Bacterial Foam Is Making Pig Barns Explode. Seriously.

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KTSP
This is what the bacterial foam looks like.
In what may be the most spectacularly disgusting story of the month, Grist reports on a phenomenon that has killed thousands of pigs on giant industrial hog farms

Farms (OK, "farms") throughout the Midwest are seeing a gray, slimy, bacterial foam growing on the pigs' manure below the barns, sometimes 4 feet thick. It can sneak into the barn and envelop its ventilation system. When the foaming bubbles pop, they release methane, which can build up until a spark inevitably flares and the barn explodes, killing hogs and injuring humans. One in four Midwestern pig barns has problems with the foam, an industry newspaper reported in 2010, and the country has seen a half-dozen of these explosions over the past three years.

And where does this foam come from? The Minnesota Daily interviewed several scientists looking for causes and solutions to the foam problem, and one theory is that it has something to do with the spent grains from ethanol production that are fed to the pigs. Twin Cities-based KTSP filed a story on the foam, If you'd like to see more shots of it. SFoodie waited until after breakfast to watch the footage, and we think we'll be skipping lunch as well.

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Glacier Thieves, Immortal Lard: SFoodie Isn't Sure What to Make of This Information

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Jemima Packington, asparamancer.
Some days, standing on the shores of the Internet and peering into that great gray horizon of information, as SFoodie does every morning, yields nothing. A few tired rants about school lunches bob on the waves. A flock of juice-cleanse recipes flies overhead, their cawing acute and grotesque. 

And some days, like today, the information equivalent of a human foot washes ashore. Normally, a story wondering whether squirrel meat is going to become the next quail would be the shiniest thing on the beach. But that's mundane compared to the Chilean guy arrested for poaching 5 tons of ice from a disappearing glacier -- all to sell to high-end bars. (Even better: The article makes up an estimated value for the ice.) A German man reveals that he's been saving a tin of lard since 1948, and scientists determine that it has been treated with so many preservatives it's still edible. 

And Bon Appetit magazine, of all publications, posts a video of a British woman who claims to tell the future by reading asparagus spears (video after the jump). What does one do with all this information? And what does it say about those other mysteries still lurking in the deep, roiling waters of the web?

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482-Pound Man Endorses the Carl's Jr. Weight-Loss Plan

Categories: WTF?

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Michael Moore and the president, for some reason.

A 482-pound Antioch resident credits Carl's Jr. with helping him slim down. A man named Michael Moore claims that eating Carl's Jr. every day last year helped him to lose weight -- around 100 pounds.

As Erin Sherbert writes on our sister blog, The Snitch, after he hit 576 pounds in 2010 Moore decided to try an all-meat diet. Enter Carl's Jr.:

Moore told SF Weekly that for the last year, he has eaten nothing but plain meat patties which he ordered from -- of all places -- the Carl's Jr. by his house. The next obvious question is why Carl's Jr. and not Subway, which gained attention after 34-year-old Jared Fogle lost 245 pounds in one year by eating Subway sandwiches.
"Subway is not close enough," Moore tells us, laughing. "Carl's Jr. is right by my house -- and it's fantastic."

Currently, Moore is receiving no compensation from Carl's Jr. (Or Hardee's!) There's much more about all this here, in Sherbert's report.

William Shatner Really Doesn't Want You to Fry Your Turkey the Wrong Way

Categories: Holidays, WTF?
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State Farm
William Shatner, burned by his passion for deep-fried turkey, hurls the fryer gizmo into the pit.
Apparently, State Farm Insurance is so sick of paying out for fire damage from deep-fried turkey disasters that it's pouring thousands of dollars into a public-info campaign starring William Shatner, the schlockmaster whose gift for inappropriately melodramatic pauses still makes Alec Baldwin look like an eager schoolboy.

"I want a moister, tastier, turkey," Shatner intones at the beginning of "Eat, Fry, Love", State Farm's new YouTube video (posted after the jump). Then he sucks down a G&T and plops a giant bird carcass into an full stockpot of oil, setting himself on CG fire. 

State Farm has also posted a second video with Shatner's fried-turkey cooking tips (apparently, his love for moister and tastier was more potent that the pain and scarring) and footage of deep-fryer fires that will awe your six-year-old.

