Growers and Grocers

Last night at a Heritage Foods dinner, I met one of the contributors to The Ethicurean, a blog devoted to ethical eating. Growers and Grocers readers will probably enjoy the content, which includes digests of news items and longer pieces that detail visits to farms and producers.

A severe drought burning its way across America’s Midwest could mean higher food prices throughout the coming year, according to this news story.
Consumers with tight food budgets should plan for an uptick in their costs, but the article doesn’t discuss the financial impact. Beef costs have stayed low so far as ranchers slaughter their herds […]

Jack from Fork & Bottle sent me this impressive chart (from 1999) that details the contaminants found in every bottled water you can imagine.
Workers for the Natural Resources Defense Council bought water from various locations (mostly California) and analyzed the contents. They also noted the water source, if available.
Anyone know of more recent information? My […]

The prestigious French “Appellation d’origine contrôlée” label applies to food products as well as wine. On June 22nd, 2006, the national AOC institute (Institut National des Appellations d’Origine) recognized two new food products: the Nîmes olive and Corsican chestnut flour.
Two hundred Corsican farmers grow chestnuts for the sweet, delicate flour that Corsican cooks use […]

The battle over a definition for organic milk has heated up, as the Organic Consumers Association called for a boycott against Horizon Organics, which raises cows in giant feedlots that follow the letter of the organic law, not the spirit.
The boycott comes as the USDA considers a change to the “organic” definition for dairy that […]

Progressive news aggregator Common Dreams points to this poorly written article (perhaps poorly translated) about the privatization of seeds in India. Farmers on the subcontinent already buy public-sector seeds from the government, but a new initiative would allow private companies to sell high-yield seed varieties directly to farmers.
Most farmers view this as a good […]

The Institute of Food Technologists has just published the results of an intense look at organic food, and they argue that there’s little basis for the organic industry’s claims that organic food is safer for human consumption because it lacks antibiotics and resistant bacteria.
I didn’t know that organic producers made that claim. Evidently, neither did […]

Holy cow! No, wait, make that Holy Pig! The USDA has released a comprehensive analysis of the average nutrient levels in common cuts of pork. The report itself only contains the current findings, but a summary compares modern-day pork analysis to the values that researchers came up with in 1991. The differences confirm what most […]

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has responded to Michael Pollan’s letter, itself a response to John Mackey’s letter rebutting some of the points in Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Maybe I should just set up a category for this. It’s a delight to see these two passionate, well-informed people support each other’s efforts and debate key points in […]

I live in the Aveyron department in France, and my husband is a consultant for farmers. When he visits sheep-raising country, his clients often offer him a large round of Roquefort to take home. Despite my fondness for this famous blue-veined cheese, I usually have so much of it on hand that I don’t […]