Did you know that Los Angeles is one of the hungriest cities in the country?  It’s true.  That means that many many children are going hungry too.  It’s an interesting week for folks who usually spend their days obsessing about food.  It’s taste, presentation and political implications.  This week politics win.
In response to Congressional focus on slash and burn cuts in safety net programs thousand of people are fasting all over the world.  These cuts will make nary a dent in our financial problems but will surely cause untold …

At USC last night, Evan moderated a discussion with Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, two of most prominent voices in food politics and sustainability today.
Eric Schlosser said that apathy was one of the biggest problems today.  For Michael Pollan, getting people into the kitchen is part of the solution.  ”The food movement will only go so far unless you cook,” he said.
Keep reading for a list of the resources that Pollan and Schlosser mentioned:

Tomorrow on Good Food, Evan talks to Jamie Oliver about his Food Revolution, the LA Unified School District and why TV is the best medium for his message.
Tune in at 11am to hear the full story.  Keep reading for more pictures of his Westwood kitchen/studio.

This is such a great question. I’ve been asked by Good Magazine to marinate on it.  It’s interesting timing as I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I would say that food writing today is an intellectual and emotional funnel to some of the most fundamental issues of our time.

For me food has never been just food, a way to sate physical appetite.  It’s been a way to learn to cook, learn about the world, make friends, build self-esteem, be social, create networks, and most importantly for …

Sometime about 4 years ago the ratio of cookbooks to other food non-fiction books in my library began to change.  Whereas in the past the majority of my library of 2000+ books was overwhelmingly populated by cookbooks, now I would say that at least a third are books about food politics, sustainability and other investigations into food culture.
There literally are Too Many Books and Too Little Time.  So how great is the discovery of a site like Farmbrarian?  The review site concentrates on “Harvesting Books about growing and eating …

With Jamie Oliver’s appearance today in Westwood, where he unveiled his new kitchen and the set of his show Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, I thought I’d take a second to ask you what you think is the biggest food issue for Los Angelenos?

What’s the most important food issue for Los Angeles?Market Research

Back in April of 2009, Evan talked to Barry Estabrook on Good Food.  He had written an incredibly moving piece for Gourmet on the tomato pickers in Immokalee, Florida, who were living and working in grueling conditions.  The Coalition for Immokalee Workers (CIW) organized the workers and has successfully persuaded fast food restaurants to pay a penny more per pound.  That money was just released from escrow and will now be distributed to the workers.  This week on Good Food, Tom Philpott of Grist gives us an update on …

There was a really interesting piece on NPR’s Morning Edition today looking back on health issues 100 years ago.  It turns out that food safety was a big issue back then too… Here’s an excerpt:
In New York, rotten eggs were being used to bake cakes. It was very hard to detect, once they’d been used in baking, whether the constituents were healthy or not. So New York City was mounting this big crackdown to get rid of rotten eggs.
Listen to the whole segment here.

The non-profit advocacy group Food and Water Watch released a map that charts the location of factory farms in the US.  Their goal is to draw attention the impact these farms have on the environment and our health.  Here’s a snapshot of California:

The Food Safety and Modernization Act passed the Senate today.  Most notably, the bill allows the FDA to recall food under it’s own authority.  Here’s a roundup of articles:

LA Times – A summary of the bill’s passing
GovTrack – The full text of the bill
CattleNetwork – On how it will affect producers
New York Times – Op-Ed from Michael Pollen and Eric Schlosser
Food Safety News – Chuck Jolley responds to people who disagree with the bill
OC Register – The bill exempts small farms

I’d love to hear what you think…