Archive for April, 2009
Digest – News: Gates Foundation exec picked for USDA research post, Roundup Ready losing potency
Get Shah-ty: The Obama administration has nominated Rajiv J. Shah to serve as Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics of the USDA. (NYT Diner’s Journal Blog) Shah is the director of the agricultural development program at the
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Digest – Features & Blogs: Local or just “good,” Marler takes the stand
We know it when we eat it: The NYT's Mark Bittman ponders what to call food that used to go by "natural," before that word got co-opted by corporate marketing teams. "Instead of labeling ourselves — I only eat 'local,' 'seasonal,' or 'organic' food — why don’t we just say we strive to eat 'good'
What two 19th-century cities can teach us about community-based food systems
While compiling this week's (long overdue) Digest, I came across the excellent infographic above in Yes! magazine's April issue, which is all
Transgenic seeds are toast(ed): New report says GE crops have not increased yield
Couched deep within the earth-mother rhetoric of a recent Monsanto ad (which you can also see on the back cover of the current
Foraging and building tomato cages in Oakland
By Stephanie Paige Ogburn I’ve always found store-bought tomato cages to be utterly unsatisfactory. First of all, there’s the aspect of price. How a garden store can reasonably charge $6.99 for a piece of cheaply soldered metal that barely holds together is beyond me. (And of course one needs six
Straight to the superbug supersource: Q&A with Maryn McKenna about MRSA in people — and pigs
Everyone's up in arms about historian James McWilliams' New York Times op-ed last week, misleadingly headlined "Free-Range Trichinosis," about how a study found more pathogens in pastured pigs than factory ones. Many bloggers have
Digest – News: Perilous pork, the First Lettuce, food safety plateaus
Free-range throwdown: A New York Times op-ed turns the food-fear spotlight on pastured pork, covering a study that finds that "free-range pork can be more likely than caged pork to carry dangerous bacteria and parasites" including potentially-deadly Trichinosis. The author gets in a few more digs with
Digest – Features and blogs: Free-range response, literary seasonality, the Hamburg wish list
Fighting the Averyian Flu: Researchers at Johns Hopkins University look a little deeper at the NYT pork op-ed and find that the study mentioned was funded by the National Pork Board, which represents conventional producers, and that the Trichinosis "positive" pigs tested seropositive, meaning they have
Happy Easter! Celebrate spring with an apple-and-onion tart
Easter is a big deal where I grew up in the Midwest, at least in the circles my family traveled in. Sunday church service, where we sang "The Old Rugged Cross," Easter dresses and hats, pastel ties, egg hunts, and plastic grass were all part of the revelry. Perhaps the most memorable part of all of it
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Digest – News: Antibiotics in byproducts fed to cows, Sebelius lobbied to veto milk labeling bill
It was a very busy week for the Ethicurean bees, and we had to skip the weekend Digest. So some of these links may be a tad moldy, but hey — expiration dates are for sissies. Send your tasty news links to
Digest – Features: Hawai’i uh-oh, simplicity sells, anti-union strategizing
Hawaii plays canary: The genetically modified seed industry has become Hawaii's rising star, reports a cover story of the Honolulu Weekly; it accounts for about a quarter of the state’s total farm revenues, eclipsing every other commodity. In the past two decades, the Islands have hosted some 2,252
Digest – Commentary & blogs: Bittman busted for unconscious eating
Snap!-per: Tom Philpott chides Mark Bittman, aka The Minimalist and author of "Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating," for recommending red snapper—one of the most endangered species in U.S. waters. "I believe that influental food writers, especially ones concerned with conscious eating, need to
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The Compost Follies: Playing with garbage entails a steep learning curve
During dinner a couple weeks ago, a few of my fellow Yestermorrow interns and I started discussing emotions that stimulated learning. One person offered that he thinks frustration is useful for learning. I emphatically disagreed, saying that excitement was much more motivating than frustration. Either
There are much scarier food safety bills than HR 875 in Congress
If you care about food and farming and you use the Internet, you've probably received this particular e-mail. The title is something like, "BILL WOULD OUTLAW ORGANIC FARMING!!!!" or "MONSANTO'S DREAM BILL!!!!" It appears, inevitably, in all caps. I have upwards of 30 versions in my inbox. Normally, it
Pixies for the People: A new WIC Local Food Line
Can you hear the chanting? "Pixies for the People!" How about the drums? "Pixies for the People!" Pixie Tangerines, that is, not Tinker Bell. When
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