Food industry is out to make money. We all know that. But it’s up to us to decide what we are going to put in our bodies. The industry will do whatever it can to cut costs and increase profits. And the sad thing is, our government cannot protect us. The agencies that exist to police the food industry is ill equipped to handle all food safety issues to protect the public from harm’s way, for one reason or another.

So, it’s up to us, the consumers, to be educated on what’s healthy and what’s not. It’s up to us to demand what kinds of laws we want our government to pass and how we want them to protect us.

I try to focus on how we can eat better, for our health and the environment and I hope these stories will enlighten you about foods we eat.

Thanks for reading!

xo
Karen

Congress calling pizza a vegetable is not the worst thing

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I was writing up outlines for the next few weeks and  ”BAM!”, I got distracted by an interesting story on facebook. Shhhhhh………..don’t tell my kids I let facebook distract me.  So, back and forth, I went, with a friend, Becky from Eat Drink Better on how congress approved pizza as a vegetable so that schools can get funding. As it stands, a 1/2 cup of tomato sauce on one slice of [...]

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Blog Action Day 2011: Waste Not Want Not

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Today is Blog Action Day and we are talking about one of my favorite topics this year.

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Revisiting Favorite Korean Food Recipes

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My son came home for the weekend – a Fall Break for four nights over the Columbus Day Weekend. When the kid calls unexpectedly a week before the break, and says he wants to come home, you spend $400 and put him on the next available flight. At least, that’s what we did. And like any college kid, he wanted home cooked meals, every day. We didn’t go out for [...]

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Governor Brown Makes Shark Finning Illegal in CA

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http://youtu.be/r65FgUYdBOc

I never had Shark Fin Soup even though I’ve seen it on the menu at every Chinese restaurant. It just never had an appealing “sound bite” to it - pun intended. Why would I want to eat such a weird sounding dish when there are so many other dishes that are so tasty? The same goes for, tripe, chicken feet, pâté, or Foie Grás, “Sweet” Bread, etc… Gah~ To justify my [...]

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How much land do you need to feed a family?

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My pseudo-industrious and dreamy (in both sense of the word) husband (a.k.a. accidental recycler) says we should live off the land as he puts away the grocery bill in his pocket. And I say, “Good luck with that but you hate nature.” And I add, with a zing, “You don’t even know when to water the garden.” But seriously, if we wanted to grow our own food, even if we [...]

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BREAKING NEWS: Cargill Recalls 36 Million Pounds of Ground Turkey

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Cargill announced yesterday that it is recalling almost 36 million pounds of ground turkey products that may be contaminated with antibiotic resistant Salmonella Heidelberg that’s linked to at least 76 illnesses across the United States and one death in California. The recalled meat came from a meat processing factory in Springdale, Arkansas that produces a variety of different ground turkey products sold with different labels, including one that I see [...]

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Salmonella Outbreak in Ground Turkey

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One Death, 77 Illnesses Linked to Ground Turkey Ugh. Although I don’t eat meat anymore, my family has to eat meat. But one habit they ARE trying to break is eating red meat. So they have gotten used to turkey burgers, turkey tacos, turkey loaf, etc…..you get the picture. And now this? According to the Food Safety News yesterday, there is a Salmonella outbreak from eating ground turkey. The scary [...]

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Cut Food Safety Funding and Cut Kids from College Scholarship

“And if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship.  That means we’ve got to stop funding certain grants for [...]

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In.gredients: first packaging free store

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When I was growing up in Korea, we used to buy rice and grains from a rice farmer’s ‘shop’  in the neighborhood. He would also have an attached mill where we can buy flour too. We would bring our sacks and fill them up or the farmer would lend us his sack, as long as we returned it. There was an open market too where we would only buy what [...]

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Jamie Oliver Banned From LA Schools

The Daily Show – Jamie OliverTags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

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Food Styling at The Perennial Chef

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I had the pleasure of taking (and tasting) some awesome food photos yesterday by Chef Michael at The Perennial Chef. Food styling is an art and I am not a professional at taking good food pictures. But perfect natural lighting and gorgeous colors of his foods made it easy. And the taste of his food wasn’t too bad either. ^*^ Here is their facebook page where you can see more [...]

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USDA 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Released

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USDA issues Dietary Guidelines for Americans every five years. The most recent 112 page guideline was issues on January 31, 2011. And the guidelines states that Because more than one-third of children and more than two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or obese, the 7th edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans places stronger emphasis on reducing calorie consumption and increasing physical activity. Really. So it recommends the [...]

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Tostitos Natural Yellow Corn Tortillas

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…”Made with Certified Organic Corn”, so says the package. I thought I was fooled again by a big corporation, trying to pull my leg, when I came home with this rather expensive package of tortilla chips – 9 oz bag cost $3.99. Holy Tortilla Batman! But if the price wasn’t bad enough, (and the amount of chips in the bag occupied only about 20% of the bag!), the bag said, [...]

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Laboratory Grown Meat: Shmeat

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First, there was “Frankenfish” and now “Shmeat“?? What the heck is Shmeat? This is shmeat – artificially grown meat in a laboratory. What is Shmeat, exactly? Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D.,a developmental biologist and tissue engineer, has been working for a decade to grow meat, Shmeat, he calls it. Dr. Mironov, 56, is one of  a few scientists worldwide involved in growing “cultured” meat. It’s a product he believes could help [...]

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BREAKING NEWS: GE Alfalfa has been approved by USDA

This issue has been on my mind since I first learned that Cornucopia Institute was suing to stop GE Alfalfa but now GE Alfalfa has been approved by the USDA for general planting as early as this Spring. Once again, our government has been ‘bought’ by biotech companies with their lobbying groups even when USDA saw problems with GE Alfalfa. It’s mind boggling how this has passed when it was [...]

