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    Why are libertarian right wingers defending a dysfunctional, state-engineered food system?

    Such scenes would not be possible without government policies that encourage cheap corn. Why do conservatives fetishize indsustrial food, again? Wikimedia commonsBack in 2002, in the right-wing National Review, Rod Dreher declared the rise of the “crunchy cons” — political conservatives who had come to value alternative food systems and reject the dreck served up […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • After another massive recall, will the beef industry grope for techno fixes?

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Massive burger recall: what would Meat Wagon be without one? The Obama administration still hasn’t chosen a director of the USDA’s FSIS — the office charged with overseeing the safety of the nation’s meat supply. Meanwhile, the new year […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • Tales from a D.C. school kitchen: What does ‘fresh-cooked’ really mean?

    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 first of a six-part series of posts about what he saw. Read parts 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest […]

    Ed Bruske Food

  • Industrial farming head just says ‘no’ to call for civility

    For those of you wondering if we can have a more civil discourse over food and agriculture in this country, American Farm Bureau President Bob Stallman has an answer for you: Fat chance! According to Stallman [MS Word], the top challenge facing farmers isn’t the rising cost of seed, fertilizer, and pesticides. Or the alarming […]

    Tom Laskawy Technology

  • Gates Foundation throws its lot with agribusiness

    The Gates Foundation has emerged as a kind of de facto USDA for Africa: a deep-pocketed funder with a focus on agriculture, in a continent that has seen ag-research funding plunge over the past several decades. For a while, the Gates Foundation sought to avoid a reputation as a cheerleader for biotech “solutions” to Africa’s […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • Russ Parsons on launching a civil, inclusive food-system debate

    Can we all just get along? Image: Tom Twigg for GristIn a recent article, the LA Times foodie pundit Russ Parsons attempted to start a “more constructive give-and-take, the start of a true conversation” on the food system. He argues the debate has congealed into a tedious battle between “hard-line aggies” who are “convinced that […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Lessons on the food system from the ammonia-hamburger fiasco

    In case you missed it last week, The New York Times ran an excellent article on a South Dakota company called Beef Products Inc., which makes a hamburger filler product that ends up in 70 percent of burgers in the United States. To make a long story short: Beef Products buys the cheapest, least desirable […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Ammonia-treated burgers, tainted with E. coli!

    In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Few who saw the documentary Food Inc. will forget the scene involving Beef Products Inc., a South Dakota company that makes a widely used hamburger filler product. No other industrial-meat company allowed director Robert Kenner to enter the shop […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Boring conference food: our culinary future?

      The way of all cuisine? This is a guest post by David Gumpert, author of the Raw Milk Revolution. ————- When a good Jewish mother or grandmother knows she’s going to have a big group of special guests, she shifts into high gear to prepare meals. (Yes, I’m definitely stereotyping here, but bear with […]

    Grist staff Food