NewsTrust - Food - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Big Food vs. Big Insurance

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Michael Pollan - Sep. 09 (Opinion) - The American way of eating has become the elephant in the room in the debate over health care.

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Why there are pathogens such as MRSA in our pork

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Mar. 25 (Opinion) - Five out of 90 samples of retail pork in Louisiana tested positive for MRSA — an antibiotic-resistant staph infection — according to a peer-reviewed study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology last year. Regardless of whether the bacteria came from the pigs or from humans who handled the meat, the results should sound an alarm bell, for MRSA already kills more than 18,000 Americans annually, more than AIDS does.

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Pathogens in Our Pork

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Mar. 14 (Opinion) - Seventy percent of all antibiotics in the United States go to healthy livestock, according to a careful study by the Union of Concerned Scientists — and that’s one reason we’re seeing the rise of pathogens that defy antibiotics.

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Corn as a Health Issue

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By George F. Will - Mar. 08 (Opinion) - Tom Vilsack, Iowa's former governor, calls his "the most important department in government," noting that the Agriculture Department serves education through school nutrition programs and serves diplomacy by trying to wean Afghanistan from a poppy-based (meaning heroin-based) economy. But Vilsack's department matters most because of the health costs of the American diet. If Michael Pollan is right, the problem is rooted in politics and, in a sense, Iowa. Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food," says that after World War II, the government had a huge surplus of ammonium nitrate, an ingredient of explosives -- and fertilizer. Furthermore, pesticides could be made from ingredients of poison gases. Since 1945, the food supply has increased faster than America's population -- faster even than Americans can increase their feasting.

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No Lunch Left Behind

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Alice Waters, Katrina Heron - Feb. 20 (Opinion) - THIS new era of government bailouts and widespread concern over wasteful spending offers an opportunity to take a hard look at the National School Lunch Program. Launched in 1946 as a public safety net, it has turned out to be a poor investment. It should be redesigned to make our children healthier.

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Trends Reveal Hidden Truths about Refined Carbohydrates

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

United Press International - By Joan Ifland - Feb. 12 (Editorial) - We’ve all watched with bewilderment and dismay the comings and goings of national health trends related to food. Early in the 1980 ’s we collectively started gaining weight, following a national pasta binge that was promoted as high carb, low-fat, low protein “dieting.”

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New administration: Secretary of food

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Post Intelligencer - Dec. 22 (Editorial) - Talking to NPR's Renee Montagne, Pollan summed up why it is so important to get out of the limited mind-set favoring promotion of big agricultural-related corporations: "The food system is responsible for about a third of greenhouse gases. It is responsible for the catastrophic American diet that is leading 50 percent of us to suffer from chronic disease, and that drives up health care costs."

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UN aid pledges set to be broken?

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Aljazeera - By Sasja Bokkerink - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - The UN conference on Financing for Development takes place this weekend in Doha against the backdrop of a devastating global financial crisis. It comes at a key moment, and one with little or no economic precedent.

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U.S. has its own melamine problem

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By James E. Mcwilliams - Nov. 27 (Opinion) - For all the outrage about China, what U.S. consumers and government agencies studiously fail to scrutinize is how much melamine pervades our own system. In casting stones, we've forgotten our own house has more than its share of exposed glass.

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Plan a family, save the world

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Neal Peirce - Oct. 07 (Opinion) - So what will our next president do? Will he boost U.S. global family-planning funding to the $1 billion a year that advocates propose, working with other nations to make family planning and modern conception services globally available? The issue's not just moral: In an environmentally imperiled world, it's strategic and critical. John McCain's anti-abortion, anti-birth-control-assistance record is unequivocal. So is Barack Obama's diametrically opposed position: in favor of activist government support for family planning, domestically and internationally.

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In Beijing, It's Too Hot for Dog on the Menu

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Fuchsia Dunlo - Aug. 04 (Opinion) - THOSE who hope to taste dog meat when they visit Beijing for this summer's Olympics may be disappointed. The Beijing Catering Trade Association has ordered all 112 designated Olympic restaurants to take dog off the menu, and has strongly advised other establishments to stop serving it until September. Waiters have been urged to "patiently" suggest alternative dishes to customers who ask for dog. It's all part of a wider campaign to avoid offending foreigners during the Games. (Beijingers have also been told to line up nicely, to stop spitting and even to avoid asking tourists questions about their ages, salaries and love lives.)

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Nw Fisheries: Reckless ideas

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - Jul. 21 (Editorial) - Conservation, fishing and environmental groups fear the update is dangerous. Little wonder. Regional fisheries management councils would assume new environmental authority, even though the councils continue to have members with commercial fishing interests. The public comment period for many decisions would be cut from 45 days to 14 days, something the Marine Fish Conservation Network says could be a particular problem for public input. . Some decisions would face little review.

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The Money We Waste on Food

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Jul. 10 (Opinion) - Staring into an empty fridge can be a downer. But how about staring into an empty wallet?

