Growers and Grocers

Fair trade coffee is something that has been in the news quite a bit lately, and I’ve seen the labels, but never known exactly what they mean. According to Transfair USA:
Fair Trade is an innovative, market-based approach to sustainable development. Fair Trade helps family farmers in developing countries to gain direct access to international […]

I’m a sucker for honey. I make a Mock Mexican Fried Ice Cream and honey is the ingredient that adds just the right touch. Honey is also ideal in quite a few savory dishes, from crostinis to salad dressings. That said, if you get a chance to try the good stuff, go for it. […]

In addition to writing for the various Well Fed sites, I combined my cookbook obsession and my love for the written word to form my own site, Sweetnicks. My site’s name comes from my 4-year-old son, Nicholas, who loves to help me in the kitchen almost as much as he loves Dora, Spiderman and his […]

We’ve known for years that the term “natural” when it comes to food is a dubious one. Technically, everything is “natural”, even chemical additives – hey, they started as something found in nature. Any savvy food shopper knows that “natural” as a marketing term is meaningless.
But what about when it comes to the ingredient list? […]

My local Safeway recently rolled out a new product line called O Organics. Safeway offers the following description of the products:
Taste food the way it should be with O ORGANICS.TM An extraordinary line of organic food from cereals to pastas and everything in between. Every O ORGANICS item is certified organically grown and processed […]

First, some upfront honesty – I don’t drive, and I don’t eat much fast food, so my opinion on this topic has no basis in experience. I don’t truly know whether such a thing as a french-fry attachment for a car’s cupholder is a huge step forward for mankind or just really, really stupid.
But there […]

There is something romantic about the concept of sustainable restaurants, which are restaurants that use fresh local produce – in some cases from their own farms onsite – to create daily menus for patrons. I guess the romanticism lies in the idea of food going from vine to table on the same day, as it […]

Japan announced on July 27, 2006, that it will start allowing US beef imports once again after suspending it early this year. 34 out of the 35 authorized US beef processing plants have been cleared upon recommendation from Japanese inspectors who toured and evaluated the facilities for compliance with the export agreement.
December 2005 saw Japan […]

When José Bové and members of the French farmers’ union the Confédération Paysanne attacked a McDonald’s restaurant in August 1999, the whole world watched. Few know, however, that similar actions continue in France, especially destruction of testing fields for genetically modified crops. These events don’t get a lot of publicity in the USA, but […]

Ice cream giant Unilever has incorporated a synthesized version of a fish protein into many of their products sold in the US. According to The Independent of London:
It contains an artificial protein copied, through a GM [Genetic Modification] process, from a fish living in the frigid waters of the bottom of the North-west […]