Food
Many of our Bayview neighbors joined us last weekend to celebrate the second anniversary of the Latona Community Garden. What used to be a smelly skanky debris-filled eyesore, is now a thriving organic community garden. The formerly blighted corner has been transformed into a warm and welcoming public space where neighbors gather, local kids play, and organic food is grown.
Recently I have been reading very disturbing research about how Diet Coke can possibly cause cancer and kill you. The artificial sweetener that is used in most diet beverages, aspartame, once ingested, becomes a lethal poison called methyl alcohol. Small quantities of this noxious substance can lead to blindness and death; even the most miniscule amounts of this aspartame toxin are strongly linked to cancer.
An explosive new documentary, Bananas!*, examines global food politics by following the crusade of lawyer Juan J. Dominguez, as he fights for the rights of thousands of banana plantation workers in Nicaragua who have been made sterile from exposure to the banned pesticide DBCP (Dibromo Chloropropane). This toxic chemical has been shown to cause cancer in animals, sterility in humans, and has been banned in most of the Americas since 1977. The film follows Dominguez as he fights the behemoth Dole Company for restitution for the abused Nicaraguan workers in the US courts.
Where can you buy healthy fresh food in your neighborhood? Where are the grocery stores and farmer’s markets, how is the quality of food that is there, and which food options do you actually have access to? Are there nearby food banks or community gardens? Can you grow your own food? What local food choices are available to you in your community?
Last Wednesday, as I was riding my bicycle down Third Street to the farmer’s market, my thoughts turned to the economist Jospeh Schumpeter and his seminal book “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”. Streams of loud cars and trucks barreled past me on the road, some of the vehicles nearly grazing me as oblivious drivers chattered on cell phones. As I continued pedaling down the street, images of organic daikon and Schumpeter’s theory of “Creative Destruction” swirled around in my brain.
Would you like a stroke with your cheeseburger? Scientists have found that your chances of becoming seriously ill may actually be related to how many Burger Kings and KFCs are operating in your town. Researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered that the risk of stroke increases with the preponderance of fast-food restaurants in a neighborhood.
In the recently published study, Texas residents with the highest number of fast-food restaurants had a 13% higher relative risk of suffering strokes than those living in areas with the lowest number of restaurants. Each additional McDonald’s, Jack in the Box or Taco Bell also increased the risk of stroke by 1%.
The weather in Atlanta felt like Spring this weekend, which got me thinking about our Spring garden and, of course, our compost bin. Composting is a fabulous, cheap source of fertile soil. On top of that, keeping a compost bin prevents your food scraps from heading to the landfill where they break down and produce methane, a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. While some communities, like San Francisco, offer curbside composting, unfortunately however, most do not. Luckily, it’s really…
A recent article published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research measures and maps the racial disparities in neighborhood food environments. Do communities of color have less access to healthful food sources like grocery stores and farmer’s markets?
The urban chicken movement is growing as more and more folks try to move away from factory farmed food and towards self-sufficiency. Why Chickens? Chickens are pretty low-maintenance. Once you have your coop set up, you just have to make sure they’re fed, watered, and get to run around outside. Most people who raise their own chickens do so for the eggs, not the meat. Instead of buying eggs from a factory farm or from hundreds of miles away, urban…
Launched by the Coalition for a GM-Free India and Hamara Beej Abhiyaan (‘Our Seeds’ Movement), “I am no Lab Rat” is a unique consumer awareness campaign aiming to sensitize the citizens on the impacts of producing and consuming GM foods. The campaign came as a response to claims by those in the GM industry that Bt Brinjal, a GM brinjal variety containing the toxin producing gene from the toxic bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis, is ready to be introduced into the markets. Bt Brinjal…