Bravo to Wolfgang Puck!: The L.A. restauranteur is taking foie gras, battery eggs, and meat from caged animals off the menu at all of his 14 fine-dining restaurants, 82 casual cafes, and his packaged food business. He’ll also only sell seafood from certified sustainable fisheries, and will incorporate even more organic and local produce. San […]

Why do farmers give up their organic certification? What prevents farmers from going organic? An article in The New Farm (from Rodale Press) explores the questions and offers many answers.
Researchers from the California Institute for Rural Studies (CIRS) interviewed more than 70 farmers who use conventional or mixed methods, or who had given […]

Brace yourselves, it’s link-overload Wednesday!
Faith & Drugs Administration: The Center for Food Safety has blasted the FDA’s risk assessment of the safety of food from cloned animals because it used data that was “selectively reported to fit predetermined conclusions” and relied heavily on unpublished data from two cloning companies. “Any safety conclusions are based more […]

Pet food update: Menu Foods of Streetsville, Ontario, the manufacturer that has recalled over 60 million cans and pouches of pet food implicated in sickening or killing many cats and dogs, had begun testing the food Feb. 27 after receiving reports of sick pets. Seven of the 40-50 test animals died. The only suspect right […]

The Prairie Star reported yesterday that Congress is considering amending the Superfund Law to exclude livestock manure from being considered hazardous waste. Several politicians — including Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), chair of the House agriculture committee — are quoted as bloviating about how if this doesn’t pass, small family farms could be put out […]

Tickets are still available for the Farm Bill teach-in, a panel discussion that Michael Pollan will moderate this Wednesday (March 21) at UC Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall. Unlike last month’s “conversation” between Pollan and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, which sold out immediately, this event is a hard sell. Even my own husband, who’s usually game […]

Dept. of What Took You So Long: Congress is proposing to establish a new research institute, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), to manage peer-reviewed grants focused on basic food and agricultural science. Modeled after the National Institutes of Health, NIFA would be an independent agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), […]

Dairy Queen here: This is the second guest post from our Berkeley neighbor Marc (bio now available), who’s also been contributing daily to the Digest. Here, Marc — who’s an engineer — engages in a little recreational fact-checking that I for one found fascinating.
[Updated March 20 with caveat on Lundberg Rice and photo credit]
Local vs. […]

“Fueling Iowa’s Future”: An informative new series launched today in preparation of the 2008 Iowa caucuses. A number of articles and graphics highlight the state’s opportunities — and the serious challenges — as Iowa attempts to become an alternative energy leader for the nation. Des Moines Register
Quebec to label GM food?: A new study commissioned […]

PET OWNERS ALERT: Many cats and dogs have suffered kidney failure and about 10 have died after eating pet food by Menu Foods, which is recalling dog food sold under 46 brands and cat food sold under 37 brands (including Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba) at major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, and Safeway. Houston […]

Cornfeddish: A Q&A with Paul Hitch — an Oklahoma “cattle feeder” whose feedlot operation can handle almost 160,000 animals at any one time (!) — about the rising price of corn, competing with “other proteins,” and whether he considers the little “boomlet” in grassfed beef a threat to his business. CattleNetwork
Secrets and vines: A Napa […]

I wasn’t sure whether to post about this or not. But since I’m the type that likes to share any major life news with a megaphone — not unlike my beloved cuz-in-law Omniwhore — the internal debate was short lived. I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it anymore!
As of today, after five years […]

In between the Digest news deluge, we’ve been reading some good blog posts, too. For your delectation:
No Impact Man: Writer Colin Beavan alerted us to his experiment forcing his New York City family to live for a year with no net environmental impact. As part of that goal, they’re only eating food produced within 250 […]

First salvo in budget battle: The Senate Budget Committee chair issued his blueprint for federal spending yesterday, which included $15 billion more for Farm Bill agriculture spending between 2007 and 2012 than did the Congressional Budget Office baseline. Senate Ag Chair Tom Harkin says that’s not enough and vows to get more before the budget […]

Not a pig step for mankind, yet: Eliminating sow-gestation crates is just the first tiny step toward humane meat production in this country, says Nicolette Hahn Niman (yes, that Niman) in her op-ed condemning hog factories’ typical practices. New York Times
Getting even piggier: Smithfield Foods, the pork overlord featured none too favorably in the December […]