I'm not gonna pretend that this picture is pretty, or in the least bit appetizing, but I will note that the results are disturbingly delicious. The heart of the matter is that I went to a cookout a few weekends ago and was offered a grilled chicken heart by a friend who has yet to serve me anything that is less than madly tasty. Emboldened by this, I picked up a package of chicken hearts on a shopping jaunt this week, and started perusing my favorite recipe sites for marinades. It didn't take me long to find a 1956 James Beard recipe suggesting that these would make a dandy appetizer for a group of 25. Twenty-five of whom, I'm not entirely sure, 'cause even as staunchly carnivorous as my pals tend to be, few of 'em dig getting their offal on as much as I do, and I wouldn't subject them to it. There are exceptions, though.

Some friends came over this afternoon to serve as panel members for AOL Food's upcoming Hot Dog Taste Test. As I tended the grill between rounds, one of them began holding forth about how methods of barbecuing and grilling really were born of the necessity to bring greater flavor to cheap and previously discarded cuts of meat, and how folks were getting way too fancy-schmancy with the whole thing these days. I left my post at the flames, walked him to the fridge, pulled out the plastic container full of marinating hearts and started putting them on bamboo skewers.

He shut up and started eating.

James Beard's 1956 Grilled Chicken Hearts Recipe on Epicurious

(Note: In the above pic, I was out of sherry and subbed in brandy, which proved perfectly yummy.)

A word to the wise. If you've just stolen the box of doughnuts you're eating, it is probably not particularly smart to offer said doughnuts to the officers who are investigating the robbery.

If you're planning on having a heart attack, doing so in a restaurant where a college student majoring in cardiovascular technology works is probably a good way to go.

The 85 chickens that were let loose in a Philadelphia high school have found a home at the Fox Chase Farm, where they'll be able to graze for bugs and lay eggs to their hearts' content.

Two German airmen are being court-marshaled after trying to start a sausage-making company in which they used human blood. They were found out when one of their fellow soldiers inquired to a superior as to whether the venture was permissible or not. [via Yumsugar]

A new grocery store in the Giant chain opened Willow Grove, PA yesterday that is the size of two football fields and has a babysitting center, a cooking school, an on-site nutritionist and valet grocery pick-up. Who knew that grocery stores were becoming the next place for family entertainment.

A viral campaign produced by website Sustainable Table, The Meatrix is a cartoon that reveals "the lie we tell ourselves about where our food comes from." It started up a few years ago, and has since been translated into 30 languages and boasts new features.

Not familiar? Though cleverly animated and peppered with humorous anecdotes, The Meatrix films are definitely not a joke, and probably not suitable for kids. There are three installments, the first being an introduction to what Sustainable Table calls "the dark side of the meat industry," and the second and third, The Meatrix II: The Revolting, and The Meatrix II 1/2, which explores new avenues into the dairy and meat-packing industries.

Our pig protagonist, Leo, chooses the red pill, and follows Mootheus, a trench coat-wearing cow, who reveals the grim reality about most of America's meat and dairy products. As they walk around the farm and Mootheus explains how animals are packed into tight-knit quarters and injected with RBGH and fed the carcasses of their relatives, the juxtaposition of the simplistic, brightly-colored cartoons against the shocking statistics helps to drive the point home.

Double-yolked eggs are reasonably common for ducks and chickens, despite the fact that we so rarely see them in stores. It is estimated that 1 in 1,000 eggs (out of 50 billion produced annually in the US) have double yolks. Eggs increase in size as the number of yolks increases, but most of them are caught by "candling," or holding the egg up to a light source to reveal a shadow of what is inside the shell, and used for other egg products instead of being mixed in with single-yolks. Stores that do offer the eggs usually have one local source for them. The chickens, ducks and other birds that lay them have a genetic tendency to produce the eggs, so if a farm is stocked with such birds, most of their eggs with have double yolks. The eggs are popular with anyone who likes yolks and are also believed to be good luck by many.

Far less common are multiple yolk eggs, including triples and quadruples, like the one pictured above. Apparently, the greatest number of yolks found in one egg was nine!

If you can't find any multiple-yolk eggs in your neck of the woods, you can always separate one egg, add the yolk to another, and save the white for later.

The Partnership for a Drug Free America is famous for using a fried egg analogy in their public service announcements in the 80s and 90s. Those eggs didn't fare too well in the ads, but eggs are actually quite good for you. Test your egg knowledge in this quick and easy true/false quiz from the Detroit Free Press:

1. One egg supplies 10% of the protein you need in one day.
2. Eggs are a good source of vitamins A and D.
3. When a recipe calls for eggs, you should use extra large.
4. If you are trying to cut down on cholesterol, in most recipes you can substitute the whites of two eggs for one whole egg.
5. Grading, such as AA, A and B, indicates quality rather than size.
6. Eggs as old as five weeks that have been stored in the refrigerator are safe to use.
7. Free-range eggs are more nutritious than other eggs.
8. Fertilized eggs have a longer shelf life than unfertilized eggs.

In a recent study, Consumer Reports concluded that 83% of all the chickens sold in the US are likely to contain foodborne illness-causing bacteria, such as campylobacter and salmonella. Known for its reliable research techniques and consumer-minded approach to issues, Consumer reports has come under criticism from the USDA, which "called the report 'junk science.'"

