Wow.  That’s just cold.

Fun food site of the moment: Evil Coconuts

http://evilcoconuts.tumblr.com/

OTA makes really, really tall graphs.  And they cheat little by not plotting the years they don’t have data for.  Still, if I were an investor, I would get investing after seeing growth like that.  And if I were a farmer, I’d take another look at those pesticides and ask if they really are a good deal. It’s all about the bottom line, darlings.

PS - I’m seriously considering an uprising against people who put PDFs up online.  Stop being lazy and convert that shizz to HTML.

So many facts and figures to collect!  After 8 years of having the federal government refusing to release reports or even collect the data in order to support those reports, the tide has finally changed.  Which hopefully means that we will have lots of fun numbers to play with in the coming months and years.  One of the more interesting reports will be coming from the USDA, which announced that it will be conducting its first wide-scale survey of organic farming.

The survey will collect information on a number of aspects of organic farming, such as:

Production of field crops, vegetables, fruits, tree nuts, berries, livestock and poultry;

Production practices such as pest management, cover crops, crop rotation, rotational grazing, conservation tillage, water management and buffer zones;

Production expenses;

Marketing practices, including wholesale, retail and direct-to-consumer sales; and

Value-added production and processing.

Hopefully, this will lead to more decisive answers on whether organic farming is really more lucrative than conventional and how fast organic farming is growing.  Sales of organics totaled $20 Billion in 2007, more than 10% higher than the $17.8 Billion forecasted by the USDA.

just may be the new foodie buzz word. Former FDA chief Dr. David Kessler has a new book out, The End of Overeating, where he likens food consumption to everything from cigarettes to herion.  Who knows, he may be right, but I guess we’ll have to read the book to find out.

Food Politics by Marion Nestle opened American eyes to just how much influence that annoying food pyramid has on what we eat.  The USDA is in the process of updating their guidelines for 2010 and they are hosting a webinar on the hearing today and tomorrow.

It’s really too bad those tapeworm pills didn’t work out.

Grocery Store Wars - Geeks Meet Organics

The PR onslaught begins.  My favorite:

Arnold and her husband raised pigs in Lehi for decades.  Now, she takes a trailer decorated with pictures of pigs to schools and fairs and businesses educating people about pork. And Utah’s 170-million dollar a year industry.

“We wished they called it bird flu,” she said.

Keith Bradsher at the NYT has more.  This is getting pretty funny.

Government officials in Thailand, one of the world’s largest meat exporters, have started referring to the disease as “Mexican flu.” An Israeli deputy health minister — an ultra-Orthodox Jew — said his country would do the same, to keep Jews from having to say the word “swine.” However, his call seemed to have been largely ignored.

Janet Napolitano, the secretary for homeland security, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack went out of their way at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday to refer to the virus by its scientific name, as the “H1N1 virus.”

Update: davenoon’s take on the name game.  H/T Julia.

There are other uses for it.

Bubbling up from the foodie circles is the possibility that the SwineFlu is CAFO caused. While Dr. Greger sites a study that shows that pig flu incidents and farm density are closely related, you can be sure that the pork industry is going to fight back with everything they have to dispute this.

“Influenza [in pigs] is closely correlated with pig density,” said a European Commission-funded researcher studying the situation in Europe.[17]  As such, Europe’s rapidly intensifying pig industry has been described in Science as “a recipe for disaster.”[18]  Some researchers have speculated that the next pandemic could arise out of “Europe’s crowded pig barns.”[19]

Already, the US has seen steep declines in hog prices, with Smithfield alone taking more than a 10% hit. China and Russia have banned pork from parts of the U.S.

Jill over at La Vida Locavore says that the meat industry is already on the offensive, trying to press the press to rename the outbreak North American Flu instead of Swine Flu.  Aren’t they adorable when they try to spin-spin-spin their way out of their guilty conscious? Of course American tourism industries may find themselves none too pleased about the new name.

