Another round for the revolving door: Rumor has it that Mike Taylor, currently a professor at George Washington University but better known for his work as Monsanto’s Vice President for Public Policy, will start on Monday at the FDA in a position coordinating food safety. Congress is considering a major food safety bill — more info here — and the scuttlebutt is that Taylor might coordinate the implementation of that bill once it’s passed. It’s not clear whether Taylor will be employed by the agency or will work on contract. Not that it really matters. If ever there were a poster boy for revolving door, Taylor would be him. In the late 1980s, he left a job at the FDA to work as a lawyer and lobbyist for a company representing biotech giant Monsanto. He’s perhaps best known for his role in Monsanto’s campaign to approve rBGH,
There is a reason the word eat is in sweat. Coming off of a weekend of non-stop planting, weeding, irrigating, harvesting, and storing, I finally reached one of those exhausting peaks where I asked myself, “Why do I do this?” And then I looked up at my equally sweaty and exasperated husband and voiced what his eyes questioned back, “Why do we do this?” “This” meaning
In 1945, during the fourth year of America’s direct involvement in World War II, President Harry Truman issued a proclamation about food. He called for those on the home front to plant larger victory gardens, to preserve more food, and to minimize food waste. This proclamation came after years of propaganda about growing a Victory Garden, the operation of community canning centers across the country, rationing of premium foods, and other wartime policies, and so I’m guessing that it was taken
School’s out for the summer, but there’s a food fight going on in the cafeteria. In Washington, Congress is turning up the heat on the policies that determine what 30 million children will eat once the lunch bell rings. Want hormones out of kid’s milk? Pesticides off the tomatoes? Local lettuce in the salad bar? Candy bars and snack cakes to be considered junk
By Renee Ciulla Although many days I would prefer to just pick up a shovel and start farming, I am forging ahead with a Master of Science degree in Agroecology. I am currently studying for a year in Germany, and the more I learn about organic farming and local-food initiatives, the more I see how they can ameliorate some of the problems associated with our global food system. I hope that by learning more about the factors related to ethical and environmental food production, I can ultimately inspire others to feel proud about the food they swallow. I would
By Twilight Greenaway I walked out of the screening of “The End of the Line” feeling deeply uneasy. Most of my discomfort had been carefully orchestrated by the film’s director, Rupert Murray, who filled the 80 minutes with straight-talking scientists and image upon image of wild fish being violently removed from the ocean. Fishermen stabbed endangered bluefin tuna (left) in roiling pools of bloodied water. Giant trawl nets scraped across the ocean’s
Though I’ve been gardening for many years, every season I come up against all the things I don’t know and want to learn. Usually I grab a book or talk to a friendly farmer at the local farmers market to see how someone else does what I want to do. But recently, I discovered a list of workshops available at the George Jones Memorial Farm in Oberlin, OH — only an hour away — and decided to head there for an introduction to permaculture. I’ve wanted to learn about permaculture for a while but haven’t been able to find the time (or
If the whole “edible landscape” notion has failed to appeal to you, the Heartland Harvest Garden at Powell Gardens in Missouri just might make you reconsider. Officially open as of June 14, Heartland Harvest Garden is a feast for the eyes as well as the appetite. Comprising 12 acres of edible landscape, which garden officials claim make it the biggest such garden in the country, the Heartland Harvest Garden has numerous spaces both educational and beautiful: home-style kitchen gardens, fruit and vegetable parterres
Well, that sure happened fast. One day I was bundling up in a coat to head outside, and the next thing you know, the weather turned downright summery here in northeastern Ohio. The early crops I planted at the beginning of April are starting to overwhelm me with their bounty — loads of lettuce, reams of radishes, heaps of herbs, and even a scattering of over-wintered scallions. On top of all that good fresh food from the garden, I’ve been trying to use up last year’s produce from the freezer and the pantry. Jars of tomatoes, tomato sauce, peaches, applesauce, grape juice, jams, and pickles linger on my shelves, quietly tormenting
With the Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin stocks plummeting to shockingly low levels, chef and restaurateur Nobu Matsuhisa (24 prestigious restaurants around the world) is under pressure from a battalion of critics to remove the fish from his menu until populations are sustainable. So far, Nobu’s restaurants haven’t done much besides adding a footnote to the bluefin tuna items on the menu informing the customer that the fish is “environmentally challenged” and offering to provide a substitute type of fish. Over at Chews Wise,
You’ve most likely heard about “Food, Inc.,” the new documentary about the U.S. industrial food system. (Watch trailer, embedded above right.) The buzz for the film is intense, amplified by an aggressive marketing campaign by Participant Media Productions (the people who midwifed “An Inconvenient Truth,” to which this is being compared). “Food Inc.” opens in limited release today, and more widely on June 19. It’s already been extensively,
Community supported appetites: Fun profile of the Bay Area’s food-movement power couple, Anya Fernald (former director of CAFF and the woman who pulled off nothing short of a miracle at Slow Food Nation) and Renato Sardo (former head of Slow Food
Extra Onion, please!: The Onion has the most satisfying send-up of fast-food greenwashing we’ve seen in a while. Love it. SHARETHIS.addEntry({
“I don’t believe in organic”: LA food writer Russ Parsons argues that people need to get over the idea that “organic” always equals chewing the right thing, whether from an environmental, moral, or taste perspective. “Between
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of fattiness: Tom Laskawy has a brutally pointed post about a new state-level study of obesity rates, which found that obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year and didn’t decline anywhere. What’s
“It’s no worse than veal”: The handful of restaurants in Canada that serve seal got a boost last month, when the European Union banned imports of commercially caught Canadian seal products. Canada allows two different hunts each year: a small one
Mother Nature’s little helpers vs. Wannabe Gods: This story weaves an interesting story around a thread we’ve seen elsewhere, that companies like Monsanto and Syngenta are shifting away from transgenic seeds (those in which genes from one
Cowpooling director: Very nice piece by friend o’Ethicurean Tamar Adler on meeting a Le Grand, CA, butcher who processes mostly beef and lamb for the people who raised them or their customers. Thankfully, Bill McCann has begun to preserve his dying
Not kidding around: Writer Brad Kessler talks about his and his wife’s decision to leave New York City for Vermont, raise goats, and make cheese, chronicled in his memoir “Goat
Tags are bagged, for now: The New York Times has a nice, colorful overview of the USDA’s proposed National Animal Identification System
Will Peak Soil counseling be next? Clinical psychologist Kathy McMahon has branched out from the usual counseling topics to writing an advice column called Peak Oil Blues about the coming oil shortages. People
Free to be me and PBDE: Humans and many animals have become cocktails of chemicals, with a lifetime’s “body burden” acquired from skin contact, breathing, drinking, and eating industrial materials. A newly released paper by researchers
The good, the bad, and the buggy: A useful primer on antibiotic resistance, with two pages of illustrations, explains how bacteria develop resistance and pays special attention to the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from hospitals
But what about Buckwheat, you rascals?: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an injunction barring Monsanto from selling its Roundup Ready alfalfa seed until the government completes an environmental impact study on how the genetically modified
1 in 10 Americans trying to live on $1 per meal: A new documentary called “Food Stamped” follows a couple (a nutrition educator in low-income neighborhoods and her filmmaker husband) as they attempt
San Francisco to rest of U.S.: Step up!: San Francisco’s incredibly progressive mayor, Gavin Newsom, has just signed what he calls “the most comprehensive recycling and composting legislation in the country and the first to require residents
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