| The interesting world of food chains | | Posted Thursday, February 09, 2006 11:34:55 AM by Kate Grant | Last time I checked, human being weren't a part of the food chain...  Yes, from time to time we hear about a gory accident, where an unfortunate hiker was devoured by an angry bear in the tundra, but usually, it's quite unusual.
Come to think about it, if you have the misfortune of being swallowed by a shark in the ocean, for example, you do become part of its food chain...
As does many fish. Different animals and plants become part of the food chain in different places: In the taiga and in the rainforest, you'll find more plant eaters in the food chain, with a large quantity of plants for them to eat, than meat eaters.
Small animals are more common than large over there, and insects top them all. Other habitats, like the desert, where animals have to adapt themselves to the heat and lack of water, the savanna, or the grassland, where insects and small animals live, and the different plants and animals there, require a different living conditions to thrive, and maintain the food chain.
Even if there is a fierce competition between the animals, they also need each other to survive. If one species will go extinct, there is a possibility it will affect the entire food chain, and other species will suffer from the consequences.
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| | | Many kinds of stores are hungry for food shoppers' dollars these days | | Posted Monday, January 29, 2007 2:57:12 PM by Blog57 Team | | These are spicy times for those who like variety in their grocery shopping choices, in price, selection and convenience. More retailers are using food to lure customers, intensifying competition while taking bites of the nearly $6,000 a year American households spend on groceries. For most households, the days when nearly all grocery shopping was done weekly at a supermarket with a meticulously detailed list are fading into the past. Now there are club stores to buy in bulk at discount prices, supercenters for combining grocery with clothes and other shopping, specialty stores for gourmet choices and, for quick pickups of basic grocery items and snacks, not just convenience stores, but expanded gas stations, drugstores, dollar stores and big-box retailers. A local shopper this week could go to the Sam's Club store to stock up on macaroni and cheese at 15 boxes for $7.76; or run into the Shell gas station to buy one box for $1.39.... | |
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| | | New on the menu | | Posted Thursday, January 25, 2007 1:04:26 PM by Blog57 Team | | From fine dining to casual family fare, lots of new places have opened over the past several months, and we're taking a look at what's new, what's new again, what's coming and what's going, going, gone. The Board is back The Sandwich Board is returning to Wallhaven. Owner Regina Hardman closed her place five years ago, but found ``retirement was a little dull.'' At 63, Hardman is resurrecting her longtime eatery and expects to reopen sometime in February. ``I've still got some life in me,'' she said. Hardman said the Sandwich Board will be essentially the same. ``It will have the same look, same food. I've updated it a little bit. But I've tried to keep the same feeling as I did before -- the decor, the menu,'' Hardman said.... | |
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| | | French company offers bid for Belgian fast food chain | | Posted Sunday, November 12, 2006 1:12:49 PM by Blog57 Team | | French CDC Capital Investments has made a friendly offer for the Belgian-owned fast food chain Quick, VRT news reported Wednesday. Quick is a major player on the fast food markets in Belgium, Luxembourg and France. At present, Quick is controlled by GIB, which in turn is part of two holdings -- the Belgian financier Albert Frere's CNP and AvH. GIB owns 58 percent of Quick's shares. The remaining 42 percent are listed on the Brussels Euronext Stock Exchange. The French are offering 37.80 euros (47.60 U.S. dollars) per share, which is 23 percent more than their value at the close of trading on Tuesday and 29 percent up on the value of Quick shares just a month ago. Quick is valued at 800 million euros (1 billion U.S.... | |
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| | | Oceans turning acidic, posing threat to sea life, Earth's fragile food chain | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 11:07:08 AM by Blog57 Team | | NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - The world's oceans are becoming more acidic, which poses a threat to sea life and Earth's fragile food chain, a climate expert said Thursday. Oceans have already absorbed a third of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, one of the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming, leading to acidification that prevents vital sea life from forming properly. "The oceans are rapidly changing," said professor Stefan Rahmstorf on the sidelines of a UN conference on climate change that has drawn delegates from more than 100 countries to Kenya. "Ocean acidification is a major threat to marine organisms." Fish stocks and the world's coral reefs could also be hit while acidification risks "fundamentally altering" the food chain, he said.... | |
