Home-lunch ban at Chicago area public schools — What’s more revolting: junk food, the student reaction, or the nanny state precedent this regulation sets?

While one can agree that junk food from home is no good for kids, the nanny-state implications of this are scary indeed. And students don’t like it much either. From Monica Eng and Joel Hood at the Chicago Tribune:

“Fernando Dominguez cut the figure of a young revolutionary leader during a recent lunch period at his elementary school.

“Who thinks the lunch is not good enough?” the seventh-grader shouted to his lunch mates in Spanish and English.

Dozens of hands flew in the air and fellow students shouted along: “We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!”

New generation of antibiotic-resistant “super-bug” bacteria on the horizon

From Maggie Koerth-Baker at Boing Boing blog:

Photo via Boing Boing blog

“Maryn McKenna—my favorite “Scary Disease Girl” and author of Superbug—will be taking questions during a live chat today at Scientific American’s Facebook page. The chat starts at 2:00 Eastern and lasts for a half-hour.

The chat is connected to a new article that Maryn wrote for Scientific American, which centers around some disturbing new trends in antibiotic resistance. You may have heard about the recently announced discovery of a pneumonia-causing bacteria, called Klebsiella pneumoniae, that had developed a resistance to a class of antibiotics called carbapenems. This is more than just another bacteria resistant to another antibiotic.

What’s allowed in commercial milk?

Gordon Watson sends this report from B.C.:

The article, below, contains a statement of great importance to the Campaign for REAL MILK = ie.  “And yes, the American dairy industry is allowed to bleach milk with hydrogen peroxide and benzol peroxide, as well as water it down. ”

I’m inclined to believe that it’s true, having been hidden under some ‘deeming-provision’  = Orwellian doubletalk, which re-defined the term ‘milk’ to mean something other than plain, simple real milk

Laws vary from province to province … let’s get the facts.  Call up your local dairy processor, and  – politely – ask them a few pointed questions. Let me know the answers.

Michael Schmidt’s lawyer, Karen Selick on radio call-in show at 11:30 am today

This is the same Karen Selick who will be in court Wednesday April 13th defending Michael Schmidt and raw milk against an appeal by the Crown of Michael’s January 2010 acquittal on 19 raw milk related charges:

Canadian Constitution Foundation litigation director Karen Selick will be a guest on the Goldhawk Fights Back call-in show on Zoomer radio this morning at 11:30 am. Click image to go there.

Click here to go to zoomerradio.ca where you can click to listen to the program over the internet. That’s 11:30 am Eastern Time.

Uncovering the dark side of soy

From Mary Vance Terrain in the Utne Reader:

Origins of the name "Vegan". From the internets.

“As someone who is conscious of her health, I spent 13 years cultivating a vegetarian diet. I took time to plan and balance meals that included products such as soy milk, soy yogurt, tofu, and Chick’n patties. I pored over labels looking for words I couldn’t pronounce–occasionally one or two would pop up. Soy protein isolate? Great! They’ve isolated the protein from the soybean to make it more concentrated. Hydrolyzed soy protein? I never successfully rationalized that one, but I wasn’t too worried. After all, in 1999 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved labeling I found on nearly every soy product I purchased: ‘Diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol that include 25 grams of soy protein a day may reduce the risk of heart disease.’ Soy ingredients weren’t only safe–they were beneficial.

After years of consuming various forms of soy nearly every day, I felt reasonably fit, but somewhere along the line I’d stopped menstruating. I couldn’t figure out why my stomach became so upset after I ate edamame or why I was often moody and bloated. It didn’t occur to me at the time to question soy, heart protector and miracle food.

Texas farmers to sell raw milk at farmers markets under new bill

From Heather Nolan at Beaumont Enterprise.com:

Kelvin Edwards refrigerates dairy products made from raw milk at the Pure Milk Farms in Winnie. Edwards sells the dairy products to visiting customers, but hopes for the state's approval on a proposed bill that would allow him to sell the goods at farmer's markets. Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise Photo: Guiseppe Barranco / Beaumont

Pure Milk Farms owners Kelvin and Yolanda Edwards – self-described city folk with no farming background – have been in the raw milk business since 2007, when they started milking and selling with only one cow.

They moved from their 10-acre farm in Alvin to a 30-acre farm in Winnie in March 2009 and have since expanded their herd to 20 cows, one bull and close to 40 chickens.