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Gristmill (Free subscription) | 12/03/2008
By Tom Philpott In conventional development dogma, the fresh-cut flower industry makes plenty of sense. Nations in the global south need foreign exchange and jobs; folks in the industrialized north have plenty of disposable income for buying pretty things. Moreover, land tends to be cheap in the south and dear in the north. Pursuing the promise of what economists call "comparative advantage,"...
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Gristmill (Free subscription) | 6 hours ago
By Tom Philpott What happens when a few large buyers dominate a market? Anyone who keeps up with my posts -- still there, mom? -- knows what's coming next: The buyers gain the power to dictate to dictate terms and conditions to sellers. For farmers, the results of concentrated markets are devastating. As a few giant companies like Smithfield and Tyson came to dominate meat packing, they managed...
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Gristmill (Free subscription) | 12/02/2008
By Tom Philpott In Meat Wagon , we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. ----- I write this on the second day of December -- one among a string of months that end in "r." That means, for those of us who live near the sea, it's time to consider the oyster, that glorious bivalve mollusc. In her great essay "Consider the Oyster: Love and Death Among the Molluscs,"...
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Gristmill (Free subscription) | 12/02/2008
By Tom Philpott As the economy plunges into an abyss, consumers are cutting back on spending. They're desperately seeking bargains, including culinary ones. While most companies deal with declining demand, McDonald's saw its U.S. sales jump 5.3 percent in the last quarter. At he supermarket, meanwhile, sales of stuff like Spam and Dinty Moore canned stew are surging. But as economic crisis...
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Green News Blend (Free subscription) | 12/02/2008
By Tom Philpott As the economy plunges into an abyss, consumers are cutting back on spending. They're desperately seeking bargains, including culinary ones. While most companies deal with declining demand, McDonald's saw its U.S. sales jump 5.3 percent in the last quarter. At he supermarket, meanwhile, sales of stuff like Spam and Dinty Moore canned stew are surging. But as economic crisis...
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Gristmill (Free subscription) | 12/02/2008
By Tom Philpott I've been writing about the antibiotic-resistant bacteria strain called MRSA for a while. Evidence is mounting that by regularly dumping strong antibiotics into the feed rations of confined hogs, the meat industry is creating virulent bacteria strains that infect humans. My BF's got a nasty bug! Photo: Daniel Semper . Well, I knew antibiotic abuse by industrial meat producers...
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The Ethicurean (Free subscription) | 11/28/2008
Super-sighs, me: A fascinating look at how our Thanksgiving meal has been amped up by science in a number of ways over the centuries, from Tom the turkey to the sweetness of the corn. (Wired blog, thanks Naomi!) Show it like it is: Blogger Bunrab provides a step-by-step photo montage of what goes into processing heritage [...]
