The Locavore

Last week, my 5 year-old daughter came home with a note from her school explaining that if she orders a submarine sandwich from Quiznos at school next week, the sandwich company will donate money to a Toronto District School Board nutrition education program. The note came with a checklist of toppings–did she want ham and [...]

I watched Julie and Julia last night and, despite finding the Julie part of the movie to be terribly tedious, was inspired to take my old copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking to bed with me. I inherited the book from my grandmother a few years ago and was only motivated to cook from [...]

I knew I’d contracted a foodborne illness when I couldn’t sleep because the stomach pain was so strong. I spent the next day drained and tired. I felt nauseous. My legs were cramping. My head hurt. My parents, with whom I’d eaten lunch the day before, were also sick with the same symptoms–though my dad [...]

Locavores, beware
Conscientious foodies have put a premium on foraged goodies such as fiddleheads and wild leeks – but popularity can come at a cost, Sarah Elton reports
From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail, May 20, 2009 at 8:59 AM EDT 
The wild leeks are up, the fiddleheads are out and local food aficionados are licking their lips.
            But while [...]

The flu formerly known as swine is now infecting pigs in Alberta. Hog farmers are saying the fall-out of this flu could be the last straw for their businesses, already struggling after years of low prices. The fact that these farmers are on the brink is no surprise. The mainstream hog industry has been participating [...]

I am saddened by the move to rebrand the swine flu as H1N1. Not only is it inaccurate, as explained by an article in today’s Globe and Mail, but it obfuscates the influenza’s connection to farming. It makes it seem as if this flu bug appeared out of nowhere.
True, we don’t know where the swine [...]

My article on the possible link between swine flu and industrial farming that I wrote for Macleans.ca is online:
No one yet knows for sure where this swine-flu came from, but the chance that pig manure spread an infection is “quite possible,” says Ellen Silbergeld, an epidemiologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public [...]

I was walking through a park on the weekend and came across a farmer selling food. He’d set up a few tables outside a church and had some vegetables, maple syrup and fresh eggs on offer. I bought some eggs, the last four that he had of his neighbour’s morning collection. They were big and brown [...]

The news just came in that the Ontario Municipal Board turned down SmartCentres’ application for a 700,000 square food complex in the industrial lands between Eastern and Lakeshore Blvd.
This is fantastic news.
Instead of acres of retail (it was likely to be Walmart) and a desert of parking, why not clean up the soil and start [...]

On CBC Radio’s the Current this morning, there was some discussion about whether or not today’s interest in resurrecting the family farm was merely nostalgia for a romanticized notion of the past or whether ditching the industrial farm was a real and sustainable plan for the future of our food system. Of course, I am [...]