Climate Food and Agriculture

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  • Why raising the price of school lunch is a bad idea

    Scene from Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Drawing by George Cruikshank, circa 1837.At a time when many families are struggling with money — and racking up millions of dollars in debt at school cafeterias — school lunch is about to get more expensive. The hike is mandated by the recent Child Nutrition Reauthorization passed by Congress and […]

    Ed Bruske Food

  • Chicken, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and regulatory independence

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Would you like that chicken tainted with salmonella with resistance to one, two, three, or four different antibiotics? We also have six and seven. Consumer choice! After my post Monday on aspartame’s wild and wacky path from pharmaceutical-company lab […]

    Tom Philpott Agriculture

  • Why playing with your food is serious business

    Sometimes, you just want to get your hands on some food and goof around. Don’t worry; it just means you’re human.  Sometimes, I cook when I’m hungry. Then there are those times I find myself heading into the kitchen with a strong drive for … well … nothing in particular. And I’m not even hungry. […]

    Carol Deppe Food

  • Killing a bison and eating it raw [VIDEO]

    My vegetarian girlfriend/camera operator refuses to watch this week’s video, so I won’t be insulted if you skip over it. I’ll be more impressed, though, if you watch. The slaughter is followed by a recipe for bison tartare. When you’ve seen the farm, and the butchering process, raw is a non-issue. For those of you […]

    Daniel Klein Food

  • Ask Umbra Book Club: The history of ‘adulterated’ food and gross-food urban legends

    Give us this day our daily bread, as long as we know what went into it.Photo: LaCheryl PorterDearest readers, Last week, we kicked off our discussion of Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life. You can catch up here. Let’s move our conversation into what is perhaps the heart of a house: […]

    Ask Umbra® Agriculture

  • Why is Trader Joe’s short-changing farmworker justice?

    Hey Trader Joe’s: respect the people who harvest the food you sell. Photo: Scott RobertsonOver the past two decades, Trader Joe’s has grown rapidly as bargain-hunting foodies swarmed into its outlets. The chain now runs more than 350 stores with sales topping $8 billion in 2009. The secret to its dazzling success? Fortune magazine describes […]

    Sean Sellers Agriculture

  • Victims of tainted peanut butter outbreak demand criminal charges

    Peanut Corporation of America execs knowingly sent out tainted peanut butter — that eventually killed people. Will they pay the price? Last Friday, I spoke at the Government Accountability Project Food Integrity Campaign conference. During the lunch break, food safety attorney and advocate Bill Marler hosted a press event with 10 family members of victims […]

    Michele Simon Food

  • Just how bad is aspartame?

    Aspartame in artificially blackened water — tasty.Photo: William HartzWhen I wrote about diet soda and and its health effects last week, I didn’t expect much of a reaction. I guess in the back of my mind, I was thinking, people still drink that stuff? Well, they do — by the bucketful. Overall, U.S. soda consumption […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • With global grain prices surging, corn ethanol looking dumber than ever

    There’s nothing green about wasting corn for ethanol.Grist has been tracking rising food prices for some time — and we’re not the only ones. New York Times columnist and Nobel economist Paul Krugman has been writing on the subject, including some interesting analysis of the interaction of climate risk and food prices. Here’s a key […]

    Tom Laskawy Agriculture

  • Turning cows into steaks: inside a mid-scale slaughterhouse [VIDEO]

    Photo: Kate SommersThere are many levels of animal eaters, farmers, and processors in this country. Even among the green-minded, we have passionate vegans and rampant paleo-style carnivores. There are those who support large farms for their efficiency, and those who want every farm to have only an acre of produce, a cow, and five chickens. […]

    Daniel Klein Agriculture