This recipe makes about 2 dozen delicious ginger molasses cookies — spicy, slightly soft cookies good with a light mousse, ice cream or fresh fruit. Also good dunked in farm-fresh milk as well as organic, freshly ground coffee. more »

A quarter of Americans buy organic food weekly, and a whopping three-quarters of the population find a reason to buy organic foods occasionally, which shows how well the word is getting around about the dangers of pesticide and hormone accumulation in humans and animals. But many people are not so knowledgeable about organic food — so why bother? more »

Before we get to the video of Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control, watch this YouTube video of an interview of lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. by another lawyer discussing the data that vaccinations are causing autism in some children. Mr. Kennedy refers to the "proof" that this isn’t so as "classic tobacco science"; unfortunately, the story is rife with bureaucrats, a secret meeting and … I’ll let you decide:

[Added to YouTube on October 19, 2007]

That’s pretty sickening, although to many of us, this is not new news. Now, having seen that (and note that I’m not sure whether it was conducted before the next interview), view the video with Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the Centers for Disease Control, and note the difference in tone and approach: more »

As we were not able to attend California Senator Dean Florez’ April 15, 2008 hearing on AB1735, the California Assembly Bill that threw such a monkey wrench into the sale of raw milk in California, I was glad to see that David Gumpert at TheCompletePatient.com did attend and has been covering the issues.

The hearings were conducted by Senator Florez and, as I previously covered in California State agency refuses to participate in hearings into AB 1735, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which was behind the AB1735 bill, declined to attend even after a direct request by Sen. Florez for their attendance. It is difficult to guess at this distance whether this was an attempt to avoid having to provide evidence for the whys and wherefores (and, indeed, the scientific validity) of AB1735, or simply to deny credibility to the hearings. more »

Our friend Pete Jalbert sent us a link to a most interesting website — Path To Freedom, built and maintained by a Pasadena, California family that farms on what it calls its "ordinary city lot" which, to me, means the lot upon which their home stands.

At Path to Freedom, the Dervaes family has steadily transformed their ordinary city lot in Pasadena, California, into an integral urban homestead.
…
The yard has over 350 varieties of edible and useful plants. The homestead’s productive 1/10 acre organic garden now grows over 6,000 pounds (3 tons) of produce annually. This provides fresh vegetables and fruit for the family’s vegetarian diet and a source of income.

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The Science of Nutrition emerged nearly full-blown in the 1980’s to better deal with the problems of the Western diet. You might think that a national fixation on nutrition would have led to measurable improvements in public health after nearly thirty years. Using the deeply flawed approach of studying one nutrient at a time, this has seldom been the case.

Once fresh, whole food was all you could get, but today there are lots of other edible food-like substances in the marketplace, making what’s for dinner? a question we have been led to believe requires the expertise of science. This reductionist approach has largely been co-opted by the Scientific Method and is currently being used by the industry to sell more pseudo- food and — even more dire — to undermine the authority of traditional ways of eating.

Just what do we know about diet and health in the USA today? more »

We were asked to publish the following press release by (and at the request of) Jennifer Hanson, a staffer to California State Senator Dean Florez, who is Chairman of California’s Select Committee on Food-Borne Illness.

What makes the news contained in the press release shocking — among many other shocking incidents in this very outlandish fight for raw milk — is the fact that the California Department of Food & Agriculture, the very agency responsible for the passing of Assembly Bill 1735 in the dead of night, as it were, is refusing to attend hearings into that very bill (see a brief history of the fight for raw milk). more »

We’ve received an announcment from Organic Pastures Dairy Company:

Federal Grand Jury Subpoenas and Testimony cancelled for OPDC and its Employees

April 4, 2008

The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund received word from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Fresno, California that the grand jury testimony of two Organic Pastures Dairy Company employees was cancelled for April 3. The Legal Defense Fund’s legal team had previously contacted the prosecutor’s office and expressed a willingness to share documents and proffer other evidence so that the prosecution could make an informed decision about whether it was appropriate to proceed to grand jury at this time.  The cancellation of the grand jury testimony was apparently in response to the Fund’s actions.  At this time, therefore, the grand jury proceedings have been temporarily suspended. …

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On March 29, 2008, Organic Pastures announced that Senator Dean Florez and Senator Abel Maldonado will hold joint hearings on raw milk in California on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 in Sacramento, California.

For those who are just catching up, the State of California’s October 8, 2007 AB1735 imposed a limit on the number of coliform bacteria per milliliter to which raw milk does not easily conform — overlooking the fact that most coliform bacteria are beneficial (more coverage here) and that this "test" does not protect consumers from pathogens because it does not actually test for pathogens. This reads like one of those surreal movie-like scenarios: a dairy being forced by a state agency to recall its products based upon, as it finally emerged months later, no evidence, at which time the CDFA settled the matter by, among other things, getting the dairy’s agreement not to sue either the CDFA or individuals in the CDFA. And then, a few months later -presto!- Californians were presented with AB1735 as a fait accompli (a done deed) without prior notice nor hearing (which precluded the ability to present argument or evidence). more »

We received a tip from someone associated with Go Organic! for Earthday about their Grocery Makeover Contest. Curious about the title, I hopped over to OrganicEarthday.org. It was, as described, "a national campaign that educates and increases consumer awareness of the benefits of organic food and agriculture."

As I’m <secretly> a fan of a few cooking shows <will I lose my web industry geek status if I admit to watching a reality show or two?>, I’ve come to appreciate what it takes to excel in the high art of cooking well. more »