College students of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s rocked the nation with anti-authoritarian protests against the Vietnam war, nuclear war, racism, sexism, Watergate, and plenty of other things.

Today, college students in Chicago are getting upset about … hummus. Sabra hummus, to be precise.

According to the DePaul University group Students for Justice in Palestine, Sabra’s majority owners, the Strauss Group, “sends financial support to two Israeli military units accused of human rights abuses,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported. PepsiCo, by the way, owns the other 49%.

So the group’s members went to the student government offices and got them to agree to put the Sabra issue on a ballot. The vote was taken and 1,127 were in favor of getting rid of Sabra hummus in the cafeteria while 332 wanted to keep the chickpea dip around.Continue reading...

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Beyond providing local news outlets with a chance to smear on the puns for some dippy headlines, a debate over hummus brands at a Midwest university is more than a few activists full of beans.

At DePaul University, one of America's largest Catholic schools, students are set to hold a vote on whether or not the school's dining halls should remove Sabra brand hummus. Opponents of Sabra insist that the brand's parent company, Strauss Group, funds groups guilty of human rights violations.Continue reading...

Sabra Dipping Company specializes in making the exotic mainstream in the U.S. with its line of Mediterranean hummus and dips. But when it sent the mainstream – in the person of Philadelphia firefighter Ray Clothier – to the exotic environment of Turkey, the company found it to be a story compelling enough to warrant its own web series which launched this week on the brand’s website, YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Clothier, who  had never before traveled outside of the U.S., was the winner of Sabra’s “Taste Intervention” campaign, in which participants explained how they needed to get out of their food ruts and try something more adventurous. Clothier said he wanted to be able to cook better meals for his fellow firefighters at Fire Station 56.Continue reading...

The Guardian calls today's Washington hearing with BP executives a "root canal" (one example) as gulf oil leak estimates increase by 50% and President Obama gears up for tonight's TV address on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Oil industry executives from Shell and ExxonMobil also testified in Washington today. Exxon, meanwhile, launched a blog to share its perspective on the oil spill. Tomorrow, BP CEO Tony Hayward will face a special Senate hearing and the TV cameras.

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