What better way to show your love than a beautiful ring, with a shiny meat patty, draped in a golden layer of cheese between a stunning pair of buns?

For $12.99 and free shipping, this ring on Etsy can help you prepare for that special proposal, or help celebrate that special anniversary.

After all, it’ll remind you of that night you and your loved one shared a Double-Double, or Big Mac for the first time and realized that there was a spark between the two of you.

In all seriousness though, it is a pretty cute gift and there are some other food related charms and rings that could make a nice gift, like a little snow cone, or S’more ring.

Collect the whole picnic and have enough rings to give for the next 10 years.

Not sure if I need this disclaimer, but don’t really propose with this ring unless you want to get smacked.

On second thought, propose with this ring, and propose at a ball game on the big screen. Have it your way!

Roasted brown nosers!

Mars Inc. has announced that none of its chocolate products will exceed 250 calories by the end of 2013, in an attempt to become more health conscious.

Snickers, M&M’s, Twix, Mars and Dove chocolate products are all under Mars, but Twix and M&M’s will not be affected as they are already under 250 calories.

The announced change also means the demise of the popular “King Size” chocolates which currently are 540 calories. The “King Size” bars will be replaced with a bag of two-to-four “Fun Size” portions. The thinking behind the “Fun Size” change is that it will make the chocolate bars easier to share, or save for later.

Mars said it is trying to sell its products more responsibly and plans to also reduce the sodium in all of its products by 2015.

This is not Mars’ first attempt at supporting healthier choices as in 2007 it announced that it would not advertise its products toward children under the age of 12. It doesn’t stop with advertising, as when downloading wallpapers or screensavers from its site, one is required to enter their birth date.

When it comes to health, Mars states on its site, “We realize that the relationships between diet, nutrition, personal health and public health are complex, that is why we are investing in a variety of partnerships… to boost understanding of these relationships and ensure Mars plays a positive role.”

Mars Inc. is behind several popular food products including Uncle Ben’s rice, Wrigley’s gum and Dove ice cream bars. It is also the maker of Pedigree and Whiskas brand pet food.

The little trog who sat in the high seat in his Batman cape and pirate hook hand and ate them for lunch and dinner is halfway through sixth grade now. He orders the chicken tenders off the adult menu and cleans his plate.

He's already as tall as I am. Which isn't saying much since I'm only 5 feet 2, but he's not even 12 yet. He already outweighs me. And he's starting to smell like a guy.

He is always hungry. If he liked PB&J's anymore at all, he would eat four of them in a sitting. This is the year I'll become a four-gallons-of-milk-a-week household. I can feel it. He's about to reach for family heights and girth -- the menfolk on my side look down on 6 feet -- and when seventh grader starts next year, I'm certain he'll be looking down at me.

The Drama Teen is now in high school. She looks me in the eye, rolls hers, and gets the hummus and crackers out of the fridge and spirits them up to her room. I have a photo of her, age two, with hummus, the same Trader Joe's brand, smeared all over her face and shirt.

My plan to make her moderate on sweets has backfired. I always allowed them after she ate her meal. They were never banned. I was not going to be one of those "no sugar" households that produce sugar-obsessed teens and young adults who hoard candy. But she's obsessed anyway. She'll find two or three dollars and run down to the store to bring back a giant box of Junior Mints or three boxes of red vines.

Of course I'm horrified. But didn't I do the same? Two dollars in my day bought four Archie comic books or two comics and four candy bars... I won't even eat a candy bar now.

So I think she'll grow out of it. The Drama Teen is also always hungry. And so are all of her friends. They show up at every hour and hang out and of course I try to feed them. Best way ever of working through your leftovers and any juice or milk in the 'fridge. I'm worried I'm not feeding them enough.

I used to worry they wouldn't eat enough. I never engaged in subterfuge when it came to feeding them when they hit the peak of their toddler pickiness. My mom told me to just find two or three things they liked and feed them that and don't worry, they won't starve.

And, as usual, she was right. They would eat carrots and edamame beans and corn on the cob. They'd always eat pasta and string cheese, scrambled eggs and any fruit put in front of them.

Of course they wouldn't eat a salad nicoise, but what self-respecting four-year-old would? Just give them the hard-boiled egg, sliced up in a little red dish, and another dish, blue, with olives, and let them have at it.

Of course I'd always use the favored cup. Little kids are like that. And the magic spoon. And the small plastic dishes with kitty cats or monsters on them.

I've still go the magic spoon, you know. But nobody requires it anymore. Same with all those little colored cups and dishes. The kids eat off of the regular crockery now. The girl will eat my tortilla Espanola or vegetable cous-cous and thank me for it. The boy can make his own scrambled eggs. He wants sea salt and sliced tomato on his bagel. Both can use chopsticks like Samurai.

I can take all those little plastic bowls and cups from Ikea out of my cupboards, I guess.

It's a whole new parenting enchilada, this 'tween/teen thing.

