In The News

Fast Food Hits Mediterranean; A Diet Succumbs

Elisabeth Rosenthal September 30, 2008
When obesity and its problematic health effects grabbed headlines in developed countries like the US in the 1990s, researchers contrasted eating habits to those in Mediterranean countries like Greece, where life expectancies remained high and incidences of serious disease remained relatively low despite widespread drinking and smoking. Researchers credited the use of olive oil and daily...

Chinese Ordered Cover-Up of Tainted Milk Scandal

Richard Spencer September 25, 2008
China’s government had good reason to be ashamed after more than 50,000 infants fell sick after drinking milk tainted with melamine, a fertilizer ingredient. But the Chinese government’s ordering a cover-up, as reported by the Telegraph, only compounded the crime. Reports of infants falling ill with kidney stones and urinary tract difficulties have emerged since early 2008, but neither the...

New US Law Requiring Country-of-Origin Label on Food to Take Effect

September 18, 2008
As of September 30, US food manufacturers and grocery stores will follow footsteps of some other countries by labeling meat, fruits and vegetables with country of origin. Fish and seafood have carried such labels since 2005. “The idea gained momentum, though, following a string of food-borne illness outbreaks, new concerns over the safety of food imports and some of the largest meat recalls in...

Flour That Has the Flavor of Home

Indrani Sen September 16, 2008
Societies emerged around local grain cultivation, and some analysts suggest that the Green Revolution – industrialization of the agriculture industry with fertilizers, pesticides and other chemical interventions – has homogenized agriculture. A global movement encourages consumers and markets to support cultivation of flavorful in-season fruits and vegetables, including grains, which are...

Millions Forfeit Water to Olympic Games

Michael Sheridan August 27, 2008
Many Chinese sacrificed to put on a great show for the Olympics, but perhaps none as much as more than 30,000 people in Baoding who lost homes or land, according to Michael Sheridan, reporting for the London Times. In planning for the Games, Chinese officials worried about Beijing’s water supply and hastily made plans for diverting water from the agricultural area of Hebei province to the capital...

Shooting Ourselves in the Food

Ernesto Zedillo August 19, 2008
Food prices have risen sharply in recent months, contributing to poverty, protests and general insecurity. Blaming free markets for the crisis, though, is a mistake, contends Ernesto Zedillo director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, in his column for Forbes Magazine. Droughts and increased demand by growing Asian nations alone did not contribute to climbing prices. “To get the...

Japan Must Acquire a Taste for Competition

Michiyo Nakamoto August 15, 2008
The Japanese food industry is creative, explains an essay in the Financial Times. But that industry heavily depends on imports. “Contemporary Japan’s rich culinary culture owes as much to the free flow of global trade in agricultural produce as to the creativity of its chefs,” writes journalist Michiyo Nakamoto. About 40 percent of Japanese calories are produced in the country, one of the lowest...