• Food

Cologne Creates a Roadmap for Becoming an ‘Edible City’

• CSA
• edible city
• farming
• local agriculture
• urban garden
• urban greening

by Julia Fine, ODP Contributing Writer The Food Policy Council of Cologne, Germany has “received government support for its project to make Cologne an ‘edible city,’” MOLD Magazine reported. An “edible city” revolves around, as John P. Kazior wrote, “long-term planning to make green spaces more biodiverse, to promote urban agriculture, and foster local food […]

• Food

Hold the Lox–That Salmon You Bought May Not Be What They Say It Is

• antibiotics
• Atlantic Salmon
• fish
• Food and Drug Administration
• mislabeled
• organic
• Salmon

Fraudulent fish is a more common problem than most people realize.  A lawsuit brought by the Organic Consumers Association alleges fish distributors Mowi Ducktrap and Mowi USA of deceptive marketing of smoked salmon sold under the brand Ducktrap River of Maine.

Why This Matters:  Many people are trying to cut back on meat — particularly during the COVID pandemic, when meatpacking plants closed, or worse, kept operating despite widespread transmission of the disease among workers at those facilities.

• Food

The FDA Reaches Agreement With Companies to Phase Out Food Packaging Containing PFAS

• #fightforeverchemicals
• #ForeverChemicals
• Environmental Working Group
• fast food
• FDA
• PFAS

Last week, in a major but voluntary step, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it had secured and agreement with three manufacturers to phase out food packaging that uses the “Forever” chemical called 6:2 FTOH – one of the PFAS chemicals that has been linked to cancer. 

Why This Matters:  Many states are beginning to ban PFAS chemicals in food packaging, so this announcement by the FDA is a step in the right direction.

• Food

Cover Crops and Compost May Be Key To Improved Soils for Urban Agriculture

• compost
• cover crops
• Detroit
• food desert
• food insecurity
• produce

By Julia Fine, ODP Contributing Writer An ongoing study in Detroit on the potential to recondition soils in urban areas to enable locally-grown agriculture is producing promising results, Brian Allnutt reported in Civil Eats. The study out of  Michigan State University-Detroit’s Partnership for Food Learning and Innovation, is working to find the “quickest, cheapest, and […]

• Food

“Corn Sweat” Compounds Humidity in Sweltering Midwest States

• agricultre
• corn
• corn sweat
• crops
• Illinois
• Iowa

by Julia Fine, ODP Contributing Writer This past weekend’s weather was hot in Iowa and Illinois. But it likely felt even hotter, due to “another episode of corn-catalyzed extreme humidity,” Matthew Cappucci reported in The Washington Post. “Corn sweat,” or the water released into the atmosphere by crops like corn as a cooling mechanism, helped […]

• Food

Bayer Forging Ahead with New GE Corn That Can Withstand 5 Herbicides

• Bayer
• cancer
• corn
• dicamba
• genetically engineered
• glyphosate
• herbicides
• Monsanto
• Roundup
• science

Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto, is “forging ahead” with developing genetically engineered (GE) crops that could be used with at least five herbicides at once, Lisa Held reported last week in Civil Eats.

Why This Matters:  The fact that Bayer is likely to get approval for this new crop, which would be resistant to the active chemical in Roundup, suggests that the losses in court had and will continue to have little impact on the company’s trajectory. Just because these herbicides won’t “harm” GE corn does not mean they won’t harm us.