Last weekend, I was making French toast for breakfast, and pulled out the carton of eggs we received with our last beef CSA shipment.  Upon opening the carton, I was surprised by how much smaller the eggs are now that the seasons have changed.  Where I would normally use two eggs, I used four.  As […]

If you could give a homeless person a gift card, would you? Would it make you feel better?
I know - giving money directly to homeless people is likely to feed their addiction to booze, drugs, or warm shelter. It takes a lot of courage to do what a friend’s father did, which […]

Seattle P-I: More than 300 people are ill from eating at an Olive Garden in Indianapolis. But signs are pointing to a toxic employee, not a bacteria.
The Observer (UK): Think GMO foods are scary? Wait ’til you get a load of the “nano foods” in the pipeline. This mammoth feature will make your hair stand […]

Omniho suggested a while ago that we start a regular feature called “Ask the Ethicurean,” in which readers pose ethical-eating dilemmas or inquire about brands you’d like us to investigate.
Chances are we won’t know the answer offhand, but with the help of Google, Lexis-Nexis, access to academic and research papers, and the willingness to call […]

Houston Chronicle: A frank editorial about the U.S. immigration system’s stupidity, in the face of the meatpacking industry’s and others’ insatiable need for foreign labor — for which they pay relatively well.
Minnnesota Public Radio: Interesting angle on how meatpackers Swift & Co. tried to head off the immigration raid ahead of time, or at least […]

Today I took delivery of a quarter-ton of meat: 660 pounds of beef and lamb, to be exact. It was quite a morning, and an excellent way to celebrate one’s birth, I think — Happy Beefday to me!
While I am a born-again carnivore, the Potato Non Grata and I are not planning to eat all […]

BBC: The British Medical Journal reports that a study of 8,000+ people found that there is a link between high IQ and vegetarianism. Some of the “vegetarians” included people who eat chicken and fish. One dietitian pointed out that intelligent people may simply be more aware of health (and ethical/environmental issues, we add) issues […]

Um…[throat clearing, foot shuffling]…the Well Fed Network is looking for nominations for the 2006 Food Blog Awards. The awards were started by the Accidental Hedonist, back when the WFN belonged to Kate Hopkins, as a way to get more attention for what used to be a very small group of folks. Kinda hard to believe […]

Slate.com: Sara Dickerson’s delightful look at the popularity of what she has dubbed the piggy confessional, the porcine write o’ passage in which “a dead pig — usually killed, butchered, or eaten by the author — provokes a meditation on the ethics and aesthetics of eating.” (Thx Aunt B.) On a related note, the Dallas […]

I have hated Brussels sprouts since I was a kid. I hated them so much that I couldn’t even fulfill my parents’ “three bites” rule without gagging helplessly. Eventually my mom gave up trying to get me to eat them.
However, now that I am “grown up,” I’ve discovered there are many things that I […]

Scientists have declared the white dolphin, also known as the goddess of the Yangtze, to be extinct. The dolphin is a victim of China’s rapid economic expansion and the increased river traffic on the Yangtze river. The species was thought to be 20 million years old.
In related news, Asia’s greenhouse gases are expected […]

New York Times: In what has to be a scene straight out of “Fast Food Nation” the movie, immigration officials have raided six Swift & Company meatpacking plants in six states and carted away thousands of workers. Supposedly it was a massive investigation of identity theft, but we have to think it has more to […]

Grist: In today’s Victual Reality column, Tom Philpott delivers a blistering report on the state of the biofuel industry around the globe. Sugar-based ethanol is taking a devastating toll on India and Brazil, while corn-based ethanol is poised to do the same in the U.S. Even if you think you understand what’s at stake, read […]

Attention news junkies: We’ve better optimized our news-gathering process and instead of one massive daily news dump, we’ll henceforth be attempting to serve up the news in smaller bites throughout the day (and evening). We hope these digests will be easier to swallow.
E. coli around the U.S.: According to the Houston Chronicle (AP), Taco […]

When you read that title, did you think of a cylindrical, gelatinous mass, perhaps quivering atop some tuna fresh out of the can, frozen corn kernels and peas, maybe some shredded cheddar?
Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup is the base that launched a thousand casseroles. But guess what’s in it? Most likely, bioengineered food. […]