FEATURES
Wendell Berry for President: An all-too-short Q&A with agrarian philosopher and poet Wendell Berry, who’s been writing about sustainable agriculture since back when Michael Pollan had an afro. A sample: "To shorten the distance as far as possible from the farm to the dinner plate just makes sense. But it also begins to elevate food in human culture back up to where it ought to be. We’ve allowed it to decline from a kind of sacrament and a kind of center of conviviality, through commodification, to a kind of stuffing." (Star-Tribune)
Farm Bill made palatable: Carol Ness has a page-one story for the Chron that does an excellent job of illustrating what’s at stake in the current Farm Bill, particularly for Californians, through her strategic use of local personalities and successful projects like Alemany Farm. (San Francisco)
The milk wars: David Gumpert covers (for Business Week instead of his blog) how an upstate New York dairy owner, fined and pilloried for selling tainted milk, is fighting the state’s claims with lab tests and secret videos. None of the individuals who consumed her supposedly contaminated milk became ill, yet her reputation was ruined. (Business Week)
Do you know GMO?: Mary Butler reviews some of the issues around genetically modified food, including labeling efforts and a new project to build a database so that manufacturers can find transgenic-free ingredients to use in their products. (Culinate)
Good neighbors: Canadian ranchers who want to avoid the cost and hassle of the government’s new rules to stamp out mad-cow disease can send their young cattle across the U.S. border, have them slaughtered under the more lax U.S. rules, then ship the beef back to Canada and sell it legally, as long as the animal’s high-risk tissues stay in America. (Canwest News)
B-more locavore: A nice article about conscious eating in the Baltimore area reminds newbies that "While eating local as much as possible is a worthy goal, it is not an all-or-nothing proposition." (Baltimore Sun)
Genius business serving lazy Ethicureans: Seattle Urban Farm lets would-be Victory Gardeners outsource the setup and enjoy the "fruits" of their backyards. (Seattle Times)
"The yuck factor": An analysis of supermarket psychology — why we find certain things revolting for no logical reason — mentions that consumers singled out mayonnaise as a "disgusting" product which, when shelved next to more palatable products such as soup, might put customers off buying. (Independent Online Edition)
Baaad employees: University researchers are training sheep to clean up vineyard weeds but stay off the grapes. They apparently really like chardonnay. (Yahoo! Finance, thanks Cookie Jill!)
Don’t worry, eat happy: Processed supermarket food boasts long lists of ingredients, each of which has probably changed hands a dozen times on its way from the farm or the sea. NPR visits one of the wholesalers who are taking testing into their own hands to protect their reputations. (NPR)
Cooking is not drudgery: Demystifying how a working mom cooks weekday meals for her family without resorting to frozen boxes or jars. (New York Times) Related: Blogger-mom Ali muses how, "Since I made the committment to eat more real food, less processed stuff, I’m finding myself in the kitchen more often than I ever — ever — expected to." (The Cleaner Plate Club)
Ditch the garbage disposal, use a green bin. Farmers will thank you. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Proximity to a microwave oven is not dangerous (New York Times)
Food, Farming, & Food Politics events calendar
July 12th, 2007 at 3:43 am
Great link to the Wendell Berry interview. And to your point, regrettably short.