There's an article in The Sacramento Bee that's been syndicated that says that food blogs are becoming popular! Of course, that's something we've known for a long time now, right?

The piece states that there are 48,000 bloggers right now, though doesn't really specify if that means there are 48,000 blogs or 48,000 people blogging (many blogs have several authors). And what is the big revelation in the piece? Readers read food blogs to get recipes, reviews, and ideas! Wow!

I often wonder why blogs are still seen as some alien concept. Some nice coverage for some good blogs though, including Chocolate and Zucchini and Cakegrrl (in the pic).

Our sister site Engadget gets some nice press in the piece, but Slashfood isn't even mentioned. I'm sure that's just a typo.

Earlier this week we reported that United Food Group had recalled 75,000 pounds of beef in Colorado. Now the company has expanded the recall to include New Mexico.

And it's not a little increase in the amount being recalled. To that 75,000 pounds you can now add another 370,000 pounds of ground beef that's being recalled. The details are a bit confusing. At first it sounds like only Colorado and New Mexico are affected, but the beef was actually distributed to 11 states, in over a dozen supermarket chains. Consumers are urged to either return or throw away any meat they might have in their refrigerators.

TechNewsWorld has the complete details at the link above, including the stores/brands affected and a phone number to call if you have any questions.

Update: Now it's 5.7 million pounds.

Of course, it's only for a few weeks, to see how the other half lives.

Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski and his wife are going to live on just three dollars worth of food stamps a day raise awareness of what poorer people have to face in their everyday lives.

It sounds great I guess, but is it really an accurate representation? I mean, what car is the couple going to drive to the store in? When they get back from the store, what kind of house are they living in, what kind of bed, what kind of TV are they watching, how much money do they have in the bank if they need it for an emergency? When I was a little kid, my family was on food stamps for about a year, and I think a lot of other factors weigh in on what happens to you when you have to be on them.

No, I'm not going to list them all here, but it's the subject of a new book by Tony Rosenfeld, co-owner of the b.good all-natural burger chain and contributing editor to Fine Cooking magazine. The full title of the book is 150 Things To Make With Roast Chicken And 50 Ways To Roast It.

Rosenfeld says that not many people roast whole birds anymore (besides Thanksgiving I guess). Most people are buying them pre-cooked. He worries that traditional cooking like that is becoming a little passe, and that maybe one day we'll no longer be able to get whole birds from the market.

Yeah, I have to admit that not only am I not roasting whole birds these days, most of my chicken meals come from pre-cut and pre-cooked chicken from Perdue. Oh well.

The Boston Globe has a new interactive feature at their site, where they take a look inside the refrigerators of several local residents. They take a look into the fridges of college students, couples, and couples with several kids. There's also a fridge used by three adults that live together.

I think this is a great idea, though I don't think the Globe went far enough with it (and the fridge used by the single person isn't used by a single person at all, it's used by roommates). But the feature just seems to be a shot of the fridge, then buttons you roll over to see certain items. So we see beer and fat free cheese and meals, but I'm not sure what we're supposed to get out of it besides that, and it gets kinda boring.

Though I gotta say I really want that giant fridge owned by the family in Waban. Mine is 15 years old and falling apart. If you're wondering what's in mine, it's mostly Diet Coke, Perdue chicken, and Dove dark chocolate.

I just wrote about Texas microbreweries proposing to be able to sell retail. Now Pennsylvanian markets wants to be able to sell beer at the cafes in supermarkets, but two senators are trying to kill the whole idea. Now I have to say that the alcohol laws in PA seem a bit strange to me. I never actually understood them in my visits to the state and sometimes had a difficult time figuring out where I could buy a case of beer.

Now under consideration by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board are liquor license applications which would allow supermarkets to serve and sell six-packs as long as the sales occur in sit-down, 30-seat cafes that are separated by a wall from the rest of the store. While this sounds good to me, it doesn't quite fit in with what a few of the state legislature think. A few want to tighten up the proposals, make sure the cafe and supermarket are two separate businesses, have separate cash registers and cashiers, insure that the cashiers who are at least 18 years old, and a few other items.

These sound fine to me, but other legislators seem scared of opening the door to supermarkets being able to sell beer by the case like beer distributors, and feel that brews should only be able to be purchased by the six-pack from a deli.

In this Post-Gazette article the governor's spokeswoman says it's quite unlikely Mr. Rendell would support a liquor code change forbidding beer sales in supermarkets, adding that the governor thinks beer sales at supermarket cafes is inevitable.

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...

You have probably seen cartons of eggs in the store from "free range" or "cage free" hens, but what about all those other eggs on the shelves? At stores like Wild Oats and Whole Foods, only cage-less eggs are sold, but by some estimates, the eggs from caged hens in an ordinary grocery store could be more than 80% of those on the shelves. Eggs from caged hens are not labeled in any particular way, leaving consumers with the impression that the eggs have a blank slate. In other words, if it doesn't clearly state the eggs' origin, consumers aren't going to spend too much time thinking about it even if they don't support caging chickens.

