Stubbies are used extensively in Europe, and were used almost exclusively in Canada from 1962 to 1986 as part of a standardization effort intended to reduce breakage, and the cost of sorting bottles when they were returned by customers. Due to their nostalgic value, stubbies were reintroduced by a number of Canadian craft brewers in the early 2000s.
The Canadian stubby bottle was traditionally 341 ml (11.5 U.S. fl oz; 12.0 imp fl oz) while the U.S. longneck was 355 ml (12.0 U.S. fl oz; 12.5 imp fl oz). Some of the expected advantages of stubby bottles are: easier to handle; less breakage; lighter in weight; less storage space; and lower center of gravity. And less wind resistance when thrown out of the window of a moving car so the bottle lands in the ditch and not on the road.
The beer above would leave you with a hang-over so intense that you couldn’t taste or smell anything for half a day, not to mention the blurred vision. And it would take hours to remember your own name.
I read once that one of the dirtiest surfaces in modern society are shopping cart/basket handles. The handles get touched and gripped by dozens and dozens of people in a given day. And who knows where some of those people put their hands before they went shopping for some butter and bacon?
And when is the last time anybody saw a grocery store employee wiping the handles with a cleaning cloth? I have never seen it. Maybe once, about 10 years ago. I would imagine the store does wipe and clean the cart and basket handles. But it sure doesn’t seem like a priority.
Just how dirty are shopping cart handles, door knobs and cell phones?
“Filthy,” said Dr. Joe Domachowske, a Pediatric Infectious Disease Specialist.
Germs are everywhere and live on surfaces, like shopping cart handles. Researchers at the University of Arizona conducted a study to find out just how germ-ridden those handles are. They found that, among other things, 72 percent of the carts tested positive for fecal matter and 50 percent showed E. coli. The situation is even worse during cold and flu season.
“A lot of those cold and flu viruses are pretty stable. And if someone just brushed their nose with their hand and they happen to be infected with influenza, and then they grabbed a door knob, the next person who comes along and grabs that door knob, if they scratch their eye or rub their nose, they’re probably going to inoculate themselves with that virus,” said Domachowske.
Grocery stores said they are constantly working to address the issue. Wegman’s has cleaning facilities at every location and carts are fully washed every couple days. “We do have frequent washing of our equipment, including our carts. Our “helping hands” employees will often times at least wash off the handles of the carts,” said Evelyn Carter, Wegman’s Community Relations Director.
Experts said taking simple steps like sanitizing your shopping cart handle and washing your hands after can make a big difference in preventing illness.
“We encourage every customer that when they come in to use a cart, that they take a moment to clean off the handle of the handle of the cart. And this is for sanitation purposes. In addition, throughout our stores, you will see hand sanitizing booths,” said Carter.
Domachowske added, “It’s impossible for us to avoid those types of things. Our best weapon is to make sure our hands stay clean.”
Experts said taking proper care of yourself, like eating right, exercising and getting enough sleep will boost your immune system’s disease fighting abilities.
Swedish retailer IKEA AB has stopped selling sausages in its 14 Russian stores after tests showed that sausages from its local supplier contained horsemeat, the company said on Thursday.
The world’s No. 1 furniture retailer, known also for the restaurants at its huge out-of-town stores, said that the tests confirmed the presence of horsemeat in sausages produced by meat processing company Remit.
Last month IKEA withdrew IKEA-branded wiener sausages produced by Familjen Dafgard from stores in a number of European countries and stopped nearly all sales of the same supplier’s meatballs across the region.
Those withdrawals did not affect meatballs in Russia and IKEA said on Thursday that tests revealed no horsemeat in meatballs being supplied to IKEA’s Russian stores by local producer PIT-Product, which is owned by Finnish group Atria .
A European scandal erupted in January when tests in Ireland revealed that some beef products also contained horsemeat, triggering recalls of ready meals in several countries and damaging confidence in Europe’s vast and complex food industry.
Nine Pound Hammer is an American cowpunk band formed in 1985 by vocalist Scott Luallen and guitarist Blaine Cartwright (later of Nashville Pussy) in their hometown of Owensboro, Kentucky. Though not recorded until 1988, the band were one of the initial wave of acts to combine the roots sound of country music with punk rock, and became a foreruner to subsequent roots-punk artists.
10 Reasons We Shouldn’t Be Surprised By The Global Bacon Shortage
The world is running out of pork and bacon, according to the Britain’s National Pig Association. The signs were always there.
The world’s imminent bacon shortage reportedly stems from the global drought that threatened livestock-feeding corn and soybean crops.
It’s hard to be surprised by the news. Bacon enthusiasts have been testing the global supply for years. Maybe the shortage actually has something to do with…
After an all-party parliamentary committee heard evidence that over half the British public has a negative view of their body image — with girls as young as five worrying about how they look and plastic surgery rates on the rise — they came back with the type of solutions we’ve come to expect from Big Government: Force all school children to attend mandatory self-esteem and body-image classes, and consider including fat people as a protected class under the country’s hate speech laws.
Leave it to the British to take things one step too far. There is nothing wrong with educating children, but preventing adults from speaking what’s on their mind is an egregious violation of the right to free speech. If the committee’s recommendations are followed, the government could put “appearance-based discrimination” in the same class as racial or sexual discrimination — making “obese” and “fat” just as bad as discriminatory terms used against blacks or gays.
