Section » Dairy
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 decision, let alone a decision that could determine
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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 dig2 Comments • Read more »
Digest – News: Dairy cows on the moove, Big Corn throwdown, a locavore loses it
Industry pail-out: California's dairy industry announces a plan to cull 300,000 dairy cows, or roughly 1/6th of the state's herd, in an attempt to raise market prices for milk from the $0.97/gallon producers have received recently. Mass sell-offs have happened before, but often the cows were bought by
Digest – News: Peanut crime spree, spinach gets zapped, lonely locusts
Busting a nut: With the list of recalled peanut products topping 400, the Department of Justice begins a criminal investigation of the processing company behind it. The Food and Drug Act prohibits companies from knowingly transporting contaminated products across state lines, something the Peanut Corporation
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Taxing cows to curb climate change
When you fill your car's tank, you pay a gas tax. Someday, when you fill your belly with cheese, milk, or steak, you might have to pay another type of gas tax — one levied on the methane and nitrous oxide emitted by the cows that produced or became your food. Bacteria in a cow's gut help digest what
Digest: Food’s future heats up, dairy prices tank, and we ask FDA to hold the peanut butter
Incompetence sandwich: 400 people have been sickened nationwide by a Salmonella outbreak linked to King Nut peanut butter, and while the company has quickly responded with a voluntary recall, the FDA has yet to issue a press release telling the public they should avoid the stuff. Are they nuts? (CNN.com) 2100:
Let’s cure Absencia Grassosis! Weigh in on organic pasture rule by Dec. 23
We've reported before on a disturbing disease that's been plaguing large-scale organic dairies: Absencia Grassosis. Sounds pretty nasty, doesn't it? Loosely
Digest: Toxic whales, piles of poop, and a brightening future for GM crops
Leaving resistance to the weeds?: In response to surging food prices and population growth, Brazil, the EU, and other regions that haven't allowed the cultivation of herbicide-tolerant and other GM crops are loosening their restrictions, crossing their fingers, and hoping for a second Green Revolution.
Digest: Mo’ melamine woes, food safety offenders, Obama to target subsidies
Want some formica in your formula?: We thought we'd seen the worst of the FDA's screwups with this Chinese melamine debacle, but the agency still has surprises up its sleeve. It held back test results that reveal low levels of melamine in
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Organic dairy pioneer Albert Straus at the Commonwealth Club
If I made a list of the pioneers of the modern sustainable food movement in Northern California, Straus Family Creamery would be one of the first names I would add.
Digest – News: So Monsanto, going to take on Wal-Mart? Meanwhile, raw milk’s losing
It ain't over until the biotech giant screams: Wal-Mart says its private-label milk will be produced with no artificial growth hormones, aka Monsanto's rBST drug Posilac. (Globe and Mail) Related: Kroger
A delicious way to network: baked custard
Of all of the alliances between egg and dairy, custard is one of the most interesting to me. Silky in texture, elegant in flavor, acceptable to tastes ranging from unadventurous children to the most discerning adult, it's a perfect way to enjoy the eggs and milk you worked so hard to source from SOLE
Digest – Commentary: Mileage counts, Stonyfield rock-throwing
Food miles per gallon: Anthony Flaccavento, director of Appalachian Sustainable Development, argues persuasively against the anti-locavore hypothesis that shipping food in tractor-trailers is more efficient than local food transactions. (Washington
Digest – Features: Raw-milk wars, young beekeeper, transgenic pigs
Please, wouldja stop saving us from ourselves?: David Gumpert details the jawdropping harassment tactics that New York and California state officials are using on small raw-milk dairies, including pouring bleach on their products. This despite the fact that a FOIA request from the US Centers for Disease
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Digest – Blogs: Biotech & veggie protectionism, revenge of spent cows
Magi-non! line: Biotech seed producers are sick of France's pesky anti-GMO firebugs, so they're moving to friendlier climes in the Midwest and Brazil. The only problem with Andrew Leonard's funny headline — "Give us your poor, your tired, your genetic modification experiments" —
