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Processing —> Depression? A new study from London’s University College indicates that a diet high in processed foods may lead to depression.

Processing —> Diabetes? Diets high in processed meats “may increase the risk of developing type-2 diabetes by 40 per cent, according to a new meta-analysis from Norway and the US.” This article suggests that nitrites used in processing may be the culprit.

Ohio passes Issue 2  Will other states follow suit by instating “livestock care standards boards,” blocking groups like HSUS from introducing CAFO rules like California’s Prop 2?  Time will tell.

No Prosecution in Peanut Butter Case  Almost a year later, no charges in the salmonella outbreak that killed 9 people and sickened hundreds, despite evidence that CEO Stewart Parnell and other higher ups at the company knew about the contamination.  Victims of the outbreak are outraged.

Strange Bedfellows Following up on his recent interest in meat reduction, Glenn Beck has seized an unlikely opportunity to partner up with Ingrid Newkirk, CEO of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, not in an effort to combat climate change, but to bash Al Gore.  Warning: this video may induce uncontrollable eye rolling.

Swine Flu Bailout According to NBC, amid some panic over a dearth of vaccines, many Wall St. groups have received the sought-after doses out of turn.  SEIU, which is trying to get the financial institutions to donate theirs, points out that Citibank and Goldman Sachs “have received 1,400 doses between them.”

Swine Flu. At a Hog “Farm.” A commercial hog herd has tested positive for H1N1 in Indiana. The USDA is not disclosing the name of the facility or even the town, “in order to ensure continued high levels of participation in swine surveillance efforts, and because this is not a food safety or public health risk.”

Jeremy Piven Eats Pork, Gets Swine Flu Just kidding, folks. But it seems like everything this guy eats leads him to fall victim to some obscure health problem.  Now, he’s claiming that 12 cups of soy milk a day caused him to grow breasts.

Good Food in the Garden State In Newark, corner stores are getting a makeover and filling up with fresh fruits and vegetables.

One Problem with Bt The New York Times and USA Today both have stories out this week about a new report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the gist of which is that many (around 25%) farmers who grow GMO corn are not playing by rules requiring them to plant 1/5 of their acres with non-Bt corn, to help ensure that insects don’t grow immune to the Bt toxins.

Peter Hanlon is the Outreach Associate for Network for New Energy Choices, a program of GRACE.  This post was originally published at newenergychoices.org.

Back in the waning days of August, Elizabeth Kolbert wrote an article in The New Yorker complaining that Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, and other similar-minded writers experimenting with strict eco-friendly lifestyles were nothing more than disingenuous hucksters, pointlessly updating Henry David Thoreau’s own insincere two-year retreat into the woods.

In other words, it was all just a stunt.

Needless to say, the article launched many a blog response. But missing from the fallout was a simple question: What’s wrong with a few stunts? Marketers swear by them and, if well orchestrated, they can hold the public’s attention for a few precious moments. Sometimes they can even help inspire a movement. [Read more →]

Last week the Brooklyn Food Coalition, in partnership with the Healthy Steps Committee of PS 10’s PTA, and the Park Slope Food Circle, hosted a food policy debate with candidates for New York City Council in Brooklyn’s 39^th district (which includes parts of Bensonhurst, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Gowanus, Kensington, Park Slope, and Windsor Terrace).

The candidates had diverse backgrounds with respect to food policy in Brooklyn. Joe Nardiello (Republican), born and raised in Brooklyn has been a Park Slope Food Co-op member for the past five years. Brad Lander (Democrat) attended the Brooklyn Food Conference, and worked on development of East NY farms, which is a model of inner city farming and food organizing. David Pechefsky (Green) has a direct familial connection with farming as his mom grew up on their family’s farm in Kansas.  He is passionate about creating a real “food democracy”.

Each candidate was asked to present their position on initiatives currently before the city council, first among these the proposed Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) program. FRESH would help bring supermarkets to underserved neighborhoods by offering zoning and financial incentives to property owners, developers and grocery store operators. However, the legislation does not address the quality of the produce that would be sold, for example, only the quantity, which raises some concerns. Lander expressed support for supermarkets in underserved neighborhoods as a means of promoting public health.  He would like to see standards set for food quality. Pechefsky prefered alternatives to the supermarket model, such as CSAs and co-ops, and encouraged the idea of seeking a range of ways to get healthy food into city neighborhoods.

