• Monsanto wants to sell their dairy hormone business, presumably to focus on their many other monopolies. [New York Times]

• The latest victim of unsafe food stuffs? Boy Scouts. [Washington Post]

• When will people learn that pre-made sandwiches are a Bad Thing? [Boston Globe]

• As New York goes, so goes LA: calorie counts might be added to the menus at Angeleno chains. [LA Times]

• Not necessarily food-related, but did you know that there were two unrelated tiger attacks in Missouri within the past week? TWO! [Detroit Free Press]

• California strawberries will be shipped to China for the first time ever for the duration of the Olympics and Paralympics. [NYT]

• New at this Olympics: etiquette classes for all American athletes that include things like "don't spear food with your chopsticks." [WSJ]

• Food consumption at the athletes' village is insane: 9,000 bananas, 4,000 liters of cooking oil and three tons of rice per day. [China Daily]

• Health inspectors have been working overtime for months to make sure that China's food supply is safe for the athletes and visitors. [AFP]

• The Brazilian soccer team have decided to stay in the athletes' village (in the past, they've splurged for hotels and brought their own food), but are having a difficult time asking for menu changes. [Reuters]

• A U.S. food aid shipment has arrived in North Korea; it's just one load out of 500,000 tons of food promised. [AP]

• Potato chip and french fry manufacturers are lowering their levels of acrylamide, a possible carcinogen, to avoid CA labeling laws. [LA Times]

• New food trend 1: Cafeteria theft! Fairfax, VA estimates it lost $1.2m to school-age fruit swipers. [WaPo]

• New food trend 2: Pharmacognosy. That'd be the study of naturally-derived medicines, like ginger, turmeric, etc. [MLive]

• Ted Allen's new TV show, "Food Detectives," isn't off to a promising start. Thank heaven for Alton reruns. [NYT]

• Airplane food used to be fine china, silver, an extensive wine list, and good food. How times have changed! [NYT]

• A recent study reveals that the kids' meals at fast food chains are loaded with calories. Is anyone surprised? [AP/Philadelphia Inquirer]

• As leaner times continue, Whole Foods is trying to shake off the "Whole Paycheck" moniker. [NYT]

• On the plus side, this whole flailing economy thing means that the price of lobster is going down. Mysteriously, lobster consumption not rising either. [Boston Globe]

• All the news about the harms of corn syrup means that some consumers are starting to shy away from it. [LA Times]

• Shockingly, Miller Lite's craft beers were not so successful. [Chicago Tribune]

• Are there are too many blueberry growers? And if so, could Whole Foods stop charging four bucks for a pint? [Boston Globe]

• Congressman John Dingell thinks that this whole salmonella probe could have been over and done with quite some time ago, calls the whole situation "Keystone Kops." How your sausage gets made, people. [LA Times]

• The World Food Program has resumed emergency operations in North Korea. [Washington Post]

• A new pill may be able to fool your muscles into thinking you've exercised. May we suggest the brand name Lazify? [New York Times]

• New Yorkers are taking their dining rooms to the streets this summer. [NY Times]

• A Chicago coffeehouse serves up conservative politics with its lattes. [Chicago Tribune]

• Investigators are closing in on the farm that produced those pesky tainted peppers we've heard so much about. [AP/MSNBC]

• Cities looking at banning fast food in poor neighborhoods. [Slate]

• Rice costs triple what it used to in North Korea, which the World Food Programme warns is on the brink of a serious food crisis. [The Guardian]

• The Whole Foods-Wild Oats merger is stuck in court for the time being. [NYT via Salt Lake Tribune]

• Chef-driven restaurants are in store for the new terminal at JFK airport. Maybe people will actually want to show up early for their flights now. [NYT]

• About 13 percent of the average American family's food comes from outside of the United States. [Chicago Sun-Times]

• Australia is just getting the ball rolling on the trans fat issue; their food labels don't even have to list trans fat. [Canberra Times]

