Multi-Course Sampler Platter

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Mar 27, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT

• Good news from Starbucks - they are switching suppliers for their ice cream from Dreyers to Unilever, which offers them an rbGH-free line. Also, Tillamook ice cream is now rbGH-free. Hooray!

• Bill Marler talks about painful sex. Ok, that sounded wrong, I think. Ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP) is a type of foodborne disease from eating predatory ocean fish contaminated with ciguatoxins. It's rare, but there was a recent "cluster" of cases, and the patients reported dyspareunia, or painful sex, as a symptom.

Continued...

• A federal judge said no to GM crops in a national wildlife refuge.

• Michael Pollan spoke this week at Tufts. If you want to watch it yourself, you can. There are 2 links: the lecture and the Q&A.

• Purdue University in Indiana is helping farmers go organic. Yay! (Hat tip to Susan Roberts)

• Nutritionists are setting the record straight about good nutrition. Here's a PDF of their report defining healthful food. (Marion Nestle speaks about it here.)

• Awesome awesome awesome article on Alternet: Hemp is Not Pot: It's the Economic Stimulus and Green Jobs Solution We Need. Hell yeah!

• LA Times asks why is so much food tossed out? I was always told it was a liability issue if people get sick from donated food, but this article says that's not true!

• You've heard about the carbon footprint and carbon neutrality. But now we have to worry about our water footprints and water neutrality too.

• You've heard of the "convenience store" - now there's a "congreenience" store - a green mini-mart in New Hampshire!

• MNN gives us online tools for locavores. The best one that I haven't already covered here is a site for trading vegetables. You grew too much squash and you want to trade with someone else nearby who grew too many tomatoes? VeggieTrader will help.

• Bad but expected news from Scientific American. Food makers and distributors suck at tracing food. The government asked 118 companies to say where their food came from and where it went - and 70 of them couldn't.

• From Amy Goodman: Water rights activists blast the World Water Forum - they called it a "Corporate Trade Show to Promote Privatization." Disappointing but not a surprise.

• A formerly obese gastric bypass patient tells all about the "bio-psycho-social model of obesity." Given my own family history (i.e. the death of my 23 year old obese brother 4 months and 1 week ago), I believe this is very important. Unfortunately, you can't read it all - yet. He's writing an entire series that you will be able to follow here.

• You've heard about CSAs but how about CSFs? If you work in health care like me, CSF stands for cerebral spinal fluid. But in this case it's a community supported forage box. Like a CSA but all the food was foraged. Cool!

• One of my pet topics is making headlines! The Rodale Institute is making farms into carbon sinks. Rodale believes its methods can sequester 3000 lbs of carbon per acre per year. (I told you so!)

• Change.org posts an interview with the founder of a yardsharing CSA program in Maryland. Very cool!