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|  | November 29th, 2012 | | Posted 1 day ago by  markbittman to bittman |  1 | | There are hungry people out there, actually; they’re just largely invisible to the rest of us, or they look so much like us that it’s hard to tell. The Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program, better known as SNAP and even better known as food stamps, currently has around 46 million participants, a record high. That’s one in eight Americans — 10 people in your subway car, one or two on every line at Walmart.
We wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but as it stands, the number should be higher[1]: many people are unaware that they’re eligible for SNAP, and thus the participation rate is probably around three-quarters of what it should be. Food stamps allow you to shop more or less normally, but on an extremely tight budget, around $130 a month. It’s tough to feed a family on food stamps (and even tougher without them), and that’s where food banks — a network of nonprofit, nongovernment agencies, centrally located clearing houses for donated or purchased food that is sent to local affiliated agencies or “pantries” — come in. Food banks may cover an entire state or part of one: the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, for example, serves 53 counties and provides enough food to feed 48,000 square miles and feeds 90,000 people a week — in a state with fewer than four million people. Read the rest of this column here. | | | Posted 1 day ago by markbittman to bittman | | 2 | | WITH all due respect to tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants and all the other vegetables we’ve enjoyed for the last few months, the champions of the moment are beets, turnips and radishes. For gardeners and farmers in all but the coldest climates, they’re still going strong, which means that for careful shoppers, the highest-quality stuff is still easy to find. But, aah, you say, the same is true of our semi-hardy greens, like kale, collards and chard. And certainly that’s true. But if you have turnips and radishes, you almost don’t need kale and collards (they’re all in the same family). And if you have beets, you almost don’t need chard (beets are chard are grown primarily for their roots; chard is beets grown for its greens). Incredibly — though not surprisingly, since there are no surprises here — the beets, turnips and radishes give you greens to use in salads or for cooking, as well as roots you can eat raw or cooked. (There are other vegetables, notably kohlrabi, that meet this description too, but only gardeners are going to find them with their greens.) Read the rest of the column here, and get the recipes here and here. | | | | | Posted 1 day ago by  SmartBrief to Holy Kaw! | | SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues. This week, we asked: Does your business produce holiday-related content for its branded social media channels? Full story at SmartBrief Social Media. More SmartBrief stories. Photo credit: Fotolia | | | Posted 1 day ago by  Futurity to Holy Kaw! | | Over the next two years, the US economy will regain the rest of the nearly 9 million jobs lost in the Great Recession, economists predict. In their annual forecast of the US economy, Joan Crary of the University of Michigan and colleagues Daniil Manaenkov and Matthew Hall predict the creation of 2 million jobs in 2013 and another 2.3 million in 2014 as unemployment falls from 7.9 percent to 7.2 percent during that time. What will the housing market do? Find out at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Photo credit: U. Michigan/infogr.am | | | Posted 1 day ago by Futurity to Holy Kaw! | | A black hole 17 billion times the mass of the sun could change theories about how black holes and galaxies form and evolve. “This is a really oddball galaxy,” says Karl Gebhardt of the University of Texas at Austin. “It’s almost all black hole. This could be the first object in a new class of galaxy-black hole systems.” Just how big is it? Find out at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Photo credit: David W. Hogg/Michael Blanton/SDSS Collaboration | | | Posted about 24 hours ago by  The Week to Holy Kaw! | | British crooner Adele is still rolling in the dough from "Rolling in the Deep" and the other 10 songs from her smash hit sophomore album 21. The album's latest milestone? 10 million copies sold, which serendipitously makes 21 the 21st album to reach those rarified heights since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking album sales in 1991. But Adele still has a long climb up the charts if she plans to crack the top 10, which spans an impressive, incongruous list of artists that includes Metallica, Shania Twain, The Beatles, and N 'Sync. Which albums have sold even better than Adele's ubiquitous 21? Here, the 10 bestselling albums in Nielsen SoundScan history. View list at The Week. All the top stories from The Week. | | | Posted about 20 hours ago by  Kate Rinsema to Holy Kaw! | | Even if you’ve already spent the big bucks on survival gear for the pending zombie apocalypse (tentatively scheduled for December 21st of this very year), as they say in the real estate world, it’s all about “Location, location, location.” Lucky for us (in California, Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia) Hopper Travel has run a few numbers concerning survival probabilities in these fifty, nifty United States based on criteria such as population, supplies (Walmarts) and geography to find out what how likely it is you’ll end up as part of the undead masses. Full story at Hopper Travel via Buzzfeed. The zombies are coming. | | | Posted about 19 hours ago by Kate Rinsema to Holy Kaw! | | 1 | | One might think that cutting down a tree for purposes of holiday décor would be a no-no in environmental circles seeing that an artificial one can last for decades, but if you’re looking to decrease your carbon bootprint this holiday season, plant biologist Clint Springer, Ph.D says go for the real green. “At this time of year, choosing a real Christmas tree is one way that an average person can make a difference in terms of climate change,” Springer says. “A study as recent as 2009 (Ellipsos) concluded that a 7-foot cut tree’s impact on climate is 60 percent less than a 7-foot artificial tree used for six years. So while cut trees are not carbon-neutral, in terms of carbon-use, they are better than artificial trees.” If a real tree isn’t a possibility, though, one can also do things like use LED lights, buy organic produce and recycle whenever possible to minimize the environmental impact of this year’s celebrations. After all, it’s only evergreen if we keep it that way, right? Full story at Newswise. Taking care of environmental health. Photo credit: Fotolia | | | Posted about 19 hours ago by Kate Rinsema to Holy Kaw! | | 2 | | If your soul screams “mountain man” but your skin screams every time those icy mountain winds chaff the baby-butt soft complexion Mother Nature cursed you with, it’s time to release the beast with a little help from a Beardski. Available in a variety of styles and sure to garner those double-takes you wish were for your wicked snowboarding skills, the Beardski is the perfect gift for the real man (or exceptionally good-humored woman) in your life. Oooh, and just in time for Decembeard! Full story at Fab. Winter oddities. | | | | |
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