Dairy Products

IHS plans $50 million offeringIntegrated Health Systems Inc. said yesterday that it filed a plan with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell $50 million in convertible subordinated debentures. The proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, including acquiring new geriatric facilities and putting the medical specialty units into existing ones, according to Marc B. Levin, vice president for investor relations.The bulk of the new offering -- $35.4 million -- will be used to repay outstanding long-term debt, including $25 million borrowed from a new $50 million revolving line of credit with Citibank.

The four-year struggle by Maryland farmers to become part of a regional dairy compact is over, but state dairymen are not complaining. The Senate included an alternative to dairy compacts in the version of the new national farm bill it passed Wednesday. The proposal would make $500 million in subsidies available to dairy farmers in 12 Northern states, including Maryland, when the farm price of Class 1 (drinking) milk drops below $16.94 per hundredweight. "It looks good, it has my hopes up," said Carroll County dairy farmer Myron Wilhide.

Horizon Organic Dairy Inc., the Boulder, Colo. producer of organic dairy products, announced yesterday that it wants to sell its 465-acre dairy farm near Kennedyville that it opened four years ago. Pika Fisher, a spokeswoman for Horizon, said the sale of the Kent County farm is part of a corporate decision to get out of the business of milking cows and rely on outside suppliers for its milk. The company is also considering the sale of a much larger dairy farm in Hall, Idaho, along with 600 acres near California's Sacramento Valley, where it planned to open a dairy farm.

Regarding the June 14, letter commenting on New York's proposed ban on sodas ("New York Mayor Bloomberg's ban on sodas should be backed") my interest soon changed to destain when the author listed "public subsidies" a culprit to the obesity epidemic, jumping from sugary drinks to tobacco, meat and dairy and corn. More than 90 percent of agriculture subsidies go to five crops - wheat corn, soybeans, rice and cotton. Another source says the U.S. government heavily subsidizes grains, oilseeds, cotton, sugar and dairy products.

Suicide bomb detonates during U.S. raid in Iraq BAGHDAD: Eleven Iraqis, several women and children, were killed yesterday when a suicide bomber set off explosives during a raid by U.S. forces on a house in Mosul, the U.S. military said. A military statement said the bomb detonated as U.S. forces exchanged gunfire with suspected insurgents and stormed a building in search of a wanted man. The military said it was unclear whether those who died, all believed to have been from one family, were killed by the explosion or by gunfire.

New York CityMayor Bloomberg's decision to ban super-sized sugary sodas has resurrected the age-old debate over the role of the state in protecting the public health. In recent years, this debate involved bicycle helmets, car seat belts, tobacco, trans fats, saturated fats in meat and dairy products and sugar (or more aptly, high-fructose corn syrup). Public subsidies for tobacco, meat and dairy and corn production added fuel to the debate. I would argue that society has a right to regulate activities that impose a heavy burden on the public treasury.

The soup had me and my fellow diners swooning and spooning. There were pieces of asparagus and mushroom floating in a golden liquid. The flavor was smooth yet complex. It was, I learned later, the flavor of good old-fashioned buttermilk.The buttermilk soup was the first course in a seven-course dinner held at Hampton's restaurant in Baltimore's Harbor Court Hotel. Executive Chef Holly Forbes had cooked up the feast to honor Jonathan White, the man who made the buttermilk, and the clabbered cream, and the cultured sweet butter, and all the other high-flavor, high-fat dairy products that many big dairies shy away from.

I RAN INTO my cousin, Katie O'Hare, the granddaughter of my great-Aunt Cora, at the corner of 32nd and Barclay streets bright and early one Saturday not long ago. She was buying her half-gallon of South Mountain Creamery milk imported to Baltimore from Middletown in Frederick County. We then launched into a discussion of our family's mania for cream-rich dairy products - and the lengths we would go to satisfy our tastes for butterfat. Katie recalled the early morning hours with her father, my cousin Billy-O, drinking their cream and munching on a fresh-baked cruller.

About 30 county residents told Navy and Anne Arundel officials last night that the U.S. Naval Academy Dairy Farm in Gambrills should be preserved intact.About 150 residents attended an informational meeting at Arundel Senior High School on the Navy's plans for the site and commented on them.The 862-acre farm, founded in 1911, supplies dairy products for midshipmen.The Navy is studying whether the farm is the best source for dairy products, and whether the farm might generate more profit to fund midshipmen's extracurricular activities if it were put to some other use, said Capt.

You know it like the Pledge of Allegiance: "Milk helps build strong teeth and bones." But does it really? Or, as nutrition researchers from Harvard and Cornell universities are radically suggesting: Have we all been duped by the dairy industry's slick, celebrity-driven "Got milk?" advertising campaign? Milk, the sacred cow of the American diet, is under attack and not just by animal-rights activists. Though federal dietary guidelines and most mainstream nutrition experts recommend that people age 9 and older drink three glasses of milk a day, researchers are examining the role of dairy in everything from rising osteoporosis rates, Type 1 diabetes and heart disease to breast, prostate and ovarian cancer.