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A Valentine's Day ribbon cutting by Ann Schwab, the mayor of Chico, Calif., highlighted years of impressive community leadership of two Equal Exchange partners in the town. Activists Jim Henson and Liza Tedesco brought together dozens of businesses, non-profits, student groups, and churches to build momentum to make Chico just the tenth city in the nation to declare itself a Fair Trade Town.
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(Editor's note: The local-food movement has been gaining momentum in developed countries, and in many developing countries as well, in recent years; in the United States alone, sales of locally grown foods, worth about $4 billion in 2002, could reach as much as $7 billion by 2011. Local food's claimed benefits are driving health- and environment-conscious consumers to seek alternatives to the industrial agriculture system whose products dominate grocery-store shelves.
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Corn was once a simple food, chewed off the cob. Now, with corn reinvented and transformed, it takes a chemist to recognize all its offspring. Among these is high-fructose corn syrup (a gooey sweetener used in soft drinks, meats, cheeses, and dozens more foods) that appeases confectionary cravings. But recent studies have raised concerns about the syrup by drawing links to obesity and other health effects.
Corn was once a simple food, chewed off the cob. Now, with corn reinvented and transformed, it takes a chemist to recognize all its offspring. Among these is high-fructose corn syrup (a gooey sweetener used in soft drinks, meats, cheeses, and dozens more foods) that appeases confectionary cravings. But recent studies have raised concerns about the syrup by drawing links to obesity and other health effects.
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ONCE A YEAR OR SO, it's my turn to run recycling day for our tiny town. Saturday morning, 9 to 12, a steady stream of people show up to sort out their plastics (No. 1, No. 2, etc.), their corrugated cardboard (flattened, please), their glass (and their returnable glass, which goes to benefit the elementary school), their Styrofoam peanuts, their paper, their cans. It's quite satisfying - everything in its place.
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BUENOS AIRES - The herbicide used on genetically modified soy - Argentina's main crop - could cause brain, intestinal and heart defects in fetuses, according to the results of a scientific investigation released Monday.
Although the study "used amphibian embryos," the results "are completely comparable to what would happen in the development of a human embryo," embryology professor Andres Carrasco, one of the study's authors, told Efe.
Although the study "used amphibian embryos," the results "are completely comparable to what would happen in the development of a human embryo," embryology professor Andres Carrasco, one of the study's authors, told Efe.
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There is still much debate about the basic nature of the current energy transition, driven most notably by climate change and peak oil.1 Most of that debate focuses on the immediate future of the next few decades, though I think it is essential to see these changes first on a larger temporal scale of centuries if not millennia. I have set the scene by characterizing the debate about the future as primarily one about whether energy available to human systems will rise or fall.
Four Energy Futures
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ACTION ALERT - SEND THE MESSAGE:
Manufacturers Must Use Organic Ingredients When They Are Available Urge the NOSB to Remove Soy Lecithin from the National List Public Comments due Monday, April 20th
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Over the past several weeks, blog posts and alternative media sites were riddled with panic over H.R. 875, the new bill introduced in the House over food safety regulations. The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 aims to "establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect health by preventing food-borne illness" and ensure the safety of food products through more stringent regulation guidelines. No one would argue that improving the food safety standards in the U.S. is a negative move.
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It's almost time to spend a colorful afternoon with your kids creating beautiful Easter eggs. Did you consider that you could avoid unnatural food coloring and color your eggs by using natural ingredients, such as beets and tea? Some of the materials I will list, such as lemon peels, must be boiled first, and others, such as berry juice, do not. Coloring eggs naturally isn't much harder than using an Easter egg coloring kit, and you can teach your kids the wonders that food can create besides just eating it.
Here is a list of natural dyes organized by color:
Here is a list of natural dyes organized by color:
