MCD) and Costco (COST). Both have since cut ties with the company.
Keeping You in the Dark
Let’s take a look at how 2013’s ag-gag bills may undermine investigations that expose unsafe and inhumane agricultural practices.
Arkansas’ SB 13 proposes outlawing animal investigations conducted by anyone other than a certified law enforcement officer, thus prohibiting journalists and activists from investigating possible food safety violations regulators may have missed.
Arkansas’ SB 14, would make it illegal for whistleblowers or undercover investigators to gather photographic or recorded sound evidence of illegal or unsafe agricultural practices with the intention to “cause harm to the livestock or poultry operation.” In other words, the proposed law would prohibit whistleblowers from releasing information that would make a company look bad and drive away customers.
Indiana’s SB 373 and Wyoming’s HB 0126 would also prevent whistleblowers from exposing food safety issues by making it illegal to take video or pictures without written consent of the property owner or representative of the property owner.
Nebraska’s LB 204 proposes making it illegal for journalists and activists to pose as employees to conduct undercover investigations. It suggests prohibiting job candidates from misrepresenting themselves during the hiring process when they have an intention of damaging or interfering with the operations of the business. Strikingly, the bill proposes felony charges in cases where the “violation” results in “economic damage” of $10,000 or more. That means that undercover employees who reveal safety issues costing a company more than $10,000 in lost sales could face devastating legal penalties.
New Hampshire’s HB 110 simply calls for requiring people with evidence of animal cruelty to turn it over to law enforcement. While nothing in the bill prohibits outside investigation of animal cruelty, some worry that this law would undermine investigations into animal cruelty by forcing journalists and activists to reveal their sources too early in the investigation.
Agricultural business advocates might argue that these undercover investigations unfairly put businesses’ reputations at risk by allowing individuals who aren’t trained to evaluate agricultural safety practices to gather and disperse misleading information, and that these ag-gag laws simply protect the ability of businesses to guard their reputations from unfair accusations.
After reviewing the behavior prohibited by the proposed ag-gag laws, are you concerned about their potential to undermine consumer safety? Or do you think they represent a legitimate corporate attempt to protect agricultural businesses against potential economic harm?
Motley Fool Contributor M. Joy Hayes, Ph.D., is the Principal at ethics consulting firm Courageous Ethics. She owns shares of McDonald’s. Follow @JoyofEthics on Twitter. The Motley Fool recommends Costco Wholesale and McDonald’s. The Motley Fool owns shares of Costco Wholesale and McDonald’s.
Something Gold For Chinese New Year: Happy China
“Happy New Year!” I called out to my Chinese friend in Aqua Aerobics.
“Happy New Year!” she shouted back, puffing just a little.
“Are you going out to celebrate?” I asked, with my find-a-good-Chinese-restaurant-agenda coming out.
“Yes, with a bunch of friends!” she responded.
“Where are you going?” I asked, genuinely curious as to where REAL Chinese people would eat real Chinese food in Pensacola.
“Happy China, over on Mobile Highway,” she told me.
I haven’t had really good Chinese food since leaving Kuwait, where we ate in a little dingy restaurant where a lot of Chinese people also ate. The food was not dumbed down, not at all.
“Will he fix you something special?” I wondered, and she replied that he would, several dishes, ordered ahead, for their large party.
So today, AdventureMan and I struck out to find the Happy China, and we did, to celebrate Chinese New Year, and it was good. I intended to order from the menu, but the buffet looked pretty good, so we decided it would be a way to get an overview. There were many many seafood items, and a noodle bar where you put together a noodle dish and then put it in warm broth to warm it all up. It was fun, the food was really good, and I look forward to going back and ordering off the menu.
On our way out, as we paid the very reasonable bill, I asked if they ever had any of the cats with the raised paws in white china with the colored paint. She said sometimes, but that they fly off the shelves.
“This year we have these ones, in gold, because it is the year of the Snake, you want something in gold,” she instructed me. I kinda liked the glitzy gold anyway, and they were $2.99, LOL, a small price for welcoming wealth into our household. The cat whose right paw is raised welcomes wealth, the left paw raised welcomes children, which are a different kind of wealth 🙂 and are also welcome in our household, our own son and other people’s children, not more for me, please!
