Search

Join Culinate! Login or Register

Kids, healthy food, and Bryant Terry

Online videos

February 10, 2012

Yeah, you know the kids are all right. Check ‘em out, doing online video reports on toxins in potatoes and coming up with healthy snack ideas for the USDA. (The parents are helping out, too, of course, even urging the USDA to get its kid-produced PSAs out there more.)

Meanwhile, healthy-eating advocate Bryant Terry has a new online TV show, "Urban Organic." As its website says, the show “features cutting-edge chefs, urban farmers, and social innovators who are bringing urban agriculture to neighborhoods in America that need them most.”

The first segment features aquaponics deep in the heart of Oakland, California; the second tours the backyard farm of Novella Carpenter. There’s also a site blog and resource guides to accompany each episode. Watch ‘em!

Porcine problems

A new video on animal rights

February 9, 2012

When will the USDA step up to the animal-welfare plate? »

Upending conventional dietary wisdom

Wavering on vegetarianism, and a new book on obesity

February 7, 2012

In a recent Boston Globe article, several longtime vegetarians explained their various reasons for abandoning strict vegetarianism in favor of flexitarianism. Some missed the taste and texture of meat, or felt that they were simply missing out; others didn’t like feeling dependent on soy-based substitutes. Whatever the reason, many said they hadn’t gone back to eating the whole hog; they were still trying to figure it out.

Which is what a new book about our current obesity epidemic attempts to do. Julie Guthman’s Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism challenges the simplistic “eat less, exercise more” advice given to the overweight. As Guthman writes, socioeconomics and the environment play significant roles in fostering obesity:

Studies have shown that fat people are subject to discrimination in education, job placement, wages, and health care. Thinness doesn’t guarantee high status, but obesity pretty much guarantees low status. So maybe low economic status is as much a consequence of obesity as a cause.

Her conclusion? That “food needs to be regulated at the point of production, not consumption.”

Finding food deserts and food organizations

An online locator and a chart of faves

February 6, 2012

Want to know whether you live in a food desert? (No, not an arid scrubland, but a neighborhood or region without easy, reliable access to fresh food.) Check out the USDA’s online food-desert locator, which assesses whether a federal census tract — some urban, some rural — qualifies as a food desert.

Meanwhile, Culinate contributor Kurt Michael Friese has a Pinterest board of food organizations he likes, all of which are helping to spread the word about food justice, farm reform, seed diversity, and the like, including eradicating those pesky food deserts.

Food news

Links that we clicked

February 4, 2012

Links on everything from cakes to Paula Deen to ‘pink slime.’ »

Home-grown goodies

The artisanal food-business trend

February 1, 2012

Small-batch food businesses are the latest trend, says Food & Wine. Think artisanal chocolates, specialty jams, and pickled you-name-it. According to the magazine, these homespun companies are taking off as “more and more home cooks go pro.”

While we haven’t seen any hard numbers indicating that this is a growing trend, it does seem like there is an ever-growing number of artisanal food products on the market — not to mention online. Food & Wine’s story includes a handful of resources for the budding entrepreneur (including DIY recipes, should you need an idea to get you started).

There have also been positive reports lately about increases in small-business lending. So if you’ve been thinking about taking your lavender-infused whipping cream to the next level, maybe now’s the time.

The problem with protein

How much is too much?

January 31, 2012

Grist takes a bite out of the long-held notion that people need ever more protein. »

The label masters

Are you getting what you think you’re getting?

January 30, 2012

We love authenticity — even if it’s fake. »

Russ Parsons and his cookbook collection

The rare and the signed

January 27, 2012

In mid-January, Los Angeles Times food editor Russ Parsons published a meditation on his cookbook collection, focusing not on the cookbooks he used the most but on those he treasured the most — the rare, the unusual, the funky, and above all, the signed first editions that had serendipitously made their way onto his shelves. Whose autographs does Parsons cherish the most? James Beard, Richard Olney, and Paula Wolfert, among others. Later, Parsons asked readers to add their own favorites in comments on a blog post. Check ‘em out for even more obscure suggestions and vintage treasures.

Pesticides and honey bees

A study shows just how bad it can get for bees

January 26, 2012

Among the myriad troubles afflicting honey bees — including parasites, a mysterious ailment called Colony Collapse Disorder, and the possibility of a fungus and a virus working together to attack bees — pesticides have always been considered an obvious threat.

