The University of Winnipeg was once lambasted in the annual MacLean’s ranking of Canadian Universities for having some of the worst campus food in the country (which is saying a lot…). Instead of wallowing in self-pity and eating another Big Mac to dull the pain, they hired a young, idealistic executive chef and completely […]
Continue readingTag: food
Blast Furnace Canada Blog: Flooding on purpose
I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures, hence today’s forced flood in rural Manitoba to destroy a hundred or so homes in order to save another 1000 or more. Still one has to wonder why more preventative measures aren’t being taken be…
Continue readingThings Are Good: What You Eat Matters
Jason Schwartzman cares about what you eat. Well, at the very least he has narrated a new short film on the importance of what we eat. The film looks like it covers a lot issues around problematic factory farming and the benefits of traditional farming methods.
Here’s a promo for the film:
And Gene Baur from Farm […]
Continue readingExcited Delirium: Why Buy Local
This info-graphic was assembled by elocal.com and makes an exceptionally compelling argument as to why people should at least consider buying local when they’re in the grocery store and elsewhere:
addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.exciteddeli…
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Hyperdecantenation
The enitrety of info about hyperdecantenation in Incredible edibles, a recent article about molecular gastronomy in the New Yorker:They also claim to have a way of improving wine by “hyperdecanting” it via sixty seconds in a blender—the idea bein…
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Tunisia and Algeria: North African States of Unrest
Reports of civil unrest and suicidal protests in Algeria and Tunisia these past two weeks are highlighting the precarious conditions under which many people across the world live: on the verge of starvation, hopelessly unemployed and frequently homeless. For decades these two neighboring nations have been considered relatively stable, if
Continue readingredjenny: Ending Africa’s Hunger… by funding Monsanto?
More than a billion people eat fewer than 1,900 calories per day. The majority of them work in agriculture, about 60 percent are women or girls, and most are in rural Africa and Asia. Ending their hunger is one of the few unimpeachably noble tasks left to humanity, and we
Continue readingredjenny: Ending Africa’s Hunger… by funding Monsanto?
More than a billion people eat fewer than 1,900 calories per day. The majority of them work in agriculture, about 60 percent are women or girls, and most are in rural Africa and Asia. Ending their hunger is one of the few unimpeachably noble tasks left…
Continue readingredjenny: Ending Africa’s Hunger… by funding Monsanto?
More than a billion people eat fewer than 1,900 calories per day. The majority of them work in agriculture, about 60 percent are women or girls, and most are in rural Africa and Asia. Ending their hunger is one of the few unimpeachably noble tasks left to humanity, and we
Continue readingredjenny: ACTION ALERT: Keep Terminator Seed out of Canada
Member of Parliament Alex Atamanenko (NDP) has reintroduced his Private Members Bill (C-343) to ban the release, sale, importation and use of Terminator technology. What is Terminator? Terminator Technology genetically engineers plants to produce sterile seeds at harvest. It was developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical industry and the US government
Continue readingredjenny: ACTION ALERT: Keep Terminator Seed out of Canada
Member of Parliament Alex Atamanenko (NDP) has reintroduced his Private Members Bill (C-343) to ban the release, sale, importation and use of Terminator technology.
What is Terminator? Terminator Technology genetically engineers plants to produce sterile seeds at harvest. It was developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical industry and the US government to prevent farmers from re-planting harvested seed and force farmers to buy seed each season instead. Terminator seeds have not yet been field-tested or commercialized. In 2006, Monsanto bought the company (Delta & Pine Land) that owned Terminator. Terminator is sometimes called Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURTs) – the broad term that refers to the use of an external chemical inducer to control the expression of a plant’s genetic traits.
Member of Parliament Alex Atamanenko (NDP) has reintroduced his Private Members Bill (C-343) to ban the release, sale, importation and use of Terminator technology.
