In the Marrow of Our Bones

By Anna Lappé for EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL   On March 20, scientists from 11 countries convened by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer released their unanimous conclusions about the world’s most used herbicide, glyphosate. In a paper that would be published in The Lancet Oncology, the experts concluded that the herbicide […]

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McDonald’s Two-Faced Talk

by Anna Lappé for Al Jazeera America Last month, Chicago hosted two seemingly unrelated meetings. At the National Restaurant Association’s annual trade show you could check out workshops such as “Pickle Your Fancy” and “You Bacon Me Crazy,” while mingling with some of the other 63,000 attendees. Though the annual trade show is the NRA’s […]

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Organic is Going Mainstream

by Anna Lappé for Al Jazeera America You know organic food has gone mainstream when Men’s Health waxes poetic about an organic diet in between shout-outs to a “hot new sex app” and pictures of actress Chelsea Peretti in stilettos. And you know the business of organic is moving out of the margins when CNBC’s […]

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NY Times Letter to the Editor: When Food Is Genetically Modified

In the New York Times Opinion Pages To the Editor: Mark Lynas’s profile of one farmer in Bangladesh does not represent the facts on the ground about genetically engineered eggplant there. The trials of the new variety of eggplant have actually had very poor results: Genetic engineering did not protect plants from most pests and have […]

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Q+A with Ted Genoways

REAL FOOD READS WITH AUTHOR TED GENOWAYS In this month’s #realfoodreads selection, The Chain: Farm, Factory and the Fate of our Food, Ted Genoways offers a powerful and important work of investigative journalism that explores the runaway growth of the American meatpacking industry and its dangerous consequences. I sat down with Ted to ask him some questions about the book, […]

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Monsanto’s Spin Machine Grinds On

by Anna Lappé for Earth Island Journal   In the fall of 1962, a group of chemical companies including Monsanto – at the time the largest producer of the cancer-causing chemical compound, PCB – launched a full-throttle public relations campaign against Silent Spring and its author, biologist Rachel Carson.   In Silent Spring, Carson dared […]

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Lessons from the Fields

by Anna Lappé with the University of California for Slate California’s 90-mile-long Salinas Valley, with its mild climate and rich soil, is known for abundant agriculture. Often called the “salad bowl of the world,” this fertile valley two hours south of the San Francisco Bay Area produces 70 percent of the nation’s lettuce, along with bountiful strawberries, […]

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The Long, Dirty Trail of Fake Science

by Anna Lappé for Al Jazeera America “Doubt is our product,” wrote executives for tobacco giant Brown & Williamson in a now infamous 1969 memo on industry communications strategy. The memo was revealed during discovery in class-action lawsuits against tobacco companies that would eventually yield a trove of 85 million pages. Among those pages are […]

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Q+A with Liz Carlisle

Real Food Reads Author Q&A with Liz Carlisle In this month’s #realfoodreads selection, Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America, Liz Carlisle tells the story of a group of renegade farmers in Montana who came together to beat the odds and help forge a sustainable farm-to-table food movement. I sat down […]

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