Omigod, the SmartShopper makes shopping lists for you!
"Gawd, making a shopping list is just so hard. It's like, first you need to go find a pad of paper, right? Then you are all like, 'yo, where my pen at?' And once you finally get your pen and paper together, you have to like, write down what you need to buy. Who has time for that? Not me, girlfriends. This SmartShopper is great, cause all I have to do is just tell it what I want and it prints a list out for me." Posted at 6:54 AM Central Time

And ye shall know us by the lists we make
"A crop of Web sites allows people to create and share lists on everything from a baby's nap schedule to an action-figure collection. Following are five sites that aim to help people get organized." This article also mentions a couple list-related books that are in the works, including mine! Posted at 9:09 AM Central Time

Grocist
Wow, this is cool -- basically an automated grocery list maker. How it works:
1. You plug a barcode scanner into your computer (preferably one in the kitchen)
2. Simply scan the barcodes of any packages before you discard them.
3. Grocist looks up the product's information from the UPC database
4. It keeps a running grocery list for you.
(Thanks a.wholelottanothing.org!) Posted at 7:25 AM Central Time

The Purloined Sirloin: Why is meat the most shoplifted item in America?
"Every supermarket detective--or 'loss-prevention specialist,' as many prefer to be called--has an offbeat meatlifting story to share. There's the one about the lady who seemingly defied the laws of physics by stuffing an entire HoneyBaked Ham in her purse, the man discovered with a trove of filet mignons in his Jockey shorts, or the meth addict who explained that his dealer, exhibiting an atypical benevolent streak, had agreed to accept prime rib in lieu of cash... Meatlifting is a grave problem for food retailers: According to the Food Marketing Institute, meat was the most shoplifted item in America's grocery stores in 2005. (It barely edged out analgesics and was a few percentage points ahead of razor blades and baby formula.)" Posted at 8:40 PM Central Time

The history of vegetarianism
"In Newton's time and beyond, you couldn't discuss meat eating or its rejection without biting into some tough theology, and Tristram Stuart's sprawling 'The Bloodless Revolution: A Cultural History of Vegetarianism from 1600 to Modern Times' (buy it on Amazon) shows just how hard it was to decipher God's dietary will and how many other considerations--both sacred and secular--were wrapped up in decisions about whether or not it was right to eat animals. The book is a magnificently detailed and wide-ranging collection of scholarship on what has been said to justify either refraining from meat or consuming it. Of course, a history of justifications is not the same thing as a history of what people actually ate, or didn't. For many people, through most of history, not eating meat was a given: it was just too scarce or expensive. But, among the few who had the resources, meat's richness, fatty satisfaction, and nourishment were much appreciated..." Posted at 7:31 AM Central Time

30 Days of Pork
"Amanda Kelso was a 12-year veteran of vegetarianism when she went AWOL. She blames pork. 'Bacon was a temptress to me,' she says in her 30 Days of Pork series on photo-sharing site Flickr." Posted at 7:12 AM Central Time

Top 10 Detox Foods
"As 2007 swings into gear, there's no better time to give your body a healthy, fresh start than now! Plus if you're thinking about lowering your weight -- and your RealAge -- 'eating clean' is a great first step. Add these 10 foods to your grocery cart and you'll get three terrific benefits..." Posted at 7:30 AM Central Time

How natural is natural food?
"Kate at Accidental Hedonist reports that Capri Sun will be removing the 'All Natural' label from their juice products after a lawsuit by consumers. The suit claimed the label was misleading and deceptive because Capri Sun contains high fructose corn syrup, a man-made product. But corn syrup is produced from corn starch, a natural product of corn, by an enzymatic reaction. Enzymes are natural, a scientist didn't invent enzymes one day in the lab. So in a weird way, Capri Sun is natural." Posted at 7:47 PM Central Time

10 Top Foods To Help You Fight High Cholesterol
"Close to 107 million U.S. adults have cholesterol levels of 200 mg/dL or higher, a level that the American Heart Association says increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. At least 12 million of these people are taking statin drugs to lower their cholesterol levels, but there are more natural options out there. According to the American Heart Association, 'You can reduce cholesterol in your blood by eating healthful foods, losing weight if you need to and exercising.' What follows is a listing of the most potent foods to add to your diet if you want to fight high cholesterol and drive your levels down using your diet as a primary tool." (Note: This site seems to exist mostly as a vehicle for ad revenue, but the list of foods is still useful.) Posted at 8:40 AM Central Time

Your good intentions require heavy commitment
"If you're like many people I know, you probably consider the beginning of the New Year as a fresh slate. You might have vowed to eat healthier foods, lose weight and/or exercise more. Perhaps you've pledged to cut back on your alcohol consumption after a social December. Now comes the hard part: sticking to your resolution... The following strategies can help you turn your good intentions into action and stay motivated along the way." Posted at 8:13 AM Central Time