The second council initiative discussed was the Paid Sick Time Act. This bill would require private employers to provide paid sick time to employees in New York City, including restaurant workers. Restaurant workers often can’t afford to stay home because they are paid laid low wages and sometimes lose their jobs if they take time off.  As a result, many workers in the food industry go to work when sick, increasingly the likelihood of spreading illness, which is a public health concern. Lander and Pechefksy both expressed support for the bill. However, Nardiello expressed concern for the small business owners, stating that giving workers paid sick time will cut into the already tight budgets of these small businesses. [Read more →]

Millions of Americans will turn out to vote today, and millions more won’t. It’s pretty weird when you think about it. Not voting is like going to a restaurant with some friends, and then, when the waiter brings you the menu, deciding that you can’t be bothered to look at it, so you’re just going to let somebody else decide what you should get.

Of course, hardly anybody ever does this; in fact, we spend an absurd amount of time agonizing over what to order, given how quickly today’s soup du jour is destined to become tomorrow’s poop du jour.

And yet, though we’re willing to engage in a lengthy debate on the respective merits of a Reuben versus a BLT, many of us won’t give equal time to choices that have reverberations for years or even decades.

Whom you choose to represent you–or what legislation you decide to support–can be a matter of life or death, literally. For example, thousands of Americans die needlessly each year from preventable food-borne illnesses because too many of the elected officials we’ve entrusted to represent our interests have opted to safeguard corporate coffers rather than protect citizens.

We all have to go, sometime, but who wants to die from eating E. coli- tainted ground beef, as two more unfortunate folks apparently have in the latest outbreak, which will likely cause more deaths before it runs its course? And how many people will be killed by the swine flu epidemic because of government policies that failed to protect us?

I’m not talking about the vaccine shortage. Clearly, that doesn’t help, but what’s equally unhelpful is our failure to provide paid sick days for every worker. Do you really want the guy who assembles your sandwich or the day care worker who diapers your little darling to show up for work even when they’re carrying a contagious disease?

That scenario is all too common, as Tuesday’s New York Times reports:

…workers who deal with the public, like waiters and child care employees, are jeopardizing others by reporting to work sick because they do not get paid for days they miss for illness.

Our government agencies and employers advise us to stay home when we’ve got a contagious illness. But until Congress enacts legislation to guarantee paid sick days to every worker, millions of wheezing, sniffling workers will drag themselves into the workplace despite feeling awful because the prospect of losing a day’s wages makes them feel even worse. [Read more →]

From our friends at Healthy Monday …

There seems to be a lot of chatter lately about the nutritional value of meatless meals. While some agree limiting meat is a healthy choice, others worry that plant-based fare won’t provide adequate protein. Truth is, by having a Meatless Monday, you not only are nourishing your body with sufficient and diverse protein sources, you’re taking strides toward better health.

During a recent USDA press conference, a reporter asked the U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack how he felt about Meatless Monday in Baltimore City Public Schools:

Mr. Secretary, I was wondering if it bothered you… that school districts like Baltimore, Maryland institute Meatless Mondays… not letting the children have protein in the diet by doing that.

The misconception that meat is the only source of protein is a common one. But in truth, protein can be adequately obtained from beans, nuts, whole grains and vegetables. In most parts of the world meat isn’t the primary source of protein in the average diet. Indeed, globally, only 30% of protein is derived from animal sources! [Read more →]

No H1N1 here, but who would know? The Washington Post reports that pork producers are testing less for swine flu (as well as other infectious ailments, like MRSA) than they were before the virus made its global debut last spring. Hat tip to Tom Philpott @ Grist.

Welcome to Farmville, Pop: 62 million If your experience with the Facebook sensation is anything like mine, it’s been limited to “hiding” notices about friends’ wandering cows, and apparently, we’re missing out on something.  Apparently, online faux farmers outnumber actual farmers 60 to 1.

Iceland says bæbæ to the Golden Arches The collapse of the krona has led McDonald’s to shut down operations throughout the country, as it’s no longer feasible to fly in ingredients.