• Produce gets sunburn? Apparently so — and now sunscreen, too. [IHT (AP)]

• L.A. chefs forced to become "food police," journalistic puns ensue. [LAT]

• There's $1.6 billion in food and beverage advertising targeted at kids. [NYT (AP)]

• Despite speculation, the EU has approved the merger of Mars and Wrigley. [Forbes]

• Weakened economy means more eating at home means higher profits for Kraft. [NYT]

(Also! MenuPages humbly suggests the New York Times revise their capitalization policy with regard to particles, because we stared at that Kraft headline for like a full two minutes, unable to parse it, before realizing the lowercase "in" was not a preposition.)

• Iowa workers protest conditions at a kosher meatpacking plant. [New York Times]

• A DC raw foods restaurant will be nation's first "crowdsourced" restaurant, offer oat-hemp balls. [Washington Post]

• Users of Los Angeles food banks are hungry. [LA Times]

• West Bank Palestinians are thirsty. [Chicago Tribune]

• Meanwhile, in Japan, they're going wild for eel drinks. [San Francisco Chronicle]

• EPA bans carbofuran residue on domestic and international foods, food safety advocates rejoice. [Washington Post]

• The New Orleans Times-Picayune is reviewing restaurants for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. [New York Times]

• McCain sees Obama's trip to Germany and raises him a visit to an Ohio German restaurant. [LA Times]

• New England based grocery chain thinks Whole Foods stole its slogan. [Boston Globe]

• Colorado scientists can tell you just how good (or bad) your senses of taste and smell really are. [San Francisco Chronicle]

• Rapper 50 Cent is suing Taco Bell for messing with his name. [Wall Street Journal]

• A look at the detective work that went into tracking down that nasty jalapeno [AP/Chicago Tribune]

• An Ohio woman charged with assault after throwing peanuts at her allergic neighbor [Fox News]

• Seems a Wisconsin grocery store owner might have been selling stolen fruit [Twincities.com]

• Rising food prices may be a culprit behind the rising crime rate in Manila [GMANews.tv]

• Slow Food is hoping to put on the "Woodstock of food" in San Francisco this Labor Day. [NYT]

• Grocers are now pulling jalapeno peppers from shelves in the next salmonella scare. [LA Times]

• Lack of preparation, poor record-keeping — there are a million things wrong with our food safety system. [WSJ]

• Grocers are adjusting to new consumer spending habits, thanks to inflation. [Star-Tribune]

• A proposed law would ban any new fast-food restaurants from opening in a 32-mile area of Los Angeles. [LA Times]

• Finally! One lone salmonella-tainted pepper has emerged in Texas. But the mystery continues... [Discover/80Beats]

• Poor regulation of Chinese food production has U.S. Olympians worried about what they eat in Beijing. [ABC News]

• L.A. wants to close 400 fast food restaurants in order to save the obese from themselves. [WSJ]

• Food banks take a page from The Book of Ruth, start setting up gleaning programs. [USAToday]

• Want to eat sustainably and locally without actually doing anything? You lazy locavores are not alone! [NYT]

• Global warming is killing the oysters. [Boston Globe]

• Oh good! "Fish Ebola" has been found in Lake Michigan fish. [Washington Post]

• Middle East dilemma: food or water? [New York Times]

• Where is Haiti's promised food aid? [Chicago Tribune]

• Hey! In the midst of a global food crisis, maybe it might be a little tacky to use fish to give yourself a pedicure! [LA Times]

• The FDA has finally lifted the ban on tomatoes. Um, does this mean we shouldn't have been buying them for the past few weeks? [New York Times]

• Jalapeño and serrano peppers, however, are still dangerous. [Chicago Tribune]

• All these food poisoning outbreaks are driving people right to their local farmers' markets. [Washington Post]

• The Pope thinks you're greedy. [Guardian]

• Well, maybe not those of you in the EU who want to start a 1.6 billion fund to combat the global food crisis. [LA Times]

