Editor's Note: Brian Scott farms with his father and grandfather on 2,300 acres of land in northwest Indiana. They grow corn, soybeans, popcorn and wheat. He blogs about it at The Farmer's Life.

The Dekalb seed company recently shared a poster on Facebook depicting the top corn yields of 1940 and it got the gears turning in my head. For many decades, corn growers at the local, state and national level have competed in yield contests to see who can grow the most corn per acre. Bragging rights are at stake (and sometimes cash and prizes), and the 1940 yield contest winner for my home state of Indiana harvested 94.81 bushels per acre.

What about that clicks in my ag-nerd brain? The fact that in 2012, hopefully the worst drought of my farming career, saw our farm garner an average corn yield of 94.7 bushels per acre. For all intents and purposes, that's equal to the best of the best in my great grandfather’s day.

The poster shows a 102.38 bushel average for contestants over 12 states. The U.S. averaged about 123 bushels per acre following the horrendous drought of 2012. By those numbers, today’s worst is better than yesteryear’s top dogs.
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Got milk? It turns out that low-fat versions may not be the answer to helping kids maintain a healthy weight.

Long a staple of childhood nutrition, milk is a good source of calcium and vitamin D, which can help to build bone, and experts believed that lower-fat versions could help children to avoid the extra calories that came with the fat in whole milk.
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While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday.

Ooooh, that's the good stuff! March 20 is National Ravioli Day.

When I first started covering food holidays I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if I tried to make the food of the day, every day?” That notion lasted all of a minute. Tt was simply too time consuming, so, I chose my battles wisely. Today has got to be one of my favorite days, I’m a ravioli addict.

Ravioli is any filled pasta shape that’s sealed. Different sizes and sealing techniques have different names. Whether it says agnolotti, tortellini (the smaller version of a tortelloni) or sachetti on a menu, they’re all the same thing – a type of ravioli.
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We are utterly thrilled when readers want to hang out and talk – whether it's amongst themselves or in response to pieces we've posted. We want Eatocracy to be a cozy, spirited online home for those who find their way here.
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