Assorted Links

This story from NPR covers an academic paper, which claims watching food TV causes people to gain weight.  Couldn't it also be the other way around?  People who are overweight (or have some other characteristic increasing susceptibility to overweightedness) are more likely to watch food TV?

A press release from Iowa State University discusses consumer research by Wally Huffman and others suggesting that consumers might be willing to pay a premium for GMO potatoes that reduce cancer risk

Wendell Berry opines about the lack of farmers overseeing farmland in the Atlantic.  He seems to overlook the advances in precision ag technology that give farmers more knowledge about their land than they ever had before despite the fact that farm size has grown.

Really nice discussion by Andrew Kniss (a weed scientist) on the kerfuffle over glyphosate (aka Roundup) and the recent announcement by the the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) 

Assorted Links

Marc Bellemare asks whether the poor health outcomes of Indians vs. Africans might not be related to meat eating

I find it a bit odd that this piece on local foods policies in an economic magazine makes little mention of the why such policies might be justified on market failure grounds

A new USDA report shows 97% of all US farms are family farms, and almost two-thirds of all vegetables come from large or very large family farms

LA Ban on fast food restaurants doesn't appear to have had much of an effect 

Assorted Links

More Efficient Photosynthesis Transferred From Corn Into Rice: Could Boost Yields 50 Percent

GOP hopefuls discuss ag policy at Iowa Ag Summit

Think farmers are to blame for you hour of lost sleep?  Think again.

Is it possible that the very thing we are calling for, more labels on our food, is the exact same thing that is giving us the wrong impressions about what is in our food?

Good supermarkets in poor areas may not prompt better eating

Assorted Links

Here's a quote from this piece in the WSJ from a former member of the dietary guidelines committee: 

“The less kindly view is that as federal dietary guidance has failed to resonate with Americans, the strategy has been simply to repeat the same messages—only louder and with more chastising.”

she sensibly recommends:

“nutrition-policy leaders must acknowledge that their utopian grocery cart looks nothing like the average American’s practical cart. The Dietary Guidelines must reflect the experience of how people really eat and what they can change versus how experts wish they would eat. Advice should be given in terms the public can understand and reinforce the tenets of sensible eating: balance, variety and moderation. We must also collaborate with the food industry to help produce and market healthy food and beverage choices.”

This piece in Wired discuses the FOIA requests by an anti-GMO group aimed at several University scientists (one of the scientists, Kevin Folta, while complying with the FOIA request, is fighting back)

Dawn Thilmany McFadden asks, "What do we mean by local foods?"

Some Links

Efforts are underway to consolidate food safety regulatory activities into one agency

The appendix of this article (see supplementary information, table 1) in Nature lists 718 studies testing safety of GMOs, along with names of authors, funders of the research, etc.

I talk organics and GMOs on Edmonton morning television

An interesting new housing system for egg laying hens