America throws away 40% of its food – under the supermarket model

One of my big ideas is to get away from the supermarket model in America. Not only has it made two-thirds of the country overweight or obese, but it also wastes an incredible amount of…well, everything. From an NRDC report (pdf): Getting food from the farm to our fork eats up 10 percent of the …

Mexico’s wine country – Valle de Guadalupe – is on the rise

Baja California seems like the perfect place to recreate that Italian sense of wine. Both are peninsulas with rolling hills of heat and fresh ocean breezes, perfect for a multitude of grape varieties. Food is central to the culture, like it is in Italy, with most Mexicans in the area practicing some sort of agriculture, …

Growing coffee trees in California

In this day of the $6 cup of coffee, when bragging rights mean knowing not only the varietal but the beans’ latitude, anything exotic gets the antennae waving. Which may explain why Jay Ruskey of Good Land Organics is inundated with requests to visit his north Santa Barbara County farm, where he is the only person cultivating …

Historical photos of UCLA and Westwood Village from first day of classes to late-1930s

Historical photos of UCLA and Westwood village from the late-1920s to late-1930s, just as the school and campus was being built. The first day of classes in Westwood were in 1929 with 5,500 students and was also the first year the UCLA football team played the USC football team. Thx to KS Bruin

Have you heard of the California Delta? – A summary of the issues and politics

86% of Southern Californians are unaware of the Delta Nearly four out of five Californians do not know what the Delta is, despite the fact that the estuary of 1,000 square miles provides drinking water for cities from San Jose to San Diego. Asked in a new statewide poll to share what, if anything, they …

Artificial insemination and too-fat-to-fly – the real Thanksgiving turkey

Something scary is happening in the turkey world. Our scientists and farmers have created a Frankenstein-like beast called the broad breasted white. This creature is created in a lab, through artificial insemination, and then grows fat so fast that it often cannot walk. It usually needs antibiotics to survive to be butchered. Needless to say, …

West Coast and Atlantic Northeast dominate U.S. in Farmers Markets (map)

A recent study from the USDA released this map of farmers markets. Notice that the Northeast and West Coast dominate (dark blue). From the report: “Direct-to-consumer sales are highest in the Northeast, on the West Coast, and around a few isolated metropolitan areas throughout the country.” “Farms with direct-to-consumer sales are most likely to have …

Go local: an explanation of foodsheds

With all this talk about eating local and counting miles I thought it would be good to explain what it really means. The foundation for local eating starts with a foodshed. Foodshed: a region or area from which a population draws its food. The typical limit on these regions is 100 miles. Draw a 100-mile …