Category: Food and diet issues

Green wine?

I like the taste of this:

https://www.theguardian.com/…/de-bortoli-aims-first-zero-wa…

Still, if the wine is being transported half way across the world to a region where wine grow perfectly well, that counteracts the gains.

It has become fashionalbe in some quarters to sneer at organic cultuvation. We did a long hike down the mid-Loire. There were dramatic differences in flora and fauna in areas of conventional viniculture compared to ones following organic or biodynamic principles. We tasted some of the latter’s produce. To be honest, we could not tell any great difference from ‘ordinary’ ones but that is only one element in the sustainability jigsaw. That said, the best wine I’ve ever tasted was indeed organic, a local wine in a restaurant in Biot in souhtern Provence, not far from Nice. Sometimes it is all gain!

Wine without waste: De Bortoli aims to be Australia’s first zero-waste winery
Solar energy, no sodium and organic fertiliser: how one of Australia’s biggest wineries is reducing waste while saving money and energy
THEGUARDIAN.COM

‘Meatheads’ on the warpath

What was that about every nasty thing being the fault of big, bad capitalists?

Tbilisi vegan cafe appeal over meat-wielding ‘extremists’ – BBC News
A vegan cafe in Tbilisi appeals for public solidarity after being invaded by alleged ultra-nationalists wielding grilled meat and sausages.
BBC.CO.UK

Urban farming in Chicago

This looks promising especially if disused and decrepit buildings are being rescued and reused. My main worry is food quality and total resource consumption. In tes of the first concern, our local Sainbury’s sells produce from ‘Thanet Earth’. That facility claims to be environmentally friendly (http://www.thanetearth.com) yet the tomatoes in particular from it are very watery in texture and lack taste. ‘Sustainable’ mass production is still mass production with al its downsides.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/…/why-chicago-is-becoming-the-co…

Why Chicago Is Becoming The Country’s Urban Farming Capital
With a cornucopia of new ag startups, from rooftop greenhouses to high-tech vertical farms, the city’s growing agriculture movement is looking to…
FASTCOEXIST.COM

Food -Hydroponics: growing problems?

I do not know whether this is encouraging:

http://www.treehugger.com/…/industrial-scale-aquaponics-com…

At first sight, it seems to offer the prospect of greater urban food production and thus reduced ‘food miles’. Yet some foods in supermarkets sourced from places such as Thanet Earth are very watery. Tomatoes in particular seem to suffer badly in terms of both taste and texture.

We certainly don’t any more of this:
http://www.amusingplanet.com/…/the-greenhouses-of-almeria.h…

Industrial-scale aquaponics is coming of age
No longer backyard tinkerers, Edenworks is hoping to help feed New York.
TREEHUGGER.COM

Food & diet – cloning cows in China

One of the oldie but goldie eco novels is Pohl and Kornbluth’s ‘The Space Merchants’ from the early 1950s (http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/spacemerchants.htm). It’s science fiction but technologists today are working hard to make reality catch up with the novelists’ imaginations. The Chinse project is a foretatse of how we will end up treating animals to keep up with soaring demand for meat (see also: http://ecowatch.com/2016/03/04/world-meat-addiction/; http://inhabitat.com/infographic-the-true-environmental-co…/;
and, on ‘cheap’ chickens, http://www.theguardian.com/…/cheap-chicken-we-all-pay-in-th…).

China to Clone 1 Million Cows a Year to Meet Country’s Rising Demand for Beef
Boyalife, the first stem cell bank in China, is underway in cloning cows to meet the country’s skyrocketing demand for beef. Drug sniffing dogs, racehorses
ECOWATCH.COM

Agriculture, Food Industry and Health: USA case study

Here is a useful summary of the unsustainability of our food supply system, linking agribusiness, the fast food giants, Big Pharma, escalating health bills and the failure of governments to act. To this unhealthy mix might be added a range of perverse grants, subsidies and let-out clauses that keep this malign system staggeringly along. Of course, soil erosion, aquifer depletion and so forth will eventually bring it down but it might be wise to end it now before it ends us.

Why We're So Unhealthy
That America is in the throes of a systemic health crisis can no longer be denied. According to the U.S. Department of Health And Human Services, more than two-thirds (68.8 percent) of adults are over
PEAKPROSPERITY.COM