Category: Media Coverage
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Lester R. Brown, “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?,” Scientific American, April 22, 2009
“Our continuing failure to deal with the environmental declines that are undermining the world food economy—most important, falling water tables, eroding soils and rising temperatures—forces me to conclude that such a collapse is possible,” writes Earth Policy Institute President Lester Brown in this article about how global food shortages have the potential to disrupt civilization…
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Lyndsey Layton, “David Kessler Knew That Some Foods Are Hard to Resist; Now He Knows Why,” The Washington Post, April 27, 2009
Discussing former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler’s book about overeating, Washington Post staff writer Lyndsey Layton opens with an anecdote about Kessler climbing into dumpsters behind fast-food restaurants to find the ingredient lists for some of the foods they offer. He apparently found high-calorie, fat, sugar, and salt content in many of his…
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Interest Builds Surrounding Taste, Science Behind Stevia
New York University professor and public health nutrition author Marion Nestle wonders “Is Stevia really ‘natural?’” in her April 29, 2009, blog Food Politics. The sweetener, she writes, is isolated from the leaves of the stevia plant and therefore the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lets companies assert that it is natural. “We can debate…
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Daniel Engber, “Dark Sugar: The Decline and Fall of High-fructose Corn Syrup,” Slate, April 28, 2009
“Like other villainous ingredients – trans fat and artificial food dye come to mind – high-fructose corn syrup [HFCS] is accused of being at once unhealthy, unnatural and unappetizing,” writes Slate contributor Daniel Engber in this article exploring these “three cardinal claims of food politics” against HFCS, which has suffered a consumer backlash “exacerbated by the…
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James E. McWilliams, “Free-Range Trichinosis,” The New York Times, April 10, 2009
“Free range is not necessarily natural. In fact, free-range is like piggy day care, a thoughtfully arranged system designed to meet the needs of consumers who despise industrial agriculture and adore the idea of wildness,” writes James McWilliams in this op-ed article questioning claims that free-range products confer “indisputable” health benefits. According to McWilliams, a…
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Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas R. Freiden, “Ounces of Prevention – The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared Beverages,” The New England Journal of Medicine, April 30, 2009
“Because excess consumption of unhealthful foods underlies many leading causes of death, food taxes at the local, state and national levels are likely to remain part of political and public discourse,” claims this editorial co-authored by Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity Director Kelly Brownell and New York City Health Commissioner Thomas…
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CBC Radio Highlights Future of In Vitro Meat, Sustainable Agriculture
The CBC Radio program “Quirks and Quarks” recently featured the efforts of nonprofit research organization New Harvest to engineer meat cultures on a large scale for human consumption. Co-founded by doctoral student Jason Matheny of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, New Harvest harbors “the long-term goal of delivering economically competitive alternatives to…
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Jenna Greene, “Whole Foods’ Mixed Bag,” Legal Times, March 30, 2009
This article comprehensively summarizes the events and proceedings that led Whole Foods Market, Inc. to agree in March 2009 to settle Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that its merger with Wild Oats Markets, Inc. violated antitrust laws. According to freelance journalist Jenna Greene, the two-year fight ultimately cost Whole Foods $28 million and resulted in…