Tia's blog

Organic Certification helps maintain the integrity of organic food and processed products from farm to consumption.

2007 has seen some great new sites being launched for the ethically inclined, as well as the continuing of some of the classics.

Academics from the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science at Manchester University investigated the carbon emissions that result from a traditional Christmas feast of roast turkey with

An ingenious film that tells us how we got in this mess

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Canada, along with 188 other countries, committed itself to achieving the Millennium Goals by 2015. A major goal is reducing hunger and ensuring environmental sustainability. However, the Canadian Government (along with most of those other countries) are failing to honour commitments. “Canada is invisible in the campaign to halve global hunger,” says the Canadian Foodgrains Bank,a non-profit organization working to end hunger in developing countries.Ten years ago, at the World Food Summit, Canada played a major role.

There is little truth left in the food industry any more.

Nature runs on sunlight.
Nature uses only the energy it needs.
Nature fits form to function.
Nature recycles everything.
Nature rewards cooperation.
Nature banks on diversity.
Nature demands local expertise.
Nature curbs excesses from within.
Nature taps the power of limits.

I have long been engaged with Mihaly Cziksentmihaly concept of flow as a natural state.(“Flow: The psychology of optimal experience”, 1990). Flow is about taking action at just the right activity level. In any area of our lives we have actions to take, in work, in our personal relationships, with our leisure activities and with our fitness. If the action is at the appropriate level of challenge, we experience flow.Keith Hanna , M.E.Des., the author of Higher Purpose, Higher Profit: Putting Core Values Into Service , articulates it thus:

Critics of the US food safety system say that it is too fragmented and marked by overlapping authority, and they say that may help explain why dangerous foods keep slipping through and why contamination scares are handled in sometimes inconsistent ways. Peanut butter is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. But chicken pot pies are the U.S. Department of Agriculture's responsibility. Frozen cheese pizzas – FDA. But if there's pepperoni on them, USDA has jurisdiction, too.

November 2007

Farmers' organizations who were invited to attend a United Nations meeting on the Treaty that governs the exchange of crop seeds for research and plant breeding late yesterday told the assembled governments that the Treaty would have to be suspended.

English: Read the news release and declaration

Español: El communicado del prensa | la declaración

Français: La déclaration

A new Consumer Reports survey shows 9 of 10 Americans want imported foods labeled with their country of origin. In 2002, Congress passed a law that mandated that all foods be labeled with their country of origin, but five years later, that regulation has only been implemented for seafood.' (CBS)