Veganism in the Media

The Huffington Post's Katie Molinaro recently had a blurb tsk-ing trency telly show Gossip Girl creators for making a stereotypical joke about vegan food being "gross". There's even a video clip.
---------------------

Minneapolis' The Bridge featured an article on Meagan Holtgrewe and her online vegan cooking show Rhymes With Vegan. I haven't checked out the show yet, but hope to do so this evening. The article offers up two recipes: One for a Vegan White "Chicken" Chilli and another more traditional style of chilli that uses beans and TVP. You'll find her show here. Prepare to drool over the recipes and photos when you get there.
---------------------

The Oregonian had a not particularly well-written interview with New York Times food writer Mark Bittman, who is currently making his rounds to promote his book Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating. According to the interview, Bittman is promoting yet another newfangled purportedly ethical diet which involves the consumption of "plants only from dawn to dusk, [while] anything goes at night". His focus is on increasing one's consumption of plants, but he draws the line at eschewing meat altogether, commenting that consuming dairy continues to harm the environment and that although veganism is "consistent", that it's a "tough sell". This Globe and Mail article about him paraphrases him as asserting that he does not "intend ever to become a full-fledged vegetarian". So less meat is better, but no meat isn't even an option? Speaking of consistency...

Huffington Post's Marion Nestle Interview on Organic Standards and Certification

During the holidays, Huffington Post featured a short interview by Kerry Trueman with food expert Dr. Marion Nestle about the USDA's organic standards. The interview kicks off with a reference to the recent story in the news about the company in California that managed to sell fertilizer that wasn't organic to up to a third of California's organic farmers for five years. It seems that a whistleblower told the state's Department of Food and Agriculture about it as early as 2004, but the state didn't take the product off the market until three years later, in 2007. Furthermore, state officials didn't come out and reveal its knowledge that this had been going on until a year and a half later, after the company had received a mere slap on the wrist for "mislabeling" their product.

Dr. Nestle talks about how the entire organics industry is based on trust and the integrity of the inspection process, and of how the "beyond organics industry" (which focuses on consuming locally and knowing who exactly is growing your food instead of relying on certification) is still entirely based on trust. She also comments that we have no real way of knowing how widespread cheating either is or isn't in the organics industry, regardless of certification. Business is business, after all, and as the organics industry becomes more and more lucrative, profit and not integrity will hold more and more weight.

Obama and the Biotech Boys

Wednesday, I posted about how a couple of top members of Obama's transition team have ties to Monsanto. Yesterday the Huffington Post featured an article on the same topic, throwing a few other names into the mix.