by Anna Lappé for Al Jazeera America Humans can survive weeks without food, but only days without water — in some conditions, only hours. It may sound clichéd, but it’s no hyperbole: Water is life. So what happens when private companies control the spigot? Evidence from water privatization projects around the world paints a pretty […]
by Anna Lappé for Al Jazeera America In 1982, my father, the late toxicologist and medical ethicist Dr. Marc Lappé, published “Germs That Won’t Die,” raising the alarm about the overuse of antibiotics and the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. He would have no idea that nearly four decades later, the crisis has only gotten worse. […]
by Anna Lappé for Civil Eats In 1993, six farmworkers gathered in a local Catholic church in Immokalee, Florida, two hours northwest of Miami. Seated in a circle of folding chairs, they began to recount the human rights abuses they had suffered and witnessed while working in the tomato fields of Florida. One of the farmworkers […]
by Anna Lappé for Civil Eats Today, as we dig into our Thanksgiving leftovers–for us, that’s pumpkin pudding and my mother-in-laws famous nutloaf–we’ll be thinking about the Walmart workers around the country who are bravely stepping away from their jobs to bring attention to the paltry pay and poor working conditions by the country’s […]
by Anna Lappé for Corporate Accountability International Did you know that Nabisco touts a preschool-age “Oreo Cookie Counting Book” and Hershey’s publishes a “Hershey’s Kisses Multiplication Book”? Did you know that these books are just one of the countless tactics Big Food uses to market to our kids throughout their lives — even in […]
by Anna Lappé for Earth Island Journal The backstory behind Shrek hawking Twinkies If asked to think of the lasting legacies of Ronald Reagan, you might conjure up the long shadow of US military intervention in Central America or the coordinated attack on organized labor and public-sector programs. Probably few of us would think about […]
by Anna Lappé for MomsRising.org On September 18th, the First Lady brought together 100 parent leaders, government agency representatives, researchers, and food and media industry executives–from McDonalds to PepsiCo to Coca-Cola–in the first ever White House Convening on Food Marketing to Children. It was a big deal. Since President Reagan stripped the power […]
by Anna Lappé for Civil Eats A doorstop of a report arrived in inboxes this morning. Not so subtly called: “Wake up Before It Is Too Late,” the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development new report is a rallying cry for action to move toward greater sustainability in food and farming—to ensure food security […]
by Anna Lappé for Civil Eats When Bozo the Clown went off air in 1963, no one would have guessed the small-town television character would soon become the most famous clown in the world. But McDonald’s turned Bozo into Ronald McDonald, and today he’s recognized by more than 90 percent of schoolchildren in the United […]