Entries tagged with 'politics'
Page 1 of 9
First Lady Michelle Obama and White House chef Sam Kass give us a tour of the first White House garden since Eleanor Roosevelt's Victory Garden during World War II (which technically was only the size of a bed, and didn't qualify as a feeding-lots-of-people garden like this one). Planted in March with the help of Bancroft Elementary School students, the White House vegetable garden has already yielded hundreds of pounds of food. Fun fact: the seeds came from Monticello's head gardener, originally passed down from Thomas Jefferson himself. Watch the video after the jump....
Continue reading »
President Barack Obama has proposed a $1-billion increase for the Child Nutrition Act, which lawmakers will consider this fall, according to the Los Angeles Times. The bill would allow the Department of Agriculture to update decades-old standards for vending machines, as well as the typical pizza and French fries sold in cafeterias....
Continue reading »
[donkey-products.de] How often do you get to see Prince Harry bathing in hot water? Or the Queen just stretching out her arms? RoyalTea can change that with these tea bags inspired by England's royal family. Or if you're not feeling the monarchy, the DemocraTea and StripTea sets of five tea bag sachets (attached to the upper bodies of your favorite politicians and strippers, respectively) are also pretty great. [via conky] Related Tea Cup Stool Anyone got a good Chai recipe? [Talk] Video: How To Make a Solar Cell with Donuts and Tea...
Continue reading »
A post on the Fiji Water Blog attempts to answer the issues brought up in a recent Mother Jone article: "The real irony here is that the reporter suggests that buying FIJI Water somehow legitimizes a military dictatorship, when in fact the jobs, revenues, and community projects supported by FIJI Water are strong contributors to growth in the well-being of the Fijian people." Oh, and there's a Mother Jones response to the response in the comments of the Fiji Water Blog post. [via attgig]...
Continue reading »
Ever since Whole Foods CEO John Mackey wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece last week stating that national health care is not a right for all Americans, some liberal groups are threatening to boycott the grocery chain. The company issued an apology to customers, saying Mackey’s "intent was to express his personal opinions, not those of Whole Food Market."...
Continue reading »
Congress is considering a ten percent "fat tax" on junk food to help pay for the expansion of health care coverage. But as the Economist points out, defining junk food is tricky. While sugary drinks, fries, and burgers might be lumped under this umbrella of fatty foods, they vary on the junky spectrum. Should it be based strictly on fat, calorie, or sugar content? Others have suggested a more direct, though controversial, approach to the tax: charging people based on BMI or body fat content. One Economist reader had the following to say: The common denominator among smokers is cigarettes, so we tax cigarettes. The common denominator among alcohol-abusers is alcoholic beverages, so we tax alcoholic beverages. The common...
Continue reading »
Toward the end of the Boston Globe's story today about the whole Henry Louis Gates Jr. affair: "I look forward to meeting Sgt. Crowley under more pleasant circumstances, and having that beer," Gates told the Globe yesterday in an email, saying a date has not been set. He said he’s partial to Red Stripe and Beck’s. He may not get his pick, as they are foreign beers, which are not stocked at the White House, under a tradition dating to the Johnson administration. Hue beer would have totally irked LBJ, had it existed at the time. [via The Awl]...
Continue reading »
Gut Check is a new column that will, in author Ezra Klein's words, be "a provocative look at the policy and politics of the plate. It's about the high cost of cheap meat, and whether eating local actually makes any sense, and why the world might be better off if Congress dissolved its agricultural committees." In the inaugural installment Klein reviews Food Inc. and talks to Eric Schlosser, who consulted on the film....
Continue reading »
The New York Times' Amanda Hesser made an interesting, thoughtful, and insidiously provocative suggestion over the weekend; that Michelle Obama, who has already adopted local, healthy food as one of her signature issues (how was dinner at Blue Hill the other night?), should also encourage families to sit down to meals they have actually cooked instead of ordered or reheated. So here's the question: Should our First Lady also be our nation's chef de cuisine? Hesser was actually having an Alice Waters moment (Alice has been advocating this for years), but somehow coming from Hesser, this bit of advocacy sounded downright soothing. There's no doubt that both Hesser and Waters are right: Cooking and eating meals together are good for...
Continue reading »
In March, President Barack Obama announced the creation of the Food Safety Working Group, chaired by the secretaries of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. The group working to upgrade the U.S. food safety system now has a website....
Continue reading »
