"To honor the butter cow's 100th birthday," the Iowa State Fair is selling deep fried butter on a stick this year. It is a butter stick on a stick, dipped in batter, deep fried, and drizzled with more butter.

Do you live in Paris and frequently stumble out of bars at 2AM with a craving for a bite of baguette? If so, you'll be totally psyched to learn that French baker Jean-Louis Hecht recently installed two bread-dispensing vending machines outside his boulangeries. Yes, that's right: For just one euro (and a bit of dignity), you can now enjoy a warm loaf of French bread 24/7. [via Grub Street]

You know when a little kid sees a pregnant lady drinking a glass of OJ, and he's like "No! The baby will drown!" Turns out he's kind of right. The mother-to-be is drowning her baby in flavor, and it will impact the baby's palate forever, a new study finds. NPR reports:

In a motion to dismiss a court case this week, we learned that a woman is suing Planet Sushi on New York's Upper West Side. Why? Because she thinks there was semen in the spicy sauce that came alongside a delivery order of tuna rolls. Per the filing:

Warning: The above video is a graphic squid snuff film. It made me scream out loud.

Food snobs themselves may ultimately provide some trickle-down benefits to the public at large—for example, you can buy "chipotle" flavored Tostitos now. But child foodies provide nothing of benefit to anyone. Just heartache and misery, to all of us. So restaurants: please do not encourage them.

Federal agents are once again busy cleaning up the streets of Venice, California. No, they're not taking out sophisticated cocaine smuggling operations or prostitution rings. They're dismantling an underground syndicate of raw milk pushers and connoisseurs that operate under a front called Rawesome Foods.

Sometimes you just have to trust that your government is willing to fight the good fight when comes to handling international crises. Take France and its production of foie gras — the not very humanely produced bird liver pate. The French take that shit pretty seriously. So when organizers of Germany's Anuga food fair banned French foie gras this year under pressure from animal rights groups, France's melodramatic external trade minister Pierre Lellouche shot back, saying the ban would have "global repercussions."

McDonald's, which for years has played wicked witch to our plump little Hansels and Gretles, has announced that they are making their happy meals a bit healthier. Will this keep our children from having their first aneurisms at 12 years-old?

It's the middle of summer, which means two things: It's hot and you want to eat a bunch of bad food. What better way to indulge your hunger and beat the heat than by looking at a bunch of pictures of our favorite frozen summer treats? We dare you to not go in search of the nearest ice cream truck.

[Image via JPhilipson's Flickr]

Despite threats from the U.S. State Department last summer that Kim Jong-il would no longer be able to buy jet skis and Iranian caviar, he's still shelling out millions of dollars on everything from Rolex watches to Gucci handbags for his top officials and he's even having McDonald's delivered by airplane from China, according to the Korea Herald.

Fish lead! Sperm coats! Bald hair! Tall cancer! Dissolving tobacco! Tortoise leg! Calorie counts! Lung damage! And the fatalistic approach to our own mortality! It's your Thursday Health Watch, where we watch your heath—soberly!

America is little more than prairie riddled with chain stores and fast food restaurants, so when a big national store it's bankrupt, it's a bit like losing a vapid but beloved family member. We just lost Borders. Is Quiznos next?

"Birds should not have to suffer for donuts." So argues vegan blogger Annie Hartnett, who has penned a petition protesting a menu offering at Brooklyn's Do or Dine restaurant: the foie gras doughnut, a high-end dessert running $11 per fatted-goose-liver-filled fritter. (To be clear, Do or Dine don't claim to have invented the foie gras doughnut, which has been popping up on restaurant menus around the country for several years.)

Having already brought you horrifying true stories of fried rats and poop and murder, we return today with our third and final installment of Kitchen Nightmares: Do not read while eating! Really, don't. Seriously.

You can't accuse Big Food companies of failing to care about America's health. If Americans die, who will buy all the Cheetos and Kool Aid, for example? That's why Big Food is willing to make minor cosmetic concessions—for you!

Yesterday, we brought you true stories of restaurant horror, courtesy of you, the grease-stained Gawker readership. Today: ten more tales of skeevy managers, bodily fluids, and stone cold murder.

Yesterday, we asked you, the ketchup-stained Gawker readership, for your horror stories of working in restaurants. My, did you fail to disappoint! Below, ten tales of glory.

If we as a nation were to answer the question, "What are your two biggest problems?" the response would be "We are fat and broke." Well, you can't have it all, America. But you can be broke and skinnier!

On Monday, it seemed that the bad boy of competitive eating, former world champion Takeru Kobayashi had unofficially reclaimed his crown as the world's greatest eater of hot dogs when he bested nemesis Joey Chestnut at an alternate event in Manhattan. But video of Kobayashi's event proves otherwise.