Coffee sourcing, online

Where did your coffee come from?

September 2, 2010

Websites that let you track your beans. »

Back to school lunch

Tips for getting those kids to eat

September 1, 2010

School’s starting soon, if it hasn’t already. Which means fretting over clothes, supplies, and lunch. The Globe and Mail has tips for lunch packers, and the chief solution is both obvious and shocking: “Send them off with what they like, not what they should have.” OK, that doesn’t mean chips and candy; you’ve got to give them at least one fruit and vegetable each day. But if your son wants to eat breakfast cereal for lunch, let him.

Future famine

Feeding the growing masses on a shrinking planet

August 31, 2010

Will we become responsible planetary stewards? »

Eggs, recalled

Salmonella causes the nation’s largest egg recall ever

August 30, 2010

Half a billion eggs. But it’s still only about 1 percent of the nation’s supply. »

Farm as art

A blog documenting the loss of the family farm

August 27, 2010

On his website, Urban Plough, Matthew Moore tracks his days as the last farmer to farm his family’s land. Why last? Because the farm is on the outskirts of Phoenix, and will soon be engulfed by suburbia. As Moore explains on the home page:

In this site you can explore how I have documented and translated this development using art, in the form of earthworks, video, and installation. While the loss of my family’s land is not the sole focus of my work, it certainly has initiated my greater exploration of using art to address environmental and economic sustainability issues.

Click through the site for a series of aerial photos showing how the area’s land use has changed over a century, as well as info about Moore’s art installations. And check out his related blog, Lifecycles.

Hormone-free ice cream

Is that dairy dessert really “all natural”?

August 26, 2010

Writing on the Huffington Post recently, John Robbins called for a blanket ban on dairy products from cows given recombinant bovine growth hormone, better known as rBGH or rBST. More and more companies, Robbins noted, are going rBGH-free — but more should follow suit:

Starbucks now guarantees that all their milk, cream, and other dairy products are rBGH-free. So do Yoplait and Dannon yogurts, Tillamook cheese, Chipotle restaurants, and many others. But ice cream giants Häagen-Dazs, Breyers, and Baskin-Robbins continue to use milk from cows injected with rBGH, a hormone that’s been banned in Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Australia and all 27 nations of the European Union. As if to add insult to injury, Häagen-Dazs and Breyers have the audacity to tell us, right on the label, that their ice cream is " All Natural.”

Given that Robbins is the son of a co-founder of the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream empire, that’s saying something.

Fish focus

Sunset Magazine goes coastal

August 24, 2010

The September 2010 issue of West Coast lifestyle magazine Sunset is titled “The Coastal Issue.” That means articles on how to cook with seaweed, anchovy fishing in San Francisco Bay, and fish tacos made with sustainable albacore tuna. (Alas, the magazine’s wine editor, Sara Schneider, also gives tips for pairing wine with sushi, including the very unsustainable unagi and slightly less problematic spicy tuna rolls.)

Also in the issue (but unavailable online) is the magazine’s annual roundup of Coastal Heroes, awarded to “people who have done amazing work in protecting and preserving . . . the Pacific Ocean and its thousands of miles of shoreline.” Awardees include actor Ted Danson and his nonprofit Oceana and Jane Lubchenco, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Assocation. Interested? Check out what’s happening in your area for the international Coastal Cleanup Day, held September 25 this year.

Feeding the sick

Hospital food gets fixed up

August 23, 2010

So you can eat well while getting well. »

GM alfalfa and beets in court

Monsanto loses, sort of

August 20, 2010

Agricultural giant Monsanto has had a confusing summer. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down injunctions against the company’s genetically modified alfalfa seed, but simultaneously upheld a ban on planting the seed. Now a federal court has revoked the government's approval of Monsanto’s genetically modified sugar beets.

The New York Times summed up both cases: “In the alfalfa case, the Supreme Court indicated that the government might grant partial approval of a genetically modified crop. It seems that such an option might be available in the sugar beet case as well, which could reduce any hardship for farmers. It is also possible the Agriculture Department will appeal.”