Kiwi Grocery Shoppers Use The Healthy Tick
"Recent research commissioned by the Heart Foundation Tick Programme shows the Tick is embedded in the New Zealand grocery shopping ritual with the majority of shoppers using the Tick to help them choose healthier food... Tick Programme Manager Ian Mathieson says the strong consumer confidence in the Tick means it is a powerful tool in the fight against obesity and is helping to shape up New Zealanders." Posted at 6:51 AM Central Time

Free books: It's the January GLC giveaway!
Happy New Year, folks. You like books? You like beverages? We got books about beverages! Two of them! No strings attached! The first person to write in and request one of the books linked below gets it for free. Limit one per person and you must request a specific book and send me your mailing address — although we won't use your email or postal address for anything other than sending you the book. Email me for a free book while they last!

GONE! Sent to Amanda of Grandville, Michigan
Hot Chocolate | " Chocoholics rejoice! If you thought there was only one way to make hot chocolate, then a sublime world awaits. In HOT CHOCOLATE, the first book to come out of the growing trend of haute chocolate consumption, preeminent chocolatiers from around the world contribute more than 60 recipes, including concoctions like Lavender-Pistachio Hot Chocolate; Maple-Whiskey Hot Chocolate Toddy; Nutella Hot Chocolate; Malted Milkball Hot Chocolate; and the famous Frrrozen Hot Chocolate from Manhattan's Serendipity 3. Food writer Michael Turback suggests adding rosebuds or cayenne, frothing with a Mexican molinillo, or adding dollops of schlagobers (Viennese whipped cream), and includes ingredient and tool resources as well as a fascinating account of the history of liquid chocolates." By Michael Turback —Amazon.com (List price: $9.95)

GONE! Sent to Ray of Richfield, Minnesota
Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer | "In the first-ever history of American beer, Maureen Ogle tells its epic story, from the immigrants who invented it to the upstart microbrewers who revived it. Beer might seem as American as baseball, but that has not always been true: Rum and whiskey were the drinks of choice in the 1840s, with only a few breweries making heavy, yeasty English ale. When a wave of German immigrants arrived in the middle of the nineteenth century, they promptly set about re-creating the pleasures of the biergartens they had left behind. Just fifty years later, the American-style lager beer they invented was the nation's most popular beverage--and brewing was the nation's fifth-largest industry, ruled over by fabulously wealthy titans Frederick Pabst and Adolphus Busch. But when anti-German sentiments aroused by World War I fed the flames of the temperance movement (one activist even declared that 'the worst of all our German enemies are Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, and Miller'), Prohibition was the result. In the wake of its repeal, brewers replaced flavor with innovations like marketing and lite beer, setting the stage for a generation of microbrewers whose ambitions reshaped the drink." By Maureen Ogle —Amazon.com (List price: $25.00) Posted at 7:04 PM Central Time

Be It Ever So Homespun, There's Nothing Like Spin
"After shopping for dozens of products in places as varied as food co-ops and convenience stores, I've uncovered the essential elements of a greenwashed product. Start with a gentle image of a field or a farm to suggest an ample harvest gathered by an honest, hard-working family. To that end, strangely oversize vegetables or fruits are good. If they are dew-kissed and nestled in a basket, all the better. A little red tractor is O.K. Pesticide tanks and rows of immigrant farm laborers bent over in the hot sun are not." Posted at 7:57 AM Central Time

What Does 200 Calories Look Like?
Some foods have significantly more calories than others but what does the difference actually look like. Each of the photographs below represents 200 calories of the particular type of food; the images are sorted from low to high calorie density. When you consider that an entire plate of broccoli contains the same number of calories as a small spoonful of peanut butter, you might think twice the next time you decide what to eat. (Thanks Boing Boing!) Posted at 7:19 AM Central Time

The youngest grocer in America
Holy crap! Posted at 7:11 AM Central Time

Time to buy more peanut butter!
Found this funny set of pix on Flickr: "oh, the wretched. the worst thing about this whole debacle, as my husband later informed me, is that i TOLD Violet to 'go play with the peanut butter.' she liked to roll the jar around in the kitchen. unfortunately, big sister figured out how to open the jar and pile the entire contents onto the little one's head. it was very hard to convince them that they should never do this again when i was laughing and crying and taking a million pictures."
Posted at 7:47 AM Central Time

How Much Stuff Do I Use In A Year? The Grocery List
The folks at the No Credit Needed blog just started a year-long grocery consumption experiment: "As part of my How Much Stuff Do I Use In A Year? Project, I'll be going to the grocery store tomorrow evening. (I'd be going to the grocery store anyway, but that first sentence sounds so 'project-like'. Here is a partial list of the items I'll be purchasing. I'll track how much of these (and other) things that I use during 2007. And yet, I am aware that I am actually asking you to read my grocery list. Ah, the power of blogging." Posted at 10:25 AM Central Time