| Nov 5, 2014 | Food / FarmingHere’s a typical scene in any American checkup: The doctor walks in to find the patient sitting on the table. “Well, your cholesterol is too high,” the doctor tells the patient. “I can prescribe something for it, but the real solution will be...
| Oct 29, 2014 | Food / FarmingI got back from the airport just in time for the last half hour of Cider Fest, one of the Bloomington Community Orchard’s large public events. This publicly owned and volunteer-run organic orchard occupies a single acre. Entering its fifth year, it has become an...
| Oct 22, 2014 | Food / FarmingAs airlines, cruise ships, and hospitals cope with waves of Ebola jitters, I’m wondering whether the panic the deadly virus is inducing will distort Halloween traditions this year. No, I’m not talking about Ebola-related costumes. There are real...
| | Food / FarmingOne Halloween, my husband persuaded our kids to give away most of the candy they’d just collected while trick-or-treating. They were preschoolers and the house we were renting then had previously drawn teens with haunted tours. We’d run out of candy when a...
| Oct 15, 2014 | Food / FarmingOK, that’s it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. The avarice of corporate power is getting personal. I’m talking about beer, the nourishing nectar of a civilized society. Since my teen years, I’ve done extensive consumer research on the brewer’s art, from...
| Oct 14, 2014 | Food / FarmingIn Texas, not all goobers are produced by peanut farmers. A bumper crop of some of our nuttiest goobers comes out of far-right-wing political soil. Check out this blue-ribbon specimen: Todd Staples. Carefully cultivated by corporate agribusiness powers, he’s...