NewsTrust - Food - Most Recent Stories: Opinion

Jonathan Safran Foer's Controversial New Book, Eating Animals

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Aaron Gross - Oct. 26 (Review) - Over the next weeks Huffington Post will feature a diverse range of responses to Jonathan Safran Foer's controversial new work of non-fiction, Eating Animals.

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Big Ag’s odd obsession with You-Know-Who

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Tom Laskawy - Oct. 09 (Opinion) - Big Ag has clearly decided that Pollan is a latter-day Lenin (or perhaps Trotsky?) leading a cadre of food revolutionaries who threaten to overthrow its hard-fought hegemony—rebut his arguments and perhaps the whole movement will collapse like a bad soufflé. All in reaction to a relatively unassuming guy who’s written some articles and a few books. Isn’t this all, like, a bit much?

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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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One third of Afghans at risk of hunger, malnutrition

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Worldfocus - By Shannon Scribner - Aug. 19 (Interview) - The Afghan people are often caught in the crossfire of the war between the Taliban and western troops. There are currently 250,000 internally displaced people due to the conflict. Adding to the violence, Afghanis find now find themselves in a battle with hunger. A new report from the humanitarian organization Oxfam says that one third of the population is now at risk from hunger and malnutrition.

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Tasty hot spot

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

pressdemocrat.com - By Jeff Cox - Aug. 08 (Entertainment) - "The place has been drawing crowds for lunch and dinner, due in part to the bubbly personality and enthusiasm for all things Puerto Rican of Jacqueline Roman, who is co-owner with Christina Jackson. Roman was born into the Puerto Rican community in the Bronx, but visited her family’s farm on the island most summers when young. She learned the authentic cooking of the community from her mother and grandmother, and brought that knowledge with her when she moved here over 20 years ago. Now she’s sharing it with the rest of us."

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"The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite"

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By David Kessler, Amy Goodman, Anjali Kamat - Aug. 03 (Interview) - A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that the direct medical costs of obesity total about $147 billion a year. That amounts to nine percent of all US medical costs. It's also over $50 billion more than the annual spending on cancer. In the midst of this national focus on obesity, today we'll speak to David Kessler, who has spent the last seven years trying to understand how the food industry has changed American eating habits, made certain foods difficult to resist, and helped create the country's number one public health issue. [includes rush transcript - partial]

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Dow Agrosciences: farm like there’s no tomorrow!

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Tom Philpott - Jul. 28 (Review) - “If you’re going to farm a piece of land, you ought to farm it for all its worth.” —Tim Hassinger, commercial vice president at Dow AgroSciences, quoted in an AP story called “Chemical makers go on the offensive in agriculture.”

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Official Report Reveals that Salmon Aquaculture in Chile Uses 600 Times More Antibiotics Than Norway

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

oceana.org - Jul. 24 (Press Release) - For the first time the Chilean Government revealed that the national salmon industry has been using roughly 385 tons of antibiotics, 600 times more than Norway, the main producer of farmed salmon in the world. The information was disclosed in response to a request for access to public information that the international marine conservation organization, Oceana, made to the Minister of Economy, Hugo Lavados.

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Colbert Tells Viewers To Deny Rep. Cynthia Davis Food (VIDEO)

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Alex Leo - Jul. 02 (Comedy News) - Missouri State Representative Cynthia Davis is one tough cookie. Last week she opposed subsidizing school lunches for low income children during summer months saying, "Hunger can be a positive motivator." This is excellent news considering 1 in 5 Missouri kids is living in hunger, so that state is due for a productivity boon.

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The Food Industry's Darkest Secrets

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Tara Lohan - Jun. 25 (Review) - It turns out that figuring out the most simple thing - like what's on your dinner plate, and where it came from - is actually a pretty subversive act.

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Strange Martial Law via Food Control: HR 2749 « Food Freedom

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

foodfreedom.wordpress.com - By The Writers’ Collective - Jun. 23 (Advocacy) - We wanted good food. We never wanted to trap our farmers into an industrial prison on their own land, afraid moment to moment of not fulfilling some monstrous set of instructions that never end – rules the farmers loathe, rules that have not only nothing to do with real farming but which are antithetical to it. Why have we ended up with HR 2749, an intense corporate nightmare

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Back When Food Was Really Local

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

onthecommons.org - By David Bollier - Jun. 15 (Review) - Americans have gotten so accustomed to getting food from supermarkets, which are supplied by huge corporations with heavily advertised, brand-name foods, that it is sometimes hard to imagine a world of rich, homegrown variety. If you went to Nebraska, you once got Nebraska baked beans. If you went to Georgia, you might get possum and taters. Alabama kitchens would serve up oyster roasts, Rhode Island would serve Jonny Cakes and Montanas considered fried beaver tail a delicacy. One measure of what our nation has lost – in terms of culinary variety and authenticity – can be found in a new book, The Food of a Younger Land (Riverhead Books), edited by Mark Kurlansky. Its subtitle says it all: “A portrait of American food – before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional and traditional – from the lost WPA files.”

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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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Harvesting Emissions

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Living On Earth - By Sara Scherr - Jan. 23 (Interview) - Through crop and livestock production and land clearing, the world's agricultural sector is a bigger contributor to global warming than the transportation sector. Economist Sara Scherr, CEO of Ecoagriculture Parters, says it’s time to start looking at farmers as environmental stewards, not just food producers. She speaks with Steve Curwood about techniques that help farmers mitigate and adapt to climate change.

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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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Obama's "Secretary of Food"?

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Nicholas Kristof - Dec. 10 (Opinion) - A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.

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Soil Not Oil: Why We Need to Kick Petroleum Out of Our Farms

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Vandana Shiva - Dec. 04 (Opinion) - The following is an excerpt from Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis by Vandana Shiva (South End Press, 2008). The industrialized, globalized food system is based on oil. It is under threat because of the inevitability of "peak oil." It is also under threat because it is more vulnerable than traditional agriculture to climate change, to which it has contributed. Industrial agriculture is based on monocultures. Monocultures are highly vulnerable to changes in climate, and to diseases and pests.

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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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Thanksgiving Check on America's Food

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

Consortium News - By Michael Winship - Nov. 27 (Opinion) - "What Obama needs to do, if he indeed wants to make change in this area -- and that isn't clear yet that he does, at least in his first term -- I think we need a food policy czar in the White House because the challenge is not just what we do with agriculture, it's connecting the dots between agriculture and public health, between agriculture and energy and climate change, agriculture and education."

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