FREE-RANGE SALMONELLA

The USDA has found it necessary to warn consumers that buying "free-range" chicken in no way means you won't get a potentially fatal bout of food-poisoning from it. A microbiologist found that one out of every four free-range chickens tested positive for Salmonella, the same rate as conventionally raised ones. Funny how they didn't bother to alert the public that "free-range" means next to nothing in terms of the chickens' actual freedom to range. (Via Vegan Porn)

GEESE IS THE WORD

That Paul McCartney is against force-feeding geese to produce "foie gras" is no surprise, so I wouldn't otherwise be pointing this story out, but it's got too good a headline to pass up: "Give geese a chance."

NOW MORE THAN EVER

"Twenty years ago, the US, the richest nation on the planet, led the world's longevity league. Today, American women rank only 19th, while males can manage only 28th place, alongside men from Brunei." Pretty pathetic. And it's not looking any better for many of the next generation: Fat Children Cost U.S. Schools Money, More. Hmmmmmm. Coincidentally, this story just came out: Americans eating more cheese than ever.

BROCCOLI DEMOLISHES BREAST CANCER CELLS

While it's already been known that broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables offer good protection against cancer, researchers have now found that the compound Sulphoraphane (abundant in broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale etc.) doesn't just build up your body to make it less cancer friendly - it actually blocks the growth of breast cells that are already cancerous. The study in the September issue of the Journal of Nutrition just reinforces the obvious: Plant foods keep the human body healthy, even when other foods do the opposite.

AMERICANS ARE SLOWLY TURNING VEGETARIAN

Again, that's not my wording - it's the lead of this MSNBC story on the huge growth of vegetarian and vegan foods. Granted, a lot of this growth is doubtlessly thanks to "flexitarians," which is why I believe we should welcome that self-categorization. They may not adhere to a strict ethical diet, but with their help, vegetarian food sales have doubled in the past five years, reaching $1.6 billion last year, and Mintel, a global market research firm, expects the market to grow another 61 percent by 2008. Mintel also noted that "Interest in vegetarianism is highest among the youngest age groups (ages 25 to 34)." It will be interesting to seen, then, if this growth accelerates over the next decade or so.

FRIDAY RECALL - DOUBLE TROUBLE

Hey, did you hear about the 40 tons of meat that was just recalled? 'Course you didn't! That's because once again it was recalled, say it with me, on a Friday! This time, though, there were two separate (unrelated) meat recalls that, you know, just happened to occur on that fortuitous (for the meat industry) day of the week.

The more interesting one is the pork chips, which I heard about via Vegan Porn. More than a thousand pounds of pork was recalled because microchips might be embedded in the meat. Mmmmm... that's some crunchy pork! Y'see, the pigs in question were part of a research herd that had been sent to slaughter without the proper notification that they had the chips implanted. Great. That's how the assembly line of death works - doesn't really matter if you're supposed to be there or not - the conveyer belt keeps moving, and meat comes out for the American consumer. If you had pork recently, please pay attention to any strange beeps you may hear.

The second one is more ho-hum... our old friend E.Coli, the deadly bacteria whom nobody notices anymore, even when it's potentially infecting 59,000 pounds of beef, which has already been packaged up and distributed to stores in Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin. At least with the chips you have a chance of spitting it out once you hit something crunchy. I'll wager most people in those states, even those who may be currently having stomach pains or worse, have no idea this meat's been recalled. Great job once again, USDA!