The unshelled story on the nutty side of our food supply

This post marks the launch of our new food-advice column Checkout Line, by talented, funny, and food-obsessed Lou Bendrick. Ever get confused in the supermarket, wondering which “all-natural” label is legit? Ever wonder what you’d actually say to a farmer at a farmers market, or whether organic is better than local, or how you can […]

Economist says biofuels have pushed up global food prices by 75 percent

The “Republican war on science” has evidently opened a new front: economics, a discipline often fetishized by the right. In a startling article published July 4, the Guardian reports that in a "secret" study, a World Bank senior economist concluded that the recent explosion in biofuels use has driven global food prices up by 75 […]

What people cling to when the going gets tough

Things are getting rough here in the land of cheap food. Corn and soy — building blocks of the industrial-food system — are trading at or near all-time highs. And that’s rippling through the food chain, from feedlots and food factories to the supermarket shelf. Here’s the latest: [B]y next year, the price of a […]

30,000 farmed salmon escape off B.C. coast, endangering wild stocks

Some 30,000 farmed Atlantic salmon have escaped from their pen off the coast of British Columbia into the Pacific Ocean. Farmed salmon can harm wild salmon stocks — which are already declining on the west coast — by competing with them for food as well as spreading disease. In this case, the escaped salmon are […]

Sen. Grassley: Screw conservation, let’s grow more corn!

Here in the U.S., our grocery bills are rising faster than they have since Gerald Ford bumbled about the Oval Office. Across the globe, the recent surge in crop prices is putting sufficient food out of reach of millions of people. The dismal human dimension of the food crisis has been amply (if sporadically) covered […]

More use of growth hormones would boost sustainability of dairy industry, says study

Shooting up cows with artificial growth hormones increases the sustainability of the dairy industry, claims a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Giving rbST to 1 million cows would enable the same amount of milk to be produced using 157,000 fewer cows,” says the study, thus easing the impact that […]

Celeb chef clarifies his relationship with Greenpeace

A couple of weeks ago, we ran an interview with Food Network chef Alton Brown about his new sustainability efforts. In the course of the piece, Roz Cummins asked him if he'd be willing to crew on a Greenpeace boat, and he said yes -- an answer that's apparently been repeated and miscontextualized all over the place.

Brown dropped us a note to clarify his position. Here's what he has to say:

How the organic movement can regain its relevance

Buying organic makes you feel good … but does it make you think? On June 25, I spoke at the Organic Summit in Boulder, Colo., to an audience consisting largely of people who work in the organic food industry. This column is an adapted version of my talk. In his wildly popular satirical blog Stuff […]

Farm animals consume 17 percent of wild-caught fish

Here's a guest post from Jennifer Jacquet of the Sea Around Us Project and the UBC Fisheries Centre in Vancouver, B.C.

-----

It is one thing to grind up wild fish to feed to farmed fish, but it is quite another to grind up these perfectly edible fish to feed factory-farmed pigs and poultry. After all, when is the last time you saw a chicken catch a fish?

In the not-so-distant past, pigs and chickens ate grass, some grains, and food scraps. Today, in the throes of a perverse industrial food system that favors cheap protein and quick growth (with often astonishing results such as Mad Cow disease), we now feed farm animals lots of small, tasty fish.

Lots.

Corn tries to look a little too sweet

This week's $4.8 billion merger of Corn Products International and Bunge Ltd. probably didn't catch your eye, but with revenues projected to increase 29 percent this year to $4 billion, you might consider paying attention -- for the sake of your belly and the environment.

Corn syrup manufacturers are going on the offensive -- and that includes a charm offensive. The Corn Refiners Association -- an industry trade group -- launched a new marketing campaign yesterday that coincided with the announcement of the multi-billion dollar merger.