The Food Thread

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Vrede too
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Re: The Food Thread

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How sweet! A daily dose of dark chocolate may cut your risk of diabetes

:happy-cheerleaderkid: I always keep some dark chocolate in the frig. Now I can tell myself it's for the health benefits. ;) :wave:
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
-- Howard Zinn, 2004
1312. ETTD

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Vrede too
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Re: The Food Thread

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Waldorf, Charles County, Maryland:
Cracker Barrel: Contact Us

Re:
Parent 'saw red' after disabled students turned away from Cracker Barrel; protest planned
https://www.yahoo.com/news/protest-set- ... 46101.html

The specific and likely illegal discrimination can possibly be attributed to the local manager, but the response from corporate is wholly inadequate and unacceptable. Past customer, I will now boycott all Cracker Barrels.

Shame on you.

(real name and contact info)
Technically, I have been boycotting all Cracker Barrels for years, but they don't need to know that.
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
-- Howard Zinn, 2004
1312. ETTD

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Vrede too
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Re: The Food Thread

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From: guestservices@crackerbarrel.com

We sincerely apologize for the experience that the group of students and teachers had during their recent visit to Waldorf, MD location. We truly value creating a welcoming environment and providing an exceptional experience for all of our guests, and we deeply regret that we fell short on this occasion.

The situation was unfortunate, but it is important to emphasize that it was in no way a reflection of the students’ behavior or capabilities. The challenges arose from our inability to properly accommodate a party of 18 while also managing unexpected staffing issues. This resulted in us partially closing our second dining room and, unfortunately, failing to adhere to our usual operational protocols. Our poor communication only added to the misunderstandings, for which we are truly sorry.

This group of students and teachers were, are, and always will be welcome to dine with us. We have already extended an invitation for them to return, and we sincerely hope they will give us the opportunity to make amends. To ensure this does not happen again, we are working closely with the school and the parent community to better understand what went wrong and how we can improve our processes. We are committed to making things right and earning their trust and confidence. We hope to have the opportunity to provide a much better experience in the future.

Thank you for sharing your concern with Cracker Barrel Guest Relations, and our deepest apologies for the misunderstanding.

Tammy
Guest Relations Supervisor
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc.
Hi Tammy,

Thank you for the rapid response.

"inability to properly accommodate a party of 18 while also managing unexpected staffing issues" and "misunderstandings" do not excuse staff rudeness, the lack of offered refreshments during the wait, the unacceptably long to-go wait when other parties were seated, served and departed, nor the request to be removed from the school's approved list of restaurants.

I await an ADA lawsuit, as do you.

Barring an extraordinary explanation, the manager must be fired or the franchise cancelled. Please inform me of the ultimate resolution.

Sincerely,
(Vrede too)
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
-- Howard Zinn, 2004
1312. ETTD

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Vrede too
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Re: The Food Thread

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I never heard back from guestservices@crackerbarrel.com nor saw a followup article. No surprise, probably no consequences. :roll:



Chinese Popcorn Cannon first use!

:o Comments:
A popcorn pressure cooker...because life isn't dangerous enough.
it works on any grain. use it on rice, you will get rice crispies.
This was such a delight to watch. You made a fine batch of popcorn and seemed to have fun with it. It’s definitely a lot different than how we’re used to making popcorn in the microwave or on the stove top, but I can see this having a lot more use if you don’t have access to electricity.
Good point.
Puffed wheat shot from cannons. My uncle's bakery. Had machines 8 times larger and it sounded like an explosion when the wheat was released.
This works with my old pressure cooker. It takes some timing to get it right but when you release the lid the popcorn pops instantly. 1/4 cup oil 1/4 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup popcorn heat it and agitate the cooker until you hear the first few pops. Release the handle and viola kettle corn.
Cool.
You had me at “cannon”!
:D
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
-- Howard Zinn, 2004
1312. ETTD

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Vrede too
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Re: The Food Thread

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Most “humane” farms are lying to you — and the government isn’t stopping them
A new investigation finds false advertising continues to dupe consumers.


... Nearly all farmed animals in the US live on mega factory farms, where they’re mutilated without pain relief and fattened up in dark, overcrowded warehouses before being shipped off to the slaughterhouse. Only a tiny sliver of livestock are actually reared on the small, higher-welfare farms that many companies conjure on their packaging with quaint red barns and green rolling hills — and even those operations can be rife with animal suffering.
I mostly don't trust packaging, but I do trust the Co-Op. I hope it's doing due diligence.
Over the summer, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had an opportunity to fix the false advertising problem pervasive in the meat aisle when it published updated guidelines that companies must follow when making animal welfare claims on their labels. Instead, its new guidance barely changed anything.
:ateeth:
Here’s how the USDA’s guidelines work: If a meat company wants to make an animal welfare or environment-related claim on its packaging, it must fill out a form with an illustration of its label and an explanation as to how the animals are raised to justify the claim; how the company will ensure the claim is valid from birth to slaughter to sale; and whether or not an independent, third-party organization certified the claim, which is optional. The USDA never conducts surprise audits, or any audits at all, to verify the company is telling the truth. It is, in essence, an honor system.

