ABC News: Turns out there’s no E. coli in Taco Bell’s green onion samples; they were mislabeled white onions — and even those aren’t the likely culprits. So much for that “CSI: FDA” series the agency was pitching. Three weeks later and the criminal is still loose: according to the L.A. Times, Taco Bell said […]

Apologies to you who saw this on SlashFood already, but just in case someone — you know who you are — is tempted to backslide and pull into your favorite fast-food chain in the middle of holiday shopping, well, this oughta cure you.
Court TV did a little feature on the “10 Most Nauseating Stories About […]

Feed the world…
Let them know it’s Christmas time again!
Remember Band Aid way back in 1984, when Bob Geldof got Bono and George Michael and Duran Duran and a bunch of other UK musicians together to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia?
Well this is sort of like that, only with food bloggers and no music.
With […]

The Economist: In a sign that it has reached true zeitgeist level, the venerable U.K. magazine takes on the idea of voting with your forks. While we’d dispute some of the cavalier claims from interested parties that organic agriculture is no better for the environment than industrial, the article makes some thought-provoking points about fair-trade […]

Until fairly recently, I reserved the same fear for raw milk as I did for rare hamburgers and pork chops–things that were as likely as not to kill me through the introduction of nasty parasites and bacteria into my digestive system.  But shortly after we started this blog, I realized that if I wanted to […]

Radio Iowa: Dozens of Iowans are sick in a new E. coli outbreak — but suspicion is falling on a Taco John’s, not a Taco Bell. (And supposedly green onions are not implicated, according to additional info at the end of the NYT article below.)
New York Times*: How the Taco Bell E. coli case was […]

Yes, you read that right. Try hard and you can imagine this match made in gustatory heaven: crispy chewy bacon bits (in this case heritage pork from Fatted Calf) coated in buttery sweet crunchy toffee. Salty and sugary, smoky and rich…white trash flavors made with top-quality ingredients…ahhhhhh.
I had bacon toffee for the first time last […]

Residents of the middle-ish portion of North America often are accused of being ignorant or apathetic to events in the rest of the world. Here are a few stories from around the world to help remedy that problem.
Australia
BBC: The worst drought in a century has cut Australia’s key crop production by one-third.
EU
The Guardian: The […]

Is it me, or has Taco Bell stepped up its television ads in the wake of the E. coli outbreak, which has affected dozens of consumers in six states? The ads do not mention the outbreak, the fact that the problem has been traced to one of their suppliers, or that they are trying […]

New York Times: Battered by E. coli outbreaks, three major produce industry groups are calling voluntarily for government regulation; one has worked with California officials in California on creating a formal system of farm inspections, regulations of water and soil quality and sanitation and even cease-and-desist orders for violations. The FDA says it doesn’t have […]

“Guess what I found at the farmers market?” the Butter Bitch announced last Sunday. “Lettuce!”

Indeed she had, and she brought a head home as proof. The farmers cover the lettuce in the fields to protect their crop from the late autumn cold in the north. I’m surprised that the trick worked, but […]

Green Money Journal: An excellent, must-read piece by Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation. The first half, which those who have read Fromartz’s “Organic, Inc.” can skim through, recaps the historical milestones and messy evolution of the organic agriculture movement; it’s in the second half that Scowcroft gets interesting, taking the […]

Attention Ethicurean Austinites!
The Austin Sustainable Shopper’s Ball will be happening this Saturday, December 9 from 9am-2pm at the Toney Burger Center, right next to the nationally renowned Sunset Valley Farmer’s Market. With over 60 solar-powered (!) vendors, you could finish your Christmas shopping early this year, while at the same time attending interesting and […]

Salon.com*: Q&A with Michael Pollan about the recent revolting-food news, including why he trusts the FDA more than the USDA and why we must “figure out a way to [match] the regulation to the production system” as well as get rid of antibiotics in the meat production chain.
Asbury Park Press: The number of Taco Bell […]

If I had a nickel for every time I see the word “natural” on a restaurant menu describing some kind of meat, well, I’d have at least a dollar.
As I have written elsewhere, it’s a meaningless label: no standard definition for this term exists except when it is voluntarily applied to meat and poultry products. […]