food
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Why the sustainable food movement should learn to love Nathan Myhrvold’s ‘Modernist Cuisine’
The most expensive cookbook you’ll (n)ever buyNathan Myhrvold’s Modernist Cuisine — in all of its six-volume, 2,438-page splendor — explicitly aims to “reinvent cooking.” Maybe it will; and it will almost surely reinvent a certain kind of high-end book retailing. It sells for a cool $625, and its initial 6,000-copy print run has already sold […]
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Hungry kids and the environment hit hard by USDA budget cuts
Hungry kids may be getting less cheddar.The House Appropriations Committee has released a detailed list of budget cuts as part of the deal to avoid a government shutdown, and it looks like agriculture and food programs are getting hit pretty hard. The USDA budget will be cut by $2.6 billion, down from the $108 billion […]
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Monsanto cash helped fund bill to stifle whistleblowers in Iowa
Monsanto: See no evil, speak no evil in Iowa’s factory farms.Speaking of Monsanto, it turns out they are playing a role in Iowa’s proposed anti-whistleblower bill — a bill focused primarily on agriculture. Should the bill pass, it will become illegal to produce undercover videos at various types of agricultural facilities (as well as to get a […]
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Crazy idea from the feds: Maybe companies should stop shipping contaminated meat
Here's a good way to prevent a food recall: Don’t ship contaminated food in the first place. Companies that process meat have to test it for salmonella, E. coli, and other buggies, but they can send it off to stores before they get results. The Department of Agriculture has recently caught on to the fact […]
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The Onion’s remarkably smart take on locavores
The locavore movement—in which people eat food produced near their home to reduce their carbon footprint—is getting more and more popular. Here are some ways you can do more to eat locally: Take time to eat more. You'll end up eating more local foods just from increased odds For those of you living in the […]
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Farmers in U.S. running out of land
Despite planting record amounts of corn and soybeans this year, U.S. farmers are sitting on unexpectedly small stockpiles of both crops. Meanwhile, the demand for corn is crowding out use of land for other crops, including cotton. The USDA reports underscored that U.S. farmers are reaching the limits of arable land in the world's biggest […]
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When locally sourced food isn’t available, the tough grow it anyway
Ruben and Kristin Hernandez are bakers in Baltimore, Maryland, who wanted to use locally-sourced wheat in their bread. Only problem is, no one grows the required “hard” wheat in Maryland, because the relatively humid climate leads to disease. (Hard wheats are rich in gluten, the protein that gives bread its elasticity and structure.) Ruben briefly […]
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Reversing roles, farmers sue Monsanto over GMO seeds
Genetically modified seed giant Monsanto is notorious for suing farmers [PDF] in defense of its patent claims. But now, a group of dozens of organic farmers and food activists have, with the help of the not-for-profit law center The Public Patent Foundation, sued Monsanto in a case that could forever alter the way genetically modified […]
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While the rich get richer, the rest of us pay more for less at the supermarket
The New York Times reports that food companies are embarked on a “stealth” strategy to hike prices by significantly shrinking packages without changing the price. For example, canned vegetables are down to thirteen from sixteen ounces (one shopper observed that she found an eleven ounce can of corn recently). Sugar is now sometimes sold in […]
