"u.s." news and stories

Cooking Light magazine recently named the healthiest - no, the fittest - no...okay, I'm actually a little confused as to the point of the rankings.

It named the cities that "best provide the resources people need to live healthful lives." Er...come again? The magazine claims that they ranked cities based on 15 criteria. Unfortunately, most of the criteria was either based upon implications (ie: one of the categories is how much "maintained green space" the cities offer, implying, perhaps, that more green space results in better air quality or a higher rate of exercise) even though we know that when it comes to healthy living, certain features do not necessarily correlate.

The actual data manipulation was as follows: "We ranked major metropolitan cities on the following 15 criteria, calculated on a per-capita basis, then grouped into categories--eat smart, be fit, live well--and factored on a four-point scale."

The other standards were pretty arbitrary, such as the amount of Whole Foods and Trader Joe's supermarkets and how many chefs work in the city. Basing a city's healthy standards on the number of organic food stores seems ineffective and a little naive - and going with the magazine's reasoning, a high rate of supermarkets could imply a greater number of cars, inactivity, pollution, and waste just as readily as it could imply healthy living.

Source

Here's the latest battle in the "U.S. said/China said" food wars.

China has impounded shipments of apricots and orange pulp because of "excessive bacteria and mold." According to this article, some believe that this is in retaliation for the various problems the U.S. says it has been having with food and other products imported from China in the past several months. China warns that rules and guidelines about food from the U.S. could be tightened.

It's not only food that the U.S. has complained about. It is also faulty tires, unsafe fake toothpaste, lead paint in toys, and that whole nasty business with pet food.

Japan will soon begin to import beef from the U.S. again, after a nearly three year hiatus, according to the Associated Press. Japanese officials stopped importing U.S. beef in 2003 out of concerns about BSE or mad cow disease. Trade began once since then, but was quickly halted again when a shipment of veal was found to contain spinal chord, which is often suspect in transmitting BSE. The U.S. has already asked that trade not be halted completely should something similar happen again, Reuters reported. Many U.S. beef industry folk welcome the news, as Japan was the largest importer of U.S. beef in 2003, importing $1.4 billion worth.