Worried about more shortages, grocery stores are stockpiling goods
America's grocery stores aren't planning on being caught unawares when the expected second wave of coronavirus cases arrives. Retailers are stockpiling months' worth of household supplies and other in-demand items. Meanwhile, consumers' expenses have been steadily on the rise as manufacturers and stores alike rethink their pricing strategies to take advantage of surging demand. Find out when Clorox expects shortages of its products to end at CNN.
Trump attacks them. COVID-19 threatens them. But immigrants keep the US fed
790,000 of of the 1.87 million workers in frontline farm and food processing jobs are immigrants; many are undocumented and exempt from COVID-19 financial support, and all are put at a far higher risk of contracting COVID-19 than your average citizen. And yet President Trump has managed to use racism and Americans' general unfamiliarity with the country's immigration system to garner support in areas that heavily rely on this kind of labor. Mother Jones has the full story.
Food insecurity in the US by the numbers
Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. households have at some point been food insecure in 2020, and millions of the nation's children are experiencing food insecurity for the first time. Not to mention that Black families are going hungry at twice the rate of white families, and 19 million Americans are facing all of the problems that have ensued from COVID-19 while living in a food desert. Get the data in visual form over at NPR …
Berry good news: New compound from blueberries could treat inflammatory disorders
Blueberries for the win! Scientists have identified a polyphenolic compound called pterostilbene in blueberries with very strong immunosuppressive (read: therapeutic for chronic inflammatory illnesses) properties. This finding will hopefully pave the way for a new, natural approach to heal illnesses like inflammatory bowel disease. Medical Xpress dives into the deets.
There are half as many dairy farms as there were in 2003
The dairy industry's decline due to a supply-demand imbalance is no secret, but a new analysis of USDA data reveals a shocking statistic: The number of dairy farms licensed to sell milk has shrunk by half since 2003. In 2019 alone, over 3,200 dairy farms shut down. USDA's Economic Research Service has determined that traditional dairy states in the Northeast and Midwest have been hit the hardest by the drop in demand. Read more at The Counter …
