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New Year's Food Resolutions
Erica Barnett, WorldChanging
Having spent the bulk of New Year's Day digging an 18-inch-deep hole in the yard for our new Green Cone food waste compost bin (producing a mountain-sized hill of dirt and getting a monster splinter in the process), I had food--specifically, how to eat more sustainably--on the brain. Here are a few of my food-related goals for the coming year; what are yours?

Get chickens. ...
Tear up the lawn. ...
Visit the farmers' market more frequently. ...
Join a CSA. ...
Buy into a pig (or cow, or lamb). ...
Become a more informed consumer. ...
Make more from scratch. ...
Reduce my food waste to zero. ...
Try an unusual cuisine; and share food with friends more often. ...
(1 January 2008)

Still Skinny, but Now They Can Cook
Julia Moskin, New York Times
GRAPEFRUIT, cabbage soup and maple syrup have had their moments. Now a new weight-loss ingredient is all the rage: Rage.

“Skinny Bitch,” a diet book that is political, profane, passionately pro-animal rights - and hard-core vegan to boot - was published in 2005 and sold more than 850,000 copies. With its drawing of a svelte “Sex and the City” type on the cover, “Skinny Bitch” looked like a beach read, but it read like boot camp.

The authors, Kim Barnouin and Rory Freedman, dressed readers down for following low-fat and low-carb diets, drinking diet soda, entrusting their health to the Food and Drug Administration, and most of all for ignoring the miserable realities of the American meat and dairy industries.

Despite its seemingly indigestible qualities, “Skinny Bitch” (Running Press) became one of the hottest-selling vegan books ever published. Now, the book’s peculiar combination of girl power, tough love and gross-out tales from the slaughterhouse has been translated to the kitchen. The authors’ new cookbook, “Skinny Bitch in the Kitch,” was published in December and reached No. 6 on the New York Times best-seller list in the paperback advice category last week.

“Skinny Bitch in the Kitch” helpfully condenses the entire content of the first book down to three pages (meat is murder; carbohydrates do not make you fat; always read the ingredients and don’t eat anything you can’t pronounce).
(2 January 2008)
Recommended by Tom Philpott at Gristmill in his post "Angry vegans with knives and pots".

Grow more food in cities, U.N. agency tells Asia
Jonathan Lynn, Reuters
Asian nations, many at risk from climate change, must invest more in urban and indoor farming to help feed the hundreds of millions of people in their growing cities, the World Meteorological Organisation said on Wednesday.

Of the 10 countries most affected by extreme weather in 2006, seven were Asian -- Afghanistan, China, India, Indonesia, North Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam, said the WMO, the U.N. agency looking at weather, climate and water problems.

Asia needs secure food supplies for its rising population, and "indoor and urban agriculture is receiving special attention to make most efficient use of space using controlled environments," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement after a 3-day meeting in Hanoi on sustainable farming.
(19 December 2007)

Where’s the beef? - report shows UK beef producers are getting short-changed
UK Soil Association
A new report from the Soil Association [1] shows British organic beef producers are getting short-changed by their processors and some key supermarkets who are not paying enough to cover the costs of production, and choosing to import organic beef even though there could easily be enough supply in the UK. These factors are endangering the security and development of organic beef production in the UK and leading to unnecessary carbon emissions, says the Soil Association, the UK’s leading organic organisation.

The report, called ‘Where’s the beef?’ [online PDF], shows the current farmgate price of organic beef is unfair and unsustainable. The average price for organic beef in 2006 was in the region of £2.90 per kilo. Compared with the average cost of production of over £3.30 per kilo over the same period shows a loss of around 40 pence for every kilo of beef produced.

... Phil Stocker, the Soil Association’s Head of Food & Farming, said the intention wasn’t to attack the supermarkets, but find a workable framework for British organic meat which, he stated, meant providing more stability for the UK’s beef, pork and lamb producers.

“The issues raised in this beef report are similar or worse for every organic meat sector,” he said. “We focused on beef because it is an area where supply could meet demand year round almost immediately, and the public would expect this iconic product to be British. Unless we overhaul market structures, and implement some of the changes suggested in the report, there won’t be a UK organic beef sector of any scale.”

Meat miles

The study also found evidence of rising imports, at a cost to the environment and against the recommendations of the Government’s Organic Action Plan, which aimed to ensure that more of the organic food we eat comes from UK farmers. In 2005 (the last year we have reliable data for) the proportion of organic red meat from UK producers sold through UK supermarkets fell from 85% to 79%.

Focusing on the nearest Tesco store to the supermarket’s UK headquarters in Hertfordshire, the Soil Association compared the carbon footprint associated with transporting organic beef from Wales and from Argentina to the supermarket shelf. A 1.5-kilo joint of Argentinian beef clocked up 320.6g in emissions from road and sea - more than eight times the 38.5g transport emissions for a similar joint of Welsh beef.

... Phil Stocker said,
“There is a clear and urgent need to relocalise food production and distribution, given the challenges we face from climate change and peak oil. Countries like the UK should be building their food supplies around their indigenous population, with limited trade to fill the gaps.
(3 January 2008)
Full report is available online as a PDF.

Reuters/UK just picked up the story. -BA

Jamie Oliver Campaigns For Chicken Welfare
Caroline Gammell, The Telegraph/UK
Two of Britain’s best-known chefs are mounting a campaign to persuade people not to eat battery-reared chickens.

Jamie Oliver has made a television programme on the appalling conditions in which many of the birds live and hopes to encourage supermarkets to invest in better-treated birds such as free range or organic.0103 10

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, his friend and fellow chef, has also made a series exposing the horrors of battery farming.

They hope their combined efforts will draw attention to the suffering of the birds and the poor quality of the meat.

In some supermarkets, entire chickens can be bought for as little as £2.50, while recent figures from the RSPCA showed that only five per cent of the birds in Britain were kept in high welfare conditions.
(3 January 2008)
Also posted at Common Dreams.