How can your average item of food travel 1,500 miles to your plate? Cheap oil, that's how. But be careful how you count the carbon generated by the delivery of your food. The amount of "oil in our food" suggests that we will be eating a lot more local food,…
There's a new book out on cannibalism, in case you're interested. And, yes, you are interested. It's called "Among the Cannibals: Adventures on the Trail of Man's Darkest Ritual" (Smithsonian Books, 278 pages. $25.95), by Paul Raffaele. Here's a short summary by Malcolm Ritter. Here's an eerie thought: In a…
Americans are increasingly complaining that the cost of food is going up. Two recent articles demonstrate that Americans are profligate wasters of food in at least two major ways: 1) Obese people consume 18% more food energy than lean people and more than sixty million Americans are obese. Simply put,…
The United States and the European Union have taken a “criminal path” by contributing to an explosive rise in global food prices through using food crops to produce biofuels, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food said today.At a press conference in Geneva, Jean Ziegler of Switzerland…
In an earlier post, I argued that people need to better appreciate that dollars are fungible (see here and here). Why is it important to understand that dollars are fungible? A case in point is the new American enthusiasm for turning food into fuel. Consider this report from Fortune Magazine:…