Climate Food and Agriculture

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  • Michael Pollan chronicles rise of the food movement(s)

    (Watershed Media)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 it, “movements.” They are unified, for now at least, by little more than the recognition that industrial food […]

    Bonnie Azab Powell Food and Agriculture

  • Lessons from Berkeley schools: The truth about kids and vegetables

    Typical breakfast in a DC public school(Ed Bruske photos)The conclusion of Cafeteria Confidential: Berkeley, in which Ed Bruske reports on his recent week-long, firsthand look at how Berkeley, Calif., schools part ways from the typical school diet of frozen, industrially processed convenience foods. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. Might as well say it straight up: […]

    Ed Bruske Food and Agriculture

  • Order up: Readers’ fave sandwich shops [PHOTOS]

    (Jess Steinitz photo)We asked readers to nominate their favorite sustainable, locally owned sandwich shops — the ones sourcing their ingredients directly from nearby farms and turning them into “consistently and mind-blowingly good sandwiches,” as Grist’s Tom Philpott put it. Dozens of you shared your suggestions in the comments, but only two — Jess Steinitz and […]

    Bonnie Azab Powell Food and Agriculture

  • Passive-aggressive cakes spill onto Gulf coast

    skooksie via Flickr Creative Commons Some crude feelings about BP’s half-baked efforts are starting to wash up in the cake window of New Orleans grocery store Breaux Mart, likely to be followed by a boom in sales. I wonder how much oil this recipe calls for? via Cake Wrecks —————————————————————————————————————————————————– Like what you see? Sign […]

    Ashley Braun Climate & Energy

  • Feeling sheepish: An exercise in small-town networking

    Sheep ready to be unloaded into their new pen from the borrowed livestock rack.(Steph Larsen photos)My first experience working directly with cows on a daily basis was not a particularly good one. It was 7 years ago on an organic dairy farm in England, and while most of the 99 Ayrshires were docile, the well-placed […]

    Steph Larsen Food and Agriculture

  • Forget broccoli — Berkeley students aren’t keen on beans either

    Part 5 of Cafeteria Confidential: Berkeley, in which Ed Bruske reports on his recent week-long, firsthand look at how Berkeley, Calif., schools part ways from the typical school diet of frozen, industrially processed convenience foods. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest of the Cafeteria Confidential series. After spending hours sorting chicken […]

    Ed Bruske Food and Agriculture

  • Small slaughterhouses on the chopping block, ag research constrained, pushing GMOs

    When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the Web. Get ’em while they’re hot.  New rules, old mindset Everyone should read this article, posted on Chewswise by Joe Cloud, who co-owns a “small-scale locally focused” slaughterhouse outside of Washington, D.C. It’s about proposed new USDA rules […]

    Tom Philpott Food and Agriculture

  • Oil now threatening Gulf’s cradles of biodiversity, its reefs

    As corals are particularly susceptible to oil detergents and dispersed oil, the results of these assays rules out the use of any oil dispersant in coral reefs and in their vicinity.–From a 2007 paper by Israeli researchers, published in The Journal of Environmental Science (USGS photo)After reading those words a few days ago, I became […]

    Tom Philpott Food and Agriculture

  • Healthy breakfasts buy lunch in Berkeley schools

    Part 4 of Cafeteria Confidential: Berkeley, in which Ed Bruske reports on his recent week-long, firsthand look at how Berkeley, Calif., schools part ways from the typical school diet of frozen, industrially processed convenience foods. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest of the Cafeteria Confidential series. Breakfasts for Berkeley schoolkids are […]

    Ed Bruske Food and Agriculture

  • Spill-rate lowballing reflects badly on government cleanup oversight

    Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.): “Okay. What is the current spill per day today?”Lamar McKay, President and Chairman of BP America: “The current estimate is 5,000 barrels a day.”— From hearings (PDF) held by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Wednesday, May 12, 2010 Still from a May 11 video of oil and gas streaming […]

    Tom Philpott Food and Agriculture