While researching the debate over labeling plant-based milks “milk” I came across an interesting tidbit: a letter to the FDA from the American Academy of Pediatrics claiming that children were suffering from “harmful nutritional deficiencies” because their parents were giving them plant-based milk thinking it was nutritionally equivalent to cow. So I looked into those claims for The New Food Economy.
Category Archives: Counter
New Food Economy: Scientists say many UTIs are caused by E. coli in food—when will the government believe them?
The women may have lived more than 2,500 miles apart, but somehow they had a unique strain of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli bacteria in common.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found the E. coli bacteria in 48 urine samples from college students who visited health centers at UC Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and the University of Minnesota with urinary tract infections (UTIs). Between 38 and 51 percent of the Berkeley, Minnesota, and Michigan students with UTIs resistant to the first-line antibiotic trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, often marketed as Bactrim, were infected with the same strain. Read more…
New Food Economy: If crop insurance rewarded conservation practices, would more farmers go no-till?
Crop insurance works too well for farmers who farm without regard for long-term soil health, and not well enough for the few who do. A new task force wants to change that.
This spring, historic flooding across the Great Plains and Upper Midwest engulfed millions of acres of cropland. The fields were so inundated, many farmers couldn’t farm; the pace of corn planting was the slowest in 40 years. With one eye on the sodden ground and the other on the calendar, farmers were faced with a terrible choice: risk planting late in the season, a move that could cost them a yield and income in the fall, or rely on crop insurance, which provides some coverage when extreme weather prevents planting. Read more…
New Food Economy: Stop & Shop now has big, goofy-looking robots patrolling its aisles. What, exactly, is the goal?
This story was among the most-read, most-shared stories published by The Counter (then The New Food Economy) in 2019.
I met Marty in the produce section of a Stop & Shop in Bristol, Rhode Island. I was looking for vegetables to grill over hot coals, while Marty roamed the aisles, big, round eyes staring vacantly ahead, searching for spills and other hazards—with electric sensors strategically placed on its tall, rectangular form. Marty, you see, is a supermarket robot. Read more…
New Food Economy: Regenerative agriculture could save soil, water, and the climate. Here’s how the U.S. government actively discourages it.
Cover crops and other regenerative agriculture practices are still pigeonholed as conservation practices, not as good farming practices. But if farmers want crop insurance, they have to play by the rules.
Last year, a few days before Christmas, Gail Fuller drove me out to the middle of a wind-whipped field just north of Emporia, Kansas. “This is really where it started for me,” he said as he climbed out of the truck, spade in hand. With a thunk, he drove the spade into the ground and pulled out a hunk of earth, holding it up so I could see the texture, which he described as like “chocolate cake” and “black cottage cheese.” Read more…
Jessica S. McKenzie 