Now comes a Purdue University study documenting direct damage to honey bees from pesticides. The vector? Harmless talc, which is used to help coat corn, soy, and cotton seeds with pesticides, but then gets blown into the air during planting. And because the pesticides are so concentrated on the seeds, honey bees get up to 700,000 times a lethal exposure if they happen to fly or land nearby. Not good.

The Costco universe

The megaretailer, by the numbers

January 25, 2012

Patricia Marx, the New Yorker’s shopping reporter — yes, such a thing exists — recently wrote about shopping for groceries in NYC. Tacked on at the end of a typical roundup of high-end foodie destinations (Fairway, Citarella, Dean & DeLuca) was a fascinating look at Costco, the national warehouse discounter that sells everything from gasoline and hot dogs to bulk toilet tissue and diamonds. Nope, you can’t read the full article online, but here are the stunning numbers:

Last year, in its 596 outlets, Costco sold 92 million hot-dog-and-drink combinations at $1.50 each (the same price as in 1985). It grossed $4.6 billion in meat sales, $855 million in seafood, $1.35 billion in wine (it’s the largest wine merchant in the U.S.), $1.9 billion in TVs, $1.1 billion in baked goods, and $3.9 billion worth of produce. According to ABC News, the chain sells $300,000 worth of cashews every week, buying up more than half the world’s supply of the nut. Toilet paper and nuts, along with rotisserie chicken, are Costco’s three biggest-selling items, excluding tobacco and gasoline. Last year, the store pumped 2.6 billion gallons of gas and filled 35 million prescriptions. If Costco were a country, its revenues would make it the 65th largest in the world, ahead of both the Republic of Microsoft and Applestand and right behind the United Kingdom of Procter & Gamble.

Oily aftermath

Oil spills mean fish kills

January 24, 2012

Nearly two years after the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the relevant food science is starting to come in, and yes, it’s bad. As the Los Angeles Times reported, exposure to oil and then to sunlight has been documented to destroy fish embryos, a phenomenon known as phototoxicity:

In the wake of BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico . . . much of the spilled oil stayed at depth, but that which did rise through the water column could have produced phototoxic effects that are still unknown and unstudied.

Will there be fish in the Gulf in the future? Stay tuned.

The Walmart warning

Big isn’t necessarily better

January 23, 2012

Grist takes on the mega-retailer. »

GMOs and your health

The unknown consequences of genetically modified foods

January 20, 2012

Make sure you’ve got a non-GMO shopping list, too. »

Barry Estabrook’s latest

Covering feedlots, sea urchins, and dioxins

January 19, 2012

The guy’s been busy. »

The Paula Deen problem

Her diabetes diagnosis frustrates health advocates

January 18, 2012

Deen chooses drugs over diet. »

Juvenile eating habits

Successes and failures

January 17, 2012

What will kids eat? »

Slow Food in crisis

What are its goals these days?

January 16, 2012

Will the real Slow Food please stand up? »

The food-stamp debate

What to do with the massive SNAP program?

January 13, 2012

Kill it or reform it? »

Vegetarian trends

We’re eating less meat — in certain places

January 12, 2012

Overall, we’re cutting back — but maybe not so much in the Midwest. »

Flavor pairings

Need inspiration? Check the list

January 11, 2012

Feeling burned out by the holidays, inspiration-wise? Never fear; there are blogs and websites and books out there to help. First up is a simple alphabetical list of ingredients, mostly fruit, from the wellness blog Bliss Returned; each item comes with a few other ingredients that go well with it, such as walnuts with pears or blueberries with cardamom. Then there’s a foodie website titled Foodpairing, featuring wheel-like diagrams of ingredients surrounded by complementary flavors. Finally, there’s The Flavor Thesaurus, a book (and accompanying website) that not only suggests combos but explains why some work — and some don’t.

Local food production

Southern farmers and Northwestern trappers

January 10, 2012

The Southern renaissance again, and squirrel for dinner. »

The sharing economy

Save money, build community, and get some eggs online

January 9, 2012

The January issue of Sunset magazine features a story about resource-sharing via the Web. Some of the sites included are general how-to and info sites, such as Mesh Labs, Shareable, and Collaborative Consumption; the goal is to get folks to consider building community and saving moola by sharing, thus creating a so-called “sharing economy,” living a life of collaborative consumption.

But some of the sites are food-focused, especially Eggzy, a national site that encourages back-yard chicken keeping and egg sharing. If you don’t have chickens of your own, but still want to score some farm-fresh eggs, check out the site’s Egg Stands page, which lets you search for providers by ZIP code.