The CR study involved running tests on 525 supermarket chickens (from leading brands) before drawing their conclusions. Despite the fact that different brands were tested, the USDA says that the sample size was too small to conclude anything about all the chickens in the country - especially considering that there are something like 9 billion chickens killed for food in the US every year. A spokesperson for the U.S. Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service said that the methodology was not there, or at least was not sufficiently explained, to justify the conclusions. For example, the study found that 15% of chickens carried salmonella (a number actually in line with USDA data), but failed to identify the strain(s) present, not even mentioning that not every strain makes people sick.

The USDA will conduct its own study of the matter beginning in January.

A lot of supermarkets make pretty good roasted chickens in their deli sections. They are inexpensive and usually fresh, so they make a convenient dinner after a long day of work. While some supermarkets package theirs in grease-proof bags, it seems like the majority use large plastic boxes that are way too much packaging for the product they contain. This is just one example, of course, but there are many others that illustrate the ways in which supermarket packaging, like that of so many other industries, is wasteful.

Now, some supermarkets are being asked to do something about it - in the UK, at least. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has called for 13 of Britain's biggest retailers, including all their major supermarkets, to cut back. Statistics show that one sixth of household waste "comes directly from supermarket packaging." Fortunately, the markets have already taken some steps to help, investing in recycling centers and reducing the thickness of bags and other packaging materials.

If only the same could be said for those chicken containers at markets in the US...

Ben & Jerry's dropped an egg supplier earlier this summer when doubts were raised about their handling of chickens. To appease their critics, as well as to support their company's goals of "progressive practices", the ice cream manufacturer has said that they will now only use eggs that meet an even higher standard than the average cage-free egg.

The new plan, which will take four years to implement, will require that Ben and Jerry's suppliers provide eggs from chickens that "nests, perches and dust bathing areas" in conditions that could be considered natural for the birds. Company spokespeople say that this change will have a "massive" impact on the egg industry and they expect that more companies will change their practices to ease "the societal concern" for chickens.

There is no telling what effect, if any, this change will have on the cost of the company's products.

When it came out that Ben & Jerry's, the socially aware ice cream company owned by Unilever, was purchasing eggs from a facility that was accused of mistreating its chickens by the Humane Society, which released a report that revealed the supplier had dead and dying chickens with living ones and that all were kept in small cages. Consumers were not pleased. They expected more from the activist ice cream producers. But Ben & Jerry listened to those concerns, as well as the concerns from the Humane Society, and has dropped the egg producer in question from its list of suppliers, though the CEO would not commit to switching to cage-free eggs for its US operation, though they use free range eggs in Europe.

Now we will just have to wait and see if this move affects either sales or production, given that Sarah noted the ice cream maker purchased over 30 million eggs each year from the egg company and that consumers might want the company to source its ingredients more responsibly in the future.

The last month saw a devastating heat wave in California, with sustained temperatures of well over 100F, and up to 120F in the deserts. The heat created lines in front of ice cream shops all over the state, but many other industries were heavily impacted. The dairy industry actually suffered losses of as many as 16,000 cows, just from the heat alone, as even overnight the temperatures did not drop down to give the animals relief. Other cows miscarried or couldn't conceive, and the milk that was gathered during the period had a lower butterfat content, making it unsuitable for some uses, like cheesemaking. The dairy industry alone could take 9 months to recover fully.

Other industries - and by extension, consumers - had losses as well. The California Poultry Federation estimated that 750,000 chickens and 180,000 turkeys also died as a direct result of the heat wave, though it is a very small percentage of the industry, so prices are unlikely to be affected. Strawberries over-ripened or rotted, stone fruits were sunburned and tomatoes "literally cooked in their skins," leading to an estimated loss of 10% of the total crop in some places. The effects on other foods, like nuts, will not be seen until their harvest comes around in fall, but California agriculture will need some time to recover fully.

The Food Standards Agency here in the UK has advised restaurants to halt serving dishes made from raw eggs and half-cooked poultry to eliminate any risk of catching bird flu. The public is advised only to serve meat where the juices run clear and eggs that have solid whites.

These rules, following the first confirmed bird flu outbreak in Scotland, rule out the making of fresh mayonnaise and mousses with raw eggs and the serving of poultry  such as duck pink in the middle. Mousses and mayonnaise sold in supermarkets are fine as they are made from pasteurized egg which is safe.

On eggs specifically, the Food Standards Agency warned: "People should not eat raw eggs or use raw eggs in dishes that will not be cooked." Runny yolks can be eaten apparently even though the World Health Organization, has stipulated that both egg whites and yolks should be solid.

 

A study was done recently that concluded that obesity might be contagious. This conclusion was extrapolated from data that showed an increase in the weight of chickens who had been exposed to the human adenovirus Ad-37. Adenoviruses can cause colds and other illnesses in humans. The reasoning seems to follow this line of thought: Chickens, when exposed to a particular, contagious human virus, got fat . Since it is a human virus, humans who catch this virus will get fat. Since the virus is contagious, it follows that obesity is contagious.

So is obesity only contagious when the carrier of the virus has a cold? Can you catch it from sitting next to someone on an airplane? To say that this line of reasoning is flawed is an understatement. It is simply incorrect.

Simply because a cold can cause a chicken (or a human, for that matter) to gain weight does not mean that all weight gain is caused by colds in general or this virus in particular. Nor does it mean that because colds are contagious, so is weight gain. Someone needs to retake their deductive reasoning courses.