• A big huge study seems to support a low-carb diet and "Mediterranean regime." Screw that, though. Bread still rules. [AP/Yahoo]

• Though a bread habit can be dangerous when Subway employees apparently bake a knife into your loaf. [Reuters]

• Not just a producer: The government of India announced it's looking to make food processing its next big economic growth engine. [Press Information Bureau of India]

• And speaking of economic "engines," right here in our own bread basket Iowa corn producers are pretty proud of the massive popularity of E85 ethanol. [Wallaces Farmer]

• Food pantry and soup kitchen usage is up 9 percent over last year in New York City. [NYT]

• The head of the World Bank says we're going to need $10 billion to offset the effects of food inflation over the next few years in developing countries. [AP via NYT]

• Did you know that the FDA spent $2.2 million over the past eight years on employee award ceremonies? [Food & Water Watch]

• In a slow market, realtors turn to food to lure buyers. Apparently freshly-baked pies or lemonade on a hot day make the idea of a mortgage go down a little easier. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

• Vertical farming is (a) quite possibly the solution to the food crisis, (b) SO COOL. [IHT]

• California becomes the first state to ban trans fats across the board. [SF Chronicle]

• 400,000 Japanese fishermen staged a one-day strike to protest fuel costs. [NYT]

• The "silent tsunami" of rising food costs hits hardest on ... sunflower seeds? [Forbes]

• Biochemists in Argentina work 'round the clock to find the perfect hamburger. [WaPo]

• It's a DC burger extravaganza. [Washington Post]

• Rocky Aoki, may you rest in a heaven where Japanese chefs with sharp knives entertain fat midwesterners. [New York Times]

• If you're going to rob a house, you might as well bathe yourself in barbecue sauce. [WWMT]

• Once again, New York has the best food markets. [Village Voice]

• Starbucks is selling smoothies. Just don't call them smoothies or CEO Howard Schultz will drink your blood. You know, like the boogieman. [Serious Eats]

• Mint leaves may have given a Virginia family food poisoning. [Washington Post]

• Delivering drug-laced cookies to the police department is probably not the perfect crime. [Chicago Tribune]

• Restrictions are tightening up on pesticides, but is it enough? (No.) [LA Times]

• There's a drought in California. Is irresponsible water usage to blame? ( Probably!) [San Francisco Chronicle]

• OMG, we might have to walk further to get Starbucks. [New York Times]

• Some American consumers getting in on the ground floor of food production. [NY Times]

• Investigators pretty well stumped as to what caused that pesky salmonella outbreak. Maybe Jalepenos? [Sacramento Bee/AP]

• Using sea water to farm the desert in Mexico [LA Times]

• Iraq having as hard a time with its crops as with everything else [Chicago Tribune]

• Family grocery bills skyrocketing across the pond [Times of London]

• Despite a recent recall of 5.3 million pounds of beef, our meat is totally safe. So says the secretary of agriculture. [AP]

• Farms are dying off, but produce festivals live on! [NYT]

• Need to lose weight? Try writing down everything you eat. No cheating! [San Francisco Chronicle]

• Staff of the AP Beijing bureau give their restaurant recommendations for Olympic spectators. On the menu: deep-fried starfish. [Welt]

• An instant menu translator — genius! [BusinessWire]

• Rising food costs means Europe is close to capitulating on GM produce. [Reuters]

• We have the technology - so why can't we find the salmonella? [WaPo]

• Coca-Cola paying out $137.5 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit . [Tribune/AP]

• D-8 on the food crisis: Right up there with oil in the "grave threats" category . [NYT/AP]

• G-8 on the food crisis: Planning to "discuss the subject more in the afternoon." [NYT/AP]

• Lobster, lobster, lobster. [NYT]
• America's top July 4th cookout-related ask.com search items. [AHT]
• Meat meets fine art. [Pierre Menard]
• There's a food so disgusting that prisons use it as punishment. Of course, someone had to taste test it. [Slate]
• Fresh from the fancy food show, a list of 2008's best new gourmet sodas. [Mouthing Off/F&W]