The USDA also has an incredibly low, and often nonsensical, bar for what passes as humane treatment.

The agency states, for example, that a chicken company can use the term “humanely raised” if it feeds its birds an all-vegetarian diet, which has virtually no bearing on their welfare (chickens are omnivores).

Similarly, the agency says pork can be labeled “humanely raised” if the company provides its pigs with “proper shelter and rest areas.” By that definition, standard factory farms — which produce practically all US pork — are humane because they provide ample shelter in the form of vast, crowded warehouses where the animals have nothing to do but rest on the same concrete flooring where they defecate and urinate.
:roll: :puke-left:
The empty claims many meat companies make on their labels and in their advertising stem from forces bigger than the USDA and third-party certifiers. Currently, chickens and other poultry birds have zero federal legal protections while on the farm or in the slaughterhouse, and third-party certification programs make an exceptionally weak substitute for this legal gap. If we wanted truly “humanely raised” chicken, we’d have to fundamentally change how chickens are farmed, which would require significant anti-cruelty legislation from Congress. That would substantially raise the price of chicken, making it more of a delicacy than a staple.

But the USDA, the poultry giants, and the dubious third-party certification schemes would like us to believe otherwise — that wholesome marketing and hollow honor systems can fix the horrific reality of what it is to be a farmed animal in the US.
:cry:
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
-- Howard Zinn, 2004
1312. ETTD

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GoCubsGo
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Re: The Food Thread

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Vrede too wrote:
Thu Jan 09, 2025 10:36 am

:cry:
Like most Americans, willful ignorance.
I I paid attention I'd never eat meat products again.
Eamus Catuli~AC 000000 000101 010202 020303 010304 020405....Ahhhh, forget it, it's gonna be a while.

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Vrede too
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Re: The Food Thread

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GoCubsGo wrote:
Thu Jan 09, 2025 10:44 am
Like most Americans, willful ignorance.
If I paid attention I'd never eat meat products again.
Ditto. I put my faith in the Co-op, but I really have no idea if their screening is superior.


People Cannot Believe The Price Of Eggs In Canada Compared To The US

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image
:---P
... A 2023 article from Global News explained that Canada hasn’t been hit as hard by egg price spikes because of its supply management system, which regulates production, imports, and prices to ensure stability.
Socialist regulation is superior, again.
Canadian farms are smaller and more geographically spread out, which can reduce the risk of widespread issues like bird flu.

According to Global News, "The average egg farm in Canada has about 25,000 laying hens. In contrast, the average farm in the U.S. has about two million birds."...
Rampant, 'bottom line to the exclusion of all else' capitalism fails us again, no matter how enthralled Jasmine and SoupySales are.

Image

That was my immediate thought. I wanna be an international egg smuggler. You coming along, hominy?
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
-- Howard Zinn, 2004
1312. ETTD

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GoCubsGo
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Re: The Food Thread

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I'm in, but gas might be too expensive. :lol:

Where's my $2 gasoline?

FWIW, I was shopping in Target yesterday and eggs were $2 cheaper than the grocery store.
Eamus Catuli~AC 000000 000101 010202 020303 010304 020405....Ahhhh, forget it, it's gonna be a while.

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O Really
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Re: The Food Thread

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That $12+ a carton pic is from Seattle at Safeway. Our Vons/Albertsons is selling Eggland's Best (which is what we buy) for $7ish; Walmart wants $9ish for the same. I suspect there's some pricing smoke and mirrors along the way somewhere - taking advantage of the kerfuffle over the bird flu. Meanwhile, there's an egg farm over in east county that didn't raise their prices and people go out and line the road going in for the chance to get $4 free range eggs.

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Vrede too
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Re: The Food Thread

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Another reason I shun seafood:
... SeaD Consulting, a food safety technology company, tested shrimp from randomly chosen restaurants in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Biloxi, Mississippi; Galveston, Texas; and Tampa Bay, Florida. Researchers found a significant number of the restaurants were passing off their shrimp as locally sourced, even though they were grown on foreign farms and imported to the U.S.

The cities with the highest "shrimp fraud rate" were Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg, Florida, at 96%, according to SeaD Consulting. Only two of the 44 restaurants sampled were serving authentic shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, a study found....

About 90% of shrimp consumed in the United States is imported, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

John Williams, the executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, a Florida-based advocacy group that represents shrimpers in multiple states, said in a statement that “Family-owned shrimp businesses operating out of the Port of Tampa are struggling to survive while local restaurants bamboozle customers into thinking locally caught shrimp are being served."

