When you’re home alone, perhaps the thought has crossed your mind: “What happens if I hurt myself and no one is here to help me?” In the case of one Pizza Hut customer in Arizona who fell while waiting for her order, help came in the form of a pizza delivery man. [More]
Food & Personal Care
Taco Bell Promises To Use Only Cage-Free Eggs In All U.S. Locations By End Of 2016
By 11.16.15
Another day, another national restaurant chain announcing changes in how it sources its food: Taco Bell is saving itself a spot in the cage-free henhouse, pledging today to use only eggs from cageless chickens in all U.S. restaurants by the end of 2016. [More]
The FDA Will Now Have Oversight Of Fresh Produce Safety Before Anyone Gets Sick
By 11.13.15
No one expects to add more fresh fruit and vegetables to their diet and end up with a stomach bug, a serious illness, or dead. Yet that’s beginning to happen, with multi-state outbreaks of food-borne illness, especially in items like fruit and salad greens that are generally eaten without cooking, and apparently not washed sufficiently. The Food and Drug Administration wants to change that. [More]
Science Says: Victoria’s Secret Perfume Is A Pretty Great Mosquito Repellent
By 11.11.15 — Updated: 5.23.17
When the hot, humid months of summer roll around, I usually skip using any flowery, sweet-smelling perfumes because I don’t like to be followed around by clouds of mosquitoes. But just because a scent is particularly odoriferous, that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily be more susceptible to bug bites, according to a study that studied a flowery fragrance from Victoria’s Secret along more traditional insect repellents. [More]
McDonald’s Expanding Mozzarella Sticks Nationwide In 2016
By 11.11.15
A little over a year ago, we pondered the age-old question: Will mozzarella sticks ever be a McDonald’s Dollar Menu item? We received a partial answer this June when the Golden Arches began pushing the hot cheese on susceptible Wisconsinites via a test of the “Lovin’ Value Menu” – you know, because that only makes sense. Well, now we know that those (maybe) glorious sticks of gooeyness are headed to a McD’s near you. [More]
Pizza Hut Will Now Sell You A Dresser Of Pizza
By 11.11.15
Pizza Hut has a history of trying strange and occasionally wonderful new product ideas overseas, and importing the ones that work to the United States. The Hot Dog Bites pizza made the cut for the U.S. menu; unfortunately, a seafood pizza with a crust stuffed with cream cheese and flying fish roe didn’t make it across the Pacific from Hong Kong. The latest import from international Huts is the Triple Treat Box, a three-level cardboard dresser full of food. [More]
Closed Northwestern Chipotle Restaurants Will Start Opening On Wednesday
By 11.10.15
If you live near in Seattle or Portland and have been pining for a Chipotle burrito since all local restaurants shut down on Halloween due to an E. coli outbreak of undetermined origin, your week and a half of patience has been rewarded. The restaurants are reopening this week. [More]
CVS Will Limit Teens To Buying One Shot Of Boozy Laxative At A Time
By 11.10.15
We recently told you about the “Homeopathic Constipation Relief” on sale at CVS and how it’s really nothing more than a 40-proof shot of booze and water that anyone can purchase without ID. While the drugstore chain is continuing to sell the product — which, again, contains nothing but alcohol and water — it is telling employees to set a one-drink maximum on underage customers. [More]
Check Which McDonald’s Restaurants Are Serving All-Day Hash Browns Before You Go
By 11.9.15
One thing that disappointed fans of McDonald’s breakfast after the chain expanded its availablility all day long is that not all restaurants offer hash browns all day. Hash Brown Finder is exactly what it sounds like: it flags McDonald’s locations and whether they serve hash browns all day or not. The site is simple to use, plotting locations with hash browns on a Google map. It needs more data, though: if you’ve been to McDonald’s lately, volunteer for this tater-riffic cause. [Hash Brown Finder] [More]
Starbucks Expands Tuition Program To Cover Spouses & Kids Of Military Employees
By 11.9.15
Since announcing a tuition reimbursement program for its workers in June 2014 – and an expansion to cover four years of schooling – Starbucks has sent more than 4,000 employees on a path toward an online bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University. Now, the company plans to expand the offering once again: covering the full tuition for a spouse or child of a veteran or active-duty servicemember working for the mega-coffee chain. [More]
If Walgreens And Rite Aid Merge, Thousands Of Stores Might Close
By 11.5.15
Last week, Walgreens Boots Alliance, the parent company of this country’s top drugstore chain, announced that pending antitrust approval, it would buy the #3 chain, Rite Aid, for $9.4 billion. That would create two massive national drugstore chains, and also leave a lot of empty stores. One estimate is that 3,000 stores would close… not necessarily for antitrust reasons, but because the stores are simply too close together. [More]
Pepsi To Appeal To Different Set Of Millennials With New “1893” Cola
By 11.5.15
Mention any cool brand to a bona fide hipster and you’ll inevitably get an earful about how that product sucks now and was so much better blah blah blah. But even the oldest hipster still hanging on to the refurbished sugar warehouse “space” his parents bought him two decades ago isn’t old enough to remember the original Pepsi formula. [More]
Walgreens Customers Using Apple Pay Don’t Have To Swipe Their Rewards Cards Anymore
By 11.5.15
Walgreens shoppers using Apple Pay at the checkout will have a slightly quicker experience than other loyalty members, as the retailer becomes the first to integrate its rewards program with the mobile payment system. [More]
Chipotle Still Doesn’t Know Which Ingredient Caused E. Coli Contamination In 8 Restaurants
By 11.5.15
While Chipotle continues to deep-clean its restaurants in the Seattle and Portland metropolitan areas after an E. coli outbreak that has now sickened 39 people, the company and public health authorities are still working to find a common link between what all of the infected people ate. They may never find the exact cause: some foodborne illness outbreaks remain unsolved. [More]
Girl Claims McDonald’s In Wales Served Her A McFrog Wrap
By 11.4.15
A few years ago, when frogs and pieces of frogs began turning up in frozen vegetables all over the country, we came to refer to any unwanted animal or animal part found in one’s food as “free frogs.” The term literally came true in Wales last week. A 10-year-old girl says that she took a great big bite of frog in her wrap over the weekend, but McDonald’s claims that it’s “unlikely” that the frog was put in there along with the vegetables. [More]
Science Tackles Very Important Question: What’s The Best Cheese For A Gooey Grilled Cheese Sandwich?
By 11.4.15 — Updated: 4.12.17
There are some things we don’t need scientists to tell us — like the fact that cheese is delicious and was created by the dairy gods to please us — but there are other questions we need answered by the professionals in order to live our best lives. Like what the ideal kind of cheese is for a perfectly gooey, melty grilled cheese. Here comes the science! [More]
Health Officials Suspect Chipotle E. Coli Outbreak Came From Vegetables
By 11.3.15
On Halloween, Chipotle closed 43 of their restaurants in Washington state and Oregon, “out of an abundance of caution” after people who had dined at six different Chipotle restaurants showed symptoms of E. coli infection. The restaurants remain closed while Chipotle and public health authorities figure out where the illness came from. Their preliminary declaration is that the bacteria hitched a ride on some vegetables. [More]
Nearly 168,000 Pounds Of Ground Beef Recalled For E. Coli Contamination
By 11.2.15
Adding a few ingredients to ground beef can make for a delicious meal, but there’s nothing tasty about the addition of E. coli in your meat. For that reason, an Omaha company is recalling nearly 168,000 pounds of beef. [More]