• Rich becoming organic farmers as peak oil survival strategy? [NYT]
• Once more into the breach: E. Coli beef recall hits 20 states [DFP]
• China: chocolate industry's last great frontier (until India) [Reuters]
• As global apocalypse nears, bourbon sales are through the roof [AP]
• Adroit NZ man sells imaginary "soul" to Hell Pizza Co. for $3800 [West]

• Sbux, overextended in crap real estate markets, to close 600 stores [Trib]
• Soon-to-be-much-emailed list of 101 picnic ideas from Mark Bittman [NYT]
• Criticized & embarrassed FDA adding a hundred labs to salmonella hunt [USAT]
• Group: food packaging claiming immunity boost should stop doing so [UPI]
• Cracker Barrel, lining America's empty highways, is in the crapper [Reuters]

• Wal-Mart going local on produce to save money [Reuters]
• If A-B won't go quietly, InBev will go hostile [TO]
• Did you know: mayonnaise is a mild preservative [NYT]
• Drug mushrooms good for long-term mental health [AP]
• $10 a bushel corn if the summer is too hot [Tribune]

• As N. Korea normalizes, food aid flows freely [Reuters]
• Global food export curbs hurt poorest people [UPI]
• Energy efficient milk jugs confound consumers [NYT]
• Artisanal bottled water won't survive peak oil [WaPo]
• What if salmonella wasn't caused by tomatoes? [Bloomberg]

• Hezbollah-dominated Beirut eats at 'Buns and Guns' restaurant [AP]
• New Yorkers discover edible comestibles at Disney World [NYT]
• Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis not going quietly in the night [Trib]
• Legendarily cheap Vegas casino food succumbs to reality [LAT]
• Ice cream among many food products threatened by bee die-off [NBC/DC]

• S. Korea to accept U.S. beef again; future of gov't unsure [NYT]
• Japanese/Chinese food row reenacted by Olympics team [Reuters]
• Texas Gov. comes out hard against food-crop ethanol [SETR]
• Mars/DoA/IBM to sequence, manipulate cacao genome [WaPo]
• Frozen chickens stolen from NJ food bank found! [NJ]

• Food stamps go out to Midwestern flooding victims [Reuters]
• Cashew juice, now for sale, confounds the imagination [NYT]
• Surge of deep-dish pizza to arrive in Iraq for July 4th [AP]
• Monsanto profits soar on yield-bumping weed-killer sales [Bloomberg]
• Florida buys U.S. Sugar to restore 187k acres of Everglades [AFP]

• Food voucher giveaway sparks mini-riot in Milwaukee [AP]
• 17 states require insurance to cover eating disorders [Trib]
• Youth exposure to alcohol advertising on TV increases [NYT]
• Brazil's biofuel farmhands treated predictably poorly [LAT]
• Chinese fast food market splintered but surging [Reuters]

• India losing ability to feed itself [NYT]
• Candy business booming in tough times [AP]
• UK: GMO not necessarily the solution [TPA]
• Corn growers on HFCS charm offensive [WSJ]
• For fast food, a globalized future [BSun]

• Several top aides sacrificed in S. Korea beef row [Bloomberg]
• House might add $1.25B in emergency food aid [Reuters]
• Following floods, agr. stocks in the toilet [CNN]
• Hair in the steak today, gone tomorrow [Tribune]
• McDonald's dieter story finally hit the wires [AP]

• Many more stricken by TomatoGate, which may never be solved [USAT]
• Can a countertop scanner help with your grocery shopping? [NYT]
• Widespread wheat fungus to wipe out 1-2% of Kansan crop [AP]
• Reeling from 8% food inflation, Mx. locks prices for 6 mos. [BBC]
• Will Canada ban horse slaughter for food production? [CBC]

