Eatocracy spends a lot of time talking with farmers, and giving them a platform in our ongoing Farmers with Issues series. When Dodge aired a commercial during last night's Super Bowl using radio legend Paul Harvey's “So God Made a Farmer” as a kickoff for their Year of the Farmer campaign to raise money for the Future Famers of America, the increasingly vocal population of farmers and agriculture advocates spreading their message with social media had a lot to say.

We reached out to a few of our favorite farmers and rounded up some of their reactions.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

It’s Super Bowl time, and chicken wing statistics from the The National Chicken Council are flying around fast and furious.

• America will eat 1.23 billion chicken wings on Sunday, February 3.

• If you’re determined to lay 1.23 billion chicken wings end-to-end, you’ll find that they stretch from the Niners' Candlestick Park in San Francisco to Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium 27 times.

• In a poll, more wings fans preferred ranch dressing on the side than blue cheese. Ranch gets 57 percent of the vote; blue cheese is at a shockingly low 35 percent.

But, it’s time to stop talking about chicken wings and start eating. Here are six places to find some excellent ones.
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Ray Isle (@islewine on Twitter) is Food & Wine's executive wine editor. We trust his every cork pop and decant – and the man can sniff out a bargain to boot. Take it away, Ray.

I know, I know, everyone will be drinking beer for the Super Bowl. There will be beer in cans and beer in bottles, beer in kegs and beer in buckets. Rivers of beer will flow, and rafting along them will be cheery platoons of 49ers and Ravens fans.

But what about the few brave folks out there who, when confronted by that fifth plate of Buffalo chicken wings, lift their wineglass and down the contents, feeling nothing but courage and a sense that sidestepping the expected is the reason they’re alive?

Well, for the few and the proud - i.e., the wine-drinking football fans of the world - here are a few excellent Super Bowl wine options, tied to some of the most popular Super Bowl snacks.
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No matter if they're honey-dipped, sauce-slathered, mild or volcanic, chicken wings will cost more for Super Bowl party hosts and pub patrons across America this year.

That's mainly because the most severe and extensive drought in 25 years blazed a path of destruction through the Midwest during the sizzling summer of 2012. It damaged and destroyed major portions of fields, caused crop prices to rise and created a domino effect on overall food prices.

“The prices of corn and soybeans went way up. That caused many of the [chicken growers] to cut back on production,” said David Harvey, an agricultural economist and specialist in poultry at the United States Department of Agriculture.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

Finally, we’re down to two teams for Super Bowl XLVII, to be held February 3 in New Orleans. It’s the Baltimore Ravens up against the San Francisco 49ers. It’s the Harbaugh Bowl: Ravens coach John Harbaugh versus his brother, 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh.
 
Do you know what I want to know about Harbaugh v Harbaugh? Nothing. I’ve already heard enough. I also have more info than I can handle on Ravens superstar linebacker Ray Lewis playing his last NFL game.
 
I do have some questions about both Super Bowl-bound teams, though. Namely, what are they eating? Who has the most outrageous diet? I did a little research so I could pick my Super Bowl diet winner.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

Super Bowl Sunday is over and Post-Super Bowl Monday might just be the biggest call-in-sick day of the year; an estimated 1.4 million Americans will not make it to work the day after Super Bowl XLVI. In his book, "The Billion Dollar Game," Allen St. John reports on a grassroots group that wants Super Bowl Sunday to be a national holiday; the following Monday would then be the formal day of observance.

Whether or not you’re part of that statistic, you should figure out what to do if your beer or whiskey consumption starts getting rounded out to the nearest dozen. Here in New York (go Giants!), my trainer Victor speaks from experience when he recommends Gatorade and two Advil before you go to bed, or the second you manage to open your eyes. He also advises eating the tallest meat and cheese sandwich before bed, and/or the greasiest egg-and-bacon combo in the a.m. Other parts of the country have hangover cures, too.
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Some folks dig the commercials, Puppy bowl, or (gasp!) the actual game. We're in it for the snacks and suds.

Get your gridiron grub on with a little help from the experts:

Michael Symon's fumble-free burger strategy

Sanjay Gupta on the hazards of double dipping

Ray Isle picks the perfect beer for every snack

The Indianapolis Recorder shares their favorite restaurants in town

Jennifer Chandler scores serious points with Buffalo sliders and potato chip chicken

Patrick Connolly gets his nachos on - five winning ways

Eatocracy explores the delicious world of dip

Ray Isle is back with the best game day beers

Kate Krader seeks out the country's best chicken wings

This is it. We've entered the final countdown. You've practiced all year for the knock-down, drag-out, take-no-prisoners game on Sunday. Every scoop, every chug, every bite has led you to this moment - your moment - to bask in the glory of pigskin (both on your plate and on television).

Still got a case of the pregame jitters? Iron Chef Michael Symon has some last-minute strategy to offer for the guacamole gridiron. The goal: sending you into your Super Bowl soiree with your game face on, and seeing you emerge victorious as MVPP (that's Most Valuable Party Planner to you).

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"After double-dipping just a few times, researchers found 50 to 100 times more bacteria in the dip - and that was just from one mouth," says Sanjay Gupta.

We're gonna be waaaaaayyyyy over here with our own no-sharesies bowl of guacamole, thank you very much.

Poll: How you dippin'? | Recipes Dip, dip, hooray! | All Super Bowl food stories

Tune in to SANJAY GUPTA | MD every Saturday and Sunday at 7:30am ET on CNN.

Ray Isle (@islewine on Twitter) is Food & Wine's executive wine editor. We trust his every cork pop and decant – and the man can sniff out a bargain to boot. Take it away, Ray.

Not to beat a dead horse, or a major national sporting event, but a few more Super Bowl beer recommendations seem necessary in order to avoid tragedy this weekend. I mean, what if, for instance, you went to the store Saturday night and they were out of your favorite brand? Rather than going berserk and hurling yourself into the chip display, perhaps one of the following might be an option.

And in order to make life even easier, these suggestions - primarily American craft beers and imports, i.e. breweries that aren’t apt to spend $3 million on a 30-second ad during the game - are matched up to some of the most popular Super Bowl snacks.

There actually is some sense to this, though I’m fully aware that anyone whose team is winning is going to be too maniacally psyched to care what they’re eating, and anyone whose team is losing, well, in that case it’s all going to taste like dust and ashes anyway.
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