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Meet menhaden – before this ecologically critical fish vanishes

By • on March 23, 2009

By Alice Friedemann Ever heard of menhaden? Probably not, although perhaps you're familiar with the fish’s other names: bunker, pogies, mossbacks, bugmouths, alewifes, and fat-backs. You may be surprised to learn they’re the most important fish in the Atlantic and Gulf waters. Menhaden are the vacuum cleaners of our coasts, filtering up to four

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Fatal attraction: Humanity’s love affair with fish like the Chilean sea bass

By • on March 17, 2009

Recently I was snared — or hooked, snagged, or netted (pick your favorite fishing pun) — by a book that shows  humanity's enormous capacity to affect ocean life. We can nearly wipe out an entire species in just a few decades thanks to new technologies and taste trends. Take the Chilean sea bass, Dissostichus

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Digest – News: Flesh-eating bacteria, wallet-eating food companies, and eating, righteously

By • on March 12, 2009

Makes your skin crawl: As previously reported here, a flesh-eating, antibiotic resistant bacteria is killing 18,000 Americans a year and is carried by 45% of farmers and 49% of pigs in Iowa. Nicholas

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Review: Real Food For Healthy Kids cookbook

By • on March 9, 2009

I talk a lot of smack about sustainable food. About the unexpected pleasures of farmer’s markets, about voting with one’s fork, about "local economies" this and "food miles" that. But here’s my dirty little secret: it wasn’t that long ago that I fed my daughter a steady diet of chicken nuggets,

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Learning to share: “Dinner at Your Door,” by Alex Davis, Diana Ellis, and Andy Remeis

By • on February 28, 2009

Not quite two years ago, as our local meat CSA was in the works, I gathered with a few people to discuss “The Omnivore's Dilemma,” the

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What the health?: A review of “101 Foods That Could Save Your Life”

By • on February 21, 2009

In the past year or so, the local college has started a Wellness Series of lectures designed to discuss various health topics designed to appeal to all members of the community. Unable to attend any of last year's, I thought I might try to catch at least one this time around, so recently I dragged a

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Beer me: Trolling for craft brews in an ocean of Bud

By • on February 6, 2009

Out of fairness, I should begin this post by admitting that I do not actually like beer. Never a big drinker, when the urge hits, my tastes veer toward wine and, OK, a nip of whiskey. But just as I appreciate (and, in fact,

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Well worth the wheat: Gene Logsdon’s “Small-Scale Grain Raising”

By • on February 4, 2009

As the price of flour and other grain-based foods has risen, creative-minded people have begun to consider growing their own wheat, corn, rye, and other grains. Groovy

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Mark Bittman on Cooking Up a Story

By • on January 19, 2009

Mark Bittman, whose "How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food" is the best present you can give a young wannabe cook —

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Outta space?: R. J. Ruppenthal’s “Fresh Food From Small Spaces”

By • on December 27, 2008

Though I've been lucky to "borrow" my friends' back yard for a garden this year, during the winter I still crave growing something green and

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Digest – Blogs: Fast food (no)ledge, eater of the year, and a holiday book roundup

By • on December 12, 2008

Can we still eat that burger with our heads in the sand?: Several states have passed industry-driven legislation tying the hands of local authorities to require fast food outlets to post nutrition information on restaurant menu boards. (NowPublic;

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Grass act: Gene Logsdon’s “All Flesh Is Grass”

By • on November 23, 2008

As the problems of industrial meat production — CAFOs, excessive waste and pollution, worker

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Celebrating food independence: A review of “Depletion and Abundance”

By • on October 20, 2008

OK, quick check: everyone who is concerned about the economic crisis turning into a depression and causing food and fuel prices to rise and pockets to empty — whether for yourself, your parents, your children,

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The ‘Eat This, Not That’ guy compares his book to Obama, offers crappy advice for families

By • on September 10, 2008

Oh my stars. David Zinczenko has gone insane. A while ago, I reviewed Zinczenko's book "Eat This! Not That!" which is selling like hotcakes, even if it's not making our nation any healthier. I was content to let it go at that. But

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“Eat This! Not That!” presents the solution to the wrong problem

By • on July 25, 2008

“Get yourself a copy of ‘Eat This, Not That,’" someone told me recently. “It’s flying off the bookstore shelves.” I did pick up a copy. And I’m confused. Written by David Zinczenko, the editor-in-chief

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