October 21, 2022 — Among the many interesting presentations from three days of focus on causes of obesity, a just-so story stands out. We heard a number of just-so stories this week – untested fables to explain how we came to have so much obesity. They fit neatly with with an agenda that calls for a discussion of conjectures. […]
July 24, 2021 — America has some of the cheapest food in the world. Out of pocket, we spend less for food than people in any other country in the world. Food beckons us to eat everywhere we turn. But the actual cost of cheap food can be quite high. A new report from the Rockefeller Foundation tells us […]
July 21, 2019 — What if we could snap our fingers and have everyone start eating all the fruits and veggies that the World Health Organization recommends? We would simply run out. Demand would outstrip supply by anywhere from 90 to 128 percent. Production capacity is too low. Food waste is too high. So there’s a big gap between […]
September 17, 2018 — How can it be that both obesity and hunger are rising in Africa? President Rajiv Shah of the Rockefeller Foundation tells us that it’s the inevitable result of a broken global food system. Famines still ravage this continent. But incomes are also rising in the growing urban centers. And that’s precisely where obesity taking off. […]
April 20, 2018 — Can strapping a fitbit on a cow make that animal healthier? For that matter, can it make the dairy industry and perhaps even the planet healthier? Artificial intelligence and new tech for connecting cows to the web are dangling this possibility before us. Monitoring Health and Activity Sensor tags and collars for cows are not […]
November 17, 2017 — What if everyone became a vegan? No more animals in agriculture. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Robin White and Mary Beth Hall tried to answer that question. They modeled the impact of taking animals out of U.S. agricultural production – on nutrition and on the environment. What they found was a bit […]
March 25, 2017 — The NRDC has a little ray of sunshine for us this week. Americans are eating less beef and that means less carbon going into the atmosphere to heat up the planet. It might also mean healthier dietary patterns. The Environmental Impact of Beef Production Meat production creates a lot of greenhouse gases. And beef is […]
December 17, 2016 — Much ink and many electrons flow to describe our terribly broken ways of producing, delivering, and consuming food. Some of the loudest calls for change in the status quo revolve around fruits and veggies. Michelle Obama and many others want us to eat more and eat them fresh from the farm and garden. Will growing and consuming more […]
