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Tue Apr 28, 2009 at 15:00:00 PM PDT
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It seems that the news today is all swine flu, all the time. Well, here are a few other things going on, besides swine flu. But if you DO want a swine flu update, do not miss Tom Philpott's piece on Grist. He says it better than anyone else I've read so far, condemning industrial agriculture and the filthy and risky conditions that we all consider acceptable in order to produce and eat cheap meat.
- Tom Laskawy comments on the reports that phthalates make us fat(ter). Here are my two cents: The focus on food should continue because crap eating is crap eating whether or not you get fat from it, and the focus on eliminating phthalates (used in PVC plastic) should ALSO continue because we know they do bad things OTHER THAN make us fat.
- Mark Bittman tells how to make sunchoke fritters. I'm a fan of sunchokes, but I've never tried them as fritters. (In fact, being raised in a fat-phobic Jewish family, the only time a year I got anything that remotely resembled a "fritter" was Hanukkah.)
- Alternet takes on marijuana legalization. They say 4 in 10 have smoked it, yet millions still get busted. And among those millions are my own friends and family, and perhaps yours too. The ridiculous war on pot hurts all of us. It's time to call a truce, or maybe even just wave a white flag and admit that pot is the rightful winner.
- This idea of highrise farms gets trotted out every so often as the possible silver bullet to solve all of our problems. I'm a skeptic. What do you think?
- No patents on seeds? Marion Nestle recommends we check out a report that calls for just that.
- Marion Nestle also shares info on banned pesticides in Chilean farmed salmon. One more good reason to say no to farmed fish. Particularly farmed carnivorous fish.
- Good things come in threes, right? I've got a third good one from Marion Nestle. The title is Who needs bioterrorism when we've got manure lagoons. I soooo agree. Osama doesn't need to make us sick from our food supply because we do that all by ourselves.
- Consumers Union speaks up about an issue I've been yelling about on this site - the FDA wants to delay a new "feed ban" rule by 60 days, leaving us open to increased risk of mad cow disease for an additional two months.
- Scary news from Environmental Health News (although not surprising at all): Together, two common pesticides may increase risk of Parkinson's disease.
- And now for some good news: The LA Times reports on hospitals adding fresh, organic foods to their menus. Yay!
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| Jill Richardson :: Sampler Platter |
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| Tags:
Consumers Union,
FDA,
mad cow,
Percy Schmeiser,
highrise farms,
patents,
Chile,
farmed salmon,
Parkinsons disease,
pesticides,
Marion Nestle,
sunchokes,
phthalates,
Swine Flu,
(All Tags)
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