Home/Posts Tagged ‘food’
Posts Tagged ‘food’
Health, Politics, Mar 15th, 2012,
The wealthy countries of the West are exporting processed, unhealthy foods to the developing world – and with dire consequences. The shift towards unhealthy diets – heavy in processed foods, fat, sugar and salt – is not simply a result of an increase in wealth among growing middle classes in the developing world, but a concerted effort by large international corporations to inundate markets with unhealthy, non-locally sourced food. A UN report authored by Olivier de Schutter reveals how this spells economic death for local farmers. The real culprit is globalization, facilitated by international trade agreements. Schutter also cites the…
Tags: developing world, disease, food, globalization, healthy, junk food, Mexico, obesity, rich
Health, Politics, Jan 31st, 2012,
In general, conservatives don’t like social welfare programs. They do claim, however, to value freedom of choice, so long as it has nothing to do with social welfare programs – those are gifts from taxpayers to welfare queens and they have strings attached. So it’s no surprise that Florida Republican state senator Ronda Storms thinks federal food stamps should only be used for healthy foods – but maybe she’s right. A bit of good old-fashioned social engineering is what welfare is all about or at least what it should be about. I mean why should the poor be encouraged (by…
Tags: Florida, food, junk, poor, republican, Senator, stamps
Green living, Jan 11th, 2012,
Honey from Newcastle, vegetables grown in Nottingham and London cheese are just a few examples of urban produce now being grown and sold in British cities. All across the country, people are increasingly choosing to grow their own food for reasons of economics, health and in order to feel a connection to their food and the land. Sustain, a UK alliance for better food and farming, has launched an online project called City Harvest for ‘demonstrating and promoting the benefits of Urban Agriculture’. Sustain’s scheme Capital Growth, funded by the Mayor of London, includes some 1,500 growing spaces in London…
Tags: agriculture, farm, farming, food, london, sustain, UK, urban
Climate Change, Wildlife & Flora, Nov 21st, 2011,
Millions of bullfrogs imported into California carry an infectious fungus that, although not fatal to bullfrogs, can wipe out populations of native frogs. Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis breeds in the conditions in which bullfrogs, many of which are imported from Taiwan, are shipped in. The main purpose for shipping the live bullfrogs is for use in traditional Asian cuisine. Bullfrogs carry the fungus but do not die from it. Most of the millions of bullfrogs imported to California each year for use in the food, pet and dissection trades are infected with the fungus, according to several recent studies. –LA Times…
Tags: American, Asian, bullfrog, California, Climate change, food, fungus, species
Climate Change, Health, Pollution, Jul 29th, 2011,
What you eat can affect the environment in greatly varying degrees. Different foods have different ecological footprints in terms of greenhouse gases, land use, water, pesticides, fuel consumption, etc. A recent US study estimated the environmental footprints of various types of food – with some interesting results. Lamb and beef were found to have by far the largest eco-footprints per kilo, followed by cheese, pork, farmed salmon and turkey; continuing in a more-or-less gradual slope towards tomatoes and lentils, which rounded out the bottom of the list. The study does not give very extensive information on the different ecological footprints…
Tags: dairy, ecological footprint, environmental footprint, farms, food, meat, study
Climate Change, Health, Politics, Wildlife & Flora, Sep 25th, 2010,
According to recent estimates, species are disappearing at 1,000 times the natural rate due to human activity and climate change. At a UN summit on Wednesday in New York, world leaders attended a meeting to discuss how to halt biodiversity and habitat loss. In a situation that mirrored the gridlock at the climate change talks last December in Copenhagen, developing countries, led by China, argued for payments from rich countries to encourage the protection of forests and other crucial habitats in poor nations which contain natural biological resources. Such a mechanism is not contained in the currently proposed Intergovernmental Science…
Tags: biodiversity, crisis, food, loss, meeting, UN
Health, Science & Technology, Sep 11th, 2010,
