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Digest – News: Seeds grow, even in prison; allergy nuts; and the return of the pear
Growing hope: U.S. prisons are notoriously bad at rehabilitating inmates and preparing them to return to public life, but San Quentin is trying to change that. How? By providing an organic garden that residents can care for. "It reminds me of being with my grandmother," says one inmate. "It saved my life." (KQED's California
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Digest – Features and blogs: The great OJ caper, the anti-produce lobby, and urban-rural love
Take a bite outta that: Orange juice is marketed as a healthy, natural food, but it's actually the end product of a process that involves long-term storage, chemistry, and "flavor packs." As is generally the case, you're much better off just eating an orange. Q&A with author Alissa Hamilton, whose
Digest – News & Features: Tomato pickers make Gourmet, MiPo in MoJo, Obama on payment limits
Update: now with working URLs! (sorry and thanks Patrick!) We Digest food-politics news both tasty and ewww for you twice a week. Send articles (and puns!) to t1 Comment • Read more »
This is what democracy looks like
Today is a big day for all of us who believe not only in sustainable food and agriculture systems, but also in the democratic process. The months since the election brought an outpouring of engagement from citizens urging the Obama Administration to appoint change-makers to lead our country. And it paid
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
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Digest – Blogs, etc.: Frogs in the coal mine, what the government’s not telling us
Don't ask, don't tell: Tom Philpott wonders why, after two studies released last month showed detectable levels of mercury in products containing high fructose corn syrup, the FDA by its own admission has no plans to look into the issue. How nice that the agency would rather trust the claims of an industry
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Digest – News & Features: Grass-fed emits more CO2 than grain-, wheat threatened, Grandin creates certification
Have you read (or written) something savory lately? Send your Digest tips to dig6 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: Vilsack’s singing our song, but he ain’t our valentine yet
Yeah OK, we're listening: The WashPo's Jane Black interviews new Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who says that being an overweight kid has given him insight into childhood nutrition problems, that in an ideal world all food would be purchased locally, and that the USDA needs to help build the infrastructure
Technical difficulties
Update 2:15 pm PST: due to site maintenance and um, a mad scramble to troubleshoot the WP system, comments and other features will be unavailable for a few hours. Due to my foot-dragging, our blog host decided to upgrade up us to WordPress 2.7.1 without saving any of our jury-rigged templates. Please
Digest – News: Pharm goats OK’d, farm profits dwindle, and peanuts throw dirt on the FDA
Brave new world: FDA approves the first pharm-animal drug, a blood thinner made from the milk of bioengineered goats. Critics nail FDA for its shoddy approval process and worry about what could happen if the animals escape from the lab and mate with unsuspecting non-GM cohorts. (
Digest – Blogs and opinion: Food pound-gallons (?), friending the FDA, another list for Vilsack
Measuring up: We've all heard the average number of miles that industrial food travels from farm to fork (1500), but is that the best way to weigh the environmental impact of our consumption choices? NY farmer Bob Comis proposes a conceptual shift to "pound-gallons," a clunky-sounding idea that might
Digest: Vilsack’s tightrope, the urban bounty, and a new era for “micro-farms”
Music to our ears: USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, who some in the good-food movement have blasted for his ties to agribusiness, sounds a sweet note by calling for a "new day" for the agency in which it serves both farmers and the nation's 300 million eaters. Is it all talk, or will we see some action? (
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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Digest – Blogs, features, opinions: Michigan builds local, peanut pontification, and snacks from the sea
Eating local, even below zero: More than a hundred people gathered in Ann Arbor, Michigan to plan for the growth of the region's local food movement and feasted on local greens, squash, beans, meat, and other goodies. Organizers hope that the products of the 2009 Local Food Summit will "transform the
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