Climate Food and Agriculture

Notable quotable

“I like real food. Food that I can pronounce the name of.” — House minority leader John Boehner, protesting to the new, healthier menu offered at the House cafeteria thanks to Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s “Greening the Capitol” program (Background on opposition from ag lobbies here. Some rather … piquant comments from Chris Bower here.)

Pennsylvania will allow hormone labels on dairy products

A decision by Pennsylvania agriculture officials that dairy products sold in the state could not be labeled as synthetic-hormone-free sparked a consumer outcry and a review by Governor Ed Rendell. Yesterday, officials more or less reversed that ban: dairies will be allowed to advertise that their cows aren’t shot up with synthetic hormones, which increase […]

Scientist says biofuel boom endangers world’s largest rainforest

A fifth of the Amazon rainforest — the world’s biggest carbon sponge — has disappeared since the 1970s. The Brazilian government has succeeded in recent years in slowing the deforestation rate, but its efforts have recently been faltering. Bungle in the jungle. Photo: iStockphoto In the last four months, 2300 square miles of rainforest got […]

Notable quotable

"I really think the more I look at this whole cellulosic issue, there is a lot bigger problem to overcome here than people realize in terms of the feedstocks. We have a lot of work to do in that regard. I’m not sure cellulosic ethanol will ever get off the ground." — Rep. Collin Peterson […]

An Iowa chef takes issue with Time’s Joel Stein

Regarding the article Tom mentioned yesterday, Joel Stein's Time article, "Extreme Eating": while Mr. Stein is of course free to eat whatever type of food he chooses, I must take exception to his contention that "Dodd was basically telling the Iowans that every night they should decide whether to accompany their pork with creamed corn, corn on the cob, corn fritters or corn bread. For dessert, they could have any flavor they wanted of fake ice cream made from soy, provided that flavor was corn."

I am forced to question whether Mr. Stein has actually been to Iowa (outside of a presidential candidate's rally). While there is indeed a large amount of corn, soy, and pork grown here (more than anywhere in the world in fact), to say that this is all we can eat when we choose to eat locally is blindly absurd and typical of a bicoastal mentality that considers America's great heartland to be little more than "flyover states."

Cloned meat and milk just as safe as conventional, says long-awaited FDA report

In a nearly 1000-page report, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has concluded that food from cloned animals and their offspring “is as safe to eat as that from their more conventionally bred counterparts.” The report effectively removes regulatory barriers to cloned food being offered to U.S. consumers, but practical barriers still remain, and it […]

Scientists unveil genetically modified calcium-boosting supercarrot

U.S. scientists have unveiled a new “supercarrot” genetically modified to provide extra calcium, which they hope could ultimately help ward off osteoporosis. Say what you will about genetic modification, but you can’t deny that picturing a carrot flying across the sky in a cape is funny.

What would you ask a ‘Skinny Bitch’?

As our resident foodie Tom Philpott noted a few weeks ago, the bitches behind Skinny Bitch — "a no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous" — are back. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be lunching with one of them, and I’m curious what y’all would ask her — […]

Why Omnivore’s Dilemma should be avoided

If I was a pig, and I was president, the first thing I'd do would be to ban The Omnivore's Dilemma.

I have a friend -- let's call him PJ -- who'd been a vegetarian for over a decade. Then he read The Omnivore's Dilemma -- which, if you haven't read it, is manifesto of the local-food movement that culminates in a self-sourced meal starring a locally shot feral pig -- and in short order got a hunting license, bought a gun, and started learning how to make salami, bam bam bam.

A couple weeks ago, PJ and my other friend -- let's call him Aviday -- made a hunting date. Except the night before, PJ got violently ill. Aviday -- who'd done nowhere near the same kind of preparation -- decided to continue on alone. He drove to Big Sur, spent the day bushwhacking without luck, and then as the sun flirted with the horizon in the dusky loaming -- a husky boar, at 100 yards. He squinted down the iron sights, held his breath, steadied the steel, exhaled, and with a gentle squeeze of the trigger, turned the boar into bacon.

Driving home, it occurred to Aviday that he had a 200-pound boar in the backseat of his Golf, slowly stiffening with rigor mortis, and no idea what to do with it. He ended up cutting it into quarters, putting the chunks in garbage bags, and driving around the city to friends' houses at midnight: "Hey man, can I put this in your freezer? It's, uh, pig."

And PJ and Aviday are not isolated instances. A friend, a promising young bureaucrat at the California Public Utilities Commission, now sports an "I'd rather be hunting" belt buckle.

We've heard a lot about the hook and bullet crowd becoming active environmentalists. This book is turning environmentalists into hook and bulleters.

‘Men’s Health’ uncovers some real whoppers

Not so smooth. Photo: iStockphoto Industrial food is really vile stuff — even when it’s been tarted up by marketers to sound “healthy,” “natural,” and “fresh.” This is an obvious point, but it bears revisiting in a culture predicated on quick fixes. Is industrial food killing you? Don’t stop eating it — try these “new […]