Grist | Topics | 155 Results

RESULTS		Results 101 – 125 of 155
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
Poor Taste Why The Economist's recent assault on 'ethical food' missed the mark	Tom Philpott	03 Jan 2007	Victual Reality
Why The Economist's recent assault on "ethical food" missed the mark By Tom Philpott 03 Jan 2007 Last month, the influential British newsweekly The Economist took the measure of the sustainable-food movement and found it wanting. "There are good reasons to doubt the claims made about three of the most popular varieties of 'ethical food': organic food, fair-trade food, and local food," the journal declared, and proceeded to subject each to withering analysis. Do ...
Topics: agriculture, business, consumerism, farmers markets, food, green living, local food, organic food, sustainable ag, Victual Reality (all these topics)

It ain't natural But it could be organic	Kate Sheppard	29 Nov 2006	Gristmill
It's a good question, really: When is a fish really organic? The New York Times mulled this question in the business section yesterday. If the organic label hinges upon a vegetative diet and not using antibiotics or growth hormones, then farmed fish can be organic. But what's natural about confining thousands of fish in nets? And what's unnatural about carnivorous fish like salmon that feed upon other fish born in the wild?Ponders the Times:[A] proposed guideline at ...
Topics: aquaculture, food, organic food (all these topics)

McKibben on 'green' Wal-Mart Wal-Mart may sell organic, but it also thrives on ruined downtowns and long freight hauls.	Tom Philpott	21 Nov 2006	Gristmill
I've always been a bit appalled by the polite applause with which some enviros greet Wal-Mart's 'green' initiatives. Seems to me that the only way the company could really 'go green' would be to stop selling cheap plastic crap shipped in from halfway around the world in vast suburban megastores. In other words, completely change it's business model -- not, say, adopt 'green' building techniques for its appalling superstores, or haul mass-produced 'organic' food from Cal ...
Topics: Bill McKibben, business, food, greening biz operations, greenish companies, organic food, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

Wal-Mart accused of mislabeling items as organic Watchdog group files complaint with USDA	Lisa Hymas	15 Nov 2006	Gristmill
Wal-Mart has been mislabeling non-organic food items as organic, charges the Cornucopia Institute in a complaint filed with the USDA. Reports the AP: Mark Kastel, co-director of the nonprofit institute, said he and other researchers visited at least a dozen Wal-Mart stores in four states throughout the Midwest to see how organic items were selling. But they found problems, he said, such as dairy coolers stocked with regular yogurt -- by brands that also make organic var ...
Topics: food, organic food, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

Stonyfield Farm defends its organic ideals Business Week article gave some the wrong impression, company says	Lisa Hymas	02 Nov 2006	Gristmill
Stonyfield Farm, purveyor of organic yogurt and milk, is concerned that some folks got the wrong idea about its business strategy from a recent Business Week article about the big-ification of organic, which I pointed to a couple of weeks ago. Stonyfield has now posted a response and clarification on its website, emphasizing its long-standing commitment to supporting organic family farms. It also points out that it hasn't yet bought one dash of powdered milk from New Ze ...
Topics: business, food, organic food (all these topics)

The organic myth Business Week cover story looks at the watering down of the organic ethos	Lisa Hymas	13 Oct 2006	Gristmill
A fine feature story in Business Week this week -- The Organic Myth, by Diane Brady. 'As it goes mass market, the organic food business is failing to stay true to its ideals,' the cover proclaims. When I first glanced at the mag, I expected rah-rah boosterism for corporate organics and spite for old-school purists, but the article actually struck me as a pretty fair assessment of the culture clash between the organic ethos and the Big Biz model -- the gist being that th ...
Topics: business, food, organic food (all these topics)

Organic spinach and industry BS Why the Hudson Insitute needs to compost its manure a little better.	Tom Philpott	28 Sep 2006	Gristmill
Very few people are actually passionate about industrial food. Sure, people will buy rock-hard and flavorless tomatoes from the supermarket without thinking much about it, but they won't get mad because, say, there's a farmers' market down the road where someone's selling flavorful heirloom tomatoes grown without chemicals. Alex Avery of the Hudson Institute -- funded lavishly by right-wing foundations and agribiz giants -- is a different breed altogether. Indeed, it' ...
Topics: agriculture, food, health, organic food (all these topics)

Spinach Cycle Latest E. coli outbreak should prompt rethink of industrial agriculture	Tom Philpott	21 Sep 2006	Victual Reality
For the ninth time since 1995, California's Salinas Valley -- the "nation's salad bowl" -- has been implicated in an E. coli scare involving salad greens. Avoid E. coli, buy L. coli. Photo: iStockphoto As I write this, no definitive explanation has emerged for the latest outbreak, this one involving pre-washed, bagged spinach. But while the feds haven't yet figured out how ...
Topics: agriculture, Big Ag, California, food, Food and Drug Administration, industrial ag, organic food, Victual Reality (all these topics)

