Will 2012 be the year to get political?

From Michelle Simon, on Civil Eats:

NY Times cover via The Ethicurean. Click image to go there.

“Given all the defeats and set-backs this year due to powerful food industry lobbying, the good food movement should by now be collectively shouting: I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.

If you feel that way, I have two words of advice: get political.

I don’t mean to ignore the very real successes: increases in farmers markets, innovative and inspiring programs such as Food Corps, and an increasingly diverse food justice movement, just to name a few. But lately, at least when it comes to kids and junk food, we’ve been getting our butts kicked.

Ghosts of the Soviet era haunting U.S.?

How does contemporary America look to a former Soviet refugee? From Igor Birman, in the Orange County Register:

The Raven. Click image for source.

“One of the most haunting impressions of my Soviet childhood was stories my grandparents told about the Black Raven. As a small boy I was terrified of this polished and poised creature of the night, usually sighted as it crouched to swoop upon an unsuspecting victim and carry him away, never to be seen again.

The Greatest Starvation… incoming?

From Video Rebel’s blog:

“…Modern America not only imports its oil and manufactured items but it also is a net importer of food. What do you think will happen when the the dollar crashes, unemployment soars past 30%, more than 2 million government workers are fired and the cost of food and energy doubles overnight?

America moved from being an agrarian society living near farms and food in 1933 to urban dwellers nowhere near cows, chickens and gardens. But Americans will be living closer to 170 million or more people who will not have enough money to pay their bills and eat….”

Things you just can’t say on Facebook

Here’s one of them apparently. I try and try but this post won’t go through:

Click image above to go to the Dammit Janet post.

Was it something I said?

“When it comes to raw milk, the best expert is you” — Karen Selick

From Karen Selick, on the Digital National Post:

Michael Schmidt with lawyer Karen Selick at a Queen's Park news conference in Feb. 2010

“Raw-milk crusader Michael Schmidt finally got to meet with Ontario Premier Dalton Mcguinty last month after a 37-day hunger strike. But the Premier told him the government had no plans to change the law to legalize raw milk sales, and that it would rely on the best advice of medical experts.

But what is the best advice of medical experts? Perhaps the better question is what is it today — as anyone who closely follows medical news knows, what’s considered healthy one week is often feared, or dismissed, the next. Forty years ago, for example, women were told to perform a self-exam every month to check for breast cancer. Last month, experts retracted that advice: Breast self-exams “have no benefit and should not be used.”

A new study confirms Dr. Weston A. Price’s findings on nutrition and health

From Cure Tooth Decay.com

“A new study, published in the International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry, has shown a significant increase in the number of dental caries in native cultures that are introduced to fruit juices and sugary foods. The study was based on children in an area of Libya that is being introduced to a more westernized diet. The study took into account the dental health of 791 children that were 12 years of age. The children were screened for presence of dental caries (cavities). Results from the study showed that almost 60 percent of the children examined had dental caries. Conclusions from the study state that;

 “Frequency of consumption of fruit-based sugared drinks was statistically significantly positively associated with experience of caries … Dental caries experience was associated with frequency of consumption of sugared dietary items…” (Huew, Waterhouse, and et al )

Cheese expert a fan of the raw milk kind

From Joe Bonwich, in St. Louis Today:

Cheese master Max McCalman. Photo via St. Louis Today.

“Renowned cheese expert Max McCalman will be in town this week to lead cheese tastings and sign books, but don’t be surprised if he slips in some evangelism for raw-milk cheeses.

“I feel very passionate about them, and I’ve studied them extensively,” McCalman says. “Raw-milk cheese has a great food-safety record. We can eat raw oysters and eat raw meat in this country if we want to, but not raw-milk cheese. There’s something wrong with that, especially since cheese hasn’t been implicated in as many food-poisoning issues as raw seafood, raw meat or even raw vegetables.”

Why McDonalds failed in Bolivia

From Hispanically Speaking News:

“…The failure of McDonald’s in Bolivia had such a deep impact in the company’s Creative and Marketing staff, that they produced a documentary titled “Why did McDonald’s Bolivia go Bankrupt,” trying to explain why did Bolivians never crossed-over from empanadas to Big Macs.

The documentary includes interviews with cooks, sociologists, nutritionists and educators who all seem to agree, Bolivians are not against hamburgers per sé, just against ‘fast food,’ a concept widely unaccepted in the Bolivian community.