US says hello to more imported produce? The California drought may force the issue.

Frightfully disgusting The Consumers Union wants the FDA to outlaw the disturbing practice of feeding “poultry litter” (chicken manure, feathers, bedding material and often, random foreign objects like rocks and dead rodents) to cattle.  Should they really have to ask? One last spooky fact: because it’s legal for chickens to be fed meat and other material from cows, this could lead to an upswing in mad cow disease.

An appointment with controversy Environmentalists are up in arms about Obama’s nomination of Islam Siddiqui, as Chief Agriculture Negotiator.  Siddiqui is a former lobbyist and current VP for science and regulatory affairs at Crop Life.  Can you say “conflict of interest?”

Biggest Losers visit WH Garden The remaining contestants on the weight loss reality show hit up the White House garden recently, the WHO Farm reports.  The episode will air Nov. 3.

Taxing carnivores? Pete Singer makes a case for sin tax on meat, though he fails to acknowledge the fact that there are farmers out there practicing more sustainable methods of meat production.

Are you a “fan” of the USDA? True to her word, the increasingly modern Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan will host her second live Facebook chat on November 5 at 3pm.

I must confess that before I traveled to Iowa earlier this month, I had rubbed elbows with quite a few farmers, but by and large, they were not typical.  Many of them were organic producers.  Many were young.  Probably a statisically disproportionate number of them were women.

When I got there, I took a “field trip” out of Des Moines to a number of farms and I was struck by the conflicting feelings that the visual of miles upon miles of corn evoked in me.  On the one hand, a pastoral wholesomeness that rang with my heart, though not with my head.  On the other, the cliche: Children of the Corn.  To be sure, while the Midwestern landscape is bereft of the overstimulation of the city and full of some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, there is also some creepy stuff going on there, namely an unhealthy amount of genetically modified corn and soy, a staggering number of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and a lot of industry influence.

Before flying out, I’d been thinking a lot, as usual, about food production and the controversies that surround it.  Michael Pollan had just been lambasted in Wisconsin by what felt, to me, not unlike the anti-healthcare reform “tea parties” we saw earlier this fall.  Yes, there were real people, real farmers in fact, and yes, they were likely genuinely threatened by Pollan’s message, but the fact that they were reportedly organized by a Madison-based feed company to protest Pollan’s appearance cost them in credibility.

These were not the farmers I’d been hanging out with.

Last spring, Smithfield CEO Larry Pope, seeking to deflect blame after H1N1 appeared to have originated in a Smithfield operation in Mexico, said in an interview that family farmers stood to suffer from the massive hit the pork market took when the outbreak first occurred.  While that may have been true, Smithfield’s strategy of vertical integration has done more to put small producers out of business than have…well, the factory farming practices that almost surely created the breeding grounds for the swine flu.

And yet, industry would have those who follow such things believe that it’s activists who create problems for farmers, and they are eager to pit them against one another.  Talk about “sustainable” agriculture or “swine flu” and you hate farmers.  Ask too many questions about GMOs and you’re a science-hating elitist who doesn’t care about the hungry.  It seems to me that agribusiness has used farmers as human shields to deflect the claims of activists of all stripes — animal welfare, labor, environmental, social justice, etc.

Let me go on record here and now.  I don’t hate farmers.  [Read more →]

There’s nothing funny about all those E. coli and salmonella outbreaks that keep popping up and plaguing us like the Undead. But with trick- or-treat season right around the corner, I thought it might be nice to take a brief break from food scares and focus on scary food we can safely sink our teeth into, like Rocky Road-To-Perdition Fudge or I’Scream Cake.

Those are just two of the diabolically delicious recipes I found in Ghoulish Goodies by Sharon Bowers, a clever collection of Halloween-themed concoctions. Some are sweet, others savory, but they all sound eerily tasty. I spotted this book at a friend’s house last weekend and essentially stole it after leafing through its pages and finding such ingenious Halloween snacks as Cheddar Eyeballs, Candy Corn Pizza, and Bandaged Fingers, to name just a few of the more than seventy inventive recipes featured in Ghoulish Goodies. The recipes have simple ingredients, easy-to-follow instructions and plenty of photos to inspire you.

