Posts Tagged diet

Sorry, NY Times: GMOs still won’t save the world

“With all due respect, Nina Federoff’s New York Times op-ed reads like it was written two decades ago, when the jury was still out about the potential of the biotech industry to reduce hunger, increase nutritional quality in foods, and decrease agriculture’s reliance on toxic chemicals and other expensive inputs that most of the world’s farmers can’t afford.

With more than 15 years of commercialized GMOs behind us, we know not to believe these promises any longer.

Around the world, from the Government Office for Science in the U.K. to the National Research Council in the United States to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N., there is consensus: In order to address the roots of hunger today and build a food system that will feed humanity into the future, we must invest in “sustainable intensification”—not expensive GMO technology that threatens biodiversity, has never proven its superiority, even in yields, and locks us into dependence on fossil fuels, fossil water, and agrochemicals.”

Sorry, NY Times: GMOs still won’t save the world via Anna Lappe – Grist

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Celebrating A Nutrition Revolution In The South Bronx

“On Tuesday, May 24th, 2011, Family Life Academy Charter School (FLACS), celebrated one year of a major change in the way their food is prepared and how students are fed.

This little school of just approximately 368 students, situated within the poorest congressional district in the USA, took it upon itself to do something special for its students. Ms. Marilyn Calo, the principal of FLACS, led the nutrition revolution in a school where 90% of the children get free or subsidized lunch and breakfast because they fall below the poverty improving the food they eat. Chef Bennet Fins, a professional chef, was hired to cook nutritious, portion-controlled meals daily.

The results after the first year have been rewarding. Parents and teachers note differences in how the children have been affected by this change and how this shift has permeated the entire school. Children plant and cultivate flowers, herbs and vegetables. There is an after school cooking club and the after school program teaches relaxation through meditation and yoga as a means of helping students cope with their environment. Health and nutrition now form part of the curriculum.”

Celebrating A Nutrition Revolution In The South Bronx via Noemi Santana – Food Revolution

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Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables

“WHAT will it take to get Americans to change our eating habits? The need is indisputable, since heart disease, diabetes and cancer are all in large part caused by the Standard American Diet. (Yes, it’s SAD.)

Though experts increasingly recommend a diet high in plants and low in animal products and processed foods, ours is quite the opposite, and there’s little disagreement that changing it could improve our health and save tens of millions of lives.

And — not inconsequential during the current struggle over deficits and spending — a sane diet could save tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs.”

Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables via Mark Bittman – New York Times

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Zoe Weil interviews Alexis Baden-Meyer

READ MORE: Zoe Weil interviews Alexis Baden-Meyer via Treehugger

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