Smokey Dembo’s BBQ Outside Mobile, AL
We had endured water aerobics, quickly dressed and hung up our swim clothes, and driven to Mobile en route to Dauphin Island with our visiting friends from Norfolk, old travel buddies and long time friends from Germany. As we left I-10. heading south toward the Island, we are starving, and all we see are McDonalds, Arby’s, fried chicken and Asian buffets.
“No! No!” we wail, and hold out for something better.
As soon as we saw it, we all knew. This was IT:
Look at that cow’s head! You take one look, and you know this place is going to be an original. Little did we know . . .
As we drove into the parking, we asked some people leaving how the food was. “Excellent! The best!” they said, and other people leaving chimed in saying “You won’t be sorry.”
As we walked in, we were greeted by “Smokey” Dembo himself, who said “I saw you taking photos outside, don’t you want a photo with me in it?”
Yes! Yes! I do! I do!
Smokey, as it turns out, is our kind of guy. Former military, from this small little town outside of Mobile, his dream was to own a place just like this, with his father, who taught him how to grill. One day, shortly after he retired, he was driving his daughter to soccer practice and he saw a for sale sign on this building, and on his way back, stopped – and made a deal. That was 11 years ago, and he’s never looked back. This is a happy man, living his dream.
He spends Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday marinating and preparing his meats. He is only open Thursday, Friday, Saturday (maybe Sunday, I can’t remember. Or maybe not; Sunday may be for church. Actually, you’d better call, because I might have gotten it all wrong. I KNOW he is open on Fridays and Saturdays, and I know he serves breakfast on Thursdays and Fridays, but the rest is foggy . . . . )
The aromas of BBQ are killing us; we have to order right away:
As we are waiting for the food, we continue to talk with Smokey and to learn about his restaurant. He has a wonderful wall, a tribute to his family and his family history:
I apologize. We were starving. When the food arrived, we totally forgot to take any photos at all, not a single photo of the boneless BBQ pork, nor of the potato salad nor of the cole slaw, nor of the baked beans. Although we are a very talky bunch, when the food came, we ate in awed silence. It was so GOOOOOOOD.
We cannot wait to see Smokey again. This is some fine BBQ. 🙂
Green Tea Fights Dementia
Green Tea Could Aid Fight Against Dementia, Study Suggests
PA | Posted: 06/02/2013 11:18 GMT | Updated: 06/02/2013 11:18 GMT
Chemicals in green tea and red wine may block the brain damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease, an early study suggests.
Scientists targeted a process that allows harmful clumps of protein in the brain to kill off neurons.
Using purified extracts of the chemicals EGCG in green tea and resveratrol in red wine, they were able to stop nerve cells from being harmed.
The findings, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, could pave the way for new drugs to treat Alzheimer’s, say the researchers.
Lead scientist Professor Nigel Hooper, from the University of Leeds, said: “This is an important step in increasing our understanding of the cause and progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
“It’s a misconception that Alzheimer’s is a natural part of ageing; it’s a disease that we believe can ultimately be cured through finding new opportunities for drug targets like this.”
Alzheimer’s is characterised by a build-up of amyloid-beta protein in the brain which clumps together to form toxic, sticky balls.
The amyloid balls latch on to molecules called prions on the surface of nerve cells. As a result, the nerve cells start to malfunction and eventually die.
“We wanted to investigate whether the precise shape of the amyloid balls is essential for them to attach to the prion receptors, like the way a baseball fits snugly into its glove,” said Dr Jo Rushworth, another member of the Leeds team.
“And, if so, we wanted to see if we could prevent the amyloid balls binding to prion by altering their shape, as this would stop the cells from dying.”
Previous research had shown that the red wine and green tea compounds are able to reshape amyloid proteins.
When they were added to amyloid balls in a test tube, the toxic clumps of protein no longer harmed human and animal brain cells.
“We saw that this was because their shape was distorted, so they could no longer bind to prion and disrupt cell function,” said Prof Hooper.
“We also showed, for the first time, that when amyloid balls stick to prion, it triggers the production of even more amyloid, in a deadly vicious cycle.”
The next step for the team is to uncover exactly how the amyloid-prion interaction destroys neurons.
Prof Hooper added: “I’m certain that this will increase our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease even further, with the potential to reveal yet more drug targets.”