If a person drives from Winnipeg to Edmonton along the Yellowhead highway in late summer, the scenery would include field after field of golden wheat. In recent years more and more grain farmers are seeding oil seeds, corn and specialty crops like peas, however wheat continues to dominate the Canadian prairies. And western Canada can still be considered one of the great bread baskets of the world.
Wheat field near Somerset, Manitoba
Major wheat producing regions of the world
#10 Brazil
Export: 1.1 million tons
Domestic consumption: 8.8 million tons
Key export market: The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) namely Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt account for a majority of Brazilian wheat imports.
Outlook: In an attempt to reduce its dependency on imports, the Brazilian government is looking to double its wheat output in 5 years by promoting wheat planting in the Cerrado region, according to Bloomberg. The country’s per capita demand for wheat is expected to rise 7% to 56 kg per person by 2018.
Export figures and consumption data provided by the USDA
#9 Turkey
Export: 3 million tons
Domestic consumption: 16.5 million tons
Key export market: Indonesia is one of the biggest importers of Turkish wheat but is also accusing Turkish companies of “wheat dumping”.
Outlook: Turkey’s 19 million ton wheat output in 2010 was lower than 2009 levels but enough for domestic consumption. In 2011, Turkey issued tenders to buy wheat according to Reuters. Wheat has also been getting reduced acreage as farmers are switching to other crops.
#8 Russia
Export: 4 million tons
Domestic consumption:38 million tons
Key export market: Russia largely exports to the Middle East and North Africa; Egypt is its largest wheat export market followed by Turkey, Syria, Iran and Libya.
Outlook: Last summer’s drought has cut wheat plantings and the Kremlin has banned exports of the crop. Plantings are expected to fall 2.3% to 64.2 million acres this year according to Bloomberg.
#7 Kazakhstan
Export: 5 million tons
Domestic consumption:4.8 million tons
Key export market: South-East Asia and China are some of Kazakhstan’s biggest export wheat markets.
Outlook: Kazakhstan’s wheat crop was hurt last year by dry weather and the country put in place restrictions on exports to curb domestic price inflation. Wheat prices increased 12.4% in the January-March period of 2011, according to AgriMarket.Info.
#6 Ukraine
Export: 5.5 million tons
Domestic consumption:14.1 million tons
Key export market: The Middle East and North Africa, primarily Egypt, is the biggest importer of Ukrainian wheat.
Outlook: Ukraine imposed restrictions on grain exports in October of last year but the country’s Prime minister said the country will do away with the restrictions if the country has a good harvest. Germany and the American Chamber of Commerce have asked the country to stop legislation that would affect state control over grains exports.
#5 Argentina
Export: 8.5 million tons
Domestic consumption:4.4 million tons
Key export market: Brazil and India are some of the biggest importers of Argentine wheat.
Outlook: The International Grains Council expects Argentina’s wheat production to fall 10% in 2011-2012 to 13 million tons, according to High Plains Journal.
#4 Australia
Export: 13.5 million tons
Domestic consumption:4.5 million tons
Key export market: Indonesia and China are some of the biggest importers of Australian wheat.
Outlook: Australia could export as much as 15 million tonnes of the wheat on growing demand for the grain. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences expects a 24.3 million tonne harvest this year but expectations are that the crop output in Western Australia will lag projections, according to IIFL.com.
#3 Canada
Export: 17.5 million tons
Domestic consumption:7.9 million tons
Key export market: China, Japan, Iran, US and South Korea are the biggest importers of Canadian wheat.
Outlook: Fears of flooding have led Canada to cut expectations for its wheat harvest to 24.5 million tonnes this year. That’s higher than previous harvests, but 400,000 tonnes lower than projected, according to Agrimoney.com.
Combine Jamboree near Winkler, Manitoba
#2 France
Export: 19.2 million tons
Domestic consumption:18.5 million tons
Key export market: North Africa, specifically Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco form France’s biggest wheat market. Civil unrest in the Middle East has seen a boost in exports to the region.
Outlook: France will reap 35.8 million tons of soft wheat used in bread, baked goods and animal feed. That’s 0.3 percent more than in 2010, according to Bloomberg. France has profited from Russia’s ban on exports.
#1 USA
Export: 35.4 million tons
Domestic consumption: 35.7 million tons
Key export market: Japan, Nigeria, Mexico and the Philippines are America’s largest wheat export markets.
Outlook: Dry weather in the south and possible flooding in the North are expected hurt wheat production. The USDA only rated 37% of the winter crop “good or excellent” compared to 65% last year according to Bloomberg.
Wheat field on the vast Great Plains of the central United States
Top Ten Wheat Producers — 2008 (million metric ton)
The Fleur de Lys restaurant in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay may serve French cuisine but that hasn’t stopped them from adapting their own version of an American classic: the hamburger. Called the “Fleurburger 5000″ it’s no Plain Jane either, featuring a juicy Kobe beef patty topped with a rich truffle sauce and served on a brioche truffle bun. And this burger comes with its own beverage, a bottle of 1990 Chateau Petrus, that is served in Ichendorf Brunello stemware that you get to keep.
It sounds (and looks) delicious — as well it should for the whopping price tag of $5000. And if you do decide to indulge no worries about bragging rights: you can bring a friend (they get a free burger when you order yours) and you’ll also get a certificate in the mail (along with your keepsake glass) so you’ll have both a witness and paper proof.
The Italian Truffles make this burger so expensive. The truffles are regarded as some of the tastiest fungus in the world.
People’s Republic of China
India
United States
Russia
France
Canada
Germany
Ukraine
Australia
Pakistan
