Sustainable food

Edible cottonseed could feed millions

BETSY BLANEY, Associated Press — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:01:00 PST

"The Fabric of Our Lives" may soon feed millions.

Eat the weeds

Sarah Karnasiewicz — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:06:00 PDT

It's been three decades since Alice Waters made microgreens a culinary cliché, and by now most diners take the lingo of local food for granted: chefs who raise their own heritage chickens, restaurants with hand-lettered blackboards that outline the lineage of every lamb chop, and salads that sport farmers' Christian names. But what if the next menu you picked up offered nettle pesto picked from the ditch next to Route 6? Or garlic-sautéed dandelion greens gathered from the overgrown lot behind the grocery store? As the meanings of "organic" and "local" grow ever more slippery -- and in lean times, when fewer folks than ever can afford to pay a premium for dinner -- are wild edibles poised to emerge as the next gastronomic zeitgeist?

The family who just said no

Andrew O'Hehir — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:18:00 PDT

Colin Beavan and his daughter at the market

Swine flu on the automated pig farm

Andrew Leonard — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:05:00 PDT

A tweet from Tom Philpott alerts us to the definitive article written, so far, on the intersection between swine flu and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), a superb piece of science reporting by Charles Schmidt.

CliffsNotes to the food revolution

Jaclyn Friedman — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:40:00 PDT

Mention the name Lisa Jervis in certain feminist circles, and you'll be met with the kind of breathlessness and swooning more often lavished on the Jonas Brothers. Jervis is the co-founder and former editor of Bitch magazine, for many the defining publication of a new generation of feminist critique.

Foreign investors snap up African farmland

Horand Knaup and Juliane von Mittelstaedt — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:01:00 PDT

Every crisis has its winners. A group of them is sitting in the Stuyvesant Room at the Marriott Hotel in New York. The conference room, where the shades are drawn and the lights are dimmed, is filled with men from Iowa, São Paulo and Sydney -- corn farmers, big landowners and fund managers. Each of them has paid $1,995 to attend Global AgInvesting 2009, the first investors' conference on the emerging worldwide market in farmland.

How cooking makes you a man

Sarah Karnasiewicz — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 03:27:00 PDT

Animals of the genus Homo are defined by their little mouths, large guts, big brains -- and appetite for bratwurst. This, at least, is the provocative theory of evolution put forth by Dr. Richard Wrangham in his fascinating new book, "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human."

Sushi to die for

Katharine Mieszkowski — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:23:00 PDT

This environmental crisis has everything: world-renowned chefs and Hollywood celebrities in an intercontinental food fight over the fate of one of the world's great predators, the bluefin tuna.

Can it!

Sarah Karnasiewicz — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:20:00 PDT

Yesterday, for lunch, I ate a $17 peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Its appearance was deceptively humble: not layered with slices of foie gras or rare Amazonian fruit, nor served on handmade whole grain flecked with gold leaf. There were no white tablecloths or waiters to attend me. I cut the sandwich into two triangles on a plastic plate and chewed while surveying the scrubby view from my fire escape. When I was finished, I wiped my sticky fingers on my bare knees. So, how to account for the eye-popping price tag? I can't blame Skippy or Pepperidge Farm. No, I blame myself -- and my $15 per pint, straight-from-the-Greenmarket, homemade and canned in Brooklyn, N.Y., macerated and simmered in unprocessed sugar, spiked with organic chiles and small-batch Kentucky bourbon strawberry jam.

How does your city garden grow?

Amy Benfer — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:20:00 PDT

To get to the apartment I share with my boyfriend and teenage daughter, the directions go something like this: Take the R train to Brooklyn. When you get out, you will see a check-cashing place on your right, and a discount coffin outlet to your left. Go straight, past the abandoned gas station, toward the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. When you reach the building between the abandoned house and the tire shop, you have arrived.

Why we can't eat just one

Katharine Mieszkowski — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:20:00 PDT

Dr. David Kessler, 58, says that when he looks at a huge plate of French fries, he knows that if he starts eating them, he won't stop until he's wolfed them all down. Yes, even the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, who once oversaw the nation's health, struggles to eat well like the rest of us.

Michael Pollan and Robert Kenner on "Food, Inc."

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:13:00 PDT

Andrew O'Hehir interviews the filmmakers behind the new documentary "Food, Inc." about how making healthier choices can change the way our food is processed. Read more here.

Can we afford to eat ethically?

Siobhan Phillips — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:44:00 PDT

Last month, a report from England found sales of some organic food had fallen up to 31 percent. Ethical food advocates have been worrying about a similar trend in this country since the recession began: Just as the need for better food choices became more widely accepted, our economy fell apart, and consumers who once considered free-range, $5-a-dozen eggs a necessity may start eyeing the caged-hens carton for half that price. A recent National Review column argued that organic food was, in fact, "an expensive luxury item, something bought by those who have the resources."

Organic foodies love Obama again

Andrew Leonard — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:19:00 PST

The sustainable, organic, suspicious-of-big-agriculture foodies greeted President Obama's choice of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as secretary of agriculture with a chorus of boos and frowns of disappointment. Iowa is ethanol country, and Vilsack was considered a Monsanto man, through-and-through. But the decision to appoint Tufts professor Kathleen Merrigan for the No. 2 post at USDA is sparking a completely different reaction.

Organic farmers feel the pain

Andrew Leonard — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:35:00 PDT

Can we afford the organic lifestyle?

The turkey whisperer

Adam Roberts — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 03:23:00 PST

Most people don't frolic with turkeys before eating them, but that's precisely what I did this summer before dining at Blue Hill Stone Barns, Dan Barber's idyllic farm-cum-restaurant in upstate New York. The meal, which was among the best I've ever had, was both playful and refined. Each course came with a lively presentation about the featured ingredients, how they were grown, when they were picked and what made them special. We left the meal delirious, drunk and, most impressive, edified: Blue Hill Stone Barns is more than a restaurant -- to quote its Web site, it's "a platform, an exhibit, a classroom, a conservatory, a laboratory, and a garden."

Go ask Alice

Farhad Manjoo — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 04:15:00 PDT