Dr Simon Ridley, from the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK which part-funded the study, said: “Understanding the causes of Alzheimer’s is vital if we are to find a way of stopping the disease in its tracks.
“While these early-stage results should not be a signal for people to stock up on green tea and red wine, they could provide an important new lead in the search for new and effective treatments. With half a million people affected by Alzheimer’s in the UK, we urgently need treatments that can halt the disease. That means it’s crucial to invest in research to take results like these from the lab bench to the clinic.”
Two New Restaurants to Open on Palafox Place, Pensacola
Woooo HOOOOO, Carleton Proctor at the PNJ just tweeted there will be two new restaurants, one Italian, opening this year on Palafox Place in downtown Pensacola:
The menu of downtown Pensacola’s restaurants is about to add another entree.
David Hambrick, owner and manager of Jaco’s Bayfront Bar & Grille, has reached an agreement with Durnford Enterprises Inc. to lease the former Distinctive Kitchens property on Palafox Place.
Hambrick said Thursday he plans to open an Italian-themed restaurant in one half of the 11,000-square-foot building, and eventually will open a second adjacent restaurant within that space at a later date.
“We’ve been talking to them (Durnford) since October when he heard the property had become available,” Hambrick said. “We’ve verbally agreed to a lease and now we’re just waiting for incorporation papers and a name for the restaurant.”
“The core menu will be modern Italian,” he said.
The deal and lease is expected to close March 1, Hambrick said.
Durnford Manager Frank Webb confirmed the agreement with Hambrick. Durnford owns the building, which has addresses of 29 and 31 Palafox Place.
First opened in 2004, Distinctive Kitchens and Culinary Arts Center closed late last summer, and the building has been unused since then.
Hambrick said he is working with Pensacola architect Brian Spencer on the interior design of the proposed restaurant.
Hambrick and business partner Paul Bruno will design the entirely rebuilt kitchen area, which eventually will serve both proposed restaurants.
Follow Carlton Proctor at twiter.com/CarltonProctorPNJ.
Carmen’s Lunch Bar on Palafox in Pensacola
Yesterday, AdventureMan was on an adventure, but I knew there might be an opportunity to grab lunch with him ‘downtown’ so I suggested we try Carmen’s Lunch Bar, which has only been open four months. When I got there, it was full – inside and outside – but an ideal location opened moments later – we were in luck! I ordered a Cranberry Orange Iced Tea, just what the doctor ordered for the remnants of a bad cold still lingering, and shortly AdventureMan arrived, then another, and then two more – we couldn’t all eat together, but we found spaces for groups of two and three, oh what fun. (You can see more photos and take a look at the menu by clicking on the blue hypertext above.)
Here is how to find Carmen’s – next to the Bodacious Olive. There is seating at a large bar inside, against the window and at three or four tables outside:
In my group, we all ordered the North Carolina BBQ plate, which came with potato salad and cole slaw – all good. I loved the sauce, which had candied orange peel in it, piquant and tasty:
It’s not a large restaurant, but it has a happy buzz about it. It’s a mix, the downtown business crowd and locals dropping by for a good lunch and a good chat. They don’t rush you. The menu is concise, but offers an intriguing variety – you can’t go once, you have to go back and try those Moroccan vegetables, say, or the Chicken Tikka Masala. I’m intrigued by the Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs.
I even found a free parking spot, away from the nasty downtown ‘improvement’ board spots where you now have to pay for parking, not far away. There are also parking places behind the Bodacious Olive, which shares space with Carmen’s.
The story behind Carmen’s is also interesting. There is a couple in Pensacola, Quint and Rishy Studer, who worked hard and made a lot of money, which they are now using to benefit Pensacola. Carmen’s resulted from a contest; over 100 people submitted business plans to have this spot, Mari Josephs won. I am guessing some of the close runner ups will be featured at the Al Fresco lot nearby where airstreams are showing up with fun names, including Jerry’s Cajun, which a lot of people have missed greatly since it closed.
If you look at the photo of the exterior tables (above) you will see another building the Studers have bought and are renovating; I can’t wait to see what this building becomes. AdventureMan asked what I would do and I told him I would make two condos on the upper level, perfect for Pensacola as long as downtown remains sleepy once the sun goes down except for Gallery Night. Other than that, just a parade now and then, otherwise, fairly quiet and great location with one of those old Spanish balconies overlooking the street. What’s not to love?
