Organic versus conventional farming

Yield isn’t the most important thing

By Culinate staff

Thinking about the big picture instead.

Junk-food bans pay off

Kids are eating fewer calories

By Culinate staff

But Jamie Oliver’s not satisfied.

Mario Batali does food stamps

By way of protesting federal spending cuts

By Culinate staff

A few years ago, everybody was doing it: taking the food-stamp challenge, or trying to eat only what a typical food-stamp budget would allow. Now, belatedly, the celebrity chef Mario Batali has taken up the challenge, feeding his family of four on a budget of $124 for a whole week.

The goal: to protest potential cuts in the federal food-stamp program. The strategy so far: “To save money, he’s ditched organic food, switched over to rice and beans for lunches, and buying value cuts like pork shoulder and whole chickens to stretch into two or three meals.”

Dietary advice

Two books offer similar tips

By Culinate staff

Don’t follow the conventional wisdom.

Crying fowl

Over proposed new chicken regulations

By Culinate staff

In case you missed it back in April, the USDA took flak for its proposed new regulations on chicken inspections, which would not only drastically speed up the inspection process but essentially privatize the industry, letting processing plants police themselves. Consumers complained, delivering nearly 150,000 petitions to the USDA in protest. (Other petitions are still circulating, with a comment deadline of May 29.) And, as Helena Bottemiller reported on the blog Food Safety News, ag secretary Tom Vilsack is publicly butting heads with his wife, Iowa congressional candidate Christie Vilsack, over the proposed regulations; the secretary supports the plan, while his wife does not.

Obesity, televised

An HBO documentary series raises questions

By Culinate staff

It’s a good show, but it overlooks key facts.

Testing recipe writers

No, you’re not a slow cook

By Culinate staff

You’re just being lied to.

Coupon economics

But no food politics

By Culinate staff

Sure, you can save thousands at the store, but what about in the long run?

Calling out endocrine disruptors

Nicholas Kristof takes up the cause

By Culinate staff

Once upon a time, the Food and Drug Administration declared that bisphenol A, a chemical used in plastics, was perfectly safe. By 2010, the FDA had decided that perhaps BPA was worrisome.

Now here we are in 2012, with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof chastising the FDA for refusing to ban not just BPA but its entire chemical class, known as endocrine disruptors. As Kristof pointed out, even if the feds are refusing to follow the science, the scientists themselves aren’t:

Scientists who know endocrine disruptors best overwhelmingly are already taking steps to protect their families. John Peterson Myers, chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences . . . said that his family had stopped buying canned food. “We don’t microwave in plastic,” he added. “We don’t use pesticides in our house. I refuse receipts whenever I can. My default request at the A.T.M., known to my bank, is ‘no receipt.’ I never ask for a receipt from a gas station.”

Mad cow disease in the news

Is the latest case of the disease cause for alarm?

By Culinate staff

That depends on whom you ask.

Snacktastic

Kellogg’s expands into snacks

By Culinate staff

And takes aim globally.

The new GMO corn opposition

On farming as well as health grounds

By Culinate staff

Food activists have been challenging Dow’s 2,4-D corn — the latest iteration of GM corn — for several months now on various grounds: the belief that GM foods should be labeled as such, or the evidence that the corn could cause health problems.

Now farmers are joining the protest movement, on the basis that the new corn, which is engineered to be resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D, will naturally lead to an increase in the use of the herbicide and cause non-resistant crops to suffer. As Andrew Pollack noted in the New York Times,

The Save Our Crops Coalition, as it calls itself, says it is not opposed to biotechnology. But it fears that fruits and vegetables, which will not be immune to 2,4-D, will become unintended casualties of herbicide drift as the chemical is sprayed on tens of millions of acres of corn.

Freedom milk

All about the raw-milk battle

By Culinate staff

Dana Goodyear’s reporting, plus Dan Barber’s take.

Vote today!

On meat ethics

By Culinate staff

Missed the New York Times essay contest on meat-eating? Well, you’ve got till midnight tonight to read the entries and vote for your favorite. The official judges — Michael Pollan, Mark Bittman, and the like — will pronounce their verdict on May 6.

Drugged out

Our poor livestock

By Culinate staff

The ractopamine problem.

Carcinogens in alcohol?

Heavy drinking can lead to cancer — or not

By Culinate staff

Science can be so confusing.

Pesticidal corn

You’ve got till Friday to complain

By Culinate staff

As you may already know, the next contender in the GM corn wars is something called 2,4-D corn, which is being billed by Dow Chemical as the successor to Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn. Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency refused an appeal by the National Resources Defense Council to ban the new corn. But that hasn’t stopped the Just Label It campaign from rallying supporters against the new corn. If you want to protest the corn, send a letter before Friday.

The mercury mess

Is it really related to developmental disorders?

By Culinate staff

Our ongoing autism fears.

Shrinking from shrimp

Badly produced and poisoned

By Culinate staff

As Twilight Greenaway recently pointed out on Grist, it’s not enough that shrimp are unsustainably farmed; they’re also a source of factory-worker abuse. The shrimp processed by these workers are distributed across the U.S. — hence a campaign to get Walmart to drop the product from its shelves.

Meanwhile, more bad food news is trickling in from the 2010 Gulf oil spill, with eyeless shrimp, deformed crabs, and underdeveloped fish turning up in seafood catches.

The vegan debate, again

Is going vegan really good for you?

By Culinate staff

The New York Times recently rehashed the old vegan debate: Is it really possible to be healthy on a vegan diet? And if so, is it healthier than other kinds of diets?

Health blogger Tara Parker-Pope buzzed about it on the Well blog, and the Room for Debate department chewed it over, too, with panelists ranging from pro-meat Nina Planck to pro-vegan Rip Esselstyn.

In addition to the usual arguments for and against meat (ethics, health, tradition), the former vegan Rhys Southan noted a slightly less familiar wrinkle: folks allergic to common vegan staples such as soy, gluten, and nuts will find a vegan diet especially challenging.