The eyeballs, for example, are just a round, bite-sized ball of dough with a pimento-stuffed green olive plunked in the center to glare back at you. The bits of cheddar cheese baked into the dough leave little orange streaks that give the eyeballs a bloodshot quality.

Other perfect finger foods, literally, are the Bandaged Fingers, a twisted take on the eternally popular Pig in A Blanket, featuring cocktail wieners wrapped in flour tortilla strips, with just the tip of the wiener jutting out. A dollop of ketchup on the tip serves as a bloody-looking fingernail.

This hors d’oeuvre is horrifying enough without the added atrocity of factory farmed meats, of course. A vegan version with tofu dogs is one alternative. I’ve yet to find a source for cocktail wieners from pastured livestock, so I’m going to go with my favorite local grass- fed hot dogs instead of, say, Costco cocktail wieners. I’ll cut them in half, which will make for a rather long–and presumably even creepier–finger. [Read more →]

From our friends at Meatless Monday…

You may be surprised to learn the culinary potential of the pumpkin goes way beyond a can of pumpkin pie mix. Underused in American cooking, this nutritional powerhouse is revered for its leaves, seeds and roasted flesh in other countries. A member of the gourd family, pumpkins are packed with dietary fiber, potassium and vitamins A, B and C. With so many nutrients and very few calories, it’s no wonder Jack O’ Lantern can’t stop grinning!

Carving pumpkins wasn’t a Halloween tradition until the 20th century, but the fall harvest has traditionally been the season to celebrate the pumpkin. This year, make full use of the pumpkin and put its leaves in pasta sauce or fry the flesh to cook up some pumpkin tempura. The Thai often steam custard inside of a pumpkin, so take a tip from Thailand and use a hallowed out pumpkin as an innovative serving dish.

When cooking with pumpkin, remember that canned pumpkin puree can be a good time-saver if you’re in a hurry. But cooking your own lowers sodium content — and gives your dish a nice roasted flavor. To make your own puree, cut a pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and roast, cut side down, in a 400 degree oven for 50-60 minutes. Remember to save the seeds. Soaking them in water for a few minutes will release any excess pumpkin pulp, then toasting them with a sprinkling of salt and olive oil will ensure a tasty snack. Pumpkin seeds have been used to treat anxiety and 1 gram of the pumpkin seed protein contains more tryptophan than a full glass of milk. Hand them out this Halloween and see the grins of the trick-or-treaters light up like Jack-O-Lanterns.

Can Local Food Fix the Economy? Wayne Roberts makes a strong case in the affirmative at Alternatives.

A COOL Introduction for US Dairy Farmers Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), along with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) have introduced the Dairy COOL Act, which would add dairy products to the list of foods required to display Country of Origin Labeling.  As the dairy industry has struggled to survive this year, signs point to a surge in imported dairy as one culprit in flagging prices.

Greening with Greywater California legislators are catching up with eco-minded individuals who’ve until now flouted regulations by installing “laundry to landscape” systems. Alternet is calling the repealing of the $350 fee “A Victory for the ‘Water Underground.’”

Show Me the Money Corpses The NY Times’s Neil MacFarquhar adds his voice to a number of reporters asking perhaps the wrong questions about hunger and population, but if the piece seems to cover the “same old story” of promoting GMOs, be sure to read through to the macabre nugget in the third to last paragraph.

Climate Action Will you be attending one of over 4,000 climate actions around the globe tomorrow, as part of Bill McKibben’s 350.org campaign?

Anti-Monopoly Action This week, La Via Campesina helped organize mobilizations against Monsanto in honor of World Food Day. On that subject, the Times waxes technological on the Department of Justice’s investigation into anticompetitive behavior, suggesting the Dept. begin at the top, with Monsanto.

Swedes Lead on Foodprint Labeling The Swedish National Food Administration has developed new food guidelines and labels that speak to both nutrition and ecological impact.

No Impact Food This week, the Huffington Post Green Page was abuzz with No Impact posts. Our good friend (and consultant) Kerry Trueman moderated a food-focused Q & A with Slow Food USA’s Josh Viertel and Food & Water Watch’s Patty Lovera. Watch the webcast on YouTube (Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4)