Food and Agriculture

What’s in your food that’s destroying orangutans?

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.Have you bought soap in the past week? How about lipstick? Cheerios? Soy milk? Today, a new report reveals that the nation’s largest private agribusiness company — Minneapolis-based Cargill — is a major culprit behind rainforest destruction. It turns out that Cargill, who both owns their own palm oil plantations and buys and […]

Margaret Swink Food

Corn industry brazenly turns Gulf disaster into marketing opportunity

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (the dull gray color southeast of the Mississippi Delta) seen by satellite on May 1 Photo: NASAAs if being bombarded with oil from below and chemical dispersants from above weren’t enough, the Gulf of Mexico also has to endure marketing rhetoric from a long-time tormentor: the corn industry. Industrial corn […]

Tom Philpott Climate & Energy

Choosing sustainable sushi more important than ever, post-spill

In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related videos from around the Web. ————- There are lots of reasons to choose your sushi carefully: most salmon, shrimp, tuna, and eel come hooked to ecological disaster. Now, with the Gulf oil spill threatening the entire marine ecosystem that provides the bulk of U.S. shrimp and […]

Tom Laskawy Food

What are we dumping into the Gulf to ‘fix’ the oil spill?

A 2006 oil-dispersant-spraying test run by the Air Force Reserve Command’s 910th Airlift Wing, currently deployed to the Gulf to support the oil spill recovery effort. (U.S. Air Force file photo) In addition to the indignity of oil oozing into its depths at a rate of at least 5,000 barrels per day, the Gulf of […]

Tom Philpott Food

10 underestimated spring fruits and vegetables to sink your teeth in now

Fiddleheads: Underrated and deliciousPhoto courtesy Glenn Fleishman via FlickrAhh, spring. After months of eating from your stores of winter vegetables, canned relishes, and frozen fruit, nothing tastes as good as the bounty of a spring garden. From the first ramps of April to the flavor-packed punch of morels, pile these fruits and vegetables on your […]

treehugger.com Food

Voters want less government, but more from the FDA

I’m tired of the government interfering in my life. I want less government. I want smaller government. Oh yeah, and I’d like someone to oversee the use of words like “natural” on processed food labels and limit the amount of sodium in them. That’s the schizophrenic message being sent by the average American, new food-industry […]

Eric Burkett Food

Gulf of Mexico: from magnificent resource to industrial sacrifice zone

Fire and a vast oil spill, on top of one of the globe’s most productive fisheries. Photo: U.S. Coast Guard The Gulf of Mexico is a magnificent resource: a kind of natural engine for the production of wild, highly nutritious foodstuff. Here’s how the EPA describes it: Gulf fisheries are some of the most productive […]

Tom Philpott Climate & Energy

IHOP stacks up to Double Down competition

Courtesy of IHOPMan, I sure could use a cheesecake sandwich right about now. But instead of bread on either side of the cheesecake, I want pancakes. And then I want to top it with strawberry compote and whipped topping. And because that probably won’t be enough, let’s tack on eggs, hash browns, and bacon on […]

Jen Harper Food

Tell us your favorite local, sustainable sandwich shops

A couple of weeks ago, I penned a long tribute to the sandwich–specifically, locally owned sandwich shops that combine a high degree of cooking skill with a zeal for great ingredients from local farmers and producers. To me, these shops represent a nexus that joins skilled cooks, the surrounding farm community, and a broad swath […]