Bad day for organics? E. Coli news is bad news, any way you cut it	Chip Giller	15 Sep 2006	Gristmill
Grim headlines for organics, as the feds are linking Natural Selection Foods (Earthbound Farm) and its prepackaged fresh organic spinach to an outbreak of E. coli in many states.If the linkage is confirmed, I bet we'll be hearing a lot from organics skeptics (including chief skeptic Dennis Avery), who'll do their darnedest to say that organic food on the whole is a scary thing (inputs like cow manure may contain contaminants and dirt is, you know, dirty!). And we'll prob ...
Topics: agriculture, food, health, local food, organic food (all these topics)

USDA on 'grass-fed' cows: confine 'em and let 'em eat corn stalks A brazen move from an agency shot through with industry players.	Tom Philpott	06 Sep 2006	Gristmill
Cows that feed solely on pasture perform a valuable service: they transform what's inedible to us -- grass -- into a rich source of protein and other nutrients. And when such cows are raised in moderate numbers, they can actually improve the health and biodiversity of grasslands. Moreover, cows evolved to eat grass, so the pasture model is clearly the most animal-friendly way to create beef. To me, the grass-fed concept exemplifies responsible agrarianism: it's energy ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, food, organic food (all these topics)

Up Against the Wal-Mart Big buyers make organic farmers feel smaller than ever	Tom Philpott	23 Aug 2006	Victual Reality
With Whole Foods continuing to dazzle Wall Street with its growth and Wal-Mart vowing to become the world's No. 1 organic grocer, now would seem to be a wonderful time to be an organic farmer -- particularly one with enough acreage to supply the corporate giants. According to classical economics, when demand jumps, supply should follow, pulled up by the good's rising price. But a funny ...
Topics: agriculture, business, California, food, organic food, Victual Reality, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

Sour milk The case for boycotting factory-farmed 'organic' milk	Tom Philpott	02 Aug 2006	Gristmill
Of all the environmental gaffes the species homo sapien commits in the process of feeding itself, the practice of cramming megafauna into huge pens and plying them with corn may rank as the most imbecilic. The excellent web site Eat Wild documents the environmental ills of confinement dairy and meat production; here are a few. Cows evolved to eat prairie grass, not grain, which makes them sick. Huge concentrations of large ravenous animals create huge concentrations o ...
Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, organic food (all these topics)

How now organic cow? USDA will soon decide how much pasture time organic dairy cows should get	Lisa Hymas	11 Jul 2006	Gristmill
With demand for organic milk soaring, the stakes are high in the debate over what exactly 'organic milk' is -- and that debate will soon be settled, at least from a legal standpoint, by the USDA's National Organic Program. As Samuel Fromartz writes in The Rocky Mountain News, the NOP is now considering a proposed regulation that would require all organic dairy farms to meet a certain standard for letting their cows out into pasture. Current USDA regulations only require t ...
Topics: agriculture, Department of Agriculture, food, organic food (all these topics)

California Connected on organic and Wal-Mart	David Roberts	10 Jul 2006	Gristmill
A nifty PBS show called California Connected recently did a special on organic food, focusing on Wal-Mart's decision to get into the organic-food market. It's unusually substantive and thoughtful (at least relative to cable tv fare). Check it out.
Topics: business, food, organic food, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

Mackey v. Pollan	David Roberts	20 Jun 2006	Gristmill
Foodie journalist Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (review here; interview with Pollan here) makes some disturbing points about the increasingly industrial character of organic agriculture. It uses as its exemplar of "industrial organic" the burgeoning Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods founder and CEO John Mackey took quite a bit of umbrage at that, and responded with a long, passionate letter about the work his store has done to nurture the organic mov ...
Topics: agriculture, business, food, industrial ag, organic food (all these topics)

Eat the Press An interview with foodie author Michael Pollan	David Roberts	31 May 2006	Main Dish
Michael Pollan has built a reputation as a sleuthing agro-journalist. In his writing for The New York Times Magazine and a quartet of books, he's trailed a steer from birth to dinner plate, traced America's obesity epidemic to corn subsidies, and narrowly, fumblingly outwitted a small-town cop who came uncomfortably close to his marijuana patch. His writing -- an engaging m�lange of travelogue, economic ana ...
Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, interview, local food, organic food (all these topics)

