Growers and Grocers

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Virginia legislators have a bill in front of them that might impact farmers who raise chickens outdoors. The bill targets outdoor markets of live poultry—none exist in the state—but the ambiguous wording could put small chicken farmers in the crosshairs.
The legislature claims that it wants to protect against avian flu, but small farmers suspect that […]

The internet is abuzz with commentary on the New York Times’s report on high-fructose corn syrup. The article claims that the sweetener, which many link to obesity, is just as harmless as the table sugar it replaces.
Michael Ruhlman practically gives an ovation to the author, mostly because it allows him a chance to rant about […]

While the Midwest battles droughts, the coasts have suffered from torrential rain. In California, the bulk of our annual rainfall came in one month, just as the stone fruit was starting to bloom.
And now Maryland chicken farmers have suffered huge losses as torrential rains flooded chicken coops with enough water to cover the cages.
Like […]

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 […]