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Fair Trade with Chocolate

Posted by bensor on Thursday, 06 October 2011 in Food

The Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer, providing about 43 percent of the world's cocoa. According to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, there were about 284,000 children working on cocoa farms in hazardous conditions in 2002. U.S. cocoa manufactures such a...

Demand labels on genetically altered food

Posted by amir on Wednesday, 05 October 2011 in Food

As dusk settled over the tree-lined parking lot, the first marchers wandered in. Wearing sneakers and athletic gear, they’d walked all day, and the day before that. Many of them had started at the United Nations in New York City on Oct. 1, and they were stopping for the ni...

Fair Trade: Even in Tough Times, Growing Fast

Posted by amir on Monday, 03 October 2011 in Food

The proliferation of labels and claims at the grocery store can befuddle even the most conscientious consumer. What to buy? Organic produce? Locally grown vegetables? MSC-certified fish? Fair Trade coffee or chocolate? Paul Rice, the president and CEO of Fair Trade USA, isn’t worried by the clutter...

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Shows Problems in Fish and Shrimp

Posted by Aaron on Wednesday, 28 September 2011 in Food

BATON ROUGE, La. -- A new Louisiana State University study shows the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on fish living in Louisiana marshes and reveals a problem that could affect the future of the seafood industry. The study was conducted by associate professors of biological scien...

Our Dwindling Food

Posted by Wolf on Thursday, 25 August 2011 in Food

As we've come to depend on a handful of commercial varieties of fruits and vegetables, thousands of heirloom varieties have disappeared. It's hard to know exactly how many have been lost over the past century, but a study conducted in 1983 by the Rural Advancement Foundation International gave a clu...

Sustainable Food and Community - Join us! September 15-18th, Port Townsend, WA

Posted by deborah@nwei.org on Tuesday, 19 July 2011 in Food

The Northwest Earth Institute (www.nwei.org) would like to personally invite you to our bi-annual conference in beautiful Port Townsend, Washington. This year's conference theme is building healthy communities and food systems one conversation at a time. Whether you have participated in an NWEI dis...

Radioactive meat in Japan

Posted by grant on Wednesday, 13 July 2011 in Food

A Japanese health official downplayed the dangers Tuesday after cesium contaminated meat from six Fukushima cows was delivered to Japanese markets and probably ingested. Goshi Hosono, state minister in charge of consumer affairs and food-safety, said he hoped to head off any overreactions. "If we ...

Woman Faces Jail Time For Growing Vegetable Garden

Posted by henryfool on Tuesday, 12 July 2011 in Food

Julie Bass faces the prospect of going to jail for what she's growing in her front yard. The illegal growth is tomatoes. And zucchinis, peppers and other edible and what normally would be legal plants. The officials in Bass' hometown of Oak Park, Mich., have charged her with growing "vegetable gar...

Is Organic Food the Answer?

Posted by amir on Tuesday, 07 June 2011 in Food

Well, that depends on the question. Of all the things I write about – energy, the greening of business, the politics and policy of climate change, geoengineering – food is by far the most emotional. With near-religious fervor, people debate the merits or demerits of, broadly speaking, two ways to p...

Shocking slaughterhouse abuse

Posted by grant on Tuesday, 31 May 2011 in Food

The live animal export industry has gone into damage control, following the release of graphic footage of the inhumane slaughter of Australian cattle in our largest overseas market. Late yesterday, the Agriculture Minister, Senator Joe Ludwig, ordered his department to conduct an immediate investig...

Suffering... an Indonesian worker with an Australian-supplied restraint box.

Oceana launches seafood fraud campaign

Posted by Wolf on Thursday, 26 May 2011 in Food

Oceana turned its press conference yesterday at the National Press Club into a pop quiz: Organizers laid out skinless fillets of halibut next to skinless fillets of fluke, both without labels, and then asked the gathered audience to identify each fish by sight. Oceana then repeated the test ...

Is Organic Food Really Better For The Environment?

Posted by plantitfilm on Sunday, 22 May 2011 in Food

I eat a lot of organic food. In fact, about 80% of the food that goes into my body is organic. I cannot tell you how many times I get teased about eating “dirt” from many of my friends, and even my family. A friend recently quizzed me about my reasons for eating organic. I claimed that one ...

Go Meatless On Earth Day

Posted by Wolf on Tuesday, 19 April 2011 in Food

Just in time for Earth Day, April 22, European scientists released a groundbreaking report linking meat consumption to nitrogen pollution. Nitrogen pollution? What on earth is nitrogen pollution? Nitrogen is commonly used to fertilize crops. Between 70 and 80 percent of agricultural greenhouse gas e...

Nitrates in Food

Posted by henryfool on Saturday, 09 April 2011 in Food

Where Nitrates Come From Nitrates occur naturally in the environment and are produced by living organisms. It aids in the growth of fruits and vegetables. Nitrates are also added to some foods to help preserve them and maintain color. They are also found in water, although in varying amou...

Milk Kills Children in China

Posted by henryfool on Saturday, 09 April 2011 in Food

Three children have died and 35 people have become ill from drinking nitrite-tainted milk in China's north-western Gansu province, Xinhua news agency has reported in the latest food safety scandal to hit the dairy industry. Most of the 35 were children under 14 now being treated at two hospitals in...

Proposed shark fin ban stirs the pot

Posted by ep-admin on Tuesday, 22 February 2011 in Food

State lawmakers on Monday proposed to outlaw the possession, sale and distribution of shark fins that are used in traditional soup, saying it will help protect the fish from extinction, but opponents called it an attack on Chinese culture. Democratic Assemblymen Paul Fong of Sunnyval...

America's Food Waste Equates to Wasted Energy

Posted by ep-admin on Wednesday, 06 October 2010 in Food

America is certainly the land of plenty. This country has been blessed with an overabundance of natural resources and some of the world's most fertile agricultural land. However, every year millions of tons of food is wasted. According to a new study published in the journal, Environmental Science &...

Is Gulf Seafood Safe to Eat?

Posted by ep-admin on Friday, 10 September 2010 in Food

Now that the largest accidental oil spill is history, many women are wondering if the region’s fish is safe to eat. Find out what experts are saying, which potential health risks remain and how to be a smart seafood shopper... From April to July, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill unlea...

Meatless Monday is gaining support

Posted by ep-admin on Saturday, 28 August 2010 in Food

Chefs across the nation have embraced the Meatless Monday movement, and in turn customers, critics and the media have celebrated their success. Just this week TIME magazine took a look at six chefs that are pushing plant-based entrees and reaping the rewards. Special attention was given to Mario Bat...

In Grip Of Drought, Floods, Niger Faces Hunger Crisis

Posted by ep-admin on Friday, 20 August 2010 in Food

At the epicenter of a hunger crisis in West Africa's Sahara Desert region, Niger is in desperate need of food aid for nearly 8 million people — more than half the country's population. Yet a cash-strapped U.N. food aid agency has had to make a difficult choice: For now, only children younger than 2 ...

A farmer waits for food distribution near Dakoro, in northern Niger, in May