Site Archives

This is a Farmer’s Market?


Construction crews broke the ground on a future State Farmers Market in Columbia, South Carolina. Given that most markets around me in the Bay Area happen in parks or other public places, I had to wonder how you “break ground” for a new site.
Turns out the future State Farmer’s Market is a little bit more […]

Small Meat Processors Want Equal Opportunity


One of the many oddities about American food regulations is that state-inspected meat processors can not sell across state borders, unless they process unusual meats. This has created some contradictions: Foreign countries that meet minimal U.S. standards can sell anywhere in the country, while small processors who follow the same rules can’t. The law has […]

Report from New York’s Fancy Food Show


Navigating the semiannual Fancy Food Show can be an adventure in sensory overload. Endless amounts of marketers urge you to taste new sauces, marinades, meat products, olive oils, candy, fake meat products, cheeses, and more.
But the packed aisles can offer a glimpse of foods coming soon to a store near you. Fortunately, the New York […]

ConAgra Throws a Bone to PETA


Packaged-food giant ConAgra will urge its poultry providers to use a more humane slaughter technique, according to this AP story. With the new procedure, euphemistically named “controlled-atmosphere killing,” a poultry processor herds the chickens into a room and sucks out all the air. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals prefers this method to the […]

Help Define a “Grass-Fed” Label


The USDA wants to redefine the grass-fed label, but for once they want to make it harder for large corporations to slap the eye-catching label onto their products. The government agency is considering a change that would require 99% of an animal’s energy to come from “grass or forage.” And they’re looking for comments on […]

Pepsi Says HFCS the Same as Sugar


Wow! A new study shows that the body processes high-fructose corn syrup the same way it processes regular table sugar!
Pepsi must be happy, especially since they helped fund the research. You don’t think that biased the results, do you? If you want a thorough dissection of this sham of a study, check out Connie’s analysis […]

An In-Depth Look at the Lobster Debate


Trevor Corson, whose book The Secret Life of Lobsters will make you wonder why readers fawned over David Foster Wallace’s poorly researched “Consider the Lobster,” has an article in Boston magazine about Whole Foods’ decision to stop carrying lobster (he wrote it before the final decision, but he correctly predicted the final outcome). The blogosphere […]

After GMOs? MAS


Progressive news aggregator Common Dreams offers a glimpse at the next bogeyman coming to haunt the food chain: Marker Assisted Selection, or MAS.
Except this one doesn’t seem so bad. Like genetic modification technology, MAS allows you to spot desirable genes and get them into your new hybrid. Unlike its more feared relative, however, MAS is […]

Which Chickens Failed the Salmonella Inspection?


Food and Water Watch trumped the USDA by releasing information about which chickens failed USDA Salmonella inspections from 1998 to 2005. The government agency had not made the information available to the consumers it’s supposed to protect.
Salmonella bacteria cause more food-borne illnesses than any other problem: one million cases each year, 9,000 of which lead […]

Is It Ripe? Check the Sticker.


A New Mexico professor has invented a sticker that measures ripeness, and Washington state hopes to pilot it during this year’s apple harvest. The decal measures ethylene output and changes color when it’s time to pick the fruit. Fruits release ethlyene as they ripen, and distribution plants gas fruit with the chemical to ripen them […]