Researchers from Cornell University and University of Hawaii-Manoa are looking for six volunteers to live in a simulated Mars base located in Hawaii's lava fields. There, the volunteers will eat a range of astronaut food, in an effort to assist NASA with menu planning for an upcoming Mars mission (about six months travel each way, plus two years on the planet).

The researchers hope to determine "the lowest-cost and easiest ways to give astronauts well-rounded meals without inducing menu fatigue." In other words, these half dozen volunteers will be the guinea pigs to figure out what food is worth giving real astronauts.

It's not just all about the food though. The volunteers will really have to simulate living in space and will wear space suits anytime they venture outdoors.

If going to space without actually going to space sounds like something you'd be interested in, applications are due February 29 and can be found here.

We have already seen major shifts in other parts of the world, most notably the UK, where every major retailer and tuna brand has now pledged to transition to less destructive fishing methods. The methods receiving the most support are pole-and-line, where fishermen actually use individual poles and hooks to catch tuna and FAD-free purse seining, where large nets are drawn around free-swimming schools of tuna. The benefits of both of these capture methods are that they are far less destructive to the oceans ecosystems themselves.

A FAD (fish aggregating device) is a floating object that serves to attract nearby marine life. When a net is set around a FAD, it ensnares not just its target tuna, but many other types of animals as well. In fact, it is estimated that ten to fifteen times as many sharks, rays, juvenile fish, and other animals are killed when these vessels use FADs as compared to when they do not.

The transition to a better way of fishing is thankfully not limited to just the UK market. US retail titan Safeway announced on February 10, 2012, that it was transitioning to 100% FAD-free tuna for its entire own-brand "Safeway Select" line of light tuna. Safeway sells about 4.5 million cans of this type of tuna every year -- if you were to take these cans and stack them one-by-one on top one of another, you would build a tower of tuna about ninety miles high.

Greenpeace, where I serve as a Board Chair, has been running a campaign targeting Chicken of the Sea, a tuna company that is heavily dependent on FAD use, for several months now. While Chicken of the Sea continues to deny the problem, it is becoming more difficult for the company and others like it to hide from the reality of what is happening to our oceans.

Safeway is the first major US supermarket to make this change, but will almost certainly not be the last. Already rumblings from within the retail sector indicate that others may soon follow, either towards FAD-free product or to pole-and-line. Either way, it is a change that has come not a minute too soon -- there is no denying that our oceans are in grave peril, and the conventional tuna industry now must make a choice: fish more sustainably, or lose market share to those who do.

Today, the USDA extended the public comment period on this issue until the end of April 2012, largely due to pressure from the Center for Food Safety (CFS), the nation's leading organization in the fight to regulate GE crops. If approved, CFS has vowed to challenge USDA's decision in court, as this novel GE crop provides no public benefit and will only cause serious harm to human health, the environment, and threaten American farms.

Dow's "Agent Orange" corn will trigger a large increase in 2,4-D use--and our exposure to this toxic herbicide--yet USDA has not assessed how much, nor analyzed the serious harm to human health, the environment, or neighboring farms. This GE corn will foster rapid evolution of resistant weeds that require more toxic pesticides to kill, followed by more resistance and more pesticides--a chemical arms race in which the only winners are pesticide (aka biotechnology) firms.

The advent of Dow's 2,4-D resistant corn is a clear indication that first-generation GE, herbicide-resistant crops--Monsanto's Roundup Ready (RR) varieties--are rapidly failing. RR crops, which comprise 84 percent of world biotech plantings, have triggered massive use of glyphosate (Roundup's active ingredient) and an epidemic of glyphosate-resistant weeds. These resistant "superweeds" are regarded as one of the major challenges facing American agriculture.

2,4-D corn is only the first of many new herbicide-resistance crops being developed by the biotechnology industry to usher in a new era of increased chemical use that represents a very significant opportunity for Dow, Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer, and Syngenta. These "biotechnology" companies are actually pesticide firms that have acquired a large portion of the world's seed supply, and they use biotechnology to create synergies between their seed and pesticide divisions. In short, biotechnology = pesticide + seeds. One indication of this is that nearly two-thirds of GE crops pending approval by our USDA (13 of 20) are herbicide-resistant.

Dow now falsely suggests that 2,4-D crops (2,4-D soybeans and cotton are also under development) are the solution to weed resistance. Far from solving the problem, however, a peer-reviewed study recently published in the prestigious journal Bioscience, entitled "Navigating a Critical Juncture for Sustainable Weed Management," suggests that these new GE crops will foster a huge increase in 2,4-D use, and thereby pour oil on the fire, triggering an outbreak of still more intractable weeds resistant to both glyphosate and 2,4-D. This study validates similar findings made by CFS in a 2008 report and in Congressional testimony on resistant weeds in 2010.

