Food

After years of frustration, allergists meeting in Washington proclaimed a small but significant victory against life-threatening peanut allergies. Five children, long urged to avoid peanuts like the plague, today tote peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in their lunch boxes, blithely share candy with friends and accept snacks at other people's homes without quizzing their hosts on the treats' ingredients. The children appear to have lost their allergies, said Dr.

Circling Valley Boulevard in Alhambra, lost in suffocating, 100-degree heat, I'm wondering: What could possibly justify leaving my air-conditioned office to stumble around this too-familiar Southern California bleakscape of tire outlets, big box stores, nail parlors and fast-food joints? A few minutes later, I've finally limped into 101 Noodle Express, and the answer is at hand. It's the restaurant's beef roll, something like a crispy Chinese pancake, rolled around thin layers of savory beef and topped with a homemade bean sauce.

At a time when record numbers of people are losing their homes, unemployment is rising and a growing number of families are in need, California caterers, hotels and restaurants throw out roughly 1.5 million tons of perfectly good food every year, according to the state Integrated Waste Management Board. And you know what? If you're the one springing for that hotel banquet, wedding party or corporate event, you have the right to insist that any leftovers be donated to charity.

Tom Standage is known for his 2005 book "A History of the World in 6 Glasses," which begins with the invention of beer in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and works up to the United States and its love of Coca-Cola. His latest project, "An Edible History of Humanity," takes a similarly long view.

Some of them are said to be big enough to accommodate railroad cars. They may reach a depth of 60 feet, and are reported to be equipped with cables and electric motors that move food, fuel -- and probably some of the heaviest rockets that Hamas aims at Israel. They also are one of the main reasons fighting is continuing in the Gaza Strip.

Leftovers from San Francisco Bay Area restaurants may soon help power the region. The East Bay Municipal Utility District has created a program, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, to generate electricity from the methane gas produced by food decomposition. Engineers have been testing and refining the process since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave the utility $50,000 in 2006 to study it, and they plan to sell energy to the grid beginning next year.

Doctors recommend against eating more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day. Order a Denny's double cheeseburger and you'll consume 3,880 milligrams in one sitting, almost double the suggested daily allowance of salt. Denny's meals "are dangerously high in sodium," according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by a New Jersey man with the support of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit group active in nutrition and food safety issues.

The food giveaway Saturday afternoon was something of a homecoming for two Los Angeles Clippers, as they returned to their old neighborhood in South Los Angeles to help needy families. Veteran point guard Baron Davis and forward Craig Smith joined forces with teammates, the Salvation Army and Feed the Children, a Christian nonprofit, to pass out food and other goods to about 800 families. Davis, joined by his 88-year-old grandmother, Lela, and sporting a bushy beard, said he felt nostalgic returning to his old turf, just a block away from the court where he had his first basketball practice.

Nearly everyone on Google Inc.'s sprawling campus here knows Thunder Parley, at least by reputation. But it's not his unusual name, outgoing personality or skills as a software engineer that make him stand out. He is the most famous foodie at a company that takes gastronomy nearly as seriously as Web-search algorithms. Parley was raised in a small New England town on Life cereal and SpaghettiOs. He used to think Taco Bell was authentic Mexican fare, and he never ate salmon except out of a can.

Feuding Mexican food manufacturers and supermarket chains agreed Wednesday to split the costs of a program aimed at cutting grocery bills for millions of shoppers. Under the deal, business leaders agreed to support the government's call to help keep inflation in check by lowering prices temporarily on staples such as powdered milk, eggs, rice and chicken. At the government's urging, Mexico's big grocery chains this month slashed prices on dozens of products through the end of March.