"Republican members of Congress, Fox News personalities and other prominent right-wing figures are falsely claiming that President Joe Biden is trying to force Americans to eat far less red meat."
A world of unique, foraged foods is at the heart of a new book, “Eating Wild Japan: Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, With a Guide to Plants and Recipes,” that also delves into what is being lost with large-scale farming. Our BookShelf reviewer Melody Kemp shares the joys and the worries recounted by the author, long-time SEJer Winifred Bird.
"When parents first serve solid foods to their babies, they often turn to infant rice cereal. The iron-fortified mix is nutritious and relatively easy to feed babies unaccustomed to spoons or strong flavors. But the Food and Drug Administration allows 10 times as much arsenic in this favored first food as it does in other products, like bottled water and apple juice — despite the fact that, as a neurotoxin, arsenic can have an outsize impact on babies, whose brains are still developing."
"Top U.S. meat and dairy companies, along with livestock and agricultural lobbying groups, have spent millions campaigning against climate action and sowing doubt about the links between animal agriculture and climate change, according to new research from New York University."
"In the wake of a congressional report last month that found the presence of toxic metals at high levels in many baby foods, the Biden administration Friday announced the first steps aimed at reducing arsenic, lead and other toxins in baby and toddler products."
"The agency, seeking information on an animal rights group, attempted to recruit a former truck driver as an informant, the truck driver says."
"Mark Bittman is most famous for the 30,000 recipes he’s developed in decades of being a food journalist and authoring 30 books focused on cooking and eating. But this month’s Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food from Sustainable to Suicidal is not another recipe book, it’s a deeply researched call to arms to reshape our food system to center people and planet rather than profit."
"A House report finding that top baby food products contain heavy metals has sparked panic among parents — and a lawsuit. But experts want parents to keep calm."
Spring may be weeks away, but gardeners are already browsing the seed catalogs, and that makes it a good time for environmental journalists to apprise them of how climate change will affect their backyard patches. Reporter’s Toolbox talks “hardiness zones” and explains why one of the usual repositories of government information may fall short. That plus, story sources to, well, cultivate.
"Strong winds threatening to fan a bushfire prompted Australia on Wednesday to urge thousands of people to leave their homes in the provincial capital of Perth, complicating a lockdown after the state detected its first coronavirus infection in 10 months."
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