Daily consumption of chocolate bars made with a patented combination of plant sterols and cocoa flavanols may affect cardiovascular risk by lowering elevated cholesterol levels and improving blood pressure, according to a new study published in the Journal of Nutrition.

I remember when Samantha - my oldest daughter - first became interested in Kip. She'd known him since 5th grade when we moved to San Rafael from San Francisco and everyone in Mr. Kielty's fifth grade class was taken aback by the girl in less suburban garb - like the black Chinese flats she always wore. Sometime around middle school, she started to have a crush on Kip.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is experiencing serious financial problems due to rising food prices. The head of the United Nations food aid agency, Josette Sheeran, says nearly 340 million euros is needed just to finance operations already in the pipeline.

Like all nations, the people of the Balkans also have their culinary obsessions: the Turks put aubergines over everything, the Greeks – oregano, and the Bulgarians – a herb known as tshubritsa (a kind of savory), thus making the meaning of the saying "Every meal – with savory" literal (the proverb is normally used in reference to people who stick their nose in everything).

Punchki, a popular gourmet food in Polish and Russian tradition especially on a Fat Tuesday, are fries in oil piece which flattens to mold in the sphere and is filled with the plum or other sweetly loads.

China imports insecticide-tainted dumplings in Japan. A spiraling nationwide scare over food products forced supermarkets, restaurants and schools to clear Chinese food from their shelves and kitchens.

A supermarket chain says it will not allow genetically-modified (GM) food in its home brand range in South Australia, because an overwhelming number of customers are opposed to GM foods.

From May 1, most packaged food products sold in China will have standardized, reader-friendly nutrition information labels, according to non-binding guidelines released on Tuesday by the Ministry of Health.

Ecologists have long observed that when food becomes scarce, animal populations exploit a wider range of food sources. So scientists studying southern sea otters at different sites in California's coastal waters were not surprised to find that the dietary diversity of the population is higher where food is limited.

Scientists in the United States and India are reporting development of a high-protein variety of rice, dietary staple for half the world’s population. The study is scheduled for the Jan. 23 issue of ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a biweekly publication.

This Forward Look is a multidisciplinary joint ESF/COST initiative which involves the ESF Standing Committee for Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences, the ESF European Medical Research Councils, the ESF Standing Committee for the Humanities, the ESF Standing Committee for the Social Sciences and the COST Domain Committee for Food and Agriculture.