food
-
Jill Richardson’s apt critique of the redesigned Senate Ag Committee website
The entire top half of the page is now dominated by a picture of the many healthy foods that our government’s ag policy does not promote: red and yellow bell peppers, purple cabbage, tomatoes, broccoli, sweet corn, onions, and leafy greens. — La Vida Locavore’s Jill Richardson noting the irony in the new Senate Ag […]
-
![]()
![]()
Is Michelle Obama about to take on Big Food?
With all the talk of Michael Pollan and Jamie Oliver lately, it’s easy to ignore the person who right now is, given her current address, the most influential voice on food policy in the country. Naturally, I’m talking about First Lady Michelle Obama. While she’s been exercising what diplomats would call her “soft power” for […]
-
![]()
![]()
Can Jamie Oliver cooking lessons cure obesity?
Jamie OliverPhoto: Downing Street via Flickr What struck me most about the profile of celebrity chef and food activist Jamie Oliver in the NYT Magazine’s Food Issue was not his valiant attempts to re-educate Americans on the importance of scratch cooking. It’s that the poor man could have used some serious therapy as a child. […]
-
![]()
![]()
Big Ag’s odd obsession with You-Know-Who
I really really really didn’t want to write another post on Michael Pollan. Don’t get me wrong — I’m a big fan. It’s just that reducing the whole of the food movement to Pollan’s work naturally ignores so much else that’s going on. But don’t blame me for this post. Blame Big Ag. These guys […]
-
![]()
![]()
Apples with a sense of place
One lovely evening a couple of weeks ago, I watched the documentary Food Fight in an outdoor theater in my downtown. The documentary focuses on how the 1960s counterculture — specifically the Berkeley crew of which Alice Waters was a member — led to the current sustainable agriculture boom. The documentary champions the sensual pleasures […]
-
Minnesota food system study — building trust is good business
I just published a new study of the Minnesota food system. The main take-home message is that building trust is good for business. Close relationships with suppliers and customers are exactly what allow food firms to respond to changing conditions. The report, “Mapping the Minnesota Food Industry,” was commissioned by Blue Cross and Blue Shield […]
-
![]()
![]()
Can the USDA really keep our food safe?
Having read and listened to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s attempts at ground beef-related damage control in the wake of the recent food safety revelations, I’m left to wonder if the USDA simply needs to get out of the food safety business entirely. Vilsack himself — in a Minnesota NPR radio interview where he defended the […]
-
![]()
![]()
Thoughts on irradiated food
In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night. Dear Lou, Is food irradiation good enough that we could theoretically go back to having rare hamburgers, soft-boiled eggs and unpasteurized milk? I […]
-
![]()
![]()
Warning: This product may cause sickness, paralysis, and death
It’s hard to draw any other conclusion from Michael Moss’s New York Times blockbuster investigative piece on E. coli in industrial beef, which is centered on the plight of Stephanie Smith, a young dance instructor left comatose, near death and now paralyzed from eating a single Cargill hamburger. Of course, a “single hamburger” can include […]