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What Vegans Don’t Eat

I knew vegans don’t eat animal products. But did you know that vegans don’t eat marshmallows??? I had no idea. Here are the list of ten things vegans don’t eat, according to Shine. 1. Meat. – obvious, yes. 2. Fish and shellfish. – some don’t eat Omega-3 Fish Oil supplements if they are from real fish. 3. Dairy products. – everything from milk and yogurt to cheese and butter. 4. [...]

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Identity Crisis of a Pescatarian. A Pesca…who?

I am having an identity crisis at the age of forty nine. And it’s not about my ethnic background. It’s about what I eat. I’ve stopped eating meat since June and occasionally had seafood in settings where I cannot get any good vegetarian meals. So, I’ve been going around saying, “I’m a vegetarian”, and uncomfortably adding, “Oh, but I occasionally eat seafood.” *gulp* I always wondered how can I call [...]

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The Perennial Chef

I recently wrote about my visits to local farms and a great gourmet catering/take-out spot in Bedford Hills, NY, called The Perennial Chef. I am so happy to share some great news with you…well, for me, anyway but maybe not so much for my family since this means I’ll be working more than my waking hours and not necessarily having the dinner on time and making them wrestle with dust [...]

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Visiting local farms in Westchester, NY

I live about 45 minutes north of NYC and about two hours south of Albany, NY. My town is at the edge of suburbia and right before the “boonies”, depending on who you talk to. The good thing is, I can drive to a numerous number of farms within an hour. And not surprisingly, there are farmers markets in practically every town and you can be assured that the products [...]

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Should you clean your produce with fruit wash detergents?

I’ve always washed my produce – organic or conventional – with Environne’s Fruit and Vegetable Wash. Compared to just using tap water to wash, fruit washes seem to make them cleaner…to me, anyway. But today’s NY Times’s article tell me otherwise. Really??? According to the article, scientists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in 2000, “tap water “significantly reduced” residues of 9 of 12 pesticides, and it worked as well [...]

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FDA delays its decision on genetically engineered salmon, for now

After 11 hours of deliberation, FDA is delaying its decision on Aqua Bounty Technology’s (ABTX) genetically engineered salmon…for now. It is unclear as to when the agency will decide but at least, it promises to investigate further before approving the company’s technology of breeding genetically engineered salmon for human consumption. According to Center for Food Safety (CFS), however, FDA is misguided in thinking that GE salmon is safe for human [...]

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25 More Ways to Eat Sustainably

Hope you enjoyed the first 25 ways to eat sustainably. Here are 25 more ways. Save that Cooking Water – I have to admit, I never do this but what a great idea! When you blanch or steam vegetables, use the nutrient rich water to boil pasta or water the plant! (only if it doesn’t have oil or salt) EAT SAFER SEAFOOD! Any WILD fish from Alaska is SAFE to [...]

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25 Ways to Eat Sustainably

With my recent disappointment about genetically engineered salmon being pushed to be approved for food, I wanted to change my gear into thinking more positively and revisit the ways to eat more sustainably. Although I probably do most of it, I figured, it wouldn’t hurt to check the list again. This list, “50 ways to eat Sustainably” is from one of my favorite magazines, “Body and Soul “. 25 Ways [...]

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STOP Genetically engineered salmon from your dinner plate!

That’s right. GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SALMON – FRANKENFISH! – will soon be available  – like in 18 months – for you to serve for dinner if FDA approves it on September 17th. ** See below for undated info on hearing dates** That’s ONE week away!! Wait. You hate fish? You don’t like salmon? This is not just about salmon. It’s about biotechnology. It’s about fooling with nature. It’s about our food [...]

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How does salmonella infect eggs?

I thought deciphering egg carton labels was hard. Trying to figure out if an egg is contaminated with Salmonella is im-po-ssi-ble. Over 300 million eggs have been recalled after hundreds of people were sickened by eating eggs contaminated with Salmonella. How many times have we heard this type of story line before? Ugh. Wright County Eggs of Galt, Iowa voluntarily recalled over 300 million eggs after 266 illnesses and many [...]

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Deciphering egg carton labels

I’ve been shocked time and time again at the food prices lately. Especially eggs. I’m so used to buying organic, cage free, I mean, free-roaming, no, “happy” eggs that I don’t even flinch, or pay attention to, at the $4/dozen prices. The chickens supposedly roam the farm, without being caged, and eat organic feeds. I buy the same eggs from either at the farmers market ($4/dz) or from Whole Foods [...]

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How green is your orange juice?

This might not be news to some of you but it was an eye opener for me. At least the numbers anyway. I mean, I knew my orange juice didn’t just appear in the grocery stores like magic and that it needed to be grown and transported but I didn’t think about the details of how it creates such a huge carbon footprint. So here is the low down on [...]

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7 Foods Even Food Safety Experts Won’t Eat

Guess what some food safety experts won’t even eat according to Liz Vaccariello from prevention magazine. 1. Canned Tomatoes The expert: Fredrick vom Saal, PhD, an endocrinologist at the University of Missouri who studies bisphenol-A The problem: The resin linings of tin cans contain Bisphenol-A, a synthetic estrogen that has been linked to ailments ranging from reproductive problems to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. Unfortunately, acidity (a prominent characteristic of [...]

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Eczema and Food Allergy

As I said yesterday in my post, my daughter has been sick with a nasty cold since before Christmas. She’s been hacking away trying to cough up phlegm stuck in the middle of her chest, lying on the couch or in bed, just feeling miserable, and fighting occasional fevers and even hives from allergy to the cough medicine – nice, eh? There was nothing her pediatrician can give her for the [...]

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