"If restaurants wish to serve shrimp from countries associated with labor abuses, environmental harms, and banned antibiotic use, that is their choice. But be honest and let consumers choose what they eat," he said....
We can't trust the provenance of almost all seafood.
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
-- Howard Zinn, 2004
1312. ETTD

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Vrede too
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Re: The Food Thread

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Mr.B vomiting the GOP line attacking Michelle Obama for urging nutritious school food:
https://www.blueridgedebate.com/viewtop ... 801#p27801
Mr.B wrote:
Tue Aug 27, 2013 5:39 pm
Kentucky students to first lady Michelle Obama: Your food ‘tastes like vomit’..
Students in a rural Kentucky county — and their parents — are the latest to join a growing national chorus of scorn for the healthy school
lunches touted by first lady Michelle Obama.

“They say it tastes like vomit,” said Harlan County Public Schools board member Myra Mosley at a contentious board meeting last week,
reports The Harlan Daily Enterprise.

The growing body of USDA meal regulations implemented by the Department of Agriculture under the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010″
has long been a signature issue for the first lady.

Denizens of Harlan County don’t much care, though. Their primary concern at the board meeting was a bevy of complaints that local children
are starving at lunch — and for the remainder of the school day — because the food on offer in the cafeteria is crappy and there isn’t nearly enough of it.

“Kids can’t learn when they’re hungry!” parents shouted to the board, according to the Enterprise.

Other gripes involved the new bread, which students don’t want to eat because it’s brown wheat bread, and the new milk,
which is skim or one percent fat, not two percent or whole. The cafeteria’s chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk offerings are now nonfat.

Jack Miniard, the school district’s director of school and community nutrition, was on hand to explain that the federal government
now governs both food choices and portion sizes in most American school districts including Harlan County
.

Under the National School Lunch Program, Under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, participating schools must provide lunches —
including free or reduced price lunches — with minimum amounts of fresh fruits, fresh vegetables and whole grains. Also, in what presumably
falls outside the hunger-free aspect of the act, there’s a calorie cap: 850 for high school lunches, 700 for middle schools and a mere 650
calories for kids in elementary school.

Students can only have one serving of meat or other protein. However, rich kids can buy a second portion each day on their own dime.

Servings of carbohydrates such as potatoes are limited to just a single serving of three-fourths of a cup per student.

On the plus side, students can eat as many fruits and vegetables as they want.

Across the country, students and parents have expressed dissatisfaction with the federal government’s new food regime.
Some wealthier suburban school districts are simply backing out of the National School Lunch Program,
though doing so can mean giving up a six-figure annual subsidy for the district.
So much for pinto beans and cornbread......
The damgummit is attempting control of our lives on every facet of day-to-day living; why not dictating what we're to eat?
Maybe I've missed something somewhere....what office does MO hold that she can dictate what school children must eat?
:roll:

https://www.blueridgedebate.com/viewtop ... 31#p108731
GoCubsGo wrote:
Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:00 am
Eat like a Trump! Pizza and burgers for everyone!

The Trump administration on Friday took another step toward dismantling Michelle Obama's school nutrition guidelines, proposing a new rule that could lead to more pizza and fries and less fruit and a smaller variety of vegetables on school menus.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who announced the rule changes on Obama’s birthday, said they were needed to give schools more flexibility and reduce waste while still providing nutritious and appetizing meals.

But child nutrition advocates saw it differently.

“What a shameless, embarrassing capitulation to lobbyists at the expense of American children and their well-being,” said Sam Kass, who served as executive director of Obama's “Let's Move" campaign to combat child obesity. ”This country — and its kids — deserve so much better."
Fuckin' kid-hating Dolt .45!


MAHA my ass. Y’all are full of shit. Michelle Obama tried to do this, but you know we can’t have a Black woman telling white people what to feed their kids

Image






Why is their whole campaign about what Michelle Obama was trying to do during her husband's presidency? I remember Republicans bashing her for trying to make food changes and get healthier meals in schools. 15+ years later and now all the sudden they care? Rrriiiiiiiiiiggghhhtt.
LOL, they were really talking about school lunches. When Michelle Obama tried to do this, they lost their shit.


:thumbup: Good point.

More posts at the link.
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
-- Howard Zinn, 2004
1312. ETTD

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Vrede too
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Re: The Food Thread

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Farmers Plead ‘Stop Our Fields Flooding’ as Trump Opens Dams

Officials in California have revealed that President Donald Trump nearly flooded the region’s farms when his administration tried to send an excessive amount of water south, a feat he bragged about on Friday.

“Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons. Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory!” Trump gloated in a Truth Social post.
:crazy:
... Victor Hernandez, who manages the water on a river in Tulare County, said he scrambled to alert farmers to the possibility of flooding before the Corps backed off. He said he was only given one hour’s notice.

“I’ve been here 25 years, and I’ve never been given notice that quick,” Hernandez said. “That was alarming and scary.”
Assholes.
... Experts told The New York Times that the water released by the Army Corps on Friday has no way of reaching the region affected by the wildfires, which is over 200 miles away, and could have been useful to farmers months from now as irrigation....
Smart :roll:
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
-- Howard Zinn, 2004
1312. ETTD

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