Section » Beverages
Asia could teach U.S. some new corn tricks
Thanks to fertile Midwestern plains, commodity-focused agricultural policy, a foreign policy that makes cheap petroleum a high priority, and an innovative agricultural industry, Americans are truly the 'people of the corn.' As the film "King Corn" and the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" have well documented, corn appears everywhere in the U.S. food system. And
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Koreans crack open a cool, frosty dose of fiber
As an observer of the American food scene, I see many instances of oddly supplemented foods and drinks, where everyday foods are dosed with antioxidants or vitamins or another supposedly healthful supplement to give its buyer a sense of healthy satisfaction. But there is always another surprise lurking
BPA from bottles enters the human body
The proof is in the pee? Bisphenol A (BPA) is suspected to be an endocrine disruptor and a potential cause of numerous chronic diseases, leading to various efforts to ban its use. A newly released study by researchers at Harvard and the Centers for Disease Control finds bottles made from BPA lead to
Not milk: The ingredient behind the dairy crisis
I have no idea what it would feel like to be a dairy farmer. I don't run a business that was started by my father or mother or grandparents, or that I built myself; I don't own and manage land that has been in my family for generations. Come to think of it, I've never really had to make a major business
Digest - News: Label libel, Chiquita goes bananas, and another reason to stay off soda
We digest the news for you twice a week. Read something great? Send it our way at digest@ethicurean.com. Take it to the limit: Many consumers who buy organic food assume it is safer than conventional food. Some conflate the word with local, with humane treatment of livestock, and with fair pay for workers.
Digest - News: Meat on the move, the chains of biotech, resources for organic
Drop it like it's hot: Brazilian beef giant JBS, which snagged Smithfield's beef business last March, abandoned plans to purchase U.S. National Beef Packing Co. on Friday. The JBS/National Beef merger was under anti-trust investigation by the Justice Department, which celebrated JBS' decision and claimed
Digest - Blogs: Sweet analysis, rural internet woes, good food in the city
Never let them see you sweet: Tom Philpott looks into a new Tufts study that finds corn subsidies may have been a boon to the HFCS industry, but they alone don't make bad food cheap. Australia has similar obesity patterns but eats sugar instead. What we need to do, Tom says, is figure out "how to disincentivize
Beer me: Trolling for craft brews in an ocean of Bud
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,
Finding common grounds: a review of “Black Gold”
How many cups of coffee do you drink during the day? Now, how many cups of coffee would you guess are consumed every day throughout the world? Not being a hard-core coffee drinker myself – one cup will usually satisfy me, if I even need that – I hadn't given the global coffee trade a whole
Digest - Commentary: Bottle ballast, foxy argument
California wines turned back in Ohio: Our blog-buddy Tyler Colman lands his "red, white, and green" wine carbon-footprint research in the Times' op-ed section. (New York Times) And a pheasant holiday to you too: Commentator
Digest - Features: China’s toxic scale, food trends forecast
Another way China is poisoning itself — fish: The latest installment in the NYT's "Choking on Growth" series paints yet another bleak portrait of the world's most populous country. China produces about 70 percent of the farmed fish in the world (and consumes most of it, for now), via
Digest - Blogsnacks: Raw milk, Alice Waters updates; wine’s carbon footprint, defining local
Calling all Californian raw-milk drinkers: David Gumpert is chronicling all the latest twists and turns in the shady saga of AB1735, the handful of words that may have consigned raw milk to the compost pile in California. A raw-food advocate plans to file a court injunction and launch a class action
Digest - Features: A+ for bee-minus story, cattlemen no supertasters, farming is poisoning our drinking water
Queen of the bees: Colony collapse disorder in U.S. bees "may have many contributing causes," writes Gina Covina in this terrific Ecology Center Terrain article posted on AlterNet, "but it comes down to bees hitting the biological
The grape taste of Ohio wines
I am not a wine connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, when it comes to wine, I can generally take it or leave it. I've nothing against it, mind you, and I've found that the right wine can often make a good meal even more blissful. But I can also leave a wine bottle in the refrigerator
Digest: USDA diluting organics, emptying bottled water
NEWS Organic, except when it's too hard: The USDA followed the tried-and-true technique of releasing controversial news on a Friday afternoon with an interim approval to the rule allowing 38 non-organic ingredients to be used in products with the "USDA organic" label. Manufacturers must prove (whatever
