Food Politics

Drinking problems

I drink raw milk (sold illegally on the underground market) 49
Posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago Isn't it curious that at this juncture in our culture's evolution, we collectively believe Twinkies, Lucky Charms, and Coca-Cola are safe foods, but compost-grown tomatoes and raw milk are not? With legislation moving through Congress demanding that all agricultural practices be "science-based," Joel Salatin believes our food system is at Wounded Knee.
battle royal

Is Michelle Obama about to take on Big Food? 40
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago While the First Lady has been exercising what diplomats would call her "soft power" for a while, i.e. planting a garden, making speeches on healthy eating, and so on, indications are that she's quietly developing a set of policy recommendations to reform the food system.
Half-baked

What Gourmet’s critics missed 5
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago Gourmet magazine was a pioneer among its glossy peers in making space for a new and fast-growing appetite among American readers: the desire for critical perspectives on the food system.
food reform DOA?

When lobbyists cheer, the news can’t be good 1
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
There's a new chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Alas, the giant sucking sound you're hearing is agricultural reform rushing down the drain.
No justice, no sustainability

‘Time’ was right about cheap food—but forgot farmworkers 10
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
'Time' ran a powerful cover story recently about the the real costs of supposedly cheap food. But it left out a key aspect: systematic abuse and impoverishment of farm workers.
Politics of the plate--and the page

How I got drafted into James McWilliams’ anti-locavore diatribe 1
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
Imagining a new USDA

Top USDA official gets serious about local/regional food systems 8
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
With the climate bill gutted by Big Ag and stalled in the Senate, with health-care reform on the verge of collapse, prospects for real change in national politics are looking grim. Well, here's some hope from what's traditionally one of the executive branch's most retrograde agencies: the USDA.
Edible media

The WaPo serves up a food-politics column 2
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago
The Washington Post recently rolled out a new food-politics column. Tom Philpott rolls out the welcome mat.
Short Answer: Yes

Quiz: Should I see the critically acclaimed documentary ‘Food, Inc.’? 5
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago
Food, Inc. is a riveting documentary. Fast-paced and chock full of detail, the film does not shy from shocking, rarely-seen footage. But should YOU, dear reader, go see it? Take our quiz to find out.
AN INCONSUPERSIZEMENT TRUTH

Globesity: How climate change and obesity draw from the same roots 7
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago
You've heard all the reasons before: We drive too much. We eat too much meat and processed food. We spend too much time with plugged-in devices -- computers, TVs, air conditioners. Climate change, right? Half right. We're really talking about the the worldwide rise in obesity.
Leverage on a bun

What the financial collapse can teach us about the food system 18
Posted 6 months ago
During the housing boom, signs of a coming disaster were not hard to see -- if you looked. Indeed, many financial execs did foresee the current meltdown, even as they continued pocketing cash from the bubble. All of this got Tom Philpott thinking of another highly leveraged system: industrial food.
Michael Pollan defends food on Colbert Report 0
Posted 6 months, 1 week ago
Food is the new green

Earth Day reflections on food as an environmental issue 2
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago
We need to figure out new economic models to make sustainably produced food a viable option for everyone. For food to reach its full potential as a green issue -- for our society to feed itself in a way that's not literally destroying our habitat -- that's our challenge.
Lunch money

Vilsack makes an industry-friendly pick to head the school lunch program 5
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago
USDA chief Tom Vilsack has repeatedly said that improving child nutrition will be one of his priorities. His pick to oversee the National School Lunch Priogram raises doubts.
Terror in the grass

Locavores are ruining food and free range pork will kill us 2
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago
A recent New York Times op-ed declared free-range pork deadly stuff, based on a study finding trichinosis in hogs that roam freely. The Paper of Record neglected to add that the pork-industry group funded the study.
Back to the future

Toward a less efficient and more robust food system 7
Posted 7 months, 3 weeks ago
There's no way one farmer, or even a group of farmers, can make the investments we need to bolster our food economy. This is a community-scale opportunity that requires community-scale efforts.
Wait for summer to enjoy grapes? no way!

Whole Foods [hearts] Chilean grapes 0
Posted 7 months, 3 weeks ago
'Food Fight' breaks out in Seattle

Food-movement doc screens March 28 in Emerald City; Philpott, Alice Waters to attend 0
Posted 8 months ago
I'm featured as a talking head in a documentary on the sustainable-food movement called "Food Fight." Other folks who appear include Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, and Dan Barber. Food Fight will be screening this coming Saturday, March 28, 7 pm, in Seattle as part of Green Festival.
Food, class, and the new, new agrarianism

Using food as a tool of development, not extraction 1
Posted 8 months ago
When Michele Obama plunged a shovel into the White House lawn last Friday, she wasn't just preparing a productive vegetable-garden bed. She's was also tilling fertile ground for debate about new directions for the food system.
Garden party

Michelle Obama to Oprah: There will be a White house veggie garden 1
Posted 8 months, 1 week ago
The Obamas will plant a veggie garden in the White House lawn, Michelle Obama told Oprah.