At least, this is the theory put forward by Washington DC council member Jim Graham, who is proposing a law that would require supermarkets to display signs stating that "Eggs may be from caged hens" on displays of eggs not labeled otherwise. He says that this would increase consumer awareness for the issue, which is receiving more and more attention from animal rights groups, as well as individuals who are "interested in protecting animals"

A story in yesterday's Washington Post takes a spin through the supermarket and rehashes some of the current moral quandaries faced by the average shopper. Organic? Big organic? Local? Free range? All of these factors are mentioned. The author cites works by Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan, and if you've read either of these authors, the WaPo piece will seem like old news. If, however, you're just starting to take an interest in how and where your food is produced, this might be a helpful, albeit brief, overview. In the end, the author consults a bioethics scholar who says that rather than worrying about every single factor involved in every item we eat, we'd be better of picking certain facets-animal cruelty, environmental impact, taste-placing them on a scale of importance, and shopping accordingly.

Supermarkets and offices are going all out to grab a slice of the estimated £1.25 billion World Cup beer market.

There are innumerable money saving deals on all major beer and lager brands in Tesco, Asda Wal-Mart, Sainsburys and Morrison's, sparking a price war that the retailers hope will encourage consumers to stay away from pubs and drink at home. There has also been a marked uplift in wide-screen and high-definition TVs.

The country's second largest grocer Asda is offering a 20-can pack of Stella Artois, Carlsberg, Fosters, Kronenbourg or Budweiser for £9.98, a discount of £4 on the usual retail price. Two packs are even cheaper at £16, with each can costing just 40p each.

In another World Cup tie-in, Asda has launched a range of World Cup crisps, debuting flavors like French Garlic Frogs' Legs, German Sausage, British Vindaloo and Brazilian Salsa to capture fans' attention.

 

Though Disney is ending their partnership with McDonalds and their toys will not be appearing in kids' meals, their brand will still reach its young, target audience. Disney has signed a deal with the supermarket chain Tesco to have Disney-branded fruit appear in all its stores in the UK and Europe. The goal of the campaign is, of course, marketing, though the companies say that encouraging healthy eating is important to them, too. Right now, Tesco is carrying satsuma oranges with special collectible stickers that feature characters like Winnie the Pooh. Apples and bananas will soon follow.

Disney isn't limiting this promotion to work with the British chain. It has branded baby tomatoes in France and mini bananas in Germany. There are plans to follow suit in the US over the next month or so, as well.

 

The UK's top supermarket Tesco has announced that they are to introduce bio-degradable carrier bags. It also aims to cut the number of plastic bags given to customers by nearly a billion each year.

According to letsrecycle.com the UK gets through over 17.5 billion plastic carrier bags a year from supermarkets alone. So you would have thought they would be happy with the supermarkets plans. Not at all.

The fact they are to be biodegradable got the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne a bit fired up. He accused the supermarket chain of misunderstanding waste issues, suggesting that degradable plastic bags will produce greenhouse gases when they break down. You just can't win sometimes.

Tina Cosby got quite a surprise when she took the broccoli she bought the day before at Tesco out of her refrigerator. Nestled amid the florets was a footlong snake.

Cosby, who has a fear of spiders, was hysterical when she saw the European smooth snake. While the snakes are not poisonous, she's lucky it was only a baby. They're known to grow up to three feet long. Tesco has apologized to the family, and has assurances from its suppliers in Spain that this will not happen again.

British supermarket chains, such as Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Waitrose, are rethinking their pork supplier. The Polish pig farms that produced much of the supermarket pork products have been condemned for "'appalling' animal welfare practices."

The farms in question are in Poland and have been run by Animex, a subsidiary of the American company Smithfield Foods, since 2002. An undercover investigation revealed industrial factory farms, conditions where hundreds of pigs were crammed into light-less barns with dead companions rotting underfoot. The investigation also found that "powerful cocktails of drugs," including a cocktail of antibiotics that is banned or considered to be a growth-promoter in other countries. One such drug is Tylbian 20%, a form of the growth promoting drug Tylosin, which was banned by the European Union in 1999. Local residents showed investigators large open-air cesspits of pig waste and farm detritus that included syringes and needles.

Waitrose has already pulled the products supplied by this producer. No wrong-doing has been shown on the part of Smithfield Foods and a Smithfield representative denied knowledge of such conditions, assuring the public that it would investigate thoroughly.

Well who would have thought it. Chickens are descended from jungle fowl and thus are much happier foraging around in woodland; and we all want happier chickens, don't we?

The UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's is planting over a million trees for their organic and free range hens with the plan that all of their eggs will be sourced from woodlands farms. Over 30 farms are participating in the plan with the trees covering an area the size of 80 football pitches. All the tress will be indigenous species so top marks for the environmental aspects too.