Latest Articles

What a D.C. private school can teach us about public-school lunches

Meal time at the Washington Jesuit Academy. Photo: Ed Brukse This is the third of three articles detailing how food made from scratch using local ingredients is served to students at the Washington Jesuit Academy in Northeast Washington, D.C. The first is here; the second here:  Prior to hiring Fresh Start Catering a year ago to […]

One more blow to the ailing Great Barrier Reef

The Shen Neng 1 in a plume of heavy oil in Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.Australian Maritime Safety AuthorityUgh. Everything about this is bad: A Chinese freighter crashed into Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Saturday, running aground and spilling heavy fuel oil into the water. The ship is stuck, and while the flow of oil has […]

Filling our short-term fossil-fuel needs

Like many Americans, I battle with my waistline, watching the same twenty pounds come and go year after year. Eating everything from Tootsie Rolls to asparagus, at times the healthy fare wins over the junk food, but usually the other way around. No food is either good or bad, because consumption isn’t measured against a […]

Time for Obama to embrace another GOP energy plan

By Jesse Jenkins and Yael Borofsky With President Obama’s announcement Wednesday that the administration would support expanded offshore oil and gas extraction, it’s now apparent that price pressures on oil make political pressures on politicians impossible to ignore and that some expansion of offshore drilling is inevitable. But despite Green backlash against the Obama administration’s […]

China’s global shopping spree: Is the world’s future resource map tilting East?

Cross-posted from TomDispatch. Think of it as a tale of two countries. When it comes to procuring the resources that make industrial societies run, China is now the shopaholic of planet Earth, while the United States is staying at home. Hard-hit by the global recession, the United States has experienced a marked decline in the […]

Pasta con sarde: the gateway drug for sardine obsession

Sardines at a market in Portugal. We’re wasting this magnificent resource on low-quality, mercury-laden farmed salmon? Not in Tom’s Kitchen! In Tom’s Kitchen, Grist’s food editor discusses some of the quick-and-easy things he gets up to in, well, his kitchen. Forgive him for the lame iPhone photography. —— A while ago, my colleague Jon Hiskes […]

Underground school lunch blogger hits ‘Good Morning America’

Still life, with spork: Mrs. Q’s snap of pre-fab “Salisbury steak,” with canned peaches and canned corn. Photo: Mrs. Q   In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related video from around the Web. ——- Mrs. Q is an anonymous midwestern public-school teacher who has vowed to eat the rotten dreck being served up […]

Ask Umbra on Ronald McDonald’s retirement, card games, and a coffee stirring stir

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, After close to 50 years of hawking fatty food directly to kids, a groundswell of parents, health experts, and children’s advocates are calling on McDonald’s to retire Ronald McDonald. A new report and national poll released by Corporate Accountability International found that close to half of the […]

My family (yours, too) needs rich social spaces–not cars–to be happy

Lisa’s fantastic essay, “Say it loud: I’m childfree and I’m proud,” had 196 comments last time I checked. If you haven’t read it, you really should. I’ll wait here. … It got me thinking. Pardon a weekend ramble. Me and my little resource hogs.I’m a father of two boys and I’ve absolutely loved it. I […]

Friday music blogging: Rogue Wave

Rogue Wave’s 2004 debut album, Out of the Shadow, was an immediately memorable mix of bright, melodic indie pop and off-kilter, art-rock time shifts. It made you want to tap your foot, but often made it quite difficult to keep time. It was one of those albums that got better the more time you spent […]