industrial ag
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More biofuel waste for cows, plus a California beef packer pulls a Toyota
What the hell are you feeding us?In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ————- Agricultural societies, I imagine, have always fed waste products to livestock. On diversified farms, pigs and chickens get lots of kitchen scraps and “culls”–produce that can’t be sold. And it’s worthwhile to keep […]
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The dark side of nitrogen
Few people spare a thought for nitrogen. But with every bite we take — of an apple, a chicken leg, a leaf of spinach — we are consuming nitrogen. Plants, including food crops, can’t thrive without a ready supply of available nitrogen in the soil. The amount of food a farmer could grow was once […]
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With climate legislation flat on its back, Collin Peterson goes in for the kill
Collin Peterson, right: plowing over attempts to reign in greenhouse gas emissions. House ag committee chair Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) spent much of last summer gutting the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. Before the legislative process started, Peterson and his allies had made sure that the legislation would place no cap on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. […]
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Washington Times puts screws to city’s food provider, Chartwells
By some sort of crazy coincidence, a reporter for the Washington Times was investigating Chartwells, the contracted food provider for D.C. Public Schools, at the same time that I was spending a week in a school kitchen discovering just how bad our school food is. Times reporter Jeffrey Anderson, meanwhile, reveals in a report today that Chartwells […]
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Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: Better school food — can we get there from here?
Ed Bruske recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the last of a six-part series of posts about what he saw. Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest […]
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Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: How food service turns a green school into an enviro hog
Ed Bruske recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the fifth of a six-part series of posts about what he saw. Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest […]
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Why you should go see ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’
“I’ve got an idea”: Mr. Fox and friends fight the power. I’m writing a post that I shouldn’t have to write: a plea to get you, political-minded foodie that you are, to go to whatever lengths necessary to see Fantastic Mr. Fox. How do I know you haven’t? Because the box-office numbers stink: the film […]
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Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: What kids will do to avoid vegetables
Ed Bruske recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the third of a six-part series of posts about what he saw. Read parts 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest […]
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Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: How foods that don’t occur in nature end up on your kid’s plate
Ed Bruske recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the second of a six-part series of posts about what he saw. Read parts 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest […]