Better Bread & Florida Losses

Better Bread & Florida Losses plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. It was a cold start to the New Year for Florida agriculture and a devastating one. Gary Lucier, USDA economist, gives us an estimate of the dollar losses of vegetables from this winter's freeze in Florida. LUCIER: During the winter Florida is about a third of the shipments of the top seven warm season vegetables; tomatoes, bell peppers, snap beans, cucumbers, sweet corn, eggplant, squash. If we assume that about 2/3rds of that average production was lost and then we value that output at average prices of the last 3 years then the estimated freeze loss at the shipping point for those top seven would be about $300-million with tomatoes accounting for about half of that. Agricultural Research Service scientists at the ARS Western Regional Research Center in Albany, California are working to develop new and tasty whole-grain oat or barley breads that offer antioxidants, fiber, and other components in an array different from that found in whole-wheat breads. They have determined that barley, oat, and whole-wheat breads made with HPMC have cholesterol-lowering effects. HPMC is short for hydroxypropyl methylcellulose. Though this HPMC is widely used in familiar foods--as a thickener, for instance--its cholesterol-lowering properties as an ingredient in whole-grain breads haven't been widely studied. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. I don't know about you but my family hasn't rushed out to eat at fast food restaurants because of the economic recession like so many reports have been touting, quite the contrary. We are pinching pennies, who isn't, but in the effort to do just that we are eating out less. By eating at home more we are rediscovering not only each other, but just how good home cooking really was. My son told me the other night he had forgotten just how scrumptious, (his word, not mine), my homemade chicken soup really was! I have a new game that I play comparing how little I actually spend on the ingredients for a home cooked meal as opposed to how much that same meal would cost me dining out. The difference is generally quite a substantial savings; especially when you take into account that several of the ingredients can be used to make several meals. Now when we do indulge and eat out it's a real treat. In the mean time I'm having a grand time perusing my recipe books and finding my way around the fresh produce and butcher block departments at my local grocers. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.