Figures released by Germany's Federal Statistics Office show sales of beer in Germany last year remained about the same as they were in 2010, although the Germans themselves are buying less.

On Monday, the statistics office said German brewers produced around 98.2 million hectoliters of beer, about 0.1 percent less than the amount produced in 2010. Of the total amount of beer produced, about 15.5 million hectoliters were exported to the U.S and elsewhere - a gain of about 4 percent.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich showed that levels of a hormone which controls appetite increase when a person sees images of food.

They have suggested that people trying to lose weight should avoid seeing pictures of delicious food as far as they can.

The researchers led by Axel Steiger took eight healthy young men for the study, and measured the levels of ghrelin in their blood. The hormone not only controls appetite but also plays a role in digestion.

Astl operates on a razor-thin budget, stretching pennies instead of dollars, in order to feed the growing throng of hungry people who come for a free noontime meal Monday through Friday.

"He always thinks he's going to run out, which he never does," confides Sister Maureen who stopped in to volunteer 10 years ago and never left. "I tell him not to worry. I happen to know another man who multiplied. He really had a way with loaves and fishes, and so does Alfred."

The name Springerle comes from an old German dialect and means "little knight" or "jumping horse."

Historians trace these cookies back to the Julfest, a midwinter celebration of pagan Germanic tribes. Julfest ceremonies included the sacrificing of animals to the gods, in hope that such offerings would bring a mild winter and an early spring.

Poor people who could not afford to kill any of their animals gave
token sacrifices in the form of animal-shaped breads and cookies.

Highest honors went to La Vie  in the city of Osnabrück, located in north-western Germany, which earned the coveted three-star rating. Head chef Thomas Bühner incorporates international approaches and flavors into bright menus that start at 148 euros ($203) for dinner and 49 euros for a three-course lunch.

La Vie is among nine German restaurants to hold the guide's highest award, putting Germany in second place behind long-time leader France for top European eateries.

I will always remember the first Hungarian Goulash I had in the castle of the small village of Hirschhorn. It was simply deeelicious! The sauce was exquisite and the meat was so tender that a fork was all I needed to cut it!

Its brand of "caveman cooking" – it goes without saying – is also strictly organic.

Sauvage, which describes itself as a Bio restaurant offering "Paleolithic cuisine", recently opened it doors in a former brothel in Berlin's run down but increasingly fashionable Neukölln district, which also happens to be a Green party stronghold.

Neue Cuisine is the Austrian version of nouvelle cuisine that emphasizes light food for weight-consious diners. Gutenbrunner introduced it years ago at his Wallse restaurant in New York's Greenwich Village. He named it after the Austrian village where he grew up. 

Mrs. Obama was asked about a fat tax by NBC's Al Roker at a "Let's Move" jumping jack event at the White House on Tuesday.

Roker: "We just had a story about in Denmark they're planning on instituting, like, a, quote, "fat tax," foods that are either high in sugar or high in fat. Do you think something like that is needed here?"

German newspaper Die Welt reports that, in a study by the German Institute for Service Quality based out of Hamburg, Ikea comes ahead of McDonald's in the fast food realm.

That's right: a European furniture store is beating American chains in the traditionally American realm of quick bites.

Inspectors apparently visited fast food joints ten times between July and September 2011, and in the resulting ranking of points (one to 100), Mövenpick Marché is at the top, with 78.7 points.

The Association of Turkish
Doner Producers in Europe (ATDiD) honored Nurman at
a recent doner trade fair in Berlin. Nurman came as what was called a guest worker to Germany where he
quickly realized there was a market for fast food - the revolutionary
idea of 1972.

Meanwhile, the report also found that both total fruit and vegetable intake - especially apples and dark yellow vegetables - lowers risk of distal colon cancer, however an increased risk for rectal cancer was found with increasing consumption of fruit juice.

Previous studies on CRC have often failed to distinguish between the different sites of origin of cancers in the large bowel - proximal colon, distal colon and rectal.

English fry-ups have become increasingly common in Berlin (Picture: Neeklakshi Vidyalankara). Leading the way is Berlin’s East London restaurant, which offers ‘an authentic taste of Cool Britannia’ in the trendy Kreuzberg borough.

Owner Nadine Sauerzapfel, 31, fell in love with British food while backpacking in Australia and New Zealand.

Grapes were planted in Austria in 500 B.C. by Celtic invaders, destroyed in A.D. 300 by barbarian hordes who didn’t appreciate a good glass of wine and restored in 700 by Charlemagne, who did.

Then, in 1985, production dropped by 80 percent after a scandal in which a few winemakers illegally sweetened their wares with an illegal additive.

The Berghoff will unveil a 45 foot brat on Thursday, September 15, between 3-5 pm at their 26th Annual Oktoberfest celebration. It will be cooked on Federal Plaza located at the corner of Adams and Dearborn.

