Brandy Jensen, Golden Glen Creamery

Brandy Jensen, Golden Glen Creamery, talks about how she became one of the “Jensen Ladies” and started making cheese, butter, and cultured products like creme fraiche.

Walmart’s Food Strategy – Redux

This week First Lady Michelle Obama made her second appearance with executives from Walmart as she announced that Walmart and other retailers plan over the next five years to open or expand 1,500 stores in areas without easy access to fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthy foods.

What We Don’t Eat: Half of All Food Produced Is Wasted

Exactly how much food does the average American waste? While inefficient harvesting, transport, storage and packing can contribute a large portion to that waste, in developed countries like ours there are significant losses – and waste – in food processing, wholesale and retail distribution, and households, restaurants, and food services where food is consumed.

Junk Food Industry Battles Attempts to Reduce Consumption

OK folks, it’s war! The bad guys – junk food industry, including soda makers – are winning the war. That is, they’re doing their level best to continue to market and sell their products and prevent any constraint of their trade by government agencies or even “advisory committees.”

Peanut-Butter Fruit or Peanut-Butter Plant

Two species share common names (Peanut-butter Fruit or Peanut-butter Plant) and confusingly similar scientific names: Bunchosia argentea and Bunchosia Armeniaca. Therefore, I sought to learn what’s the difference? Which is more commonly cultivated? This article shares my findings. The reason I care is because the plants bear pretty yellow blossoms and red edible fruit.

But Michelle, Walmart IS a “Food Desert”

Notice how the retailers’ pledge initiative recounted in Big Retailers Make Pledge of Stores for ‘Food Deserts,’ (The New York Times, July 20, 2011) is entirely top-down and makes no mention of empowering local neighborhoods to support their own independent grocers?

Evergreen to Tar Heel: The Highway Food Desert

Two and a half days to drive cross country, Seattle to Chapel Hill, NC, an undertaking that came with a price; both myself and my partner in crime found ourselves ripe from days sans shower and exhausted both from sleep deprivation and a diet of fried chicken, mountain dew, and sunflower seeds.

Neighborhoods in Action: Jane Jacobs

A fascinating interview with legendary author, Jane Jacobs, who wrote “The Death and Life of Great American Cities.” The film explores the role of the built environment in physical activity and public health. While Ms. Jacobs doesn’t mention access to good food as one of the issues that need to be addressed, it is implied in her many references to the “corner store.”