industrial food
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Budget fight threatens to turn Farm Bill into Industrial Ag Bill
Will eco-friendly and people-friendly farm programs get steamrolled?Will the next Farm Bill, scheduled for passage in 2012, put public policy in service of a food system that works for farmers, eaters, and the environment? Well, optimism over federal food-policy reform never runs very high in sustainable-ag circles. The agrichemical lobby is flush with cash and […]
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Organic farming just as productive as conventional, and better at building soil, Rodale finds
Organic agriculture is a fine luxury for the rich, but it could never feed the world as global population moves to 9 billion. That’s what a lot of powerful people — including the editors of The Economist — insist. But the truth could well be the opposite: It might be chemical-intensive agriculture that’s the frivolous […]
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As in U.S., European food giants use shenanigans to continue marketing junk to children
Big burger, little bugger: Fast food marketing to small children knows no borders.Photo: (C) sean dreilingerI just returned from a two-day meeting in Brussels. I was asked to participate with other experts from around the world (mostly from Europe) to address the problem of cross-border marketing of unhealthy food to children. In the age of […]
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The real scandal of ‘reduced-fat Skippy peanut butter spread’ isn’t the salmonella
Just say no.Photo: Bill CorCorrected: See below. —— Skippy, a brand owned by European food giant Unilever, has issued a recall of its “reduced fat” peanut butter products. Evidently, they have become tainted with salmonella — an unhappy echo of the widespread 2009 salmonella outbreak from salmonella-tainted “peanut paste.” But the real scandal with Skippy® […]
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Aspartame is not the only thing in diet cola that can kill you
What evil lurks in that can of refreshment?Photo: Jeff GoldenTurns out, it’s not just the fake sweetener in Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke that might cause cancer; it’s also the coloring agent. The cans these beverages come in aren’t so healthy, either. Modern-day commercial colas (both diet and regular) get their characteristic dark hue from […]
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Chicken, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and regulatory independence
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ——— Would you like that chicken tainted with salmonella with resistance to one, two, three, or four different antibiotics? We also have six and seven. Consumer choice! After my post Monday on aspartame’s wild and wacky path from pharmaceutical-company lab […]
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Just how bad is aspartame?
Aspartame in artificially blackened water — tasty.Photo: William HartzWhen I wrote about diet soda and and its health effects last week, I didn’t expect much of a reaction. I guess in the back of my mind, I was thinking, people still drink that stuff? Well, they do — by the bucketful. Overall, U.S. soda consumption […]
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Still drinking diet soda? Don’t be a fashion victim!
Skinny Diet Pepsi: the latest fashion faux pas.At the just-launched Fashion Week in Manhattan, supermodels won’t just be sashaying down runways in mind-boggling frocks. They’ll also be accessorized with a new invention from Pepsi Co. — the “skinny can,” pictured at right, which (according to a press release) will “make its debut” in the cool […]
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Industry-funded Super Bowl ad rails against the (non-existent) soda tax
Maybe it’s just Monday-morning grumpiness, but I hate the media fixation with Super Bowl ads. Corporations and industry lobby groups drop millions on 30-second spots, and then bloggers scramble to come up with something fresh to say about them — and in the process, amplify their message. Who benefits? The bloggers generate some on-the-cheap page […]