While many who have been critical of industrial farming techiniques will come to quick conclusions about the how and why of this potential pandemic, the meat industry is going to fight tooth and nail to make sure the donkey tail doesn’t get pinned on them, and we have seen in the past, they will go through great lengths to protect their market share.

The first step for pork producers will be to convince the public that pork is safe to eat. While that is probably true, even those of us with significant food backgrounds can’t help but think twice when biting into that next piece of ham.

photo courtesy of adria.richards

That is the question. Is it really more cost effective to buy certain kitchen staples, or buy them at the grocery store? Jennifer Reese at Slate looks and cooks for the answer.  Here’s was she finds for some pantry basics:

1. Bagels - Make
2. Cream Cheese - Buy
3. Yogurt - Make
4. Jam - Make
5. Crackers - Buy
6. Granola - Make

A basic that is almost always cheaper to make is bread.  The problem is the time consumption of making fresh biscuts or a loaf of bread.  Both the Everyday Cheapskate and this mom has lots of suggestions on how to freeze, store and thaw dough to make the effort time affordable.

This makes me sad. Veggie Booty is one of those “good for you” snack foods that looks like a non-radioactive version of cheetos.  Apparently it was also a source of salmonella in 2007. Bummer. As far as process food goes it seemed to be one of the better options.  Argggggh!

A Bend mother, Chrissy Christoferson, will join the Hurleys to talk about her son, Beck, who became sick in 2007 when he was 10 months old after eating Veggie Booty, a puffed corn-and-rice snack that was contaminated with salmonella.

Christoferson said her son has recovered but she worries he will have lingering long-term digestive problems.

“The average parent that goes grocery shopping wants to know that the food they’re buying for their kids will make them healthier, not send them to the hospital,” she said. “We rely on the government agencies … to make sure that the foods we’re giving our children are safe.”

She said she was stunned to learn that the FDA cannot order a recall — it can only ask companies to do so.

Anywho, people who got food poisoning from Veggie Booty and other products are on their way to Congress to talk about the need for food safety.

Proposed legislation would change that. The groups gathering in Washington, including the Pew Charitable Trusts, Consumer’s Union, Consumer Federation of America and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, support House Resolution 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act.

The bill would effectively split the FDA, creating one agency to handle drugs and another that would be solely focused on food. That agency would have stepped-up enforcement powers, including the authority to order recalls, and it would emphasize sanitation to prevent food-borne illnesses.

Sadly, the visages of sick kids rarely seem to move Congress, but we shall see.

And just in case you were wonderin, Veggie Booty claims they fixed the problem. H/T Robin.

Alfalfa sprouts are the new peanuts.  Yay, food safety!

For years the USDA discriminated against black farmers by denying applications for credit and loans.  Finally, 1999, case known as the Pigford settlement was decided in favor of black farmers, awarding them more than $50,000 in payments and $12,500 in tax credits each. The problem is that many more farmers applied than expected and the fund has much, much less money than expected.

In a meeting Wednesday, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) vented frustration at recent court filings by the Justice Department that could severely limit compensation owed to black farmers discriminated against in the past by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Justice Department has estimated that it could cost as much as $4 billion to repay the farmers, yet the recent filings suggest it may cap the total compensation at $100 million — about 2.5 percent.

Considering that total US farm subsidies totaled $13.4 BILLION WITH A ‘B’ in 2006 alone, $100 million to set things right is just offensive.  I don’t blame the CBC for being ticked.

I always knew that Halloween is the best holiday hands down.

Some things are best left in the past.

The frill is gone in food advertising.

Companies are moving their ad dollars from gourmet or frivolous items to pantry staples and traditionally ho-hum household goods.

Hamburger Helper, Kool-Aid drink mix and that golden oldie, butter, are the advertising stars these days.

The new advertising is aimed not only at cashing in on the new frugality of recession-wary consumers but also at fending off a flight to cheaper store brands.