Peanut Butter News

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GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba – The Haiti earthquake is giving the American base at Guantanamo Bay a new mission: supplying aid to the devastated island nation and potentially detaining thousands of Haitian migrants captured at sea.

President Barack Obama’s deadline for closing the base prison expires Friday with no new date in sight, but a huge effort to provide earthquake aid is just getting started.

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(CNN) — Ordinarily a sunny playground that mocks the rest of winter-suffering America, Miami, Florida, was in sore need of a giant Snuggie on Sunday.

There wasn’t a scantily clad beautiful person at any of the outside tables at South Beach’s tony Balans restaurant. Everyone was crammed inside to assuage their Saturday nights with pancakes and Cuban coffee, chuckling at the heat lamps that waiters had scrambled to put up outdoors.

“Yeah, the lamps were not so good. So we brought inside all the tables to make sure our customers could manage,” said manager Mike Fernandez. “I’m from Chile and living here, you know, it’s not supposed to be like this.”

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In this day and age of food-on-the-go, supplements can add much-needed nutrients to your diet. But a walk down the vitamin aisle at any store could very well make your head spin. Here’s a breakdown of several of multivitamin options.

Basic Multivitamins

What they are: One-pill wonders that offer 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance (RDA), as suggested by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, for many important vitamins.

Benefits: They give you much of what you need in a day, including vitamins A, C, D, and E, B vitamins, and folic acid. Bonus: You have only one tablet to remember to take and swallow. Try One A Day Essential Multivitamin ($10 for 130 tablets, drugstore.com).

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Washington (CNN) — In a warm, fluorescent-lit clay studio at the Corcoran College of Art + Design, students, faculty and a soft-spoken priest are embarking on a mission. Their goal: Create 500 bowls for a fundraiser to help feed the hungry.

“There are over 9,000 homeless people in the nation’s capital,” says the Rev. John Adams, who has been trying to break the cycle of homelessness and hunger in Washington for more than 30 years as president of So Others Might Eat.

The interfaith, community-based organization, which is in its 40th year, serves more than 1,000 meals a day and provides nearly 300 housing units to homeless and hungry people in Washington.

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(CNN) — The day Charles Moses Martin Goodrich entered the world, a new community was conceived.

As the newborn breathed in life, his mother, Susan Goodrich, began to die. Less than 12 hours after having her son, the 46-year-old mother of four was gone. The cause was a rare amniotic fluid embolism.

It was January 2009, and shell-shocked widower Robbie Goodrich was forced to immediately think of the baby’s most basic need: milk.

For $5 an ounce, he could have purchased frozen donor breast milk, the kind of sustenance he knew his wife wanted for the boy. There was talk of tracking down a wet nurse. A friend left a message offering to breast-feed the newborn herself.

Full Story at CNN.com

Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) — Principal Sherrie Gahn said she was shocked when she first came to Whitney Elementary School seven years ago.

“The kids were eating ketchup packets,” Gahn said. “I said to one of my teachers, ‘What on Earth are they doing?’ and she said, ‘That’s their dinner.’ “

Whitney Elementary is in a dusty, rundown neighborhood of Las Vegas known as the Boulder Strip. The main drag, the Boulder Highway, is lined with pawn shops and low-rent motels.

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NEW YORK (CNN) — A voluntary recall was announced Monday for more than half a million pounds of ground beef because it may be contaminated with bacteria linked to at least two deaths, officials said.

Fairbank Farms of Ashville, New York, said the recall was issued Saturday for approximately 545,699 pounds of ground beef produced between September 14 and September 16 after the meat was “possibly linked” to E. coli O157:H7.

“Any customers from northeastern or mid-Atlantic states who have identified recalled ground beef products should remove the product from their freezers and return it to their stores for full reimbursement,” the company said.

Full Story at usrecallnews.com

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2009 – Pasha Halal Poultry, doing business as Marcacci Meats, a Vineland, N.J., establishment, is recalling approximately 128 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

The products subject to recall include: [View Label, PDF Only]

Various sizes of plastic-wrapped packages of “MARCACCI MEATS, GROUND BEEF.” 10-pound boxes of “MARCACCI MEATS, GROUND BEEF.”

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Researchers were testing the bacteria to determine if it bears the same genetic fingerprint as the E. coli linked to an outbreak of illness that has affected at least 69 people in 29 states.

The tainted sample was manufactured last February 10 at the Nestle Plant in Danville, said the sources, both of whom requested anonymity.

All of the infected persons had been confirmed as having the outbreak strain of E. coli 0157:H7, the CDC said Monday.

Those affected range in age from 2 to 65, however 64 percent are less than 19 and 73 percent are female.

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CHICAGO – A Colorado meat company is expanding a recall of beef due to possible contamination by E.coli O157:H7 bacteria after an investigation found 18 illnesses may be linked to the meat, the company and the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Sunday.

Greeley, Colorado-based JBS-Swift Beef Co is voluntarily expanding its June 24 recall to include about 380,000 pounds of assorted beef products, for a total recall of about 421,000 pounds, USDA and the company said.

The affected beef was produced on April 21 and was distributed nationally and internationally.

Full Story At CNN.com

The company said it is recalling an estimated 300,000 cases of the dough as a precaution after reports of food-borne illness in 28 states.

There are concerns that the premade dough may be contaminated with the bacterium E. coli 0157:H7, which causes abdominal cramping, vomiting and diarrhea, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Young children and the elderly can suffer more serious symptoms.

Nestle issued a statement saying, “While the E. coli strain implicated in this investigation has not been detected in our product, the health and safety of our consumers is paramount, so we are initiating this voluntary recall.”

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SOLON, Ohio – Federal authorities are investigating a new national outbreak of a bacteria-triggered illness, this time related to a sweet treat treasured by the heartbroken and children-at-heart — packaged raw cookie dough.

The federal Centers for Disease Control said its preliminary investigation shows “a strong association” between eating raw refrigerated cookie dough made by Nestle and the illnesses of 65 people in 29 states whose lab results have turned up E. coli bacteria since March.

About 25 of those people have been hospitalized, but no one has died. E. coli is a potentially deadly bacterium that can cause bloody diarrhea, dehydration and, in the most severe cases, kidney failure.