Promoting Cuban Trade & New Weather Tools

Promoting Cuban Trade & New Weather Tools

Promoting Cuban Trade & New Weather Tools plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Jeff Orrock, National Weather Service Warning Coordinator and Meteorologist, says the National Weather Service is constantly updating their internet tools. One of their latest enhancements is precipitation tracking data weather.gov is then compiled with the data from interactive websites like CoCoRaHS.dot org. CocoRaHS is the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network. ORROCK: The volunteer networks that people send in their rainfall through CoCoRaHS system. It comes right into the weather service and it's part of our mainstream data now which we do have to quality control it like all data, we'll go through there and look at the reports but it's part of our mainstream data – we use it every day and it's been a great asset. U.S. Senators Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Maria Cantwell of Washington say relaxing restrictions on agricultural trade with Cuba is key to creating jobs and expanding exports from the U.S. agricultural sector. In a joint letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana, the Senators urged Baucus to take up the Promoting American Agricultural and Medical Exports to Cuba Act of 2009 as quickly as possible. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. Well, well, high fructose corn syrup can now join the honorable ranks of food items that have been falsely accused of being nutritionally "evil". The same media groups and food police that were until recently denouncing high fructose corn syrup are now issuing statements that the controversy has been all hype. So what happened to change their minds? Two words, further research. Rather like "Chicken Little" they started spreading the alarm before they knew the complete story. Barry Popkin, research scientist and the original "Chicken Little" in the war on high fructose corn syrup, now confirms that table sugar and HFCS have the same number of calories and are both about half fructose. Mr. Popkin now acknowledges that his previous speculation was wrong and premature. As the president of the Corn Refiners Association has stated, "Fructose itself is safe. It's in the fruits and vegetables we eat every day. Mother Nature herself put it there." The concern over consuming too much sugar in either form still exists, and it is a viable concern. There again we need to teach our children that very important word that will aid them in all things for the rest of their lives, moderation. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
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