Category: Big Food

Animals, Big Food, Eco, HealthLeave a comment

If not vegan, then what?

Fernando Kaskais

A herd of longhorn cattle and their calves on a farm outside Cambridge, United Kingdom. Photo by Andrew Testa/Panos A vegan diet can be hard to adopt, even if you’re convinced it’s the right thing to do. What are the next-best options? By Peter Godfrey-Smith – is professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind (2020) and Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness (2016), among others. He lives near Sydney. Suppose a person is very concerned about the ethical issues around … Continue reading If not vegan, then what?

Big Food, Eco, Manipulation, Planet, ScienceLeave a comment

Monsanto and the Struggle Over Scientific Consensus

Fernando Kaskais

Visual: Richard Hamilton Smith/Corbis Documentary via Getty Images In “Glyphosate and the Swirl,” Vincanne Adams explores the history and debate surrounding a potent herbicide. BY COLLEEN WOOD ALMOST 90 percent of scientists believe that genetically modified foods are entirely safe. Yet, just 37 percent of the general public think these foods are safe to eat. Why are so few on board with the scientific consensus? Are they just anti-science? In “Glyphosate and the Swirl: An Agroindustrial Chemical on the Move,” medical anthropologist Vincanne Adams deciphers competing claims about the history and epidemiological impact of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, the powerful herbicide … Continue reading Monsanto and the Struggle Over Scientific Consensus

Ásia, Big Food, Eco, LivingLeave a comment

The golden fuel

Fernando Kaskais

On the outskirts of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in southwestern China, 6 November 2006. Photo by stringer/Reuters Asia’s rise to economic power and food security has been powered not by rice but by American maize, the ultimate flex-crop By Peter A Coclanis, is the Albert R Newsome Distinguished Professor of History and director of the Global Research Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a co-author of Plantation Kingdom: The American South and Its Global Commodities (2016) and the co-editor of Water and Power: Environmental Governance and Strategies for Sustainability in the Lower Mekong Basin (2019). Maize is … Continue reading The golden fuel

Big Food, Eco, Health, Living, ManipulationLeave a comment

Risk On: The Dramatic Rise Of Genetically Modified Food

Fernando Kaskais

POSTED BY: CAMILLE SU VIA THE EPOCH TIMES  Technocrat tinkering with life is risky to human life and well being. While skating by the the Department of Agriculture as “substantially equivalent” foods, our human food supply is permanently tainted. The biggest risk is to the human biome and the immune system. Each year large numbers of food items are added to the GLO shelf in supermarkets. ⁃ TN Editor Gene editing has long been primarily used for research, treatment, and disease prevention. Currently, this technology is increasingly being applied to modify agricultural products to create more “perfect” species. More and more … Continue reading Risk On: The Dramatic Rise Of Genetically Modified Food

Big Food, Climate Change, Eco, Globalization, PoliticsLeave a comment

Against Localism In Food

Fernando Kaskais

The food system must shrink its footprint while remaining planetary in scope. BY PHILIP MAUGHAN PhilipMaughan is a writer based between London and Berlin. He is a co-founder of the food research platform Black Almanac. BERLIN — For the past few decades, fears over food security, food safety, the rights of farmers and the environment have fueled a growing consensus that we should all do more to “eat local.” This development is also being driven by what political scientist Chad Lavin describes in his 2013 book “Eating Anxiety: The Perils of Food Politics,” as fears over multiple collapsing “precious borders” — “borders between … Continue reading Against Localism In Food

Animals, Big Food, Eco, Future, ScienceLeave a comment

Meat Without Animals

Fernando Kaskais

Stem cell agriculture could revolutionize the world food system. The U.S. government needs to invest in it now to reap the economic benefits. BY ARIEL RON AND ALEX SMITH Ariel Ron is an associate professor of history at Southern Methodist University and a senior policy advisor for the Good Food Institute. Alex Smith is a food and agriculture analyst at the Breakthrough Institute. He has written for MIT Technology Review, Jacobin Magazine, the Breakthrough Journal, and Foreign Policy. The world’s population is growing in numbers and affluence, two trends that will drive rising demand for protein-rich foods. The problem is that there is not enough land to … Continue reading Meat Without Animals

Big Food, Bizarre, Eco, Health, UnbelievableLeave a comment

You Eat a Credit Card’s Worth of Plastic Every Week

Fernando Kaskais

What is our hidden consumption of microplastics doing to our health? BY KATHARINE GAMMON Martin Wagner was annoyed that his colleagues were always talking about microplastics in the ocean. It was 2010 and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch had been headline news. Here was this massive gyre, formed by circular ocean currents in the Pacific Ocean, reportedly brimming with plastic particles, killing sea turtles and seagulls. Wagner, a professor of biology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, whose lab focuses on the impact of plastics on human and ecosystem health, felt like scientists were pointing to marine systems … Continue reading You Eat a Credit Card’s Worth of Plastic Every Week

Big Food, Health, Hypocrisy, PoliticsLeave a comment

A fairly fed world

Fernando Kaskais

Last year, 200 million children did not get enough to eat, yet it would be cheap and easy for the world to feed them all Sharman Apt Russell is the author of Hunger: An Unnatural History (2005) and Within Our Grasp: Childhood Malnutrition Worldwide and the Revolution Taking Place to End It (2021). Swing both arms up and clap your hands. Arms down and up. Clap! Down and up! Clap! You are singing all the while or, in my case, humming as I move my hips to the beat of the song and the clapping and dancing. Every once in a while, the beautiful … Continue reading A fairly fed world

Big Food, Health, Living, ScienceLeave a comment

What you eat can reprogram your genes

Fernando Kaskais

An expert explains the emerging science of nutrigenomics. by Monica Dus People typically think of food as calories, energy and sustenance. However, the latest evidence suggests that food also “talks” to our genome, which is the genetic blueprint that directs the way the body functions down to the cellular level. This communication between food and genes may affect your health, physiology and longevity. The idea that food delivers important messages to an animal’s genome is the focus of a field known as nutrigenomics. This is a discipline still in its infancy, and many questions remain cloaked in mystery. Yet already, we researchers … Continue reading What you eat can reprogram your genes

Big Food, Globalization, Health, Hypocrisy, ManipulationLeave a comment

Wellness culture is destroying our bodies and the planet

Fernando Kaskais

Despite what Instagram would have you believe, our dietary choices are not the leading cause of the climate crisis. By Scarlett Westbrook Over the last few months, I have been inundated with requests from various wellness and ‘healthy eating’ organisations to promote their products or schemes, usually centred around their ‘climate friendliness’. After an endless stream of messages from CEOs trying to get me to help them cash in on the climate guilt felt by many in our generation, I’m here to debunk the myths they are peddling. Message after message tells us that buying ‘climate friendly’ protein shakes or supporting … Continue reading Wellness culture is destroying our bodies and the planet