From the category archives:

Grassroots

Farms, local food and thoughtful commerce

Another reason to love maple season

March 6, 2012

I’ve posted versions of this piece each year at about this time. But maple sugaring season is so awesome it deserves a repeat. Fake maple syrup bums me out. And not only because it rarely contains real maple. (Most brands are a mix of high-fructose corn syrup, preservatives and artificial flavors.) It’s because maple syrup [...]

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Kids and factory farming: Yes, tell them the truth

February 27, 2012

We have a living-history museum nearby. One of those places with relocated old buildings and re-enactors who take you right back to the 19th century. During one visit, I was in the kitchen of a home churning butter with my daughter and chatting with another visitor, telling her we’d seen a pig-slaughtering pen being built at the village’s teaching farm. The museum, [...]

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“Food Inc.”: Family viewing?

August 9, 2011

PBS is showing the movie “Food Inc.” tonight. So I’m pulling out a review I wrote when the movie debuted. Have you seen the film? Planning to watch tonight? Maybe recording it to watch later with your kids? (See more about kid viewing below.) You’ll never look at food the same way again. I promise. So watch [...]

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Kiwi article: Have food, will travel

August 4, 2011

Back from traveling. (Mostly) unpacked. (Mostly) caught up on work deadlines. Ready to get back to blogging. And I’ll start by sharing an article I wrote for the June/July issue of Kiwi magazine. It’s timely, about eating well while road-tripping. And though some of the ideas will be familiar to those who’ve read my Spoonfed posts about real [...]

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Real food on the road

June 17, 2011

Summertime. When the living is easy, road trips entice, and that road is paved with fast food and greasy spoons. What to do, what to do. As a longtime vegetarian, I’ve been bringing food on the road for years, if only a few bananas and granola bars to get me through the gauntlet of golden [...]

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Sweet on maple sugaring

March 2, 2011

Fake maple syrup bums me out. And not only because it rarely contains real maple. (Most brands are a mix of high-fructose corn syrup, preservatives and artificial flavors.) It’s because maple syrup is perfect just the way it is. Naturally sweet, it also retains trace vitamins and minerals, even antioxidants. It’s still a sugar, so let’s [...]

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An 11-year-old dissects the food system in 5 minutes

September 28, 2010

You know those people who think children are too young to understand the consequences of food choices? Or, worse, those businesses, lobbyists and marketers that treat kids like they’re too dumb to appreciate or deserve real food? This is for them. And for the rest of us? Well, 11-year-old Birke Baehr is our kind of kid. His [...]

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Food (and propaganda) at the state fair

September 17, 2010

I realize that state-fair food is a category unto itself, a passionately defended paean to Americana and summertime. And to criticize it could cause a distracting uproar. Some might even offer me their fried-fave-on-a-stick with instructions to make it disappear right up my behind.      So I’ll just say that we did not partake of the many fried delicacies [...]

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Blackberries unplugged

July 31, 2010

It’s the height of summer. Berry season. We’ve been picking and freezing great quantities of strawberries and blueberries. Raspberries are next, if we can catch them before they’re gone. Then the blackberries begin.  And that’s got me thinking.  About Block Island, RI, one of our favorite places on the planet, about the blackberries that grow wild there, and also [...]

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My kind of carnival: Healthy kids. No fried dough.

July 21, 2010

A new Spoonfed post is coming very soon. (So much for stockpiling posts before vacation.) In the meantime, I’m participating in a new monthly blog carnival sponsored by Healthy Child Healthy World, a non-profit that is all about protecting kids from chemicals where they live, play and learn (food included). This month’s theme, “Splendor in the Grass,” explores [...]

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