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Yelp Says Outright Lying is "Personal Opinion"

Categories: WTF?

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​Jesse Hirsch recently brought to my attention a review of Tuba restaurant on Yelp, by a woman who claims to write for us. She wrote:

This place totally rocks! The food blows your mind away. I also write for SF weekly and I definitely am writing about them this week!

There's only one problem: She doesn't write for us. I'm the editor here; I know all of our writers, and what they are and aren't assigned to do.

As soon as I saw it, I set out to correct it. But talking to Yelp isn't easy.

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yelp

Dear Texas: If You Must Kill Prisoners, Please Give Them a Last Meal

Categories: WTF?

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A typical last meal in Texas. Now with less chicken!
​Texas and California don't have a lot in common politically, except for incarceration. Both states love to put people in prison, so much so that we're going to have to let a bunch of ours out soon.

Texas has a different means of slightly reducing its prison numbers: execution. The Lone Star state has lethally injected 11 men this year after offing 17 last year.

Californians like to protest Texas' use of the death penalty, but considering that Republicans cheered wildly when Gov. Rick Perry was asked to defend the state's 234 executions, it's not so likely that he cares what we think.

However, we would like to call Gov. Perry's attention to a move the Texas Department of Justice made just yesterday: eliminating the tradition of allowing inmates to choose their own last meal.

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Are Schweddy Balls Delicious, or Just Irritating to Gay-Bashers?

Categories: WTF?

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​I was a little surprised this morning when Erin Sherbert, the editor of SF Weekly's news blog the Snitch, messaged me at home asking for reasons why I might want to eat Schweddy Balls.

I mean, there are soooo many reasons I wouldn't want to, even though it is a new flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

But Erin the news editor had news: the gay-hating American Family Association is calling for a boycott. OK, that's reason No. 1 to try these balls.

I'll let you hop over to The Snitch to see what else we came up with. But before you go, if you want to know where the concept came from -- the concept that the AFA says "has turned something as innocent as ice cream into something repulsive" -- please enjoy the original Saturday Night Live sketch.

Follow us on Twitter: @sfoodie, and like us on Facebook.

SF Has Fewer Vegetarians and Vegans than Rest of US

Categories: WTF?

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Vsydneyv
​Get this: San Francisco has fewer vegetarians and vegans per capita -- and more fast food junkies -- than the rest of the US, according to an online survey.

The deal site LivingSocial released these provocative results yesterday, from a survey of 4000 diners in 20 large cities across the US, including 200 in San Francisco.

Of those 200, only 6 -- 3 percent -- identified themselves as vegetarian or vegan. This is below the national average of 5 percent and well below the vegetarian leader, Washington DC.

"This survey shows that maybe what we think is the case about some cities isn't true," said LivingSocial spokesperson Kathryn Watson. "You might think of San Francisco as having a lot of vegans, but maybe the person in the cubicle next to you in DC is quietly eating a vegan lunch."

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Media Jumps On 'Americans Can't Cook' Story

Categories: WTF?

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The only way to lure Don Draper into the kitchen was with an open bottle of whiskey
​Sometimes the food media travels in mindless packs just like White House correspondents. Such is the case about a story trending today, that 28% of Americans over age 25 say they can't cook.

The story comes from a press release by a cooking appliance company.

We found it picked up by Bon Appetit ("Americans Concoct Sad Excuses For Not Cooking"), the Huffington Post, and a variety of other publications.

There's just one major flaw with this survey: there's no historical context.

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The Society Page Discovers Street Food: $225 Reserved Seats

Categories: WTF?

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Street Eats Benefit Gala
Where: Ferry Plaza
When: Sept. 18, 6-10 p.m.
Cost: $125 to $225

Street food may have just jumped the shark. A charitable foundation that apparently exists to help its members tweet to each other is staging a "Street Eats Benefit Gala" next month at Ferry Plaza, with reserved seats selling for as much as $225.

Rather than force Thurston and Lovey to rub elbows with the riff raff outside Tacolicious or Roli Roti, the reserved seating allows them to wear the good jewelry.

However, if you're a little behind on your house payments, you could get in with general admission tickets for a mere $125 -- if you buy them before Aug. 31.

So what do you get for your tax-deductible money?

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