Section » Health and Sustainability

Beet me up: Six summery ways to enjoy the sweetest root vegetable

By • on May 28, 2012

I peek under our hoop house garden bed to check the progress of the hundred beets we planted early in the winter. The greens look healthy and strong. For two months I have resisted the urge to harvest baby beets early. On occasion, I did harvest a few beets under the auspices of "thinning the bed." (Sometimes thinning a garden bed is necessary to give

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Farming groups resort to Machiavellian defense of indefensible practices

By • on February 1, 2011

Spin-dustrial ag: Two dozen of the nation's largest and best-funded farm groups have formed a coalition to counter poor publicity, reports the AP (LAtimes.com). What are they mad

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Massive gingerbread house recall a reminder that food safety starts in the gut

By • on December 28, 2010

Grist (where I am the food editor) just got a late entry to our Scariest Food of 2010 contest: Gingerbread houses.

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Thanks, Jevons paradox! On why I won’t be replacing my spare fridge

By • on December 22, 2010

A few weeks ago, my spare side-by-side fridge/freezer up and died. I was (and remain) pissed about this. It's a fancy-pants Samsung, about four years old, and the Sears repair guy said the compressor would cost $800 to fix -- 75% of what the fridge was new. "Samsung's great for TVs, crap for fridges,"

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An artisanal plea from a fed-up foodie

By • on October 28, 2010

When you find me behind bars, locked up for a fit of lexical rage, please know that it was granola that pushed me over the edge. Not just any granola: "artisan granola." Presumably its makers meant artisanal granola, made in limited quantities

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Math lessons for Budiansky: Industrial concentration vs. local choice

By • on August 22, 2010

On Friday, New York Times op-ed contributor Steven Budiansky challenged local food advocates to rethink their math, mainly about food miles. As it happens, I was already doing some food calculations that day -- but not of the sort

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The new New Urbanism incorporates food growing into urban planning

By • on July 8, 2010

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

By • on July 8, 2010

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

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Why we need to arm the EPA against toxic chemicals

By • on June 21, 2010

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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Researchers trace corn’s ancient history

By • on May 28, 2010

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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The Marin Carbon Project studies carbon sequestration

By • on April 17, 2010

Soil carbon sequestration — the process of converting gaseous carbon dioxide into carbon in the soil — offers a promising (and possibly necessary) route to addressing climate change

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Bottled water’s energy budget

By • on March 22, 2010

In a short research paper, two staff members from the Pacific Institute examine how energy is used in the production and distribution of bottled water. Bottle production and transportation are by far the largest energy users, with pre-bottling water processing (filtration and disinfection), filling and

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The manurification of America

By • on March 2, 2010

A perfect shitstorm: On some farms, animal manure can be a valuable asset, a way to improve the soil in the fields. But for today's massive factory farms — and, increasingly, the nation's air and waterways — manure is a huge liability, reports the Post's David A. Fahrenthold. Decomposing manure from

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Fertilizer overuse can acidify soil

By • on February 19, 2010

Another reason to dislike the N-word: Fertilizer overuse creates many problems, like aquatic dead zones, resource depletion and blue-baby syndrome. One impact that

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What’s P-Cresol and why is it in my food? “Don’t Eat That” iPhone app will tell you

By • on February 5, 2010

A simple little iPhone app launched a few days ago that demystifies the ingredient lists of processed food. Called "Don't Eat That" (link to

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