Grist.org recently invited bloggers through it’s Grist Talk: Food Fight series to respond to an August 20th op-ed piece, “Math Lessons for Locavores,” by Stephen Budiansky in the New York Times.  What follows is my response:
“I agree with Mr. Budiansky that freight is by some measures cheap, and that the interstate system and trains [...]

Congressional testimony by two high-ranking government officials in April revealed some misconceptions about the mounting evidence over the use of antibiotics in industrial farm animal production and links to antibiotic resistance in humans.
To clarify the case, Keeve Nachman, PhD, MHS, and director of CLF’s Farming for the Future Program, and Robert Lawrence, MD, director of [...]

While researching meat consumption and production in China last month, I visited two farms that have installed large-scale biogas digesters. These intriguing, bulbous contraptions capture animal waste, prevent pollution, make use of a renewable source of energy (methane), and transform the icky stuff into a rich fertilizer for crops. Biogas digestion  has not been widely [...]

Cultivating an Ecological Conscience: Essays from a Farmer Philosopher
by Frederick L. Kirschenmann
A collection of Kirschenmann’s greatest writings on farming, philosophy, and sustainability
Theologian, academic, and third-generation organic farmer Frederick L. Kirschenmann is a celebrated agricultural thinker. In the last thirty years he has tirelessly promoted the principles of sustainability and has become a legend in his [...]

By my estimation, seventy-five-year-old author Dr. Sylvia Earle has spent more than 1% of her life underwater. If her dives were connected in time, it would be as if she slipped into the ocean on New Year’s Day and did not re-emerge until some time after Labor Day.
Her book chronicles her experiences as a 1960s [...]

You may have seen online tools such as the Footprint Network that allow you to estimate your impact on the environment and offer somewhat conservative lifestyle suggestions on how to lower one’s impact (taking it easy on the thermostat, more public transportation… you know the drill).
Well, what would happen if you took all those suggestions [...]

The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric aired yet another report last night detailing the risks associated with feeding antibiotics to farm animals. The report is a follow-up to a series aired in February and reported on here in the LivableFutureBlog.  In last night’s report, Couric covers Wedneday’s Congressional hearing held to determine whether or [...]

A few months ago, I described a segment on the Chinese state television’s English channel about food as part of the “low carbon life” in China. The program explored this new lifestyle through the burgeoning vegetarian restaurant scene in Beijing, and a handful of consumers who claimed to eschew meat out of consideration for the [...]

Carolyn Pomodoro eagerly greeted us with “Do you need any tomato plants?  Which plot is yours?  I’ll drop them off whenever you want!”
This past winter, Carolyn started over 600 heirloom variety tomato plants under grow lights in her Hampden home, a neighborhood in North Baltimore.  She intended to sell or give them to neighbors and [...]

As the Baltimore City Public Schools system continues the transformation of its food service for more than 80,000 kids (see food revolution), a new survey reveals that students and parents are hungry for more. Melissa Mahoney, the districts “top chef”, nutritionist and dietitian , sent out the survey to measure opinions about the ongoing changes [...]