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By: Tom Barnes | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG — As the sound of Revolutionary War fifes and drums echoed through Capitol hallways Tuesday, supermarkets and convenience stores launched a new attempt at one of the most difficult legislative feats — liberalizing Pennsylvania’s beer-selling laws.

A crowd of about 150 people, many from the Sheetz store chain, held signs calling for a “Beer Revolution” in Pennsylvania, with others reading “I Drink and I Vote,” “Free My Beer” and “Get Your Hands Off My 6 Pack.”

State Sen. John Rafferty, R-Montgomery, joined by the Pennsylvania Convenience Store Council and the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association, backed a new bill that they said would “make sweeping and historic changes to the way beer is sold in Pennsylvania.”

Specifically, it would allow a six-pack, a 12-pack or a case of beer to be sold, for the first time, at convenience stores and groceries. Currently, most beer is sold by state-licensed beer distributors, and only by the case or keg; under the new bill, they also would be able to sell one or two six-packs.

It also would strengthen efforts to make sure beer isn’t sold to underage youths. It would require “carding,” or the showing of valid ID, by everyone buying beer, regardless of how old they look. The system would use “electronic age-verification machines to ensure that minors are not buying alcohol illegally.”

Sheetz owner Stan Sheetz said his chain sells beer at its stores in five other states and wants to do so in Pennsylvania. His general counsel, Michael Cortez, urged scrapping “outdated beer laws” and giving consumers “what they’ve wanted for years — the ability to buy beer in convenience stores and supermarkets.” Backers have created a website, www.sixpacktogo.org.

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Science Daily -

In a study of independently owned restaurants in 14 Kansas counties, Kansas State University researchers found a significantly higher number of food safety violations in ethnic restaurants than in non-ethnic restaurants. The next step for their research is to understand the reasons for these differences and to work alongside restaurant operators to remedy the problems.

Leading the study were Junehee Kwon, associate professor, and Kevin Roberts, assistant professor, both of the department of hospitality management and dietetics. They found that independently owned ethnic restaurants had significantly more violations for several food safety categories, including time and temperature control, hand washing and proper use of utensils. The independent ethnic restaurants in the study also had more inspections than their nonethnic counterparts. Kwon said many of those repeat visits were driven by customer complaints.

The research will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Food Protection Trends. Co-authors are Carol Shanklin, dean of the K-State Graduate School, and Pei Liu and Wen S.F. Yen, doctoral students in human ecology.

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Consumers, Featured, Health | Probiotic, Restaurants ethnic restaurants, food safety, k-state, kansas state university

By: Ed Sealover | Denver Business Journal

Colorado’s convenience-store owners have taken a step toward being able to sell full-strength beer.

The state House Business Affairs and Labor Committee approved a measure late Wednesday that would allow convenience stores of under 5,000 feet to sell an alcoholic product bigger than the reduced-strength beer that they now are limited to pedaling. The 7-4 vote came after other bills that would have expanded alcohol sales died two straight years in legislative committees.

Unlike its predecessors, however, HB 1186, sponsored by Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, does not give the same sales allowances to grocery stores, which are pushing a separate bill this year to allow them to buy liquor stores’ licenses.

And it also limits convenience stores to selling only full-strength beer rather than being able to offer wine or spirits to customers. Liston cited those two factors as having a big influence on a committee that rejected a bill to allow beer and wine sales at convenience and grocery stores last year by a similar margin.

Committee members heard hours of testimony from craft brewers and liquor-store owners that allowing convenience stores to tap into a product now available only at liquor stores will harm both of their industries and cost jobs during a recession.

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By: Margaret Webb Pressler | The Washington Post -

Do you love burgers and fries? What about ice cream and cake? If you answered “yes,” you’re not alone. First lady Michelle Obama admits to loving those not-the-best-for-you treats, too. But the president’s wife is worried that many kids are eating too much unhealthy food and getting not enough exercise.

In fact, a lot of people are concerned that a growing number of children today are considered obese — that is, they weigh significantly more than what would be considered a healthy weight for their height.

So Obama last week launched a new campaign, called Let’s Move, that she hopes will encourage kids to get more physical activity and schools to offer more healthful foods. Television network Nickelodeon is joining the effort and plans to show commercials and other programming on its TV channels and Web sites that will help children learn more about nutrition and exercise.

More electronics, less exercise

Part of the problem is that kids are not as physically active as they used to be. A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that kids ages 8 to 18 spend an average of 10 hours and 45 minutes using entertainment media each day, such as computers, television, video games and music players. That’s up from 7 hours and 29 minutes 10 years ago.

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Consumers, Featured, Health | Probiotic kids obesity, let's move, michelle obama

By: Monica Hesse | Washington Post Staff Writer

The National Automated Merchandising Association is on Capitol Hill this snowy Wednesday morning, and they are lobbying about . . . what, exactly?

“We’re obviously interested in food safety and nutrition,” says Ned Monroe, NAMA’S senior vice president of government affairs. “But our biggest issue right now is jobs.” This is because the National Automated Merchandising Association is the trade group for vending machines. And when unemployment gets high, Monroe says, “there are fewer workers available to buy snacks.”

