Tag: local food

When the Label Says ARTISAN, What Does It Mean?

It would seem there is no bigger name in the food world today than “artisan.” Take a walk down any food aisle in the grocery store and you encounter it virtually everywhere: there it is on packaged goods in produce, snacks, frozen food and even the beverage section. These days, the word – which used to mean hand-crafted – is showing up on just about anything edible.

Confession: I Was a Big Food Executive

Bruce Bradley, a former food marketer at companies like General Mills, Pillsbury, and Nabisco, comes across as a sane, level-headed man who has been bamboozled by the industry in which he worked for more than 15 years. Bradley writes like a new convert; he’s seen the truth and he’s mad as hell about what’s been going on.

Occupy Food? Wall Street Is Driving Up the Price of Food

The “Occupy” marches and protests have spread across North America and around the world to thousands of cities. Yet there is little understanding that speculation by Wall Street has contributed to the skyrocketing of food costs. Where is the connection?

Melissa Lines: Farmer, Shepherdess, Educator, Marketer

Running a farm and raising fifty or more sheep, a handful of beef cattle, and two horses is not a job for the faint of heart. And Melissa Lines is NOT Little Bo Peep. It was a farm visit when she was 4 years old that convinced Melissa that she wanted to work with animals, but it took decades – and a corporate career – to bring her to the point where she could actually make it happen.

Hey, Whole Foods – PR Event or Serious Conversation?

We attended one of Whole Foods Market™ Speaker Series events; this one titled “Consumer’s Conflict: The Cost of Fresh Picked Produce in the 21st Century.” The guest speaker was Barry Estabrook, author of Tomatoland – How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. In the end, there was too much Whole Foods and too little discussion of the real cost of fresh produce and what to do about it. And we paid $40 to hear it…

Cavemen, Monks, and Slow Food: A History of Eating Well by Devra Gartenstein

This is a transitional time and we need transitional food. The Slow Food movement, the locavore movement, and other “food movements” can be “all or nothing” approaches. That way of thinking is standing in the way of getting people to eat better. I would love to see everybody eat fresh, local, and organic food, but until we get there, I would just like to see more people eat more lentils and fewer people eat industrial meat. The lentils don’t have to be organic, just not part of the industrial food system.