The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell
Death of Bees was another powerful recommendation by National Public Radio.
I believe in a greater power, in a God who sends things my way and that I am meant to be paying attention. Several books have been recommended to me lately which I didn’t choose, or might have avoided had I known how painfully they dealt with poor parenting and children in the depths of horrific poverty.
Here is what the lead into the book says:
Today Is Christmas Eve,
Today is my birthday,
Today I am fifteen,
Today I buried my parents
in the back yard.
Neither of them were beloved.
Oh my goodness! I am sucked in immediately. And immediately I am overcome by the grinding nature of poverty, the enormous amount of energy it takes just to be fed, to have a roof over your head, to function in the bureaucracy that seeks to ameliorate the burdens of poverty.
I am horrified by the lives of innocent children in the hands of people who should never have responsibility for anyone, even themselves, their decision making skills are so non-existent. There are parents who have no idea what self-sacrifice GOOD parenting requires, who raise children who are often trying to survive their own parents.
The Death of Bees has redemption. It has two sisters who love one another and are smarter than the average child. It has a neighbor who notices, not in a snoopy or intrusive way, but in a kind, helping and ultimately sacrificial way. It has moments of black humor, when the neighbor’s dog keeps digging at the parental graves in the backyard and bringing bones inside just at the worst moments.
Ultimately, it is a tale of survival, in spite of the parents, in spite of the system, in spite of betrayals by family and friends. There is a glimmer of hope that life may be different for these sisters, if they can survive their upbringing and overcome their childhood.
Now, go read the book 🙂
Amitav Ghosh and River of Smoke
The National Public Radio website recommended this book as one of the best historical fiction reads, and I had never heard of it, so I ordered it. I ordered it in spite of the little voice I had in my head reminding me that this was the second in a trilogy, that the first is Sea of Poppies. I was too eager. I wanted to jump right in, and the review said it could be read stand-alone. I had read Ghosh’s Glass Palace a couple years ago for book club, loved it, and was eager to read this one.
With a raging cold and no possible way I can be around humanity, it was a good time to start. Just picking up the book, it has a dense feel. Once you start, it is like being suddenly in a whirlpool, drowning in new words, characters who have more than one name and more than one identity, whirling between England, Mauritius, Hindustan, Gujerat, Hong Kong, Macau and China, whirling between cultures and professions and trades, but oh, what a ride.
It would have been helpful to be reading River of Smoke on an iPad, where I could poke at a new word and it would give me the meaning, but in truth, you can guess a lot of the meaning of the vocabulary from the context. The seafarers all speak a language sort of like Jack Sparrow, a pidgen language filled with simplified grammar and with words from many nations and cultures. It forces you to slow down. It’s worth it. It would also be nice if you could poke on a place-name and have Google Earth show you where it is. There used to be a website called Google Books, and you could put in a book and it would show you the places in which actions in the book took place; that would be particularly handy reading this book, provide context in place-relations.
But reading slowly is it’s own reward. This book has depth, depth of character, depth of textures and senses, and depth of morality. I love a book like this where you can smell the smoke drifting over the water, where you can smell the sewer and bloated animal corpses floating outside the foreign hongs of the Canton traders, you can feel the textures of the textiles and see their colors, you can taste the exquisiteness of Macau cuisine and you can hike in a Hong Kong not yet settled by anyone, Chinese or foreign.
The scope of time covered by the major part of the story is short, although there are years of back-stories for several characters. The period is 1837-8, during which the Chinese Emperor decides to put teeth in the long established edict against opium trade to China. The edict had been in place, but not enforced, and China watched her citizens sink into opium addiction and lowered productivity. The traders were making fortunes – shiploads of money. Opium was grown in India and shipped from there to China.
When the ban against shipping opium into China is announced, many traders believe it is just another attempt to attain greater bribes on the part of the mandarins, and decline to obey. There is great debate, and while it is lively in the book, it is based on documents from that era, many of the arguments word for word. Traders stood to loose a great deal of money, in truth, it would ruin most of them to lose their shipments.