2,4-D drift and runoff also pose serious risk for environmental harm. Because it is such a potent plant-killer, 2,4-D can harm animals by killing the plants they depend on for habitat and food. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Marine Fisheries Service have found that 2,4-D is likely having adverse impacts on several endangered species, even now. 2,4-D is currently used to control weeds primarily in cereal grains, golf courses and lawns. Its use in corn has been extremely limited. USDA's approval of 2,4-D resistant GE corn will sharply increase the overall use of this toxic herbicide, worsening these impacts and likely placing many other species at risk.

American farmers are also rightly concerned that the introduction of 2,4-D resistant corn will threaten their crops: 2,4-D drift is responsible for more episodes of crop injury than any other pesticide. As Indiana farmer Troy Roush told me: "In my experience, 2,4-D is an herbicide that can and does drift considerable distances to damage neighboring crops. We can expect greatly increased use of 2,4-D with Dow's new corn, and that could wreak havoc with soybeans, tomatoes, and other crops my neighbors and I grow."

If approved, millions of acres of Agent Orange corn could be planted as early as next year, raising concern for its adverse health impacts. 2,4-D was one of the main ingredients in Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by the U.S. in the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was contaminated with dioxins, a group of highly toxic chemical compounds, which are responsible for a host of serious medical conditions--from diabetes to cancer to birth defects--in Vietnam veterans as well as Vietnamese and their children. Industry's own tests show that 2,4-D is still contaminated with dioxins.

Many studies show that 2,4 D exposure is associated with various forms of cancer, Parkinson's Disease, nerve damage, hormone disruption and birth defects, according to Dr. Amy Dean, an internal medicine physician and President-Elect of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. Dr. Dean believes that because it poses significant health risk, exposure should not be increased, but significantly reduced to protect the public's health.

USDA's public comment period on 2,4-D resistant corn is open until April 27, 2012. Tell USDA that you don't want "Agent Orange" corn. Comments may be submitted to the agency through our action link at: http://bit.ly/AgentOrangeCorn. For more information on 2,4-D corn, see our two-page fact sheet and more extensive Food Safety Review.

The lighting is dim with incandescent illumination, the walls black and tastefully decorated with maritime memorabilia. Wine bottles are featured prominently throughout, and at the center of the restaurant is a circular-style bar. The music supplies a bustling tempo at a relaxed volume. Downtown style applies; men are not overdressed in jackets (there is a coat rack) and women can wear stylish dresses -- it's unlikely you'll find yourself sitting next to someone in beach attire.

The menu is simple and explanatory and the staff is helpful and well-versed in everything seafood. The wine list, on the other hand, is extensive. Not to worry, there is a page of wines by the glass, and after that is an extraordinary array of bottles for the serious connoisseur.

"We just couldn't edit it," says Jeff Goodman, chief operating officer of the King Signature Group, which includes some of the finest seafood restaurants in Southern California.

After beginning with the bartender's choice cocktail -- the Casino (Beefeater gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and orange bitters -- for me, and the Airmail (Champagne, rum, honey syrup and lime juice) for my date (there are about half a dozen house specialty cocktails), it was on to the Grand Platter. There are several platters available; the Grand is a perfect sampler for a party of two. It is beautifully presented on a bed of ice and includes a half-dozen oysters of three varieties, scallops, jumbo shrimp, Prince Edward Island mussels, lobster and even some periwinkles, which required a bit of an excavation to extract the meat, but worth the trouble. The platter was accompanied by six delicious sauces.

For our entrees, we enjoyed Chilean sea bass with kale in a delicate white sauce and California spiny lobster from the waters off Santa Barbara, with a side of Yukon gold mashed potatoes. The sea bass was amazing. It was as though butter had become reincarnated in the form of a light, flaky fish. You can't go wrong with this dish.

The spiny lobster, a little bit more expensive than the Maine lobster, came in three portion sizes between a pound-and-a-half and two pounds. The wood-grilled flavor of the meat gives it a smoky taste, and the texture is crisp on the outside and silky underneath.

With the smiling approval of manager Jamie Boalbey (who seemed to anticipate every need at every table), I paired my meal with first a white Burgundy -- the 2000 Latour -- and then, the 2011 Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. The contrast was stark. For those interested in subtle, earthy French terroir, it is hard to beat a Burgundy. The Sauvignon Blanc, on the other hand, popped with intense grapefruit on the palate.

Choosing a dessert was like choosing a favorite among one's children. We opted for the pecan cheesecake with bourbon whipped cream. If that's the sort of dish that perks up your ears, you can only imagine what it will do to your taste buds. All I can say is be prepared to embarrass yourself with gluttony.

Actually, I can say more than that. Enjoy it with a glass of Cognac or scotch. I chose the scotch. If you enjoy a fragrant, complex, lightly smoky and peaty taste, try the Ardberg 10-year-old single malt.

General manager Jason Klingsberg has been influential in revamping the Water Grill, both renovating the interior to a more open, inviting atmosphere and hiring a new executive chef, Damon Gordon, who worked previously at the Jefferson Hotel and ran Damon Gordon's Quarter Kitchen at The Ivy Hotel. The result is a masterpiece of a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, which is also available for events -- let me recast that -- special events.