Food

'Food, Inc.': The Cause Celebre column in Friday's Calendar section said the documentary "Food, Inc." was made by Participant Productions. The production company is Participant Media.

Keeping up with the Kardashians has never been easier, or more popular. The clan's E! channel series just released its second season on DVD, while Season 4 begins Dec. 13. And more than 3.2-million pairs of eyes were glued to their sets over the weekend for the two-hour special featuring kid sister Khloe Kardashian's glitzy wedding to L.A. Lakers star Lamar Odom. Let's let Khloe fill us in on what the newlyweds are up to as L.A.'s reigning royal couple. -- Downtown digs While we're looking for a house, we're staying downtown because Lamar has a condo there, and it's close to Staples Center.

Just a few months ago, you had to go to trendy restaurants like the Beverly Hills Hotel's to get your fill of ostrich. Now Pavilions supermarket or Fedco will do. Since opening the only store in the nation to specialize in ostrich meat a year ago, a small Torrance company called Ostrich Farms has increased its market for the beefy birds tenfold, up from about 75 upscale restaurants to more than 800 restaurants and stores now.

As far as Suzy Eum is concerned, the only chicken fit to feed her family is the one she can look in the eye before she takes it home and strangles it. At least twice a month, Eum visits the Ming Kee Game Birds shop in Chinatown and picks out a large Rhode Island red. She inspects the squawking bird, then watches with satisfaction as the butcher stuffs the animal into a paper shopping bag for easy carrying.

The Los Angeles Unified School District's cafeterias have been rated the second-worst among the nation's large school systems by a group of physicians who advocate vegetarianism as the healthiest nutrition option. Only Chicago public schools rated lower than Los Angeles in the availability of healthy, low-fat menus in the study of 20 districts by the Washington D.C.-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

One day a literary agent went out to lunch with four of his clients, all of whom were diet doctors. "Be sure not to order anything with meat in it," said one of the doctors, whose book, "Vegged Out: A Diet for the '90s," was No. 1 on the bestseller list. "Vegetarianism is the way to go." "Nonsense," said another doctor, an advocate of red meat whose book "Making Ends Meat: A Diet for the '90s," also was on the bestseller list. "Meat is the best thing you can eat."

How do you separate the good-for-you food from the good-but-not-so-good-for-you food? Remember that a clever substitution can make a big difference in one's fat or caloric intake without causing tears of regret. Mayonnaise has more than 10 times the fat and seven times the calories of mustard; whole milk has 15 times the fat of skim. Bologna? A couple of slices has 16 grams of fat. It makes ham (6 grams) look like health food. Potato chips? Think pretzels. Tortilla chips?

Ten Irish teens will help members of a local charity collect food for the needy at a Woodland Hills supermarket today. Members of Fermanagh Youth Together, a volunteer organization based in Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, are visiting the West Valley for three weeks, two of which will be spent doing charity work. Fermanagh Youth Together was established in 1975 to bring young Catholics and Protestants together to serve and lift the morale of their war-torn communities.

Writer Orville Schell once called Berkeley's Chez Panisse the epicenter of a cultural and gastronomic earthquake. Driven by the force of its founder, Alice Waters, the restaurant set off rumblings that have led to, among other things, gourmet pizza, grilled everything, a taste for hard-crusted rustic bread, the explosion of farmers markets and the appearance of salad-in-a-bag at your favorite supermarket.