Growers and Grocers

The recent news about California grown spinach, with (at last count) at least 150 people being sickened by E. Coli, and a Wisconsin woman DEAD, is unsurprising if you’ve been following trends in food distribution. Heartbreaking, yes, but unsurprising. The FDA simply does not have enough food inspectors on the ground to prevent things like […]

I had a bit of trouble obtaining a copy of Eat Here: Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket, by Brian Halweil. First, I checked my local library. Then I checked the local Barnes & Noble, who drove off all of the independent booksellers in my hometown a while ago. Then the not-so-local Borders. Finally, I […]

When I visited the Buckeye Highlands farm of Max and Mary VanBuren a month or so ago, it was the first time I stopped and thought about where the food that I cook comes from. Like most Americans, I think about food production hardly at all, unless I find that my local mega-mart is […]

Chance conversation with a friend brought me to an odd place the other day. A farm, without a single barn. The conversation was about trying to set up our own cooperative, to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, and was mostly that, just conversation. But she told me about an annual visitation day […]

Many thanks to Kate at Accidental Hedonist for the original inspiration for this story.
A funny thing has happened on the way to eating healthier over much of 2006. Organics have positively exploded on grocery store shelves, making well-informed consumer decisions more difficult than ever. A while back, I wrote about the USDA’s […]

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 admit it; I’m suspicious of most anything the US government does. I’m not a fan of the current administration’s big business-loving policies, and I think that the system we have of a few powerful lawyers lobbying Congress on every issue you can think of is a bad thing for consumers. […]

When I say Ohio, you don’t immediately think WINE, do you? I live in Ohio, and I don’t think of my home state as a great wine producer. But Ohio wines have been gaining worldwide attention, and reaching beyond the traditional area of wine production in Ohio. In the 1800s, the Ohio […]

Recent news about Wal-Mart carrying items labeled “organic” got me to thinking about what organic really means. The USDA set standards for organic labeling in October of 2001, and continually updates those standards, most recently in June of 2006. (Full text of those standards can be found here.)
But how does the United […]

Lucy Arin was born and raised in Ohio. She began cooking at her mother’s side at age 7, and has never stopped being fascinated with the chemistry of cooking. She rarely follows a recipe as written. Because she and her husband both have family histories of heart disease and diabetes, and both work full time, […]