Entries tagged with 'environment'
Page 4 of 5
For those of you following U.S. Congressional action on carbon footprints and food miles, the House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will hold a hearing on these issues today at 2 p.m. ET. Food for Thought: A Primer on the Climate Consequences of Food Choices will be streamed live at globalwarming.house.gov/home. Foodies might note that the executive director of the Chez Panisse Foundation will be among the experts taking part in the panel....
Continue reading »
Mark Bittman had a remarkable piece in the New York Times yesterday about the true costs associated with all the meat we consume. According to Bittman, growing more industrialized meat, growing the feed the associated animals eat, and eating the resulting animal flesh, are collectively having dire consequences on the environment and our health. Bittman's story even gave a passionate, enthusiastic carnivore like me pause, and that's saying something. Bittman makes a compelling case for eating less meat, which of course people like Michael Pollan have been advocating for some time now. I've been eating less meat on my diet, and I must admit I feel better. I don't miss the meat "hangover" that I used to get after polishing...
Continue reading »
On weekdays, we try to bring you a short food video you can get through quickly during your busy day. But seeing how it's Saturday and you have more time, here's a longer, more weighty, but nevertheless interesting video in which Michael Pollan, Joan Dye Gussow, and Dan Barber talk about whether we can eat all the good stuff we love while still being green and healthy. Sit back and enjoy....
Continue reading »
The case for eating insects: Generally speaking, insects are high in protein and essential fatty acids and low in cholesterol.... A 2004 U.N. report promoted insects as an environmentally friendly food source: low impact, consuming very little in the way of feed, easy to harvest, with no special measures required for their husbandry. ... Insects are arthropods, like lobster, crab and shrimp. They are plentiful, and account for over half of the known species on the planet. We spend billions of pounds trying to control or eradicate them, when we could just be eating them. So why don't we?...
Continue reading »
Get rid of those plastic bags without feeling guilty. I can finally get rid of some plastic bags I've accumulated without feeling guilty. The New York City Council passed a bill yesterday that will make large stores in the Big Apple collect and recycle the bags they pack groceries and other goods in. There will be bins in stores where you can bring your plastic bags, which can be from any store, of course....
Continue reading »
International ocean environmental advocacy group Oceana has teamed up with Washington D.C.–based bakery Cakelove for their Adopt-A-Creature Campaign. With each marine creature adopted, you will receive an animal-shaped cookie cutter and a sugar cookie recipe from Cakelove, in addition to help protect coral reefs, fight global warming, protect sea creatures and eliminate unsustainable fishing....
Continue reading »
As
Michael Pollan discusses in his article in yesterday's
New York Times, the rampant use of antibiotics in America's factory farms threatens to undermine its own efficacy. But why are antibiotics such a crucial piece of the industrial agriculture puzzle?
Continue reading »
Southern Foodways appears on Fridays as part of our collaboration with the Southern Foodways Alliance, an organization based in Oxford, Mississippi, that "documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South." Dig in! In 2006, the Southern Foodways Alliance headed to Apalachicola, Florida, for a field trip. We were there for four days—tonging for oysters, gathering Tupelo honey, casting shrimp nets, worm grunting, and, of course, eating well. As always, we did more than a bit of talking with the folks who have built their lives and livelihoods in the Apalachicola Bay. These people tell stories of the days when schools of mullet were thick in the water and when Tupelo honey was a local find, not a...
Continue reading »
Financial Times contributor Sarah Murray weighs in on the "food miles" diet. Murray, the author of Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat, writes: The "food miles" diet is a neat concept. The trouble is, the distance food is transported is not necessarily an accurate measure of its environmental impact. Her analysis is noteworthy for its clearheadedness....
Continue reading »
Image from iStockphoto.com A terrific, provocative op-ed piece in the New York Times today argues that hunters were locavores before anyone had coined the term. Writer Steven Rinella, author of The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine, is an avid hunter and, apparently, a serious environmentalist as well: While many people will never give up their opposition to killing Bambi, others may change their minds when they realize that destroying a deer's reproductive abilities or relying on the automobile for population control is really no less wasteful than tossing fresh produce into a landfill....Hunters need to push a new public image based on deeper traditions: we are stewards of the land, hunting on ground that we know and love, collecting...
Continue reading »