Snacks. The mini-foods that we graze on throughout the day, a nation of cows moving from one 100-calorie snack pack to another. One hundred million Americans use 7 million vending machines every day, according to NAMA, and always with a panicky sense of trepidation. Will the Baked Lay’s bag fall this time? you wonder. And only a fool would mess with B5, which hasn’t dispensed a Snickers in years. Why can’t they put the cheese crackers on B5 instead? Nobody likes those.

The vending industry is a $30 billion-a-year industry, completely embedded in our daily lives. To make sure that legislators don’t forget that, NAMA set up a Coffee and Vending Innovation Showcase in the Cannon House Office Building’s grandiose Caucus Room. There, against a backdrop of Corinthian pilasters and elaborate molding, are rows of vending machines, all representing the very latest in snack technology.

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WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) – People who drink two or more sweetened soft drinks a week have a much higher risk of pancreatic cancer, an unusual but deadly cancer, researchers reported on Monday.

People who drank mostly fruit juice instead of sodas did not have the same risk, the study of 60,000 people in Singapore found.

Sugar may be to blame but people who drink sweetened sodas regularly often have other poor health habits, said Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota, who led the study.

“The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth,” Pereira said in a statement.

Insulin, which helps the body metabolize sugar, is made in the pancreas.

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By: Andrew Moseman | Discover

As study after study suggests that wine might have health benefits, beer tends to get the short end of the stick. But food scientist and beer lover Charles Bamforth wasn’t going to take that lying down, saying: “The wine guys have stolen the moral high ground. I resent the stance that people take that wine is better. It’s not”.

To prove it, he studied the silicon content of beers from around the country, and in a study in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, found that beer could be a good source of the substance in your diet.

Bamforth found that the beer’s silicon content ranged from 6.4 milligrams per liter to 56.5 milligrams per liter, with an average of about 30 milligrams. Since two pints of beer are just about equal to one liter, drinking two beers at happy hour could provide 30 milligrams of silicon. And while there is no official recommendation for daily silicon uptake, the researchers say, in the United States, individuals consume between 20 and 50 mg of silicon each day. Light lagers and non-alcoholic beers not only lack flavor, they showed the lowest silicon content in Bamforth’s study. The ultra-hoppy India pale ales came in first.

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By: Gardiner Harris | The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will begin a drive this week to expel Pepsi, French fries and Snickers bars from the nation’s schools in hopes of reducing the number of children who get fat during their school years.

In legislation, soon to be introduced, candy and sugary beverages would be banned and many schools would be required to offer more nutritious fare.

To that end, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will deliver a speech Monday at the National Press Club in which he will insist, according to excerpts provided to The Times, that any vending machines that remain in schools be “filled with nutritious offerings to make the healthy choice the easy choice for our nation’s children.”

The first lady, Michelle Obama, said last month that she would lead an initiative to reduce childhood obesity, and her involvement “shows the importance all of us place on this issue,” Mr. Vilsack said.

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Consumers, Equipment and Supply, Featured, Health | Probiotic, Manufacturers, Retail beverages, candy, junk food, obma, sugar, vilsack

By: Melinda Beck | WSJ.com

Grayson Grebe started getting eczema on his cheeks when he was just 4-weeks-old. At 6 months, he was diagnosed with allergies to wheat, dairy, eggs, nuts, oats, rice, barley, chicken, pork, corn and beans; his mother, who was breast-feeding him, had to stop eating them all. At 10 months, doctors cut out 20 more foods, including all fruits and vegetables, and put Grayson on a hypoallergenic formula. Even so, his eczema was so bad that his parents put him in mittens, long-sleeved shirts and long pants so no skin was exposed. “Otherwise, he’d scratch himself until he would bleed,” says his mother, Amy Grebe of Albuquerque, N.M.

At wit’s end, the Grebes took Grayson to National Jewish Health, a hospital in Denver that specializes in allergies and respiratory diseases. Doctors there suspected that his food allergies might not be causing the eczema—and that some might not be food allergies at all. After carefully supervised “food challenges”—giving him tiny amounts and monitoring him closely for signs of a reaction—a number of foods went back in his diet. “We came home with 12 foods he could eat,” says Amy Grebe. “It’s made so much difference in our lives.”

For parents of children with food allergies, this may be both welcome and unsettling news: Many kids whose allergies were diagnosed on the basis of blood or skin tests alone may not be truly allergic to those foods, experts say.

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Consumers, Featured, Health | Probiotic children, food allergies

By: Jan Wichayanuparp | Phoenix New Times

Imagine a lavish spread of drinks, pates, cheeses, chocolate and confections sprawling over an area the size of three football fields, and you will get an approximation of what it’s like to be at the 35th Winter Fancy Food Show, held last week in San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

Billed as the largest marketplace for specialty food and beverages on the West Coast, this industry trade show is not only an opportunity for checking out new trends in the market — it’s a golden ticket for unlimited noshing.

With more than 1,300 exhibitors pushing free samples, Fancy Food is Disneyland for foodies.

Among the thousands of exhibitors from over 30 countries, it was good to see Arizona admirably represented by Fairy Tale Brownies, Arizona Gunslinger Hot Sauce, Green Valley Pecan Company, and others.

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