Here we are with the weekly roundup in food news! Read all about a ban on buffalo mozzarella, compostable bags, and resources for cheap food behind the jump.
Buffalo Mozzarella, Compostable Bags, and Cheap Food
Top food news for March 31-April 6
Japanese health agencies discovered high levels of dioxin in buffalo mozzarella cheese and have banned all Italian imports of buffalo mozzarella.
In 2007, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to ban plastic shopping bags, so we haven't seen them in a while. However, while shopping at Trader Joe's last week, we were surprised to see them offering a choice of plastic bags - they never did this before the ban. We looked closer, and it wasn't a plastic bag - it was a compostable shopping bag that's supposed to go in your compost bin when you get home. What a neat idea!
Recently, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault officially opened. It's a seed bank built into the side of a mountain on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, up in the Arctic. The vault is currently storing the seeds of over 10,000 plant species. Hopefully we'll never need to use it, but in the event of global catastrophe or banana collapse, we have a way to rebuild our food supply.
The Japanese Cabinet is taking steps to reduce the number of disposable chopsticks that fill landfills annually and are encouraging people to use reusable chopsticks.
California produces almost 80% of the world's almonds, and farmers are worried that the 2008 crop may be poor due to Colony Collapse Disorder.
Our friends at Slashfood wrote up a great post on cheap food resources with the coming recession in mind.
How will tighter immigration laws affect our food harvest? As it becomes harder for migrant workers to secure the proper paperwork to legally work on farms in the USA, farmers are having to shut down farms due to lack of workers in the fields.
Stonyfield Farms has recalled containers of organic blueberry yogurt as glass beads have been found in them.
"The recall affects 6-ounce cups of Stonyfield organic fat-free blueberry yogurt, product code 0-52159-00044-8, with these dates printed along the cups' bottoms: April 13, 2008; April 14, 2008; April 15, 2008; April 25, 2008; and April 26, 2008."
Tags
NEWS, Trader Joe's, bees, food news, food recall, chopsticks, almonds, buffalo mozzarella, cheap food resources, colony collapse disorder, compostable bags, food ban, immigration, migrant farm workers, weekly news roundup, yogurt recallRelated Links
- NYU's Gigantic Cookbook and Food Artifact Collection
- Apartment Therapy Market Bag Update
- New Kitchn Editors: Introducing Elizabeth Passarella
- Trader Joe's Opens, "Best Retail Store ... Ever" in Queens
- Live from Chicago: Home & Housewares Show Report
Share
Comments (6)
The Kitchn Daily Email
Top Posts
Top Recipes
Top House Tours
Links
- A Chicken In Every Granny Cart
- iron stef
- greengelato
- Habeas Brulee
- Pip in the city
- Birdseye Chili
- Erin Cooks
- Gourmet Project
- Last Night’s Dinner
- The Kitchen Designer - Journal
- Cookbook Catchall
- Eating the Garden
- Sara Hohn - Food… Brooklyn & Beyond
- iron stef
- Food Noob
- ...my burning kitchen...
- Janet Is Hungry
- Project Me!
- erin's kitchen
- Kitchen Adventures - Vox
- My Vegetable Blog
- Home Sweet Homewrecker
- Urban Girl's Almanac
- Cooked Books
- Superspark
- cucina nicolina
- Brownie Points
- Confabulation in the Kitchen
- My Husband Hates Veggies
- American Madness
- nylon diner
- how to eat like a bird
- 64 sq ft kitchen
- A Question of Taste
- NY Times Dining & Wine
- Epicurious
- Slow Food USA
- The Cook's Thesaurus
- The Groovy Mind
Copyright © 2007 Apartment Therapy
On Buffala Mozzarella,
I'm under the impression that D.O.C. certified buffala mozz does not contain dioxin. Their farms should be located far from the effects of the garbage run-off in Naples.
On compostable bags,
Hopefully they are stronger than the compostable poop bags which break in your hand making your hand the poop bag.
On disposable chopsticks,
That's the absolute least Japan can do considering that their lumbering corporations, part of Mistibushi's mega keiretsu were largely responsible for massive deforestation around the world for the production of chopsticks.
On lack of migrant workers in the fields,
Is it about paperwork? Or is it about Mexican immigrants being more discriminate about where they want to work? "Do I want to pick oranges in the hot sun for $5.00 hr. or do I want to work as a carpenter's laborer building houses at about $16.00 per hour?"
view art's profile
I know Hungry Reader month is over, but the item about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault made me think of The Golden Compass and the other books in the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. Probably because I'm reading them now.
But I had no idea Svalbard was a real place. I'm totally picturing Iorek Byrnison and the armoured bears protecting the seeds of the world against disaster. I love it.
view Joanna's profile
@art: I carried home full loads of groceries in the bags and they were totally fine - I had containers of milk & OJ in them and nothing broke.
view Kathryn Hill's profile
Good to know Kathryn Hill.
TJ's may be on to something!
view art's profile
I just saw those bags at TJs yesterday, and I say Bravo! Interestingly, I overheard a cashier telling someone that a LOT of people bring their own bags to TJs as well. I can't help but to feel that this is progress.
I really like that TJs actually writes on the bags that you should compost with them and put them in the green bins. I guess my only worry is that they may be made with corn, which isn't really a good widespread solution.
view SFGail's profile
On seed vaults: Most seeds lose their viability after a few years in storage. Seeds need to be planted, and then new seeds harvested.
view angorian's profile