Sampler Platter 05.07.09

by: Jill Richardson

Thu May 07, 2009 at 14:00:00 PM PDT

• A friend of mine has just launched a new project, OrganicNation.tv. She'll be traveling the U.S. and documenting sustainable food and agriculture and you'll be able to see her footage on the site. (For full disclosure, I'm one of the project's advisors.)

• Organic sales grew by 17.1% in 2008, according to a new report by the Organic Trade Association.

See below for more...

• Monsanto had a bad day on Tuesday. They lost their case against Germany in a preliminary ruling. Germany recently outlawed Monsanto's GM corn (which would have been the only GMO allowed in Germany) and Monsanto sued.

• According to Environmental Health News, the EPA's methods of testing the safety of pesticides are outdated and crude. The EPA is currently in the process of testing many pesticides to see if they are endocrine disruptors. According to the article:

  EPA's testing program is full of voids, addressing only a segment of the organs, tissues, and systems that make up the endocrine system. It will not detect chemicals that can alter development and function of the pancreas, and its hormone, insulin, which could lead to diabetes and obesity. It also will not detect chemicals that alter how the brain is constructed and programmed that can undermine intelligence and behavior. An insecticide--like chlorpyrifos, which alters how brains develop and leads to measurable changes in behavior and function later in life--will probably not be picked up by the proposed tests.

• In a related story, a study found weight gain in rats after long term exposure to atrazine. The pesticide atrazine is present in the drinking water of many agricultural communities, so its effects on humans are a very relevant concern.

• Quebec banned lawn pesticides. Yay! And Ontario enacted an even stronger pesticide ban than Quebec. I'm a bit late on reporting this but I hadn't mentioned it before and I didn't want to let it slip.

• Check out this graph that asks whether eating quickly makes you fat.

• I guess Obama sometimes eats the same old shit as the rest of us Americans. And I really mean shit. He recently made news for eating a burger - but less publicized was the fact that the restaurant had been cited for mouse droppings and for undercooking burgers.

• Collin Peterson's in the news again. As Change.org blogger Natasha Chart put it, he basically told the Environmental Protection Agency to quit protecting the environment. Sorry, Rep. Peterson. Bush and his thugs left office a few months ago. Times have changed.

• Civil Eats chides Oprah Winfrey for giving away free KFC to every American via coupons on her site. After Oprah's fantastic coverage of agricultural animal cruelty during last year's Prop 2 debate, why is she doing this? (By the way - for a nutritional analysis comparing KFC's grilled vs. fried chicken, check out what Fooducate has to say.)