Thursday, May 31, 2007

OF CHEESE ROLLERS AND COWS...MILKING A STORY FOR ALL ITS WORTH

Shades of Monty Python!

At one time cheese was a healthy food that people ate, period. Lately though, it appears that cheese has and is being used as something worthy of watching and now (for a while it appears) comes the sport of cheese-chasing. At least it is in England where both cheese "activities" take place, but let's focus our attention this time on the latter.

Every year at the end of May or Spring bank holiday as it is known in England, a bunch of people from all over Europe for some reason known only to them - perhaps they're cheese-a-holics - roll chunks of cheese down a hill.

Yup...cheese.

The cheese used is a 7-8 lb. double Gloucestser, which moves, slides and/or bounces down a steep hill 200m long and has a 1:1 gradient in places. There is no information provided whether participants bring along a cheese slicer and/or crackers but let's assume not. It's also a great and unique excuse for arriving late to work: a cheese traffic tie-up.

A group of volunteers from St. John Ambulance were standing by to treat boo-boo's most of which were reported to be cuts, bruises and sprains.

Dating back thousands of years the competition consists of a series of downhill races with the winner of each receiving a 7-8 pound circle of cheese, while runners-up get £10 and a £5 prize for third place. Seems like a very cheesy prize if you ask me.

The winner, Aaron Walden, 20, from Gloucester, won for the third time beating a man dressed in a diaper to the bottom of the hill. Nothing about him carrying a bottle of skim milk directly from cows as is the case in the next story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/gloucestershire/6696717.stm


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Think about this the next time you drink your glass of skim milk.

A group of experts at a biotechnology company in New Zealand have discovered that some cows have a gene that allows them to give skim milk. And we "normals" thought that there was a de-fatting process involved! That's as much as we know.

Identified in 2001, the team has been able to breed calves that can produce the skimmed variety and those involved believe that it can have a significant impact on the dairy industry. Furthermore, the original low-fat cow who goes by the name "Marge", produces milk very low in saturated fats.

What's next? Cows that can give low-fat yogurt?

Read the entire story here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6700129.stm


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