food

Junk-food advertising moves online

One of several games for kids on the Trix websiteHere’s more compelling evidence that food companies, putative key “partners” in the battle against obesity, aren’t exactly acting in good faith. They may talk about calorie-cutting partnerships and donate money to healthy-living initiatives — but they don’t put their real money where their collective mouth is. […]

Tom Laskawy Technology

California poised to approve deadly pesticide for strawberry crop

The continuing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico helps one see other regulatory controversies in a different light. Take, for example, the battle in California over the use of the pesticide methyl iodide, a chemical so toxic, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “that even chemists are reluctant to handle it.” Methyl iodide, which according […]

Tom Laskawy Food and Agriculture

The fight over salt: Big Food vs. Us

Salty dog Alton Brown The biggest loser in Michael Moss’s New York Times exposé of the food industry’s fight against salt restrictions isn’t the food industry. It isn’t government, either. In my view, the real loser is television chef Alton Brown: With salt under attack for its ill effects on the nation’s health, the food […]

Tom Laskawy Technology

Ask Umbra’s pearls of wisdom on Memorial Day

Dearest readers, Ah, Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial kickoff of summer—even though we’re still rocking scarves and raincoats here at Grist HQ. To prep you for this glorious three-day weekend, I’ve sifted through the archives and found these handy holiday-appropriate tidbits, from flying the flag to drinking beer (both arguably patriotic acts). What’s going on […]

Ask Umbra® Culture

Let’s Move needs to get real with the food industry

Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative, Let’s Move, has kicked into high gear. The Presidential Task Force on Childhood Obesity released a landmark report documenting the scale of the problem, complete with a list of 70 recommendations and a set of benchmarks, including the goal of returning the childhood obesity rate to its 1972 level of 5% […]

Tom Laskawy Politics

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

Scientists link ADHD in kids to routine pesticide exposure [UPDATED]

Writing in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan detailed how, following World War II, nerve-gas factories were converted en masse into synthetic pesticide factories. These weapons reborn as pesticides are organophosphates, as are both Sarin and VX gases. For farmers, they work by, as Wikipedia tastefully puts it, “irreversibly inactivating” an essential neurotransmitter within insects […]

Tom Laskawy Culture

Ask Umbra’s Book Club: Time to take action

Dearest readers, Photo: GreenpeaceThanks so much for all your foodie insights this week related to Anna Lappé’s Diet for a Hot Planet (if you missed the live chat with her, catch the replay). One more big question to tackle today. Let’s brainstorm some ideas about how to put the pressure on agribusiness offenders. In the […]