Section » Digest
Baltimore gets food czar
B'more healthy: Baltimore has hired a food policy coordinator, making the city one of the first with a paid "food czar" -- although taxpayers aren't paying her salary, a coalition of nonprofits are, to the tune of just 30 hours a week. Holly Freishtat is charged with "getting more healthy food on the tables of the people who need it," but she has a
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The new New Urbanism incorporates food growing into urban planning
Let's rurbalize it!: While "farming is the new golf," in terms of surburban developments incorporating communal food-growing operations into their scope, urban planner Daniel Nairn sees many more advantages to embedding such land use into the fabric of a dense city block. In this interesting concept
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Arsenic found in Utah kids’ pee traced to their pet chickens’ feed
Poison - It's what's for breakfast!: A toxicologist for the Utah Department of Health tracked worrisome levels of arsenic in two children to the family’s backyard chicken coop — "along with the eggs that came out of it, the feed that went into the hens that laid them and, finally, widely used
McDonald’s may be sued for Happy Meal toys
Shrek drek: Do inexpensive plastic toys lure children--or their parents--into making unhealthy food choices? The Center for Science in the Public Interest believes they do and is threatening to sue McDonald's if the company doesn't stop using toys to promote its products. "DreamWorks is the supplier
Must read: Temple Grandin two-part interview
Eats, chutes, and leaves: The well-known expert on humane slaughter dishes up several choice nuggets about how size and line speed aren't the determining factors when it comes to whether a slaughterhouse is "good" or "bad." What's important "is whether people care....There were some that were like the
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Why Anthony Bourdain thinks Jamie Oliver is a hero
Kid-food confidential: Anthony Bourdain may love foie gras, loathe Alice Waters and vegetarians, and enjoy tipping other sacred sustainable-foodie cows, but a recent excerpt from his new memoir, "Medium
Supreme court ruling not techically a victory for Monsanto after all
Hype haymaker: "The sustainable agriculture world is abuzz today with news of the Supreme Court's ruling regarding an earlier lawsuit, brought by alfalfa farmers, that sought to stop any planting of Monsanto's genetically engineered Roundup Ready alfalfa seed. While the press coverage heralds the ruling
Why we need to arm the EPA against toxic chemicals
Silent scream: "In America, chemicals are innocent until proven guilty," writes Bejamin Ross in this fascinating summary of the FDA and the larger history of U.S. regulation of toxic substances in food and our everyday environments. While this rule of thumb has been in place for over a century, it's
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EPA to increase oversight over CAFO manure
Thanks in part to a lawsuit from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and Waterkeeper Alliance, the EPA has agreed to increase its oversight of manure discharges from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)*. The EPA estimates that CAFOs in the U.S.generate three times more bodily
Researchers trace corn’s ancient history
Children of the teosinte: Even though maize (Zea mays) is perhaps the most important crop in the Americas (for better or worse), until recently, we didn't know where it came from and when it was domesticated. Research by botanists, geneticists and archeologists has finally found the answers in a grass
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Industrial ag can’t get enough federal bucks?
Snow us the money! David Goldstein, Washington correspondent for McClatchy newspapers, reports that three senators are standing up for the poor, neglected industrial agriculture industry against the wicked Know
Michael Pollan on the rise of the food movement(s)
Pollan nation: In what is ostensibly a five-book review for the June 10 New York Review of Books, journalist Michael Pollan has an epic essay charting the emergence and character of the food movement. Or, as he puts
Ethicurean’s Marc interviewed on Berkeleyside
Marc my words: Ethicurean co-editor Marc Rumminger talks about which cookbook authors and local-food purveyors he admires for an interview on Berkeley Bites. His personal blog, Mental Masala, was recently named a blog
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Buyer beware this butcher’s bullshit
It's a sad and telling sign of the SOLE food movement's popularity, when people use the movement's principles to market their beef and hide the bullshit behind the counter. As Matthew Richter writes in "Mystery
Dairy cows’ feed exacerbates air pollution in central California
Although it has a relatively low population density, California's San Joaquin Valley has some of the worst air pollution in the nation, especially when it comes to ozone (O3), a gas that can cause respiratory and cardiac problems. To
