The lime loss is tragic in itself, but serves as a valuable lesson about why it's important where our food comes from.
Our limes come from Mexico, and the lime crop has run into bad weather, disease and even Mexican drug cartels. So we have a shortage of limes.
Florida used to grow a lot of limes, but the state doesn't anymore. The state destroyed the lime trees after a outbreak of citrus canker back in 2000.
Because even if Mexico had an issue with limes, we could still get limes from Florida. We could even export more limes to Mexico if we had them in Florida.
Putting all your, er, limes in one basket isn't a smart way to run a food supply. A diversity of locations and varieties ensures a more bountiful supply of treasures from nature. Citrus canker isn't even harmful to humans, but a loss of limes might be (from a scurvy standpoint).
Bottled lime juice can't stack up to freshly squeezed limes, but you might want to invest in a few bottles as a backup.
Limes are a wonderful source of Vitamin C without having to worry about excessive fruit sugar from traditional fruit. They need to be protected in the food supply better than what we are doing.
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Betty Draper, Don Draper's first wife and the mother of his children, did something on "Mad Men" last night that she couldn't do legally in a number of areas in North America.
Betty Draper drank raw milk. As raw as it gets.
In Sunday night's episode, Betty Draper chaperoned a field trip for one of her sons to a farm. The group got to see a cow being milked. The farmer asked if anyone wanted to drink the milk. Betty raised her hand. She drank the milk straight from the cow. And nothing happened to her.
Previous coverage:
What's Tempting: Raw milk from a vending machine
What's Tempting: Raw milk in 2014
Yes, Mad Men is a period piece from the late 1960s and January Jones, the actress who plays Betty Draper, probably wasn't drinking actual raw milk. But we did have a visual of someone drinking raw milk on a popular TV program and no one got sick.
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"Pom alleges the label on a 'Pomegranate Blueberry' beverage offered by Coke's Minute Maid unit is misleading because 99 percent of the drink consists of apple and grape juice. Coke claims the lawsuit should be thrown out because the label complies with Food and Drug Administration regulations."
The case before the Supreme Court is whether Pom Wonderful can file false advertising claims against Coca-Cola. Reading that paragraph makes us wonder whether FDA regulations can also get sued.
So less than 1% of the product addresses the potential of Pomegranate and Blueberry, but that should be allowed on the front of the label.
If 99% of a product has nothing to do with what is on the front of the label, then the front of the label is purely for marketing purposes only.
If we are going to continue with such a ridiculous approach, we should post a note on the front of such labels that reads: "Warning: For entertainment purposes only. Please disregard any "facts" that might appear on the front of the label.
We realize some in society view any regulations as "government overreach," but 1% is pretty low "government overreach."
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Vermont has passed a law requiring GMO labeling. So what you might ask? Connecticut and Maine have done so, too. The angel … and devil lie in the details.
The legislation from Connecticut and Maine require a certain total of neighboring states to enact similar legislation for their rules to kick in. Connecticut requires at least 4 neighboring states with a combined population of 20 million to pass similar laws. Maine require 5 neighboring states, including New Hampshire. Vermont's passage helps bring their legislation slightly closer to reality.
The Vermont rules don't kick in until July 2016. The phrase "partially produced with genetic engineering" is one of 3 possible phrases that would be required on GMO food sold in the state.
Let the lawsuits begin.
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Clearly the folks at General Mills did not articulate out loud the implications of such a horrible social media policy of voiding lawsuits for using a coupon or a Facebook "like."
The idea of social media is to improve communications with the customers. Shaking hands with one hand while holding a knife aimed at the back with the other hand does not improve communications.
Even if customers somehow understood the differences between arbitration and lawsuits, the impression is that arbitration is more biased toward larger companies with sharply reduced access to compensation. That may not be fair to the arbitration process, but there is a reason why so many large companies have flocked to arbitration as a solution.
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video credit: Colbert Report // photo credit: AMC/Mad Men
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