There is a side story I also like, that of the botanical trade between China and England, and the importation of many of the garden plants we take for granted today, which were unknown until sent from China. Camellia – one of which is the plant for tea, did you know that? Roses, azaleas, orchids – many many familiar plants would be missing from our gardens were it not for their introduction during this period.
Ghosh gives us disparate characters of many cultures and upbringings, and slowly weaves them together, each one tangential to all the others, some closely interwoven. It is a fascinating read, and I can’t wait for the next volume. I may have to go back and read Sea of Poppies while I am waiting.
Pensacola Saturday, January 19th
This was a busy and fun Saturday, starting off with a productive and satisfying meeting for AdventureMan, followed by a chat in my office, during which he drifted off and snoozed for an hour while I culled my iPhoto program. Then we headed for the Fill a Bowl for Manna event, where you pay your $30 entry, pick a hand crafted bowl and proceed to eat soups from a great variety of generous Pensacola supporters. Such a wonderful variety of soups, and also – such a great support from the Pensacola community:
The lines were long, even if you had tickets in advance, but everyone was patient and good humored about waiting their turn.
From soup, we headed downtown to visit the African Art collection on display at the Pensacola Art Museum. First, we had to dodge all the colorful walkers in the Mardi Gras Run, Walk, DRAG with Color, people colored green, gold, and/or purple like the folk in the festival in India, then we had to find a parking place, dodging the police and fire people busy cleaning the streets from the chalk. The water was running green!
The African Art exhibit was a collection from a family who had lived in Western Africa and brought back fabulous pieces. Truly, the detail and artistry we were able to see close-up just blew us away:
These were so different from the other masks presented, clearly a different tribal group, different aesthetics. I called them the zombie masks for their very grey, formless, chaotic nature, and the black circle eyes:
The textiles on the walls were not identified, but we immediately recognized this sizzling textile as identical to a bedspread we had on our bed at the Grumeti Camp when we were there on the Following the Great Migration trip we took with CC Africa, now called And Beyond:
(This is not in the Pensacola Art Museum; this is our bed in the Grumeti Camp, where you can see the bedcover folded at the end; same amazing cloth:)
Late lunch at our favorite go-to local deli, the East Hill Market, and home – a very satisfying day altogether.
Fresh Market Opens In Pensacola
People have been excited ever since the announcement was made that Fresh Markets was opening a store in Pensacola. Although it is one of the smaller Fresh Markets, if there is anything carried by Fresh Market that is not in Pensacola, and you want it, they can bring it in for you. 🙂
It’s a wonderful shopping experience. Think about it – we live like kings, better than the nobility of medieval Europe. We have indoor plumbing (if you’ve ever had to use an outhouse in a cold country like Alaska, you will have a greater appreciation for indoor plumbing all your life), we have hot water, we have heat and air conditioning, we have more than enough clothing for any season. We live so high on the hog as to be wasteful and oblivious to our own wastefulness. Oops, I digress.
We have access to abundant fresh food. Even without Fresh Market, we have markets with clean, fresh vegetables, fresh sanitary meats and poultry, and goods in – and out – of season.
What is the height of luxury? Service. Beautiful displays. People who know their product and talk about it lovingly. It’s kind of like Disney does groceries; it’s a lot of fantasy, and probably a level of goods that goes beyond need into just-a-little-over-the-top, but isn’t it the nature of being a human to be looking for something novel and just a little better than the product you loved last week?
Fresh Market is a little like the Food Market at Herrod’s or Selfridges in London, all these little boutique-y spaces, with people who seem to love what they are doing and are happy to be of service. Publix does it well; Fresh Market takes it to a whole new level.
The Flower Market:
Gift Baskets:
Fresh Veg Displays (artichokes!)
What catches the eyes:
There is a very large section dedicated to quick foods – sandwiches made to order, prepared soups, salads, pizzas, cheeses, cold cuts, and deli items with lots of salads. We particularly loved the seafood display, and AdventureMan was mesmerized by the dessert selections.
All in all, Fresh Market makes grocery shopping less of a chore and more of a little vacation. For the best experience, get there on a week-day, or at opening – 0900 – on the week-end, so you don’t have to fight for parking in a crowded parking lot shared with the new Marshall’s, Ulta, Stein Mart, etc.
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