October 2009

  • Michael Pollan and the Food System: Bioneers

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    Michael Pollan speaking at BioneersMichael Pollan speaking at BioneersBioneers is going on this weekend in California and green inventors, entrepreneurs, activists and enthusiasts from around the world are now gathered together talking about all that’s new and trendy and amazing in the green world. One of the keynote speakers was Michael Pollan, and I watched his speech this afternoon, after spending a hour or two roaming the Alemany Farmer’s Market in San Francisco and marveling at how much more beautiful the food was with its dirt-crusted glean in the afternoon sunshine, rather than the neon bulbs that distort the colors of the rotten spots from sitting for too long on the garlic I end up buying down the street in a pinch…

    Photo Credit: Henkimaa

    Pollan gave a great speech about the state of food production and what needs to change. It was great. Read more

  • Mostly-Vegetarian Paralyzed From Hamburger-Borne E. Coli

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    The New York Times is carrying a high-profile article about a woman who was paralyzed from an e. coli infection.  Stephanie Smith is a 22 year old woman who follows a "mostly vegetarian diet," but ate a fateful hamburger at Sunday dinner with her family.  Within a week, "The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks." She awoke from her induced coma to find that the infection had left her paralyzed.
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  • Where Is The American Mad Cow Epidemic?

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    I recently ran across an article online that mentioned "mad cow disease" tangentially, and it got me wondering.  Weren't we in the United States supposed to have a massive outbreak of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) by now?

    The prion disease which is called Bovine Spongiform Epilepsy (BSE) in cattle and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in people was a media darling in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but it has largely faded from view.  (Not least because a more lethal form of e. coli has developed in cattle, which presents a far more pressing medical issue. If you're a journalist looking to scare people, e. coli is where it's at these days.)
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