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Peanuts, flax, sprouts and avocados: It's not the menu at a health food deli, but the menu inside some barns. What's more, many farmers experimenting with these gourmet feeds are growing the ingredients themselves.

Take Russ Kremer, the Missouri pig farmer whose operation served as the inspiration for the 2011 Chipotle ad. Kremer hasn't bought commercial animal feed in 30 years. Instead, he grazes his hogs in a pasture, and grows (or buys from neighbors) grains and legumes to supplement their nutrition.

Kremer and some of the other farmers developing specialty feed say they are willing to shoulder the extra cost and time to produce it because they're turned off by conventional feed mixes. The conventional mixes are what most of the hogs in the U.S. consume, and can include commodity corn and soybeans, blood protein, animal waste and rendered fats, according to Kremer.

Kremer also runs a co-op where farmers can pool resources to mill their own feed. "We opt for grains like barley and oats as often as possible, because most corn and soy is now [genetically modified]," he says.

The scarcity of non-GMO corn and soybeans is what led hog farmers Kelley and Mark Escobedo of South Texas Heritage Pork to experiment with peanuts.

Using their own 1950s-era mill, the farmers combine peanuts, peanut hay, and oats to boost the animals' protein intake and overall health — especially important because they raise their animals without antibiotics. The resulting meat has a delicate, nutty flavor that has helped them attract a loyal customer base willing to pay a higher price for the meat. "I've never had anyone come back and say it's not worth it," says Escobedo.

She and other farmers even take custom feed requests. Case in point: One restaurant shaped a special meal around a single hog that the Escobedos fed avocados (along with the peanut-based feed) for the last 6 weeks of its life.

"The meat was soft and delicious," Escobedo recalls. "It was the most delightful dinner I've ever eaten." (Pot-fed pigs are getting similarly rave reviews in Washington state, as we've reported.)

Farmers are supplementing animal feed with other ingredients found in gourmet kitchens, too. To boost his animals' immunity, Kremer uses oregano oil. To add omega-3 fatty acids, many cattlemen are adding the superfood flax to feed. And Nigel Walker of California's Eatwell Farm not only grows his own wheat to feed his egg=-laying hens, he also sprouts the grains for added nutrition.

Even as farmers learn to market meat from animals raised on special diets, only a small percent of consumers are willing to pay extra for it. A pastured chicken fed with homegrown grains, for instance, can cost as much as $20 to 25, compared with $10 for a conventional chicken in the grocery store.

The cost to farmers, in terms of both dollars and time, also remains significant. Kremer says he can afford homegrown feed because he saves money on veterinary care since he doesn't use antibiotics. His pigs also have a higher survival rate than average (just 1 percent mortality compared to nearly 5 percent industry-wide). But his operation is also much smaller than average, so the risks are different from a large hog operation.

Jack Lazor, author of the forthcoming book The Organic Grain Grower, and owner of Butterworks Farm in Vermont, says homegrown animal feed has fundamentally transformed his farm. Lazor supplements his dairy cows' diets with homegrown grains and feeds his laying hens kelp and soybeans he grows and roasts himself, using a recipe developed by Polyface Farm's Joel Salatin. The birds gain more weight, and the eggs are yellower, but more important to Lazor is the sense of being in complete control of what he calls the "craft of farming."

"When you're feeding an animal you can tweak it one way or the other based on the herd or the season," he says. "Plus, it just adds more meaning to your life."

The Senate approved a sweeping immigration bill Thursday, endorsing a bill that would put millions of immigrants who illegally entered the United States on a path to citizenship. The final vote tally on the bill was 68 in favor, with 32 opposed.

The bill also includes measures that would punish employers who take advantage of immigrant workers, as well as providing billions in spending to employ fences and high-tech tools to help secure the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

All 52 Democratic senators voted for the bill, along with 14 Republicans and two independents.

The legislation, Senate Bill 744, is widely seen as the product of the efforts of the "Gang of 8," a group that includes Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J.

During today's final vote, the chamber briefly erupted in laughter after Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., mistakenly answered the roll call vote with "Aye" — supporting the bill — before abruptly and loudly correcting his mistake by yelling "No!"

Around midday Thursday, the Senate voted to invoke cloture on the bill, called the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, setting an end to debate on the legislation. It has grown to nearly 2,000 pages, although that includes many pages of material that was stricken during debate and compromise.

The bill has been seen as a main priority for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who insisted the chamber would act on it before the July 4 holiday. It is also a centerpiece of the Obama administration's legislative agenda.

"It's landmark legislation that will secure our borders and help 11 million people get right with the law," Reid said Thursday.

