All donations DOUBLED
grist-georgia-psc-header-ai

USDA

  •

    Introducing your new food pyramid

    Here's the USDA's new food guidelines, in an appropriate graphical form: the plate chart. (A pie chart would have too much refined sugar.) It lacks the mystical and ancient appeal of the food pyramid, but is perhaps more relevant to your daily food-eating life. (But is it kosher or something? Why is the dairy on […]

    Jess Zimmerman Food

  • Down with healthy school lunches, says House GOP

      You want me to eat what?Having already moved to gut USDA programs promoting agricultural conservation and renewable energy and strip the USDA of its authority to enact the first meaningful reform of the irredeemably monopolistic livestock industry, House Republicans have now turned their attention to that other great threat to American freedom: USDA nutrition guidelines. […]

    Tom Laskawy Food

  • Mom-and-pop vs. big-box stores in the food desert

    A locally owned grocery in Pleasantville, Iowa. Photo: Ashton B Crew, wikimedia commonsA few weeks ago, when the Obama administration released its Food Desert Locator, many of us realized that a once-good idea has spoiled like a bag of old bread. If you go online and find that your family lives in a food desert, […]

    Gary Nabhan & Kelly Watters Food

  • Change in season: Why salt doesn’t deserve its bad rap

    A good pinch of this won’t do you any harm.For something that’s so often mixed with anti-caking agents, salt takes a lot of lumps in the American imagination. Like fat, people tend to think of it as an unnecessary additive — something to be avoided by seeking out processed foods that are “free” of it. […]

    Kristin Wartman Food

  • Big Ag doesn’t want you to care about pesticides

    Power to the people pesticide industry!The produce lobby is livid that consumers might be concerned about pesticides. They are taking their fury out on the USDA for its annual report on pesticide use (via The Washington Post): In a recent letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, 18 produce trade associations complained that the data have […]

    Tom Laskawy Agriculture

  • Produce industry wants Americans to eat their pesticide-laden veggies

    For years, the Environmental Working Group has warned consumers away from "The Dirty Dozen," the 12 fruits and vegetables that contain the most trace pesticides. But the produce industry has had enough of this anti-vegetable propaganda!  A consortium of food groups, from the American Mushroom Institute to the National Watermelon Association Inc., is mounting a […]

    Sarah Laskow Agriculture

  • USDA moves to let Monsanto perform its own environmental impact studies on GMOs

    “Everything looks A-OK. What a surprise!”Last August, Federal Judge Jeffrey White issued a stinging rebuke to the USDA for its process on approving new genetically modified seeds. He ruled that the agency’s practice of “deregulating” novel seed varieties without first performing an environmental impact study violated the National Environmental Policy Act. The target of Judge […]

    Tom Philpott Agriculture

  • Big Ag is pissing away our nation’s rich topsoil

    Midwest farmland is more scarred and eroded then previous reports suggested.Photo: Environmental Working GroupBad federal policy and intensifying storms are washing away the rich dark soils in the Midwest that made this country an agricultural powerhouse and that remain the essential foundation of a healthy and sustainable food system in the future. That’s the alarming […]

    Donald Carr Agriculture

  • Hungry kids and the environment hit hard by USDA budget cuts

                 Hungry kids may be getting less cheddar.The House Appropriations Committee has released a detailed list of budget cuts as part of the deal to avoid a government shutdown, and it looks like agriculture and food programs are getting hit pretty hard. The USDA budget will be cut by $2.6 billion, down from the $108 billion […]

    Tom Laskawy Food