Consumer News

Agriculture, Business, California, Consumer News, Coronavirus, Valley Center June 9, 2020

COVID-19: SD County Farm Bureau acts

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shelter-in-place protocols and safety concerns disrupted rural communities and markets for agricultural products, according to California Farm Bureau’s AgAlert. . Around California, county Farm Bureaus responded with innovative solutions intended to help their members ensure safety of themselves, their families and their employees, and to promote and sell crops and commodities in new and rapidly changing conditions. Here are three…

Animals and pets, Consumer News, Coronavirus, Health April 29, 2020

Pandemics, pork chops and chicken nuggets

I’ve wasted too much time lately combing the news for an answer to a crucial question about pandemics like Covid-19: Are they inevitable? Newscasters and the scientists, doctors and politicians they interview rarely venture beyond daily counts of the stricken to explain why we have pandemics. I suspect it’s because the answer is harder to stomach than the horror of the pandemic itself. Animals humans…

Community, Consumer News, Coronavirus, Escondido, Health April 26, 2020

California seniors get AARP COVID-19 advice

More than 1 million older Californians are receiving postcards in the mail chock full of information about COVID-19. About 1.2 million California seniors are receiving this postcard to help them during the pandemic.(AARP) AARP has teamed up with the California Department of Aging and Gov. Gavin Newsom to offer tips on how to get basics, like food and medicine, delivered if needed. Patricia Perez, state…

Business, California, Consumer News, Coronavirus, Health April 24, 2020

Health insurers prosper as COVID-19 deflates

As doctors and consumers are forced to put most nonemergency procedures on hold, many health insurers foresee strong profits. So why is the industry looking to Congress for help? Insurers say that while that falloff in claims for non-COVID care is offsetting for now many insurers’ costs associated with the pandemic, the future is far more fraught. Costs could remain modest or quickly outstrip savings….

Business, Consumer News, Coronavirus, Health April 23, 2020

Aggressive medical debt collection continues

Darcel Richardson knows she’s fortunate in one sense: She still has her job as a vocational counselor in Baltimore. But despite that, she won’t be able to make her rent payment this month because she’s not getting her full salary for a while. More than $400 per biweekly paycheck — about a quarter of her after-tax income — has been siphoned off by Johns Hopkins…

Agriculture, California, Consumer News, Coronavirus, Food, Valley Center April 13, 2020

San Diego ag all the rage in coronavirus age

Loss of business due to mass closures of restaurants, schools and corporate cafeterias in response to COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders has small farms looking to collaborate as they try to adapt to the crisis by finding new markets and changing sales strategies, according to Ching Lee, an assistant editor of Ag Alert, published by the California Farm Bureau. During a webinar last week aimed at helping…

Agriculture, California, Consumer News, Coronavirus March 24, 2020

Some farmers markets allowed to re-open

Now that the state of California has defined certified farmers markets as an essential service for food supplies, a number of markets that had been shut a week earlier by local governments and property owners are back up and running. Market operators continue efforts to reopen other markets. “The state Office of Emergency Services has made it clear: People involved in agriculture, food production, distribution…

Business, Consumer News, Escondido, Transportation, Travel March 23, 2020

Gas prices drop, but you ain’t going nowhere

Looking for some good news? Due to coronavirus, along with the nasty crude oil spat between OPEC and Russia, gasoline prices have plummeted throughout Escondido, San Diego County and America. Unfortunately, this so-called good news is fairly off-putting, since pretty much all the places to go are closed. Escondido gas prices Monday dropped to their lowest levels since January 2016 when prices dipped to the…

Agriculture, Consumer News, Coronavirus, Escondido, Food March 18, 2020

Coronavirus fears close local farmers markets

Due to fears of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, some local governments and property owners in California have temporarily ceased farmers market operations, while other markets remain open after bolstering safety measures to prevent spread of the virus. Abruptly closing markets, affected organizers say, hurts farmers and market customers, especially when access to fresh fruits and vegetables is a must to boost…

Blogs, Columns/Blogs, Consumer News, Health, Opinion, The World January 30, 2020

Considering microplastics in food, water & air

This is a followup to an article of mine published on 12/13/18, and was inspired by a recent measurement of the likely ingestion of microplastics by typical Americans through diet and inhalation.  The findings are of real concern, given the risky chemicals associated with plastics and new data showing that, once microplastics get into our tissues, they can translocate to other organs and are even showing…