• Commercial banana industry to collapse in 5-10 yrs [NYT]
• Why the FDA hasn't solved TomatoGate yet (ever?) [Trib]
• Sen. McCaskill (D-Mo.) to fight InBev takeover of A-B [MW]
• U.S. food inspectors to China; theirs come here [AFP]
• Veganic farming movement employs new adjective [AP]

• Getting close to the source of tomatogate [Reuters]
• Midwestern flooding inundates 15% of crop [LAT]
• NYC trans fats ban becomes complete on 7/1 [AP]
• Is Milan's Peck the world's greatest market? [Trib]
• New plan for rice: higher yields without GM [NYT]

• Flooding in Iowa severely damaging corn crop [NYTimes]
• China reveling in bumper summer wheat crop [ChinaDaily]
• Canada's fast food chains bring back tomato [TCP]
• U.S. states embroiled in tomato blame game [AmAg]
• Nanotech food conference in D.C. this week [N&DN]
• Paula Deen's Savannah restaurant on fire! [AP]

• Congress to subpoena dodgy imported food safety testers [NYT]
• Tomatogate toll up to 228, with one possible death [AP]
• ConAgra: food prices could rise 9% a year through 2012 [SeattlePI]
• Mugabe cruelly using internal food aid to fix elections [VOA]
• Shedding light on opaque Louisiana restaurant inspections [Shreveport Times]

• FDA had a food safety plan, but they didn't follow it! [NYT]
• Tomato salmonella sick count up to 167, no deaths [Chron]
• InBev offers $46B — approx 100 euros — for Budweiser [Reuters]
• Corn, up 18% this month over flooding, passes $7 [Bloomberg]
• Stephanie Izard wins Top Chef with panache, pistachios [Trib]

• 100k beef protesters in S. Korea want their gov't out [Economist]
• Anti-biofuel lobbyist group of diverse backgrounds launches [WorldPoultry]
• Americans turn to vegetable gardening in record numbers [NYTimes]
• Burma says it has enough rice, but no one else agrees [Reuters]
• What to do if you find yourself near a dreaded tomato [AP]

• Disastrous grain yields this summer bode poorly for world [NYT]
• S. Korea US beef import row metastasizes into gov't crisis [Guardian]
• Anti-tomato hysteria continues as McD's & Walmart drop 'em [WSJ]
• Multiple hazmat incidents at the Chicago chocolate factory [Tribune]
• After decades of woes, Senate privatizes its food services [UPI]

• Grant Achatz, heroic molecular gastronomist, wins Beard award! [AP]
• Takeaway from food summit: biofuels outrank starving people [G&M]
• Wild salmon is gone, farmed is dangerous; maybe sardines? [NYT]
• Niche marketing for food allergy sufferers growing rapidly [WaPo]
• Roma, red and plum tomatoes are out in salmonella scare [LAT]

• Food crisis conf. solves nothing, especially on biofuels [Guardian]
• Why food subsidies might make sense for African farmers [NewSci]
• Food bank demand continues to skyrocket among non-poor [Reuters]
• Brits against eating cloned meat for safety, profit [Telegraph]
• Will salmonella tomato scare lower bacon demand via BLTs?! [Reuters]

• Latest from food conference: nothing being accomplished [Reuters]
• Private capital finds agriculture, with unknown consequences [NYT]
• Smuckers buys Folgers for $3B with more acquisitions to come [Trib]
• Burma makes refugees work for food aid, boots them from housing [AP]
• Monsanto plans to double yields of corn and soybean. Eek! [IHT]
• Utah schools have more junk food available than any other state's [SLTrib]

• 20% of people can't taste pepper's most active ingredient [NYT]
• UK's row over food dyes and child hyperactivity comes here [Tribune]
• CFTC has unconvincing plan to normalize food commodity trading [Forbes]
• Salmonella outbreak from tomatoes sickens dozens in 9 states [AP]
• After the FAO food conference is done, G8 to pick up mantle [Xinhua]

