I read a very interesting article this morning in Modern Farmer. Apparently Greek yogurt's ascendant popularity in recent years has created a not-so-insignificant problem: acid whey waste. Acid, or sour, whey — the liquid that runs off when you strain yogurt or cottage cheese — is a troublesome byproduct: it's toxic to the natural environment, yet not easy to integrate back into the workings of a factory or farm. So what can big food companies do with the acid whey?

If you ever wanted an excuse to start talking about yourself in the royal "we," here you go: we humans are not just human — we're also made up of about 100 trillion microbes that live on our skin, in our mouths, and in our guts. In fact, Michael Pollan says that when you count them all up, we're really only 10% human. What's more, studies are finding increasing evidence that we need these microbes for everything from helping us digest our food to feeling less stressed at work.

Have you ever smuggled delicious pancetta home from Italy? Yes, smuggled. As in, broken the law. At the end of this month, your actions may be retroactively legal. (No, I am not a lawyer, so I actually don't know if you are absolved. So don't go calling the feds and confessing, okay?) The ban on importing salumi, at least some of it, has been lifted.

Have a vegetable garden? Then you should hopefully have earthworms. A lot of earthworms. You may already know earthworms are the great transformers of landscape, but there's another reason why you should want them in your garden: turns out if you have earthworms you're less likely to see damage inflicted by...

Fact: The European Union has banned 7 industrial food-related substances and practices that are still fine and dandy in the US. That's the subject of a recent article by Tom Philpott for Mother Jones — an enlightening, sobering look at the what the EPA deems important when it comes to food safety.

It may come as a surprise to some, but buying foods labeled cage-free or grass-fed does not necessarily mean that those items are what they say they are, or what we assume they mean.  This can be really frustrating if you are trying to do your best to purchase humane and sustainable food, not to mention that foods labeled with these claims are often more expensive.  Do you pay extra for organic, or non-GMO, or hormone-free foods?  Do you know which labels are reliable?  Read on for more information and sources for identifying which labels you can trust. 

You don't have to be a farmer or a food scientist to know that genetically-modified food is a heated, divisive issue. Everyone has an opinion on whether it's safe or dangerous, harmful or helpful. But as with most issues that elicit strong reactions on both sides, it can be difficult to cut through the drama and just look at the facts. 

This week Nature, one of the premiere weekly journals of scientific research, devotes their entire issue to discussing GMOs to illuminate what's true, what's false, and what's still unknown about genetically-modified food. If you're new to the GMO debate, this is a great place to start:

We're no strangers to sriracha. In fact, we like it in our beer, our mayo, and sprinkled on everything from roasted vegetables to grilled meats. While it seems ubiquitous now, sriracha as we know it didn't come around until 1980...

Have you heard that brown rice has been found to contain trace amounts of arsenic? As a brown rice lover, all of the varying reports have been a bit confusing and tough to unpack. Some news sources are saying to avoid it at all costs while others are saying it's not a serious situation. Last week, The New York Times came up with the perfect description: "the arsenic conundrum." So how serious of an issue is it, really? 

There are cocktails. And there's green juice. Ne'er the twain shall meet... or so we thought. From what we're reading, the latest wave in cocktails could be a move to using greens in lieu of the traditional herbs.