Two Recommended Reads

James McWilliam’s Just Food: Where Locavores get it wrong and how we can truly eat responsibly

Walter Willet’s Eat Drink and Be Healthy

who doesn’t like fried calamari?

fried calamari at Salone del Gusto

A good read on our fatness

is on the NYer site. Check it out and be disturbed.

Food Prices, hunger, poor nutrition and other complexities

I attended the Institute of Medicine’s Mitigating the Nutritional Impacts of the Global Food Price Crisis: A Workshop. The meeting had some spectacular speakers that outlined the issues of the food price crisis, the global economic crisis and the ongoing unaddressed nutritional crisis. We are in one big crisis, and the problems are complex. Not too much in actually how to solve any of these looming issues, as is what usually happens in meetings, but there is much on the horizon by the UN, governments and NGOs to address at least food security and better nutrition. Things are at least moving in the right direction.

An African Green Revolution Perspective

A paper authored by me and some of my colleagues has recently been published in the Food Security journal. The paper entitled “Integrating a broader notion of food security and gender empowerment into the African Green Revolution” is an interesting policy read, particularly in light of the recent activity around developing world smallholder farmers 15 billion dollar commitment at the G8 meetings.

The abstract is as follows:

A Green Revolution for Africa is emerging after decades of neglect of Africa’s agricultural systems. To counter these years of neglect, the then United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for “a uniquely African Green Revolution”. Since then, a number of initiatives have emerged or are emerging to realize this important vision. As more money and attention galvanizes much-needed action on the African Green Revolution, a vigorous debate is required to ensure that the mission of improving food security on the world’s poorest continent is achieved in the most effective, comprehensive and inclusive manner possible. The African Green Revolution cannot be limited to increasing yields of staple crops but must be designed as a driver of sustainable development, which includes gender empowerment and nutrition elements. This paper first reviews the Asian Green Revolution’s successes and shortcomings from a nutrition and gender perspective and then outlines what the global community can do to ensure that some of the limitations of the Asian Green Revolution, specifically with regard to nutrition and gender, are not repeated.

Another list of the healthiest foods, but this time, on the planet!

Forbes published the 12 healthiest foods on the planet! How one can pick 12, not 10 (ala spinal tap’s amp goes to 11 trickery) and decide which of these 12 are the “healthiest” is beyond scientific reasoning to me. And to make it worse, they are the usual suspects on everyone’s 10 top foods list (pomegranate, blueberries, eggs, onions, broccoli, and my favorite one of all “meat” – now that narrows it down). How many of these lists do we need? Am I healthier if I eat a grass-fed hamburger topped with a fried egg washed down with five pomegranate-infused blueberry martinis?

we just keep getting fatter.

Centers for Disease Control released preliminary results of the 2008 National Health Interview Survey. I got this from the great Marion Nestle’s site “Food Politics.” We just keep getting fatter here in the great US of A.

What is organic? Your guess is as good as the USDAs

“USDA Organic products must contain at least 95 percent organic ingredients. The five percent non-organic ingredients could include additives or synthetics if they are on an approved list. The label must contain a list that identifies the organic, as well as the non-organic, ingredients in the product, and the name of the organic certifier.”

Its a good thing that Obama wants to double the budget of the USDA’s National Organic program with the growing number of “organic” foods coming onto the market, and the growing number of organic and local devotees…

A Post report of the USDA’s National Organic program put into question the integrity of the USDA organic food label. With “relaxed” federal standards, or the fact they they have never issue rigorous standards on what is organic and what gets a label or not, basically leaves the consumer guessing if a food is truly organic, or made with organic ingredients. The article mainly talks about the standards and the arbitrary assignment of what is or is not organic by the few working in the program at the USDA, but it doesn’t even get into the regulation of those semi-adhoc standards to ensure farmers and producers are truly adhering. Scary times for consumers if you ask me.