Archive | Controversy

The New York Times recently reported on a new discovery in understanding the devastating phenomenon of bee colony collapse disorder (CCD).  Apparently a cocktail of a rare fungus and a virus have been teaming up to decimate bee populations. From the article: A unique partnership — of military scientists and entomologists — appears to have achieved…

friend of mine sent me an article from a publication called Zocalo that reviews American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields by Rowan Jacobsen. A good book but it only makes things harder I’m not going to review this title (you can read the one from the Zocalo here) nor am I going to…

The New York Times has a really good piece on the coming rules regarding the amount of antibiotics that can be given to confinement livestock. Now, after decades of debate, the Food and Drug Administration appears poised to issue its strongest guidelines on animal antibiotics yet, intended to reduce what it calls a clear risk to…

The October 2010 edition of Popular Science landed in my mailbox today with a brief overview of the genetically modified Enviropig.  I would give you a direct link but, for some reason, Popular Science does not publish its magazine articles online.  It’s not that big of a deal because the article isn’t even good enough to carry…

Organic food sales have increased exponentially over the past decade, largely due to consumer perceptions of improved nutritional quality and taste. However, as I’ve explained before, there is scant scientific evidence that growing food organically improves its quality on either front. Since people have a wide array of intellectual biases, some scientists have decided to ask…

Why Don’t We Just Eat Better? It’s estimated that ninety-eight percent of attempts to lose weight fail. Ninety-eight percent. That’s a sobering statistic, especially in a country where sixty-seven percent of adults and almost twenty percent of children are overweight. It’s even more shocking to think that the secret to losing weight and getting healthier isn’t a secret…

“Pain in the abdomen. Splitting Headache. Nausea and vomiting. Choking and couldn’t get their breath. Coughing up blood.” Phone calls like these broke the dawn of a fall day in the mill town of Donora, Pennsylvania back in October, 1948. Already two had died and another 18 were soon to follow. The death toll would…

Environmentally speaking, eating meat is an awful thing to do. Whether is beef, pork, chicken or fish, meat is costly to our natural world to produce. Forests must be plowed into fields for grazing, even more food must be grown to feed the beasts, which produce more agricultural waste and, by and large, it’s a…

The public’s biggest concern when it comes to GMOs is their safety. There are a lot of misconceptions about genetic engineering. When pressed on science of GMOs, I have often heard people fear that the genetically modified material in the foods they are eating will somehow mutate their DNA too. While logically it sounds like…

My first article on Nutrition Wonderland focused on the food crisis in East and Sub Saharan Africa and how the use of better agro technology and programming could enhance regional food production, through programs like the Backpack Farm Initiative I’m involved with. As this series expands, I want to shift your perceptions of a food crisis away from…