New! From Monsanto! Healthy French Fries! The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given Monsanto a GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe) notification on oil produced from its Vistive Gold brand of soybeans. The bean produces oil with less saturated fat and reduced or no trans fats according to a news release from the company. Consumers looking for healthier alternatives should welcome products made from the newly approved beans, and growers should benefit from premium prices from the companies that make those products. No word in the news release about how much seed for the new variety will cost. You can read the news release here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/37210420/Improved_Soybean_Oil_Achieves_Milestone_That_Will_Advance_Development_of_Foods_With_Reduced_Saturated_Fat_and_No_Trans_Fats_Milestone_Enables_Food_Companies_to_Develop_and_Test_Foods_Containing_Oil_from_Vistive_R_Gold_Soybeans 

     Before you torch that charcoal, you might be interested in knowing how the beef in your fridge was like before it became the beef in your fridge. A group of FFAers from Berks County's Conrad Weiser High School got to know more about beef one recent afternoon than most of us get to know in a lifetime.  Christopher Raines, an assistant professor meat science at Penn State, used a side-by-side comparison of an Angus steer and a dairy beef steer, to demonstrate to the group the finer points of choice, prime, marbling, aging and other qualities. One surprising fact was the difference between the Angus and dairy beef carcass yields. Both animals had live weights of about 1,400 pounds, but the Angus cross carcass weighed 934 pounds, while the dairy beef animal came in at 764 pounds. Lancaster Farming correspondent Sue Bowman went with the students, and wrote a report about the experience for our current edition. You can also read it here:  http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2970

     A message for "LOST" fans: John Locke is coming, and he's coming for you. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/breaking-new-underwater-v_b_574170.html