• How are we going to grow 50% more food in 22 years? GMOs? Probably [AP]
• Delegates snubbing starvation-monger Mugabe's presence at conference [NYT]
• Ahmadinejad uses conference to decry Israel (but not its food policies) [Telegraph]
• Lula defends Brazil's biofuel production and fingers ag. subsidies [Bloomberg]
• Gains we've made against global poverty in past decade to vanish [Trib]
• Organic fast food sweeping the nation! [WaPo]

• Mugabe audaciously makes an appearance at Rome food conf. [AFP]
• Fast food represents supermajority of children's budgets [NYT]
• Food shortage suicides in Afghanistan kind of our fault [Trib]
• Cellulosic ethanol development slow despite promise [Reuters]
• More meat getting to your plate without Big Ag's interference [AP]

• High energy prices have stoked the theft of restaurant grease [NYT]
• High organic fertilizer prices are rocking Peru's guano industry [NYT]
• It is somehow possible to predict high food prices through 2017 [TheStar]
• S. Korea holding a "tasting" of N. Korean food to raise awareness [hani]
• Also, the S. Korean minister who OK'd US beef imports to be fired [hani]

• UN: global food prices may dip but will stay high [AFP]
• German dairy farmers dumping milk to boost prices [NYT]
• Spam sales soar as food prices rise while wages don't [AP]
• No more free peanuts on USAir as fuel prices rise [Trib]
• OMG Rachael Ray is some kind of donut fashion terrorist!!!1! [ABC]

• How can we turn high food prices into poverty relief? [APO]
• How can we turn high food prices into massive profits? [Philly]
• Canada's adoption of food origin labeling going alright [Gazette]
• U.S. defunding research on approaching deadly wheat fungus [AP]
• Child obesity levels off as...standards for obesity drop? [NYT]

• After immigration crackdown, farmers decamp to Mexico for legal cheap labor [NYT]
• Are private food safety labs cheating for unscrupulous food importers? [Trib]
• McD about to be priced off the Champs-Elysees, Paris' priciest strip [IHT]
• Food banks around the country crunched by increased demand and prices [AP]
• Restaurateur thinks he's being moral by serving shark and not shark fin [Reuters]

• Congress passes farm bill again, or at least part of it [WaPo]
• Evil Burmese junta finally allows in any and all foreign aid [CBC]
• Japanese rice aid row leaves U.S. looking like the bad guy [NYTimes]
• S Korea: probably no massive famine in N Korea this year [AP]
• McD keeps a stiff upper lip on (mediocre) premium coffee sales [Trib]

• House overrode Bush's farm bill veto by large margin, on its way to Senate when... [SFGate]
• ...it was discovered that 34 pages were missing from the version Bush signed! [AP]
• (and legal challenges and embarrassment and wrangling and recrimination ensue)
• Tide turning more strongly against ethanol subsidies [AFP]
• Meanwhile, restaurant grease biofuel industry roaring [Trib]
• Chick-fil-A launches entertaining campaign against McD's new Chicken Sandwich [NYT]

• Burma finally lets in WFP helicopters, too little too late [AP]
• Agr. Sec'y finally calling for ban on slaughtering downer cows [WaPo]
• S. Korea, once a major US beef importer, avoids our old cattle [Reuters]
• Substantial E. coli-contaminated beef product recall underway [WebMD]

• McCain agrees with Bush on subsidies and would veto farm bill... [Reuters]
• ...but McCain is against Bush's foolhardy ethanol push [AP]
• World Bank: 2-3 more years of high food prices, and then...? [Forbes]
• UK pushing for liberalized, free market CAP...will the EU oblige? [BBC]
• Subordinate female monkeys can't get enough junk food! [NYTimes]

• U.S. chucks 1/4 of the food it produces [NYT]
• Hateful McD CEO decries consumers' rights [Trib]
• 14T of 2x-stuffed Oreos spilled on I-80! [WQAD]
• Rest of the world hates our farm bill [TheStar]
• Filipino rice crop loss preventable [UPI]
• Korean food aid politics heating up [AP]