Pollan blogs on corn ethanol and local-food resources	David Roberts	26 May 2006	Gristmill
Did you know that foodie writer Michael Pollan (look for my interview on Tuesday!) has a blog? Probably not, because it's hidden behind the cursed NYT Select subscription wall. Too bad -- it's a great blog, and deserves wider readership. The latest entry reviews arguments against corn ethanol that will be familiar to readers of this blog, and concludes with this: So why the stampede to make ethanol from corn? Because we have so much of it, and such a powerful lob ...
Topics: agriculture, biofuels, ethanol, food, local food, organic food (all these topics)

Oil She Wrote On canola oil	Umbra Fisk	24 May 2006	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, I recently saw "organic canola oil" on a salad dressing bottle. I looked up the origin of canola oil, and it looks like it is a genetic modification of rapeseed. I thought organic certification disallowed genetically modified foods. What's the scoop? Tom Grundy Nevada City, Calif. Dearest Tom, Have you noticed yet that May is food month here on floor 2B? Food and plants, in honor of spring -- and to counter last month' ...
Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, energy, food and agriculture, GMOs, organic food (all these topics)

The Price Is Wrong On the cost of organics	Umbra Fisk	22 May 2006	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, How come it's so expensive to go organic? I could swing it by myself by eating a bare minimum of food, but I'm charged with feeding consume-mass-quantity types who favor the traditional American diet, and they eat meat. I would be in debt buying just half the monthly food consumption. One would have to be rich to go organic. MonikkaMarie Jackson Queen Village, N.Y. Dearest MonikkaMarie, The usual answer to your qu ...
Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, food and agriculture, green living, organic food (all these topics)

Beyond organic: A new label	David Roberts	15 May 2006	Gristmill
If you haven't been following the discussion under this post about Wal-Mart selling organic food, I recommend you catch up. It's quite insightful, with a range of views well-expressed. One note of consensus seems to be this: "Organic," at least as denoted by the USDA label, falls well short of genuinely sustainable agriculture. Tom is better qualified than I to give a comprehensive description of the latter, but one important element is locality. Food that ...
Topics: agriculture, food, local food, organic food, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

How to make Wal-Mart's organic push not matter An innovative Alabama CSA shows the way forward.	Tom Philpott	15 May 2006	Gristmill
When Wal-Mart announced plans to become the world's biggest purveyor of organically grown food last week, the polite applause from the enviro gallery grated on my ears. (Here's a spirited recent debate on Gristmill.) Even the New York Times editorial page could see through this move. While some greens cooed at at Wal-Mart's magnamity, the Grey Lady unleashed an appropriately cynical analysis: There is no chance that Wal-Mart will be buying from small, local organic fa ...
Topics: agriculture, food, industrial ag, organic food, sustainable ag, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

Wal-mart's organic bomb	Kif Scheuer	12 May 2006	Gristmill
Melanie Warner at the NYT reports today that Wal-Mart is about to dramatically increase its organic food offerings. In very understated fashion, she says, 'Wal-Mart's interest is expected to change organic food production in substantial ways.' Um, yeah, it sure will. Wal-Mart's plan is to sell organics ~10% over the price of non-organics -- a much closer premium than you can get elsewhere. It's also getting brands like Pepsi, Rice Krispies, and Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese in th ...
Topics: business, food, organic food, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

Under the Covers: Getcha grub on	Sarah van Schagen	21 Apr 2006	Gristmill
Grub, as defined in the book of the same name by Anna Lapp� and Bryant Terry: grub* (grb), n. 1. Grub is organic and sustainably raised whole and locally grown foods; 2. Grub is produced with fairness from seed to table; 3. Grub is good for our bodies, our communities, and our environment. Grub should be universal ... and it's delicious. Last night, I went with a cadre of social Gristers to a book reading and signing by Lapp� and Terry at the Elliott Bay b ...*
Topics: books, food, organic food (all these topics)

Let's Make a Meal Michael Pollan digs into the mysteries of the U.S. diet in The Omnivore's Dilemma	Tom Philpott	13 Apr 2006	Arts and Minds
In The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan diagnoses the national attitude toward food: angst. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan, Penguin Press, 320 pgs, 2006. Channeling the modern middle-class shopper wandering vast supermarket aisles, Pollan asks: "The organic apple or the conventional? And ...
Topics: agriculture, books, food, green living, local food, organic food (all these topics)

Have Some Class: Eat it up Universities up their organic offerings	Sarah van Schagen	04 Apr 2006	Gristmill
At about this time yesterday, students filling up their trays at the U.C. Berkeley salad bar realized something was missing: the carcinogens. On Monday, the Cal campus debuted an organic salad bar at one of the student dining facilities. Though many schools are offering organic options these days, Berkeley is the first in the nation to have an officially certified organic salad bar, complete with separate prep facilities -- so as to save the organic shreds of lett ...
Topics: education, food, organic food (all these topics)

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