Food & Nutrition

Slow Food for Thought

Eric Schlosser : Agriculture

As foodies gather to celebrate the good things we eat, ordinary people--and the poor--don't have a seat at the table.
Burgers or Biofuel?

Frances Cerra Whittelsey : Environment

Biofuels have become the new villain in the climate change and food crisis debate. But America's consumption of meat is a bigger part of the problem than the cars and trucks we drive.
Drawing Your Last Breath Hungry

Allan Nairn : Myanmar (Burma)

We can blame the Burmese government for the unfolding tragedy in the wake of the cyclone. We can also blame ourselves.
Got Milk? Get Investigated

David E. Gumpert : Civil Rights & Liberties

State and federal authorities are relying on undercover agents to entrap dairy farmers.
Milk Wars

David E. Gumpert : Agriculture

As struggling dairy farmers seek profits by responding to rising consumer demand for raw milk, regulators are taking a hard line.

2007

USDA Bets the Farm on Animal ID Program

David E. Gumpert & William Pentland : Agriculture

A plan to implant farm animals with electronic tracking tags gives corporate agriculture a monopoly on the future of food, and it has sparked political backlash in rural America.
Civic Agriculture = Sane Housing

Nevin Cohen : Agriculture

There is an alternative to unhealthy eating and irresponsible development schemes.
Luxury Grub

Barbara Ehrenreich : Gap Between Wealth & Poverty

What's so great about designer chocolate if it's infested with cockroach droppings? As the economic widens, rich and poor still occupy the same food chain.
Old McDonald Had a Farm...and He Got Arrested?

David E. Gumpert : Agriculture

As consumers increasingly seek out farmers who raise organic and unpasteurized food, suddenly energized regulators claim they want to "protect" us from pathogens and other dangers. What gives?
Whole Foods CEO Sows Wild Oats

Matthew Blake : Corporate Responsibility & Accountability

America's favorite natural grocery chain is looking like just another greedy, antiunion corporation.
The Hundred-Mile Diet

Christopher Ketcham : Agriculture

A new way to fight global warming and corporate agriculture: Eat only locally grown food, and call yourself a localvore.
Learning to Love the Farm Bill

Matthew Blake : Agriculture

The bipartisan farm bill making its way through Congress offers real hope to feed the hungry at home and abroad and improve nutrition for poor kids. But it faces a likely presidential veto over, you guessed it, taxes.
Gardening for Change in the City

Sophie Johnson : Agriculture

Local food projects and community gardens are springing up in urban areas all over the country, cutting a promising new path to empowering the poor.
What Causes Cancer? Probably Not You

Barbara Ehrenreich : Health & Disease

The perennial temptation to blame disease on sin or some grave moral failing just took another hit.
Why Milk Costs More Than Gas

Nicholas von Hoffman : Energy

America's kids will get less calcium because of our unabated appetite for gas-guzzling cars--and the wrongheaded belief that ethanol is the answer.
Watch Your Foodometer

VideoNation : Environment

Here's a way to consume less oil: Eat locally! Video artist Molly Schwartz traces how far food travels from field to fork.
Getting Real About Food

Donna Schaper & Molly Schwartz : Environment

Something very strange has happened to food in the richest country in the world: It's fast, but it ain't good. And it travels way too far a distance from the field to your fork.
More Like It Hot

Andrew Lam

To live and dine in California, where one in four is an immigrant, is to sit at a global table. And a bland national cuisine is heating up.
My Beef With Vegetarianism

Daniel Lazare : Non-Fiction

The Bloodless Revolution explores four centuries of arguments for vegetarianism, from good health to fascist politics.

2006

Smithfield Walkout Challenges Agribiz Giant

Katrina vanden Heuvel : Labor Organizing & Activism

Last week's walkout at the Smithfield Packing Company was a significant victory for labor organizers and exploited undocumented workers at the North Carolina plant.
Kitchen Stories

The Kitchen Sisters

As chroniclers of the secret, unexpected, below-the-radar places Americans prepare and consume their meals, NPR's Kitchen Sisters discovered their microphone has become a kind of stethoscope, listening to the complicated heart of a nation.
Doing Lunch

Anna Lappé : Education Policy & Reform

Ann Cooper, gourmet chef turned healthy school food advocate, talks about becoming a "lunch lady" and what it takes to reform our children's cafeterias.
A Right to Food?

Frances Moore Lappé : Social & Economic Rights

Hunger is a violation of basic rights: a right to food, but more important, Bolivian and Brazilian experience suggests, a right to power.
Black Farms, Black Markets

Habiba Alcindor : African-Americans

For black farmers, succeeding financially and bringing healthy food to urban markets remains an uphill battle against a lack of business contacts.
How Harlem Eats

Mark Winston Griffith : Urban Issues

Urban restaurateurs, activists and consumers are seeking "food justice," insisting that healthy food shouldn't be a privilege for the wealthy and white.
Edible NOLA

Randy Fertel : Charter Schools

A new charter school is embracing "eco-gastronomy"--a holistic curriculum based around food--hoping "to renew New Orleans one okra plant and one child at a time."
Mean or Green?

Liza Featherstone : Agriculture

Wal-Mart is serious about bringing organic food to the masses, but transportation costs and the retail giant's aggressive competitive ways could end up hurting small farms and the environment.
One Thing to Do About Food: A Forum

Eric Schlosser, Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry, Troy Duster, Elizabeth Ransom, Winona LaDuke, Peter Singer, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Carlo Petrini, Eliot Coleman & Jim Hightower : Agriculture

How do we fix our dysfunctional relationship with food? Alice Waters leads a forum with Eric Schlosser, Marion Nestle, Peter Singer and others, who suggest, for starters, that we stop buying factory farm products, get involved in farm policy and outlaw the marketing of junk food to kids.
Slow Food Nation

Alice Waters

Fast food is killing us--our environment, our politics and our culture. To change who we are as a nation, we must first change how we eat.
Eat Drink Man Woman

Matthew DeBord : Non-Fiction

Three new books by Julia Child, Anthony Bourdain and Bill Buford chart the evolution of American cooking, from haute cuisine to the hot kitchen of Mario Batali.
The Food Issue
Food for Thought

Our Readers : Agriculture

Letters from around the country describe your favorite food institutions.
Eating Ourselves to Death

Nicholas von Hoffman : Health & Disease

The toxic food industry is fueling a preventable epidemic of diabetes. Most vulnerable are poor children, barraged with ads urging them to eat the sugar and grease-laden food that will eventually kill them.

2005

Junk Food Nation

Gary Ruskin & Juliet Schor : Corporate Influence in Washington

The recent conflict over what America eats is an example of how in Bush's America corporate interests trump public health.
Let Them Eat Cake

Trudy Lieberman : Government Programs

The Bush budget cuts programs for the hungry.