food
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High-fat diet may damage the brain, study finds
There have been many disturbing studies on the effects of a high-fat diet on the brain. I’m thinking in particular of the 2009 study that suggested the American diet can be as addictive to the brain as heroin. But a new study presented at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society is even more concerning […]
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Vegan cooking is totally metal
You don't have to go vegan to eat responsibly. But if you want to, you can avoid meat and dairy while still being TOTALLY METAL. <guitar solo by Skwisgaar Skwigelf> With a lot of rubber armor, face paint, and an awesome knife (your knife does not have to be that awesome), Vegan Black Metal Chef […]
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Which crop is the biggest water hog? (Warning: You’re not gonna like the answer.)
Agriculture is thirsty work. Growing and processing food takes a ton of water, and it's only going to get worse as the world warms. So which crop has the biggest water footprint? (That's defined, by the way, as the volume of fresh water used to make the product, across all steps of production.) You're not […]
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FDA admits supermarket chickens test positive for arsenic
Why is Big Ag playing chicken with our health?Back in March, Tom Philpott wrote about the “insane” practice of feeding factory-farmed chickens arsenic: The idea is that it makes them grow faster — fast growth being the supreme goal of factory animal farming — and helps control a common intestinal disease called coccidiosis. The industry […]
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Contaminated compost? Toxins might be lurking in that bag you’re about to buy
Do you know what’s in your compost?The growing number of municipal and commercial composting operations has been one of the few bright spots in the environmental landscape, from San Francisco’s curbside composting service to this industrial-scale composting facility in Delaware. But Josh Harkinson in Mother Jones has harshed our green-tinged buzz. Thanks to fractured or […]
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When the Nile runs dry
A new scramble for Africa is under way. As global food prices rise and exporters reduce shipments of commodities, countries that rely on imported grain are panicking. Affluent countries like Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China and India have descended on fertile plains across the African continent, acquiring huge tracts of land to produce wheat, rice […]
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How climate change is starving the world
It was supposed to take until 2080 for food prices to double. Sure, climate change can make arable land into irrigation-hungry desert, and increase the likelihood of crop-destroying severe weather (and wildfires). But ironically, increased carbon dioxide also helps plants grow, so this was all supposed to be under control for the foreseeable future. Turns […]
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Think the German E. coli outbreak couldn’t happen here? Think again
An outbreak of a toxic, possibly novel, strain of E. coli known as O104:H4 continues to rage in Germany. At last count, more than 1,800 people have been infected and 19 have died — and unusually, young women rather than children or the elderly have been hit the hardest. So far, the outbreak seems confined […]
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E-I-E-I-Oh no: Decades of antibiotics in farm animals lead to deadly superbugs
When cows kill. This article was syndicated with permission from OnEarth. Stuart Levy once kept a flock of chickens on a farm in the rolling countryside west of Boston. No ordinary farmer, Levy is a professor of molecular biology and microbiology and of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. This was decades ago, and his chickens were […]