Entries tagged with 'politics'
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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....
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Last week, a law nicknamed the "anti-kebab law" was passed in the Lombardy region of Italy (which includes Milan), reports the New York Times. While it applies to all fast-food and takeout eateries, including gelaterias, it seems to be targeted at the mostly immigrant entrepreneurs behind the kebab joints. Under the new legislation, customers can no longer dilly-dally on the adjacent sidewalks outside the joints, and the joints themselves must close by 1 a.m. (prime time for meat on a spit). Protesters have called this a thinly veiled stab at immigrants, and in response, are rallying on Facebook. With 4,279 members, "No alla legge anti-kebab della Regione Lombardia. Disobbedienza alimentare" has inspired many emphatic wall postings. The center-right majority...
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Photograph from neoterra on Flickr Leave it to the French to spend their hard-earned tax dollars sponsoring wine and cheese parties here in the U.S and around the world. Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the French government, along with a handful of wine and cheese producers, is spending over $2 million to sponsor these parties in order to "show that French cuisine can be relaxed." If you want a chance to have the French pay you to throw a party, head on over to the contest form at houseparty.com. One thousand winners will get a 15 percent discount on certain French wines and receive a free gift when ordering French cheeses from specified websites. Okay, so...
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There are many signs that the Obamas care about good food eaten for pleasure and for our health. Food politics authority Marion Nestle shares some of her thoughts.
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California's First Lady Maria Shriver is piggybacking off Michelle Obama's big choice to bring an edible garden to the White House lawn. Earlier this week, Shriver said an 800-square-foot garden will be planted on the east end of the Capitol building in Sacramento, replacing an existing flower bed, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. She's isn't totally new to the urban garden scene. In October of 2006, Shriver launched the state's inaugural California School Garden Week, where schools all over California raised shrub-pulling awareness. No word yet on what crops will be planted but, of course, the public garden dame herself Alice Waters will be helping out. Related News Report: First Organic Vegetable Garden at the White House! [Talk] No Beets...
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Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, Washington Post Two items out of Sustainorgania are making the rounds on the food sites today. The first, more attention-grabbing one, on The Atlantic Food Channel, has Bill and Nicolette Hahn Niman (of Niman Ranch fame) calling on the Obamas to become chicken farmers. "The idea may sound far fetched, but is it, really? At the dawn of the 20th century, chickens were literally everywhere." The Bay Area ranchers would like to see "a flock of egg-laying hens for the White House grounds." This comes, of course, on the heels of the news about the new White House vegetable garden. As Eater cleverly put it, "Give those locavores an inch and they'll take a mile.... Also...
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Andrew Martin in the New York Times tries to assess the state of the food revolution in this country in the age of Obama. As Martin notes, there are undeniably promising signs: Michelle Obama's beetless organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn and her statements in support of, in Martin's words, "fresh, unprocessed, locally grown food." Agriculture secretary Vilsack, a former ethanol champion, seems to have found sustainable-and-local-if-possible food-supply religion. His top deputy, Kathleen Kerrigan, is a "longtime champion of sustainable agriculture and healthy food."...
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At House hearings today, members of the U.S. Congress from both parties declared the need for immediate changes in our food safety oversight systems. Let's hope that partisan bickering won't overwhelm the need to get control of our food supply. Some choice quotes from the New York Times story on the subject: "We have before us one of the finest messes in history," said Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, who accused both Congress and the White House of allowing the FDA to become incompetent.“As a result of the failure of giving Food and Drug the resources it needs,” he continued, “people are dying.” What more is there to say?...
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According to the New York Times, Michelle Obama has taken on healthy, delicious, and local food as one of her main issues. The serious eaters at world headquarters here certainly second that emotion and support her efforts, and how can we not love and cherish a first lady who eats (and talks up) local and still takes her staff to Five Guys for a burger and fries? In fact, she says the White House kitchen can rustle up "a mean batch of french fries" (fresh, we're sure) when called upon. Oh, yeah. She and our president also indulge their craving for their favorite Chicago pizzeria. So Michelle Obama likes healthy and delicious local food, burgers, and pizza. Here are some...
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Photograph from bookgrl on Flickr In November, locavore food activist Alice Waters wrote an open letter to the Obama family, urging them to chose a progressive White House chef that would prioritize health and environmentalism. She also slipped in a line about her continued dream of a White House veggie garden. Now, in a New York Times op-ed piece, she's asking the current administration to reassess the National School Lunch Program, launched in 1946: We need to scrap the current system and start from scratch. Washington needs to give schools enough money to cook and serve unprocessed foods that are produced without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. When possible, these foods should be locally grown.How much would it cost to...
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