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| | | Soup and salad chain eschews the fat | | Posted Wednesday, November 08, 2006 2:57:53 AM by Blog57 Team | | Souper Salad is joining the anti-trans fat band wagon. The San Antonio soup and salad restaurant chain, which has several Houston-area locations, has set a goal of becoming trans fat-free by Dec. 12. "This was not an easy process for us since we serve hundreds of recipes with a huge number of ingredients," said Hazem Ouf, Souper Salad president and CEO. "It was a massive undertaking that took more than a year to complete, but one we felt good about." .... | |
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| | | Cold chain operators warn of increase in food prices | | Posted Wednesday, November 01, 2006 11:00:53 PM by Blog57 Team | | A group belonging to the food storage industry warned that prices are bound to increase because of high price-quotes at the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM). In a statement on Wednesday the Cold Chain Association of the Philippines (CCAP) said that any adjustment in power rates as a result of high prices at the local electricity bourse will force them to raise prices. "Any significant upward movement [in the price of electricity] will essentially be reflected in the prices of our products and services," Anthony Dizon, CCAP president, said. He noted that electricity comprises about 40 percent of the operating cost of refrigerated storage facilities. Refrigeration, he said is a 24-hour-a-day business and would surely be affected by a surge in electricity prices.... | |
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| | | Austin Grill roped in by Virginia food firm | | Posted Sunday, October 29, 2006 3:02:19 PM by Blog57 Team | | One of Washington, D.C.'s home-grown restaurant chains is being acquired by a Virginia food services company, and may spread its Tex-Mex menus nationally. Austin Grill, which opened its first Washington restaurant in 1988 and has one location in Baltimore's Canton neighborhood, will be acquired by Thompson Hospitality, a 14-year-old restaurant franchising and food service contracting company headquartered in Herndon, Va. .... | |
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| | | Reader feedback: More on what Denver dining needs | | Posted Friday, October 27, 2006 12:59:08 PM by Blog57 Team | | This Jersey girl is craving a New York-style bagel. Not a Panera, Einstein or whatever, wanna-be. A real crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, piled high with real cream cheese (not the kind you get in a little plastic package and spread with your plastic knife) Bagel, with a capital B. In fairness, Moe's comes close but not quite. Maybe it's hard to make a good bagel at this altitude, blah blah blah...but it would make me and probably a lot of other east coast transplants happy if we could find a good bagel in the morning. The other thing we need in Denver - good old-fashioned delis. New York Deli News on Hampden is a perfect example. Reubens piled high on rye bread with a crunchy pickle and a side of coleslaw. And, if you're lucky, a waitress with an attitude. That's what I'm talking about.... | |
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| | | Encore Medical looking to buy foreign company | | Posted Thursday, October 26, 2006 10:58:03 AM by Blog57 Team | | Working down the corporate food chain, Encore Medical Corp., the latest buyout target of Blackstone Private Equity, is in negotiations to buy a medical device company itself. In its latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Encore says it's been involved in advanced negotiations with an unnamed privately-held, complementary medical device company located outside of the United States. The deal would be worth about $23.1 million, consisting of $12.8 million in cash and $10.3 million in shares of Encore's common stock, valued at a price of $6.55 per share. Encore would also incur about $1 million of transaction expenses and assume about $1.5 million of the target company's existing debt. To pay for the acquisition, Encore says it will increase the term loan portion of the senior secured credit facilities it's scheduled to enter after it gets bought by the Blackstone Group.... | |
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| | | State hunters program supplies food pantries with deer meat | | Posted Monday, October 23, 2006 6:54:16 AM by Blog57 Team | | There is a different kind of food chain at work today in Pennsylvania's forestlands, one that is being applied, with lean efficiency, to the enduring human problems of poverty and hunger. A deer, foraging for seedlings in an overbrowsed forest, might come to several ends. It might waste away from starvation or disease, a victim of its own overpopulation. Or it could rendezvous with the grillwork of an oncoming motor vehicle along the state's busy highways. But that deer might also be dispatched by a socially conscious hunter holding an extra deer tag who will then haul his quarry to an equally socially conscious butcher working with the statewide program, Hunters Sharing the Harvest. The butcher takes a hit on his normal processing fee, to which the hunter generously chips in $15, and the deer -- now ground-up, quality-inspected and neatly encased in 1-pound packages -- arrives at food banks and soup kitchens that are delighted to add to their inventory such a lean and high-protein commodity.... | |
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