… it looks like the House did at least one thing right on the Farm Bill.
It’s not huge, monetarily speaking. It’s not a Competition Title or millions more dollars for community food projects. But you may recall a few weeks back when, en route through Wyoming, I ranted about the roadblocks that USDA slaughter regulations […]

DNA deliberations: Although transgenic corn, soy and cotton cover the nation, rules governing transgenic animals have yet to be developed. The FDA has not committed to a date for a set of rules, but seems to be narrowing its focus. The uncertainty is a problem for ‘breeders’ of transgenic animals, like the company with a […]

Peter shares his recipe for “spring salad” aka egg-less chopped egg salad.

Although the House passed its version of the Food and Farm Bill on Friday, this news digest will be Farm Bill-free news digest (to which many will breathe a sigh of relief). We’ll have a special Food and Farm Bill digest in the next few days that will be full of wonky goodness. […]

I went on a CUESA-organized farm tour last Sunday to Monterey County, about 2 hours south of San Francisco (Jen Maiser was also on the tour and wrote about it at Bay Area Bites). Our first stop was Far West Fungi in Moss Landing, just a few miles from the Pacific Ocean. The Moss […]

This just in: the House passed a Food and Farm Bill with 231 in favor, 191 against. Nineteen Republicans voted in favor of the bill, while fourteen Democrats voted against it. Initial coverage from the Associated Press (via the NY Times website). The results of the final roll call vote are available […]

The House debated the Food and Farm Bill for a few hours today, with untold politicking away from the CSPAN cameras. There were a few notable events, such as the defeat of the Kind-Flake amendment (117 to 309), which would have redirected subsidy spending to conservation, non-commodity crops, nutrition and rural development. The Center […]

Until I started reading my RSS feeds tonight, it looked to me that the Food and Farm Bill was going to get through the House without much drama. There would be a few hours of passionate debate, some tame amendments (I read somewhere that Pelosi was going to severely limit the number of amendments […]

Since it might be Food and Farm Bill week in the House (there is still time to phone or fax your Representative), we’ll break protocol a bit by starting the "features digest" with a blog post. Mulch has been busy this week, most recently with some stunning statistics about the so-called "reform." The millionaires’ […]

Botulism alert boosted: The recall of canned meat products made by Castleberry’s Food Co. (under many, many labels) has expanded to cover almost 100 products. The article has a list of brand names and a contact number. (San Francisco Chronicle (AP)) (More information: the official FDA press release and some background on the case […]

Peter talks about his CSA box.

The issues surrounding food production in Australia are so overwhelmingly large and urgent that it’s hard to pause for a moment and think carefully, weighing the risks and rewards of actions that overlap between complex fields of study and competing interests. There are lists now of which Australian cities are likely to run out of […]

I’m in Tunis, and I’ve finally yanked out the DSL plug fused directly into my brain, in order to enjoy the last few days of serious R&R while Marc so ably keeps the Ethicurean home fires burning. (Pelosi, how could you?)

The San Francisco Chronicle has a story on page A-1 (below the fold, below all of the Harry Potter stories) reporting that Speaker Pelosi has "signed off" on the House Agriculture Committee’s version of the Food and Farm Bill (detailed coverage at FarmPolicy.com), indicating that she will use her power to see it passed. […]

As I was doing research on energy use in rice production and transport, I ran across some interesting academic papers in the food science literature. I hope to be able to summarize some of them in the future, starting today with "Energy conservation in domestic rice cooking", an article in the Journal of Food Engineering […]