Food Science

A calorie is not just a calorie. That’s the lesson University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers said they demonstrated in a new study where mice lost weight while eating more. The study, published recently in the journal Cell Metabolism, showed that mice eating less of a single amino acid called isoleucine lived longer, healthier lives. The mice…

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Dairy Research, tasting cheese is serious business. “Everything is prescribed, down to what temperature we taste at, how many chews we do, how forcefully we chew and a lot of other things that standardize how we taste,” said Brandon Prochaska, a sensory coordinator for the center, during a…

This year marks the 40th anniversary of a landmark ruling that reaffirmed the 1837 treaty rights of a northern Wisconsin tribe to hunt, fish and gather on ceded territory. In 1983, two brothers from the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Fred and Mike Tribble, were arrested for spearfishing outside the boundaries of…

Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands dwell below a Bayfield hilltop orchard where, for a short time this summer, mature apple trees were accompanied by 100 potted poplars. The young poplars glowed bright green as they waited to be purchased. Patrons, scientists and staff at Hauser’s Superior View Farm prophesied the poplars’ future like new…

Eric Schmid grew up in Monticello and landed his first cheese-making job near Browntown. Now, the Wisconsin native is the year’s U.S. Cheese Champion. Schmid worked for Wisconsin cheese producers for nearly a decade before moving to Connecticut to become head cheesemaker at Arethusa Farm, home to about 300 cows. At the recent U.S. Championship…

Only 1 in 10 Wisconsinites were meeting the daily recommendations for incorporating fruits and vegetables into their diets two years ago, according to a federal study released earlier this month. The state director of Wisconsin’s Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, nutrition program said increases in benefits during the coronavirus pandemic have made fruits and…

It was a leap of faith. Dorothy and John Priske put their trust in the universe when in the late 1990s the couple shifted their farming model from growing corn and soybeans to a more environmentally friendly all-grass system. But the change was not without sacrifice. John said when the decision was made there was…

The Farmory, an indoor growing center in Green Bay, provides educational programming about sustainable agriculture and aquaculture. It’s also home to the state’s first bio-secure yellow perch hatchery. The Brown County nonprofit, which completed renovations in February, recently celebrated another big milestone. Its first commercial-scale hatch of yellow perch fingerlings came available for sale last…

Despite the millions of Americans who go on a diet each year, obesity rates are higher than ever thanks, in part, to lifestyle. In Wisconsin, only 50% of adults meet the state’s physical activity recommendation of at least two-and-a-half hours of aerobic activity each week, and only one in six adults eat five or more…

Rapidly growing numbers of cases of chronic wasting disease are appearing on deer and elk farms and hunting ranches in Wisconsin at the same time the state has pulled back on rules and procedures designed to limit the spread of the fatal brain disease among its captive and wild deer. Since 2013, when the state…