The role of animal feed in the production of safe food is recognized worldwide, and recent events have underlined its impacts on public health, feed and food trade, and food security. In modern farming practices, veterinary drugs are administered to food-producing animals in order to prevent and to treat several types of pathologies, to shorten feeding time and abate the risk of losses. Meat products and animal products such as milk and eggs, may have some residual amounts of veterinary drugs which remain in edible tissues after harvest. In these animal products, where the manufacturers’ and national legislative directions are…
Tags: animal, consumption, drugs, feed, food, human, veterinary
Climate Change, Politics, Sep 7th, 2010,
In the African nation of Mozambique, rising bread prices have sparked food riots in the capital of Maputo. The increasing cost of grain has added to an already-stressed economic atmosphere caused by price hikes of other necessities such as water, fuel and electricity. According to an AFP report, the death toll due to the riots has reached 13. In an opinion piece for the Observer, author, activist and academic Raj Patel points to the recent crisis in Mozambique as a sign of things to come when extreme weather events increasingly collide with an unjust global economic system. Patel does not…
Tags: African, Climate change, food, heat wave, Maputo, Mozambique, Patel, Raj, riots, Russia
Green living, Health, Science & Technology, Sep 3rd, 2010,
Lately genetically-modified foods (GM foods) have made a big splash in the news. European environmental organizations and public interest groups have been protesting actively against GM foods. What are genetically-modified foods? The term GM foods or GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) is most commonly used to refer to crop plants created for human or animal consumption using the latest molecular biology techniques. These plants have been modified in the laboratory to enhance desired traits such as increased resistance to herbicides or improved nutritional content. Genetic engineering, on the other hand, can create plants with the exact desired trait, very rapidly and with…
Tags: Europe, food, GM, Nature, safety
Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Aug 18th, 2010,
In Monday’s Guardian George Monbiot slams the concept of ‘vertical farming’ in a piece, entitled ‘Greens living in ivory towers now want to farm them too’. His main beef is that a Columbia University parasitologist named Dickson Despommier has been getting a lot of support in the green media for his idea to create skyscraper farms in densely populated urban areas like New York City, which might be a brilliant idea, but it’s a fanciful one as well. This immediately reminded me of stories about an underground indoor rice farm in Tokyo’s financial district, which turned out to be an…
Tags: crazy, crops, Despommier, Detroit, expensive, farm, farming, food, gardens, Manhattan, Monbiot, urban, vertical
Health, Aug 17th, 2010,
The diet of the West, high in animal products, fat, salt and sugar, is increasingly associated with wealth and development. The growing middle and upper classes in China are causing meat consumption to skyrocket in that country. Those with more disposable income in characteristically poor places buy more imported, packaged and processed foods, which all tend to be higher in salt, sugar and fat. Meat becomes more of a staple than a luxury. In contrast, the poor of the developing world generally eat traditional diets that are high in fruit and vegetables. In the West it’s the opposite. The cheapest…
Tags: Africa, allergies, bacteria, children, developing, diet, disease, European, fat, food, guy, heath, meat, microbial, poor, rich, salt, study, sugar, vegetables, Western
Climate Change, Green living, Aug 2nd, 2010,
As an alternative to cutting meat consumption in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is considering the promotion of insects as a food source. The idea comes from a UN policy paper by a Belgian scientist at the University of Wageningen named Arnold Van Huis, who points out that most of the world already eats insects. In meat-rich Western diets – which are growing throughout the rest of the world and thereby causing emissions to increase – eating insects is somewhat taboo, but eating shrimp, which are very similar to insects, is considered…
Tags: beetle, citrus, emissions, farming, food, gas, greenhouse, insects, livestock, longhorn, meat, shrubs, trees, UK, UN, Van Huis
Green living, Health, Weird Stuff, ,
