Section » Grains
Digest: The scoop on China’s corner-cutting, Mexico goes GM, chocolate label reasoning
NEWS Be afraid. Be very afraid: The New York Times goes to Zhangqiu, a fast-growing industrial city southeast of Beijing, and gets some hair-raising real dirt on China's practices regarding the chemical that probably killed hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. pets. For years, producers of animal feed all over China have secretly supplemented their feed
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Digest: Tomato pickers get raise, Norman Borlaug to the rescue, Wal-Mart retreats
There's a golf course worth of links coming at ya. Fore! Pennies add up: McDonald's has reached agreement with a Florida farmworkers organization to pay 1 cent more per pound for the tomatoes it buys from state farms. Think that's nothing? It's a 75 percent pay raise for the laborers. Time for Burger
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Digest: Check your kibble, rice growers speak out, corn ripple effect
More bad pet food: The pet food recall has been expanded to other wt food brands and dry kibble as well. Boston Globe (via AP) While the AP story says the FDA would not name the manufacturer,
How green is your rice?
Dairy Queen here: This is the second guest post from our Berkeley neighbor Marc (bio now available), who's also been contributing daily to the Digest. Here, Marc — who's an engineer — engages in a little recreational fact-checking that I for one
Digest: U.S. farmers mad over GM rice, Bee-t hypothesis, FDA fights back
Rice flows: Rick Weiss has another excellent feature, this time on rice farmers' frustration over seeds' contamination with genetically modified varieties unapproved for human consumption. Biotech proponents are asking "what's the big deal?" and claiming no harm has come to human health. (But since U.S.
Digest: Rice restraining order, Pollan smackeyed, Farm Bill proposal, beef warning
Rogue rice: The USDA has ordered dealers not to sell a long-grain rice seed, Clearfield CL131, for planting because it may have been contaminated by a genetically modified strain. Yep, Bayer's pesky Liberty strain may have escaped its cellular bonds once again. New
Digest: Mergers, monopolies, thieves, imposters, and rats
Bad seed: A proposed merger between Monsanto (the world's largest seed company) and the nation's largest cottonseed seller could mean bad news for organic cotton growers, says the Center for Food Safety, which is seeking to block the deal. Wired
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Digest: Santa Cruz named state’s healthy-food capital, cloning in practice, foodies make you fat
Santa Cruz beats Marin: A new study found that California has about four times as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as healthier alternatives. In Santa Cruz County, the ratio was fewer than two unhealthy options for every healthy one — the highest proportion of healthy food options
White bean experiments
The discovery that my grandparents raised beans as a cash crop gave me new interest in the "magical fruit," and I was pleased to discover someone selling great white northern beans at our local farmers' market. I bought
New Year’s Empanadas
Man of La Muncha and I were both on vacation for the week between Christmas and New Year's, which opened up many possibilities for cooking and eating some of the bounty from our Crown S Ranch meat CSA, using recipes that aren't really possible during a work week, and not something we tend to want to
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Risotto a go-go
About four years ago, I was laid off from my job during the Great Economic Downturn of 2002. After the requisite month of blind panic, I settled into what I think of now as an unemployed lifestyle; that is to say, I exercised more, read a tremendous number of books, and made sure that when Man of La
Ask the Ethicurean: What is a whole grain?
Omniho suggested a while ago that we start a regular feature called "Ask the Ethicurean," in which readers pose ethical-eating dilemmas or inquire about brands you'd like us to investigate. Chances are we won't know the answer offhand, but with the help of Google, Lexis-Nexis, access to academic and
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Digesting: GMO roundup
Certifiably man-made crop circles such as this one featured on Comments Off • Read more »
Illegal rice: outrage and outrageous acts
OK, now I'm angry. Really angry -- in a good way. After more that three weeks of trying to find my writing voice — and not having enough procrastination time built into my schedule to coax it out — it's finally back! Nothing like a little David and Goliath drama to spur me back into action. "Where's