Senator John Cullerton will take the first bite of this historic record breaking brat.

Gutenbrunner has been a star in the culinary world of New York City ever since arriving in 1988. Today, he is serving spectacular German and Austrian dishes in six very distinct places, including Wallsé in Greenwich Village, Café Sabarsky on East 85th Street, and Blaue Gans, a bistro in Tribeca.

The Anuga trade show, which each October attracts thousands of the world’s top food experts to the Rhineland city, has pointed to German ban on producing foie gras to justify the move, daily news webseite The Local reports.

Making it requires the force-feeding of ducks or geese to fatten their livers, which animal rights campaigners say is unnecessarily cruel, the Berlin-based online service says.

Mosimann is here in the village of Kandersteg, deep in the Swiss countryside, on a mission ahead of the London Olympics. Fresh from being catapulted into the global spotlight by catering for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, Mosimann’s has now been charged with feeding the House of Switzerland pavilion in London in 2012.

With canton Bern an official partner of the pavilion, Philipp Mosimann has come to the region to get ideas for a range of Bernese-style “comfort food”.

More than 1200 beers in more than 50 different categories were submitted.Deschutes Brewery of Bend, Oregon was named Grand National Champion by winning three gold and five silver medals.

They competed big names like Anheuser-Bush, Sam Adams, New Belgium, and many other national and international breweries.  

What have become popular and very common are take-aways on the American pattern, delivering pizzas, Chinese and Mexican food to your home.In the country you are more likely to come across "eine Gaststätte", "ein Gasthaus" or "eine Gaststube", a combination of pub, restaurant and café which invariably offers local delicacies.

Thomas Knack has always enjoyed food other Germans find a bit weird.The 36-year-old Berliner likes American beef jerky and sweet oat bars. 

But he has a special affinity for bugs – beetles, scorpions, grubs and other strange creatures he imports from Thailand and sells through his website and a friend’s wine store in the German capital.

“I’ll admit, they don’t all necessarily taste very good,” he told the online Berlin-based newspaper The Local recently. “But they’re better if you mix them with rice or potatoes.”

In a city where good German and Austrian fare is hard to find, this place has filled the gap early on. Since its arrival on the Lower east Side's culinary scene, a number of other Austrian restraurants have sprung up in the area, like Edi & The Wulf on Avenue C and Blaue Gans near City Hall.

One of the great joys of living in Seattle is living among educated eaters. I've shared tables with opinionated eaters in New York, ravenous eaters in Texas, and industrious eaters in North Carolina who picked, canned, and cooked their own creasy beans.

When I lived in Mississippi, I met my share of gleeful eaters, who gorged themselves on catfish and took hush puppies to bed. But I never encountered so many knowledgeable eaters until I arrived in the Pacific Northwest.

Research scientists for the Department of Preventative and Rehabilitative Sports Medicine of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen have gathered documented proof that the consumption of non-alcoholic wheat beer is actually good for amateur athletes.

The research was conducted as part of a study of one of the world's largest marathons, "Be-MaGIC" (beer, marathons, genetics, inflammation and the cardiovascular system), the US publication Science Daily reported, citiing German news reports.

Of the 35 recognized grape varietals that go into Austrian wine production, most remain obscure with hard-to-pronounce names such as Welschriesling, Scheurebe and Zwiegelt.

Not exactly words your average wine hound is used to seeing on the supermarket shelves, but there just may be, finally, one wine ready to crack into the broader consciousness: Grüner Veltliner.

So many trucks - think fast-food vans with a gourmet twist - have now sprung up that one is usually within walking distance of the city's coolest spots, West Hollywood’s tourism man Andy Keown tells us.

The current arrangement means Ford and Mazda go 50/50 in the partnership.Mazda may be considering selling its entire stake to Ford, according to the Japanese press.

From the closedown of the arrangement, Mazda cars sold in the US will be shipped from Japan and Mexico.The change should take place around 2013.

The idea first came to baker Johannes Ruf after his sister living in the United States began requesting baked goods from their home village of St. Peter in southwest Germany.

His family bakery has sold more than 10,000 of the canned torte cakes, which stay fresh for two years, since it started selling them in November.

"Many colleagues said it wouldn't work and many said we wouldn't sell any," Ruf said of the cakes, which are baked in a tin that is then sealed and shipped.

In fact, more white asparagus is eaten in Germany than anywhere else in the world, except Switzerland. "It's a phenomenon; it's truly a cult product," said Hans Lehar, the head of the Fruit and Vegetables Cooperative (OGA) in Bruchsal, where a daily asparagus auction takes place.

Specializing in Nordic cuisine, Noma beat Spanish restaurants El Celler de Can Roca and Mugaritz, which ranked second and third respectively.

Famous British restaurant The Fat Duck, fell two places to settle for fifth, while The Amber restaurant from China was a new entrant at number 37.