This summer has been practically unbearable, as far as temperature goes. The sun is blazing, wildfires are sprouting up all over the place, and this past June had some of the hottest temperatures on record. Sure, you could turn on the air conditioner or a bunch of fans, but they use electricity and waste energy—especially if they are cooling off rooms that don’t need it. Here are some tips and tricks you can do to keep yourself cooled off, without being wasteful in the process: 1. Make sure your house is properly sealed and insulated. This means filling the gaps…
Tags: advice, appliances, food, Go Green, heat, insulation, outdoors, plants, summer, tips, water, ways to stay cool, windows
Climate Change, Nature, Jul 30th, 2010,
Phytoplankton – the microscopic algae that form the basis for marine food chains – have declined by 40% since 1950, at a rate of 1% per year. Phytoplankton also absorb CO2 and produce roughly half the Earth’s breathable oxygen. According to the first large-scale plankton-measuring study of its kind, researchers have correlated the decline in phytoplankton to climate change. From an article in The Ecologist: The authors suggest rising sea surface temperatures linked to global warming are the reason for the decline. As ocean temperatures rise they become more stable and less nutrients are brought up towards the surface where…
Tags: algae, chain, food, marine, oxygen, phytoplankton
Weird Stuff, Jul 19th, 2010,
Here’s some sweet information for all you US residents: This month is National Ice Cream Month! In 1984, former president, Ronald Regan, declared July to be National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday (which was yesterday) as National Ice Cream Day. Why? Apparently, he wanted to give proper recognition to the popularity of ice cream in the states (about 90% of the US population eats ice cream) and even announced that both occasions (the month and the day) should be celebrated with “ceremonies and activities”. Although we can’t celebrate the day (since it already happened), we can still celebrate…
Tags: celebrate, chocolate, food, holiday, homemade ice cream, how to make homemade ice cream, National Ice Cream Month, recipe, strawberry, treat, vanilla
Green living, Politics, Jun 22nd, 2010,
The European Parliament shot down a plan to require the clear labeling of the healthiness of packaged food in the EU last week. The proposed label system involved an easily understandable color scheme, which would be placed on the front of the container in plain view. Another wish of many MEPs is to require information clearly stating from which country the food originated. On most food products available in Europe, information indicating high salt, sugar and saturated fat contents are small and ‘hidden’ on the back or sides of packaging, while positive nutritional content is in plain view on the…
Tags: EU, Europe, food, Health, labels, parliament, plan, scheme, votes
Climate Change, Politics, Science & Technology, Jun 3rd, 2010,
A UN report entitled ‘Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production’, released Wednesday, states that eating less meat and dairy is necessary to avoid catastrophic effects of climate change, global hunger and energy shortages. From an article in the Guardian: As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management. There’s been a bit of a back and forth regarding how much the meat and dairy industries contribute to…
Tags: Climate change, consumption, dairy, emissions, environment, environmental, food, global warming, impact, meat, production, report, UN, unsustainable, vegetarian
Politics, May 17th, 2010,
If there ever was an argument against the unregulated free market, it’s that it can kill people. Of course, it can also feed people. But, surely even the most hard-hearted capitalists must agree that there is a figurative line in the sand when it comes to profiting from starvation. You’d think so anyway. But it happens. Take the situation in Niger, where the current food crisis is being caused by severe drought and poor harvests, but fiddling with market forces may be compounding the problem. From an article in the Ghanaian newspaper The Statesman: Surpluses elsewhere in the region –…
Tags: crisis, food, market, Niger, prices, profit, starvation
Green living, Health, May 10th, 2010,
Diets can be a real pain to stick with. Most of us are aware that we should eat a certain amount of fruits, veggies, breads, dairy and so forth per day; but how many of us actually do it? I know I certainly don’t. I can’t even remember the last time I had 8 glasses of water in one day, or 3 servings of veggies. Typically, we go with what we crave and what is easiest to get a hold of. Unfortunately, that usually means junk food or quick meals that are anything but nutritious or satisfying. Gods forbid if…
Tags: color coded, design, diet, food, meals, pie chart, section plates, Wheel of Nutrition