The tally of the cloture vote earlier today was also 68-32, with 14 Republicans joining Democrats in voting for the motion. When the Senate approved an amendment on border security to the bill earlier this week, the vote was 67-27, with 15 Republicans voting in favor.

But it remains to be seen how the immigration bill will be greeted in the House of Representatives. And in the Senate, opponents of the bill have included Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and his deputy, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, along with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

Several House Republicans are believed to be working on their own versions of the legislation.

"This bill may pass the Senate today, but not with my vote. And in its current form, it won't become law," McConnell said.

Other Republicans, such as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, sought to build support for the bill among their party. Backers of the immigration overhaul have said they hoped to pass the legislation with strong support, to improve its chances in the House.

Speaking before the vote began, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., invoked the memory of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

"I like to think that our old friend would be proud of what we're doing," Leahy said.

If you're looking for a deal on prescription drugs or tired of standing in line at the drugstore counter, maybe you'd be inclined to try an online pharmacy.

Perhaps you'd feel better about that choice if the site carried the name of a well-known chain, say, www.walgreen-store.com or www.c-v-s-pharmacy.com.

Well, not so fast. The Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. attorney's office in Colorado cracked down on those misleading sites, which weren't connected to their namesakes, and more than 1,600 others that the feds say are breaking the law by selling prescription drugs, some of them counterfeits.

"Illegal online pharmacies put American consumers' health at risk by selling potentially dangerous products," John Roth, director of the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations, said in a statement. "This is an ongoing battle in the United States and abroad ...."

Many of the websites that were shut down claimed to be Canadian companies. But the FDA says that was a lie. The websites made use of bogus licenses and certifications to trick U.S. consumers, the FDA said.

The far-reaching bust is part of an international effort with a catchy, prehistoric name: Pangea VI. Pretty sure online drug sales weren't a problem back in the supercontinent's heyday.

This modern sweep was part of an International Internet Week of Action that wrapped up June 25.

The Interpol-coordinated Pangea project, now in its sixth wave, goes after sites hawking unapproved or risky drugs. Many of the them also sell drugs that legally require a prescription without actually getting one.

The FDA told one operator of many websites, including canadianfamilypharmacy.biz and cheapcanadianpharmacy.net, to stop selling drugs that violate U.S. laws. The agency's warning letter said a couple of impotence drugs being sold as "Levitra Super Force" and "Viagra Super Force" hadn't been approved by the agency. FDA also faulted the sites for selling "generic Celebrex." Problem is that Celebrex, a painkiller, is only available as a brand-name drug in this country, so a generic version is verboten.

Separately, Maine just enacted a law making it OK for residents to buy prescription drugs from other countries.

The FDA doesn't approve. "Medicine bought from foreign sources, such as from Internet sellers, from businesses that offer to buy foreign medicine for you, or during trips outside the United States, may not be safe or effective," an FDA spokesman told Shots via email in response to questions about the Maine law..

If you've paid attention to the case of Edward Snowden, you might have heard Ecuadorian officials refer to some bankers the U.S. is refusing to hand over.

Ecuador, of course, is considering an asylum request from the NSA leaker. The U.S. is pressuring them to abide by an extradition request, while Ecuador is taunting the giant.

During a press conference on Thursday, National Communications Secretary Fernando Alvarado said the United States should have been more thorough in analyzing its extradition request for "the bankers."

So who are these bankers?

Turns out they are the defendants in a lawsuit filed by the government of Ecuador in a Miami-Dade County court. The lawsuit was decided in the bankers' favor on May 31. We tracked down the final judgement, in which Circuit Court Judge John W. Thornton lays out who these two men are.

According to Thornton: Roberto and William Isaias Dassum were the president and vice president of Filanbanco, Ecuador's largest bank. In the late '90s, Ecuador descended into a severe banking crisis, so it created an agency a lot like the FDIC that pumped $1.16 billion into Filanbanco to keep it afloat.

That failed and, according to the government of Ecuador, the Dassums fled to Miami after allegedly embezzling millions.

"Ecuador has requested that the U.S. extradite the Defendants back to Ecuador to conclude criminal proceedings against them and to be sentenced. This extradition request is pending," Thornton writes.

In this lawsuit, however, Ecuador was asking the U.S. to confiscate about $20 million worth of assets the Dassums allegedly have in Miami. The government had already seized about $400 million in Ecuador.

The U.S. court refused Ecuador's request, saying it is under no obligation to enforce Ecuadorian laws. What's more, Thornton ruled, to allow Ecuador to confiscate property in the U.S. would "signify a substantial deviation from U.S. law and policy."

"The Defendants may have committed the wrongs which Ecuador has alleged," Thornton wrote. "However the manner in which Ecuador has attempted to right the Defendant's alleged wrongs is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy."

dassum by Eyder Peralta