The debates raging in California over issues of food, agriculture, and sustainability have profound implications for all of America. The PBS documentary “Ripe for Change” explores the intersection of food and politics in California over the last 30 years and examines lots of tough questions, such as: What are […]

Press release: One for the “Because We Can” files — a team of scientists from the USDA and a Spanish university have come up with an edible food wrapper that will kill E. coli, even the recent deadly strain. It’s a combination of apple puree and oregano oil — essential oils have long been known […]

As if Thanksgiving shoppers didn’t have enough trouble distinguishing from among the labels natural, free range, organic, and heritage, now there’s another distinction to watch out for: heirloom vs. heritage.
(Thanks to Jack & Joanne for pointing this out, unfortunately too late for the print version of my story “Celebrating Thanksgiving, Berkeley-style,” in the Berkeleyan, which […]

Most Americans learned in elementary school that the first Thanksgiving meal was actually a harvest feast with which the Pilgrims celebrated growing their first successful New World crops: corn, squash, and beans. What they didn’t tell us was that the first European settlers preferred to dine on salt meat and wormy bread brought over by […]

A trip to Boggy Creek Farm this morning was supposed to be sort of like Dairy Queen’s CSA challenge — where you get your box of food from the farm and have a bunch of friends over and you cook it all and get really, really drunk.
And it was just like that — except I […]

Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser, who has been battling Monsanto for years in a Kafkaesque patent-infringement case, was interrupted by two standing ovations at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism last night. There must have been about 300 students, farmers, activists, and conscious eaters packed into the library; people were crowded around both doorways and […]

Grist: Tom Philpott explains why party affiliation won’t tell you which politicians are sucking hardest on the Big Ag teat, but their support of corn-based ethanol will. In the good-news half of his essay, he tells how pro-sustainable agriculture forces are rolling out Farm Bill agendas that could challenge the agribusiness chokehold — if we […]

Houston Chronicle: Columnist Neal Pierce urges readers to have a “100-Mile Thanksgiving” and explains once again to skeptical Texans why buying local makes sense on many levels.
New York Magazine: Highlighting what’s available now at New York’s Greenmarkets, this article made us want to try all the different varieties of potato.
AP/Seattle P-I: Japan has confirmed its […]

Sunday was our regular pick-up of meat from the Crown S CSA, as well as a lengthy planning meeting. We had new faces - people who joined after the initial deadline had passed - so we spent a couple of hours discussing what has and hasn’t worked. We also had tasty food that […]

Photographer Subhankar Bannerjee is touring with photographs from the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska. Unlike the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, the entire petroleum reserve is slated for drilling and exploration, despite set-asides by former Interior Secretaries James Watt and Bruce Babbitt. (A federal judge has blocked current Interior Secretary Gail Norton’s decision […]

Boston Globe*: Christopher Kimball, the bow-tied, mild-mannered founder of Cook’s Illustrated — that famously neutral, plain-vanilla cooking magazine — has written a polemic about how capitalism has led us to an inversion of Malcolm Gladwell’s tipping point: “What consumers should want — good flavor and good health — has been replaced by what the industry […]

Our half-birthday was Nov. 9, but we forgot. Blog years are like dog years — six months seems like a long time, so we wanted to take stock.
Posts: 413
Traffic: From 475 visitors in May — probably all of them people who knew our real names — to being on track for 8,000+ in November. (We […]

Wow. I just got my first edition of Keith Good’s daily Farm Policy e-mail newsletter, after hearing Ralph Grossi talk about it last Thursday. It is like our Digest, only on steroids — everything a food-politics nerd could want, with play-by-play reporting on media coverage of the federal government’s strategizing, jockeying, and deal-making around agriculture.
It’s […]

The Independent (UK): Article by Wendy Fogarty of Slow Food UK says buying organic is only half the battle, and that while bashing “Big Organic” for what it’s not is counterproductive, British consumers still need to get on board with local and seasonal.
Grist: Yolanda Crous’s amusing report from the “green carpet” from the Environmental Media […]

BusinessWeek.com: Raw milk detective David Gumpert investigates why Ohio is treating raw milk like crack or heroin, and discusses whether a new Democratic governor might put an end to the vendetta.
CuriousCook.com: We keep meaning to mention that kitchen-science guru Harold McGee has started blogging, which is great news for food nerds everywhere. In this one […]