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Food

Monday

Chefs Say Variety Meats, Or Offal, Aren't Just For Halloween

Chef Daniel O'Brien slices the pig ear terrine he made for the "Scary Bits" dinner at his Season Pantry supper club in Washington, D.C.

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Melissa Forsyth for NPR

The Salt

Chefs Say Variety Meats, Or Offal, Aren't Just For Halloween

Variety meats, or offal, were once common on American dinner tables before industrial-style livestock production made other cuts more affordable and available. But now some chefs say they are bringing them back because they're flavorful and more economical.

Sunday

Food For Thought: Chefs Pick Their Last Meal On Earth

Bobby Flay pictured with a cheeseburger

Melanie Dunea hide caption

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Melanie Dunea

The Picture Show

Food For Thought: Chefs Pick Their Last Meal On Earth

If you had to pick one last thing to eat, what would it be? Here's how a few chefs responded.

Food For Thought: Chefs Pick Their Last Meal On Earth

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The 'Ick' Factor: Bugs Can Be Hard To Swallow

A Thai worker prepares grubs to cook. Eating bugs is accepted throughout the world, but it is now being proposed as a healthy and environmentally friendly treat that's catching on in North America and Europe.

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Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP/Getty Images

Opinion

The 'Ick' Factor: Bugs Can Be Hard To Swallow

Lots of creepy crawly things will appear on doorsteps and fence posts for Halloween, but will they be on your dinner plate? Insects are being proposed as a cheap and environmentally friendly food source. Long accepted around the world, eating bugs is considered, well, gross to many in North America and Europe.

The 'Ick' Factor: Bugs Can Be Hard To Swallow

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Saturday

Eating Your Way To A Healthy Heart (If You're A Python)

Pythons' huge meals strengthen their hearts, and scientists hope it will help them learn how to treat human heart diseases.

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Gabriel Bouys/Getty Images/AFP

The Salt

Eating Your Way To A Healthy Heart (If You're A Python)

Pythons can eat up to quarter of their body weight, or 40 pounds, in one meal. It turns out those huge meals make their hearts stronger and may offer insight into how to treat heart disease in humans.

Eating Your Way To A Healthy Heart (If You're A Python)

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Friday

When Forgettable Salads Cause A Deadly Outbreak

Would you remember exactly what was in this salad more than a week after eating it?

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Luciana Bueno Santos (LuBueno)/iStockphoto.com

The Salt

When Forgettable Salads Cause A Deadly Outbreak

The E. coli outbreak that sickened more than 4,300 people in May and June had epidemiologists scrambling to find the contaminated vegetables that caused it. What made it difficult, they say in a new paper, is that people had trouble remembering what exactly was in the salads they ate. In this case, the culprit turned out to be fenugreek seeds, but it was a long road to get there.

Thursday

Crop Insurance: A Pricey 'Safety Net' For Farmers

Illinois farmers harvest corn crops near Monticello, Ill. An unseasonably hot summer likely damaged much of this year's corn crop, which means farmers may seek support through their crop insurance.

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Seth Perlman/AP

The Salt

Crop Insurance: A Pricey 'Safety Net' For Farmers

IPR News & Studio One

Crop insurance has become a critical safety net for farmers subject to fickle weather that can ruin crops. And though politicians are looking to make some big cuts to farm programs in the upcoming 2012 farm bill, farmers are clinging fiercely to crop insurance.

Wednesday

Necco Wafers Puts Additives Back Into Its Candy

A photo from 2009 shows "All Natural" Necco Wafers. But after customers rejected the changes, the Massachusetts company returned to its original recipe.

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Charles Krupa/AP

The Salt

Necco Wafers Puts Additives Back Into Its Candy

The candy company that makes Necco wafers thought its customer base would approve of a switch to natural flavors and colors. But it was wrong. Now the company is going back to its original recipe.

Necco Wafers Puts Additives Back Into Its Candy

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Insect Cuisine Is All The Buzz

A customer holds up a spoon of deep-fried water bug in a restaurant in Thailand. Insects are a popular food in Thailand and many other countries around the world.

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Sakchai Lalit/ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Salt

Insect Cuisine Is All The Buzz

San Francisco has a burgeoning entomophagy (bug eating) movement, and its proponents say bugs have a lot of advantages over meat. They're tasty, not that different from shellfish, and better for the environment.

Tuesday