Actions you can take:
1. Send an instant email at http://www.cban.ca/terminatoraction.
2. Organizations can endorse the call for a ban: go to http://www.banterminator.org/endorse
3. Write a personalized letter. Remember: postage is free to your elected officials! You can use your postal code to search for your MP at http://www.parl.gc.ca (Note: The New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois already support a Ban on Terminator in Canada.) For more information see http://www.cban.ca/terminator
4. Distribute Ban Terminator postcards in your community! To order postcards email btpostcards@usc-canada.org
5. Donate to support the campaign — the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network implements the Canadian strategy of the International Ban Terminator Campaign http://www.cban.ca/donate
6. Sign up to Ban Terminator news http://www.banterminator.org/subscribeOttawa, Ontario, Canada, K2P 0R5
Phone: 613 241 2267 ext.5
coordinator@cban.ca, www.cban.ca
Learn more about Terminator Technology here
Via Everdale
Continue readingredjenny: ACTION ALERT: Keep Terminator Seed out of Canada
Member of Parliament Alex Atamanenko (NDP) has reintroduced his Private Members Bill (C-343) to ban the release, sale, importation and use of Terminator technology. What is Terminator? Terminator Technology genetically engineers plants to produce sterile seeds at harvest. It was developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical industry and the US government
Continue readingredjenny: Early Farmers in the Americas – Farming because they wanted to, not because they had to
This is an interesting article, especially for me, with my interest in indigenous precolumbian agriculture in the Americas. Three thousand eight hundred years ago, long before U.S. plains rippled with vast rows of corn, Native Americans planted farms with hardy “pioneer” crops, according to new evidence of the first farming
Continue readingredjenny: Early Farmers in the Americas – Farming because they wanted to, not because they had to
This is an interesting article, especially for me, with my interest in indigenous precolumbian agriculture in the Americas.
Three thousand eight hundred years ago, long before U.S. plains rippled with vast rows of corn, Native Americans planted farms with hardy “pioneer” crops, according to new evidence of the first farming in eastern North America.
Because the area appears to have been well stocked with wild food sources, the discovery may rewrite some beliefs about what led people to start farming on the continent, scientists say.
Rather than turning to farming as a matter of survival, the so-called Riverton people may have been exercising “free will” and engaging in a bit of gastronomic innovation, archaeologists say.
This does not surprise me in the least. We always assume ‘prehistoric’ peoples started farming because they had to, as a survival technique, but we don’t ever stop to think that they might be just like us, inventing new things simply because they want to. Did we need the iPod or the car? Was our survival significantly enhanced because of either of them? We grow later to think we can’t live without electricity, flush toilets, and the internet, because they make our lives easier or more enjoyable.
Continue readingAround the world and throughout ancient history, people switched from mainly hunting and gathering to farming as a way to cope with environmental stresses, such as drought—or so the conventional wisdom says.
But the new research “really challenges the whole idea of humans domesticating plants and animals in response to an external stress [and] makes a strong case for almost the polar opposite,” said lead study author Bruce Smith, curator of North American archaeology at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Before they began farming, the Riverton people lived among bountiful river valleys and lakes, apparently eating a healthy and diverse diet of nuts, white-tailed deer, fish, and shellfish, the study says.
[…]
But that doesn’t mean farming didn’t give the Riverton culture a practical advantage: In addition to their normal fare, the people may have relied on the crops as a stable source of food—insurance against shortages of wild food sources..
redjenny: Early Farmers in the Americas – Farming because they wanted to, not because they had to
This is an interesting article, especially for me, with my interest in indigenous precolumbian agriculture in the Americas. Three thousand eight hundred years ago, long before U.S. plains rippled with vast rows of corn, Native Americans planted farms with hardy “pioneer” crops, according to new evidence of the first farming
Continue readingredjenny: Sometimes not knowing is better
At least when you’re talking about these. I am convinced we are seeing end times when slapping peanut butter on bread is too much work for us. And I thought Bagelfuls, precooked eggs and Lunchables were bad.
Continue readingredjenny: Sometimes not knowing is better
At least when you’re talking about these. I am convinced we are seeing end times when slapping peanut butter on bread is too much work for us. And I thought Bagelfuls, precooked eggs and Lunchables were bad.
Continue readingredjenny: Sometimes not knowing is better
At least when you’re talking about these. I am convinced we are seeing end times when slapping peanut butter on bread is too much work for us.And I thought Bagelfuls, precooked eggs and Lunchables were bad.
Continue readingredjenny: Impatient for Spring
March 2, 2009 – Impatient for spring and inspired by Mother Earth News, I planted three kinds of lettuce (obtained at Seedy Saturday). Green oak, red deer tongue, and mystery lettuce (from the seed exchange). March 21, 2009 – Off to a respectable start: The first to germinate was the
Continue readingredjenny: Impatient for Spring
March 2, 2009 – Impatient for spring and inspired by Mother Earth News, I planted three kinds of lettuce (obtained at Seedy Saturday). Green oak, red deer tongue, and mystery lettuce (from the seed exchange). March 21, 2009 – Off to a respectable start: The first to germinate was the
Continue reading