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Biofuel for thought

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - Jul. 09 (Editorial) - there should be no surprise about the problems caused by the biofuel schemes. The increase in biofuel production has been achieved through vast subsidies that make fuel production more attractive than producing food. These subsidies are an attempt to encourage one technology for carbon reduction rather than another. This has never worked before; the world will not reduce carbon emissions with dirigisme.

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Livestock Antibiotics: It is our diet

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - Jun. 11 (Editorial) - As the Seattle P-I's Andrew Schneider reported, routine use of antibiotics in livestock feed could be fueling resistant bugs. The Pew Commission of Industrial Farm Animal Production recently recommended banning antibiotics' use to promote animal growth rather than to treat infections. Doctors limit kids' antibiotics. Though agribusiness would squeal, farm animals need controls, too.

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Ticker tape still ain't spaghetti

Sat, 03 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Amy Goodman - May. 03 (Opinion) - This week, the United Nations' special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, called for the suspension of biofuels production: "Burning food today so as to serve the mobility of the rich countries is a crime against humanity." He's asked the U.N. to impose a five-year ban on food-based biofuels production. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, a group of 8,000 scientists globally, is also speaking out against biofuels. The scientists are pushing for a plant called switchgrass to be used as the source for biofuels, reserving corn and other food plants to be used solely as food.

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Can People Have Meat and a Planet, Too?

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Andrew C. Revkin - Apr. 11 (Opinion) - My colleague Mark Bittman wrote a fine piece recently about the greenhouse-gas consequences of conventional meat production. Others have explored the environmental and ethical impacts of factory and feedlot farming. Manufactured meat, in theory, provides an end run around these issues. What if you can have your meat, be ethical, and environmental, too?

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World food balance tips toward crisis

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By Paul Krugman - Apr. 09 (Opinion) - Where the effects of bad policy are clearest, however, is in the rise of demon ethanol and other biofuels. The subsidized conversion of crops into fuel was supposed to promote energy independence and help limit global warming. But this promise was, as Time magazine bluntly put it, a "scam." This is especially true of corn ethanol: even on optimistic estimates, producing a gallon of ethanol from corn uses most of the energy the gallon contains. But it turns out that even seemingly "good" biofuel policies, like Brazil's use of ethanol from sugar cane, accelerate the pace of climate change by promoting deforestation. And meanwhile, land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis. You might put it this way: People are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states.

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Standing at Armageddon

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

PBS - By Bill Moyer's Journal - Mar. 02 (Interview) - "Everybody's throwing around the word populism. Do you think they know what they're talking about?" "It sounds as if people who are throwing it around are throwing it around as a dirty word. And if it is a dirty word, they don't know what they're talking about."

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Penny Foolish

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:00:21 -0800

New York Times - By Eric Schlosser - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - THE migrant farm workers who harvest tomatoes in South Florida have one of the nation's most backbreaking jobs. For 10 to 12 hours a day, they pick tomatoes by hand, earning a piece-rate of about 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket. During a typical day each migrant picks, carries and unloads two tons of tomatoes. For their efforts, this holiday season many of them are about to get a 40 percent pay cut.

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Plight of the huddled masses: A hard time for Thanksgiving

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:53:09 -0800

The Independent - By Leonard Doyle - Nov. 22 (Opinion) - Thrown together by poverty and the pinched generosity of the United States, they waited to be interviewed to see if they were eligible for a free turkey and a bag of groceries. Mobile soup kitchens are keeping the homeless on the streets fed, but it is the working poor and those with young and old dependants who patiently line up at Bread for the City. Even with the help of government food stamps, most earn less than $7,000 (£3,400) a year, not nearly enough to survive on. They have long overcome the shame of queuing up every week in public for free food

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'Let All Your Thinks Be Thanks'

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 09:29:23 -0800

Opinion Journal (WSJ) - By Joseph Epstein - Nov. 22 (Opinion) - Conventional wisdom has it that Thanksgiving is the best of all American holidays. As a contrarian, I'd like to put that wisdom to the test. Thanksgiving does have the absence of the heavy hand of dreary gift giving that has put the groans in Christmas, the moans in Hanukkah. And no one has written treacly Thanksgiving songs, comparable to "White Christmas" and "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire," which, I suspect, have helped make Christmas one of the prime seasons for suicide. Let us not speak of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," of whose travail we shall all have heard more than our fill as we ride up elevators and pass along the aisles of department stores.

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Ethanol could leave the world hungry

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:56:23 -0700

Fortune - By Lester Brown - Aug. 16 (Opinion) - The growing myth that corn is a cure-all for our energy woes is leading us toward a potentially dangerous global fight for food. While crop-based ethanol -the latest craze in alternative energy - promises a guilt-free way to keep our gas tanks full, the reality is that overuse of our agricultural resources could have consequences even more drastic than, say, being deprived of our SUVs. It could leave much of the world hungry.

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Ethanol could leave the world hungry

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 15:56:23 -0700

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