food
-
![]()
![]()
Food reform. Health reform. How about income reform?
Where the deals are.First came the news that anti-reformer Sen. Blanche Lincoln has taken over the Senate Agriculture Committee. Now, from the US Census Bureau we get even more bad news for those hoping for serious reform of our food system: the Census Bureau announced to day that middle class income is diving. Real median […]
-
![]()
![]()
Big Food’s ‘Smart Choices’ label raises eyebrows at the FDA
“Smart Choice”–where’s the hole in this logic?Zanastardust/FlickrYou don’t need to be a nutritionist with an advanced degree to know that Froot Loops only qualifies as a “Smart Choice” on Planet Kellogg’s. But as the NYT told us over the weekend, if you are a nutritionist at a prestigious university’s nutrition school, you just might think […]
-
NYC warns residents: “Don’t Drink Yourself Fat”
While the evidence continues to mount that taxes alone aren’t enough to significantly reduce junk food consumption, the political prospects for passing a federal soda tax appears to be dim. Well, New York City has decided that if they can’t tax your soda, they’ll go after your appetite instead. …New York City’s public health officials […]
-
![]()
![]()
Sustainable ag meets the MSM — and wins!
TIME Magazine‘s current cover story wants you to know that our fossil-fueled, chemically intensive industrial food system is destined to fail. Granted, the second part of that sentence isn’t news to Grist readers. But the first part of that sentence is news. Personally, I wouldn’t have expected to read the following positively Philpottian (if not […]
-
![]()
![]()
Learning from past civilizations
To understand our current environmental dilemma, it helps to look at earlier civilizations that also got into environmental trouble. Our early 21st century civilization is not the first to face the prospect of environmentally induced economic decline. The question is how we will respond. As Jared Diamond points out in his book Collapse, some of […]
-
![]()
![]()
[UPDATED] Sen. Bernie Sanders cries “monopoly” in a collapsing milk market
Got milk monopoly? UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive. In a NYT article last Saturday, describing the considerable resistance anti-trust chief Christine Varney is already experiencing in her attempt to toughen enforcement, came this nugget: At the request of some lawmakers, notably Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, Ms. Varney is examining whether small agricultural […]
-
![]()
![]()
USDA may get Dennis Wolff for food safety post because Gov. Ed Rendell doesn’t want him anymore
Wolff at the Dickinson College farm in Pennsylvania.Here’s a little rumor-mongering for fun, if not profit. Yes, as Tom Philpott reported, Dennis Wolff is for sure heading the list of candidates for the top food safety post at the USDA. But that’s not the fun part. The fun part involves the reason Dennis Wolff is […]
-
Solving obesity all depends on what you mean by the word “solve”
Ezra Klein, WaPo blogger and now food columnist, has, of late, been particularly dour regarding attempts to address obesity. His “Gut Check” piece today on the limited policy tools available to fight the obesity epidemic confirms it: Over the past 50 years, however, some privileged humans have been faced with a largely novel problem: the […]
-
![]()
![]()
Plotting Michelle Obama’s next food move
The First Lady and friends get busy in the garden. For anyone still doubting the food-related ambitions of First Lady Michelle Obama, the WaPo’s Jane Black wishes to disabuse you. In an article that charts the internal strategizing over how best to leverage the success of the White House Kitchen Garden, Black indicates that the […]
