Michelle Nijhuis’s Posts

• From Dog Bowl to Dinner Plate

  An interview with author and nutritionist Marion Nestle 1

  Posted 1 year, 1 month ago

  The contents of your dog's bowl -- kibble, kibble, more kibble -- may not look that interesting, but to nutritionist Marion Nestle, they're nothing less than a microcosm of the global food system. In her new book Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine, Nestle (pronounced NES-uhl, no relation to the multinational) investigates the 2007 pet-food contamination scandal, at the time the largest consumer product recall in U.S. history. Companies withdrew nearly 200 brands of cat and dog foods from store shelves, and while the federal Food and Drug Administration eventually confirmed only 17 or 18… Read More

• Water on the Brain

  Author Elizabeth Royte chats about the bottled-water boom and backlash 7

  Posted 1 year, 3 months ago

  

  Elizabeth Royte.

  Photo: Rod Morrison

  Journalist Elizabeth Royte drinks tap water, but she spends a lot of time thinking about the bottled kind. In her new book, Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, Royte investigates the causes and consequences of the bottled-water industry's astounding growth.

  With her refillable water bottle in hand, Royte travels to Fryeburg, Maine, where a water-pumping operation for Nestle's Poland Spring label divides the town. In the course of her research, she also tastes fancy bottled waters with a water connoisseur,… Read More

• Take a Page Out of My Book

  Seven green leaders reveal their favorite reads 6

  Posted 1 year, 4 months ago

  Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bad books bite.

  Photo: margolove

  
  

  Which books and magazines are tempting today's environmental movers and shakers to keep the CFLs burning late into the night? Grist asked seven movement leaders for their recommended reads. (Been burning the night oil yourself? Add your own favorite reads in the comments section below.)

  

  Van Jones.

  Van Jones
  Founding president,… Read More

• Macaws and Effect

  An interview with author Bruce Barcott 2

  Posted 1 year, 4 months ago

  

  Bruce Barcott.

  In his new non-fiction book Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, environmental journalist Bruce Barcott follows Sharon Matola -- a former Air Force survival specialist and circus-tiger trainer turned zookeeper -- as she fights the construction of a hydropower dam in her adopted country of Belize, and attempts to save the nesting site of the country's last scarlet macaws.

  During her years of battle, Matola -- known throughout Belize and beyond as the Zoo Lady -- wrestled with corrupt politicians, the habitual Belizean suspicion of outsiders, and her own impulsive… Read More

• Let's Talk About You and Me

  An interview with Bonk author Mary Roach 1

  Posted 1 year, 4 months ago

  Photo: cybertoad

  
  

  Ah, sex. Source of carnal bliss, domestic harmony, cute infants ... and global population problems. (Oh, environmentalists are such killjoys.) Overpopulation aside for the moment, sex is fundamental to humanity, and to the rest of the natural world -- and besides, it's a dang fascinating subject, as Mary Roach found out while researching her new book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.

  Read More

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